A/N: This follows right after The First Time She cried for him. Sorry for the delay between updates. It may just be the three cups of coffee I had while typing this, but I'm freakin' excited about this chapter. Thank you kat7CA, opaqueglass, dauntlessmermaid, LoBear28, and Thorkone for your reviews! Hopefully this provides a bit of closure from the last chapter. Enjoy!

The First Time

He almost couldn't forgive her

"Where is Laxely anyway? She hasn't been by and I'm beginning to think she's avoiding me." He'd been awake for a few days now. His friends had come through to visit a few times already, making Sonja's absence all the more apparent.

Leonard hesitated long enough for the grin on Jim's face to fade. The doctor sighed before stepping away from the monitor screen to face his friend. His face was pensive, his arms crossed before him. Still, he hadn't said anything.

"Bones?"

"Don't go having a heart attack on me, kid. A lot of people worked hard to keep you alive."

"What happened?"

"She turned herself in over to Starfleet."

Jim blinked profusely, because that string of words just did not compute. "What do you mean, turned herself in, what does that even…"

Leonard took a breath. Having already had a few days to grasp the idea for himself, he knew Jim would not have that luxury.

"There's an investigation into how the whole incident of Khan came to be. A lot of people are dead, Jim and there are people out for blood. And even though she's willing to help there's no one left of Marcus' crew but her. There was a warrant for her arrest, so she turned herself in."

The screen monitor began to show an alarming heart rate, distracting Leonard from the topic as he immediately switched back into doctor mode.

"Jim, you need to calm down."

But in that moment of distraction when his eyes had flown to the monitor, Jim had already moved into a sitting position and was working on moving his legs out from under the blanket.

"Alright, that's enough. You're in no condition to even think about leaving." Leonard scolded, moving to set him back.

"The hell I'm not, she needs us, Bones. How could you let her go?" And there's an underlying anger there. It may have been only on Leonard's conscience, his thoughts already circling around how he could have let her leave their crew a year before. Still, the heat stings deeply.

"What she needs is for you to not kill yourself and trust her decision." Again, words that were once said at another time.

"She's in trouble-"

"I'm aware of that, I'm the one who just told you. Are you suffering from short term memory loss?" Without waiting for a response, he switched on the scanners over the bed to take a quick reading.

Jim, on the other hand had quickly lost patience for his friend, whipped the sheets off his body and slid his legs over the edge of the bed.

"I need to see her."

"Wait – Jim!" Leonard braced the other man by his shoulders and forced him back down. "You can't just go to her, not when so many eyes are on you." He managed to set him back down much to Jim's chagrin. "Listen to me, damn it! She's in a dangerous spot, Jim. A lot of people want her bad. And you rushing to her in a god damn hospital gown is not going to help!"

"Who wants her?" Leonard began to pull away. Jim quickly gripped his arm and stared heatedly into his eyes. "Bones, who wants her?"

He took a moment to speak as evenly and plainly as possible. He was a doctor, delivering grim news was something he was trained to do fifty percent of the time. Still, this one was going to be a bit hard to swallow.

"Take your pick. You've got the families of every person who was killed when Khan crashed his ship into the city. You've got Starfleet who not only lost a great deal of good people but have just been enlightened about a whole damn section many didn't even know existed, those who did are doing a hell of a job of covering their tracks. And this Section 31 has their own questions I'm sure they're just itching to get answers for."

Jim was quiet for a moment. "But she was only there for a year."

"And seemed to have moved up through the ranks pretty quick in that time. I am telling you. She is a wanted woman. Some would argue rightly so."

Jim blinked and looked up at his friend, his grip had loosened considerably, Leonard was now holding onto him, anchoring him through this information.

"But not you. Please tell me, not you."

Leonard pulled back slightly. "You just woke up, Jim. You haven't heard everything that we have these last few weeks."

"We?"

"Myself and the rest of the crew. Everything has been pretty screwed up around here lately. No one seems to know their heads from their asses except for when it comes to her."

