Here is part two. I have now decided to make this a three-shot or very short fic. The third part will be coming soon.
Enjoy and review!
It's practically a year later until Amelia finds herself in a situation of real, exhilarating, adrenaline-pumping excitement as she sprints across the very red surface of Planet Nibiru, evading the angry indigenous people. It's an added bonus that Bones is running right alongside her, because they never get to do crazy things like this. She's gotten fairly used to jumping into chaotic situations, more often than not risking her life, and not receiving any strict words from the doctor until she's been hauled off to the sickbay in order to be healed of any reckless injuries she'd collected along the way.
They're leaping off cliffs into an unfortunately choppy body of water, reaching the hidden Enterprise in a convenient amount of time. Then Amelia is being thrust into making more life or death decisions, because Spock is trapped inside of an active volcano and he's really keen on being left behind in order to meet the needs of the many. But the Captain won't have any of that, even if it messes with the half-Vulcan's prized prime directive, because she can't just let him die when they've started to become actual friends.
So Spock is saved, much to Lieutenant Uhura's pleasure, and he's not as happy as Lea wants him to be when she comes rushing to the transport bay to make sure he's okay. An agitated and annoyed Bones waves the situation off once his fellow blue shirt officer begins to question how his Captain could've violated the prime directive and exposed their incredibly advanced starship to such a primitive species. Amelia huffs a little, and doesn't really care because her friend is safe and they have saved the people of Nibiru even if it required breaking a whole lot of rules. That's just how she operates and she just has to hope that Starfleet will understand.
It's a crushing blow to her confidence and career when the Admirals decide to not understand and hand the Enterprise back over to her mentor Christopher Pike. She's not mad at Pike, because he's practically been the father she always wanted, but she's not happy either. In fact, Amelia is devastated, and soon finds herself in another dingy bar attempting to drown out the sorrows of her demotion. She's reminded of a time before her life with Starfleet, especially when Pike manages to locate her and spare a few comforting bits of advice. That and Pike's request for her to be his First Officer further reinforce how she could never be upset with the kind-hearted new Captain of the Enterprise. Still, she's left with a sort of empty feeling that she hopes will be the worst of her troubles for a while.
But then the London bombing incident is calling all high ranking Starfleet officials into a serious conference and Amelia comes face to face with Spock, who she is still a little bit upset with for being the one to detail the Nibiru situation in his report to the Admirals. In an effort to patch things up, she offers a smile and an 'I'm gonna miss you' since he's become somebody else's First Officer, but the Commander only responds with a questioning glance that makes her stomp off into the meeting room. She finds her seat beside Captain Pike and finds it increasingly difficult to silently listen to Admiral Marcus drone on and on because she is positive that something isn't right about this situation, and it's a feeling she cannot shake.
Her worst fears are realized while she's standing before the officers without the usual commanding presence in her voice and then slowly turning to see an unknown aircraft hovering directly opposite the large wall of windows. It takes a moment for her brain to process that her gut was correct and yell for everyone to clear out of the room. By then it's too late, because glass is shattering and shots are firing and people are falling and Amelia is dropping to the ground as quickly as possible in order to avoid death by the individual manning the vessel. She hears screams and more shots as a support team enters the room only to be picked off as quickly as the rest of the Starfleet officers. She's crawling and trying not to worry about Spock or Pike because she needs to rely on the fact that they can take care of themselves and right now she needs to take care of herself.
It's easy for Amelia to find a nearby discarded gun as she makes her way out of the conference room and into a nearby hallway. The wall of glass gives her a perfect view of the vessel, where she sees that the murderer is none other than the very John Harrison that they had just been discussing during the meeting. She notices the small ship's engine and how it seems to be sucking in any surrounding air. Then she's thinking quickly like she does best and fastening the gun to a fire hose and flinging it directly in front of the flying vessel, completely jamming its engine and sending it into a downward and out of control spiral. As she stands watching with her aching body and bleeding forehead she manages to make eye contact with Harrison, who sends her an eerie glance before beaming out of the ship and subsequently out of danger.
