Archive of Our Own

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The crew of the USS Enterprise had accepted that they had an unusual captain. Not that any of them considered that a bad thing, quite the opposite in fact. However, it did mean that he was constantly surprising them with stories and skills that they hadn't known he possessed. Once they thought about it, the crew realized that they knew next to nothing about Kirk's past besides that fact that he was raised in Riverside, Iowa and had a mother in Starfleet, as well as the fact that he ascended the ranks faster than anyone in history, and held the record for being the youngest captain on record.

That being the case, they were always a little surprised if not shocked at the new tidbits of information that their captain allowed them to receive, and each person stored the information away to remember for as long as possible. Over the years, they grew used to the myriad of surprises, and began to enjoy the reactions of strangers and newcomers to their unusual captain.

Each person on board knew that their captain was unique. They knew that Kirk considered them family, and they felt honored at the title. They also knew that their captain would do anything in his power to keep them safe, and even a few things that logically shouldn't be possible. The crew members were what kept the Enterprise going, but Kirk was the glue that kept them together, and they all knew that.

Kirk's loyalty wasn't one-sided though. Every person would follow him to the edge of the universe and beyond, because they trusted him completely. That's not saying that his antics didn't irritate them to no end at times, but they knew that he would always put their best interests first without hesitation, a quality that was to be respected and treated like the gift it was. Indeed, there was not a member aboard that would ever regret the fact that their captain was James Tiberius Kirk.

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Kin

"Fascinating." The Troidian's voice is so much like his first officer's that Kirk burst out laughing. Uhura sent him a reprimanding glance, and the action has said first officer glancing at him with barely hidden exasperation. The Troidian wasn't offended however, and his lips curled into a smile as he sank back onto his haunches.

The Troidians were an interesting race of beings, Kirk had thought ever since he'd first met them. From the waist up, they looked surprisingly human, though their features were slightly more . . . feline in nature. From the waist down, they were a four legged, dark furred beast. Their lower halves were rather similar to what a wolf-cat hybrid might look like.

Despite how advanced they were, the Troidians lived simply. They preferred to live with their surroundings, not simply in them. They hunted their food without the aid of weapons, and lived in the carved out centers of tree trunks hundreds of feet wide. Their main form of weaponry – used only against rival paqthai, the other clans of their people – were elegant bows made from a rare native plant. Their arrows were made from the glass of a nearby volcano. Despite that, the arrows themselves were nearly as hard as diamonds, and almost impossible to break.

"Sorry," Kirk said as he recovered, hoping that despite the Troidian's lack of irritation, he hadn't offended him. "You sounded a lot like Spock right then, and I couldn't help it. I'm sorry if that was offensive to you, I didn't mean to potentially insult you by laughing." The Troidian, Kurnag, he remembered, smiled wider in response.

"Nonsense. Life's trials are frequent and often difficult. It is good to find joy where one can. Causing laughter amongst one another is one of the things that the paqthai most value. It brings me joy in return to have unintentionally caused it in you." Kirk blinked at the unexpected response.

"Er, well, glad to help." He began to shake off his slight awkwardness as he continued to speak. "Now, I hear that there is a test of trust involved before a treaty can be made?" Kurnag gave a lazy blink of acknowledgment as he dipped his head into a nod. His lower half stood fully, bringing the Troidian to his full height of about eight and a half feet.

"Indeed. I assume you are unaware of the Verrashkan?" At their blank expressions, he nodded, and explained. "The Verrashkan is a test of someone's trustworthiness. It involves one of the paqthai making a mental connection with another. In this case, that is one of you. During the test, your consciousness will offer up a piece of information that it deems worthy of evaluation. It is impossible to hide from the test, as it affects the subconscious." Here, Kurnag turned to Spock.

"I am well aware of your species and their mental control. However, even Vulcans can not control their subconscious to the level that would be required to manipulate the test. For your test, I have been selected by the other leaders to represent the whole of the paqthai for the examination. Which of you shall offer yourself up to the test?"

None of the away party was thrilled to have their subconscious offering up information on them, but they knew that one of them had to. Kirk knew that it was his job as captain to take the fall for the others, and so he stepped forward. Kurnag's obsidian eyes seemed to stare into him as he did so, and the Troidian's head tilted to the side.

"Fascinating," he repeated from earlier. "Very well. Are you ready to begin?" Kirk took a steadying breath, then nodded. The Troidian moved forward with a fluid grace that seemed to strangely fit his large size, despite what one would think. Kurnag stopped only a couple of feet from the captain. Kirk had to look up to meet his eyes. Then he couldn't any longer as the Troidian closed his own in concentration and reached out to rest a hand on Kirk's shoulder.

All was silent for several moments as Kurnag waited for Kirk's mind to show him what it deemed worthy. Kirk had no idea what would be shown; he just hoped that it wasn't one of his exploits, but knowing his luck, it would probably be something in the same realm of usefulness. Meaning, something completely unhelpful to their current goal. Sometimes he really hated the 'Kirk luck' that seemed to be inherited. Kirk was brought out of his thoughts as Kurnag opened his eyes, though they still appeared glazed.

"There are two men featured in what your subconscious has decided to show me." Kirk briefly wondered if they were Spock and Bones. He hoped that's who they were; he isn't really too fond of some of the other prominent male figures in his life. "They are surrounded by hate, and anger, and loss." So, not Spock and Bones. Suddenly it clicked, and Kirk felt dread pool within him. He knew who they were.

"You hate them, however you see something of yourself within them. You recognize them as kin, despite wishing to eradicate any ties to them you have. The first . . . Nero, I believe . . . he lost everything he ever knew and cared about. His grief turned to rage, and he turned on the ones he believed played a part in that loss.

"You fear that darkness, because you can see it in yourself. You know that if you were put into the same circumstances, you would not do any differently. Even now you can see yourself avenging those you love, even to the extent of destroying a planet. The idea of doing something that destructive, and then feeling no remorse afterwards, terrifies you beyond anything you've ever known."

Kirk felt dizzy, his breathing labored as he took in what was being said. His eyes screwed shut, and his head lowered. His hands shook from their places in fists by his sides. Kurnag was troubled; Kirk could hear it in his voice. He could feel the burning stares of the away team at his back, but couldn't make himself return their gazes. Kurnag continued.

"There is a phrase surrounding the other . . . Khan, he is called. 'Is there anything you would not do to protect your family?' It is as deeply interwoven with him as fear and pain is. You recognize his darkness within yourself as well. He was willing to destroy innocent lives to avenge his crew, his family. You have learned to hold on tight to that which you love, for it is often taken from you. You love your crew, for they are your family.

"You know that you would tear worlds apart at their seams to avenge them should they be taken from you. You live in a constant fear of them dying, for you know that what would result would be a destruction beyond anything their killers would ever do, for you would destroy everything in your path, and you know you are capable of exactly that.

"You live in a constant fear of your internal darkness." Kurnag's eyes began to clear, and he looked at Kirk anew. The captain was shaking in a rare display of what he felt is weakness. Even when Kirk is injured, he doesn't allow himself to appear weak, still going down with a fight. However, with a short monologue from the Troidian in front of him, he was now reduced to his current state.

"I understand if you no longer wish to arrange a treaty with the Federation." Kirk's words were clipped, and he was studiously avoiding the gazes of everyone present. His eyes were locked on the spines of a nearby plant, tracing their shapes. "I know that I probably failed the test just now, and I also got the impression that we only had one chance to pass. I apologize for wasting your time."

"You believe that you have failed the Verrashkan?" For the first time, the Troidian's words were sharp, causing Kirk to look up with a start. "On the contrary. You have passed far beyond what was expected. A man who has looked his own darkness in the eye and managed to contain it again is one of the most trustworthy the paqthai know." At Kirk's shocked and confused expression, he elaborated.

"Few people ever look their own demons in the face, and even fewer are able to overcome them. For you to not only have overcome yours, but then fear them ever returning is a sign that you are to be trusted, because someone who knows and fears their own darkness is far more likely to make sure it never shows itself again.

"I also saw what I believe you yourself do not see. Yes, there was darkness in what I was shown, however there was also an overwhelming amount of light. You have shown that you contain boundless loyalty, deep-rooted love, and incredible courage despite your difficulties. These are traits to be admired in any individual."

Kirk was speechless as he stared at the Troidian. He was pretty sure his mouth had fallen open, but he was too shocked by the analysis of himself to care. He had never felt so laid open in front of someone in his life. He has never let people that close, despite knowing that he should from time to time. Even Bones was held at a slight distance, albeit a lot closer than most. There is something about having someone look at the essence of who you are, see your biggest fears and faults, and then have them still look at you with friendship – even admiration – that is rather unsettling for him.

"Thank you." he finally managed to croak out. He was aware that he had turned slightly red from the experience, and he still felt a little lightheaded. At the moment, he didn't care, he just wanted to rest. Kurnag seemed to pick up on that fact, and looked at him sympathetically.

"The Verrashkan is a trying experience. I will announce the result to the paqthai and allow you to rest. We will go over the treaty tomorrow when you have recovered. Farewell, my friend. Enih suoyn ihtiwt hgil ehtyam." Kirk returned the customary farewell, then watched as Kurnag turned and burst into a fluid lope into the surrounding trees, his body bending and weaving as if his bones were made of rubber.

