"You're hurting yourself, Jim," Zlinzee's soft hands enfolded his, pulling them away from the crude spear he was knapping at with a sharp stone. Her thumb brushed at the burgeoning cut on his knuckle, smearing crimson over encrusted dirt. She was pretending not to notice the other spears strewn all over the ground, the result of a day's work while the traumatized village attempted to draw themselves together in the ash-colored forest.
Jim tried to tug his hands away, his muscles already shaking from the strain of staying still. "Let go," he mumbled half-audibly, feeling his thoughts returning without a mindless activity to distract him, his fingers twitching in his friend's solid grasp. His feet were numb, his legs curled and cramped underneath him, and it had passed his mind once or twice that his posture didn't feel quite natural- like he was curling in on himself, blocking out life beyond making spears.
Zlinzee repositioned herself, pushing the weapons aside so she knelt in front of him, trying futilely to catch his flighty gaze. "Why are you doing this, Jim? You've hardly spoken all day, and Jamie is crying- Jim, please look at me." He does, just a quick, fleeting glance, before he is looking at their entwined hands again. His chest hurts.
"She's dead, Jim," Zlinzee says it with such sincerity but Jim almost laughs, because God, he misses Bones. "Chenla is dead and it's not your fault." When he doesn't answer she looks angry, like he was doing this on purpose, like he wanted to hurt her with his silence- and then her face softened again, because of course she'd seen.
"We have to fight," he tore his hands from hers, exploding into motion, no longer able to keep still with the flame of fear in his veins. "There's no other way, Zlinzee, we have to-"
Zlinzee grabbed his hands again and the rage he felt was suddenly so vibrant that he stood, shaking, unable to balance on his weak, weak legs, and God, everyone was looking at them now- and Zlinzee was still on the ground, but silver blood was now dribbling from the side of her mouth and she was staring at him with huge, terrified eyes and- and he had hit her.
Dizziness and nausea slammed into him hard, knocking him back a few steps with his hands in the air, palms up, trying to seem nonthreatening and muttering a broken litany of apologies which dissolved into the still, dry air. No one was moving and she was still staring at him with eyes that were as wide and as frightened as Ki'one's, and he had put that expression there, he had hurt her.
There was guilt and anger and shame in his very bones, and he could hardly breathe for the constricting weight of it, crushing his lungs and his breath into tiny jagged pieces that burned with every inhalation. He needed to make it right, fix it, somehow- because he had hurt someone he loved, he had hurt Zlinzee.
"Zlinzee, I-" he broke off as one of the men in the crowd stepped forward, fury making his footsteps loud and exaggerated. Jim's strength had dissipated as quickly as it had appeared and he was left with shaky uncertainty, which blossomed into panic at the man's threatening approach. He stepped back, feeling cornered, his gaze flitting between the advancing Frooliin and Zlinzee, who was still watching him, still silent.
Suddenly she raised a hand, and the man stopped, still glaring silently, and Jim let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. "God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-" he cut himself off because his words sounded plastic, like Frank the first time he hit Sam, and now all the silver dust on his skin felt suffocating.
"Why are you here, Captain?" A woman cried from the gathered crowd, a toddler bundled in her arms. She covered the child's face, curled inward, as though protecting her baby from danger- from Jim. Another man stood beside her and nodded, and Kress was staring coldly, accusation making her eyes flash. "Why don't you go back where you came from?"
I want to, he screamed internally, God, I want to go home. But instead he was looking around, the sparse undergrowth panicking him more than ever because he needed to run, right now, and there was nowhere to hide. "We cannot trust someone who tries to hide!" that was another woman, and murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd. "See how he desires to run. He is secretive."
"I'm not lying about anything!" he said, trying to sound sure of himself, but it came out as a wheezing cry- like he was asking for mercy. "I'm James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise- and I came here on a mission to document wildlife- and I've told you all this before! I'm not lying!"
His voice had risen to a yell, and silence fell in response. Zlinzee was getting to her feet, steady now that the shock had passed. Still she watched him cautiously- was she scared of him or for him?- and Chenla's death was going to be for nothing because he was going to be killed right here and right now by a peaceful, honest species.
Krell stepped forward, and the silence only became more deafening. She was as scraggly and tired as the rest of them, but she glowed with an inner fury that turned her golden eyes a liquid, searing shade, and for the first time Jim saw what a beautiful woman she would become- or would have become, if this tragedy hadn't stolen her mate and her smile. "So what if you're not lying?" she muttered, and the knot in Jim's chest moved up somewhere near his throat. "You can't even remember the truth."
Several things happened at once, though everything was dull background noise compared to the first hot and blinding wave of agony that tore through his head, a brilliant explosion of color and white noise that sent him to his knees with no breath in his lungs. Somewhere beyond the gauze of misery, Zlinzee screamed at Krell, something that sounded like panic, like she knew what was happening. And Ruhn appeared in front of him only for a moment before his outline wavered and his outstretched hand morphed into fearsome, shadow-clad claws.