It's then when Amelia allows herself to exit the combat mindset and begin to worry about her dear friends. She nearly smiles when she sees that Spock is okay and sitting and breathing until she notices that he's sitting over someone who doesn't look okay at all. Once she makes the connection that that someone is Pike, she's slowly advancing forward and trying not to cry and attempting to keep her breathing even. She fails at both as she kneels beside her fellow Commander and checks for any sort of pulse on the neck of her fallen friend. She first tries to believe that he has to have a pulse and he can't be dead because he's Pike and he's the closest she's ever had to a real dad and she just really needs him to be okay. But that isn't the reality, and Amelia can't help but let a lot of tears slip down her dust and grime smeared cheeks. Though it doesn't take long for anger to take over, pure rage against John Harrison that has her standing up and barely patting Spock's shoulder, only to stalk off to her quarters to think about how she's going to make Harrison pay.
She isn't at all surprised when Bones seeks her out in the middle of the night, scanner in hand, demanding why she didn't come to the medical wing for a proper medical evaluation after experiencing such a physically and emotionally traumatic event. Amelia knows he isn't mad, especially when he lets his stern doctor face slip into a remorseful expression as he notices his friend's tight mouth and puffy eyes. She lets him come inside her little dorm because it's not like she was going to have any luck sleeping anyways. They lay shoulder pressed against shoulder on the double bed staring up at the ceiling while she does her best to recount the events of the night and the tragedy that came along with it. McCoy listens like he always does, incredibly thankful that he's still talking with his best friend because it very well could've been her who was killed along with the others. Amelia eventually cries again because she can't help it and Bones tears up too until they both find a little slice of serenity and drift off into a much needed sleep.
Anger is what drives Amelia to march right up to the conference full of Admirals, Spock by her side like he always should be, and demand to be reinstated as Captain so that she can go after the man that killed Christopher Pike. Admiral Marcus is hesitant at first, which Amelia expects, but eventually gives in and allow her to fire off some of the newly designed torpedoes that Starfleet has created in order to eliminate Harrison in his little deserted corner of Kronos. It's a plus that she gets to reinstate her half-Vulcan friend as her First Officer since Amelia could never imagine working with anyone else. Except for maybe Bones, but she knows that his place is ordering around the other doctors and nurses in the sickbay and not constantly dealing with her reckless actions.
She unfortunately notices a lingering bit of animosity with Spock since he doesn't think that any man should be blown off the face of any planet without being returned to Earth and given a trial. Amelia can't see his reasoning in that through her ongoing rage at John Harrison and her desire to seek her revenge. Her temper is tested further when Bones starts pestering her about her vitals and blood pressure and heart rate and every other thing that he claims to be wrong with her. He's only distracted once a pretty and blonde new science officer named Carol struts into the small transport shuttle. Amelia is always welcoming to new crew members but Spock isn't the same, and frowns at the 'redundancy' of her qualifications since he is back on Kirk's ship. Amelia can barely find it in herself to care, and tries to shut her eyes and lower her heart rate while they take the trip up to the hangar where her ship resides.
There is an indescribable feeling of belonging as Amelia steps back onto the Enterprise, her loyal crew scurrying around and carrying about with their jobs of preparations. Even Scotty's yelling and refusing to sign papers to allow the transportation of the torpedoes doesn't bring down her mood until he's resigning and she's being painfully forced to accept in order to carry out her plan of getting rid of Harrison. Promoting Chekov is a bit of a risky move, but necessary, and she has a feeling that the young crewmember will be able to impress her in the end.
The bridge is the same, except for the fact that Spock is staring her down and making her feel guilty until she makes the announcement that she's going to bring Harrison back, and not detonate the corner of planet. Her First Officer is very pleased with that which sort of makes her happy too because she doesn't feel like getting into another spat with the oh-so logical Spock. So she sits in her chair and waits as her ship continues to warp throughout space, making the occasional call down to Bones to see how things are going in the sickbay.