For the first time since the test had begun, Kirk turned to look at the rest of the landing party. There are no judgmental looks, as he was sort of expecting. Instead, there is understanding and reassurance, and an overwhelming amount of sheer friendship. His gaze stayed on Bones the longest, his first and closest friend. The doctor paused, his eyes roaming over his friend's face, before he sighed, and rested his hand on the same shoulder Kurnag had. He met Kirk's eyes steadily as he spoke.

"C'mon kid, let's head home." The relief that spread throughout his body at that was startling, and Kirk nearly wavered. Bones's hand on his shoulder steadied him, though, and he kept it together, at least for now. He turned his gaze skyward, in the direction he knew the Enterprise is, and smiled slightly.

"Yeah, you're right." Casting one more glance at their surroundings, he tapped his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise, six to beam up. Bring us home."

Chapter Text

The moment their shift was over, the Bridge crew was racing through the hallways (or speed walking, in Spock's case) towards the Medbay to see the Captain. Two days ago, they had been attacked on an away mission, and the Captain had gotten pretty badly injured. He'd been unconscious since they'd gotten back, and was refused visitors until his condition had improved. Just half an hour ago, the Bridge had gotten an alert that after their shift (and only after, the note had mentioned) they could go and see Kirk.

When they reached Medbay, they could hear Doctor McCoy ranting at someone. Spock was about to enter the room, but Sulu put his arm out to block him. The half-Vulcan raised an eyebrow, but at their pleading looks, nodded and remained silent. The group quietly move to the door by an unspoken agreement, and remained quiet to listen.

" - three times! Don't you get it Jim? You could have died this time! You have got to be more careful on your away trips, or one of these days I might not be able to save you. You might die on my operating table, and where do you think that will leave me?" There was a short pause. "I swear, it's like you have no fear about your own mortality."

"I don't." The response was barely audible, and the voice rough from disuse. It was the Captain. Unconsciously, each of the hovering group leaned in a bit to hear him better. "I'm not afraid of death. Never have been, even when I was a child. I fear it even less now." There was the sound of machines whirring and metal clinking in the following silence.

"So, what? You're just going to throw yourself headfirst into danger just because you aren't afraid? Just because you can?" Doctor McCoy's voice was sharp, but held traces of hurt and concern for his friend.

"No. That's not fair to you, for one. I'm also not looking to get myself killed anytime soon. I've had enough of dying for the rest of my lifetime." A collective sharp breath was drawn. The subject of the Captain's death was 'off-limits' unless he brought it up himself, which he rarely did. Discussing it was like rubbing salt in an open wound. It had been a while since his incident, but the memory still hurt. "You can ask me, you know. About dying. I don't mind, and it's obvious everyone's more than a little curious. Ever since it happened, all of you have been walking on eggshells around the topic."

"Can you blame us? We had just lost you, and despite what you think, you are the glue that holds this crew together. It was a hard loss." There was a momentary pause. ". . . What was it like? What did you see? Or maybe feel, I guess. Whatever." There was a thoughtful silence as the Captain considered his words.

"It was painful." He admitted, and the crew felt a brief spike of pain in there chests at the statement. "Although that was probably more due to the way I died than the actual death itself. I was being cooked alive from the inside due to the radiation. My body hurt, and it felt like I was coming apart at the seams. As I got closer, though, it began to hurt less. I was afraid then, I won't deny that, but I wasn't afraid of death. I was afraid of leaving all of you, of Khan hurting you, of never seeing all of you again . . ." His voice trailed off, and it was several minutes before he continued.

"I began to feel like I was shutting down. Like I was passing out, or going to sleep. Seconds before my body died, though, it felt like I was waking up. Suddenly, I realized that I didn't need my body anymore. It felt too small and tight, like a sweater that shrunk five sizes in the wash. So, I let it go." Kirk laughed incredulously at the memory.

"Bones, you can't believe how much there is in this universe alone, much less the others. After I left my body, I . . . expanded, for lack of a better word. I was everywhere, in everything. There is so much that we don't know and haven't seen. So much that we'll never understand or find. But for a moment, I felt it all. I don't remember all of it, but I remember enough to know that it was beautiful. Bones, I was part of the stars."

His last words were said with such a reverent longing that the crew almost felt cruel for having fought so hard to take him away from them. His description of death was beautiful, even as it was terrifying. Being that big, and a part of so many things . . . The idea was daunting. There was a silence in the room that told them that McCoy felt the same way.

"What happened next?" He asked quietly, solemn in a way they rarely saw. Kirk was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what to say, and to not get overwhelmed by his memories. The crew was riveted, and had been ignoring the strange looks they were getting from others as they hovered outside of Medbay.

"You know how it looks when a vacuum sucks up a piece of fabric? How the fabric is tugged at in one spot and folds in on itself before it's sucked up? That's the closest I can come to describing what it felt like to wake up again. My body was the vacuum, and I was the one getting sucked up. In my expanded state, things seemed rather timeless. However, it felt like only a couple of heartbeats went by before I was sucked back. In the following weeks, I had to readjust to the feeling of my own body. It was strange, and even now I occasionally feel a little constricted, but the sensation is less severe and less frequent these days, and it definitely is going away."

"Well, you certainly can give a guy a lot to think about." McCoy said lightly, after he absorbed the information. A quiet laugh from the Captain followed. After a moment of hesitation, the doctor spoke again. "So, after that description, you expect me to believe you really aren't trying to get back to your 'expanded state' again?"

"Yes. Like I said, it isn't fair to you guys if I tried – especially with all of the hard work you went to so you could get me back. Besides, I have a lot of living left to do. The expanded state will always be there, but all of this? Life? It won't be. I have to live it while I can, and it wouldn't be worth it if I constantly wanted to be somewhere else. So no, I don't want to go back there just yet. I'll save that for the prize at the end of the race that I hope ends many years in the future."

There was the sound of rustling, and a sound that announced the doctor had just clapped his friend on the shoulder, no doubt being mindful of his friend's injuries. The listening crew felt something deep inside. It felt like peace and longing, mixed up with a little bit of joy.

"That's good to hear, kid. Despite being a pain in the ass, you're also my best friend, I don't want all of my hard work to go to waste so soon. And if anyone deserves a prize like that at the end of their life, you do."

"Thanks, Bones."

Deciding that now would be a good time to announce their presence, Uhura stepped through the door, causing the others to hurriedly follow. They tried to seem like they had been walking for a while, not scrambling after eavesdropping for a while. Their entrance drew the attention of both the doctor and the Captain. The latter's face lit up and a beam formed on his face.

"Hey guys! Been taking care of my ship for me while I was out?" The Captain's voice was as bright as his smile, and many of the Bridge crew felt their own smiles forming at the sight of his enthusiasm. They glanced among themselves with fondness, before Spock stepped forward to respond to the man who lived for the stars.

"Always, Captain."

Chapter Text

Uhura had noticed the change in Kirk's behavior and body language two days ago when they had received their newest assignment from an Admiral that she herself hadn't recognized, but who Kirk had obviously been familiar with. The Admiral had looked inexplicably apologetic the entire time he had spoken to Kirk, which was a rarity itself. Usually orders came by written message on a PADD.

Kirk had displayed no obvious tension after the video ended, and Uhura had a feeling that if she hadn't been a Communications officer, then she wouldn't have noticed the tensing in his shoulders, or the fact that he could not stop moving, even if it was only a finger twitching. In fact, Uhura suspected that she was one of only three that even noticed that anything had happened. The others were of course Dr. McCoy, since he was Kirk's best friend, and Spock. Being half Vulcan, he really had remarkable observation skills, and it was due to them that Uhura was certain he had noticed.

She didn't have much to go on, but she did know that what was bothering the captain had something to do with their assignment. They were supposed to go down to a nearby planet, whose trial colony from more than a decade ago had failed, and gather soil samples and information so Starfleet could decide if a new colony was going to be formed. Nearly all the people who had lived there when the colony had failed had moved off planet, and the few who remained had remained separate from each other.

She had been pulled aside by the captain yesterday and told that it would be a small away team beaming down to the planet. In the end, it would just be Kirk, herself (so she could get a feel for the layout and plan for easy communications in any future rebuilding) , and three scientists from various fields going down. She was curious, but didn't question him. That didn't mean that her curiosity was gone, but something was seriously bothering the captain, so she decided not to press the matter.

Now, she was waiting with the three scientists in the transporter room. The only person missing was the captain himself. Just when she thought he might not show, he strolled through the doors, seemingly without a care in the world. To her trained eyes however, she could see his tension in the lines around his eyes, his smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, and his constant movement.

"Alright guys, let's head on down. Remember, disturb as little as possible, and don't get lost. The fields on Tarsus IV are large, and the grasses grow higher than your shoulders in some places. Be quick, we're beaming back aboard the Enterprise in three hours, no later." Kirk then gave a quick nod to the man working the controls, and Uhura felt the familiar sensation of being transported from one location to another.

She opened her eyes and found herself in the middle of a field of waist-high grass. She looked at the rest of the group, and saw that they were just as disoriented as she was. Kirk turned to the right to look at the mountains not too far away, and seemed to get his bearings after several moments. He turned his gaze to the scientists.

