A/N: So I thought I'd get this up on Friday, but I have just been super distracted and unfocused cause of stuff happening in my other fandoms (mainly NCIS: Los Angeles and the Flarrowverse), so sorry for the extra wait time, and I hope this chapter's worth it. The parts I've been really looking forward to writing (my brain goes off on tangents a lot when I'm trying to mentally work on this fic during school) should be coming in sometime in the near future, so that'll motivate me, keep me focused. Hopefully.
When Leonard entered Jim's room, he was staring at the empty chair beside his bed, his eyes unfocused and withdrawn. "Morning, sleepyhead," he greeted.
Jim jumped, his heartrate spiking for a brief moment, before turning his head to Leonard. "Hey, Bones," he replied, his cheerful tone not convincing for a nanosecond.
Leonard perched on the edge of the biobed, leaning over to the control panel to raise Jim into a sitting position. "What are you remembering this time?"
Jim shook his head. "Nothing."
"You were alone for all of thirty seconds, and you were zoned out enough to jump when I walked in. You were remembering something."
He sighed, tilting his head back towards the empty chairs. "This is where they took me. And that's where Frank and Sam would sometimes sit and pretend to care."
"Well, that's where Aurelan and, soon, Winona will sit and care, and the kids'll pop in once you're strong enough. And Sam was there until a few minutes ago."
Jim jerked his head around to stare at Leonard. "What? Sam was here?"
Leonard rested a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Yup."
"Willingly?"
"He didn't come of his own accord, but he never once argued against coming and staying all night."
"And when you collapsed at the restaurant, he almost wouldn't let go of you," Aurelan chimed in. She handed Jim a plastic cup of cool water, secured with a lid; Jim eyed the straw dubiously.
Leonard bent it into a random twisty shape, and Jim sipped at it without further hesitation. "Which means he cares just as much as you do, but both of you are too stubborn to admit it."
"Hey," Jim protested. "I-"
"Just think about it, kid, before you go around denying things."
"Fine," Jim mumbled, shooting a pouty glance at Leonard over his cup. Aurelan rolled her eyes affectionately and leaned over to kiss his forehead, while Leonard turned his attention to the aftereffects of Jim's pancreatitis. He responded to the ministrations with his normal childish protests, playing up the mild pain of Leonard removing the needle from his hand, much to Aurelan's amusement.
"By the way, care to explain why my tricorder wasn't working?"
"I may have messed with it a bit."
"You're an idiot, you know that?" Leonard muttered.
Jim smirked, the glee behind it strong enough to reassure Leonard, at least for the moment, that he was fine.
-LLAP-
Sam parked Mom's pale yellow 2216 Volkswagen Beetle in the driveway.
Against his will, his hand clenched into a fist. He saw Jim flinch away, and he immediately wanted to unclench it, but then Jim arrogantly rolled his eyes, and the fury flooded back. Fury because Jim was right, but he was so damn arrogant about it. Maybe if he weren't…
"Punch your sick little brother in a public bathroom. I'm sure that'll go over well with everyone.Now, I'm gonna go live my life and enjoy some well-earned time with my mom, sister-in-law, nephews, and niece, and you can't stop me."
Sam happily let him turn away. Until he stopped with a low groan, one hand rising to clutch his stomach. Unbidden concern sparked through Sam, and when Jim's legs started to collapse, he found himself lunging forward to catch him.
And until he watched the ambulance race away, his heart didn't stop racing.
And until Mom came home and told him he would go to the hospital, he couldn't focus on anything but his brother.
And until he saw Jim stir in the hospital, he didn't stop worrying.
Sam turned the car off and leaned his head against the steering wheel, breathing deeply. Because he knew this particular combination of feelings – he just hadn't felt them in nearly twenty years.
Sam sat on the floor of the living room, his homework spread out in front of him. On the couch, Jim napped, traces of grease still staining his hands from working on the tractor for hours. Sam glanced at the door, taking a moment to listen for tires crunching gravel, or footsteps thumping across the porch. Hearing nothing, he returned his attention to math, repeating the process every few minutes.
Unfortunately, he still didn't catch it in time. Struggling to solve a tricky equation, he only noticed the footsteps just before a key scraped in the lock and the door swung open on rusty hinges. Frank staggered in, a bottle in his hand, his eyes clouded by alcohol.
"BOY," Frank roared upon noticing Jim napping.
Jim jerked awake, terror flashing in his young blue eyes. He scrambled upright, snapping to attention, shifting his hands to clearly show the remaining grease stains.
"WHY are ya SLEEPING?" Frank demanded.
The fury wasn't directed at Sam, but his heart began to race, because now that event he'd been trying to protect Jim from was inevitable.
"I did my homework and spent hours on the tractor-" Jim defended himself. Remarkably, he didn't stutter, though panic bled through his tone.
"Ya didn't answer my question," Frank snarled.
"I worked hard and I was tired."
"Ya worked hard, did ya? So if I go out there, that tractor's gonna run exactly like it's supposed to?"
Jim shrank back. "Well, no, but-"
Frank grabbed Jim's skinny wrist and jerked him to his feet, twisting his hand around. White tooth flashed as Jim bit his lip to keep from crying out. Desperation shot through Sam, but he didn't interfere, instead sitting stone-still on the floor, staring blankly at his homework, even though focusing on anything but Jim was impossible.
"No?" Frank hissed. "It won't work?"
"I couldn't figure it out. I thought-"
"Ya thought wrong, boy. You. Thought. Wrong."
