"There," Jim called over his shoulder, raising a hand to point at a tight cluster of trees. They stood half as tall as the others, their leaves broad and thick. From what Jim could see between interlocking branches, the ground beneath looked relatively dry and clear of undergrowth. It wouldn't be comfortable, but it was better shelter than wandering around. Bones lurched towards it, dropping his customary wary glare in favor of shelter; Spock followed more gracefully but just as eagerly; Jim waited until they were both safely inside before joining them, tension easing from his muscles as the wind force dropped to a mere breeze, the rain to a mere sprinkle.

"Thank God," Bones sighed, sinking to the ground.

Jim shook his head. "Balls of your feet," he corrected, dropping into a crouch. "And don't touch each other or the trees. Give me your metal stuff."

Spock obliged instantly. "What?" Bones protested.

Jim held out his hand. "Minimize contact with anything that could be struck by lightning. Would you rather have aching thighs or-?"

"All right, all right, I get it," Bones muttered, adjusting his position and handing over his phaser, communicator, and medkit. Jim placed them in a hollow between two trees, using Spock's tricorder for one last scan, flinching when lightning lit the sky again.

"Looks like the thunder and lightning should pass soon," Jim reported, turning it off and placing it atop the medkit.

"How soon is soon?" Bones asked, shooting a glance at his medkit.

"Why don't you go ask Mother Nature?"

"I'm not asking for me," Bones retorted, tipping his head at Spock.

As the attention suddenly shifted to him, Spock tensed. "I am fine," he insisted unconvincingly.

"Really, hobgoblin? Cause you're pale and getting paler."

Bones was right. While Spock was normally pale, he still had a healthy amount of color, but now his skin very nearly matched the Enterprise's walls – snow white. And now that Jim was looking, his uniform, plastered to his skin from rain, couldn't hide the tension in his muscles. Sure, the position they all crouched in was awkward, but with his Vulcan strength, Spock's efforts should have been all but unnoticeable – so it wasn't that. At least, not entirely.

"You know, shivering isn't a bad thing," Jim pointed out, his tone carefully neutral. Spock opened his mouth, closed it without a word, and promptly started shivering.

The wind rose to an eerie howl. Jim lowered his head to his knees, but the darkness of his black pants only helped the memories surface.

Crammed together for warmth, thirteen kids in one cave. The younger ones' sobs couldn't be heard over the storm raging outside, over the howling wind, the rain pounding the cave, the booming thunder. The oldest, Jim had taken his place at the edge near the entrance, where it was coldest and loudest. He stared blankly outside, seeing only his aunt and uncle screaming at him to take Kelly and run, seeing them fall, seeing their blank eyes, seeing his world fall apart.

"Jimmy?" a tiny voice squeaked behind him. Hiding how she'd startled him, Jimmy rolled over to face his cousin. Her pale purple skirt was in tatters, the dirt on her face streaked by tears, her blonde curls hanging limply, light green eyes shining with terror.

"You should be asleep," Jim whispered gently, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ears, just the way she liked it.

"What happened to Mommy and Daddy?"

Jim's heart sank. His aunt and uncle… You weren't supposed to tell a five-year-old about death, right? Then how… "They, uh… They're taking a very long nap." He tried to sound strong, but dang it, he was thirteen. This wasn't his division.

She blinked anyway, nodding. "Ok," she rasped, her voice trembling.

Jim reached out, pulling her close. "It'll be ok," he breathed as she curled against him and cried.

Outside, the storm raged.

Inside, a different storm raged.

"Jim."

He jerked back to the present, his head snapping up. "What?"

Bones hesitated for a moment, his knowing hazel eyes stuck on Jim's face, and he suddenly felt warm tear tracks on his cheeks. He could've passed them off as raindrops a while ago, but he realized some time had passed, time during which his face had been hidden from the rain. Cursing inwardly, he wiped them off with a sleeve that was still too wet to really dry them. Bones regained his voice.