"Alright. The places you need to test should be several hundred yards forward and to our left. The old town is just across from that. Come on." With that, Kirk set off through the grass. After exchanging hesitant glances, the other four followed him. Uhura glanced to the right at the mountains Kirk had apparently used as landmarks, but found no defining features, causing her to eye the back of the captain's head curiously.

He seemed to be very familiar with their surroundings. Maybe he had studied a map of the terrain beforehand. Given Kirk's record with missions and tests, Uhura wouldn't have put it past him to not have learned the entire history of the planet. Still, he was not acting like himself.

The team waded through the grass that got shorter and further spaced out the longer they walked. About ten minutes later, they arrived at the end of the grass field and saw the location they were assigned to study. To their left, there were several large fields that were overgrown with weeds. Nonetheless, they could still see the furrows and mounds in the earth where crops had been planted long ago.

To their right they could see the old colony's town. The buildings were dilapidated, charred, and clearly abandoned. Over the tops of several caved in roofs, they could see a large, grey stone monument. Uhura removed her gaze from the large stone just in time to catch the end of Kirk's orders to the three scientists. They nodded in response and drifted off to the fields to begin their work. Her captain turned to look at the town, and a strange look flashed across his face before he plastered on a smile.

"Looks like it's just you and me now. Come on, the town square's down this way. We can make our way around from there." With that, Kirk began walking. Uhura's suspicions that something was wrong were confirmed. James T. Kirk never turned down an opportunity to flirt with her, even if he didn't really mean anything by it. Still, she got the feeling he wouldn't appreciate her prying at this moment in time.

She followed Kirk as they walked through the streets, the stone monument getting bigger and bigger as they got closer to it. Uhura took in the abandoned town with a sorrow she couldn't explain. Something terrible had obviously happened here, she thought as she caught sight of a house that had been torched. She found her feet moving slowly towards it until she was standing at the threshold of the old house. She cast her gaze around the inside of the house, filled with the same strange sorrow from earlier, as well as the slightly unnerving feeling that the house wasn't as abandoned as it appeared.

Her eye was caught by a doll lying on the floor by the front door, its dress charred by flame that was now long gone. Tears filled her eyes, and she stepped towards it, her hand reaching out to pick it up. Her fingers were about to brush the fabric when a hand gently grabbed her own. She jumped and spun around to see Kirk looking serious for once. She met his eyes, and she very nearly reeled back from the amount of sorrow contained in them.

"It's not good to disturb the ghosts." Kirk said, casting a sad glance around the old house. "They only hold bad memories of a time that has long since passed. It's fine to look, just try not to touch." Kirk's voice was quiet, almost as if he was trying to keep from waking someone up. Uhura remembered her feeling from earlier, where she had felt that the house might not be fully abandoned after all. She cast an uneasy glance at the rest of the house as she allowed Kirk to lead her back to the street. She followed behind him for several moments before she couldn't stay silent any longer.

"Kirk," she began, forgoing his title for the moment, "What happened here? I've been getting this feeling of sadness ever since we arrived, and it's obvious something bad happened here that caused the colony to fail more than ten years ago." Kirk stopped walking and took a moment before he turned back to look at her.

"The sadness you're feeling is the sorrow left over from the survivors of a massacre that happened here twelve years ago." He ignored her shocked expression and continued on. "A disease wiped out all the crops in the colony, creating a famine that took hundreds of lives. A tyrant called Governor Kodos took control and made two lists of people to 'help' people survive: those who were weak and unworthy, and those who deserved to survive. His militia took care of the rest.

"The massacre lasted for months, with no communications able to be transmitted. Starfleet had no idea something was wrong until the massacre had already happened. They were able to put a stop to Kodos, but by that point, over seventy-five percent of the colony had died. There were only several hundred survivors, and only nine of them could identify Kodos on sight. They're called the Tarsus Nine. The monument in the center of town is there to honor the dead."

Uhura felt tears streaming down her face as she heard the horrific tale. She finally understood the sorrow she had both felt and seen since entering the village. Kirk's comments about ghosts also made more sense now. Kirk didn't say anything, and didn't seem to judge her as he waited for her to finish mourning the lives that had been lost. After a while, she felt well enough to compose herself again, and she asked a question that had been on her mind for a while.

"How come nobody knows about this?" she asked softly. Kirk's eyes flashed with slight anger that she knew wasn't directed at her as he shook his head.

"Starfleet knew they screwed up. They pulled dozens of strings to make sure their failure to help was kept on the down low. In other words, this was one of the biggest cover ups in history. It's one of the few things about Starfleet that I absolutely can't stand." Uhura eyed him curiously.

"If that's the case, then won't they get mad at you for telling me? Will you get in trouble?" she asked in concern. Despite their past disagreements, neither of them hated each other. Kirk was kind of like the brother or troublesome cousin she never had. Kirk's face darkened at the question.

"They might get mad, but they wouldn't dare tell me to keep my mouth shut." With that cryptic response delivered, Kirk turned and continued walking. Uhura wanted to ask more questions, but Kirk was obviously done answering them. She followed him, and they finally made it to the town square.

The huge grey monument stood in the very center, on top of what was once a platform- more of a round stage, really- used for public speeches. It was rectangular in shape, and reached about twenty feet high. Carved into the stone were names about an inch high written in cursive. Winding around the base of the pillar were the words: The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. Uhura thought it was sadly poetic. She looked up and up and up at the tall monument, and felt queasy as she realized exactly how many names were carved into the stone.

She looked away, and her gaze was drawn to a nearby street that looked less charred than the rest, though it looked more battered. She glanced at her captain, and realized that he too was staring at the street. His eyes were glazed as he slowly made his way down the street. He stopped in front of the third house on the left, and merely stood at the fallen gate, looking at a word that was written on the weather stained boards. As Uhura came up next to him, her breath caught, and her gaze flew to the man beside her. There, written neatly in black lettering was the word Kirk.

"Jim?" she asked softly, almost dreading hearing any of the possible explanations. He didn't respond for several moments, and she realized that he hadn't even heard her. She reached a hand out and lightly rested it on his shoulder. He started, and turned to look at her. Seeing her questions in her expression, he heaved a sigh.

"My father's brother lived here with his wife and two kids." He said quietly, gently pushing open the gate and walking towards the front door. Uhura hesitated, then followed behind him. "I was sent to live here when I was thirteen. Of course, after the massacre, I had nobody left to stay with here. I went back to Earth when I was fourteen. I wasn't here for long, but this house was more of a home to me than any place on Earth ever was."

He offered no further explanation, and Uhura didn't pry. She was actually surprised he'd shared as much as he had, because although he was friendly and open with what he thought about things, he was very closed off when it came to his past and himself. Based on their current surroundings, she couldn't really blame him. They stepped through the front door, and Uhura was shocked at its gutted appearance.

It was like someone had thrown things around the room haphazardly, and then taken a phaser to the walls - one that was set to kill. With the story Kirk had told her outside, it wasn't that hard to guess that her suspicions were actually what had happened. She glanced at Kirk, and noticed that he was staring at a spot in the center of the living room. When he began to speak, his voice was wavery, and a little weaker than normal.

"My aunt was standing over there when Kodos's men broke in. I was watching from the window, having run home from the town square to warn her. I didn't make it in time. I was hiding in the bushes when they took her life. I didn't stick around. My cousins were in the backyard, and I had just enough time to grab them and run. I heard the phasers, and my uncle never came out of the house. We hid in the fields for two days, not daring to try and find food or water. While we were out there, we found more kids hiding from the militia. They were all younger than I was, and wanted to stay with us."

With some difficulty, Kirk seemed to shake himself free of his memories, and looked up at Uhura. She had teared up again, but none of them escaped. Kirk cast another glance around the space, then motioned for her to follow him back to the street. After leaving the house, the outside seemed too bright and cheery, even with all the destruction around them. Kirk closed the gate gently, and looked once more at the home his family had once inhabited, then turned away. Uhura followed his lead, and they ended up back at the monument in the town square.

"So, what do you think? Can communication centers be set up here for future colonies easily? Any problems?" Kirk asked her, reminding Uhura of the whole purpose of their trip down to the surface. She cast her gaze around, and saw many easy locations for them, and could easily picture the required technology and structures being built here.

"Yes, they would be very easy to build." she turned to Kirk, who looked uneasy, and like he was hurting and trying to hide it. She tried to look at the place through his eyes. While most people saw this planet as an opportunity, Starfleet saw it as a way to cover up their mistakes and relieve their guilt. She could only imagine that the survivors of the massacre saw a graveyard that was about to be desecrated.

"But I don't think they should be built." She hadn't realized what she was saying until she had already said it. Kirk's eyes shot to hers. Despite her own surprise at her words, she met his gaze steadily. "This place shouldn't be covered up by another. It deserves to be here, to remind anyone who finds it or remembers it what it stands for. This is one big grave, and building something over it would be the same as desecrating it. It's not right."

Kirk looked at her with a surprise that soon turned into gratitude. If she wasn't mistaken, there was also a little bit of pride in his expression. He glanced at the sun, and began walking back towards the fields, motioning for her to come along as well. Uhura checked the time, and realized that they had already been in the town for several hours. It felt like a lot less time than that had passed. They kept walking, and soon caught sight of the other members of the team heading towards them in the fields.

