Some deeply buried, intensely selfish part of Jim wanted to stay in the rubble of the collapsed village, enduring the bombs and the pain, letting himself go numb from every lurch of the earth and every fire that swept past. He was already halfway there, drifting blissfully, thinking the air had gotten pleasantly cool in the last ten minutes, staring at a blank face of rock, charred and shattered over the ground while dark gray smoke drifted around the forgotten town in lazy tandem.
He breathed slowly, shallowly, distantly wondering if his lungs were black and swollen, bearing a resemblance to the lungs of those old-age smokers. He remembered seeing pictures in school, wondering why anyone would deliberately poison their body. Just two years later, he took his first drink and never really put the bottle back down. The irony made him want to laugh but that brought him back to the problem with his lungs, which currently felt like they were filled with gravel.
He wanted to stay in the quiet and the smoke, listening to the rasping sounds of his breath, waiting for the Enterprise to return, knowing it will, knowing because they wouldn't leave him here alone even if he told them to they'll come back they won't let it happen to him again-
The baby in his arms wailed.
Jim started, the movement making his back slide against the wall behind him. He bit his lip so as not to scream, the burns making their presence known once again. The fog in his mind lifted, the pleasant chill dissipated, the blissful numbness evaporated into thin air and he was here again, poisoning his lungs with every breath he took and more importantly, so much more importantly, endangering the life of a baby.
Before he really knew what he was doing, he was standing, lurching to his feet using one arm to cradle the infant and the other to stabilize himself against the wall. The moment he straightened, he remembered the tiny fact that they could very well still be under attack. But no bomb had fallen since the one that'd so graciously ripped open his back. Of course, he had no idea how long ago that had been, but he was reasonably sure the immediate danger had passed. So with a relatively clear mind (who's dropping bombs why are they trying to kill people what's going on who's attacking my ship I hope they got away safely please don't come back I have a bad feeling about this something awful is going to happen but if you happen to get together a fleet and want to bring me home well I'd be fine with that) he stepped out into the town square.
Surrounding the place where the bombs had detonated, soot stained the ground, stopping in a semi-circle where he'd lain. Seeing the silhouette of his body on the ground made the pain flair up again, but he pushed it to the back of his mind as he tried to decide where he should go. More than anything he wanted to go back to the rendezvous point to wait for the Enterprise, but he knew that was stupid and he needed to stop thinking about rescue. He needed to think about survival.
Logically, he knew he needed to keep moving. He needed to find running water and food and shelter and, if he was lucky, some friendly locals to take the kid off his hands. Finally he decided to go east, opposite the direction of the rendezvous point. He picked his way around fallen rubble, an entirely different maze than before, completely reset by the last two bombs, until he finally reached the eastern edge of the village.
The village was situated on a gentle hill, so he'd have to go down the slight rise in order to reach the sky-high forest, and to who-knows-where after that. He walked slowly, trying not the jostle the infant in his arms who now seemed to be sleeping soundly, her head against his shoulder. At the bottom of the rise he stopped, swallowing down the unease as he saw again the scarcity of undergrowth in the sunlight-choked forest. Squashing down that age-old instinct, he stepped forward, allowing the shadows to swallow him up.
Jim doubted he'd ever get used to the ethereal beauty this planet had to offer. Like the lack of sunlight had leached all the color from the soil, and the rest of the world simply didn't have the inspiration to carry on with the hues it had once embodied. Or perhaps he was simply delusional, he thought after an hour of walking with no apparent change in scenery. It was the same shaggy-moss trees, randomly placed weathered boulders, and low-lying colorless shrubs. Maybe he was going in circles- but he didn't think so, since he's pretty sure he'd remember seeing that not-so-subtly phallic rock over there.
When finally, delirious with pain and exhaustion, Jim had to stop walking, he fell to his knees in front of one of the sky-reaching trees. He couldn't even tell if it was nighttime, or if the forest had gotten any darker during his agonizing walk. Breathing hard, fighting the nausea rising in the pit of his stomach, he pressed his forehead to the shaggy tree both for the support it offered and for the coolness it seemed to radiate. The child in his arms had awoken not long ago, wailing again in an unarguably healthy voice that contrasted with his own raspy breathing.
