When Jim was fifteen, he finally made it home.
(No little bit worse for the wear.)
The four ships that arrived are to take the surviving families to the nearest space station so Starfleet can figure out what to do with them. Each of the surviving children, having no guardians left from Tarsus IV, are assigned to a crew member of the various ships, to be looked after until they can be sent home.
While all of the children are malnourished and underweight, those with the most severe cases are restricted to Medical to begin re-gaining their strength.
When Jim learns of the plan to split them up, he yells at everyone who passes by his bed, demanding to speak with whoever is in charge.
Even from his place in a back corner of the Medical Bay, Jim manages to draw the attention of half the crew.
By the time the Captain makes his way down, the CMO managed to clear the area of all unnecessary personnel, with a fair amount of threats and glares.
"I hear you have something to say to me," Captain Bullock says blandly, as if Jim has been waiting patiently the whole time.
"You can't do this!"
Bullock nods slowly. "Do what, exactly?"
"You can't separate us! Not after all we've been through! Those kids need each other! Putting us on different ships is the worst thing you could ever do! Do you know what the little ones are going to think?" Jim pauses for a moment and levels Bullock with a glare. "What do you think happened to the last people who suddenly disappeared on them?"
"What do you propose we do instead, mister Kirk?" Bullock's gaze is steady, unflinching; he is waiting for an answer.
"Didn't you hear me? Keep us all together. There's plenty of room on this ship for thirty kids, and everyone knows it. There's no reason we can't all be on the same ship, especially considering how much more relaxed the younger ones will be because of it."
Bullock gives a sharp nod before he turns and makes his way towards the doors, calling behind him, "I'll see what arrangements can be made. I make no promises."
By the time the captain is out the doors, Jim is determining the best way to get a PADD and supervise the whole process. A message from "the Admirals" certainly can't hurt the situation, either.
No one is surprised when Jim's kids make their way into the Med Bay within three hours of his tantrum. By the time the CMO is making his evening rounds, all of the children are gathered around Jim's bed, sitting on various surfaces, listening to him recount tales of valor and adventure, of various levels of validity.
He hovers at the edge of the cluster, listening to the tale of Captain America, who started out as nothing more than a skinny kid who got beat up all the time, and died one of Earth's mightiest heroes.
When Jim finishes the tale (one with cryogenic sleep and outdated tech and too many bad guys and adventures to count) the kids are all silent for a long minute.
Eventually, one of the little ones pipes up. "Jimmy? Was Captain America real?"
The smile that graces Jim's features is not condescending, only warm and fond as he answers, "Well, Zoe, you'll never learn about him from the history books, but that doesn't mean he's not real. I had to learn about him from the old comics and vintage disks, but he feels pretty real to me."
By the time the ships dock at the space station, almost all of Jim's kids (as the entire crew has taken to calling them) are out of the Med Bay beds and instead crowding around Jim's.
One of the Admirals has flown out to meet them, in order to get first-hand accounts of the events on Tarsus IV. All nine who were rescued from Kodos' final execution are to be brought in for interviews, as if making them re-live such traumatic events will do anyone any good.
Captain Bullock, on learning of this decision, sends his least favorite crew member to inform fetch Jim when the time came. The unfortunate bastard has a hard time convincing Jim's kids that he will return in one piece, and an even harder time getting Jim to agree once he leanrs what was expected of him.
"No! You can't make me do it! I'm not leaving these guys for that level of bullshit! The Admiralty can figure out what happened from everyone else, they don't need me to tell them where they fucked up!"
By the time they get Jim in front of the Admirals (and Bullock decided not to ask how that was accomplished - plausible deniability and all) Jim has few words left.
He looks up at the Admiral sent to deal with "The Issue," a graying, balding man steadily working his way towards a paunch, and has to resist screaming about the idiocy of it all. Still, this man is technically his mom's boss, and however much he used to wish she'd be home more, he doesn't want it to be because he got her fired.
"You wanted to see me?"
The Admiral (and Jim really can't find it in him to give two shits what the man's name is) frowns at him from across the desk for a disconcerting minute. "Yes, Mr. Kirk, I am here on behalf of the Starfleet Admiralty, and I would like your description of the events that occurred on Tarsus IV, in as much detail as possible."
Jim scowls at the Admiral, not trying to hide his incredulity. "Why do you need the words of a fourteen-year-old kid? I wasn't even present for most of the action! Hell, I spent the past months hiding in a forest and not entirely sure why I was doing it, only aware that to be caught almost certainly meant death. I was rescued less than two weeks ago, and I still haven't had the chance to talk to my family and let them know that I'm even alive. Forgive me if giving you a repeat of information you already have is not my number one priority."
The man is not impressed. "Mr. Kirk, every account of the events is vital. The more perspectives of the events we can gather, the more precisely we will be able to pinpoint the root of the Issue." And damn if Jim can't hear the capitalization there.