"So, what did you guys find?" Kirk's voice held no trace of his earlier sadness, and had Uhura not seen it for herself back in the town, she wouldn't have known anything had been wrong. The rest of the team obviously saw nothing wrong, and one of the men stepped forward.

"We discovered that the ground here is completely -"

"Infertile." Uhura cut the man off. "Completely infertile and incapable of supporting crops." At the strange look the three scientists gave her, she raised an eyebrow at the man in a perfect imitation of Spock. He studied her for a moment, then moved his eyes back towards the town behind them. After a moment of silence, he turned back to them.

"Of course. It was one of the reasons the original colony failed in the first place, after all. They were unable to grow enough food. We should report to Starfleet that the problem still hasn't improved in the last decade, and that starting a new colony here would be unwise." Kirk looked at the man with an unreadable expression, before nodding his assent.

"Alright. Good work. Let's get back to the ship." They all nodded, and began double checking their things. When they were ready to go, they hailed the Enterprise and beamed back aboard the ship. Uhura was about to step off the landing pad when a hand caught her arm. She turned to see the Captain looking at her intently.

"Thank you, Uhura. For what you did back there. You didn't have to, and I know that if news got out about this, it could put your career on the line. So thank you for doing that." Uhura smiled slightly at him, vaguely noting that everyone but the transport operator had left the room.

"You're welcome. It wasn't just for you though." she said, looking at him seriously. "It was for everyone whose lives were either destroyed or taken on that planet. I saw that monument down there. The people who cared for them put that there, and removing the reminders of what happened would not only insult the dead, but the living as well. Keeping that reminder there is worth my career. I would only lose my job if it's discovered. They lost their lives." Kirk studied her for a moment, then smiled.

"You're a good person, Uhura, and a good officer." There was a brief moment of silence. "We should probably get back to the Bridge to make that report to Starfleet. I bet they'll be wondering what we thought of the place." Uhura nodded her assent, and as they walked towards the lift cast her thoughts back to the planet they had just left behind.

The ghosts of the dead would finally have their peace, able to be left alone apart from those who really cared and remembered them. The monument would remain where it was, and perhaps another decade in the future - or even several - others would come to Tarsus IV. Perhaps they would find the monument amidst the ruins of a time long past. Perhaps they would realize what had happened, or maybe one of them would have been there or remembered the stories.

In the bright light of a ship floating above a planet haunted by the ghosts of the past, Uhura smiled.

Chapter Text

If you asked the crew of the Enterprise what kind of luck their captain had, they would say that he had bad luck. Possibly the worst luck of anyone who had ever existed. It also wasn't just restricted to minor things like card games or lottery tickets. No, when the infamous 'Kirk Luck' acted up, it was always something big and important.

It went without saying that their captain's Kirk Luck was inherited through the Kirk side of his family, even if it was magnified exponentially in the captain. On the day George Kirk reached his goal of becoming a captain, he also died. On the day James Kirk was born, he lost his father in an attack that took hundreds of lives, and set the stage for a later battle. The resulting radiation from the exploded core was also enough to give him a lifetime of potentially lethal allergies to nearly everything.

Next there was the issue of a grief-stricken and distant mother and a stepfather that was either negligent, abusive, or something else entirely. The crew still wasn't entirely sure which it was – in the rare times that he mentioned Frank, Kirk didn't talk about the man like he had been abused by him, but there was too much animosity for there to simply have been neglect, so something had to have happened between them.

Then there was the whole thing with Tarsus IV that several of the crew knew about, but they didn't like to linger on it whenever it was brought to mind.

After that there was a string of unexpected neutrality from the universe until Kirk looked his gift horse in the mouth and was called up in front of his peers for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru, and was almost expelled from Starfleet Academy. Now that all of the grief and drama surrounding Nero was over and Kirk's trial had been finished, everyone knew that Kirk hadn't cheated, he'd simply outsmarted the program.

Apparently he had researched the simulation to the point of obsession. According to Doctor McCoy, Kirk had spent months watching old recordings of previous trials, running formulas and practice simulations, researching every person running the program. Then he'd found out that Spock was the creator. From there he worked out that the Maru was based on logic, so the way to beat it was to be illogical, and the most illogical thing to do was to do nothing. The program was so confused by Kirk's inaction that it allowed him to win.

Of course, the trial had been interrupted by the showdown that had been coming for several decades. Kirk's awful Kirk Luck had kicked in again, and once again disaster followed in its wake. Though he was able to stop the Enterprise before it was destroyed, he hadn't had enough time after hearing the announcement to warn the other ships as well, something the crew knew the captain still felt guilty over.

Then he was able to dismantle Nero's drill, but not before his goal had been accomplished enough to destroy all of Vulcan with his nightmarish Red Matter. The resulting chaos then resulted in Kirk getting jettisoned onto Delta Vega. The crew was still a little fuzzy on the following details, but somehow he managed to get back to the ship. (Despite not knowing what had happened, the crew was certain his Kirk Luck had kicked in again on the ice planet. There was no way he could have sustained several of the injuries he'd had unless his bad luck began working on him.)

Although, almost immediately after his return, he was forced to emotionally compromise an enraged half-Vulcan and was nearly choked to death. From there on out, the string of unfortunate occurrences that led to Nero's defeat weren't really luck any longer – that is, apart from the final moment with the black hole.

After everything they had been through, the ship (now Kirk's) was almost sucked into the black hole after Nero's ship. This was one of the big things that made the crew begin to realize that Kirk's luck sucked, and that it was actually his Kirk Luck kicking in. In the end everything worked out, but the crew could have gone without that last adrenaline filled moment.

The next several months were hectic, but surprisingly, their captain's Kirk Luck had gone dormant for a while, and his bad luck was the only thing at work. After those first several months though, his Kirk Luck began to wake up again. It started with natural and social problems on various planets.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, eruptions, and anything else imaginable began to follow them wherever they went. They were always able to escape, but on occasion several of the crew almost lost several body parts. The crew of the Enterprise also seemed to always arrive just in time for a civil war to break out, or for a group of radicals to start a revolution. Those were easier to escape than the natural disasters, but still no walk in the park. Needless to say, the trend was noticed.

Things came to a head when Spock was sent down into an erupting volcano to save a still-developing people. There had been signs that the volcano was active, but until they arrived, there had been no sign of an eruption about to occur. (Sometimes the crew hated Kirk Luck. They sometimes hated it a lot.)

Of course Sulu's ship broke down above the volcano, and of course, Spock's safety cord snapped. Of course the only solution was to break the biggest rule of all and be seen by the locals. The captain's Kirk Luck seemed to have fully woken up again after several months of sleeping.

Kirk was first kicked out of Starfleet, then was accepted back as Pike's first officer. For a little while, the crew thought his streak of Kirk Luck had been broken. It turned out, Kirk got back into Starfleet just in time to be sent on a chase after a madman after Pike died. Yet again he had lost someone close to him.

Then, in an area that was supposed to be abandoned, he had encountered not one, but three Klingon vessels. It seemed only fitting with his Kirk Luck active again that the madman they were chasing turned out to be a superhuman with a vendetta against humanity and Starfleet. It seemed like Fate herself was laughing at him when it turned out Admiral Marcus was also an enemy to survive and deal with.

The crew decided that the universe was really out to get Kirk when the core of the Enterprise was knocked out of alignment so far that it could only be fixed manually, and it was just like their captain to decide that he was the man who had to fix it. The crew was alerted to his death (which was still a sore subject and could result in bodily harm if the topic was pressed too hard by strangers), and they figured that their captain's Kirk Luck had finally killed him.

However, apparently Kirk Luck stops being active once the Kirk in question has died. Mere hours after Kirk's death, Doctor McCoy's tribble experiment resulted in a chance to bring their captain back from the dead. It worked, and once the captain had woken up again with no further problems, the crew agreed that his Kirk Luck was gone – hopefully for good.

The crew knew exactly how unlucky their captain had been, and they knew exactly how much he had sacrificed to make sure that they hadn't paid the price for the bad luck that seemed attached to him like his shadow. But perhaps the special brand of luck that seemed to follow Kirks to their grave had been laid to rest in their Kirk, and perhaps his luck could finally change for the better.

Chapter Text

If you asked Kirk what kind of luck he had, he would say he was the luckiest person who had ever lived. Now, perhaps he didn't always win at cards, and the couple of times he bought a lottery ticket he hadn't won, but that wasn't the kind of luck that he meant. He meant that he was lucky whenever something big and important happened.

It went without saying that he had no idea where his luck had come from. It certainly wasn't inherited from his father, and he didn't think that it came from his mother either. But that didn't mean that he didn't believe he had it – just look at the day he was born after all. Yes, he had lost his father, but he had survived Nero's initial attack unlike others who had been on the ship. Then the radiation he had been exposed to that should have killed him at his young age had only given him allergies. He could live with that because he was alive.

He knew that he was lucky to still have his mother, despite her distant nature, because he very easily could have been orphaned as a baby. And yeah, Frank sucked, but at least he was living at home instead of in the foster system or with a relative he'd never met before who lived on another planet. (Of course, then came the whole Tarsus thing where he did end up living with a relative he'd never met before on another planet where a massacre took place only months after his arrival, but again, he was one of very few who survived. Damn right he considered himself lucky for surviving that nightmare.)

