Hey babes!

Thank you so, so much for all the wonderful reviews for the last chapter! They seriously warmed my heart and made me smile and whole bunch of other mushy things. You guys are seriously the best. I'm super lucky that you all read my fanfiction and like it so much. This makes me feel so honoured, you guys don't even understand! Seriously. Y'all rock my socks off!

Extra kisses!

MD

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any part of the franchise. I gain nothing from writing this other than creative satisfaction.

"That's the fourth psychiatrist you've attacked this week, Ms. Kirk."

Silence.

"We can't help you if you won't let us."

Silence.

A sigh.

"Ms. Kirk, why can't you just -"

"No shrink is ever going to make what happened okay. Stop trying to make me think I can just talk this out of my system. You're all a bunch of fucking pansy assed cocksucking douchefucks that can go get bent for all I care to tell you about my fucking problems. You want me to pretend that I'm fine and keep the placid little humans comfortable in their idea of safety and security? Fine. I'll lie and pretend that I don't know what true evil looks like or that it still exists in the Federation and that you did nothing to fucking stop it. But don't try and make this okay. It will never be okay."

Addy didn't know what was happening to her. She was so confused. Her days stretched in a haze of injections, screams, and rape. The torture wasn't even that bad anymore. She'd learned to compartmentalize. It was a physical sensation, and it was a painful one, but it didn't cut her as deeply as her own doubts did lately.

Was Kodos really so horrific? Did she really need to hate the way he so lovingly stroked her hair after his sessions? And were those even as bad as she had made them seem in the beginning? Really, Kodos was quite experienced, and if she just listened to him, if she just realized that he was a human being too with his own needs and emotions, she would realize that he was indeed capable of love, and she could enjoy her time with him so much more.

If she just gave in.

Everything in Adelaide was appalled that she would even entertain the idea of letting this monster win and have any kind of power of her, but as Eve cut the skin away from her shoulder blade, it almost relaxed Addy and gave her mind a sense of clarity, even as she screamed at the doctor to stop. Of course, that could be the drugs she was doped up on that always made her hyper-aware and lucid, but she liked to think of it more as her come-to-Jesus moment.

Last night had been a revelation.

When Kodos had had her hands tied above her head and her body bent in half, his grunts hadn't made her stomach roll, and the slickness of his skin hadn't made her want to crawl out of her own brain, and before she had even known what was happening, Addy had let out a breathy little sigh. Kodos had stilled instantly, his eyelids opening wide in shock and his emerald eyes gazing down at her, catching the light of the fire in the way that had made her heart stutter.

"W-why did you stop?" she'd asked, immediately realizing her mistake. Her face had reddened and she'd shut down, making everything cold and unfeeling. "Just fucking get it over with already."

But she had slipped.

And Kodos had seen.

"Reid..?" Addy whispered, she didn't want to wake the others, but she knew that the older boy was still awake. She'd lived with him for weeks, she knew what he was like when he really slept, and he never breathed that peaceful. It was only a moment before he opened his eyes and they gleamed over at her, guarded and resentful in the dark.

"What do you want? I'm trying to sleep," he bit out, his tone clipped. She flinched, his voice sounding too much like Kodos when he had told her she had made a mistake, and she had to go back to her cell, and it made her heart hurt.

"I…" she lost her nerve and cleared her throat as softly as she could, but Thomas still snuffled and shifted in his sleep. "I think there's something wrong with me."

Reid snorted.

"If that's your excuse for an apology, then you can just -"

"Reid," she hissed, some of her old fire coming back, and she could tell it caught him off guard to see such a sudden shift in her, "I'm not trying to apologize right now. I'm telling you that… he's… he's done something to me. I'm not me anymore. And he's inside me, and I don't know how to get him out or how to stop needing him or why I even need him in the first place." There was a long silence before she heard a sigh and soft curse and he was coming over to her corner. He sat a safe distance away from her, still remembering the last time he'd let his guard down, and guilt swarmed her. She had never lashed out at her children like that.