It's a jarring and rather painful feeling as the Enterprise suddenly drops out of warp due to an overheated warp core. Sulu tells her that they're close enough to land on Kronos, but Amelia knows that any extra time in enemy space means more danger for all of them. She grabs Spock and the Klingon speaking Uhura along with two more red shirted crew members to travel by shuttle and onto Kronos. The ride there is filled with quips by Uhura and Spock's deep explanation of how he would never like to feel anything that comes with death ever again. Amelia thinks it's very touching until a surprise Klingon warbird is chasing them down and sending them hurtling through very tight spaces. They seem to have made it out safely until more Klingon ships are beaming spotlights and ordering them to land so they can subsequently kill them. Amelia knows they have to agree, and sincerely hopes that this disagreement will be the worst of her troubles on the mission.
As Amelia expects, her and her small gang are forced into fighting for their lives against the Klingons with their pitiful looking phasers compared to the enemy's weaponry. They're all split up, which puts a bad feeling in Amelia's stomach as she fights off multiple Klingon shoulders with her bare hands. There are a lot of close calls and face punches and kicks to the gut until she realizes that a hooded figure has begun picking off the Klingons very quickly. The stranger comes in handy when Amelia is suddenly overpowered and kicked to the ground without any form of weapon and waiting to meet her doom until the three soldiers fall dead to the ground around her. It's only seconds later when Spock comes to her rescue and drags her to a place of shelter beside Uhura.
Amelia struggles to believe what is happening when the hooded stranger approaches them, knocking a weapon out of Spock's hands and revealing himself to be John Harrison. She can barely contain her anger upon seeing him and hearing him desperately request to know how many torpedoes had been put onto the Enterprise. When Spock tells him that there are 72, he immediately and strangely surrenders without any further struggle. Amelia struggles to rise due to her battered body but manages to accept the criminals surrender in the form of multiple punches and kicks and slaps and noises of frustration. It isn't until Spock's low voice jars her from her fit that she staggers back towards their small ship, clutching her throbbing fist and wondering why someone as capable as Harrison would ever surrender.
Having John Harrison on board affects her much more than she likes to admit, despite the fact that he's locked in a holding cell and that no one is actually forcing her to go and keep talking to him. Her temper breaks multiple times, usually when either Spock or Bones are there to pull her away from the situation and the cunning prisoner's confusing words. Her two closest friends both worry for her, because they can see how Harrison is messing with the Captain's state of mind. It comes to a breaking point when Amelia decides to listen and sends McCoy and Carol Marcus onto a nearby planetoid to open up one of the mysterious torpedoes. It isn't exactly Amelia's idea to send Bones into such a dangerous situation, but she figures she can't send anyone else once Marcus requests for the steadiest hands on the ship. She tries to hide her cringe when Bones starts to get all flirty and charming but can't help but send him a quick scolding remark over the comms unit.
Her heart starts slamming at a rate that the doctor would no doubt classify as unhealthy when something goes wrong and his arm ends up getting trapped inside the torpedo that is about to detonate. She's yelling for someone to beam them both back and she nearly screams when the crewmember tells her that there isn't any way to differentiate Doctor McCoy from the torpedo, and they can't bring back one without the other. There's a lot of screaming and a few curse words until the screen indicates the disabling of the weapon and the safety of the two science officers. Still, Amelia can't help but repeat her friend's name over and over again until he finally responds, acknowledging that he's alright and that she really needs to see whatever they have uncovered.
The discovery of frozen people in the torpedoes sends Kirk storming back in front of the holding cell, demanding to know everything about the man who she soon learns is called 'Khan'. He explains about his past and his age and how Admiral Marcus was the one to wake him from his incredibly long sleep in hopes of using his superior mind. The Admiral's ulterior motives don't actual surprise her that much, which ends up being a little bit of a surprise all in itself. Amelia guesses it's because she had suspected some foul play ever since the Enterprise's warp core had begun to mysteriously malfunction.
It isn't too much later when a very big, very dark, and very menacing ship known as the Vengeance shows up just opposite the Enterprise, manned by none other than the deceitful Admiral Marcus. Amelia engages in a bit of back and forth quips with him once he begins to question why she brought Khan on board and didn't follow her orders to take him out without question. But she's clever too, and shoots back statements that question the Admiral's motives and why else he would be out here in space if it wasn't to help their ship repair its damaged core. Everything goes downhill from there, because Marcus doesn't mind concealing his villainy anymore and decides it would be a whole lot easier to take out Kirk's entire ship rather than to beam Harrison aboard his own vessel. There's a sense of paralyzing fear that overtakes Amelia as the Vengeance begins to prepare its own weapons, because she never meant to put her entire crew to death based on a few of her decisions.
