Yay! I've been waiting to bring Winona back into play now for 150k! I'm glad most of you guessed it would be her, especially after hinting at it for the past three stories :p
I know some of you are worried that they haven't found Jim yet, and that the crew are acting a bit (okay, a lot) out of sorts. Please, just hang in here with me and I promise you'll get your answers. Trust me. Also, there is much debate over who Frank was in relation to Winona. In the film, he was her brother. In the novelization, he was her second husband. I've gone with the former.
I do love how you are so quick to think the worst of Winona, of Sam – okay, so he's not done himself any favors – of me…. probably better not continue, actually…. Yes.
The plague is still hanging around. At least all I have to do now to rid myself of the tribbles you keep sending is breathe on them.
On, and T-Minus 10 to the return of Jim! Please forgive the slow expositiony chapter. Explosions are just around the corner...
McCoy stared at the woman who stood in front of them, his hands clenched so tightly into fists he could feel his nails digging into his palms.
"You're the head of Starfleet's crazy, war mongering, back stabbing, psychopath filled black ops division?" McCoy looked her up and down and reminded himself of all the things he knew her to have done. She looked so kind and gentle, utterly harmless really. Long hair loose behind down her back, wide eyes open and inviting confidence and honesty. She didn't look like a spy, or a soldier, or the evil mastermind behind a clandestine government operation.
She didn't look like the type of person who shot their nine year old son with a phaser just so he knew what it felt like.
"War mongering?" Winona frowned, tilting her head so she could look him in the eye. "Doctor, I fear you have the wrong impression of what it is Section 31 does."
"Manipulates people into nearly starting wars then tries to murder them all to cover their tracks?" McCoy said with saccharine acidity.
"Alex Marcus was crazy." Winona said flatly. "He abused his power to further his own ends. What he did was not what 31 is about. We were, we should be, the first line of defense against the Federation's enemies. We do what Starfleet cannot to protect our world."
"No to point out the obvious or nothin'," Scotty said mildly, "but I dunnae think this really counts." He waved an arm around, indicating the Enterprise. She'd taken some hefty hits over the past few weeks.
"War with the Klingons was Alex's design, not mine." Winona said firmly. "This is the last thing I wanted."
"Jim always said a war was coming." Uhura put in defensively. He'd been saying that for longer than he was Captain. He'd actually written several of his Academy papers on it, which had lead to some interesting – and heated - classroom debates.
Winona turned to her. "It was. Just not for us. One of 31's primary objectives was to stir up tensions between the Klingons and the Romulans. It was only a matter of time before the Klingons pushed for all out conflict – we were angling to deflect their attention on someone else. The Romulans posed the second most pressing threat to us, so we worked to turn them against one another."
"Then what happened?" Scotty asked. "Because we nay be gettin' in the middle."
Winona's expression shifted to something vastly impatient. "Marcus took control of 31 after I left. He did not share the same goals, even after I re-enlisted. By the time I realized that someone on the inside was compromising our operations, he'd already moved against me. I was slow, and I was stupid, and what happened was my fault. Marcus tried to take me out of the picture and he used my boys to do it. The fact that I survived was luck, nothing more."
"Is that how you justify it to yourself?" McCoy asked coldly, recalling Jim's memories. It was as easy as pulling up a file on his PADD. Unable to let Jim go, he'd found himself pulling up those memories more and more frequently in the last five weeks. Sometimes it was impossible to sort his own mind from Jim's memories, no escape from them even in sleep. He'd considered asking Spock to help him organize them, but selfishly held on to what little he had left of Jim. "That's how you justify abandoning them."
"I didn't have a choice." There it was. There was the edge of icy coldness that McCoy had seen so many times in Jim's memories. "I was shot. I didn't fake that. Marcus wanted to make it look like I'd tangled with the wrong crooks, but the men who took Jim to lure me out were his. Barnett had orders to leave my body behind to further the impression that I'd made one too many enemies and I'd run out of luck. By the time I was found…had recovered, the boys were already safe on Earth. After what happened… it was safer for them if no one knew I had survived."
She made it sound so selfless, so loving. And who knew, maybe if Jim and Sam had gone on to have normal, safe, carefree childhoods, McCoy might have bought it.
But her actions, well meaning or not, had delivered her children into the hands of one psychopath after another. They'd seen Sam locked away on a hell hole of a prison colony for over a decade and Jim forced into a self imposed exile. McCoy might not like or condone a single thing Sam had done, but he also didn't place the blame for it entirely on the man's shoulders. Sam, like Jim, was a product of his environment. He'd not been as strong as Jim, but then really, who was?
"Safer." McCoy echoed in disbelief. "With Frank the child molester or Kodos the mass murdering psychopath?" He caught the minute jerk of her head at the mention of her brother's name.
"Sam?"
Sam crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "What?"