Jim flinched back, away from the hand that wanted to help him, the cataclysmic supernovae behind his eyes ripping away any notion of rational thought- he was burning, the soot scouring his throat and the embers digging into his knees and he didn't want to remember- the fear and the feelings were bad enough without the images, the unshakable certainty that he was there, he witnessed it all, it was him- and he couldn't ignore it or handle it right now this was too much-
A hand on his shoulder felt cool and was likely meant to be soothing, but the shock of it made it feel like another burn- and it was like those weeks after he'd gotten back and he flinched at his own shadow- because he was so afraid and so tired and so helpless. The scream that resounded through the dry, choking air wasn't his own, because his body was locked in the torrent overpowering him- so it had to be Zlinzee, because she still loved him even though he'd hurt her- and he couldn't handle the screaming when his family burned.
Blindly he lurched to his feet, static images shuddering in the white sheet over his vision and briefly he glimpsed Zlinzee and Ruhn and Kress and Jamie (Ki'one and Mara and Kevin and Thomas) and when he staggered away they didn't follow him.
McCoy took great pride in his work, and contrary to popular belief, he rather enjoyed it. He loved the overjoyed look on a young ensign's face when he told her that the kind, cool superior officer she'd been pining over would recover from her flu just fine, or the relief that said superior officer expressed having been told she could return to duty. He loved the accomplishment and the happiness and the feeling like a god.
But if there was one person in the world who could remind him that he was only human, it was Jim Kirk. The kid had so much energy he could give a man a heart attack just chasing after him, "as though I had nothing better to do today, Jim!" and that was without all the shit he got up to as Captain.
He'd always known, on some level, that there was something very off about Jim. Something other than the flinching and the abandonment issues- he knew enough about psychology to recognize the signs of child abuse- festered under the surface of golden smiles and a devil-may-care attitude. He never pushed, even though he could barely stand the look on Jim's face sometimes- the one that spoke of rage and fear long buried.
How he learned about Tarsus IV wasn't all that climactic. He'd expected that someday, something would set Jim off and he would reveal the truth behind that look he got when he thought no one was watching. But there was nothing, at least nothing that McCoy knew of. It just happened, which seemed a little strange, but not all too unlikely for sufferers of PTSD, he supposed.
One day in their second year at the Academy he walked into their dorm, and there was Jim, sitting on his bed, knees curled to his chest. McCoy was a little concerned at first by the blank, unmoving stare the man wore, and that concern deepened to full-fledged panic when he saw the raw and bloodied skin of the kid's arms.
"You know, when you starve," Jim's voice sounded so far-away and empty it seemed for a moment he was a different person entirely, picking at his arms with swift, deft movements, tearing away clumps of hair and flesh. "When you starve, your skin starts to grow all these little hairs. Real soft, downy ones, like bird feathers, and they grow everywhere because you don't have any fat left and your body can't insulate itself."
The methodical plucking had left Jim's arms almost bare, and to say McCoy was confused couldn't begin to suffice- because he was terrified and frozen and he'd never seen Jim like this. "What're you doing, Jimmy?" he said it as softly, as steadily as he could, stepping forward as much as he dared.
"It feels unnatural, the hair," Jim continued as though he hadn't heard him, his picking suddenly morphing into erratic scratching, leaving white furrows dragging across the red skin. "I picked it all off when I got back but it always grows in again. I know it's not the same- it's normal hair, the hair you have if you're not starving, but I still-" some emotion finally showed on his face, a flicker of uncertainty, silent torment. "My fingernails never fell off. It's weird, because everyone else's did, so- so if I don't have that pain, I have to make up for it somehow-"
Having had enough, McCoy closed the distance between them and grasped hard the bony wrists of his best friend. Immediately, he knew it was the exact wrong thing to do. Practically the first rule when dealing with a victim of PTSD was never to touch them without express permission, and when every line of Jim's body went stiff and brittle under his touch, it was obvious that permission hadn't been granted.
The tension in Jim's arms snapped suddenly, and McCoy was thrown backwards with the force of the punch that caught him in the windpipe. He sprawled back against the bed, unable to suck in a wheezing breath before Jim was upon him, his hands scrabbling to get a firm hold on McCoy's neck. His eyes were wild, animalistic, lost somewhere beyond their little dorm room, the emotion churning within them standing in stark contrast to the blank, expressionless planes of his face.
McCoy tried to pry the grasping hands from his neck to no avail, managing only to aggravate his friend into further tightening his grip. "Jim," he choked, his eyes struggling not to roll back in his head and his lungs burning with their yearning for air. "Jim," he could hardly manage the second utterance, his muscles suddenly too weak to continue his desperate struggle.
As suddenly as the assault began, it ended, with the hands loosening and then flying away from his throat, the world spinning as it tried to right itself in the wake of a catastrophic collapse- and then he was heaving in great gasps of air, his diaphragm spasming with the strain of it, and Jim's voice echoed loud and panicked in his ears.
"Bones," Jim whispered, his hands moving to cup McCoy's face, gingerly touch the blossoming bruises on his throat, rub soothingly across his back and ease the ceaseless rippling in his chest. "Bones, Bones, God, Bones I'm so sorry, Bones," it was a litany that was comforting in its humanity, in its lacking the wooden countenance of moments before, and McCoy wished he could speak, only to say it wasn't Jim's fault.