Going into warp isn't enough to help Amelia escape, which Carol Marcus helpfully brings to the Captain's attention. It's only a few moments later when the dark ship catches up, colliding and sending them falling completely out of warp for the second time that day. A seemingly inevitable death is avoided when the trusty Scotty was able to somehow get aboard the enemy ship after following the coordinates that Amelia had tasked him with investigating just earlier. The rejoicing is short lived, because Scotty has only disabled their weapons for a little while and he doesn't know if he'll be able to do it again. This is when Amelia has her good slash incredibly dangerous idea that sends her sprinting down into the medbay, where she had moved Khan earlier.
Like always, Spock just happens to figure out what his Captain is thinking and ends up chasing her down the halls until a forceful hand on the shoulder causes her to halt and fling around to face him. Amelia's heart is racing and her brain is working quickly because she's somewhat panicked and doesn't know what she should do, but only what she can do. The First Officer finds he has nothing else to say about her plan to ally with Khan in order to board the Vengeance and ends up staying put as she continues her rapid course to the prisoner.
Khan isn't agreeable and begins questioning how in the world she could promise to save his crew locked inside their cryopods when she can barely even keep her own crew alive. Amelia doesn't have much to say about that because she finds it horrifyingly true and resorts to forcing him into accompanying her aboard the Vengeance. She hides her relief when he finally agrees because there is no way that she is going to let on to Khan that his help will probably be a major deciding factor in whether she lives or dies.
Bones doesn't like the idea and follows her down the corridors, becoming even more frazzled once he understands that Amelia will be hurtled throughout open space in order to slip through a very tiny door and into a lower deck of the Vengeance. It isn't any relief to him once he thinks about her being alone with Khan and having to trust him because the doctor inside of him just knows that there is obviously something very wrong in the criminal's head. Eventually she knows she is running out of time and has to get ready and having Bones trailing at her heels is slowing things down a lot more than she needs right now. She tries to console him with a pathetic 'I'll be okay' which doesn't do much to ease the concerned look on his face. But people are calling her name and telling her that it's time to suit up so she just has to hope that pressing a quick kiss to his cheek will help to settle his fears for the time being. It doesn't, but the kiss does manage to bring a flush to his face as he watches the young Captain sprint away from him and towards her unnervingly dangerous mission.
Their trip through debris filled space is horrifying, and nearly ends with both Khan and Amelia slamming into the side of the ship if it weren't for Scotty and his quick reflexes that allow the small door to open just in time for the two to come crashing into the engineering deck of the Vengeance. She doesn't have much time to thank her Scottish friend or apologize because Khan is urging them forward and claiming to know the best possible way to the bridge where Admiral Marcus has to be residing. It's after one of their many clashes with rogue Starfleet members when Kirk whispers to Scotty about stunning Khan once they reach Marcus, because she's come to realize that they are aiding the criminal more than he seems to be helping them.
The plan goes according to plan for all but a few minutes, because they reach the bridge and take out the guards and Carol is safe and her father is subdued. Scotty does a good job with stunning Khan until his crazily regenerative cells have him bouncing back into action within moments. He ruthlessly snaps Carol's leg only after knocking out Scotty and bringing at least ten disabling punches to Amelia's face, abdomen, and legs. She can only watch in horror, crippled by exhaustion and utter pain on the floor, as Khan lets out a savage yell and uses his superior strength to crush the Admiral's skull. Carol's screams of horror fill the room and Amelia is terrified as she attempts to weakly crawl towards any sort of weapon to use against Khan.
