A/N I know some will probably not be pleased with a decision I made in this chapter. I do lay out a lot of the reasons for it in the chapter itself, but if you want to talk further, please do it politely, and I will do my level best to respond quickly.

Disclaimer: Despite my dreams for most of my life, I actually don't own Star Trek.

Sulu looked up as he heard the doors to the mess hall slide open and winced as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock paused to take in the sight before them. Tables and chairs strewn every which way, ominous-looking streaks of red splattered all over, members of Kirk's crew as well as guests bruised and battered. Sulu felt the regret coming over him. He didn't regret his reaction, but the Captain would not be any happier about this simply because they were defending him. To have a number of his crew, including senior officers for crying out loud, getting into a brawl with his guests would cause a heap of trouble for the captain. Kirk had enough problems on his hands already, and Sulu felt sorry he'd contributed to adding to them.

"Report, Mr. Hendorff." The Captain called to the security officer in the tone he always used in that rare instance when a matter of ship's discipline came up.

"Sir, security received a call about ten minutes ago and arrived two minutes later to find a… well, a bit of a scuffle going on between most of the crewmembers present and a number of the guests, sir."

"Fantastic." Kirk said dryly as he acknowledged the report with a nod while continuing to take in the scene. Sulu had to admit to being quite impressed at the Captain's lack of any reaction whatsoever when he saw Frank sitting across the room with a large cut on his forehead, a number of bruises, and several rips in his jacket.

"Bones?"

The doctor stood up, having been crouched on one knee running a medical scanner over a lieutenant wearing what was once a gold command tunic but was now too splattered with red to hold the distinction. "Nothing too serious. Some contusions, blunt-force trauma. No serious injuries. Just your basic barroom brawl."

"Something you know nothing about, isn't that right Captain?" Sneered Frank from where he sat.

Kirk ignored him as he gave McCoy an incredulous look. "No serious injuries?! What about that?" Kirk pointed at the reddened crewmember McCoy had just come from. "Or that?" He shifted his finger towards the new color scheme on the far wall."

McCoy responded with a sardonic chuckle. "Oh that isn't blood. Hanson took his turn in the kitchen today for an encore presentation of his grandmother's pasta sauce. Naturally the one day he finally agrees to make it again is the one day where it means there was just a lot more to go flying around once the fighting started. Almost gave me a coronary when I walked in."

The Captain exhaled in obvious relief. "Well, I'm glad to hear that much at least. Any idea how this little rumble got started?"

The doctor smirked. "You'd never believe me if I told you." And with that he gestured to Kirk's left, towards the huddling figures of Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, who was spouting a nice shiner next to his left eye and gazing every which way around the room that did not lead towards his Captain, and Sulu himself, who wilted under the disappointed and disbelieving gaze of his Captain.

"Scotty?" Kirk asked, his voice tinged with disbelief. "Sulu?"

"Aye, sir?" Scotty replied, doing his level best to sound innocent and ignorant and failing brutally. Sulu couldn't muster himself up enough to do that much.

"I don't- why?"

The two men traded looks. "Well, sir-"

"Oh, bravo, bravo. Captain grown-up is gonna discipline his crew for not being able to take someone not being able to call him like he is. Not only did you manage to not raise your monkey gang well enough to be able to keep their tempers, you also managed to be the big thing which sets them off. Well done, Captain."

Having had his question answered for him, Kirk turned to fix his glare on the figure of his step-father. "You know, I seem to recall giving you a warning about disrupting this voyage again."

Frank scoffed at Kirk's words. "Oh, so your crew throws the punches at me, and I'm the only one that you yell at. Mark of a great Captain, that is."

Kirk smiled thinly. "Oh no, that and only that is the reason I'm consenting to confine you to your quarters instead of the brig like I originally promised. And my punishment for their actions is not something I have any intention of letting you listen to." He gestured to Hendorff who in turn nodded to one of his guards, and the two men strode over to the now spluttering Frank and grasped him by the elbows.

"Y-You can't do this, Kirk!"

"Oh, I think you'll find that I can."

Frank continued stuttering for another moment before he stopped and shook his head before laughing uproariously. "Oh of course that's what you'd do you little punk. Blame me. Just like I'm sure you blamed your horrible old step-father for all of your mistakes. How else could you get into that academy of yours? They don't just take failure washouts normally. No, you just find someone else to blame it on. You'd never take the blame for your own mistakes. Nobody could ever get you to listen to anything. Not me, not Walken, not Barnes, not even Kodos!"

