Chapter 7

James gave a short nod to the security officer as he quickly entered the Brig and walked towards the Romulan's cell, the protective glass raising so he could enter and take a seat across from the prisoner.

"This will be easy if you answer my questions simply and truthfully," he said curtly as two red-suits stood guard at the entrance of the cell. Even though the Romulan had his wrists restrained, there was no taking chances.

"I have nothing to speak of to you."

"You didn't buy the girl from a slave trade, did you?" he started.

"So, the Captain is a thinker?" the Romulan asked.

"I assume that was a yes, that she is not from the slave trade?" he said.

The Romulan stayed still, showing no signs of movement as he stared the Captain down.

Kirk continued.

"Than why come back for a hostage?"

At that, the Romulan's eyebrow twitched.

"She is the offspring of the man who killed my own. Doing off with the younger sister was easy, she wasn't of same blood. It has been years... but when I finish with Kamira, my mission will be complete. Well, I'm not going to kill her at first, no, that would be too merciful. Instead I'll contnue where I left off before you interrupted, maybe even..."

The words faded off and he lost it. All coherent and professional thoughts went down the drain as he lunged.

"Christ, Kirk, you just had a physical yesterday!" McCoy said as a red suit guided the newly wounded Captain through the sliding doors at the Medical Bay. He was cradling his right hand and had blood all over his face.

"That son of a bitch!" James yelled to no one as he tried to calm down.

His hand hurt like hell. McCoy, of course, didn't care as he roughly grabbed his Captain's hand to inspect it.

"You've broken two fingers, genius."

"I've figured that out, Bones. Are you going to do anything about it?" Kirk barked back, which had McCoy glaring.

Milena interfered.

"Captain, let's get you fixed up, okay?" she said walking forward and taking his hands in hers, with a gentle touch.

McCoy, now even more annoyed, turned on her.

"I can fix fingers myself thank you," he said.

"I've got this," she replied, arching her neck to get closer to his face.

He sighed and walked away, leaving Milena to tend to the Captain.

She walked him over to a bio-bed that was next to Kamira's and got out the right tools to work on cleaning him up first.

"What did he say?" Milena asked.

"Who?"

"I'm guessing that you were talking to one of the prisoners. You would never attack one of your own crew, so it had to be one of them. What did he say?"

"He… he and them..." Kirk said brokenly, not sure how to explain. "She's all alone now. They… they destroyed her family. They killed her sister, and guessing by their barbarity, they probably did it right in front of her."

"Even though the situation concerning her as had an unexpected twist, you did the right thing to save her, Captain."

"Kirk, call me Kirk. Or Jim."

"Jim," Milena said, resting her hand on his shoulder, her face turning serious.

She saw his pained face, and shook her head, not saying anything as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him in a friendly embrace. At first James was shocked, he couldn't remember the last time he had been in a friendly hug. But then he smiled as he moved his arms to hug her back.

Milena pulled back and gave a final smile as she started working on healing his bruised and bloodied hand.

"I'm so stupid. I'm careless and I don't think before I act," James said quietly as he winced.

"You took action. Even though not everybody agrees that a fist is the answer, you did, and you used it. Action, Kirk. You took action. I like that in a man," she said surely.

James opened his mouth to reply with a flirty comment, but Bones interrupted.

"It's about time, doc, it only took you fifteen minutes," he said, grabbing Kirk's hand to inspect her work.

Milena frowned and opened her mouth to say something but James interrupted.

"I think a certain doctor," he turned his head to smile at Bones, "needs a hug."

He opened his arms wide and gave his friend a big smile.

"Bite me, Kirk," McCoy replied. He turned around and took a step towards Milena. "Don't give him anything for the pain," he said and gave her a raised eyebrow before he walked away.

"He's gonna want a hug after he's seen what I did to the other guy," James said with a bright smile.