The Icicle Melts Chapter 3
Author: My Amalgamut
Universe/Series: Star Trek {Reboot | STXI | AU}
Rating: PG-13 (sensitive subject matter and some language)
Word count: 5,281 (this chapter)
Genre: General | Drama
Tropes: Tarsus IV
Warnings: Sensitive subject matter including (but not limited to) child neglect, abuse, and genocide
Summary: Amanda Grayson is one volunteer of hundreds helping Starfleet clean up the mess Kodos left of Tarsus IV. While on the planet she encounters an impulsive, defiant, all around wreck of a kid by the name of Jim Kirk. Logic would tell anyone to step back and leave it. Amanda had been called a great many things in the years since Vulcan had been made her home... but logical certainly wasn't one of them.
Beta: The awesome fagur_fiskur.

The Icicle Melts

Chapter Three

Paper work, as Amanda called it, was really high up on Jim's list of 'most boring crap I've ever spent my time doing', and that was coming from a kid who grew up in Riverside, Iowa. ("Wait, how can it be paper work without any paper?" Jim asked just to be cheeky, though he feigned obtuse well. Amanda didn't answer him aside from a laugh and, "You really are startlingly alike.") Amanda had asked for his help with it because they'd gotten a really large shipment of supplies, and apparently she was the only one capable of cataloguing and distributing everything around camp with any efficiency.

At least to hear her relate it. ("Go PhD." "You hush.")

So there they were, sitting 'Indian style' across from one another, various PADDs scattered around them, and he wasn't even complaining. Jim currently had two in his lap that he was logging simultaneously, and really he couldn't understand what was so great about Starfleet education when he could get their tasks done faster than academy graduates twice his age. He guessed he'd jinxed himself with that one, because the second the thought entered his head he made his first mistake. Not a big one, but it was still irritating enough to draw a curse from under his breath.

"Damn it," he whispered, backtracking.

"Language," Amanda scolded on a sing-song note, focus staying on her work.

Jim paused what he was doing and looked up at her with a calculating tilt to his head. He decided it was time for a little break, and so set his PADD aside and moved so he could stretch his legs. Leaning back on his arms, he said abruptly, "I bet you've got kids."

"Oh?" she prompted, voice taking an interested lilt. She had yet to remove her attention from the data she was sorting, but managed the conversation unhindered. "I suppose you have a theory?"

"Well, you're jus' real... mom-like. I guess." Jim shrugged, because really, what did he know about moms?

Amanda hummed in acknowledgment, taking his statement as something of a compliment. "I do, as a matter of fact. I have a son- Spock."

"Spock?" Jim parroted, and it actually came out sounding like a squawk, rolling awkwardly off his tongue.

His tone called for her full attention and she glanced to him, laying the stylus on the PADD in her lap and propping her hands on her hips. "And just what it wrong with the name 'Spock'?" she playfully demanded, voice haughty.

Jim averted his gaze and scooted sideways to rest his back against the large metal crates next to them. He kept his legs straight out in front, watching his shoes a little too intently as they waved from side to side in opposite motions. He coughed, scratching the tip of his nose, and muttered, "Dunno, just... you said you were from Seattle, right? Not a real Seattle name's all."

Hmm, yes, she mused. Cheeky. Amanda set her PADD on the ground and assumed a more relaxed position herself, very similar to his own if a little less slouched. "Well, no, it's not. I was born there, but it hasn't been my home for some years now. Besides, Spock was given his name through his father's lineage."

"Who I'm guessing... isn't from Washington?"

Amanda was familiar with this game of twenty questions. It was Jim's favorite way of siphoning information out of her and she humored him for the most part. Found it amusing, even. Particularly if the question he asked startled snorts of laughter that she couldn't contain.

"No, no," she said, recovering a straight face and clearing her voice lightly to prevent any more embarrassing sounds. She was happy enough that Jim didn't seem to notice her slip from poise, or at least didn't comment on it. "My husband isn't from Earth at all, actually."

That certainly piqued the boy's interest, as she suspected it would. Jim's eyes went wide. "You married an alien?"

Amanda grinned a bit wryly. "A Vulcan, to be precise."