It only cemented her belief that something had broken inside her.

"Do you think you love him?" Addy's breath hitched on a sob and she tried to speak around the disgust and self-loathing and loneliness.

"Y-yes…"

"Stockholm Syndrome. Either that, or you're just insane," he said simply. Addy's mind instantly supplied the definition from a book she'd read from her father's library years ago, and she threw up. Violently. Reid hesitated only a moment before his hand touched her back in a comforting manner, but he landed right on an incision Eve had made that morning and it made her cry out in pain as the bile forced its way out of her throat.

The rest of her children were awake now, demanding to know what she'd done to Reid, and they stormed towards her, but it was suddenly too much, she was too crowded, there were so many males in here, and she screamed, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth. Reid gently hushed them, assuring them that he wasn't hurt and that Addy was back.

But he was wrong.

She could never come back from something like this.

Addy stood in front of the mirror in her room in Riverside, her nose wrinkling at the potent smell of alcohol wafting up from above. She stood in nothing but her underwear, her eyes ghosting over the scars that riddled her body. The Starfleet medics had done the best they could minimizing the damage to her body as Eve had only healed her enough to keep her alive, but there were some marks they couldn't remove, and some Addy asked them not to.

An arrogant grin twitched at her lips. It looked more believable now. She'd been practising in the mirror for a long time.

Addy looked down to her hips where the small CK was covered by the cotton of her panties, and she narrowed her eyes.

Some things would never be okay. She would never really be okay. She'd failed her children and herself too much for that to be an option she would ever allow herself. But maybe some day she could get to a place where her psyche was less gnarled and bleeding, and then, maybe then, she could convince herself that Tarsus had happened to some other person. Some poor damsel in those books she'd always hated as a child, and that it was a really bad story she could shut the cover on when it got to be too much.

But it was certainly a story she would never let anyone else read. Staring in the mirror, her eyes trained on the spot where Kodos had first marked her with his taint and made her dirty, so dirty, she vowed to herself that she would never give up this story for anyone. Would never reveal, even to Reid, just how much she had failed, how much she had let everyone down, and how much she had betrayed herself for the twisted affection of a psychopath deluding himself with thoughts of grandeur.

"Addy, are you alright?" Reid's voice was wrong. It was wrong. It was all wrong! It was too young and too full of despair, lacking all the power she was used to and when had she started to crave it?

"No! No I'm not alright, Reid!" she shouted, jumping to her feet and pounding on the door, her heart breaking. Why was she so stupid? Why did she always push people away when all they wanted to do was help her?

"What did he do to you?" her friend asked. Addy whirled on him, shoving his weak frame so hard that she heard his skull crack on the floor. Justin, Abraham and Thomas gaped at her from the corner.

"Don't you fucking -! He didn't… it's all my fault I'm down here, god dammit! He just… he asked me, and I just… I couldn't, but he's only trying to help me, and I pushed him away, and you don't understand anything BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST A STUPID FUCKING CHILD!" Ignoring how dizzy she was and how much her legs were shaking, Addy turned back to the door, pounding on it, begging forgiveness and screaming to be let out. That she'd be good, she'd make it up to him, just not to throw her away, please, please, don't throw her away.

Her children watched on in horror, cowering in the face of someone they'd never met, and for the first time since they'd first been saved from Addy the day of the massacre, they were well and truly frightened of her. She could see it in their eyes, but she didn't want to see it, because that hurt her too much, she needed them, they were her children, but they just didn't understand everything Kodos was really doing for them.

Why did she always have to ruin everything she touched?

Starfleet was here, too little too late, and there was someone telling her that her cave had been ambushed and nearly all of her children had been killed. The only two survivors were Kevin and Agnes. Everyone else was dead.

Failure.

Piece of shit failure.