"What is he talking about?" She demanded.
"You don't know?" McCoy laughed bitterly, an edge of sadistic pleasure forming in his chest at the shock on her face. "The big bad head of Section 31 doesn't even know what her own brother used to do to her children while she was off playing dead."
She didn't look at him, her focus only on Sam. "I know he's in jail. I know he put Jim in the hospital."
"And what you thought that was just an isolated event?" McCoy sneered.
"Doctor." Spock warned him off gently.
"No!" McCoy yelled. "She doesn't get to walk away from this." He rounded on Sam. "You want to tell her or shall I?" Sam said nothing. Frank had beaten him frequently before he'd run away, but he'd never taken it further the way he had with Jim. Since it had only escalated after Sam had left Jim alone with their uncle, McCoy wasn't certain if that was due to Frank's taste or his desire to have Jim completely isolated from help.
"George." Winona said sternly. For a moment McCoy was confused, until he remembered that Sam's name was actually George Samuel Kirk. Given what had happened to his father, it was no surprise he went by Sam. Calling him by his given name seemed to be Winona's way of doing what McCoy's mother had done when she 'Leonard Horatio McCoy'd' him. It had the same effect.
"What does it matter?" Sam finally snapped. "You going to go back in time and change things?"
"I never meant for you boys to be hurt, I told you that." Winona said earnestly.
"Well forgive me if I don't believe you, mom." Sam sneered. "Now if it's all the same to you, I'd like to leave the touching family drama for someone else. I signed on to this gig because it's the right thing to do. Not because I give a damn about you, or have any intention of ever forgiving you."
In that brief moment, McCoy thought he might have been able to like Sam Kirk. He saw in him the same angry, scared, hurting teenager he'd seen in Jim's memories and couldn't help but pity him.
"Jim is alive, isn't he?" Spock stilled them all with the quiet words he spoke and McCoy clenched his fists in rage as he spun around sharply from Sam's outburst. Spock looked as calm and composed as ever, but his eyes were fixed on Winona with something close to hatred.
But Winona smiled, pleased. "I was starting to wonder if people were wrong when they said how smart you all were."
Hope rose quickly in McCoy's chest, threatening to choke him. "What?"
"He's alive." Winona said simply. "He checked in with us seventy two hours ago."
There were no words to describe the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him.
He couldn't believe her.
He couldn't dare let himself hope only to have it snatched away from him.
He was not the only one.
"Why would you say that?" Uhura cried angrily.
"It's the truth." Winona matched her anger with calmness. "He can look, if you like." She jerked her head at Spock in invitation. Spock did not hesitate but she pulled back a step. "With Sam." She said with a half smile. "Sorry, but I'm not about to let anyone go poking around in my head when I have a war to win."
"Do I even get a say in this?" Sam glared at her.
"Do as you're told, Samuel." Winona snapped.
"No." Sam said, clearly as hurt as he was angry. "No way." It was nearly enough to make McCoy rethink his overwhelming urge to rip him apart. Nearly. He knew? He knew Jim was alive?
Jim was alive.
Spock stilled and tuned back to Winona. "I will not force him."
"Have it your own way." She shrugged. "Though I'll admit I'm a little surprise. Thought we'd squashed all those morals out of you by now. You've certainly given that impression the last few weeks."
Spock could feel the anger rapidly building behind the placid exterior Spock presented to the world. "It perplexes me greatly," he said softly, dangerously, "how you can claim to love your sons only to repeatedly send them into danger."
"I never sent Jim to the Klingons." Winona said darkly. "He came up with that brilliant plan on by himself. And then managed to start a war."
"Then how is he alive?" McCoy choked. "We saw them kill him."
"The Klingons have their allies on our side. We have ours on theirs. You've met one of them, I believe." She threw Sam a dirty look and McCoy recalled the Klingon he had attempted to trade the dilithium crystal from the Enterprise's warp core the year before. "He was able to get word to me of their plans to execute Jim. We were late, but fortunately not too late."
"Then where is he?" McCoy demanded, finally unable to stop the hope that had blossomed in his heart. "Why keep him from us?"
"His 'death' presented a unique opportunity." Winona said. "We maximized its potential. And no," she added in a more gentle tone of voice, "he did not know you believed him dead. He never would have gone along with our plans if he did."
"And why has he assisted you?" Spock demanded.
"Because he's practical and we are at war." Winona said as if it should have been obvious. "Despite what this conversation might have suggested, now is not the time for personal feelings to interfere with the mission. You were kept in the dark about his condition because I imagine Sam believed you more amenable to your orders if were too angry to question them."
Sam shrugged his shoulders in response.
"And what are our orders?" Spock's voice was glacial.
"Distraction." Winona said simply. "Destruction."
"And Jim's?"
Winona's smile was terrifyingly sharp. "What Jim does best: devestation."