Kirk knew for sure that he was lucky when he just so happened to go to the bar that Captain Pike had decided to visit. Over the years, he had ended up in a spiral of monotony, and in one meeting, Pike had changed his life forever. The man had somehow convinced the Admirals to overlook Kirk's arrest record, and soon Kirk was being intellectually challenged in a way he never had before. He loved every second of it.

Of course, the biggest challenge he faced was the Kobayashi Maru. He had heard its reputation before taking it, but had grown cocky what with how easy his other classes had seemed up until that point. He failed once after not studying for it, and studied for days the second time only to fail again. By this point, he knew there had to be some sort of solution that he was missing, and he was determined to find it. In a stroke of luck, during his research, he discovered that the creator was a Vulcan (or at least half, and raised as a full Vulcan), and from there on out it was easy to solve.

After that came the biggest and most consistent streak of luck he'd ever had in his life. Apparently a madman from an alternate reality had decided to attack the Federation, and despite being on probation, Kirk had not only managed to get on board, but also figure out what was going on in time to save the Enterprise from the fate of her sister ships.

The madman was named Nero, and Kirk was one of the ones who had been sent down to dismantle his drill. Olsen didn't make it, but Kirk somehow managed to land almost perfectly on the platform that was relatively small compared to the distance they had covered. Somehow, despite losing the charges, the guns the workers had were able to stop the drill from working. Kirk just felt lucky that his crazy idea with the guns worked; he wasn't sure what he would have done if it hadn't.

After that came his time on Delta Vega. That was probably the luckiest part of the thing. After all, he survived being chased by not one, but two huge creatures that wanted to eat him whole. He also met Future Spock who saved him from being eaten and who gave him information on how to beat Nero, as well as Scotty and Keenser who were able to get him back to the ship and help him outmaneuver the crazy Romulan.

Once he returned to the ship, he not only survived being attacked by an angry Vulcan and several rather evil Romulans, but also a Red Matter explosion-induced black hole. He had no idea how they had managed that one, but he felt that his good luck probably had something to do with that. It seemed to be a pattern that was forming: his life was in danger, his good luck kicked in to save him.

The pattern was further proven as time after time the Enterprise and her crew evaded all kinds of civil conflict and natural disasters. Kirk knew that space travel was dangerous, but he'd had no idea just how much chaos was also part of the whole experience. He was just grateful he had his luck on his side to keep them all from dying.

He had gotten scared for his crew before, despite his luck. After all, it was foolish to count on it getting him out of every sticky situation, and there was no guarantee it would protect the rest of his crew as well. However, nothing had prepared him for the terror that filled him when they almost lost Spock to the volcano on Nibiru.

For a moment he was worried his luck had finally run out, but then they were able to get to the half-Vulcan just in time to save his life, and Kirk's faith in his luck was restored. So what if he lost his position as captain? Yeah it hurt, but his friend was alive and that was worth far more than any job ever would be. Apparently his luck decided that Spock's life wasn't enough of a reward for him, because he got to remain on the Enterprise, his home, as Pike's second in command. He felt like the luckiest man alive in that moment.

His luck then immediately kicked into gear when Khan attacked, and he was able to survive the initial assault, despite being the closest one to the window when the man fired his weapons at the room. During the subsequent chase after Khan, Kirk survived an encounter with not one, but three Klingon patrols. He doubted that many others would have survived even one, and once again had whatever universal force it was that gave him his luck to thank for his survival.

He was sure that Fate herself was on his side when Admiral Marcus's daughter turned out to be on board his ship while Scotty was on the Admiral's own – the two things he was certain had saved his home from being destroyed instantly. He owed those two not only his life, but the lives of every living person aboard his ship, and he wouldn't forget that debt anytime soon.

It turned out that the core had been knocked out of position in the scuffle, and the Enterprise was going to be incinerated if it wasn't fixed. After hearing the analysis from Scotty, Kirk felt that luck was the only thing that had kept the core from breaking beyond repair, instead only being out of place. Not willing to risk the life of anyone else, Kirk made the biggest leap of faith on his luck he ever had, and entered the core's chamber.

As he fixed the core, he reflected on the lucky streak he'd had since birth. If he was going to be putting his life in its hands over and over again, he couldn't simply call it his luck. That was too ordinary to describe the phenomenon and statistical improbabilities that had saved him over and over again. Perhaps he would name it his 'Kirk Luck'. After all, it seemed to only apply to him.

The existence of said Kirk Luck was proven and set in stone for him after he survived dying. How many other people had been able to come back to life after hours of being dead? Kirk Luck existed, and he would never again doubt that as he had when he lay dying and full of radiation after saving his family. In that moment, he had wondered if all his luck had finally run out after all. But, it appeared that his luck was going to stick around, and good thing too, what with the lives they all led. Now if he could just convince his crew that it existed, maybe things would go a little more smoothly for everyone.

(Several months later, the ship was nearly hit by an asteroid that was made out of a material the scanners couldn't pick up on. Had they been even inches from where they were, they would have been hit, and weren't they lucky they hadn't been? Kirk mentioned that it looked like his Kirk Luck was kicking in again, and he really didn't understand why the rest of the Bridge suddenly looked so terrified at that. After all, wasn't his Kirk Luck a good thing?)

Chapter Text

At first look, Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise was fearless. One glance at the daredevil spark in his eyes and the carefree smile on his face was usually enough to convince most people that the man wasn't afraid of anything, and that nothing the universe threw at him could scare him.

To some degree, it was true.

Kirk wasn't afraid of many of the things normal people were afraid of. He had blatantly told anyone who asked that he wasn't afraid of death whatsoever. Anyone who served with him for very long was able to see that he was good at keeping his head in normally terrifying situations. After his many close-calls, he always seemed to bounce back with little to no problems despite the harrowing experience. In all appearances, the young captain really was fearless.

However, to those who knew him better, they could tell that he had just as much fear in him as anyone else. The captain's fear was simply more pinpointed to several things instead of the wide range of fears most people had. The lack of variety also meant that he feared those things much more deeply, to the point where they were almost phobias, in a sense. He didn't fear public speaking, spiders, heights, or anything that was fairly common like those things. What he feared couldn't even be touched, much less seen. Because of this, it had taken awhile for the crew to notice what he feared, but they figured it out eventually.

The captain feared being alone. Despite the fact that he was very independent and naturally inclined to be more of a loner, he could always be found in a crowd – even if it was a crowd of strangers. Sometimes he would flat out ignore the crowd, simply immersing himself in their presence as he did his own thing. Once after consuming numerous drinks he had even admitted that he sometimes he picked up women just so that he wouldn't be alone at night.

Another fear of the captain's was failing. This fear was a little harder for the crew to figure out, but enough subtle moments eventually gave them enough information to notice. There was the Kobayashi Maru back at the Academy, which Kirk had taken three times despite nearly everyone giving up after the first time taking the test. The crew knew from various conversations that Kirk had become obsessed with the program, and that he would have refused to give up until he won. Luckily for everyone who knew him, he had passed the test the third time around.

Connected to his fear of failure was his fear of disappointing those he cared about. When he was in charge of the ship, he made it a point to know every detail about the crew and their jobs. He was attempting to understand everything he could so that he was less likely to disappoint them through his ignorance. Sometimes it seemed like Kirk knew more about them than they themselves did, so eager was he not to fail.

The fear that was probably the most prominent was his fear of losing something he considered his. From the way he treated his possessions, it was clear that once he considered something his he was very, very unlikely to let it go without a hassle. The things that mattered most to him were well protected and well taken care of even as they were cherished. He considered the things that mattered to him priceless, and would barely even consider parting with them unless something that mattered even more to him was threatened or offered.

In a strange way, the crew had somehow become his as well. That's not to say that they were considered or treated like objects, but that they were treated as his. Honestly, they didn't really mind. Like with everything else Kirk considered his own, he went out of his way to protect them and make sure that they were happy. It was evident to anyone who cared to look that they mattered to him a lot. From the looks he gave potential threats, it was also evident what would happen if any of them were harmed.

From his reactions with Nero and Khan to his responses on away missions turned sour, it was clear that he would give anything to make sure that they weren't taken from him, even if it meant sacrificing his life to make sure of that. Needless to say, that way of thinking was rather frustrating to deal with when many of them felt the same way.

They knew that he feared losing them, but the sentiment went both ways. The captain was as reckless as he was caring – especially when trying to protect his own. It was entirely possible that they would one day hear the announcement of their captain's death once again, and that the next time that happened he wouldn't come back.

But they all knew that when it came down to it, not a single one of them would be able to stop the captain from being reckless and relying on minuscule odds to get him through conflicts. So, they did what they could to ease his fears while crossing their fingers that the next mission wouldn't be his last. If it meant carrying a survival kit every time they left the ship, so be it. If that meant always carrying a backup communicator, then that's what they would do. If it meant every crew member would be trained in self-defense and required to carry a small knife in their shoe, then that's what would happen.

The captain may look fearless, and he may even act fearless, but he was just as mortal as everyone else, and everything mortal fears something. Kirk's fears might be intangible, but that didn't make them any less real. It simply meant that they would have to work a little harder to lay them to rest. That didn't matter to the crew though. They're captain was worth the extra effort, and he would do the same for them in a heartbeat.