She had slipped up, had let her own subconscious betray her, and Kodos had worked his mark into her soul, and all of this blood was on her hands, and she'd never be able to wash it off now. Addy couldn't believe she had deluded herself into thinking she understood him and that he was trying to help her be a better person. She was so disgusted with her own stupid existence, that she didn't bother telling the medics how deathly allergic she was to the antibiotic they were pumping into her system. She didn't remember much after her throat closed and the shouting blared around in her head, but she woke up on a starship strapped to a bed, and it reminded her too much of too many things and she screamed thrashing at the pain she was anticipating before she felt a needle in her neck and darkness consumed her.

"And what did we learn, pet?" Addy preened at the name, but she tried not to show it. It was hard, though. She hadn't had her medicine in two days, and it was starting to hurt her body, starting to make her limbs do things she didn't want them to.

"I was wrong. I'm so sorry, Kodos. You were just trying to help me. Make me stronger. I was wrong to question you. I… I was so scared you were done with me…" Addy hated herself for how small she sounded, for how young she felt in that moment, but when the tall man smothered her in a warm hug and she breathed in his scent of oranges and wood smoke, for the first time in her life, she felt home.

"Good girl," he praised her, petting her hair softly and twining his fingers with her own. Her heart picked up and she looked up at his green eyes. She blinked at how cold they looked. Had she not done enough? Had he not forgiven her yet? Panic set in at the thought of being stuck in that cell again, the only time she saw him when he came to oversee the torture and she was kept from him with straps and shackles.

"Let me make it up to you," she whispered, pleading, hoping she wasn't overstepping her boundaries. He blinked down and brushed his fingers from her cheek down the column of her neck. She'd filled out more since she'd stayed with him. Kodos had been feeding her better since she'd come to understand him.

He was so kind.

Addy thought she might love him when he smiled down at her.

"How would you like to make it up to me, pet?" Relief flooded her, and she guided him over to the bed. She could see the lust in his eyes, and felt an answering pull in her own gut, but crushed it down. This wasn't about her, she didn't deserve to be so selfish. She needed to show him that she understood him, really understood him and what he was doing for her. With gentle shoves, she had him sit on the edge of the bed and dropped to her knees.

She had to make him understand.

She had to say sorry.

Addy spent almost half a year locked in a psych ward. It had taken her a good month to figure out that's where she was, because they kept her secluded and wouldn't let her see any of the other patients.

She'd been working really hard. She wasn't normal, and she wasn't even close to healed, but there was one good thing that had come out Tarsus, and that was learning how to manipulate people. She watched the doctors and orderlies around her with an intensity that she subdued with the help of her anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medications and took bits and pieces from one person and structured them around herself. She hadn't been allowed to see her children after that first week, and this was the only way she could think of to get out of here to check and make sure they were safe and taken care of.

She had to be careful about it, though.

If she became compliant too fast, they would be suspicious. If she didn't become compliant at all, they would never let her leave. And she couldn't just drop all of the parts she grown for herself on Tarsus, or it wouldn't be convincing. She kept the stubborn refusal to roll over and die, she hadn't believed once there was a situation where she couldn't win, except at her lowest lows when she gave herself over to Kodos, and she would never make that fucking mistake again. She kept the fierce loyalty to friends and family, though she knew when they sent her back to Riverside, she would have neither to give it to. And from others, she stole a cocky swagger, and self-confidence she didn't understand, and a sureness in her own sexuality that filled her with cold dread.

She couldn't stand people touching her skin, it made her want to scream and rip things until they bled. Not even Reid in the end had been able to touch her without her feeling faint. How was she supposed to pull off this woman that embraced her own sexual prowess without snapping the neck of every person that wanted to fuck her?

So she used that as the gateway in her therapy to her release. It was the only real thing she asked for help for in her sessions, and she was surprised to find that she was indeed helped in the end. Time would be the real balm for her wounds, but her therapist had been helping her to accept that her body being violated against her will wasn't her fault and didn't mean that enjoying the same acts with someone else made all the rape somehow okay. It had been quite the revelation for Addy, and the first time she'd cried in front of Starfleet.

