He had been four, the day his mother came home from Starfleet medical. He'd been waiting for her and could hardly understand why his Grandpa was crying, and Grandma was holding a bundle of squirming blankets in her arms while his Mommy sat in her rocking chair and cried her eyes out.
He stared at the door, then, wondering where was his Daddy.
He had been four, at the time, and it took him a long time to understand that his Daddy was never coming home.
Grandma had showed him the content of her squirming bundle and Sam was shocked to see a sort of human-looking pink blob.
"Sam," she said, her voice cracking. "This is your little brother, Jim."
Later on, when asked what he had felt the first time he had seen Jim, he would have to be honest and say he had not felt a thing. Mommy had been crying, Daddy was not home and his little brother looked like a red, bloated monkey.
Jim was a blob of flailing limbs, scrunched eyes that did not really cry all that much, and whenever he actually did cry, Grandma would be by his side, feeling cooing and making everything alight again.
Mom would lie in her bed all day, staring at the ceiling, crying. Sometimes Sam saw her get up and wander their farm in her pajamas. Her pale face, unkempt hair and white camisole made him think she was a ghost, now, just like Daddy.
It was a year later that the connection between both siblings had been formed.
Sam had been woken by his brother's screaming, and no matter how much he waited, Grandma's light footsteps were not near his brother's nursery. He turned and tossed in his big-boy bed, waited for Grandpa to go then. His mother started whimpering from her own room, calling out his Daddy's name.
Sam had clenched his hands tightly, feeling his frustration turn to anger. Stupid baby Jimmy, how dare he wake him up in the middle of the night, how dare he make Mommy cry. How dare he come back when Daddy was left behind in space! Sam was five, he didn't need an annoying baby brother, he wanted his Daddy back home, his Mommy to smile like she used to, his Grandpa and Grandma to laugh like always.
He got out of bed, barefoot, and stalked noisily towards the baby's room, dragging a chair behind him so he could reach the top of baby Jim's cradle.
The baby was wailing by then, his face red and swollen, his tiny hands reaching for something Sam didn't understand.
"Shut up!" he yelled. "Aren't you a boy? Aren't you a Kirk? Boys don't cry! Especially Kirk boys!"
He'd been so angry then, so sick and tired and desperate. He had reached into the cradle with a fist to whack the baby on his tiny blond head, unleash the months of pain on him, when his Daddy's blue eyes stared tearfully into his own hazel ones.
The fist relaxed when curious fingers, tiny, so tiny, grasped his own and tugged on them experimentally.
It was as if a magic spell had fallen over their house, nothing existed but baby Jimmy's blue eyes and his little hand tight on Sam's. Everything became quiet and all the anger, all the pain left him as if drained out of him. It made sense, in a way. His father had thought Jimmy was worth enough to give his life for. He had protected Jimmy and their Mommy with all his might.
Jimmy was important to his Daddy, then.
Well, he could be important to Sam as well.
He found himself climbing into the cradle and taking the baby in his arms, giggling softly when Jimmy snuggled into his chest with a tired sigh, small hands clutching his shirt.
"So, you are just lonely," he whispered, running his fingers over his brother's soft hair. "It's ok; I get lonely too, sometimes. Don't worry Jimmy; big brother is going to take care of you from now on."
That morning, Grandma found them snuggled in Jimmy's cradle together, fast asleep. It would be the last time that cradle was used in their house.
Sam walked the deserted streets of Tarsus IV in shock. The air was thick and smoky, obscuring the sun from view enough to turn the cheerful buildings into shadowed monsters. From time to time a truck carrying corpses would pass him by towards the crematory, and the stench of rotting flesh would be pushed under his nose and made him gag. He didn't stop his walking, however, not even to puke.
Jimmy had yet to be found, they told him, and now it was his duty to find his baby brother.
Some of the survivors stumbled past him, sunken eyes watching distrustfully as the boy checked every nook and cranny, every building and ditch. Most of the faces he saw could hardly be called human, but he knew he would be able to recognize his jimmy's face in the middle of the groups of living skeletons, should he find him.
More often than not, he would pass a shelter, just one of the many tents the federation set as improvised hospitals. Sam would stop then, peer in, hardening his stare as rows upon rows of children looked hopefully at him before lowering their heads in disappointment.
"Any of you from juvie?" he asked, sighing when they all shook their heads. The routine would go for hours.
Sometimes wraith like figures clung to his clothes and begged for food, for help. Sam dutifully gave them a bottle of water and a chip that would signal Starfleet personnel of their position.
"Hold this," he would say. "The Federation will come for you in a moment."
The sun was setting down over the colony, Sam had not slept for the past two days and his feet were blistered and raw, when a tug on his pants made him stop to look down.
A child was crawling towards him on the boniest knees he had ever seen and hands that looked about to snap at any given moment. Sam had to find Jim still, the light was becoming scarce by the second, but he had sworn an oath and he wanted to become a doctor for a reason.
"Are you hurt somewhere?" he asked, kneeling by the boy. "Is your leg hurt?"
