Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek.
Chapter 14
He pounded the wall again.
Pain.
For his failure.
Someone pulled him away and he could not reach the wall anymore. His arms were pinned down to his sides.
"Captain, the children on Revlair need you," murmured Uhura close to his ear.
"The children," Jim spat out, "need someone who won't fail them."
She blurred before him. He was pushed to a seat.
"Jim, the drug will be in effect shortly. I need to see your memories to lessen the effects of stage three."
"Memories of failure."
"Jim," said Uhura. "It was not your fault. You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking just fine, Uhura," Jim raged.
"Dr. McCoy will come through, but Spock needs you to be willing to meld with him."
"I don't want to do this to you, Spock."
"I am Vulcan. It is necessary to reduce your violent tendencies."
"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into." Jim snorted.
"We only have one hour. Uhura, if Jared Vager awakes, you need to break our connection." Spock ordered, already letting his hand rest on Jim's face.
He jerked away.
No. I can't do this.
"No."
Jim seethed inside. He wasn't giving Spock these atrocities to deal with. He managed on his own and would continue, drug or not. He'd die with them all to himself.
He deserved it. Because I failed.
Spock's hand drifted to his face once more as Jim contemplated his own punishment. Maybe I should relent, experience it all again. Show Spock how messed up I am.
Jim imagined the pain it would bring Spock even as the commander's fingers touched his face. Jim winced for what was to come.
Too late.
Spock already opened up the place Jim never returned to in his mind, except for the nightmares.
Tarsus IV.
Thirteen-year old Jimmy glared at Spock.
"You skipped some fun times you know. There was juvie, which was the best without Frank. And then lots of fights. Lots of them. I guess driving a car off a cliff makes you a target. I got arrested- again. To try to get away from Frank and into juvie again."
Jimmy dared Spock to say something.
He didn't.
"But I got sent to Tarsus instead."
Spock observed him with caution, eyeing his legs and arms. He probably already saw how thin he was. Stupid fungi.
Jimmy kicked the dust at his feet. "Dammit, Spock, we're here, anyways, and I..."
He was distracted with movement in the woods to their left.
"... gotta go."
Jimmy hightailed to the woods, following the movement for a few minutes on the edge. He was stealthy, careful not to crack a twig or move too fast once he was almost parallel to them.
"Do you see them? We're under martial law and those are Kodos' guards," Jimmy whispered to Spock. "They're headed towards a scientist's house- a friend. We are investigating the fungus, he and I, as well as two other scientists decades older than me. I should've been there already."
Jimmy stopped talking to Spock now. He can't get distracted for what's next.
He should warn Spock this was before any real killing began. It won't seem like it, though.
I guess me thinking this warns him. He looked at Spock looking at him.
Yeah. I guess it does.
Jimmy could tell Spock was probing in his mind, trying to figure out why he was out here in the woods in the first place.
Go, Spock. I don't want you here.
Jim, I cannot leave you. Where are you?
The tidbits formed in Jimmy's mind for Spock, explaining his habits on Tarsus. Jimmy was frustrated with Spock. All this hurt too much, but he could not help but give Spock the painful memories continuously coming to the forefront.
The house is larger than others on the colony planet. The woods lead to it because the owner, Stephen Riley, prefers privacy for his wife and two sons, Kevin and Stephen, Jr. It's well out of the way from roads leading directly to town.
I'm a wanderer, Spock. I hang out with my cousin, William, and his friends, sure, but I prefer to explore. It means freedom.
Which is why I had even come across the scientist in the first place, sitting out on his front porch. Mr. Riley had been friendly, and when he found out I had a knack for solving problems he took a gamble and brought me into the tight circle of those who were wary of the fungus problem.
We'd gotten somewhere, finally.
And then Mr. Riley did not allowed me to come by for a week, until today, after he sent one of his boys to my aunt's house with the message.
Enough of that. It was hot and sweat dripped down Jimmy's forehead. He wiped it away and crouched behind a tree, looking and waiting.
Guards had used the front door already- by force. He heard yelling. A woman's scream. A man's voice loud but trembling. Mr. Riley.
Jimmy didn't think twice as he scurried to the house. He went along back to a window that was cracked. No one was in the room so he pushed it open, enough to squeeze through. He moved to door of the room and cracked it.
Thump.
He looked up towards the sound.
The guards were upstairs where the scientist's office was and his kids' rooms were.
Jimmy went to the kitchen, acting on instinct, and grabbed a knife. Spock looked at him in surprise. Jimmy held on to it even tighter, looking at the commander in defiance.
You don't know what it's like here, Spock. I'm taking this knife with me.
The boys were eight and seven years old. He already heard their crying. It was loud, unnaturally loud, to be heard from the floor above him.
Jimmy took to another stairwell.
"You can't fix what Governor Kodos doesn't want fixed, Mr. Riley. Give us your information or your wife dies." The voice of the guard provoked a woman's screams. More thumps. Then silence.
Jimmy made it to the next floor just in time to see a pair guards push Mr. Riley off his own balcony.
Jimmy vaguely thought how he'd miss his stimulating conversations.
Kevin and Stephen were gaping at where their father had just stood, not realizing yet the two guards moved towards them now.
Jimmy turned feral. It was a blinding rage and overpowering urge to protect those orphan boys from murderers which fueled his actions. Yes, he was thirteen, but he was a thirteen year old who'd had an unnatural violent life already.
Jimmy left the guards' bodies limp on the balcony after he killed them with the kitchen knife. He took the two boys by the hand and dragged them down the stairwell, telling them his name was JT. They crossed over the broken front door and no one looked back at the house in the woods.
He could no longer be Jimmy.
It was the changing for him. The point of no return.
His aunt welcomed the boys, who spoke nothing of their parents' slaughter. He told his aunt that their father would be out of town for a few days and needed them to watch over his boys, even showing her a message he managed to dub from a few messages the scientist had sent him over the past few weeks. That sort of hacking was easy. His aunt believed it. The boys' quietness alerted no one.
Tarsus IV was already a strange sort of quiet.
Rations were slim and had been for weeks. People were already not themselves. And who was his aunt to know the boys had just witnessed their parents' murder? JT smiled at the two boys, told William to be good to them, and went to his room. JT remained there for three days. He did not come out. He did not let anyone in.
He had forgotten about Spock. But Spock was there. As JT felt the rush of what happened, Spock's presence became soothing. His chest stopped pounding towards the end of day three. JT couldn't look at him, though. How could you look at your first officer after you just killed two people?
Jim, you saved those two boys.
At what cost? I'm a thirteen year old murderer.
You could have done nothing less, Jim.
I deserve whatever comes my way because of it. Frank always said I was destined to be a no-good teenager.
No, Jim. You are a child who helped save two other children from their murder because of your great courage and selflessness.
This "courage" marks the beginning of his nightmares and endless pursuit of getting rid of this part of himself.
Jim, what nightmares?
Bones knows. He knows almost everything. I kept him up at the Academy with the nightmares. He threatened to throw me out unless I got help, went to therapy, talked to a psychiatrist, all that sort of bullshit.
Did you, Jim?
JT snorted as he lie in his bed, finally turning his head to look at Spock.
"Really? You don't know the answer to that?" JT turned back to staring at the wall, and pulled a palm-sized rubber ball from under his pillow. He bounced it back and forth, back and forth, in perfect rhythm. "He had pity on me, and we worked through it. He's the best friend I ever had. But he can't fix me."
JT stopped throwing and catching the ball for a few seconds. "And neither can you, Spock."
Three days JT was in his room, and then Kodos called for a meeting in one week for invitees in town.