Her efforts are deemed futile as Khan roughly grabs her by the neck and pins her arms behind her back as he hails the Enterprise. She feels the cool touch of a phaser pressed at the base of her skull and winces as the familiar worried faces of Spock, Sulu, Bones, Uhura, and the rest of the crew appear on the large screen. Khan's voice is dark and harsh and she can nearly feel it right beside her ear as he torments the acting Captain Spock. Amelia shouts 'don't' at her friend but only receives a stinging blow to the head that sends her sprawling out on the deck in return.
There is a ringing in her ears as the negotiations continue and Khan demands for his crew to be beamed onto the dead Admiral's ship. Amelia wants to yell and scream and order them not to listen but a hard kick to her stomach sends all of the air rushing out of her lungs in an extremely painful way. She can barely believe it when Spock trades the torpedoes for the lives of her, Scotty, and Carol, because that isn't the logical decision. She has little time to further contemplate that though because the familiar tingling sensations that comes with transporting is running throughout her limbs and the inside of the Vengeance is morphing into the inside of one of the holding cells on her Enterprise.
Amelia is nearly sure that their end is near until she hears someone yelling in triumph because someone managed to detonate the torpedoes upon their arrival on Khan's ship. She's confused until Bones comes rushing in to assure that she's okay and also to inform her that they were able to remove all 72 cryopods from the weapons before beaming them aboard the other ship. The next few moments are filled with a lot of comments from McCoy about stupid ideas and trusting the wrong people and Amelia's general insanity until he shuts himself up by enveloping her in a crushing hug that she can't help but eagerly return.
Almost like a pattern, this success and happiness is short lived when the ship's power goes out and everything starts tilting to one side. Amelia quickly locates Scotty, who claims that the only way to save the ship is to somehow make it down to engineering through all of the craziness that has erupted on the Enterprise. They're dashing down hallways and hanging on for dear life as everything keeps tilting and turning over, sending crew members falling down hallways and catwalks all over the place. The two narrowly escape death when Chekov manages to save the day by quickly grabbing onto the Captain's hand and preventing her and Scotty from falling to their deaths.
By now the ship is hurtling towards Earth and threatening to burn up even after Chekov manages to flip the manual override switch that should fix all of the problems with their damaged warp core. Scotty lets out a yell that is a mix of frustration and horror once he realizes that the entire core isn't aligned correctly. They both know that the damaged part of the ship is surrounded by air filled with fatal radiation and that finding any sort of proper suit would require a whole lot of time that none of them have.
It's at that moment when Amelia remembers one of many confusing conversations with Khan, in particular when he had asked her if there was anything she wouldn't do to protect her family. And that was her crew, she easily realizes. She remembers Pike's words about how her decisions would get everyone under her command killed, and she suddenly comes to the conclusion that she cannot let that happen and she just has to prove her fallen friend wrong. She takes off running without any word, Scotty following close behind.
His cries of protest come quickly after that because he knows what she's going to do and he can't just let her go in an irradiated chamber like that. She ignores his pleas and begins preparations to open the door so that none of the radiation will fill the compartment. It's hard for her to just knock Scotty out cold, but she knows it's something that has to be done because this sacrifice is hers to make, and hers alone.
She thinks that the door is far too easy to open considering the deadly nature of the contents inside. Pushing past the pain of an aching right hand and the overall crippling fear that is threatening to overtake her, Amelia leaps into the irradiated compartment and just runs.
Her lungs burn and they feel like they're closing up and her vision blurs and her limbs ache and her head throbs but she keeps running, running until she finds the damaged warp core. It looks like a formidable climb and it's even worse when she realizes how much she has to do in order to realign the two parts. Amelia almost stutters, almost wants to stop until she horrifyingly realizes that it's already too late for her, and if the radiation is going to kill her then she wants it to be after she's saved her crew and her ship.
So she climbs upwards through a combination of wheezes and coughs and blinks that make her eyes feel like they're burning. She puts a new face to fight for behind each and every kick at the stubborn warp core.
A kick for Bones.
A kick for Spock.
A kick for Uhura.
A kick for Scotty.
A kick for Sulu.
A kick for Chekov.
And hell, she throws another kick for Bones in there.