'I had to have heard that last name wrong' Sulu thought to himself. He glanced over to Scotty and some of the others only to find them making the same glances, willing everyone else's reactions to mean they hadn't heard the right name. Sulu slowly turned to look at the Captain, only to see all of the blood draining from his face. 'No!' Sulu thought to himself as he felt bile rising up in his throat. 'Not this. After this jerk and that woman, this is just too much. Please don't let it be true.'

"Oh, you never told you little gang all about big bad Tarsus? I can't imagine why, it would've been sure to get you more sympathy from them. You…" Frank didn't seem to realize nobody was listening to his rant anymore, everyone too busy focusing their eyes on the Captain.

Sulu saw a tiny bit of color come back to his skin as his eyes narrowed, his pupils swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Sulu knew this look. He'd seen it many times, most recently when Kirk saw through a convoluted plot by the Orions to trick the Enterprise crew into losing their spot in an auction for dilithium mining rights in the Penalde region. This was Kirk figuring out a puzzle, that genius-level brain of his stringing facts together to come to the final conclusion. He seemed to have reached that conclusion, for his eyes suddenly shot open, his face dominated by some kind of realization. It was what happened next, however, that would haunt Sulu's nightmares the most that night.

Kirk's eyes, those blue orbs that always shone with mischief, humor, anger, some kind of passionate emotion, seemed to bleed most of their color away. He opened his mouth to emit a feral snarl of primal animalistic rage. Yelling his cry to the heavens, Kirk charged right at Frank, his posture murderous. Spock was the only one who managed to overcome their shock enough to catch the Captain, but Kirk tore from the Vulcan's grasp with desperate strength, intent on continuing his attack. But this delay allowed the rest of the crew to snap out of their daze, and McCoy made a grab at Jim. It was clear he had no chance of holding the Captain right then, but this bought enough time for Spock to regain his grip on Jim. The two men wrestled with their Captain, calling his name repeatedly to no effect. Finally, Spock managed to get his fingers on Kirk's face and shouted "Jim!" with all his might. This managed what nothing else could, and the blue flooded Kirk's eyes again. He ceased struggling, falling limp and breathing heavily.

Several seconds passed, during which no one so much as dared to breathe, before Kirk nodded silently to Spock and McCoy, who released him but stood close by, looking concerned (or as concerned as Spock ever allows himself to look). Kirk took one step forward and raised his left hand, jerking his thumb towards the door behind him.

"Hendorff, throw him in the brig."

Hendorff shook himself out of his shock and nodded, before he and the guard with Frank's other elbow dragged him from the room, the hydraulic hiss of the closing doors leaving a stiff, oppressive silence in its wake.

Later that evening Jim sat in his cabin, the lights only at half illumination, his eyes not needing even that much as the only thing he saw were scenes long past. Scenes he'd tried so hard to banish from his memories, knowing full well he'd never fully succeed. He had asked, back when he let himself dwell, why? Why him? Now he at last had an answer to that question but it brought him no satisfaction. And that led him back to the doubts which had been plaguing him.

Kirk had no idea how long he'd sat there brooding before his dark thoughts were interrupted by the chime of the door. He wanted so badly to tell whomever had the gall to catch him while he was being morbid to go away, but as the Captain, it wasn't exactly the right message to send. And he'd already done enough to destroy that particular image today, so…

"Come."

Kirk didn't actually look at the door to see which of his friends had come. Beyond the footsteps entering the room they were absolutely silent, so he couldn't identify the voice. But as the doors shut behind them he caught a whiff of an exotic, forest-smelling fragrance, and he knew who had come.

"Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?"

Uhura was simply speechless. When she'd heard the gossip circulating about what had happened in the mess hall she had almost ordered two Ensigns to sickbay for a psychological exam to ensure they weren't delusional. Jim Kirk, on Tarsus IV? When she'd tracked down Sulu to drag the whole story out of him she'd almost thrown up. All she had to do was see the look in the helmsman's eyes and she knew immediately that there were no delusions. No rumors. Just plain, horrific facts.

She'd gone straight from Sulu to his quarters, needing to see with her own eyes that he was… not ok, because she knew seeing him would only make the exact opposite even clearer than it already was, but… intact. Even knowing the disaster had been years before they'd even met she felt an incomprehensible relief at seeing him alive and well. But now he was waiting for an answer, and she cast about wildly for something to say. What she landed on wasn't ideal considering the circumstances, but she knew him, and knew certain questions would be driving him crazy, so she decided to assuage those fears.