If she sounded just a little smug about it, well, that was alright because she had married a Vulcan after all. Or really, she'd coerced a Vulcan into marrying her, and if that wasn't testament to her powers of persuasion then nothing was. She was rather proud of herself for it.

"A Vulcan?" Jim echoed rhetorically, and she wondered if he was going to give her the same befuddled response most did when her marriage was called into question.

Amanda had grown used to the unspoken but why's that laced others' reactions to the news, but it could sting to hear all the same, even after so long. She loved her family and was not now, nor ever would she be ashamed of her choices.

Her doubt was quickly suspended, however, when Jim just shrugged in casual acceptance and said, "That's pretty cool." Her astonishment at his reply physically manifested in the tiny jolt her shoulders gave. Her eyebrows rose in a habit she, admittedly, had picked up in more recent years. She tilted her head a bit to study him more clearly.

"Is it?" she marveled, stunned that he should think so.

Jim shrugged again, growing self-conscious under her scrutiny. "Well, sure. I mean, they say those guys are all logic and no feelings, right? I figure it must be pretty interesting to go head-to-head with that every day. Like, I dunno, a challenge. I've always been kinda good with challenges, I guess Vulcans'd be up my alley that way."

She could agree with the sentiment, mostly. A challenge some days, certainly, she thought dryly. A blatant test of endurance, others.

She couldn't resist. "You would enjoy matrimony with a member of another species exclusively based on your propensity for arguing with them? Why, Jim, that's not very pragmatic," Amanda teased. Not pragmatic indeed, she derided herself with some sense of irony. And then made a private little joke regarding pots and kettles.

Jim squinted at her and scowled without conviction. "Hey, first? I didn't say nothin' about marriage- girls'r hard enough to understand as friends." Amanda adopted a very concentrated expression- eyebrows drawn together, lips pursed- and nodded her head gravely in agreement. Jim got the distinct impression that he was being patronized. He soldiered on. "Second, don't throw a bunch'a big words at me just 'cause you think I don't know what they mean. Geez, you get such a big head before or after you moved in with Vulcans?"

When Jim took the opportunity at some later point in time to tell her exactly what extra-terrestrial animal her cackling reminded him of (and oh, he would), Amanda would deny that she was even so un-lady like as to know how to cackle. Then she would probably send him to bed, because there was only so much abuse one could take. For the immediate she just embraced her raucous laughter and swatted at him, which he doggedly avoided.

"Can I ask you a question?" he started when her glee quieted.

"You may ask me a second question," she replied with a smirk, sounding all too like the former school teacher.

Jim rolled his eyes but didn't stray off topic to barb back. "Do you... I mean, you live with 'em, so I guess you'd know, so uh, do you believe what everybody says about Vulcans? That they don't have any emotions?"

Well, that was the last question she could have expected. Amanda blinked slowly as her thoughts recollected, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Why do you ask?"

Most people did not ask Amanda about Vulcans because most people were perfectly happy with their presumptions. Vulcans were intensely private creatures, which fueled the negative impression many Humans had of them, because people often scorned what they didn't- or couldn't- understand. Vulcans, being what they are, were generally satisfied to let them assume. Amanda had never considered that a child would give it much contemplation, but as was usually the case with Jim, she had to learn to let go of her own pre-conceived notions.

"I just thought- well, I mean, s'all you ever hear about Vulcans. And people say it like it's bad- like it's wrong somehow. I jus' thought that was kinda stupid. I mean, not Vulcans being stupid, but just that nobody even knows nothin' about 'em and they still talk crap. I thought maybe, I dunno, maybe it's not like us, like we do, but just because... that doesn't mean they don't feel anything, right? Or that it's bad? S'just different."

Even accustomed to Jim's higher-than-average intellect, there were still instances like right then, where Amanda found herself at odds trying to synchronize the sheer scope of that intelligence with the thirteen year old boy in front of her.

"Stuff like that bugs me," he continued, oblivious of her awe. "When people talk like they know somethin' but they don't. Frank said crap like that all the time, nasty stuff about other peoples' planets when mom wasn't around." Jim avoided clarifying how often that may or may not have been. "An' not just Vulcans, neither. Everyone got it. It was always stupid things, too, like what they ate or how they talked or what they looked like. I hated it. Growin' up with Frank... it was like if you weren't from Earth you didn't matter. I couldn't even bring friends home from school or anything, too scared he'd say somethin' awful and they'd hate me."

