Star Trek XV – Now and Forever

Chapter Two

It had been a fraction of a second but apparently, the short time she spent gathering their belongings had been more than enough for her son to climb down his seat and run down the aisle. She only noticed he was gone when she saw him stepping out of the shuttle via the recently opened door.

'Jimmy!' she exclaimed with horror dropping her briefcase.

Too busy rushing after him, she failed to pay attention where she was and only when he was safely back in her arms, she allowed herself to quickly glance around the Shuttlebay. A gut instinct told her something in the large hangar was incredibly wrong and, when her eyes landed on one of the parked shuttles, she finally understood what it was; painted on its side, she read the name of the ship the aircraft belonged to:

USS Enterprise.

Carol felt her heart skip a beat and as a cold sensation invaded her chest, she finally looked in front of her.

'Oh no…' she muttered.

Angst knotting her throat, she fought to keep some resemblance of composure as she was faced with the deadliest glare she had ever seen. Iceberg coloured eyes bore through her with such intensity that it made her forget how to breathe. She briefly considered turning round and take refuge in the civilian shuttle but then, as though he had read her mind, he spoke to her with an Arctic tone:

'Don't you dare!'

'Jim…'

'You must be insane if you think I'll let you get away from me again,' he basically spat at her.

The two of them looked at each other for what seemed an eternity while poor Jimmy held Teddy closer to his chest as he tried to figure out what was happening. He didn't like the quiet tension that had formed in the atmosphere and was about to let everyone know how unhappy this all made him when Spock said:

'Yeoman Rand, return to the bridge.'

Needless to say, the girl was too frightened of the Commander to even think of arguing the order, no matter how curious she was about the current situation. Because of this and after daring to take one final look at the scene in front of her, she turned round and started making her way to the ship's centre of command.

'Captain…' Spock then started.

'Mr Spock,' Jim interrupted him still glaring at Carol with the power of a thousand suns, 'please get Mr Scott to come down here and take care of the cargo. Then take the conn and set course to New Vulcan,' he ordered him, 'Dr Marcus and I will be in the ready room having a long talk.'

'Jim…'

'Quiet!' Kirk snapped at her, 'Mr Spock, make sure we are not disturbed.'

'Yes, Captain,' Spock replied.

'Good,' Kirk said then, at Carol, he ordered her to, 'follow me.'

Carol looked at her son and then the shuttle wondering for a wild moment if she'd be allowed to go and retrieve Jimmy's bag. She quickly rejected the idea when she saw that Kirk was not-so-patiently waiting for her.

'Okay,' she said with a small voice.

While they covered the long distance which separated the ship's main Shuttlebay from the uppermost deck where the Captain's ready room was, Carol kept watching Kirk's back as if she half expected him to turn round and leap on her like the angry lion he was. She knew the notion was preposterous for if she knew the Captain as well as she thought she did, he would never intentionally hurt anyone who didn't deserve it.

The problem was, a little voice in her head was quick to point out, that she did deserve it.

'Mummy?' she heard Jimmy asking her softly, as if he too had felt the shiver going down his mother's back.

Carol didn't answer him and just hugged him closer to her instead.

By the time they made it to the ready room, her nerves were as tense as the cords of a violin and she started thinking she would get physically sick if she wasn't allowed to sit down for a while. Thankfully, that was precisely the first order Jim gave her as soon as they stepped into the rectangular shaped ready room.

'Take a seat,' he all but barked at her.

Too happy to comply, she sat down at the first chair she could grab, realising a little too late that it was the one reserved for the Captain himself. She tried getting up but Kirk stopped her with yet another harsh order:

'Don't move!'

While she sat back down, Kirk noticed the little boy was about to start crying and this finally brought home that his anger was probably scaring the poor kid. For this reason and while Carol did her best to soothe the boy, Kirk turned round, giving his back to the two of them while he too, fought to calm down a bit.

As he did that, he also listened to Carol's soft, comforting words and, among them, he heard a name:

Jimmy.

Suddenly, from the chockfull of questions he had in his brain, one gained the topmost priority:

'Is that his name?' he asked her, still refusing to face her.

The question seemed to take her by surprise for it took her a moment to gather her thoughts to answer it.

'Yes.'

It irked Kirk to hear such a small, fearful tone coming out of her. The Carol he knew, the one who had made him fall head over heels in love with was much stronger than this; his Carol was the bravest woman he'd ever met.

This one, he thought with a pang of sadness, seemed to be afraid of her own shadow.