After that it was easy, and she was back in Iowa inside of two months.

Doubts clouded her mind. She felt unlike herself. Who was she? What defined her? How did she discover who Adelaide Kirk was and who Kodos had molded her to be? She had spent another four days in the cell with her four children, and they wouldn't even look at her as she sobbed pathetically in the corner. She despised them for their judgment, even as she craved them for their comfort, and the overwhelming anger she'd felt directed at herself had her breaking down until all the pieces of herself were scattered and she didn't even know who she'd been to begin with.

'When was I this weak?' she thought. A terrible voice at the back of her mind told her when she had given up on her own survival and surrendered herself to Kodos. She ignored it. She hadn't surrendered. She'd understood.

Right?

But… then again, she'd never been this dependent on anybody in her life until she met Kodos, and what did he provide her with? Food, surely, but her children were living fine without as much as she was getting. Did she warm his bed only for a fat belly? No, she didn't think so. But for the life of her, she couldn't think of anything else the ginger man gave her that was worth becoming the mindless robot she felt like these days. She didn't get security from him, because anything or nothing to make him throw her back in the cell, and she lived in constant fear of making him mad. She was still tortured, still punished for her crimes of theft and murder… but that was justified. This colony was barely holding on as it was, and she'd only endangered it more, and she needed to repent for her treasonous actions. But even as she thought it, it was always in Kodos' voice, and only something she'd accepted in the last couple months. She hadn't believed that when she'd first been caught.

What had she believed?

She couldn't remember anymore.

Addy only sobbed harder as she tried to run from these thoughts swirling around in her head, but she'd just been given the drug two hours ago, and it wasn't wearing off any time soon. Sleep would not help her escape any time soon.

The children in the corner said nothing to breach the gap between them, and Addy felt like she was drowning.

Adelaide's back bowed as Eve removed her kneecap, the yellow nerve endings still attached, and the screams coming from her mouth weren't human anymore. She could taste blood in her mouth, her throat was so raw. She'd stopped begging for Eve to stop a long time ago, though. She learned the more she begged, the longer Ever made the sessions. So she sobbed, and she screamed, and she tried to keep her leg as still as possible to prevent any lasting damage, but it was difficult, even with the brace helping her.

With a muted sound of interest, Eve replaced the kneecap and set about the tedious job of putting her back together. Kodos watched silently from across the room. Addy hadn't looked at him once. How could she face him? Did she let him know she realized what had shifted in her mind and she was working on righting her wrongs? Did she play along and try to pacify him for an opening she wasn't sure she had the strength to take advantage of anymore?

Like every other time, Kodos excused Eve when her work was finished, and walked up to Addy, brushing the hair from her face, and tracing his initials in her hip. Part of her wanted to push her head against him, proud she'd lived through more punishment, and another part of her wanted to rip his hand off with her bear teeth and gnaw through it until it was a stump that could never hurt or manipulate her again.

Most of her was too cold to feel anything beyond the exhaustion and pain.

Addy's eyes snapped open as she felt Spock withdraw slowly from her mind, like molasses. His eyes were clouded with so many emotions, she couldn't possibly name them all, and he limply dropped his hand back into his lap as her memories danced behind his eyes. She wasn't sure what to say, but she could tell that he was struggling to keep a lid on the emotions he had gained from her mind, and she felt a wave of sympathy for the man. She'd had nearly 11 years and she still had psychotic breaks, she couldn't imagine what it was like to take all of Tarsus into his mind - emotions and all - in the span of a few minutes and still try and maintain composure.

"I understand, Captain," he said hoarsely. She nodded. She had expected as much. Or at the very least, enough sympathy and pity for him to go along with it anyway.

"Thank you," she offered him. He shook his head and looked at her, an unfathomable expression on his face. It was one she'd never seen before, not even from some of the scant memories she'd gleaned from Spock Prime on Delta Vega. Addy frowned. "What?"