After carefully leaning his side against the tree, Jim uncovered the child's face and smiled down at her, hoping she was too young to see he was scared or unsure or whatever. He'd learned pretty early on that kids don't take well to their caretaker's weakness. "Hey, babe. You hangin' in there?"
The infant blinked up at him owlishly, her eyes scrutinizing him. Her eyes were really very strange, he'd decided early on. Besides being very large and wide-set, the iris took up the majority of the eye, reducing the sclera to a thin ring of white around the rim. The pupils were large as well and were extremely sensitive to light, in seconds going from the size of a penny to the size of a pinhead. It was disconcerting, really. And all that without taking into account the actual color of her irises, which was a rich, shimmering gold that stood out even in the dark.
"Yeah, I know I look like shit," he grumbled, bouncing the baby on his knee. "We can't all have fucking unicorn eyes, you little fish-thing." The child giggled, showing sharp teeth that, along with her fin-like ears and ridged cheek bones, gave her a rather frightening appearance. "Scratch that. Little shark-thing." She laughed again and he found himself smiling back, his thirst and hunger and pain and exhaustion forgotten, if only for a little while.
That night (night? Day?) was one of the worst he'd ever experienced, and that was truly saying something. He entertained the baby until she had finally fallen asleep again, her mouth drooping open and soft noises signifying her deep, even breaths. For hours he lay like that, his side against the trunk of the tree, staring out into the forest, unable to close his eyes.
He wasn't afraid. No, he told himself over and over, he wasn't afraid, never afraid again, not of this, but its hard to convince himself when he smells burning flesh and hears Kevin screaming for help and watches Mara fall as a phaser blast tears through her. And he's thirsty and on edge and in pain and with ever shiver that wracked his over-stressed body he sees another friend dying-
Jim awoke, gasping, sobbing for breath, sweating in the heat and shivering with the force of his long-suppressed memories. For a long moment he sat there trying to keep his head together, trying to stave off the despair and fear and hopelessness and failing, failing miserably. Some captain he was, unable to keep hold of his sanity after one fucking night alone in a dark forest. But he didn't know, couldn't have known, that the open, white-lipped blisters across his back had burst, and the infection was setting in fast.
Coherent thought was becoming more and more difficult, but he steeled his resolve. Carefully he picked up the infant and staggered to his feet, sweat slicking his skin and a bright fever-blush across his ashen face. He set off in the direction he'd been going, trying his best not to stumble on the rocky soil.
An hour passed.
An hour, and the baby was awake and crying, probably starving. Jim was thirsty and exhausted and hungry as well but the thought of eating anything made him violently sick, heaving up bile behind one of the shaggy moss-trees. Still he stumbled on while his head pounded and his face burned and he couldn't see straight, could hardly walk.
The trees began to thin out. He didn't realize it at first, until the pervasive smell of burning flesh that had seemed to follow him around was replaced with the fresh, clear smell of running water. He was sure he was delirious, his mind trying to appease his waning sanity by giving him what he wanted most. However, when the trees finally stopped, he saw the thing he'd most hoped for.
A broad creek, moving slowly and peacefully in a serpentine path through the woods, slicing the forest through as it gurgled softly over the banks. The water was deep and clear down to the bottom where smooth stones in a thousand different colors rested. Jim have a short, choked laugh that probably sounded closer to a sob as he stepped forward, completely entranced by the sight of the water.
He set the baby down on the bank after he fell to his knees beside the water. Without preamble he dunked his head in, relishing the cool rush of it across his heated skin, and drank and his fill in huge, heaving gulps. He came up for air eventually, breathing hard and feeling revitalized by the chill. Briefly he wondered how he would go about getting the child to drink, but it turned out the baby was perfectly capable of drinking from his cupped hands in front of her lips.