The boy looked at him with yellowed eyes, liver failure, he thought, and shook his head.
"He told me to crawl," the boy said weakly. His voice raspy and scratchy with misuse. "He said it would tire me less if I did." Sam realized there was no way the boy could stand on his own; the weight of his body would make his dizzy in his weakened state.
"Are you the only one left?" he asked, activating his last chip. The boy shook his head again.
"He said I should go and get help now that the soldiers are gone. That I should look for the people with the stars." And the boy opened one bloody hand; nails cracked, and drew a familiar shape on the dirt with a shaking finger.
The Starfleet symbol.
The boy had been sent to get help, crawling on his hands and knees to cover more ground before he fainted. He knew he had to look for a Starfleet badge and to differentiate soldiers from doctors.
Someone smart had sent the boy.
Someone who knew Starfleet.
"Who told you this?" he asked, taking the boy's hand in his own. Yellowish eyes filled with tears.
"Jim did. He's hurt. He needs help."
"He's alive?" Sam asked, heart hammering in his chest. The boy nodded.
"Jim's being taking care of me like Mommy said. Him, Tommy and I, we are the only ones left. He was trying to get a hailing frequency but he fell, he hurt his legs. Please help Jimmy! His big bro is waiting for him!"
Sam's eyes filled with tears then, his vision blurred.
"Where is he, I'll go get him," he begged, already doing a mental count of his supplies and what he could use if Jim couldn't walk on his own.
The boy pointed down the streets, eyes haunted.
"I came this way, Tommy went the other way, behind a tree there is a sewer, and we all hid there."
Sam was on his feet in an instant.
"Stay here, I'll go get them both," he said before rushing towards the sewer, his hands typing a message to medical. Three boys, he wrote, two are crawling near the perimeter, searching for help, the third on is on a sewer, I'm on my way to get him.
He dropped his terminal before he realized he had done so. His brother was alive, he was in pain but he was alive. Jimmy had kept his promise.
"Jim!" he cried as he entered the sewer. "Jimmy! Answer me! It's me! It's Sam!"
A breezy hiss reached his ears. Sam jumped onto the water, navigating between waste and darkness unmindful of the stench, following the sound of shallow breathing.
"Jimmy, one more! I need to know where you are!" he yelled. Silence fell.
Long, painful, heart-breaking second passed, stabbing Sam with each beat of his heart. Was Jim dead? Was he too late? Had he come this far only to find his baby brother's corpse?
Then, he heard it.
It was faint, weak; everyone else would have missed it.
Clank… clank… clank….
Someone was banging something against the copper pipes. Jimmy was trying to guide him.
He ran.
Having already seen most of the survivors, Sam thought he was ready for everything. He'd seen people so sick the only thing the doctors could do for them was to put them to sleep. Corpses of all sizes and shapes, some with huge bite marks on their legs and arms. He'd read every report, studied all witness accounts.
He knew by now what kind of horrors had happened in the colony.
He thought he was ready to see his little brother; he was prepared to rescue Jimmy.
The sight that greeted him when he finally reached his brother, however, froze his insides and, as an anguished wail was ripped from his throat, he realized he would never be ready to see Jim hurt.
Or if that pale, skinny figure with yellowed eyes, twisted gingers and scabbed lips was his little Jimmy. Those blue eyes stared at him worriedly, a hand was clutching a rock tightly, fingernails gone, maybe fallen off, most likely eaten in desperation. Jim's blond hair, the one he adored to run his fingers through, had fallen due to malnutrition and hardly covered his brother's skull. The sunken cheeks were red and he could see the rotten front teeth on his Jimmy's mouth.
Sam felt like crying.
"Ssss'my…" his brother hissed. "Ou…came... fr me…" A twisted and bloodied hand reached weakly for him. Sam grabbed it as if his life depended on it. It did, in fact.
"Of course I came!" he whimpered. "I promised I would."
"'kept ur proms," Jim said with the best smile his rotten mouth could muster.
"Sure we did, kiddo," Sam smiled back, tears streaming down his face. "This is going to hurt, Jimmy, but I need you to hold as hard as you can, I'm gonna take you out of here."
"Hum?"
"Yeah, Jimmy, we're going home."
"… ghd…"
Silence fell between them as Jim gritted his teeth, trying not to scream as his brother picked him up in his arms. Sam could not appreciate the way Jim's legs where twisted in an impossible angle, how the skin of his back was raw.
The splashing sound of Sam's footsteps was the only sound they heard as they left the sewer.
Outside, Admiral Archer was waiting for them, a boy in his arms that Jimmy identified with a weak laugh.
"Jimmy!" the boy cried happily.
"Hey…tmmy," Jim said, resting his head on Sam's shoulder.
Admiral Archer nodded at Sam proudly and motioned him to the ambulance waiting for them. Inside, the first little boy, the one that had lead him to his brother, was waiting for them. Sam boarded it with a grateful smile, allowing the little boy, now identified as Kevin, to cry to his leisure while holding one of Jim's bloody hands.
Not once did he let go of his brother's shaking body.
To be Continued.