Amelia knows she's been successful when there's a deafening noise accompanied by a flash of blue light and a recoil that sends her slamming into one of the many metal pipes at the foot of the core. She hears a number of awful sounding cracks that seem to originate from her mid-section and can't help but cry out in pain. It isn't any help that her legs decide not to respond while she's pulling and crawling and furiously trying to make her way back to the chamber entrance before the radiation takes the great Captain out for good.
Scotty is conscious and teary when she finally makes her way back with aching arms and a lower half that seems to have died before she has. In any attempt to lighten the fact of her impending demise, she holds up a pathetically shaky thumbs up and does her best at creating any sort of smile. The trusty engineer only shakes his head before quickly stalking off to do something that Amelia doesn't have the brain power to try and guess. She takes the brief moment of alone time to position herself parallel to the large glass door after weakly and barely pressing the button that begins the cleansing of any and all radioactive material. She knows it won't save her, but it seems necessary.
Spock rushes into sight, chest heaving up and down like he's run throughout the entire Enterprise just to make it down to engineering. Lea looks up at him with failing eyes and almost wants to laugh at the fact that she'll probably share her last words with the half-Vulcan whom she used to hate and butt heads with at every single decision. She almost feels a bit of despair when she realizes that her other blue-shirt friend hasn't already appeared.
She breathes a painful sigh of relief when he tells about how her ship and her crew are safe, and she knows it's all because of her. She closes her eyes and thinks back to when Spock said how 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' and how she never really, really grasped that until now, when she's made such a monumental and scary sacrifice.
Eventually her eyes open again, and she continues to talk with him. She begs for help, because she doesn't want to feel death or her aching head or tingling arms or burning lungs. But Spock says he doesn't know how to do that, and it makes sense to her when she sees the tear rolling down his cheek. She knows that if he really could choose not to feel then he would do it now, and try to evade all of the unwanted grief and sadness and sorrow that has suddenly been thrust upon him as he kneels beside his dying Captain.
Amelia is nearly sure that her time us up until another blue shirted figure comes bursting around the corner, breathing just as heavily as Spock had been. She barely hears Bones cursing himself for being too slow and for dealing with one too many patients that he would've much rather pushed off to some other member of the medical staff. He comes forward too slowly for her taste and she wants to yell at him to hurry up because she is dying for goodness sake and she doesn't know how many words she'll actually get to say to him. It's a struggle to choose, because she wants to say a lot.
Bones finally kneels down beside the glass while Spock rises to his feet, moving back to stand next Scotty and a newly arrived Uhura, both trying to contain their tears. The doctor stares at her through the thick barrier, wanting not to only say something, but to do something. He thinks of everything he and his capable medical team could be doing and should be doing to save her, if they could just open that damn door. She sees the mistiness in his eyes and he feels it, even more so when she starts painfully wheezing and coughing up something that looks like blood.
He says something about making stupid decisions which he really doesn't mean, to which she responds in a weak voice with 'I couldn't let you die'. Bones doesn't really know what to say after that, because he's sure she can see him crying and he knows that she barely has any time, and God, what he would do to give her more time.
She weakly raises a palm against the glass, wishing so hard that she could touch his skin and still successfully contain the radiation at the same time. Bones does the same, but he's clenching his eyes shut and trying to convince himself that this isn't actually happening and his best friend isn't actually dying right before his eyes. When he finally dares to look again, she's gazing up at him with lids only half open and whispering something that makes his breath catch.
He's almost positive that she utters the words 'I' and 'love' and 'you' all in the same sentence, but he finds himself not wanting to be so sure. Because if he's sure, then it makes everything worse and it makes the grieving and mourning even harder to do if he really knows that she had felt about him the way that he had always felt about her. He almost wants to ask her, or even say the words himself, but then she's making an awful choking noise and her hand is slipping away from his and her pretty blue eyes are losing their focus.
There is a moment of shock where he realizes with wide eyes that Amelia T. Kirk is really dead, and he will never get to hear her voice or listen to her laugh or scold her for her crazy ideas ever again. His mind painfully scrolls through all of his missed chances, all of their missed chances. He's only shaken from himself when Spock's loud cry of rage against Khan breaks the silence.
There's the end of part two. Part three will be up within the next day or two.