Jim didn't talk to him for two weeks after that. He was terrified, obviously, and he showed it in the way he vacated their dorm, staying with Gaila or some other friend, in the way he wouldn't even look at him during their classes. A week after the incident, McCoy mustered up enough courage to ask Pike for access to Jim's personal records. It was all there for him, typed up neatly and clinically, and he spent the better part of that night throwing up.
They never talked about it. When Jim finally returned to their dorm, with his bag he never unpacked slung over his shoulder and his eyes observing the ground intently, it was when McCoy was sitting at the desk with his PADD in hand. He didn't look up, and he didn't speak for a long moment. "So. Tarsus, huh?"
When Jim didn't reply, McCoy looked up. The kid was standing there still, staring at the same place on the floor, his hands shaking minutely. Finally he gave a tiny, jerking nod, like even that tiny admittance was too much. McCoy stood up and hugged him tightly and they never mentioned it again.
So, yes, McCoy knew about Tarsus. As far as he knew, he was the only person without any real authority over Jim to know about it, and that was humbling unto itself. But sometimes, sometimes it seemed that Jim himself didn't know.
There were days when the strange look on his face wasn't one of dread or fear, but instead of confused apprehension, like he was looking at someone whose name he couldn't place. These were Jim's "good days," days when he wouldn't have nightmares or flinch when someone brushed against him or stare at food like it was the single most confounding thing on the planet. Logically, that meant the strange gaps in memory were a good thing. But there was something insidious about them.
Because when Jim had "bad days," he crashed and burned, like every memory he shoved away was coming down on him in a scalding wave. He quaked under the pressure, his every little quirk exacerbated into full-fledged symptoms of disorders McCoy didn't want to name and somehow Jim had managed to hide it all for two years- or had McCoy simply not been paying attention?
Eventually, the picking stopped, at least. McCoy had managed to convince Jim to begin taking medication for his OCD, but it had made him depressed and lethargic, so instead he relied on sheer force of will to suppress his compulsions. It hurt to see his best friend so obviously struggling not to harm himself, even if it was involuntary, but he had to admit his admiration for Jim's strength and resolve. He would never tell him that, of course.
Now, he sort of wish he had. He wished he had told the kid a lot of things, honestly- God, he wished he had told him just how much he was loved and that he was worthy of being loved, dammit, he was worthy of the stars. But Jim- well, Jim was gone. Not dead, not alive, just gone.
These thoughts that tormented him could be suppressed during the day, when he drowned himself in his work, but now in the privacy of his quarters he couldn't help but allow them to slip into his conscience. With a hearty sigh he put his PADD down on his desk, knowing he wouldn't be able to concentrate on the report as long as he kept thinking about his friend.
McCoy sat that way for what felt like hours, staring at the fine grain of his antique wooden desk, the silence of the ship more oppressive than he'd ever known to be possible. Even the omnipresent whirring of her internal mechanisms seemed dull, softened by a lack of inspiration. Everything seemed quiet now, even the silver flash of stars and the bright whisper of alien frequencies.
He was torn from his reverie by a pleasant voice outside his door. "Doctor McCoy, may I come in?"
It took him a moment to fully grasp the request, but finally he replied. "Yes, come on in, Lieutenant Uhura."
The door slid open smoothly, and McCoy rose to meet his friend. The two had grown close, especially after the incident with Khan, and their shared frustration over their Captain's reckless behavior was a point of bonding for them. Despite this, McCoy still wasn't sure about her relationship with Jim- she most certainly didn't dislike him like she did before, and it seemed sometimes that they were tiptoeing on the edge of something more- and if anything, it seemed Spock approved. Sometimes, McCoy caught the stoic Vulcan gazing at Jim with that look he reserved only for Uhura.
Of course, McCoy wanted to keep his head, so he never questioned any of them about it, but he never missed the warmth that seemed to emanate from the three whenever they were together.
Today, Uhura surprised him. As soon as he came near her, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. For a moment he stood, not entirely sure what the protocol was for this, but eventually he encircled her waist loosely with his arms. "So, er, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
She gave a strangled, euphoric laugh, her warm breath puffing against his neck. "We get to go back for him, Len," she was shaking the slightest bit, a cathartic wave of anxiety and excitement, her joy tempered by the knowledge that they could be signing up for a fruitless search. "We're going to bring him home."
McCoy found that he couldn't quite speak, so he laughed instead, his grip around his friend tightening imperceptibly. He wanted to tell her everything he knew- the truth, as gory and agonizing as it was, all the things that Jim Kirk was hiding from, all the things that he knew would come to light in the wake of- of whatever he was going through now. Because McCoy knew in his heart that the Captain was alive, and he was still afraid of what they would find.
So we're just going to ignore me being gone for half a year, okay? Okay.
Hi, I'm back!
Reviewers last time around were Archer83, Doodle0505, and Eternal She-Wolf.
Please, please, please review- it helps me update quicker because I am a small bird who needs constant attention or else I will die.