With every word, Frank twisted his hand further, until, on the last syllable, a distinct crack echoed throughout the room. Jim finally couldn't hold it in, dropping to his knees with a short cry of agony.
"I thought wrong," Jim agreed weakly, his breath coming in pained gasps.
"So how will ya think right?"
"I-I'm gonna go out and not come back in until the tractor works."
"Exactly," Frank confirmed. He released Jim, and Sam's brother fled out the door, clutching his broken wrist against his stomach. Frank leered after him, taking a swig from his bottle, then turned to Sam.
"You're a good kid. Strong, no pathetic emotional attachments to the weak. Ya know how to act. Good job."
He patted Sam roughly on the head before staggering away.
Sam ran a hand through his hair, burning with resentment and guilt, worry clouding his mind. He glanced between the kitchen and the time on his tablet, then put his stylus against the screen and continued with his homework.
The racing heart, the inability to focus, the ache of concern… Even the pretending not to care.
I pretended so much, I started to believe I didn't.
But it was more. Seeing Jim collapse, seeing him in pain, seeing him resting in the hospital – that had just triggered the realization, especially because it didn't take a genius to realize what Mom and Aurelan had tried to do by making him stay with Jim at his most vulnerable.
Sam had loved his little brother. But when he was sent to Tarsus IV and never came home, Sam had felt the loss as keenly as if Jim had died – and honestly, considering that Jim had still borne plenty of marks from Frank's worst beating, and the fact that they hadn't had any contact since the day Jim left, it wasn't all too different from Sam's perspective; he had just died of his wounds. And then, thirteen years later, Jim reappeared, alive and whole and happy and different. And Sam, without realizing it, had refused to see his little brother in the young Starfleet captain, turning every iota of grief and anger he'd ever felt involving Dad, Jim, and Frank onto that young man Jim had become. Because seeing Jim had felt wrong.
Because now, Jim was fully grown. He was overconfident and brash; he was happier than Sam had ever seen him; he was a lot of things he hadn't been as a kid. And seeing it was jarring, because Sam could see the good in him, too – the kindness with which he treated kids during open interviews, the way he phrased his answers to give his crew as much credit as possible, dozens of little things he did his best to ignore – and he knew it was a good that had, somehow, survived everything this family and the universe had thrown at him, and it made Jim a far better man than Sam had ever been, and ever would be.
And here that good was, living in Sam's house, making his wife and mother and children fall in love with him while Sam was suddenly pushed to the side, old news compared to Jim Kirk, the shining star of a household and a federation.
And Sam hated that.
He didn't hate his brother – he never had. Sam hated the symbol he had become, because it swept away everything else, everything Sam had wanted to protect when they were kids, everything Sam had earned for himself.
And seeing Jim once again become that vulnerable boy killed Sam inside with the realization that that boy had never died, just been mistreated over and over and over to the point that a new man had formed as a protective shell, a trap so those who tried to interact with him were chased away.
And Sam had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, all too willing to believe his little brother was dead. All too willing to ignore that that man had come about because Sam hadn't been there for Jim.
I never meant to hurt you, Jim, he swore silently. And I don't know how to fix it.
-LLAP-
When Winona finally arrived at the hospital, Jim was asleep again.
"I don't think he'd mind if you woke him up," Leonard told her. "Just don't startle him."
She nodded and went inside, while Leonard headed away to join Aurelan in the cafeteria. Jim had shifted onto his side a bit, and his hand no longer had a needle in it, so the arm was draped over his stomach. A bit of sweat glistened on his forehead, a signal of lingering fever, but otherwise he slept peacefully. She almost didn't want to wake him up, but she needed to hear his forgiveness for herself.
So she rested her hand beside his, their fingers lightly brushing. "Jim?"
His fingers twitched and he stirred slightly. "Mom?"
Winona smiled, enjoying the cuteness as he gradually woke, his eyes opening a crack. "Morning, sweetheart."
He stretched his fingers to catch hers in a light grip, lifting his free arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead. "Can you convince Bones I'm fine? I hate hospitals."
She shook her head, sighing affectionately. "You're staying here until he says you can go home."
Jim groaned, pressing his head back against the pillow. "You people are useless."
"No, we're letting McCoy do his job."
"Which makes you useless."
Winona glanced at the IV still feeding him pain meds. "So you'd rather he not do his job?"
"Yup."
"So I'll just call him in here and tell him to take away your pain meds."
"Uh, he can keep doing his job," Jim conceded hastily, tilting his arm to hide the needle against his side.
"Good choice," Winona praised. Jim cast a mock-glare at her. "So how are you feeling?"
"Bored."
Winona patted his hand. "Are you always like this?"
He shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah. But Spock normally manages to slip me a PADD to do work on."
"You… You'd rather work than sleep when you're injured?"
"Yup. A man can only take so much lying around."
"And a Vulcan helps you get away with this?"
"Uhura keeps saying I've corrupted him. I dunno what she means," Jim informed her innocently.
"No idea," Winona agreed sarcastically.
"Hey, she got him to break frat regs years before they met me. She started it."
"You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart."
"I always do."
And they kept talking, especially after Aurelan and Leonard returned. They jumped from topic to topic, and the subject of her absence at his first awakening never came up – it didn't need to. Their hands remained connected, and that was all either of them needed to confirm that she wasn't leaving and he had forgiven her.
If only his situation with Sam was this simple.