There was a drifting, far off look in Jim's eyes for a minute. A distant memory he'd caught himself up in. Then he shook his head and with a sheepish smile said, "Sorry, stupid people like that tick me an' I get carried away. Guess that's why I asked about Vulcans. Figure, you know, since I got the opportunity."

The words Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations sprang before her mind's eye, and Amanda was struck with a great epiphany. Here was a child who, in spite of his intolerant upbringing, was capable of totally embracing the ideals of IDIC without even knowing what name to give it. She didn't know if Jim could understand how extraordinary that was.

IDIC was a concept introduced by the Vulcans, and one most Terrans could not truly grasp until their adult years, and through great exposure to outside influences at that. Xenophobic ideals and prejudices were still heavily indoctrinated in many young species like that of Earth, even among its own brethren; parents passed it to their children who passed it to their children. It could take countless generations to come before they had hope of breeding out such a ceaselessly spanning history of discrimination (which exhibited itself, ironically, in infinite combination). There were fewer practitioners of the ideology still that could express it even a fraction as purely, over the course of an entire lifetime, as Jim had just done with a few imperfect sentences.

Even Vulcans themselves had not evolved so far in their mindset as they would like to proclaim. A fact made more than clear by the constant ostracization her human-blooded son suffered at their hands year after year.

Amanda must have been on her train of thought for longer than she realized, because by the time she surfaced Jim had pulled a knee to his chest and was tugging idly at his shoe strings until they were almost completely un-looped. He looked very nervous, like he expected that she was mad at him for some reason, which was absurd. What reason could she possibly have to be angry with him? For speaking his mind?

"I thought 'cause you were married to one that I was prob'ly right," he mumbled, just to fill the silence. Or perhaps the thought he needed to explain himself. "I thought, you know, maybe I was... right." He huffed and yanked the string harder. "I sound stupid."

The falsehood of that statement was also absurd.

"No, Jim, I assure you, you do not sound stupid," she countered kindly, truthfully. "I'm not sure my marriage gives me much insight into Vulcans as a whole society, though." Which was a fib, actually, because marrying Sarek had submersed her as deep into their culture as any non-Vulcan could imagine being. Amanda was pushing the conversation, a tactic to keep Jim from pulling away from her and withdrawing into himself. It was an old song, and one she'd learned to sing well after twelve previous years of rehearsal. "How did you come to such a conclusion?"

Jim's cheeks flushed a light pink. He folded an arm over his knee and bent forward to rest his chin atop it. "You know what? I don't wanna be nosy, so, never mind okay?"

"Jim, it's alright to share your opinions. If I felt you were overstepping any boundaries, I'd have said so by now," Amanda assured him.

Jim pulled up the other knee. The silence stretched and she feared he'd shut himself down anyhow, but he again proved such concerns moot and answered her. "You... It's just... you married one of 'em. So I thought maybe I was right about Vulcans. 'Cause... 'cause love's an emotion, right? Like, a big one." He buried his nose in the crook of his arm so that his words came out muffled, but she could still make them out. "And... and... I don't think you'd marry someone who couldn't love you as much... as much as you loved them."

Her lack of vocals was most likely doing nothing to assuage Jim's misplaced guilt, but she couldn't help it if words were a struggle for her in that moment. Jim tucked the rest of his body in until he was balled up against the crates. It was painfully obvious that he thought he'd upset her further.

Of course Jim thought he'd upset her. It was the story of his life. He was always running his mouth until it got him into trouble. How many times, he asked himself, had Frank backhanded him for talking too much? And now he'd ticked off the one person in the entire universe that gave a damn about him. Vulcans weren't his business, and her life with them wasn't his business, and her marriage sure as hell wasn't his business. When was he going to learn to shut up?

"I'm sorry," he whispered, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't going to stand up and leave him by himself. He felt like a baby for it, and he knew he brought it on himself more often than not, but Jim was really sick of people up and leaving him. "Like I said, it's nunna my business. Don't know how many times I-"

"Jim," she cut him off. She wasn't sure why this child was so positive that everything he said was wrong, but she was not going to let him carry on that delusion, not in her presence. "I believe that you are one of the most insightful young men I have ever encountered. You don't need to apologize for anything."