'It's James David Kirk,' she then supplied before he could ask.

'David?' he asked her finally turning round to look at her.

'It was my grandfather's name,' she explained, 'from my mother's side,' she added.

'I see,' Kirk said.

Carol seemed to try with all her might to keep her gaze trained on his but, to his disappointment, she lowered it as if it was too much for her to handle. This made him unreasonably angry and it showed in his next question:

'What are you doing on my ship? Is this some sort of joke or…'

'No!' she replied once again looking at him, 'I…this…I didn't know…I thought…'

Stop stuttering! He exclaimed in his own head just about managing to keep himself from saying out loud.

'What did you think?' he asked her instead, 'that I wouldn't find out you were onboard? Because if…'

'No,' she stopped him again and, at long last, some of the old Carol seemed to come to the surface, 'someone else arranged the pick up for us, I was led to believe we would be boarding the USS Republic. I didn't know it was going to be the Enterprise. If I had known…' stopped herself before she ruined it all.

'You wouldn't have come onboard if you'd known it was my ship,' Kirk still managed to figure out.

'Jim, I…'

'It's Captain Kirk,' he corrected her harshly.

He regretted this when he saw her bravery disappearing once again beneath a shimmer of unshed tears.

'I'm sorry,' she somehow managed to say, 'I…'

'Why did you leave?' he then asked her.

She looked up at him at the same time as a tear escaped her eye, rolling down her cheek.

'Wasn't it obvious?' she asked him, while another tear followed the first.

'No, it wasn't,' he replied keeping himself in check so that he would not follow his instinct to go and hug her.

Carol stared at him looking incredulous for a moment then, she just seemed resigned as she said:

'When I learned I couldn't have children, I thought my life was over but then…you asked me to marry you.'

'Yeah, I did,' Kirk said, 'because I thought it would make it clear I didn't care about that.'

'But I did!' Carol exclaimed startling poor Jimmy, 'don't you understand?' she asked him, 'I didn't want you to have to live with me like that. I didn't want to condemn you to a childless life! I…I wanted you to find someone else who could make you become a father…I…I'm really sorry, I just…I panicked…I'm so sorry…'

She stopped speaking becoming such a sobbing mess that it made Jimmy drop his teddy bear and, placing his tiny hands on his mother's cheeks, he started doing his best to get her to calm down. Watching this was too much for Kirk and, walking away from her, he went to open the drawer where some tissues were kept.

'Here,' he said offering the box to her.

Seeing the tissues made her feel even worse and, with a shaky hand, she pulled a couple of them out, dabbing her eyes with them. Kirk observed as little Jimmy kept a close eye on his mother as if he wanted to be sure she would stop being upset. In spite of barely knowing him, Kirk felt a surge of pride invading his heart.

This incredible little boy was his son.

'Where did you go?' Kirk asked her finally sitting down a couple of chairs away from her.

'I left the Enteprise onboard the USS Republic,' she replied.

'I already know that,' Kirk said still sounding a little drier than usual, 'we lost your traces there.'

Carol looked at him and frowned for a moment before she said:

'One of the engineers told me she was being dropped off at a starbase. I resigned my commission and disembarked with her.'

'And then?'

'Then I was left alone,' Carol said, 'I didn't know where to go, I was my father's daughter and, let's just say that I didn't have a lot of friends left. The only family I still had was an Aunt I had not seen in years. I tried calling her but she didn't answer so I ended up going to the only place I was sure I would be welcomed.'

'Which is?' Kirk asked her.

'I went to stay with Christine Chapel,' she replied, 'we are good friends and…'

'…and you knew it would be the last place I would look for you,' Kirk finished for her.

'Yes,' she bravely admitted, 'I only intended staying with her until I figured out what I would do with the rest of my life but then…then…I…I couldn't even believe it…the medical report you showed me was categorical and yet...'

'There was a five percent chance,' Kirk reminded her.

'Yes but…come on,' she tried to reason, 'five percent…with that sort of odds…'

Kirk let out a humourless chuckle while he remembered the conversation he'd had with Spock the night he'd found out. He knew Spock had only been trying to make him feel better but, as it turned out, he had been right.

'We managed to beat them, didn't we?' Kirk asked her looking at Jimmy who stared back at him curiously.

'Yeah,' Carol said speaking with a tiny voice.

'Why didn't you tell me?' Kirk asked her.

'I tried,' she said taking him by surprise, 'I tried finding you or your ship but it seemed like you had vanished. I asked Christine to help me but all she could find out was that you were out of the quadrant.'