His head was swimming, he almost felt nauseous. But he gripped onto Leonard again and forced his vision to clear as he said in his most authoritative voice: "Bones, tell me everything you know."

Her lawyer was Lieutenant Murdock Ames, a true character right out of a crime novel. Tall, dark hair, clean shaven, with a stare as sharp as his cheek bones when searching for truth through the much of bureaucracy. She would consider herself lucky to have him if he hadn't lost a brother the day Khan crashed the Vengeance into San Francisco. Also if she didn't feel as guilty as she did, because he sniffed that on her their very first meeting.

She gave him the chip that had everything she had witnessed and then documented during her year under Marcus' command. It was proof of both her innocence and guilt. Lt. Ames had admitted as such. He wasn't entirely sure if they should bring the chip to court, not if she wanted to get away scot-free.

"It's all that I have." She told him on their last meeting the night before her trial. She'd been released to her own apartment for the night, with a sentinel posted outside her building of course.

And she was tired. Tired of going over the case, tired of hitting walls when it came to trying to prove her innocence, tired of the guilt, and just so damn tired of going through this all alone. By this time her friends had felt betrayed enough that there was no need for a guard at her door because other than her lawyer, no one was coming by to see her. She'd managed to convince her family to stay away from this, the last thing her mother needed was the stress of a courtroom case that would likely find her only daughter guilty.

Lt. Ames ran a hand back through his hair before standing and gathering up his suitcase. "Going into a case with nothing but the truth. I have to say, it's a first. And, frankly, a stupid idea."

She gave no response and made no move to walk him to the door.

"Tomorrow morning, 0800 hours."

The door opened and there was a pause before he walked through. She looked up and froze when she saw Jim standing in the hallway, blocking Lt. Ames from leaving.

Jim's eyes assessed the man in the doorway, stunned to silence because it suddenly slammed into him that everything he'd heard was true. Sensing the man's shock, Lt. Ames looked back at Sonja dryly – she refused to meet his stare – before excusing himself and passing through to leave.

It was silent as the door closed with Jim standing just inside, watching her as she sat unable to look up at him. Her heart was hammering in her chest, there was a ringing in her ears and she was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.

She hadn't realized how much she'd been looking forward to this moment. The last time she'd seen him he was lying unconscious, Khan's blood pumping into him. And here he was, standing on his own two feet, his eyes shining, his lungs breathing, and his skin very much his own color now. And she was so happy.

She suddenly had the urge to cry because she just…could not believe that this joyous moment that had been her silver lining through all the crap had come the night before she was going to lose everything; had come at a moment her hope had withered to darkness; had come at the price of her friend's trust and faith in her.

She sensed it in his silence. She sensed it in his voice when he finally spoke.

"I heard. Bones told me. He's been telling me a lot lately when it comes to you. Which I find strange because I thought we were friends."

"Jim…"

"Is it true?" He cut her off, sounding breathless, as if he'd sprinted to get there. He waited for her head to lift to him. "Did you have enough on Marcus to shut him down before Khan escaped?"

And there it was. The truth that was going to be her downfall. She had gone from infiltrator for good to an accomplice for two very different war criminals. She thought she had accepted her fate. But the ache in her chest as she looked into his cold, guarded eyes told her very differently. Her armor slid back on instantly.

"Yes." Her voice was void of emotion, her eyes blank. She didn't elaborate.

He needed her to. Because he could not wrap his head around it.

"Why didn't you stop it?"

"I didn't know-"

"You didn't know?"

"-that Khan was going to escape. I had my orders to keep digging."

"Orders from who?"

"Jim-"

"You could have stopped it. You could have turned everything in, Marcus would have had Starfleet breathing down his neck, Khan would have been revealed and none of it, none of it would have escalated the way it did."

Pike. He meant Christopher Pike. His mentor. Skyla's brother. Spock's friend. A good man whose loss everyone felt. A loss that was heavy on her shoulders.

"You saw what Marcus was doing. You have it in your report, you considered Khan a hostile flight risk – you knew and you did nothing."