A strange warmth washed over Jim at her words, an odd mixture of pride and embarrassment that made him want to grin to the moon and dig his head in the sand at the same time. He wasn't used to hearing praise, certainly not like that, and it was... nice. Unbearably nice. It sounded something like what he'd always hoped Winona would say. That she would finally look at him one day tell him that she was proud, that she- and the second he felt it, that pride, that hope, he instantly felt a shame ten times as potent. Because he was too old to start leeching onto substitutes now, wasn't he? This woman, Amanda, she had her own son, he reprimanded himself bitterly. Spock.

And even if she didn't, there was no room for Jim, not really. He knew all too well that it was one thing to be nice to him for a little while- a few days, a few months- but no one ever wanted him around for long. It hurt, but it wasn't like he couldn't understand it. Who could put up with an attention-starved little straggler like him for good? If someone felt sorry enough, maybe, but how selfish would it be to shove that on someone as nice as Amanda? Who had her own life and her own family and her own problems, and didn't need his mountain of issues piled on top.

He felt rotten, spoiled for even thinking about it.

Jim was suddenly nauseous, and felt ready to do anything to change the subject. "So, I bet you miss them, huh?" he blurted.

"Pardon?"

"Your family," he clarified. "I bet you miss 'em."

"Oh," she said simply.

Amanda did miss them, more than words alone could express, and would have been very happy to talk about it anyway... except she had the needling feeling that this detour of topic was not the typical flightiness of a child's attention, but a very deliberate attempt to divert her attention away from him. Of course, she knew better than to expect "typical" child behavior from him in any case, but Jim's reticence regarding himself both perplexed and distressed her. She could tell from her time with him that it was not a congenital introversion, that his aversion to the topic of Jim was self enforced, and rather brutally.

Amanda had over a decade's experience with such disciplines within young minds, as both a teacher and later a mother, and could have drawn several conclusions as to how his had come to be that way. For Jim however, she was growing to suspect, to fear, that there was a darker reality lurking.

"Jim," she began, and he must have recognized the intent in her voice, because he peered up at her with the most desperate look she'd ever witnessed. She stopped short, lips still parted in preparation to speak. The sudden, stifling tension froze the both of them for what seemed like hours. In reality, only seconds passed as her gaze searched his frantically, trying to read what he wasn't willing to say. A plea gleamed in the unusual brightness of his eyes. Please, they begged, please, please, please don't ask, I could break.

Amanda had no choice but to relent. If it would pain Jim to talk about, then she would not force the issue, not until she knew the depths of that pain and could tactfully approach it. But even as she let her intensity fall back, her expression told him to make no mistake, that it would be approached.

"I do miss them," she said softly, as if there had never been a break in their conversation, for Jim's sake. "Terribly. I speak with Sarek on the occasion that he isn't pre-occupied with his duties, and Spock I talk to at least every other day." The air was heavy around them, and she made a weak attempt to lighten the mood. "They pretend to only put up with my constant calling, for my emotional support I'm sure, but I think they miss me just as much."

Jim forged a tired, fragile smile up at her. His lips quivered with the strain of holding it. "I know they do," he said sincerely.

The smile did not reach his eyes, which had deadened now that panic was not the only thing alighting them, and Amanda knew instantly that she could not hold the façade. Jim was a smart boy, independent beyond his years, a fact that she tried her best to be as respectful of as possible without worrying herself sick. This time, however, she could not look away or leave him to his own devices; she was going to lose her mind if she pretended nothing was wrong for even one more second.

If Jim couldn't, or wouldn't, talk with her, she only knew of one other option.

"Have you..." she started and trailed off, not entirely sure of the suggestion she was about to make. She had her rising doubts about Jim's home life, particularly from what she'd heard of his step father, but he'd said very little regarding the other half of his parentage. Despite her insecurity, something desperately needed to happen here, and as much as Amanda wanted to take up that torch herself it was plain to see that Jim did not view her as the right person. It was hard, but she had to admit that perhaps she just wasn't. "Jim, when was the last time you spoke with your mother?"

