A/N: I know, it's a little short, but it's a little more intense than the other chapters have been. Thanks so much for reading and if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to studying ;)
Really, Pike should've known better. He vaguely remembered what it was like to be ten, male, and associate with a Kirk. He knew that telling a kid not to do something was like dipping the forbidden action in chocolate and just daring the kid to try.
This universal truth shouldered it's way into the forefront of Pike's mind when Number One hissed at him to 'turn around and look', and there was Jim.
With every chair filled and officers lining the aisles the auditorium was packed to the brim for the afternoon's final lecture. Pike had left Jim with an Ensign doing an internship with the museum and gave orders to show Jim everything interesting on the opposite. side. of the building. Considering that Jim had skipped town without anyone noticing, Pike probably should've known that Jim would slip his guide and turn up in one place PIke desperately didn't want him to be.
Jim was hiding beside the exit, tucked behind a bundle of Ensigns while he tried to look small and inconspicuous. The lecture was about the Kelvin's last mission and was winding down to dangerous territory. Pike's only thought was that he needed to get Jim out of here now. Pike popped out of his seat and shuffled past Number One and down the packed row, trying to get to Jim and haul him out of the room before he heard the tape.
Chris had been fighting with the damn curator all day, trying to make the half-dead old man understand that once the tape was played, Starfleet would never be able to get it back in the box. Someone in the room was bound to have a recorder, despite the rules insisting they keep all recording equipment out. Pike would lay odds that half an hour after the meeting adjourned the tape would be up on the net, and by tomorrow morning every news outlet worth their salt would be spreading it through the Federation.
Pike just added this whole mess to the ever-increasing list of reasons why he despised Winona. She'd granted permission to the museum to play the tape of the Kelvin's last minutes, which was nothing more than the painfully private audio of George's last, heartbreaking goodbyes.
The mature part of Chris tried to tell himself that Winona could never have anticipated that Jim would turn up at the opening to hear it, and even if he didn't, George had always protected her from the media (and she'd spent so long away from Earth) that she couldn't know the frenzy to be started by the audio of the dying seconds of a Kirk. But all those rationalizations led him back around to the angry place where Winona didn't give a shit about the damage this would do to her kids.
Pike finally shuffled out of his irritated row and ducked around the Fleet members clogging the aisle in clear disregard of fire safety protocols while he headed for the exit. Jim had never heard George's voice before, never known the gentle confidence that flooded George's approach to life, and this shouldn't be how George and Jim were introduced. Pike started getting aggressive as he went, pushing aside the others as he stepped past, trying to go faster than they'd let him.
But he wasn't fast enough.
Pike caught the click of the recorder echoing through the silent room and he tried to shove forward, barreling through the others, but the damage had already begun. The audio began to play and Winona's frantic demands ripping through the background sounds of battle, and Pike froze. "George," she asked over the audio, "the shuttle's leaving, where are you?"
"Sweetheart," George calmed her, "I'm not gonna be there. This is the only way you'll survive."
"You're still on the ship." She said in an anguished whisper. Pike forced himself to move forward, trying to at least spare Jim facing this alone.
"The shuttles will never make it if I don't fight them off." George kept his voice level, but every officer in the Fleet knew the faint tapping in the background as George fighting to target enemy torpedos and take them out one by one to buy the shuttles time.
"I can't do this without you..." Winona sobbed, only to be broken off by the doctor insisting she push.
Pike stumbled past the last of the listeners, stopping before a trembling Jim. The background sounds of the battle filled the auditorium: the groans of buckling metal, the zing of phasers slicing through shields, all offset by the screams of Winona enduring the birth of her son. Suddenly the shudders of a dying ship torn apart by torpedos and the squeals of red alert were cut through by the clear ringing cry of new life.
Pike could see it in Jim's eyes, in the tear tracks carving down his sweet face: the boy hadn't known.
Chris had never liked Winona, but on his darkest days he could understand why she had done what she did, and Pike admitted to himself that had he been a lesser man, he might've done exactly the same. But this, this was unforgivable. Winona had moved heaven and earth, willfully destroying several lives, just to be with George Kirk, and yet she had the gall to not cherish what George had died to give her? Jim didn't know that George had done it for him?
"What is it?" George asked, still so full of hope. Pike had to close his eyes at that, fighting back his own tears at how excited George must've still been, even though he'd never see his son.
"A boy." Winona replied, with the sort of awe Chris had once hoped she'd always show her son.
"A boy! Tell me about him." George had to be staring down the gaping maw of the Narada by now, and all he wanted was to hear about his son.
"He's beautiful. I wish you could see him." She whispered.
Pike could hear sniffling from all sides, battle hardened officers fighting not to cry at the background echo of the Kelvin announcing 'impact alert' while George ignored it to ask, "What are we gonna call him?"
"We could name him after your father..." Pike bit down on his tongue, tossing aside his rage at Winona and refusing to let her hunger for the Kirk's good graces pollute the image he had of George in his mind's eye. With a perfect replica of George before him Pike could almost imagine exactly what George would've looked like in those last moments. The strength and peace he would've managed despite his fear.
"Tiberius, are you kidding me? No, that's the worst." Pike smiled at the grin he could hear in George's voice. "Lets name him after your dad, let's call him Jim."
At Jim's strangled sob, Chris' eyes flew open. The boy had his arms wrapped around his chest, fighting back the urge to collapse in on himself. Pike suddenly realized that Jim didn't know that the name he'd picked for himself was always meant to be his name, not James.
"Jim... ok, Jim it is." Winona whispered.
"Sweetheart? Can you hear me?" George all but shouted, fighting to carry his last words over the collapse of his ship. "I love you so much. I love you!"
