Title: What We Remember Forever
Fandom: Star Trek (XI)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Kirk/Spock (friendship)
Warnings: OOC-ness on Spock's part (although by default I'm trying to write him as in-character as I possibly can, so we'll just see how that turns out), references to past emotional child neglect, and – as per usual – MASSIVE FLUFF.
Notes: FINALLY! XD Right? Sorry for the wait again. But hey, I finally got that big fic up so I'm happy. Woo!
Anyway, I think I remember a couple people asking for another version of Uhura's observation in "Never Too Late," where Jim goes missing during a Klingon attack and ends up seeking refuge with Spock. So here we go: the same instance except from Bones' and Spock's point-of-views. I felt like I may have rushed this in some places, if not all. Also, there's more hurt!Bones than I had anticipated (ehehe), but hopefully it's still enjoyable.
Thanks for reading! I'll try and get the next bit up sooner, since I have it planned out in my head already. :D
Soundly Safe
(in which Klingons attack and Jim seeks comfort)
"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." –Dinah Craik (1826 - 1887)
Jim jolted awake as his bed suddenly shook.
He blinked his eyes wearily, still somewhat asleep, and looked around his darkened room. Everything was still and quiet again, and after a short moment Jim lay back down on his pillow, clutching Katja closer to him.
A startled cry tore out of him when the entire room jerked around him, and suddenly the air was filled with wailing sirens and the walls were blinking in harsh red light. Two more fast jolts rocked the room and Katja was falling out of his grip and onto the floor. Jim scrambled for purchase, nearly falling off the bed, and clung to his pillow as tears gathered in his eyes.
He was scared. Back at his house, Sammy would sometimes come and be with him during the big thunderstorms, even if Sammy wasn't even afraid. But here on a starship – he knew he was on a starship because Doctor Bones had said so before – Sammy wasn't around.
He wanted Spock. Spock would protect him from anything.
Gathering up his courage as another short shudder hit the room, Jim climbed down off the bed and ran to the door. As it opened and he looked down the hall, Jim could see doctors and nurses running around checking on current patients. Jim hurried down the corridor, running up alongside the wall, past all the flustered medical personnel without drawing attention to himself. He stopped near the door leading out of sickbay and through his panic tried to remember exactly where Spock's room was. Jim had been there before, and he knew from walking there with Spock that it was on the same deck as Doctor Bones' sickbay; he struggled a little to remember what number it was – the one Spock had taught him to recite.
As the red sirens screamed around him, Jim slipped out of sickbay and ran.
By the time McCoy stumbled into sickbay, the attack had already been going on for a long two minutes. (He was pretty sure it was an attack and not just Scotty messing around with the engines again.) McCoy was haphazardly dressed, having made himself decent quite quickly after being jarred awake in his bed, but the only continuous thought on his mind was getting ready for an emergency and fast.
Of course, it was only natural that the red alert promptly silenced once McCoy had sufficiently prepared himself for the worst.
Christine, who had also come swiftly to sickbay from her quarters, tried to subdue her tired smile and laugh as McCoy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
After passing a glance over the present patients and seeing that the current personnel on shift were adequately handling whatever minor fallout there was, McCoy bid the also-departing Christine good night and made his way back to his quarters. It wasn't like the Enterprise wasn't susceptible to attack out here in the various spots of the galaxy, and it certainly wasn't the first time it'd ever happened in such a fashion. But regardless, McCoy felt he could do with a lot less of it all, thank you very much.
McCoy yawned wide as the turbolift slid to a smooth stop on Deck 9, and he was in his quarters undressing within the next few minutes. In the morning he'd find out just what all the ruckus was about and end up cursing whatever alien ship or anomaly or whatever the hell it was that had decided it was a good idea to attack a Federation starship. For now, he was getting some damn sleep.
He fell back onto his bed with another yawn, curling up in the blankets and beginning to drift off fast.
It was all routine for him; nothing out of the ordinary.
In a split second that felt like an hour, a biting chill struck his spine. McCoy's eyes snapped open with a renewed sense of alertness and he bolted up from where he was laying, a sharp intake of air pulling through his lips in sudden realization.
Shit… Jim!
Spock abruptly stopped dressing when the red alert went silent. He'd been pulled out of his nightly session of mediation when what he'd presumed was an enemy attack had begun, and as it had taken a relatively significant amount of time to pull out from his concentrated state, Spock was still putting on his uniform when the current emergency was evidently called off.