And if the captain had no idea what they were doing, well, that was just a bonus now wasn't it?

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Radiation

“ - and then we escaped the mountain and beamed back to the ship!” Kirk finished triumphantly, beaming at the elderly Vulcan on the screen. Though Old Spock's facial expression revealed nothing, he had a decidedly amused air about him. The half-Vulcan's eyes flicked towards the rest of the Bridge, and out of curiosity, Kirk followed his gaze.

The Bridge crew was watching their interaction with a fond amusement, and Kirk was rather embarrassed to realize that he'd been acting like a little kid going on and on about a trip to the zoo. Or something like that. Kirk wouldn't really know, having never been to a zoo. Hmm, maybe he should visit one next time there was a shore leave . . .

“That sounds like a memorable experience.” Old Spock's response drew Kirk's attention back to the screen and away from his new train of thought. “It appears that you have had this encounter earlier than your counterpart, and seem to have come across multiple differences as well.” Kirk unconsciously leaned forward in interest.

“Really? Huh. I suppose I probably just bored you for the past several minutes, seeing as you have already lived through it. Sorry about that.” He gave a sheepish grin, and glanced up at the elderly Vulcan. Old Spock shook his head at the statement.

“There is no need to apologize, old friend. Your adventures with your crew show multiple differences to your counterpart's with his. Some of that is due to the timeline being altered, causing events to happen in a different order, to some degree, however the differences between yourself and my reality's James Kirk do play a significant part as well.” Kirk considered him for a moment. A thought visibly occurred to him, and there was a momentary hesitation before he began speaking.

“I don't know if the answer to this will break reality or anything,” he began slowly, “or if you're even okay with answering this, but what is the biggest change that you've seen in me? When compared to your version of myself, I mean.” The rest of the Bridge's attention was caught by Kirk's question, and they waited expectantly for an answer. Old Spock considered the captain for a long moment before responding.

“One thing that I have become aware of is that in this reality, you have been through much more hardship than the James Kirk of my own. However, it appears that from this hardship, you have grown stronger and more capable than he managed to in his lifetime. Therefore the logical conclusion to take is that you will manage to go further and achieve more than your counterpart was able to.”

Kirk had ducked his head, and the crew around him could see a light dusting of pink across his cheekbones. He looked almost shy at the assessment of himself. The elderly half-Vulcan on the screen tilted his head slightly, studying the man before him.

“Although the timeline has changed, that was only to be expected, given the circumstances. It was logical that your personality would be different as well, as it is the past which forms the people we are in the present. I believe, based on your question, you intended to ask not what was the biggest change, but what I find to be the most startling difference, yes?”

Kirk glanced up and blinked, slightly startled that the elderly half-Vulcan had read him so easily. He nodded, and Old Spock took a moment to observe him, seemingly deep in thought. There were several moments of expectant silence before he finally responded, looking pointedly at Kirk.

“Though many things are different here, even if it is only in the smallest of ways, I expected that result upon realizing what had happened. I had expected alternate versions of myself, my family, and my friends to exist as well. However, one thing I had not anticipated to affect me so strongly was turning to meet the gaze of a dear friend and finding eyes that were entirely different. That, I believe, is the most honest response I can give you for the time being.”

Everyone on the Bridge looked at Old Spock in surprise, Sulu and Chekov exchanging a glance as Uhura's eyebrows rose and Spock blinked. Kirk frowned slightly, confusion overtaking his features as he mulled over his friend's words.

“Wait, so out of everything that you've seen in this universe, the thing that is most shocking to you are my eyes?” Kirk's tone was incredulous. “I don't know if I should be disturbed or flattered that you find my eyes more shocking than everything that happened with Nero and all the other crazies we've had to deal with since he crossed over.” Old Spock raised an eyebrow, his tone slightly off as he responded.

“It is surprising how much of a difference eyes make when two individuals are otherwise so similar. Over the years I have become very aware of how changeable the appearances of humans are, due to age and personal alterations, and even to some degree how changeable their personalities and behaviors are. However, despite all of that, their eyes remained the same. That is not true in this scenario, and I must admit it made a much stronger impact than I had anticipated.”

Kirk and Old Spock studied each other in silence for a moment, an unreadable expression on the former's face and a patient one on the latter's. They almost seemed to be communicating silently, and the rest of the Bridge waited quietly to see the results of the unintentional stare-off.

“I see,” Kirk finally said, his expression lightening to his usual one as he tilted his head to the side curiously. “I'm guessing that my eyes were a different color where you came from. Let me guess, they were brown? Probably a dark brown?” Old Spock tipped his head forward in acknowledgment, and Kirk grinned broadly at being proven right.

“How did you know zhat, Keptin?” Chekov finally piped up, the first crew member to do so since the conversation between Kirk and the elderly half-Vulcan on screen had begun. Kirk flicked a bright-eyed glance at him, the blue suddenly more prominent than ever in the bright lights of the Bridge.

“Apart from brown being the most common eye color among humans,” he began in response, “I also know because I read my first medical records out of curiosity when I was ten. Apparently I was supposed to have had brown eyes and hair that was a slightly darker blond according to the genetic information that they gathered before I was born. Obviously that isn't what ended up happening.”

“What caused the changes?” Uhura asked, no longer able to hold back her curiosity. “Do you know? Those genetic tests are very, very rarely wrong these days.” Kirk nodded, his look in his eyes both heavy and sparking in intrigued interest.

“Yeah, actually, they were able to figure it out. Do you know what happens when a warp core explodes?” The crew blinked at the question, hesitating just long enough that Kirk answered his own question. “It releases a wave of radiation in addition to the heat and force that accompanies all explosions. Turns out it has a pretty long range, so right when I was born, when I was at my most vulnerable, it hit our ship. It wouldn't have had any effect normally, but our shielding wasn't online yet, given that they were mainly focused on getting me born before anything else could go wrong. The doctors and my mother only had to go through a mild detox because we were at the edge of the radiation, but by the time that was possible for us, it had already slightly changed my DNA. The result is my slightly altered appearance, as well as my ever-growing list of discovered allergies; the radiation completely messed up my body's threat-detection ability.”

“That's why you're allergic to everything under the sun?” Sulu exclaimed, looking like one of the big questions of humanity had just been answered. “Does Doctor McCoy know about that?”

“Well yeah,” Kirk said, as if it were obvious. “He's my primary physician, about the only doctor I really trust, and I kind of forced myself on him as a roommate during our first year, so he kind of had questions about it early on after witnessing several allergy attacks.”

A sound of a commotion drew their attention suddenly to the screen again. Old Spock was looking off to the side at something off-screen, the Vulcan equivalent of a frown on his face. He was silent for several moments, observing what was happening, before he turned back to the group with a sigh.

“I apologize. I must cut our conversation short as there is a matter that appears to require my attention.” He glanced back at the commotion, which sounded like it was getting louder. “I will endeavor to call you again in the near future, my friend, but for now this is goodbye.”

Old Spock waited until Kirk had said goodbye as well before he disconnected, already standing to go handle whatever the problem was. Kirk looked at the now-blank screen, a small smile playing about his lips as he turned to look at his Spock.

“Hey, Spock, if older you turns out to be anything like Old You, then I think we're going to have a lot of fun when we're all creaky and wrinkled.” Spock blinked at his captain's comment, and the other crew members tried, and failed, to smother their snickers. Brushing off his first officer's lack of verbal response, Kirk turned his attention to the view outside, the wide stretch of darkness curving away from them like the inside of a balloon, interspersed with only pinpricks to let in the light.

“It's been a while since I thought about that - the radiation I mean.” His voice was soft, his mood as changing as ever. “I can't really picture myself the way I would have been, dark eyes and slightly darker hair, fewer allergies if any at all, joining Starfleet because of my dad and not because of a dare . . .”

In the background, Kirk thought he heard Sulu mutter something that sounded like 'of course he joined on a dare', but it was quiet enough that he couldn't be sure. It was quiet for a moment as he stared out into the darkness, lost in thought. With a brief shake of his head, he turned back to the Bridge with a smile.

“Sorry, didn't mean to get lost in thought,” he commented. “I was just thinking about my grandmother. She was always talking about my eyes too, and Old Spock just reminded me of it.”

“You have a grandmother?”

All eyes on the Bridge turned to Uhura at her question. She flushed, realizing how obvious the answer to her question was as Kirk raised his eyebrow in amusement.

“You know what I mean,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Obviously you have a grandmother. I just meant that I didn't realize that you knew her, because you've never mentioned her before.” Kirk tilted his head in response, considering her statement for a moment.

“Huh, I guess you're right. That's weird that it hasn't come up before, she's the one who raised me until I was ten while my mom was off planet on her missions. Once she died, mom came back, got remarried, and her husband watched me and my brother until I went off planet at thirteen.”

Off to one side, Kirk caught sight of Chekov murmuring to Sulu. When he strained his ears, it sounded kind of like he was saying something like 'ze Keptin has a brother?'. Further away, a different Bridge member (not one of his main friend group) was muttering 'great there's two of them'. Kirk held back the urge to smirk at their words.