No matter how many times he tries to tell himself it isn't worth getting mad at the Admiral, he can feel the anger welling up in his gut, practically begging him to start yelling. Still, he keeps his calm façade, if only for a little longer. "You want to know what happened? All of the plants died out, and Kodos decided there weren't enough stores to feed everyone until help arrived - because Someone decided it wasn't a high enough priority to respond with any haste. Kodos, ever the rational, smart man, decided that the only solution was to kill off half the population - preferably those with a family history of undesirable diseases. I ran the fuck away. I found other runaways. We stayed together until I stupidly got myself caught. I was about three seconds away from death when your people finally showed up. There. Are you happy? Did you get everything you needed?" He can't keep the snark out of his voice at the end, and has to force himself not to enjoy the way Admiral Asshole's eye twitch as he grips desperately to his calm veneer.
"Oh, Jimmy! Thank God you're alright!"
The relief in his mom's voice is palpable, and Jim can't help smiling back; no matter how much stress she may have added to his life, he has missed her over the months of hunger and hiding.
"You know me, Mom. I'm always alright."
"Oh, Jimmy, I've missed you! I can't believe you had to go through that! Do you know when you'll get back? I'm off-planet right now, but if you give me a date, I can get leave - they owe me that much."
"They haven't told me anything, but I'll try to find out. As far as I can tell we're gonna be stuck at this space station for the foreseeable future."
When they eventually leave the station, the kids are divided up by the quadrants they're from, which is a necessary evil in most of their eyes.
Before leaving, Jim makes sure each and every one of them knows how to get in touch with him, for any reason. "And if you don't keep in touch, I'll hack into Starfleet's files and track you down myself! Don't leave me hanging, okay?"
By the time he is walking up to the transporter pad that will take him to his ship, twelve others in tow, Jim is having second thoughts about letting them leave. It is only the comforting presence of Michael at his side that keeps him from going over to re-check that all of the others are safe and sound.
The trip back to Earth feels about twice as long as it actually is.
Jim still isn't allowed out of Medical un-supervised, but the others come to visit him every day with stories about their visits to Engineering and the Bridge and the observation deck.
The day they finally concede and let him explore without supervision, he makes his way there and sits down on the floor, staring out at the stars as they blur past. Somehow, the vast, full, emptiness of space calms him.
He can't say how long he spends staring out the windows, nor can he recall the number of times he is asked to check in via communicator (Bullock had insisted, if he was going to be out of the Med Bay). The time passes, but he isn't directly aware of it, enraptured by the stars as he is.
Sometimes Michael or one of the others will join him on the Deck and sit and stare as infinities pass them by. Other times he explores the ship with them, listening as they detail all the explorations they have made already, and where they plan to explore next.
It is almost enough to take his mind off everything that happened, almost enough to distract him from the memories that keep creeping in on him whenever he lets his thoughts wander, almost enough to keep rough hands and angry voices and sharp pains and so much hunger from his mind.
Almost, but not quite.
Jim knows that the IV in his arm is not there simply for hydration, or whatever they claimed on its installation.
He knows the pull of the sedatives at night, but doesn't complain. While he never would admit to needing them, a full night's rest is preferable to a night wrought with nightmares and fits of sleeplessness, and he is more than willing to feign ignorance on the matter.
He knows what he will have to re-live if he were to attempt natural sleep. He knows it well enough to accept the dreamless sleep offered by the sedatives.
He doesn't know how much longer these dreamless nights will be an option, and will take as many of them as he can.
By the time the ship finally docks on Earth, the doctors have deemed Jim only slightly underweight, a vast improvement from the emaciated state in which they found him. When he leaves, it is with strict orders to continue to eat as they have been feeding him, three full meals of the most nutritious-yet-fatty foods they can find.
The shuttle to Riverside is long, and Jim spends the first part reading the label on the bottle of sleeping pills Bullock handed him on his way out. He learns the ingredients and warnings and proper uses because his PADDs had been left on Tarsus IV and it hadn't felt right to take the ones offered by the various Starfleet officers during his journey back.
By the time he gets off the shuttle, Jim has the label memorized, and has read every scrap of paper on the transport, desperate to keep his mind focused on something, anything.
Before he can even begin scanning the crowds, his mom is there, hugging him like she never wants to let go.
As a self-respecting adolescent, Jim is tempted to draw back, but as someone who hasn't seen his mom in almost two years, he leans into the embrace and reciprocates, relieved to be back at last.
When she finally pulls away, Winona stands back and grins as she begins to lead the way to the car. "Oh Jimmy, you've grown so much! Just look how tall you are! We're going to have to get you new clothes, aren't we? Well, that's just going to have to wait until after we've had a nice, home-cooked meal..."
The whole trip back to the house, she hardly stops talking, rarely pausing to allow Jim to answer one of her various inane questions.
Jim doesn't mind, though. He is just glad to be back.