Four days after Chris got word about Jenna, word came that she seemed to be stabilizing at last. He made sure he was on his best behavior so Phil wouldn't bar Spock from coming again, but to his surprise it was Leonard McCoy who showed up in person.

"To what do I owe this honor, doctor?" He asked, noting the bags under McCoy's eyes and the general exhaustion he carried.

"To being her next of kin," McCoy replied abruptly.

"What?" Chris said in disbelief. "I was fifth on the list, last I checked."

"Well, she'd moved you to second to the top, which means she has high regard for ya, Admiral. Commander Kirk will be here as soon as she can, but in the meantime, you'll get the updates."

He snorted. "Didn't think it went that high. It's like she lived to get a rise out of me and add more grey hairs to my extensive collection."

McCoy just gave him a look almost of pity for his cluelessness. "S'more than that, Chris. Maybe you'll find out one day."

Chris frowned at this cryptic comment, but got down to business.

"So, how's she doing?"

"As well as can be expected," the doctor informed him. "I'm pretty confident she's past the rocky stage. Now it's just a waiting game and hoping her brain function keeps increasing."

"Were you there when she..." he couldn't bring himself to say the word "died".

"No. There wasn't time. You can bet I'm not happy I wasn't there." McCoy's face showed the strain and pain of the ordeal very clearly and Chris felt for the man.

"What would that level of radiation have done to her?" He wondered out loud.

"I don't think you really want to know," McCoy gritted out. "But it would have been hell for her the last few minutes. Absolute hell. Spock was so messed up by it, he went and kicked the stuffing out of Khan." He shook his head grimly. "If Marcus wasn't already dead, I'd love to take him to task for all this. All this pain and suffering, caused by him and his paranoia. Good to see you're doing alright."

Chris shrugged. "Alright" was relative. He was recovering physically, but Jenna's condition had messed him up in more ways than he cared to think about.

"When can I see her?" He asked.

"Soon as Boyce says so," McCoy replied. "He's her attending now."

When McCoy left, he reached for his PADD and opened up the file of private photos he kept under secure password. Many of them were from the Yorktown days, but there were not a few from escapades involving Jenna.

He pulled up the first picture and thought back on the day they'd taken it.

It was Jenna's twenty-third birthday and he knew it was the worst day of the year for her, but with the recent scrapes she'd been involved in, the last thing she needed was to go on a drunken bender.

He'd showed up at her dorm and was met with a hostile reception.

"No offense, sir, but didn't you get the memo I don't like company on my birthday?" Jen stared resentfully at him from the doorway, empty wine glass in hand.

"Yes, but given the results of your last two birthday benders, you're going to have company whether you like it or not. You can ignore my presence, that's fine, but I won't let you die of alcohol poisoning."

"How noble of you," she said sarcastically. "Fine. Come in, but don't expect me to be social. It's Dad's death day, after all."

He winced at her words, but walked in anyway. The room was a bit of a disaster, but Jen managed to clear a path to the couch. She settled in with a sigh and hit play on her holovid, an old crime show from before Starfleet's era.

For a while they watched in silence, Jen's face a blank slate as she tried to ignore him.

On the third episode, though, she suddenly spoke.

"You know, I firmly believe if Mom hadn't been pregnant with me, she'd never have got on that shuttle. I think she would have preferred dying with him, than living without him. I ruined that, of course."

He didn't know what to say. How did one respond to something like that?

When she looked at him expectantly, he tried to put something into words.

"Jen, I know your mom. Much as she misses George, even if Sam wasn't in the picture, there is no way she would have left you an orphan. I've never heard her talk about you with anything that suggested she resented your existence. Exasperation, maybe; never regret."

Jen sighed and shrugged.

"That's not what Sam thinks. He's made no secret he loathes my very existence."

There was that bitter tone again. George Samuel Kirk, Jr. had his own multitude of issues and unfortunately had taken them out on his sister before she'd cut ties with him. That was a mess he wouldn't go near unless she asked him to intervene.

Jen poured herself another drink and took a big gulp.

"You know what? When I'm Captain of my own ship, I'm never going to bother with a relationship. If I get put in that position, I refuse to leave someone with a broken heart. Who has time for that crap, anyway? Worked for you, didn't it?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Chris answered vaguely. He was the poster boy for not having time for love. Didn't mean he didn't have quite a few regrets, though.

Jen's PADD suddenly dinged and she glanced over at it.

"Its mom," she sighed. "Wants to know if I'm safe. She knows me too well. I'd better send some proof." She suddenly scooted over close to him, tilted her head in and held up the PADD in its camera feature.

Before he could react, a little blip sounded and the deed was done.

"There," Jen said, grinning wickedly, "now she knows I'm in no danger, with you here."

Looking back, Chris felt a pang of longing to see those bright blue eyes lively again. He shouldn't have let himself get so attached, but somehow, she'd wormed her way through the protective barrier he kept around his heart. Jenna didn't know it, but that was the heart that had cracked at the news of her temporary death. He might not show it in rage, like Spock, or breaking the laws of nature, like McCoy, but it hurt nonetheless.