Slow Way Home
Chapter 1
[Day 5 of 45]
It had been four days since the destruction of the Narada and the death of Nero. Four long days where Jim barely left the Bridge, except to use the lavatories. The adrenaline had long since worn off, exhaustion and starvation had settled in.
Thankfully someone had noticed she refused to leave the bridge and was keeping her well stocked on nice hot coffee. Still, everything on her body hurt. Her muscles were fatigued and screamed with the need to rest. From her own calculation every one of her ribs was injured somehow though only four of them – from the cursory exam she'd done while alone in the lavatory – were actually broken… maybe six but no more though that didn't count all the fractures that might have been in them. Because of how many times her bones had been broken she actually needed a machine to find those.
That wasn't mentioning her cracked cheek bone that hurt like hell when she talked. She wasn't sure when she got that because during the Narada adventures it had felt fine. Then there was her dislocated shoulder.
Her eyes were drooping again. Jim wanted to stay awake. She didn't want to fall asleep – especially not in the captain's chair. She didn't want to dream which would be more like nightmares for a short while.
Though she knew it would be better to have her nightmares on the ship rather than on earth with the twins nearby suffering from them as well.
Speaking of, she really needed to talk to Spock about them. She hadn't managed to speak to him in private yet – not since the ship with the red matter. Her mind kept going over that kiss and the confession he made about still loving her. But the other part of her kept going over all the insults, abandoning her with nothing to help survive.
Jim was feeling two different pains at that point and time; Physical and emotional.
Glancing around Jim spotted Spock looking at her again. His eyes were appraising her as if waiting for her to collapse or give in. She wasn't sure which would happen first.
Plus, besides all the reports she was receiving all across the ship that she had to read, puzzling over her failing marriage, and collecting her long list of injuries she had she also had to worry about her career after Starfleet.
Despite the fact she'd saved earth she'd cheated on the Kobyashi Maru, she stowed away on a flagship, undermined the authority of a senior officer, incited mutiny, and then forced a captain to show he was compromised publicly. She'd be lucky if she got off with suspension though the Admirals – she could tell – hated her anyways. She would definitely be getting a dishonorable discharge from the Academy.
She would be proving her mother right. She was stupid and no good for anything but to warm somebody's bed.
Holding back the sigh that wanted to escape she noticed a new message. She opened the message only to see it was from the Captain. He was awake and demanding to see her. Her heart rate sped up and she gathered herself.
Then she stood.
"Mr. Spock, take the Conn," she told her husband. Then she left the Bridge without waiting for a response.
Approaching the Medical Bay – even if only to visit somebody else – she felt queasy. She hated infirmaries. They were all sterile and lifeless with that same smell that just revolted her. And what was worse was it had been four days since they'd saved the earth but she hadn't been to see Bones yet… or Vera.
"Jim," McCoy called as he spotted her. "I'll get a scanner…"
"I'm here to see the Captain," she informed Bones who stopped. Everyone looked at her and she knew she was in trouble. He pointed her into the private room and upon entering she found Captain Pike sitting up in bed.
"Heard from both Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy about what happened since I was taken by that psychopath. Now, I want your version of what happened," Pike told her. "So, Report Cadet."
She flinched because this man was her father figure. He was the one her daughter actually slipped and called Grandpa Pike when she was two and a half because of how close they were. That tone – that angry disappointment – couldn't have stung more.
So she began talking. She didn't leave out any details from between his leaving until that point. She didn't talk about injuries sustained. She didn't use any emotions in describing the events. She gave plain facts. The door was closed so she even told him about the older Spock helping her but informed him of what he'd told her – that his younger self must never know.
"You should be in the Brig," the Captain told her and she nodded. "You were completely out of line. What you did was reckless, subversive, and against the rules of engagement." She listened, waiting for the Court Marshal. They were silent and she waited for him to continue, wondering why he wasn't saying anything.
She was staring right over his shoulder, her back straight though everything hurt and her legs were shaking to the point she was surprised they could hold her up. Her ankle had tensed up in the time she'd been sitting and it felt like it was on fire… that was with her suppressing the pain and ignoring it.