For an indefinite amount of time they sat on the bank, Jim suddenly completely unsure what to do, where to go, like the fog in his mind had lifted and here he was- on the bank of a river in the middle of nowhere with no rescue in sight and a baby, who was at the moment chewing gently on his fingers with pin-sharp teeth. "You doing okay, babe?" He found himself talking, stroking the baby's long black hair, caressing the soft plumpness of her dark red cheek. "Wish you could tell me what happened back there. You probably didn't even see much. Just a lot of noise and suddenly you're all alone, buried under a wall."
Huge, liquid gold eyes stared back at him, full of a blossoming trust and adoration. His throat felt like it was closing up, but he pressed on. "I just hope everyone got out of here. Sulu sounded pretty shook up, which isn't like him. You'd like Sulu. Hell, everyone likes Sulu. No one ever has a bad word to say about him. Except Chekov. Says he's reckless and too smart for his own good- all that couple-y stuff. It's really pretty cute."
He stopped, and the infant lifted her short, chubby arms, reaching for his face. She had six fingers on each hand, the extra one being a second thumb that came after her pinky. She grazed her slightly webbed fingers across his cheek, a wide smile showing all of her sharp little teeth. Jim grinned in reply, unprepared for the rush of affection he felt for the little girl. That affection, more then regard for his own health, was what propelled him to plan again.
"Alright, we should follow the creek downstream," Jim said out loud, having found that talking to the infant lifted some of the horrible anxiety off of his shoulders.
The girl turned her face to the water again, and Jim, thinking she wanted another drink, set her down on the ground and turned away to scoop some water up into his hands. The next thing he heard was a small splash, and when he looked over where he'd set her, all that was left was her pink blanket, discarded in the mud.
He didn't hesitate, hardly had a single thought before he was in the water, his entire body submerged in the slow-moving, blissfully cool creek. The water closed around his head and he was under, panicked, looking and not seeing and when he came up for air-
She stared right back at him, treading water like she'd done it her whole life.
Jim choked, then he laughed, and soon he couldn't stop and she was giggling right along with him, her tiny stubby limbs keeping her afloat and he really should have realized the whole resemblance-to-a-shark thing wasn't a coincidence. When he straightened, he found that the water was level with his collarbone at its deepest point, and he just watched her, a little red blur, swimming like an otter through the depths.
"You're a pain in the ass," he muttered when she resurfaced again. She paddled to him, reaching out with those chubby webbed fingers, and he pulled her to him, letting her cling to his arm with surprising dexterity. He couldn't help the surge of gratitude he felt for her, as though she had any idea what she was doing. A little baby girl was holding back all the memories he'd stored away (no stay back never again forget forget keep it hidden go away no) like other children had, a long time ago.
After he retrieved her pink cloth from the bank, he decided it'd be a lot easier to just let the creek carry them along. Besides, the cool water was heaven on his back, relieving if only a little bit the searing and melting of his skin. So they drifted downstream, Jim watching the amazingly precocious alien baby while she swam- somewhat clumsily- but completely naturally.
It could have been hours later, he wasn't sure, but his fingers were pruny and his back was flaring with pain again when he heard a rustling in the brush alongside the creek. He stood immediately, stumbling over smooth stones and struggling for balance in his water-heavy uniform. He held the baby closely, covering her up with the soaked pink cloth while he stared, wide-eyed and completely on edge, at the sparse vegetation where their follower lurked.
A pair of deep golden eyes rose above the brush, and then the barrel of an old-fashioned rifle.
Jim had hardly recognized the primitive weapon for what it was before the bullet hit him.
Sorry oops that was jerkish of me ha guess you're going to have to read the next chapter. Sucks for you.
Also, I have a lot of daddy!Kirk feelings. Obviously.
Writer tip: make alien species its really fucking fun omg.
Thank you to my lovely reviewers for the last chapter: Deanadelyon and See Me As I Am 101. Your support is the greatest thing ever so yes please keep doing that I am a fragile flower. I need constant reassurance that people don't want to kill me. It's a stressful life.
Please review! Please!