A ripple of shock ran visibly through Jim's body, his every limb seizing up. It was like the current of energy around them changed, inverted, and buzzed over her uncomfortably down to the smallest hair follicle. Amanda got the very real sense that she'd just made a colossal error.

Jim stood quickly.

"Like, two days ago?" he said hastily, his tone overly flippant. A lie. "I dunno, she wanted me to come home but I said I wanted to stay an' help, you know?" A terrible lie, and one he couldn't possibly think she would accept. "And I do- wanna help, I mean- but I said it really 'cause I can't leave my kids."

Amanda pushed herself off the ground, too, standing to follow. "Jim-"

"The kids," he interrupted, voice higher than he might have intended. He was fidgeting and his eyes wouldn't stay on one point in the tent, and wouldn't meet hers. He backed away, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed and knew without a doubt that he was about to run. She moved to reach for him, had barely lifted her hand, and Jim jumped like a startled cat. "I should go check on 'em." His words hitched with the sudden jarring. "I've been spending too much time away anyways."

"Jim-" she tried insistently, desperately. The air shifted again, and his erratic behavior stopped only long enough for him to smile at her once more. There was a sad kindness in it, something old and weary that stopped her heart. It was an achingly lonely smile.

"Don't worry about it, okay? I'm fine. I'm always fine." This time the ground covered by his steps was generous as he backed swiftly from her reach. "I'm not gonna go go, so you don't gotta worry. I just wanna see my kids an' clear my head. I'll be back and finish helping." He gestured to the long forgotten chore strewn at their feet. "Okay?"

Jim didn't wait around for her to say no, that is not okay and in the time it took her to blink he was gone. Amanda knew there would be no finding him until he decided she could, and so she was left alone with her PADDs and her distraught self for company.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong. And how long, she wondered, had the signs been staring her in the face and she'd been as good as blind? Amanda could have hit herself; for all of her talk… Nevertheless, she had no time for wallowing over her ignorance. Amanda Grayson was not a woman of inaction, and as sightless as she'd been before, her vision was now twice as clear. The solution was logical: if something was broken, then it was to be fixed.

If something in Jim was broken, she would fix it.

With determination anew, Amanda pushed her official duties aside and made her way from the supply bay towards the communications tent. She allowed her mind to wander as she walked. The first thing the volunteers did when a civilian was recovered was contact any known relatives and apprise them of the survivor's condition and transport status. She remembered looking for Jim's the very day he'd given her his last name. She further recalled the sordid brand of relief it had been to find out he'd been staying with distant relatives on Tarsus. It meant, presumptively, that he was one of the lucky few who had a real family to return to. Amanda had not, however, been the one to make the call herself, as she now wished she had.

As she sped across the grey, impoverished landscape of the compound, kicking up a trailing cloud of dust and gravel in her haste, she thought back to what Jim had said about speaking with his mother. Amanda wondered how long it had truly been since their last communication, and how much it may have to do with his veiled malcontent now. What had they really spoken about, she asked herself, because Jim had provided her with a very abridged version of a very dubious scenario. Jim was tooth and nail intent on remaining with his kids, that much was true. Had that stubbornness provoked an argument when they'd last spoken? Had he been dealing with Frank?

Whomever, she was going to speak with them and get to the bottom of this. Amanda strode into the tent and spotted the volunteer on rotation for that shift. A dark, handsome young man in his mid-twenties named Katim. She'd had a conversation or two with him in passing, and thought that he was nice enough. He had plans to attend Starfleet the coming year, and had thought the volunteer work would be good for his application. She doubted that Tarsus had ever been what he'd had in mind.

"Katim," she greeted, smiling though she didn't much feel it. "Would you by chance have access to the colonists' call logs?"

"Sure, Amanda," he replied. Then after a pause said, "You look upset..."

"We'll see," she sighed vaguely with a light wave so that he might drop the issue. She doubted he was one to pry, really, and likely only mentioned anything out of courtesy. "I would like for you to pull up the contact registries for James Kirk, if you don't mind."

"Oh, the Kirk kid?" he said as he spun in his chair and tapped a command onto the touch screen at his left. "I've seen him in here a couple times. Not lately, though. I'd thought maybe they finally sent him home."

She made a non-committal noise, half listening while awaiting the information she sought. "Oh." She heard him murmur faintly. It was not a pleased sound.