"Aren't you going to defend yourself cadet?" Pike asked.
"I told you what I did… now it's time and wait for either my suspension or dishonorable discharge," she said, refusing to look him in the face. Her breathing was faster and she was beginning to see black on the outside of her vision but she ignored it. "My actions warrant both."
"God damn it kid," Pike said sounding frustrated. "You just saved Earth and you're not even going to use that to defend yourself. To say your actions saved all those lives?"
"No… because I didn't act alone, everyone helped," she told him. She wasn't modest by nature but in this she wasn't being modest, she was telling the truth. Taking credit for something they all had a hand in would undermine their contributions.
Silently she wondered when the hell she began to think like Spock. Maybe it was her exhaustion.
"Well, if you aren't going to defend yourself you're lucky that just about everyone else has been by to see me the last four days to stand up for you," Pike said and her attention was suddenly turned to him. He didn't look pleased. "I wanted you to defend yourself. Kid… you…" he stopped as she stumbled, the ground feeling like it had shifted beneath her. As she did there was a sharp pain in her chest. She fell to her knees, unable to breathe.
"McCoy!" Pike yelled and there was running feet.
"What happened?" McCoy's faint voice asked as everything was going black. She was on the ground now and she felt her shirt being lifted.
Her mind was too hazy to know what was happening and she fought back. Then everything went dark.
~Slow Way Home~
Spock was on the Bridge worrying about his wife. She was so focused on keeping the ship safe – being there in case something happened and an emergency cropped up that she hadn't eaten, hadn't slept, and hadn't gotten her injuries looked after.
He was worried when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest. He clenched his fists and he recognized the feeling.
But it didn't make sense. She'd just left the bridge. She'd been injured but alive.
"Chekov, take the bridge," he ordered the younger man as he stood up, his body shaking.
"Aye Commander," the boy said and Spock went to find his wife. Acting automatically Spock went to the infirmary where he found Captain Pike struggling against a Nurse who kept telling him he was still recovering from surgery and needed to return to bed.
"What's going on here?" he asked, holding himself upright and in control. He'd had practice with all the times his wife flat lined since he left her.
"Your wife was just taken into surgery and they won't let me check on her," Pike told him and he turned toward there just as he sighed with relief. She was back. "Your relieved how…"
"I felt her flat line – that's why I came down here – but she's back," Spock informed the Captain. He looked pale. "You should lie down Captain. It is illogical for you to strain yourself so soon after Surgery when you should be recovering."
With that he led the man to his private room.
"I knew Kirk's father," Pike said as Spock got him back into Bed. Spock looked up at him. "He was already in his third year when I was a first year but he befriended me. He'd just gotten married to Winona and she was pregnant. We made a pact that if anything happened to the other – and we had a spouse and children – we'd take care of them. Winona wouldn't let me help after George died but I kept an eye from afar."
"Does…" Spock began, noticing the man jumped as if forgetting who was with him.
"No. She knows I knew her dad and that I was two years beneath him but I never told her about the pact or the fact I was the one who paid for several of her school trips. She was always bright – but at the age of ten she… changed. Sam ran away and she became – wild," Spock heard the man say. He remembered hearing something similar from her five years before. "Her wild nature stopped, for the most part, after Vulcan." Spock flinched.
"Getting married…" Spock began but once again he was cut off.
"She hasn't told you yet has she?" Pike asked and Spock frowned until he felt her flat line for a second time. He closed his eyes and breathed. "She flat lined?"
"Yes, sir," Spock said quietly. "What hasn't she told me?" he asked, needing to get his mind on something else though his hands clenched before him in a praying form, hoping his wife would survive.
"I probably shouldn't tell you… since it's a private matter," the Captain began and Spock began to worry. But the Captain pulled something out of his things and handed it over. It was a holographic photo and inside there was his wife's smiling face – and she was behind two children. The one was bright and smiling, her hair covered one ear but the other was Vulcan and her eyes were bright blue. The other child was male and his mouth wasn't smiling though his eyes showed he was happy. He had Spock's features except for his eye color at least. "You're a father Spock."