"I had enough to discredit Marcus, yes. But you're naïve if you think it would have ended there." He was pushing her, and it was working. She stood, facing him across the room, the tension rising. "Marcus was up to some crazy shit but he was just a pawn. Section 31 would have wiped their hands clean of him and buried Khan deeper – they are the ones I was after."

"And how did that work out for you?"

"Why are you here?" There was a tremor. Slight, but enough to know she was reaching the end of her rope. "To get answers? To blow off steam? What? Because nothing that I am saying seems to be getting into that thick head of yours."

"You are unbelievable."

She wasn't going to win this. This moment they were living was the end of their friendship. She was going to lose. And maybe she deserved it.

"I had a job. I was told to keep digging."

"By who?"

"By who? By my one and only contact who can't vouch for me because he was murdered. So it's just me. It is just me going into that court room tomorrow against an organization that has been hidden for years within the very Federation we pledged our allegiance to. And they will paint it just the way you see it now. That I did nothing." And the court would agree. The extra time Pike had handed her investigation was wringing itself tight around her neck. And tomorrow she would hang. "If you're here to point a finger Jim, you better save it for tomorrow. Because I can guarantee Section 31 will want that fire and rage in their arsenal when they call you to the stand. You know where the door is."

And she had to leave the room because she couldn't stand it anymore. The cold in his eyes, the hard set of his jaw as he refused to believe anything she said.

She'd walked into the kitchen. She hadn't meant to. She faced the wall at the end of the room before realizing it wasn't her bedroom and turned to brace herself against the counter. She screwed her eyes shut against the tears that wanted to spill. She pressed her lips together, fearing a sob would break through. After a moment, she finally released a breath and fell against the counter top, her head resting low between her shoulders, her hands clasped together so tightly she could no longer feel her fingers.

How did everything go so wrong?

She'd kept from asking herself that question. There had been no time to really digest. She never let herself believe she'd had another option. And now?

And now everything was so screwed up she didn't even know.

'It's okay to cry.' Her mother's voice whispered to her and she could almost feel her hands on her arms, pulling her into a comforting embrace. 'It's okay to be lost.'

"Damn," She breathed out, giving herself over to her emotions. She wished she hadn't told her family to stay away. They were who she needed. Someone on her side. Someone who believed her and rooted for her. Why did she think she could do this on her own?

Because she had given up.

She didn't want to give up anymore. She didn't want to just roll over. She needed a plan.

She needed to call Lt. Ames back. Section 31 could not be let off the hook for this; she would not be their scapegoat.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she straightened and marched out of the kitchen ready to call her lawyer.

She stopped short when she saw Jim seated at the couch where she had been some time before. He looked up as she entered and saw the remnants of tears on her lashes, the moistened skin on her flushed cheeks. Neither spoke at first.

She thought he had left.

He figured as such. He began softly. "You need to be ready in ten hours. Let's start from the beginning. What made you leave the Enterprise?"

She could see the pain it was taking for him to swallow this; it was written clearly across his face.

"You don't have to do this." Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd spent the day yelling.

It tugged at him. He knew he didn't have to. Part of him didn't want to, the part of him that went chasing after Khan with 72 photon torpedoes. The other part of him wanted to believe her. The other part of him wanted to protect her, get her through the worst of it so she could come through the other side. So she could come back home where she belonged.

"You didn't pull the trigger on any of this."

"I was going to call my lawyer, really, you don't have to stay."

"Sonja." He looked into her eyes and for the first time that night, they were free of hostility. Instead, they were apologetic. "I want to be on your side here. Please, let me help you."

There was a plethora of protests that went unsaid as she considered him. Carefully, as if approaching a wary doe, she took a seat on the recliner adjacent to the couch he sat upon. Mirroring his position of elbows resting on knees and clasped hands, Sonja debated on how to proceed.

"About a year ago, right after you made Captain, Admiral Pike approached me with an offer."

Jim breathed in deeply. Sonja prayed she was making the right call.