He stood still for a moment as the silence continued and the ship remained stable. Whatever emergency had been present, Lieutenant Uhura had markedly and efficiently taken care of it. Spock contemplated calling the bridge himself and checking on the status of the bridge, but his trust in Uhura was well justified and wholesome; she would be taking sufficient care of the ship while in temporary command. He would simply request a report during his next shift.
Spock began undressing, this time in preparation for sleep. The hour was quite late, and while he did not need as much sleep as his human acquaintances, he knew that spending the remaining hours before Alpha shift resting would be extremely beneficial to him.
He'd just removed his boots and blue science tunic when the sound of rapid knocking on his door echoed through the room.
Spock turned around, curious as to who would come to his quarters so late in the nightly hours. Granted, if another emergency had occurred that required his attention it would only be natural that he be sought out; but wouldn't it have been a more convenient means to simply use the comm unit? Unless communications were somehow down, he couldn't think of any other logical reason…
He stiffened as his thoughts wandered to Jim. Perhaps something had happened to him?
In a swift movement Spock crossed over to his door, quickly keying it open. It was evidently no crewmember knocking, as the only thing that met Spock at eye-level was a vacant corridor. But it didn't take long for an answer to make itself known, for the second that his door was finished sliding open something bowled into Spock's legs.
Caught by a sense of surprise, Spock blinked down at the boy. "Jim?" The toddler clung resolutely to the half-Vulcan's knees, his face buried in the fabric of Spock's pants and his entire body shaking.
Quickly pushing aside his initial astonishment, Spock reached down and grabbed Jim's quaking shoulders, pulling the child just far enough away from his legs so that he could kneel down in front of him. Jim immediately latched onto the front of his remaining undershirt, trying to hide his face against his chest. Spock had seen Jim in pain and tears already, with unfortunate and unwanted thanks to the ambassador of Telora, but the current state of the boy was completely different from the previous occasion; Jim looked absolutely terrified, tears prickling the corners of his eyes and a soft whimper emitting from him.
"Jim," Spock said with soft urgency, "are you hurt?" The child didn't answer, instead attempting to situate himself even closer to the half-Vulcan.
Spock tried again. "Jim, please answer me." He spoke with a slightly firmer voice, but his touch was gentle as he tilted the boy's face up towards his. "Are you hurt?"
Jim blinked, sending two tears trailing down the sides of his face. He shook his head.
Just frightened then; a wave of relief flowed through him, but Spock didn't bother trying to convince himself of the feeling's illogical nature. He knew that he could not be with Jim at all times, but something – he supposed humans referred to it as a "whim" of sorts – told Spock that he most likely would not forgive himself if any kind of harm befell the captain in his present state. That Jim was safe meant more to Spock than he could properly anticipate.
He wrapped Jim in his arms and drew the child to him, personally relishing the contact as Jim clung tighter to him and cuddled in close.
"It's all right, Jim," Spock murmured into the blonde hair. "You are safe. I have you." He stood up with Jim securely in his arms and stepped away from the door, allowing it to close and lock. As he crossed the space to his bed Spock continued to speak nonsensical assurances – "sweet nothings" as Doctor McCoy had referred to them in his explanation – but found that despite the words' rather generic and inconsequential nature, they were in fact quite comforting. They were also very true: now that Spock had him, he wouldn't allow anything of detrimental nature to befall Jim.
He supposed the logical thing to do would be to return Jim to sickbay; no doubt the boy's absence would be noticed after a point. But another look at the tiny form in his arms quickly sealed his chosen decision in his mind: he would not be letting Jim out of his sights, not tonight at least.
Spock set Jim down on his bed and began to pull away with the intention of changing out of his uniform trousers and into his sleeping pants. Jim evidently had other ideas, clinging steadfastly to Spock's undershirt and looking up at the half-Vulcan with pleading eyes.
"Spock?" The small voice held a flavor of worry, and it was clear Jim didn't want Spock to leave, even if it was to a distance mere feet away. Spock's lips quirked and he leaned back in, pressing a kiss to Jim's forehead and allowing the child to wrap his arms around his neck.
At another soft whimper, Spock spoke. "Shh, little one, I am here. Do not be afraid." Slipping an arm under Jim and lifting him up, Spock pulled back the covers on his bed and sat down on it. "I will not allow anything to harm you." He lay back, taking Jim with him and settling him against his side, cradling the child's head in the crook of his shoulder. As Spock drew up the blankets to cover them both, Jim snuggled in further, fisting a small hand into the material covering the half-Vulcan's chest.