And then there was nothing.
Just the ringing thunder of the dying explosion before the communications cut out.
Jim was gasping as he tried to beat back his tears, and for the first time since Jim came into the world, Pike did what felt right. He strode forward and plucked up the trembling child, cradling him close to his chest as he burst out of the room. Pike ran a soothing hand up and down Jim's back, trying both to calm his frantic breathing and to convince Jim that it was safe for him to cry.
Pike was so busy getting Jim to safety that he didn't even realize he was heading to the museum's front doors (and all the paparazzi) until Number One grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and hauled him down a side corridor. He vaguely heard her snip at someone on the other end of her comm line, threatening dismemberment if he didn't get her hovercar to a drop point two streets away. Pike stared at her over the top of Jim's head and asked, "Are you threatening the valet?"
"Would you rather getting photographed at the front door?" She snapped.
"I'm not complaining, I just don't know how you have the valet's comm number."
Number One stared at him with a look that screamed, 'that just might be the stupidest thing you've ever said to me,' and Pike muttered, "You know, I don't wanna know."
She smirked, "I thought we established a long time time ago that if you want my results you shouldn't ask me how I got them."
Pike felt the shake of Jim's shoulders shift from pent up tears to a stiffled giggle. Number One winked at Pike in triumph and moved to the side door. Pike shifted Jim so he could see Number One pop open the emergency exit's security monitor and sift through wires. PIke could feel Jim's curiosity so he whispered to him, "She's disabling the door's security."
Number One tugged out several multi-colored wires and swung the door open into the alleyway, stopping to turn to Jim and smirk, "Don't worry, I'll teach you." Jim gave her slightest of smiles before all three of them slipped out into the night.
Number One led them safely down a path that cut through back alleys to finally emerge at her waiting hovercar. Pike devoutly ignored how she locked lips with the waiting valet to thoroughly distract him from who she was sneaking around with. And if she promised to meet up with the valet later (in a tone of voice that Pike knew meant she was lying) then Pike kept all commentary to himself.
Pike set Jim down on the middle seat of Number One's little coupe, then wrapped his arms around the boy and tucked him against his side. Number One climbed in and reved the engine, barreling down the road toward her unlisted apartment. Jim poked his head up and stared out the window in confusion. "We're heading to my place, kid." Number One announced without even looking over at Jim.
"C-can..." Jim trailed off, waiting for Pike to nod his consent, "Can I go to the Embassy?"
"Aren't you in a fight with your little Vulcan?" Number One asked in her typical painfully blunt way.
Jim flushed but stubbornly replied, "Fight doesn't mean he doesn't care."
Number One opened her mouth to spit out something derisive about a Vulcan's natural inability to give a crap, but Pike smacked her before she could get the words out. "Are you sure that's what you want Jim?"
"Yeah, I mean, that's where all my stuff is."
Pike raised an eyebrow at the rather thin justification and Jim muttered, "It's Spock. He cares."
Jim looked up at Pike with pure pleading and asked, "Please, Chris?"
Number One didn't even wait for Pike to acknowledge the question, knowing full well that he'd cave to the request before Jim had even asked. She grumbled as she flipped the car around heading towards the Embassy.
#######
Amanda sat in one of the many sitting rooms on the Embassy's main floor, staring off into nothing. Spock and Sarek had meditated for much longer than normal, attempting to find Spock's calm center, but her son had still gone to bed morose. Amanda chose to be grateful that she'd made such a thorough study of all Sarek's tells, because it was the only way to decifer the emotions of her son.
The other Vulcans left her in peaceful isolation which let her fretting go on unhindered. What few Vulcans dared to enter the room were quickly sent away with a glare from T'Pau. Amanda was sure that T'Yai's report about Jim had already gone out and the gossiping biddies were only there to seek information about the little human.
From her protective place beside the door T'Pau intruded, "Your concern is illogical."
"Jim is human. Human children don't take rejection well, and with Jim's background believing that his trust in Spock was misplaced might well be crippling."
"You believe they will fail to reconcile?"
"I believe that if they're both left to stew in their own stubbornness that will make it difficult."
T'Pau tipped her head to the side, as though she was attempting to puzzle something out about Amanda. "James is svitan-nel-dath. Their combined stubbornness is not equal to what will be required of him. If Spock is necessary to James then he will have him."
Amanda bit back the urge to say something about the human concept of free will, but stopped mid-word when she saw Spock dash past the room's open door. Amanda rose from her chair and followed Spock down the hall and to the Embassy's front door, stalwartly ignoring the eyebrow quirks that were the Vulcan equivalent of horrified grimaces. Spock skirted around the Vulcans who controlled the building's security and slid straight into a waiting Jim.
By the time Amanda caught up to them Jim was tossing his hands in the air and ranting to Spock in a string of incomplete thoughts. "He died, Spock! He let himself get blown all to hell,- and he named me,- and I was supposed to be Jim, not James,- and loved me, that was the last thing said! And I didn't know that! How could I not know that!"
Every Vulcan in the room stared at Jim and his freak out with shock, as though none of them knew what to do in such a situation. Amanda tried not to smile as she put a soft hand on Jim's shoulder and said, "Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere that's not the front door?"
Jim nodded abruptly but didn't waste time on his usual blush, he merely grabbed Spock's hand and hauled him along behind, dashing up the stairs and off to Spock's room.
Amanda watched the boys scamper off, leaving a trail of baffled Vulcans in their wake. She turned to Pike who was standing in the door with his first officer, who was looking at him like she thought he might collapse at any moment. "Would you like some tea, Captain?"
"Actually, I'd like some scotch."