"Spock is going through the records now. He says he's already found ample circumstantial evidence from previous years. He's fairly confident he can find enough to ensure a conviction."

Jim let out a soft sigh. "Good" was all he said.

Uhura hesitantly moved closer to his exposed back. She knew he could hear her but he wasn't saying anything. Five steps away… no reaction. Three steps…two steps… one step…. She was close enough to put her hand tentatively on his shoulder, letting him know she was there if he wanted but not butting in.

"It's ironic, you know? Most people in my shoes would feel some sense of betrayal. Me? It's just anger. I don't care that it's him as opposed to anyone else. Some family man I am."

There was no way Nyota was going to let that stand.

"Hey. That… creature was never family, no matter what some piece of paper said. You're not feeling betrayed because he never meant enough to be able to betray you. It's more like, say, finding some horrible misdeed of a Klingon's than it is one from Spock."

He turned and gave her the first bit of eye contact since she'd entered. She could see the gratitude for even that bit of reassurance, but she knew it wasn't much, as that hadn't been one of the principle problems on his mind.

"So… by the fact that you're here I'm guessing its spread around the ship by now."

The comment was made in such an offhand way that a person unfamiliar with James Kirk could easily be excused for thinking it didn't matter too much to him. Uhura knew better. Those were the comments you needed to pay the most attention. That being said, there still wasn't a whole lot she could do.

"I'm sorry. There was no way to stop it once it had gotten that public."

Jim nodded repeatedly, trying to find some kind of diversion in the act of moving his head. All he managed to gain was a crick in his neck. He wanted nothing less in the universe than to ask the next question, but he'd never been one to shy away from the hard facts.

"How- how are they taking it?"

Uhura looked at him questioningly. "Is that why you never told anyone? You were ashamed?"

Damn the perceptive woman. Kirk scrambled to try and find something else to answer without actually lying.

"I didn't want to be treated any differently."

Uhura shook her head. "They won't treat you any differently. You already were their own J.T."

Kirk turned sharply. "You know about that too?"

Despite herself, Uhura snorted. "Jim, you have some of the best and brightest in Starfleet. Did you really think that once they found out you were there and nobody knew about it, that they'd just miss the fact that the legendary leader of the surviving children whose death, not to mention name, were never confirmed happened to have the same initials as you?"

Jim blushed and stood up. "No, I guess not."

He moved across the room, leaving Uhura at the desk, watching a man usually so full of confidence pacing with his head stuck in the clouds. She didn't want to push, but she knew he'd never open up at all without any encouragement.

"Alright, what's really bothering you?"

"What do you mean?"

Uhura rolled her eyes. "Come on, Jim. There's something still weighing on you, and it's not your family issues with Frank, or even what the crew thinks of you. I'm not saying those aren't weighing on you, but there's something more. Something bigger."

Kirk turned around and smirked. "Channeling Bones, Lieutenant?"

Nyota scoffed. "I don't need psychology experience to not be fooled by a relatively weak avoidance technique. Try again."

The smirk slid off, to be replaced with a forlorn grimace. She'd never seen the charismatic Jim Kirk looking so unsure. They spent a minute or two in silence, before he spoke again, so softly it was tough for Uhura to hear it not 4 feet away.

"Do you think I'm a decent Captain?"

She wouldn't have been more surprised if he'd stated he was a virgin. "What does that mean? Of course you are! You can't seriously be buying into the drivel those two miserable excuses for people have been spouting!"

Jim chuckled ruefully, absolutely no humor in his voice. "Can't I? It wasn't easy ignoring all those slurs. I spent years with them being the only adult presence in my life. No matter what happens afterward, that always gives them a certain credibility. And then there was the mess hall."

Uhura didn't know where this was going, but she was sure she didn't like it. "What about the mess hall?"

"Everything! My crew got into a brawl onboard my own ship! I charged a man like a wild buffalo! My first officer had to do a mini-mind meld to get through to me! How can I think I'm a good captain after all of that!?"

"Jim." Nyota moved towards him, trying desperately to placate his worries. "I know they were adult figures to you, but they have no right to offer any opinion. They are not right, they never were. As for the brawl, I heard what happened. I'm not telling you what, but let's just say Frank crossed the line. And you had just found out something horrific about a monster who had caused you far more than enough pain already! I don't think there is anyone who could blame you for reacting the way you did. Many would have long ago."