“Anyway,” he continued, regaining their attention and causing the hushed conversations to stop, “back when I was a kid, everyone who knew me knew that I hated space, Starfleet, and anything to do with either. Everyone believed it too – I was the kid who had lost his dad to space and his mother to Starfleet, among . . . other things. The only person who never did was my grandmother. She used to take me stargazing, despite my protests and reluctant enjoyment, and she would tell me stories about the constellations. She also used to insist that anyone with dilithium-blue eyes was destined for the stars, and that sooner or later I would see that she was right.”

Kirk made a wide gesture with his hands as is to say And look where I ended up, giving them a wry grin. The crew blinked at him for a moment, and more than a few held his gaze a little longer than they normally would, noticing for the first time the way the blue of his eyes was just a hint too blue, and the way they almost seemed to have the faintest of glows against the backdrop of space. As if reading their thoughts, the captain gave them a knowing look and turned his attention back to the PADD he'd been working on before Old Spock called, leaving the others to their thoughts.

It occurred to them, for the first time, how many coincidences had to have happened for all of them to end up back on the Enterprise, even after Nero had entered their version of the world and changed everything. Or, perhaps it wasn't just coincidence. Most of the crew wasn't superstitious, but even they had to admit that something bigger than them had to be at play for all of them to end up where they were, on a starship captained by a man with his soul steeped in space and eyes the color of a starship's heart.

Chapter Text

Sam is thirty-one when he sees his little brother's face again in person, his image plastered across every screen in sight despite everyone present being at the space station with them. It's an image of him walking out of a Starfleet ship, flanked by a small handful of officers and surrounded by the media, looking every inch the hero he has apparently become.

He knows that to everyone else, the tipped head, strong gaze, and smile show only pride and confidence, but even after all these years, Sam still knows his little brother. Jimmy's eyes aren't proud, they're determined: a warning saying look what I did, do you see what I did to the last guy who messed with me and mine? Don't be him . The eyes of the galaxy - and maybe even the next few - are on him, and Sam knows he knows it.

Most striking of all though is his smile. To an outsider the smile is harmless enough, if a little cocky, but Sam is intimately familiar with it – it's been the smile haunting him for years. He’s familiar with its sharpened edges by now. It's the kind of smile that dares the world to throw another punch at him and knock him down, just so that he can get up and swing back twice as hard. It's the smile that his brother wore when kids on the schoolyard tried to pick on him out of jealousy, before they learned to stay away from ‘the crazy Kirk kid’ for their own wellbeing. It was the smile he’d worn whenever their stepfather Frank challenged him, and when Sam walked out the door for the last time. It was the smile that Sam had imagined making its way across Tarsus as children fought back against a madman and survived - as they fought back and won . 

It's the smile he had imagined his little brother had been wearing when he confronted whoever the fuck had done that to his neck (the small sliver visible under his turtleneck was straight up indigo , and what the hell ), and the one he imagined he wore as he saved the world.

Sam had spent most of the first half of his life fighting against his family history and the resulting expectations - pushing them away, denying them, shoving them back like a disease.  He'd spent the second half of his life regretting most of his choices in the first half, and doing his best to fix them, before realizing that he couldn't spend the rest of his life running after whispers and footprints.

He can feel the weight of all those wrong choices in that moment, looking up at Jimmy and trying to summon the courage to step into his brother’s line of sight. There’s no way to predict how his brother will react to seeing him after all these years, and he doesn’t want to cause a scene in front of what feels like every reporter in the Federation. But he also isn’t willing to risk losing track of his brother for another twelve years, so he steps forward into an area that is a little emptier, lets out a piercing whistle, and lifts a hand in the air while ignoring the dirty looks from those around him.

The whistle itself hadn’t stood out much in the clamoring crowd, but Sam had been tuned into Jimmy’s own version of the call for years, ever since they started using it to keep track of each other in the corn fields back home, and he’s hoping it’s stayed the same for his brother.

Sure enough, Jimmy’s eyes snap to his general area as soon as the sound dies, a look of slight incredulous shock underlying his features to those who know him or are particularly observant. His eyes scan the crowd before catching Sam’s lifted hand. He pauses when they make eye contact, face falling into carefully crafted expression meant to be a mask for the media while hiding his true thoughts. After a moment, Jimmy flicks his eyes over to an alcove that’s going mostly ignored in all the commotion, and Sam nods his understanding, making his way over while his little brother deals with the rabid reporters waiting for him.

He makes it over with little hassle, since most people are interested in pushing forwards rather than leaving the crowd. Leaning against a wall, he watches his brother move with a confidence he hadn’t completely had as a kid. He’s good at being outgoing now, knows how to charm people in a way he hadn’t been able to - or interested in - before. Jimmy had always been kind of quiet, and somewhat reserved around new people, preferring to spend his time with their Nana, Sam himself, or alone more often than not.

Of course, that could be due in part to the fact that their small family had always been different than the rest of their town. Their family was riddled with Starfleet officers, researchers, musicians, artists, and authors, rather than farmers like most people whose families had stayed in Riverside after the Federation was formed. And while a lot of the town was smart, none of them were the level of genius that the Kirks - and the Vandals on Winona’s side of the family, the true locals to Riverside - were. They stuck out like a sore thumb, and it brought a distance with the admiration, as well as jealousy.

However, Sam struggles to see any of that distance now. It makes him wonder with a wry sadness if all Jimmy needed to thrive was a group of fellow geniuses who could keep up with the jumps of reason and logic his brain made - a group of people he didn’t have to dumb himself down for unless he wanted to.

The media frenzy goes on for a while, long enough that Sam wonders if he and his brother really will get a chance to talk. Of course, as soon as he thinks that, his brother slips into the alcove so silently it nearly makes Sam jump. Glancing out at the crowd, it looks like a scowling man with a medkit is growling at everyone near him. Sam recognizes him from his brother’s crew, and figures he’s standing guard for now.

Secure in the thought of at least a little bit of privacy, Sam turns back to his brother and allows himself to simply look at him for just a moment. Jimmy is taller than he had been when Sam last saw him, now around the same height as Sam himself, instead of at least a foot shorter. He looked better than the skeleton he was after Tarsus, his features now filled out again and lined with lean muscle.

“Why are you here?” His brother’s voice is mostly light, if guarded, and Sam blinks out of his study of his features, a little taken aback by the contrast of the easy atmosphere and the underlying wariness.

“Why am I - why wouldn’t I be here?” At his words, it’s Jimmy’s turn look a little surprised. A frown forms on his features, and his tone takes on a hint of the ice Sam knows could flood his entire demeanor in moments.

“You never have been before.”

It feels like a slap in the face. Sam knows his own shortcomings, and had always assumed that Jimmy knew that not all of them were by choice. But the subtle wariness and accusing look in his brother’s eyes says that no, he isn’t aware. In fact, the longer Sam looks at Jimmy, the more he realizes 

“I - Jimmy, Mom didn’t tell you ?”

“Tell me what ?”

“I wanted to go see you at the Lunar colony’s medical ward after Tarsus, but I couldn’t afford the transport and Mom told me to wait until you both were back in Iowa and she’d kicked Frank out. And my boss threatened legal action if I skipped out on my contract early. When I finally got a message from Mom and managed to finish that stupid work contract, I went back home, only to find you’d already left. Mom was in deep space and unreachable, and you dropped completely off the radar. I kept looking for a while, but finally I decided you were either avoiding me or it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Jimmy looks thrown by the news, and Sam can understand why. If he’s been under the assumption that Sam just walked away and never came back, despite his promise to return, then it makes perfect sense that he would be upset and stay hidden for so long.

“I - don’t really know what to say to that,” Jimmy admits quietly, frowning slightly. Sam can tell it’s the truth, and can easily see the mix of emotions crossing his little brother’s face. He’s somewhat relieved to see that he still knows his brother’s tells - and he can see the moment that Jimmy boxes up that mess of feelings to deal with later, in favor of leaning against the wall with a slight smirk.

“So, how’s the wife and kids?” he asks knowingly. Sam’s not embarrassed by the way his jaw drops a little at the statement. He’s long been used to being taken by surprise by his little brother. Jimmy laughs a little at his expression, and Sam relaxes a bit, shakes his head with a slight smile of his own.

“They’re good, though the twins clearly take after our side of the family. My son, thank gods, is Aurelan’s kid through and through. I have no idea how Nana put up with the two of us when we were kids - I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with a third.” Sam pauses then, a little hesitant to potentially ruin the atmosphere. “I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but how did you . . .?” 

He trails off, but Jimmy knows Sam just as well as the other way around. His eyes dart away for a moment, before he meets Sam’s eyes knowingly, demeanor steady but with a hint of apologetic undertones.

“Just because you couldn't find me, doesn't mean I wasn't able to find you. I’ve been keeping tabs for a while now on where you are and some of what you’ve been up to. You're what, a xenobo-”

“Oh my god, you're Samuel George.”

At the interruption, both brothers turned to see Sulu. The pilot had somehow made it past Jimmy’s doctor friend, and clearly had been approaching them before he had frozen, eyes wide and locked on Sam. He looked stunned and a little starstruck, and Sam could feel when Jim's gaze shifted to him, even as he flushed at the attention and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Er, yeah, that's the name I publish my research under. Hi. My real name is George Samuel Kirk Jr, but feel free to call me Sam. Everyone does. You must be Sulu, the pilot.” Sulu looked torn for a second between giddiness and indignation, his eyes flicking between the two brothers, before finally settling on Jim and indignation.