"There hasn't been any lightning for a while."

Jim found himself distracted by his cousin's voice, haunting him. "So?"

Bones pointed at their equipment. "Can we use it again?"

Right. That. "Hold on a sec," he muttered, leaning over and grabbing Spock's tricorder. Scans detected a normal amount of electricity in the air – the lightning was gone. Wordlessly, he handed back their stuff, and Bones instantly turned his medical tricorder on Spock. Instead of protesting, the Vulcan only let out a resigned breath. Concern gripped Jim, even as he tried to tell himself arguing with mother-hen-Bones wasn't worth the effort. Spock's resignation was entirely logical. Definitely not a sign of Spock failing to beat the cold.

Although Bones's under-his-breath mutterings might be.

"Damn it, Spock-"

"Doctor," Spock interrupted. "I am fine."

"You're fine when I say you're fine."

They're children, I swear. "Guys, this still isn't the time," Jim cut in.

Bones turned his glare on Jim. "Jim, he's-"

"He's been a hell of a lot worse. Lay off him for a bit, all right?"

Reluctantly, Bones put his tricorder down.

"Thank you, Captain."

Noticing Bones still crouched, Jim added "You can sit down now."

Bones instantly changed positions, stretching his legs out as much as the tiny space allowed, rubbing his thighs. "Thank God."

Jim picked up his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise?" he tried. Still nothing.

"We can never catch a break," Bones muttered.

Spock tilted his head slightly. "How can one-?"

"Just a saying, hobgoblin. How long have you lived with humans? Don't answer that," Bones added hurriedly as Spock opened his mouth. "It was rhetorical."

"Here," Jim said, tossing the tricorder and communicator to Spock. "See if you can figure out how to contact the ship. In the meantime, I'm gonna see if I can find somewhere better."

"Jim, wait-"

"I'm going alone, Bones," Jim cut him off, stern tone inviting no argument, earning a swift glance from Spock. Jim ignored it and ducked out, barely remembering to grab a phaser and communicator. He wasn't going to fall apart in front of them. Not again, not here. They needed the captain who had survived and learned from Tarsus IV, not the thirteen-year-old who had been trapped there.

The thirteen-year-old who didn't know if his mom was coming for him.

-LLAP-

Winona closed her eyes, took a deep breath. This was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. Definitely the hardest since deciding to leave Jim in that hospital on Tarsus IV.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

She could feel the weight of a dozen stares. She could feel the burn of a deadly glare. She could feel her heart being torn between the planet below and the planet so many light years away. She could feel the heartbreak of her decision.

She opened her eyes.

"Sam, I-"

"What do you mean, you're not coming back?"

The face on the viewscreen was framed by dark brown hair, had skin tanned by years in the sun, with smoldering hazel eyes glaring out at her. A normal mother would say this was the worst her heart had ever hurt but, well, giving birth to a seemingly-cursed child while listening to his father sacrifice himself had long ago thrown normal out the airlock for Winona. But her son's betrayed fury still hurt.

Winona tried again. "Your brother-"

"Jim? Is that seriously where you are? I thought you were at Starfleet HQ visiting Admiral Pike!" Sam exclaimed.

Winona's heart sank as she registered the anger in his words. "Yes. I'm on the Enterprise, and your brother-"

"My brother is still messing with my life."

"Your baby brother has never done anything to deserve your hate!" Winona snapped.

Sam scoffed. "He's the reason dad is dead!"

Tension swept through the bridge, the fury of the most loyal crew in Starfleet suddenly focused on the viewscreen. Winona took a step forward, her fist clenching by her side, finally allowing twenty-nine years of guilt and grief to surface.