Kirk tried to remember the months after her disappearance and, just then, he recalled having accepted a mission to go and fix a malfunctioning relay installed near the border with the Gamma Quadrant. They had only been there for a couple of weeks before returning to the area near the Romulan Neutral Zone.

'I figured,' she continued, 'that you were truly going where no one had gone before and…'

'...and you gave up,' he finished for her.

'No,' she replied, 'I still wanted to tell you but then Jimmy was born and…I had trouble adjusting to that.'

'What do you mean?' Kirk asked her with a worried frown.

'I suffered from post-partum depression,' Carol said, 'I wouldn't have come out of it if it hadn't been for Christine but, after I got better, I knew I was overstaying my welcome so I tried once again finding my aunt. She answered my call and then I moved to 25-Alpha and I started working on a project that had occurred to me while I was pregnant with him. One thing led to another and by the time I realised, it had been over two years since I had last seen you. I…I just guessed you would have moved on and that…if we showed up…'

'You thought you would ruin it for me,' he said more than asked.

'Yes,' she confirmed, 'I didn't know what to do, I only knew that I didn't want to make a mess of your life, not after what I'd done to you.'

Kirk stared at her giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts.

'Were you ever going to tell me?' he finally asked.

'I really don't know,' she honestly replied, 'but I started using your surname so that I could give it to him hoping that, one day, maybe when he'd be older, I could tell him who his father was.'

Feeling the anger bubbling once more, he tried to remain calm when he said:

'So instead of ruining my life, you chose to ruin his?' she had the decency not to answer to that. 'Carol,' he continued, 'I grew up without a father and you know damn well how it nearly destroyed my life. How could you do this to him?' he asked gesturing towards Jimmy, 'how could you be so selfish?'

'I don't know,' Carol repeated, her voice strangled by guilt.

'I'm sorry,' he said shocking her, 'but I don't know how to forgive this. I…I don't even think I can.'

'I know,' Carol replied, 'you have every reason to be angry and I'm not asking you to forgive me, I…I just…'

'You what?' Kirk demanded, 'what do you want from me?'

Visibly swallowing, she tried to gather the courage she needed to reply when they both heard a buzzer.

'Dammit,' Kirk muttered, getting up from his chair, he pressed the intercom's button and said, 'who is it?'

'My apologies, Captain,' came Spock's calm voice, 'I am aware you must not be disturbed at the present moment but we have just received a distress call and your presence is required on the bridge.'

Kirk reflected his answer before he pressed the button again and said:

'I'll be there in a minute.'

'Thank you, Captain,' Spock replied.

Carol looked at him as if she was waiting for some sort of instructions too.

'I'll send Yeoman Rand in,' he said, 'she'll take you to the quarters that have been assigned to you,' he explained then, narrowing his impossibly blue eyes, he warned her, 'I am going to issue a ship-wide order for everyone to keep an eye on you two. We are very far from done here so, if you so much as think of leaving this ship again, I'll be the first to know, is that clear?'

'Yes, sir,' she said out of instinct.

This made him flinch but then he remembered his order to keep the appropriate formalities.

'Er…' he then heard her hesitate, 'I…I will need to go and check on the cargo, I…'

'I will let Mr Scott know that he is to take you to its storage room.'

'Thank you,' she said tensely.

Hearing this made his tone soften a bit and, glancing at their son, he asked her:

'Is there anything you need for him?'

'No,' Carol replied, 'I have everything I need in his bag and, the rest I can get it from the replicator.'

'Okay,' Kirk said, 'I'll be back as soon as I can.'

Carol just nodded and, after this, he stepped out of the room as if he couldn't wait to get out of there as fast as possible. But who could blame him? She thought miserably, now she understood the magnitude of her mistake, the true implications of her selfish choice, she asked herself the same question that had tormented her after Jimmy's birth: why had such a miracle been wasted on someone like her?

'Mummy,' she somehow managed to hear her boy's voice through her troubled thoughts, 'is mummy sad?' Jimmy asked her.

Focusing on her son, she tried to get herself together and, shaking her head once, she tried to sound brave:

'No, mummy is not sad.'

Jimmy didn't look convinced and, climbing off her lap, he went to retrieve his fallen Teddy offering it to her.

'Mummy can have Teddy.'

'Oh Jimmy,' Carol said picking him up from the floor, 'I love you so much,' she said while she kissed him.

This seemed to tickle him and soon, the room was filled with his loud, happy giggles.

To be continued…