Jim didn't look convinced, but he did look at least a tiny bit less certain about his self-punishment. Uhura wanted to offer more comfort, but there were no more words to be said, so she took his head in her hands and pulled him down for a hug. They stayed that way for several long moments. Then Jim chuckled lightly.

"Who knew all I had to do to get you to go in for body to body contact was tell you my dark secret?"

Nyota rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder playfully as she pushed away, but she was glad to hear the come-on. It was a sign her friend did feel at least somewhat better. In fact she was so relieved she almost missed the look of- disappointed, resigned? Why would he be upset that she'd moved away? It was the normal way she always responded to his flirting, and that was never serious-

A question she'd wondered about a few times at the academy came to her mind just then. She'd never asked because back then she… well, she didn't really care all that much. But now Jim was her friend, and now that she thought about it in light of that look, the question started nagging at her again. She started pushing it away, figuring that in light of the last few days it didn't really matter, when she stopped cold. The last few days… The memories of everything she'd learned about her captain, all of the terrible details rushed past in her mind's eye, and together with the question she'd remembered and that look in his eyes Nyota began to consider a horrible suspicion….

"Jim, why was I the only woman you kept flirting with?"

Uhura couldn't really blame Kirk for looking taken off guard by the apparent non-sequitor.

"What?"

"In the academy, there were plenty of other women you tried to woo who didn't respond, but you never tried again after they said they weren't interested. I was the only one you kept flirting with. Why?"

"Where did that come from?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Just answer the question."

Jim shrugged and then scrunched his eyes up in thought, searching for an answer.

"I don't know, I guess you were different. You always came up with funny ways to say no, I didn't even mind when they embarrassed me. Every time we disagreed… I had fun arguing with you. Does that make any sense at all?"

Nyota nodded slowly. "More than you know," she whispered.

Jim just stared at her blankly. "What does that mean?"

Uhura sighed. Should she explain this? No, at this point she had to. But how does one even go about explaining something like this?

"Jim… I'm guessing you never had any discussions with your mother, times where she would simply sit down and tell you she loved you?"

Jim snorted. "She barely even ever managed to say it period. When she did it wasn't exactly believable. "

Nyota sighed and silently cursed the woman. "Did you ever have a girlfriend when you were living in Iowa, before you left?"

Kirk looked at her askance but trusted her enough to know the point would be made clear. "No."

Uhura nodded, as if this was the answer she'd been expecting, although for the life of him Jim couldn't understand why. "And before… what happened on Tarsus?"

Jim shook his head slowly.

"And when you got back, that's when you were kind of mad at the world and getting into trouble, up until that night in the bar?"

Kirk gave one more nod, his genius mind spinning in every direction trying to figure out what she was getting at, but he didn't push, because if the look on her face was any indication, Nyota was rather uncomfortable with whatever she was trying to explain to him.

"Jim, these are the kinds of experiences that help people learn how to recognize when they have… feelings for someone. The way you grew up, you had no way to understand what it felt like. The only connection you ever learned about having with a woman was through sex. When a man and a woman have fun arguing with each other… that's often a sign that they feel some kind of chemistry towards each other.

Jim's head was reeling. "And… and a weird feeling in their stomach whenever the other walked into the room?

Uhura nodded slowly.

"Oh."

"'Oh' is right."

The two of them stood in an awkward silence for another few minutes, neither one daring to speak. Finally Jim decide to grab the bull by the horns and managed to choke something out. "So, uh… what- um, what happens now?"

Uhura considered the question carefully. Jim had feelings for her but didn't know how to express them. That was something she'd need to wrap her head around…. But the idea wasn't exactly unappealing. Jim certainly wasn't unattractive, or lacking in charm. She'd always gone back and forth on exactly how she regarded him, but she definitely had enjoyed their arguments as well. And now that she thought about it… in light of all the revelations she was getting about him, she had to look at some of the behaviors she hadn't appreciated in a new light.

Yes, he was a player, but that was the only way he knew how to have any kind of relationship. Anything else was simply not something he'd ever been able to experience. Yes he was cocky, but she'd paid enough attention in her psych course to know that was one of the most common defense mechanisms for emotionally wounded people. And Jim was definitely wounded. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure just how much of James Kirk, particularly what she'd known of him before their time on the Enterprise, was really who he was. And who he'd been on the ship… that was definitely someone she might like to get to know better.