"There are over eight hundred reasons why your father is dead, Sam, and he would've done the same thing whether or not Jim was being born. Captain Robau still would've assigned him the job, Nero still would've killed him and attacked the Kelvin, he still would've ordered the evacuation, autopilot still would've failed, weapons still would've failed, and he still would've set that collision course. His last words still would've been 'I love you so much. I love you!' And you know what? He wasn't just saying that to me. He was saying it to you and Jim, too – his sons. And what did we do? You and I, we let this family fall apart, we let Jim carry the burden of our grief for twenty-nine years, and your father never would have wanted that. Every decision we've ever made regarding Jim has been wrong. Now I see that, and there's no way in hell I'm going to do it again. I'm staying on this ship, because it's about damn time one of us saw Jim as my son and your brother, not just George's son."

Winona inhaled, trying to steady her shaking hands. It had been nearly three decades since she'd let herself express so much emotion about George's death.

Sam faltered in the wake of her tirade. "But-"

"But nothing. Do you realize how sad it is that a Vulcan recognized that before Jim's own mother and brother? That a Vulcan was probably the third person in the entire universe to try to help Jim escape the past? Because I do. It's pretty freaking pathetic that a Vulcan did in a matter of months what it's taken us twenty-nine years to do in a matter regarding family and pure emotion. Jim found family in a Vulcan before he found family in his mother and brother."

"He chose to leave us-"

"No, he didn't, Sam. I abandoned him."

Sam blinked. Slowly, confusion replaced his fury. "You… What?"

Tears burned Winona's eyes, and for once, she let a few tears fall. "I just told you he left because I didn't want to burden you with what really happened. I thought… I don't know. I only really know that I failed Jim epically, and I'm here to fix that, and if I leave now, I – we – will never get him back."

"What about me? What about my kids? We need these crops."

"You have friends, Sam, and plenty of them. You can survive one winter, one bad harvest. Jim-"

"Jim has survived over half a lifetime-"

"Jim is stuck on a planet in the middle of a severe storm with a dropping temperature and no way to receive help," Winona yelled. "It hurts, ok? Choosing hurts. I love you both, but Jim needs me more, all right?"

Sam's glare had returned, but this time icy. "Fine," he said, his tone suddenly coldly polite. Without another word, the viewscreen went black.

The blackness stabbed her, the pain akin to a bat'leth to the gut. And yet, some part of her began to warm, a part that had been cold for sixteen years. Longer, if she was honest with herself, because it was the part of her that contained the agony of losing George – and Jim had always been included in that. Until this week. Until now.

Winona swept away the fallen tears, briskly turning and walking towards the turbolift. Uhura stood up as she passed, making Winona pause. "What I said about Commander Spock…"

Uhura waved it off. "We've all thought it, trust me, even after three years – longer, for me, with people asking me what I see in him. I just wanted to ask, why didn't Sam know where you were?"

Winona sighed. "They used to love each other. On some level, I hope they still do. But Sam hates Jim, ever since Tarsus IV. I don't know why, but I told Sam that Jim didn't want anything to do with us, and I never got around to correcting myself. Jim doesn't even know why Sam hates him. Guess that's just another life-ruining mistake I have to fix."

"Don't think like that," Uhura rebuked her. "We all make mistakes, some are just catastrophic compared to others. We all know that, especially Kirk. We also know, though, that the size doesn't matter if you just do your best to fix it, which you are. Right?"

"Of course," Winona replied instantly.

"Then it doesn't matter anymore. It's in the past. It'll take time, but as long as you keep trying to move on, to fix it, it'll fade into nothing but a bad memory. Ok?"

Winona nodded. "Yeah."

"One last thing. Why did you take that call on the bridge? It was very personal."

Winona smiled sadly. "Actions speak louder than words, right? Especially to Jim."

With that, she stepped into the turbolift, praying she hadn't just made all the wrong decisions yet again.


A/N: I am really sorry about the long wait, but school and The Flash happened. I've also been trying to write some original fiction, but fanfic... And I can't promise the next chapter will be any faster cause I'm actually doing something for Thanksgiving this year, so I'll have little to no time for writing for a few days. So sorry in advance, in case it takes another week and a half or so to write chapter ten.