Spock brushed his fingers across Jim's forehead, gently projecting soft impulses of comfort and restful slumber. He watched as the toddler's eyelids slowly fluttered and his body relaxed. Before closing completely, blue eyes gazed softly up him, more comforted but still slightly questioning.
"Sleep, Jim," Spock whispered, trailing his fingers down to pet the boy's cheeks. "I will be here when you wake." As if satisfied, Jim's eyes shut and he was sleeping soundly within a minute. Spock pulled his hand back, but quickly noticed that his fingers were covered in light perspiration. Realizing his room's high temperature was too much for Jim, Spock quietly called out an order for the computer to lower it to the standard level for human comfort. The difference was quickly noticed and Spock curled himself more into the blankets and against the child's warm form.
With the peaceful silence of the ship surrounding them once more, Spock quickly followed Jim into sleep.
McCoy was near panic. When he'd bolted back into sickbay and into Jim's room, only to find the bed empty and that stuffed rabbit of Chekov's lying discarded on the floor, he'd felt his blood run cold. He'd searched the entire room, as well as the others in the immediate vicinity, but had had no luck. What was worse, the current physician in charge, Doctor Kaspari, hadn't seen Jim either. All of the medical personnel had either been seeing to their current patients or preparing for an upcoming emergency when the red alert was sounding, and none had noticed Jim leave his room or sickbay – if he'd even left at all.
The ensuing search of sickbay yielded no results, and soon the entire medical staff on duty was feeling the weight of guilt on their shoulders. McCoy knew that everyone under his authority was a professional and had been doing his or her job when the circumstance had called for it, and couldn't possibly have been able to keep an eye out for a four year old while prepping for the worst. Even so, McCoy couldn't help but feel his own weighed down by his own sense of responsibility – he was in charge of watching Jim in the first place, and he'd managed to go and lose him.
Searching for Jim's life sign wasn't an option; for some reason no one could determine, the computer didn't read the kid's life sign as Captain James T. Kirk's. McCoy figured it was somehow tied to Jim's reduction in age, but he'd never thought more of it. As various doctors and nurses volunteered to search nearby areas on the same deck, he finally called the bridge and relayed to Uhura the situation, then resigned himself helplessly to letting security handle it.
He didn't know where else to look. Chances were Jim was still on Deck 5, but where? Did Jim even know how to use the turbolift? McCoy had never given the possibility much thought until now; Jim wouldn't be able to reach the lift buttons, but if he managed to figure out how to operate it using simple vocal commands, then the possible places Jim could be now were significantly more numerous than before.
McCoy ran a hand over his face, continuing to wander around sickbay and vainly check the nooks and crannies for Jim's presence. He knew that Jim was most definitely safe – where, he didn't know – since in the end, turbolift access or not, there were only so many places he could get to without an authorization code. Perhaps somebody had already found him and reported so to Uhura… but if that was the case, Uhura would have called to tell him. He contemplated going and searching himself, but realized he had no real idea where to look first. McCoy had no idea just when Jim had gone missing from his room, and as such he had no idea just how far he'd gotten, wherever it was he'd went.
He eventually found his way back to Jim's room. His eyes caught on the discarded stuffed rabbit and he picked it up, staring into its vibrant eyes as he absently clutched it close and stroked the white fur between his fingers.
He couldn't help but feel that it was somehow his fault. McCoy hadn't been on duty when the event happened, but he had come down to sickbay in the first place. Even though he'd been running on autopilot and went through the occurrence with routine behavior, he felt the heaviness on his shoulders intensify at the thought that he hadn't considered checking on Jim once the minor crisis was over. Jim was already his best friend, but McCoy didn't deny that his feelings for Jim – the general affection and protectiveness – had certainly shifted and deepened since his transformation. He supposed it may have been because he was a father himself, and Joanna wasn't much older than Jim presently was. The idea that Jim had been – if he wasn't still doing so – wandering around somewhere alone and scared tore at a familiar area in McCoy's heart.
He wished he could have been there for the kid.
McCoy just knew that the next chance he got, he was giving Jim the biggest hug he could muster without hurting him. That was a promise.
And minutes later, when Uhura found him sitting on Jim's bed and graced him with the most reassuring smile and two simple words that spoke volumes – "he's safe" – McCoy felt the most intense burst of relief flood his system and resolutely fought back the instantaneous wetting of his eyes that came upon them as a result.