"Why… why hasn't she told me about them?" he questioned softly. He felt his emotions roar within him.
He was elated to know he had actually fathered a child – he wasn't infertile. But he'd missed so much which both disappointed and saddened him. And then he was angry she'd hid them.
A knock at the door had them both looking and his mother walked in. She was just a few hours from being released and would go stay with his father.
"Spock are… oh," his mother said, spotting the photo in his hands. It was a holophoto. "She wanted to tell you herself. She was planning to tell you but… this got in the way," his mother told him and he looked at her.
"You know?" he asked, feeling betrayed.
"Honey, I told you the consulate would keep you two apart. They are a bunch of old windbags who think they know best. A human married to a Vulcan is not something they'd approve of. And she contacted me the day before everything occurred. She asked me how she could contact you. Your daughter came running out of your room and her brother collected her, apologizing for his sister's 'illogical behavior'. They were the pair of you," his mother told him.
"Now that I know who their father is I can definitely see the resemblance. Your wife has her hands full with those two," Pike told him and he stared at the photo again. This was his family – a family he hadn't known existed.
An ease of pressure told him his wife – mother of his children – was back alive. It was a terrifying thought – children. He'd wanted them all his life, after learning he could never have them. Now they were right in front of him and he didn't know what to do.
"Can you tell us about them, since you seem so close?" his mother asked, moving to sit next to Spock on one of the sitting chairs placed in the private room. There were four – two along each side wall on either side of the bed.
"George – the boy though he is known more by Jory – is more intelligent than any child has the right to be. As smart as most high school students he is extremely smart. Recently he's been focusing on medical training though he does bounce some between science and medical fields. That's because part of him knows you were well versed in science when you knew his mother. But he was also influenced a lot during his informative years by Doctor McCoy who lived across the hallway from them and was his mother's best friend," Spock heard Captain Pike say.
"He seemed very… Vulcan when I saw him," his mother said.
"Oh, he is. All control, all internalizing. He was the mental which is why it's fitting your son is a full telepath," Pike said and Spock and his mother both looked up. "It's part of why your son is so intelligent. He listens in on the thoughts of those around him, memorizing information from them then turning it into something useful. And his mother feared he wasn't retaining any of the information he learned and was just skating by but a test showed that he was indeed memorizing whatever information he gleans through his telepathy," Pike told them.
There was a knock at the door then and an Orion entered the room. He recognized her as one of his students.
"What can I do for you, Ms. Roe," the captain asked.
"I heard Jimmy came down here. Is she around, I need to… oh, sorry," the woman began before noticing Spock and his mother. Spock knew this to be Gaila Roe, a computer programmer he used on the Kobyashi Maru.
"You are acquainted with my wife?" Spock asked.
"That's one of her two best friends," the Captain said. "And, Ms. Roe, Jim was taken into surgery about twenty minutes ago. She collapsed from injuries she refused to get looked after."
"Typical Jim. I'm so going to kick her ass for this. I mean," Ms. Roe stopped when she realized who she was in front of. "I apologize Captain, Commander."
"No need. Jim can do that to everyone… and right now, I'll let it slip, just don't let it happen outside this room," the Captain stated.
"Yes sir," Ms. Roe said before spotting the photo. "Oh, you know about little Jory and Little Mandy. Those two are so different. We're trying to girl your daughter up but she is such a tomboy. She hates dresses and being fashionable... Danni and I…" the woman stopped before glancing out of the door.
"You Mean Daniela Marx?" Spock heard his mother say.
"Yeah. She and Jim hit it off, both being married to Vulcans. Then they found that they were actually similar so they became friends. Becoming friends I was introduced and I became friends with her too. We used to sometimes take Mandy while Bones and Pavel would take Jory giving Jim time to herself. Of course, she couldn't stand it. Her life revolves around school and those children," Spock heard Ms. Roe tell them. He got a whole new picture of his wife that was not the woman he expected her to be.
He remembered a wild, untamable, unruly woman who loved danger and the thrill of adventure. The woman Ms. Roe was describing was very… domestic in her day to day.