"Now… we talk."

Jim sat in his ready room down the corridor from the bridge devoting about a quarter of his attention to his paperwork, the rest focused on the night before. He and Nyota had sat down and talked, just talked, for over three hours. Jim found himself, quite frankly, astonished at how much joy he got out of simply talking with a woman about random things. When he'd found himself voicing this right before Nyota had left his quarters, she'd gifted him with a smile that had his insides doing jumping jacks and a kiss on the cheek. Ever since then he'd been using the memory to push away the depressive thoughts when they came, and managed to get a good night's sleep, if not necessarily having the most peaceful dreams.

The Enterprise was now coming up on their 2nd destination, the planet Arenya 2, above which orbited Starbase 15. Both the planet and the base had been getting fewer and fewer supply shipments recently, and there was concern that several of the scientific experiments on both might have been affected by not receiving needed shipments on time.

Speaking of experiments, Kirk was delighted by the excited conversations he was hearing from the crew of the Enterprise itself. His crew was thrilled with all of the incredible groundbreaking work the delegates were doing in their labs, and even more thrilled that they could take part in it. Kirk was always happy when his crew was this happy, even when it was (which it had been on more than one occasion) at his expense. But this was even better because he'd been expecting something far less pleasant from them.

The looks he'd anticipated when he'd gotten up this morning had been absent, to his great surprise. People turned to him when he came in, yes, and there was some sympathy in their gazes, but there was none of the pity Kirk had been dreading. There was only commiseration, as though they were upset because he was upset. Jim had always wondered what he'd done to deserve such an incredible crew, but he was hit quite hard by that today. He reflected on what Bones had told him when he mentioned this at breakfast.

"They're your family, Jim. They love you. They know you don't want their pity. They just want you to know they support you, and that it doesn't change how they see you."

Jim was especially grateful to Bones. For all the man could push when Kirk didn't want it, he knew how to respect Jim's boundaries (at least the ones he agreed with). He knew Jim well enough to know the things that would be troubling him right now, and just slipped statements like that into normal conversations to help counter his morbid thoughts.

Jim's surprisingly positive ruminations came to a crashing halt when the door in front of his desk opened without warning to a rather unwelcome figure.

"So your idea of being a good captain is arresting people for being mean to you?"

Jim looked up at his mother and gave a small smirk. "The fact that you're still roaming free says otherwise."

Winona marched right on as if he hadn't spoken. "You have no right to arrest my husband."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "I have every right. A crime was discovered on my ship, I had the perpetrator arrested, plain and simple."

"I cannot believe you! Your crew starts a brawl and you arrest only Frank! You are abusing your privileges as captain and Starfleet is going to hear about it! You're disgracing that uniform and your father's name with this childish behavior. I'm disappointed in you. I thought maybe you'd grown up with your captaincy, but that was obviously wishful thinking-"

"How dare you?!" Jim shouted, rising from the seat behind his desk. He could feel her words hitting him in the wound in his confidence which hadn't closed. He didn't need any more of this from her, so he responded with the easiest defense there was (a defense that didn't require a great deal of effort to muster up considering how she was speaking); anger.

"You talk to me as though you were my mother, as though I'm your child who ignored everything you tried to teach him. You have no right! You abdicated any rights as my mother. The only things I ever heard from you were criticisms! There was no pride, no joy. No telling me I had ever done the right thing! Only about how I was a disappointment to my father's legacy! And now after I've managed to pull myself up by my bootstraps from the cliff you left me dangling off of you have the gall to come in and playact as a mother only to tell me how disappointed you are again!?"

"Don't you talk to me like that James Tiberius Kirk! I am your mother, and I've done an awful lot for you, but you were never grateful for any of it. You just went out looking for trouble in any place where you could find it! You've done your level best to bring shame to your family name! You-"

Whatever else Kirk supposedly was or had done was lost as the Enterprise abruptly lurched to the side, sending both of the arguing Kirks staggering.

"This is the crew you're so proud of. If they let things like that happen-"

Jim ignored the spiteful words as he rushed to the door. No matter what trouble he ever had believing himself to be a good captain, there was one thing nobody would ever accuse James T. Kirk of, not even himself; not knowing his ship. Jim was intimately familiar with the Enterprise, with her feels, her movements, her strengths and weaknesses.

Which is why he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt even without the klaxons or Spock's comm call that his ship had just been hit by photon torpedo.

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