"I find myself awed by the strength and courage displayed in your character time and time again, but none so greatly as reliving your memories of Tarsus IV with you. I am truly honored to have met you, Captain." Addy blushed, surprised by the sudden admission and shifted away from his warm brown eyes, uncomfortable. Courage? Strength? Had the memories gotten distorted somehow? She hadn't been strong or brave, she'd been weak and stupid and pitiful. But she said nothing and accepted his compliment with a frown and a distant nod of her head.

"You do not believe my observations," Spock stated. Addy shrugged, not knowing what to say, but she felt somehow wrong thinking of correcting the Vulcan's assumptions about her, however misguided they were.

"That is… troubling," he muttered. Addy wasn't entirely sure she was supposed to have heard that. With a sigh she pushed herself to her feet and dreaded the thought of going back to the bridge that by now all knew Kodos had forcibly made contact with them and could again at any time. She had convinced Spock, for the time being anyway, to let her remain in control, there was no sense in hiding in her ready room and making the rumors circulating around her ship worse. But Spock stopped her with a light touch on her shoulder, catching her off guard, and he dropped his hand when he saw he had her attention.

"Captain," he started before frowning and starting over. "Adelaide, I realize from numerous away mission that you are prone to carrying the burden of protecting your friends and your crew by yourself, but I implore you to lean on those around you. Dr. McCoy has shown a repeated concern for your well-being that exceeds that of a mere professional relationships and is indicative more of an intimate friendship. Mr. Scott, Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, Ms. Uhura and myself would all be willing to share in your troubles and help ease your pains in whatever ways we can." Addy felt her bottom lip tremble and so she bit it to keep him from seeing. The movement drew his eyes to her mouth before Spock looked back up at her and frowned, taking a small step forward and clasping his hands behind his back.

"I am sorry for the suffering you have endured, Adelaide. Know that is was through no fault of your own, but Kodos' own twisted sense of self-importance that inflicted such pain on you. And to protect your own mind, you made yourself believe you loved him. It does not make you weak, it does not make you broken. This does not make you a statistic. It means you are human, and that you will have to find the power within yourself to be stronger than your past, as a great many before you have also done."

By the end, Addy had turned away, unable to keep herself from crying anymore. Of course Spock would know every fear she still had, he'd just been inside her brain. And while that meant he would know exactly what to say to make her fears go away, she didn't think he would do that. Beyond the fact that Vulcans couldn't lie, Spock was too compassionate a person for that. He hid it so well, she was pretty sure even he didn't realize how much he truly cared for those around him, but she saw it because she knew him better than anybody in the universe.

Still, every word made her feel like she was bleeding and exposed like those nerves from her memories and it hurt and she was so scared. Addy sniffled and wiped away the tears on her face but more kept flowing out of her eyes to replace them. Spock remained silent behind her, giving her the time to release and compose herself, for which she was grateful. When she'd calm down to the occasional sniffle she turned around and gave him a watery smile. He looked over her face carefully, like he wasn't really sure if he should believe what he saw there, before inclining his head slightly and straightening his already perfect posture.

"You're really great, you know that?" Addy asked. Spock said nothing, though the corner of his mouth twitched, so she knew he wanted to smile. She smiled for him, wiping away the last of her tears. "Yeah, I thought you might."

Without needing to say anything more between them, the pair left her ready room and made their way back to the bridge. It was still in a state of disarray as Spock slipped away from her to return to his station, but Addy felt like everything had shifted just so. Suddenly the lights were brighter and her chair looked cleaner and the sounds were sharper. And all her friends - Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, Bones, Spock - they were all there, and she could feel all of the support from them, and it was… nice. Addy felt like she was finally breathing for the first time since she'd heard Kodos' name again.

Bones gave her a worried quirk of his eyebrow from across the room. Are you okay?

Addy grinned. I'm always okay.

And the best part? She didn't even have to lie this time.

Leave me some love?

Peace.