"She can't have changed that much," his mother told the woman. "She was wild and untamable. I remember that one fight she got in – took on four men and they beat the hell out of her so bad she needed surgery or would have died but they also needed surgery because of the beating she, alone, gave them."
"Oh, trust me, that fighting spirit is still there," Ms. Roe told them.
"Fighting spirit, that's right. In fact, I tried to get her to teach one of the hand to hand combat courses at the Academy because of her fighting spirit. But it conflicted with when she had to pick up the twins every day so she turned it down – repeatedly," Pike told them.
"Yeah, plus, she's always for a cause. The first fight she got into at the school was the day she arrived. You saw Pavel Chekov up on the Bridge right?" Ms. Roe asked and Spock did a single nod. "Well, his roommate was kicking the crap out of him because he was a fourteen year old smart kid in his second year. Jim beat the hell out of the guy and threatened him that if she ever heard of him hurting the kid again she'd give him another beating he'd never forget. Then she moved Pavel into her third bedroom that was originally an office area. She was known for the best grades and the highest number of fights at the academy."
That was his wife.
Hearing about her from them helped him remember all those little traits he'd pushed to the back of his mind. He remembered the conversations they'd had, the problems they'd faced.
Silence settled over them and the captain slid into sleep. Spock waited and it had been several hours when two Doctors stepped into the room. Moving to his feet, Spock knew she was alive but he didn't know what her condition beyond that was.
"Your wife is alive," Spock heard the Doctor say. "But she will have a long road ahead of her. She received one hell of a beating and delaying treatment made her injuries more pronounced. The idiot ended up moving just right that one of her broken ribs punctured a lung nearly killing her. She flat lined twice during surgery." He wanted to argue that she wasn't an idiot but was stopped.
"Don't insult his wife, McCoy," the other doctor – Doctor Vera Ellen – lectured.
"Fine, whatever. The kid had a whole slew of injuries that, compounded on each other and left untreated, were nearly lethal including a slow bleed in her intestines that caused a great deal of blood loss. She fractured all twelve ribs – some multiple times. She also broke six of the twelve. There was also severe bruising along her back from what appeared to be hit marks. And her left shoulder was both dislocated and fractured. Her right ankle had two different radiating fractures. She had a cracked cheek bone and several bones around her eye were injured severely. Then there were also five breaks in her left hand that she's lucky we were able to repair. There was frost bite on the tips of her fingers – I'm surprised nobody noticed it. We were able to use a dermal regenerator on that and that it was only surface damage. She also had a severe concussion and there were cuts along her back beyond the bruises. And… does anyone know if she had any serious falls because that's what it looked like happened – as if she fell down a snow hill or cliff," Dr. McCoy say and all Spock could think was Delta Vega where he'd placed her so she'd be safe.
"Is that all?" Spock asked, not having heard any damage that came from being sexually assaulted like Nero had suggested which had him feeling relieved.
"Yeah… is there something else we should look for?" McCoy asked. He eyed him warily.
"I was not sure if he was taunting me into action so I would make a mistake or if he was serious but Nero – while Jamie and I were separated – eluded to the fact that one of his men were…" he shivered and the Doctor paled. There were two sharp intakes of breath. He didn't even need to say the word which he was grateful for.
"No, there weren't any signs of sexual assault. The scanner would have sent up a big red flag if there were," Dr. McCoy assured him and he felt relief.
"Thank you Dr. McCoy. Have all her injuries been helped to the best of your abilities?" Spock inquired.
"Yeah, some will have to heal over time though. For the most part all her bones are mended, the bleeding stopped, her lung repaired, and the dermal regenerator having taken care of her numerous bruises and frost bite. The concussion and a few other injuries will have to heal on their own," McCoy informed them. "Another thing – she needs sustained rest and food. Her stomach was completely empty. I doubt she's eaten anything since the apple she had for breakfast during the Kobyashi Maru."
Spock nodded, glancing toward the door.
"She's stable enough, we'll take you to her," Dr. Ellen said and McCoy nodded. They led Spock out of the room, Spock placing the picture back with its owner before heading to follow them.