"What?" she asked, voice filled with apprehension. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He frowned and quickly amended with, "Nothing technical. It's just... Well, look." He directed a hand to the larger screen positioned in front of Amanda. He tapped a new command and the black of the monitor flickered to white and then Starfleet blue. Letters and numbers scrolled across the screen and she immediately saw the name 'Kirk', and then the name 'Winona', and then the name 'James'.

"See the one at top?" he asked and she nodded. "That's the first call made to this number, the listing for Winona Kirk." He pointed helpfully as he spoke. "That first one was made by a doctor, probably when he was brought into camp originally, you know, standard procedure. You can tell the contact was successful by the time stamp here, and see the duration of the call here."

"I'm not sure I understand the problem. We were able to get in touch with his family and advise them of the situation, right?" she queried and faced him.

"Yeah, but, that's the only one that ever got through."

A look of confusion crossed her face as she turned back to the screen. She traced her finger across the white font of the other logs. "What about these? It looks like Jim has made several calls home."

"No one picked up, apparently," Katim rejoined, frowning deeper. To demonstrate, he scrolled the menu over and the red, bold face of the words that appeared after Jim's name- after his name each and every time- struck her like a slap to the face. 'Failed Connect' bled across the screen.

"No one... picked up," she echoed as if in a trance.

"Or ever called back," the man next to her added, voice softer to match her own. "Poor kid."

"How... how is he still here, on this planet, if we've had no correspondence? Someone must have arranged something," she pleaded, though to whom or what was anyone's guess. "Starfleet couldn't have just forgotten about him."

Katim shrugged. "It's damn sad but it doesn't surprise me with how crazy things get around here. Yeah, there's a few 'Fleet grunts out there-" at this he flipped his thumb behind him, gesturing to the camp grounds outside, "-but they don't pay attention to our side of the operation. We're pretty much on our own until they send a retrieval ship back out. Everything's so disorganized I'm not shocked a little kid like Kirk slipped through the cracks, especially if no one…" he choked off as he caught himself before the last word. After all, Amanda's regard for Jim was no secret around camp. Not that it mattered, because she already knew the end to that sentence.

"If no one cares," she finished, barely a whisper, bottom lip trembling.

No one... No one had answered Jim's calls. Her eyes scanned the lines, but the words and numbers were blurring together until they no longer had definite shape. There was a stinging behind her eyes, but she could not connect the sensation with the tears that were building. She felt utterly disconnected. No one, not once, had answered his calls. No one, not once, had made any attempt to call him. No one had done anything for Jim.

She was not cognizant of a thing Katim said in the afterwards, though peripherally she could hear him speaking, as if through a tunnel. Her awareness was rapidly fading from anything beyond her own pulse, which pounded in her ears. Amanda was an even-tempered woman by nature, never quick to anger even before pledging a life among Vulcans, but that did not mean the emotion was a complete stranger. No, she most definitely had a breaking point and had, in fact, reached it. She embraced her outrage like an old friend, and let it ground her as it swelled up in a flash of heat, wringing her insides until she felt like she might tremble apart at the seams.

For a small eternity, she could only think of one name. Spock.

Specifically, Amanda thought about how it would feel for her as a mother, to be told that her son (her heart, her life, her breath) had been in Jim's place. If Spock had been living on a world struck by famine, starvation and illness gnarling at his heels like a black plague. If Spock had been thrust, with no one to turn to, into the carnage of Kodos' senseless murdering. Spock outnumbered by death and rot wherever he turned. Spock brutalized, hunted by armed men three times his size, knowing they meant to kill him. Spock wasting, sick, hungry. Spock...

Amanda would lay down and die.

She could not begin to reason what kind of mother- what kind of woman who thought she had the nerve to call herself so- abandoned their child to a place like Tarsus. And Jim had been abandoned, of that she had no misgivings. Tears, refusing to be held at bay any longer, rolled hot and wet down her cheeks. She did not move, could not make a sound; did nothing to wipe the tears away even as they covered her chin and splashed on her collarbone.

Amanda was shocked still, seething, unable to understand the woman who had condemned her baby to Hell.

To Be Continued...

This is a non-profiting, fan-based work of fiction. Star Trek and all subsequent properties are (c) Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures.