Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last chapter. Waiting until the movie was available for home viewing was a good thing. The plan for this chapter change completely. I don't think I used any direct quotes, but some of the lines do cover the exact same ground.
Special thank you to Mimi Jones for proofreading this chapter.
Inspired by Jimmy Loving by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Specific lyrics from the song did not inspire this chapter, but rather the overall theme of getting to look behind the curtain and realizing that things are not really what you think they should be, and the idiots in charge really are that corrupt.
Chapter 10: Jonathan Jackson
"If you say I told you so, I'm going to hurt you," Nyota tells Leonard as they made their way to the research center. Whoever came up with the brilliant idea to build the place were beaming in and out is impossible was an idiot. It was probably Jackson because the man is just that paranoid and crazy. Jim and Spock are taking a different path, allegedly to look for any evidence of how the assailants got off the planet. She personally thinks it's either an excuse to not be around her or to have sex in the woods, probably both. She should have had both stay on the ship. The whole point of her being captain right now was to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But she has known both men long enough to know that was not going to happen.
"I wasn't going to say anything about that," he says in a way that tells her he was going to do just that. "It's not your fault that Jim ended up speaking with a communications officer with a big mouth. He will forgive you eventually."
"Probably as soon as he gets some quality Spock time," she says without an ounce of sarcasm.
"I assume that's why you let him and the hobgoblin go off exploring on their own. With a two-year-old in their bed, that's going to be the only way they're going to get to do anything, anytime soon," Leonard quips.
"Maybe, I don't want to talk about Jim," she tells him with an annoyed sigh as they kept moving. The security teams are at least 100 m away, looking for any signs of how the assailants got off the planet.
"We could talk about why you banned one of my PAs from coming down here?" he says, giving her the look. She hates the look.
"Because Christine is too close to what's going on. Did you know that Carol was her BFF? She knew all about baby David and didn't say a damn thing to Spock about it." Her hands balled up instinctively as she remembers Christine's confession.
"Shit," he says before she launches into a 20 minute rant on everything Christine said regarding the David's situation. They were close enough that they can see the research center off in the distance by the time she was done screaming about her so-called friend.
"She should have told us what the hell we were getting into. She's supposed to be my friend yet she lied to me," she practically growls.
"I'm sure Jim is probably saying something very similar about you right now," Leonard mumbles under breath.
"It's not the same thing. I didn't lie to Jim. I was just trying to… Keep him safe," she tells Leonard, after taking a few seconds to choose the right words. "She lied to us. She kept Spock's son from him. She lied to me."
"So that's what you are most upset about," he says, giving her thoughtful look.
"It seems like everybody I trust screws me over eventually. So what's the point of trying anymore?" she tells him, throwing her hands up in the air.
"I felt that same way after the divorce. I shut down inside. Then I ended up sitting next to this complete asshole on the shuttle ride to be inducted into my own personal hell and threw up on this pretty girl's shoes. They gave me another reason to try." They are closer to each other than they should be, only mere centimeters apart. His hand is on hers and honestly she can't remember when he started touching her. She can feel his breath on her face, because he is looking down at her. He is looking at her with such reverence that she's having trouble breathing. It feels like that moment at her birthday party and she wants to close those few centimeters. Except this time, she can't blame it on the alcohol, or the influence of the horny couple next door. Although she is sure that Jim probably has his hand on Spock's dick by this point. She's okay with it because she has known Jim long enough to know that the only way to keep him calm right now is probably sex. He is less of a prick post orgasm.
"I hate to interrupt but you need to get in there, captain," Gaila says, smirking. "You can make out after you look at what we found in the basement." Leonard just gives her his glare of death as they walked into a room that still looks like a crime scene. The security team has yet to catch up, but she didn't have time to wait. Honestly, the less that see this, the better.
All the bodies have been recovered, but it's hard to miss a bullet hole in a console screen. That scene was repeated throughout the space. There wasn't too much they could do because Jackson's team wanted the scene as undisturbed as possible. It was a disaster area. What was not stolen was destroyed. Even personal electronics were missing, including David's Little Geniuses PADD, which the two-year-old was not happy about. Seriously, who takes a children's toy?
She's personally shocked that Spock was able to access any of the security footage because the majority of it was gone. Actually, the camera near the kitchen/café was the only thing that survived, probably because nobody would think that there was a security camera there.
"Just explain what is going on," Nyota says, not having the energy to be formal.
"I was trying to figure out exactly why Spock could still access the security footage for the kitchen area remotely. Everything else is gone, including the security feeds for the living quarters. It turns out it was on a different system that was not destroyed by the attackers, a really secure system, and the fact that Spock could actually get in is a small miracle. It's just better if I show you." She says as they follow her back to the room where they found David.
"Why are we in the kitchen?" She asks, just as Gaila orders a grilled cheese, fontina and white cheddar on honey wheat bread with apple slices inside, from one of the replicators. She remembers that was Spock's favorite from her stupid schoolgirl with a crush phase. "This is not the time for a sandwich. You and Scotty are so alike it's scary sometimes," she quips as the wall in front of her suddenly disappears, and there was an elevator in its place.
"How did you know to do that?" Nyota asks, in shock.
"Trying to recover data from completely wrecked equipment makes you hungry and I just happened to be lucky enough to crave Amanda's signature grilled cheese. Fortunately for us the code was probably chosen by Spock's crazy ex-girlfriend. Actually, her involvement may also be the reason why Spock could access the system remotely and his special program can unencrypt everything." Gaila says as she signaled for the other two to step inside.
"It now makes sense why Carol was heading to the kitchen. She was going to make a break for the secret bunker down there." Leonard mumbles.
"However, when she realized that they would just follow her down here, she went with plan B. Trust me; she would not want them to find this place." Gaila says, getting off the elevator into a space that was several times larger than the lab upstairs with multiple rooms. It was obvious that they were doing very different research down here. "Let's just say from what I've glanced at before calling you down here, I don't think any of this is legal and I figured that out before Jorge discovered the room filled with frozen bodies.
"Weapons?" she asks, remembering the rumors about what was supposedly happening in London before the January 26, 2259 incident.
"In a sense, if you consider death an enemy," she says as they walked into a room with 70 frozen bodies and Gaila explains everything they found. Her stomach begins to fill with dread as she realizes that her and Jim's earlier speculation that baby David was brought back from the dead by something they were working on now seems highly likely.
"Is he still alive?" Nyota asks as he scans the body. He needs to be in Doctor Mode right now, not thinking about what Gaila interrupted. He almost kissed her again and this time he was completely sober and in the middle of a mission. They need to stop doing this. She avoided him for days after the last time, and she was just starting to speak to him again (most likely because she pissed off Jim and Christine had pissed her off).
"Technically, yes, but if I use the wrong sequence to revive him, it will probably kill him. I'm not familiar with this at all," he can be honest with her with the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing in regards to the popsicle people.
"Because it's something new that they were developing here?" she asks, with worry in her voice. She's right to worry.
He'd barely looked at the files pertaining to the "super serum" that they were developing and he was already concerned. Any file that mentions a drug's ability to resurrect tribbles and Human-Vulcan children who probably died of SIDS is reason enough to be terrified, add in the fact that it alters their DNA afterwards, and you have a recipe for disaster. The fact that they were doing research that was technically illegal on earth makes him sick, or what would have been illegal if they were studying the human genome. Due to the destruction of Vulcan, there's probably some exception for any type of research that can result in more Vulcan babies being born by whatever means necessary. He has a feeling he did not want to look at what's behind door number three of this place.
"Darling, this is anything but new, this is how people traveled pre-warp," he should really stop the pet names, but he uses it anyway, probably to calm her down. He doesn't really know. "Our friend here is a good 300 years old."
"This is what they used in the late 20th century, I think. I've seen pictures before." Nyota just looks at her strangely as she speaks.
"I am an engineer, even if you only see me as one of the best hackers on the ship. I know this stuff," she says defensively.
"Okay, I had this "ex-boyfriend" that was kind of obsessed with the late 20th century space technology, the Eugenic Wars, the 22nd century Augment Crisis, genetic engineering, and Augments in general. He spent a lot of time researching this urban legend about 80 something Augments escaping Earth right after the Eugenics Wars in a ship with this type of technology that was supposedly floating in space somewhere. He said he wanted to find it on a mission someday. It was the whole reason why he joined Starfleet. That's why he was trying to convince his mentor to do a deep space mission before everything fell apart with Vulcan being destroyed and everyone figuring out that some of the admiralty were assholes. He wanted his ship to have that mission but it sort of went to us instead." This guy already sounded like a real nut job, and he wouldn't be surprised if the guy had something to do with this special project.
"Do you remember who this ex-boyfriend was?" he asked Gaila.
"I can't remember his name but he was a captain and he is a little younger than Chris." Both he and Nyota looked at each other obviously coming to the same conclusion.
"Was his name Jonathan?" Nyota asked.
"Maybe, I really don't remember. It started with a J, it may had been Jack or something like that. Honestly, I don't want to remember the creepy guy's name. He was a bit of a jerk and I'm pretty sure he only had sex with me because of my planet of origin. He kind of had a non-human fetish. He was obsessed with Commander Spock and not in an 'I want to have a threesome with him' sort of way, but an 'I wish I could study him way'. He said he was the one example of how genetic engineering could be a good thing." Gaila's words made Nyota visibly shiver.
"Shit," he mumbles under breath. Getting to study Spock's kid would definitely be some sort of prize for the sociopath. From what he's heard and read so far, Carol was coerced into coming here because David was ill and Jackson promised to save him. As a father, he would do the same thing. The woman died for her son. Working on illegal experiments would seem like a small price to pay. He has seen firsthand what people will do for the sake of their children.
"I think he already did," Nyota says as she pulled up an image on her PADD. It was of their least favorite Admiral at his wedding. "Is this the guy?"
"I think so, kind of. I slept with a lot of people that year. I only remember this stuff about his special research project because he was really obsessed. It was like one of the only things he would talk about, that and hybrid children. I kind of think he wanted me to be the mother of his half human half Orion child." The thought even made him shiver.
"It's okay, we all make bad choices. I don't think any less of you even if I think half the time that Leonard and I were the only people at the Academy you did not have sex with." Nyota says, giving her a supportive hug and Leonard really hopes that Gaila won't correct her wrong assumption.
"That's only because you're really straight and emotionally unavailable;" she says in a joking way, but there was something else behind her words. "I never slept with Jim and Spock because Spock will not agree to a threesome. I did sleep with Leonard but that was before I knew you were kind of in love with him." His first response is to glare at her. Why did she have to mention something that happened three years ago?
"I am not in love with -You slept with her?" she says turning around to look at him with the type of death glare that his ex-wife used on him regularly.
"You are kind of proving my point right now," Gaila mumbles under breath.
"This isn't the time for this conversation." He says, trying to get back to examining the Human Popsicle in front of him.
"You slept with my friend?" She asks again. At this point he knew it was in his best interest not to answer that question.
"It was a couple of days after Jim and Spock's wedding. Jim set us up but it didn't really work out. It didn't mean anything, it was just sex," Gaila says, shrugging. "It's no big deal, especially if you're not in love with him, like you were claiming a minute ago. Although, if you actually are in love with him, then I can understand why you're mad."
"I'm not- I'm- it's not- I" Nyota stammers. Any time you reduce a linguistics expert to singular syllable words you know the situation is bad. Fortunately, her communicator chirps at that moment, resulting in her leaving to find Jim and dragging the security officers that finally showed up with her.
"Did you have to tell her about that?" he grumbles at the woman in front of him as soon as Nyota was on her way out of the complex.
"Yes. This little game you two have going on is driving me crazy. I hope you two would've finally fucked at her birthday party but obviously it didn't happen. You're in love with her. She's in love with you. I mean every time you get hurt on a mission she practically falls to pieces. Can you just both fuck now? All of this sexual tension between you two is bad for my health. I would like to have this resolved before I'm back to Earth dealing with Amanda dancing around Chris," she says, giving him an exasperated look.
"It's not that simple," he says because this woman knew him too well and denial will not work on her.
"It's never that simple with humans, because you make it so complicated," she practically yells at him.
"Look, we don't have time for this. I'm sending for my medical staff to deal with our frozen friends so I can focus on the files that you have recovered and decrypted. I only want myself or Spock to look at the research data, no one else." He loves his team, but this is just too much. Nothing going on here seems remotely legal. The fewer people that know what's really going on, the better.
"I already made a copy to a freestanding PADD that's not on the network. Nobody else down here knows what I found." Well, at least she picked up something from the Jim Kirk School of Paranoia.
"That works for me. In the meantime, try to remember as much as you can about your ex-boyfriend's extracurricular activities and stay out of your best friend's sex life. You have other things to worry about, like recovering the files from upstairs." God, it's like having to deal with another Jim Kirk sometimes, except this one doesn't have a Vulcan husband to keep her from doing the really stupid stuff.
"Nyota has a very active sex life, which is why I don't get why she was so upset about something that happened more than three years ago, if she wasn't in to you. It's the love life that is her problem. Ever since the prick, she keeps falling in love with guys who are emotionally unavailable like Jim's honey bear. Her freaking out proves there's something there," she argues.
"Back off Gaila," he tells her again.
"She's my best friend and we are in the middle of this grand conspiracy of the Federation. I need to do something to keep my mind off of everything. I play matchmaker when I'm nervous."
He decided it was in his best interest to ignore her as he tells the rest of his team to get down here now. He had more important things to worry about like the 70 bodies down here that are currently in popsicle mode and the zombie tribbles in the next room.
"I can't believe you," Nyota says as soon as she arrives to his location. "You were supposed to meet me at the research facility, not suck off your husband in the middle of the woods. Don't deny it. Your neck is practically one giant hickey right now and your lips are really swollen." He would be offended by that if it wasn't kind of true. But hey, thanks to their break to "unwind" a little before having to spend quality time at a crime scene they now know how the attackers got off the planet.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be mad at you," he says, giving her a mock offended look.
"You set up Gaila with Leonard." Okay, he wasn't expecting her to mention that effort. It does explain why she's extra snippy. She's so clueless about her Bones related feelings. It's funny and frustrating at the same time.
"Three years ago and it didn't work out. How did you even find out about that?" he asks.
"You don't really want to know the particulars of that conversation. Basically some time at the Academy, Jackson slept with Gaila, most likely because he wanted her to be the mother of his future hybrid children." The scary thing was Nyota was being completely serious. Considering all the things that Jackson has done (that they know of) finding out he was sleeping with a cadet really doesn't shock Jim at all. Sometimes he thinks that he and Pike were the only people in Starfleet who did not grossly violate several rules about Captain sleeping with their subordinates.
"She did not remember his name but she did remember that he was obsessed with Spock and some urban legend about 80 Augments that escaped Earth after the eugenics war. There are currently 70 300 year old individuals who probably match that description frozen in the compound. In addition, we have lots of research regarding how to resurrect the dead and how to make a better Vulcan."
Jim is not surprise; it's about what he expected from Carol's cryptic message. The fact that it's Federation sanction, or at least supposed to be Federation sanction, makes him nauseous. This isn't the Starfleet that he joined. They were supposed to be discovering new worlds, not whatever the hell this was.
"That kind of makes sense considering the email that Carol sent to Spock via Christine in the event of her untimely death. The man was obsessed with that sort of thing. He arranged for Spock and Carol to meet, pushed Carol to start 'dating' Spock, despite the fact she was underage, and possibly switched her birth control out for fertility drugs. I'm sure the sick fuck tossed in some aphrodisiacs, just for good measure. I'll give you the rest of the unsavory details later."
After the volcano incident, he has learned that if he doesn't want to end up before a committee, it's probably best for him to step back from any mission where anybody could argue that he is emotionally compromised. Nyota needs to be captain right now. He's been a captain long enough to know that Jackson was going to use this against him despite the dirt they had on the man.
"Oh my God, she was not even 17 yet." Nyota says, actually sounding sympathetic towards Carol for once.
"Also included in the cryptic message was a warning not to 'defrost' anything in the basement without talking to Spock's 'brother' first," he told her.
"Spock doesn't have a brother."
"Actually," Jim was about to mention something about Spock's deceased half-brother, but thought better of it. Everybody deserves to keep their own deep dark family secrets and he can totally understand why Spock wanted to pretend he was an only child until Amanda adopted the girls. "From a genetic point of view, Spock is a twin."
"Elder Selek," she says, getting it without him saying too much.
"Exactly," he confirms.
"That means we need to go along with Jackson's little diplomatic ferrying mission." She says with a sigh.
"I knew I chose the right person to take over," he says with a smile. "That's what I would do, especially considering what we found on the way to meet you."
"So you were not taking a 'break' with Spock?" The way she said the word 'break' it sounded dirty.
"Hey technically, I'm on paternity leave," he tells her defensively.
"I'm going to take that as a yes," she says with a roll of her eyes.
"We uncovered a portable trans-warp beaming device and their destination pretty much confirms all of my suspicions about who was responsible for this massacre. It's not good," he tells her ominously.
"As long as it's not the Klingon home world we are good. It's not is it?" Everything would be so much easier if the enemy was the Klingons.
"No, that would be easier to deal with. The coordinates are for London and more specifically the former site of the Kelvin Memorial archives or at least someplace really close," Jim says gravely.
"Fuck, this was an inside job. We are on our own for this."
"I think we are," he tells her not making eye contact.
To be continued.