“Captain, why didn't you tell me that you're related to the Samuel George? You could have mentioned it at any point on the return trip home, or even back at the Academy!” he exclaimed, and Jim blinked, looking a little surprised at the question. He glanced at Sam.

“He's really that big of a deal to you?”

“A big deal ?” Sulu demanded. “He's basically managed to rewrite everything we know about intergalactic fungi – from the types, to how it grows, to how to kill it. He's like the modern Banu Avesta of xenobotanists.”

“Who's that again?” Sam asked, feeling confused at the unfamiliar name even as he could feel himself slowly turning bright scarlet from the praise. (He blames his father’s genes for his easy blushing - Nana, Mom, and Jimmy never struggled half as much with it and it was completely unfair, growing up.)

“She's the physicist who basically revolutionized the way we understand flight mechanics. She's the reason we achieved Warp One, but she's always overlooked for the guy who adjusted the physical engines to adapt to the shift after she proved it could be done,” Jim explained, suddenly eyeing his brother anew.

“Point is,” Sulu continues, still looking like he can’t believe this conversation is happening, “Samuel George is a big deal , especially to anyone who specializes in fungal pathogens. He’s done a lot of work on developing planets, and has helped save thousands of lives.”

“Really,” Jim states, a hint of detached disbelief in his voice as he turns to raise his eyebrows at Sam. “Decided to take up humanitarian work then? Wouldn’t have taken you to be the type.”

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” Sam admits, sparing only the slightest of glances at Sulu, who is beginning to look like he’s realizing there’s subtext to this conversation and is regretting his decision to bring up the topic. “I decided that if I have the ability to help people, then I have a duty to. And specializing in helping prevent pathogenic fungal crop failure is something I can do to make up for at least a few of my mistakes.”

There’s a weighted silence after that admission in which Jimmy simply stares at him. His face is blank in a way that shows Sam his brain is whirling away too fast to express visibly. After a moment he sighs, turning to Sulu.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make things awkward for you,” he grins sheepishly. “It’s just been a while since Sam and I have had a chance to properly chat so we’re a bit behind on what the other has been up to. If you’d like, you can join us for lunch tomorrow to pick my brother’s brain on xenobotany, assuming he’ll still be around for it?”

At this, Jimmy glances back at Sam as if to confirm. It reveals more than his brother probably intended, because Sam can see the child-like insecurity underlying the motion. Well, he supposes, it will probably take more than ten minutes to unlearn some of his wariness from the decade long misunderstandings that had only just been cleared up.

“Of course, there’s nowhere I’d rather be,” he agrees, catching some of the tension in Jimmy’s shoulders easing. Turning to Sulu, he continues. “Though if you like botany, my wife would probably be the better person to ask. I have dual specialties in pathogens and fungus, while she has specialties in flora and ecosystem dynamics. If you’re into xenobotany, you’ve probably heard of some of her work - she publishes under her maiden name, Aurelan Eriona?”

If Sulu had looked slightly starstruck before, he looks like he’s ascended to the astral plane now. Sam can see Jimmy silently laughing, and even he himself is struggling not to smile at the response. Not everyone has heard of her, but most who have tend to have similar reactions when they realize that the wife he always talks about is her.

“Heard of her . . .” Sulu repeats weakly, before visibly shaking himself. “She’s widely agreed to be the top xenobotanist in her field . . . Some are even starting to call her a revolutionary . . .”

He turns helplessly to Jimmy, whose head falls back as he laughs, unable to keep silent any longer. Sam grins too, all too pleased to speak of his wife’s accomplishments and eager to move the topic of discussion away from himself.

“Yeah, I’m really proud of her, though of course she claims it’s all an exaggeration,” Sam smiles. “She and the kids are coming in the next few days. If you’re still around, I can introduce you, if you’d like?”

“Yes, absolutely!” Sulu says immediately. He then turns back to Sam’s brother, eyebrows raised. “Is it a requirement in your family to excel, or is there anyone normal? Are there any more of your crazy-genius family members that I should know about before they pop up out of nowhere?”

“I mean, the only ones of us left are me, my mom, and Sam’s family,” Jimmy said in response. “Mom’s a brilliant engineer, but she’s also kind of terrifying, so the Admiralty makes excuses to send her to the other side of the galaxy as often as possible. Nana was a pretty popular novelist when she was alive, but I’m not sure that qualifies as crazy-genius. If you like Sam, you’d probably have loved her - though to be fair, most people tended to love Nana. As for the other Kirks, they aren’t around anymore, but they were part of an experimental research colony working on developing advanced terraforming - not sure that counts either though, since they were pretty normal, from what I remember.”

Sulu simply looks at Jimmy for a long moment, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. He flicks his gaze to Sam once, as if to confirm the words, before he crosses his arms as Jimmy looks on in amusement.

“You’ll be telling me more about your family and exactly how well known all of you are once things settle down a bit and we’re back the Academy again,” the pilot demands. Sam watches in amusement as Jimmy blinks several times, looking mildly perplexed at the request, before nodding his agreement. Satisfied, Sulu’s expression eases and he glances back towards the crowds with a grimace.

“I’d better get back to the others and help with damage control. Uhura looks like she’s getting ready to stab someone, and I wouldn’t put it past her to be able to make it look like an accident too,” he says nonchalantly, as if it’s a normal thing to say. A glance at Jimmy’s matching grimace tells him it isn’t an exaggeration either, and once again he’s baffled by the people his little brother ends up finding.

“Yeah, better go help the masses,” Jimmy agrees. “If Spock’s with her, he’d be able to provide an airtight alibi too. See you tomorrow at lunch. I’ll message you the details.”

Sulu nods with a grin, quickly shakes Sam’s hand, then darts off into the crowd again. Jimmy’s doctor friend scowls at him as he runs by, and Sam shakes his head with a slight smirk, turning back to his little brother. The uncertain look is back in Jimmy’s eyes as he looks at him, and it sends a twinge through Sam to see it.

“So, dinner at my place?” Jimmy asks, a little hesitant. “It’ll probably be more private than going out to eat anywhere, if this crowd is any indication. I have it on good authority that my couch is also pretty comfortable, if you need a place to stay still. At least until Aurelan and the kids come, that is. I don’t think I have enough space for all of you.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, a little too quickly, nearly sighing in relief at the offers. “That’d be great, Jimmy. Thanks.”

Jimmy nods, and there’s a moment of awkward silence, before Sam snorts, dragging a hand down his face. Jimmy looks a little startled for a moment, but because they apparently can still read each other as easily as ever, after a quick scan of Sam’s face he snorts too.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, laughing a little. Sam’s lips twitch in agreement.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Tipping his head thoughtfully, he glances back at Jimmy. “Tell you what. Since it seems there may have been a lot of misunderstandings over the years about what exactly has been going on all these years, I have a suggestion. Over dinner - and even after if you want - feel free to ask me anything, and I promise I’ll answer truthfully. Sound fair?”

“Okay,” Jimmy nods slowly. A flash of uncertainty sweeps across his face so fast that if Sam had blinked he would have missed it. “I’ll offer the same, but if I feel uncomfortable answering something, I reserve the right to tell you that instead. Deal?”

“Deal,” Sam agrees. He reaches out without thinking to ruffle Jimmy’s hair, years of habit coming back in a single instant. He freezes, halfway through, checking Jimmy’s reaction to the motion. Jimmy’s eyes are wide, but there’s a childish pleasure hiding in them that allows Sam to relax and finish the movement, lowering his hand a moment later.

“So,” he says, determined to make things a little more normal. “I’m assuming you’re still not allergic to Thai food, and that you’re still vegetarian, right? Want me to find a place to eat while you wrap things up here?”

“I - yeah,” Jimmy says, a small smile playing about his features as he glances away. “Sounds good. I should probably go help out my crew and report back to my superiors. Meet you back here in a few hours? I’ll comm you when I’m good to go.”

Sam doesn’t even ask how Jimmy plans to do that. Of course his brother has his personal comm number. Jimmy creeps to the edge of their alcove, peering out carefully, wary of reporters. After a hesitant moment where he glances back at Sam, clearly reluctant to leave, he darts back out to the doctor, slinging an arm around his shoulders and dragging him back in the direction of the media frenzy.

Sam smiles at the sight and pulls out his PADD to start looking up what food is available both on the station and back down on Earth, in San Francisco. It’ll be good to reconnect with Jimmy, he thinks. He’s missed his little brother a lot over the years, and he’s excited if not a little nervous for him to meet his wife, daughters, and son. Glancing back up at his brother’s media-charming grin, visible even from here, Sam feels like an old wound may start to finally heal.

Chapter Text

Trade moons are everything that is wrong with society, of that Sulu is apparently certain. Chekov can’t quite understand the vehemence of the sentiment, but he hums placating agreement whenever the older man takes a breath from his grumbling. Personally, he thinks the moon is a little grungy, sure, and maybe there’s a bit of black market trading happening in plain sight, but really. What’s a good trading center without the possibility of illegal activity?

Back in Russia, Chekov’s older sisters were experts at navigating the local black markets. A few of the vendors even gave them freebies sometimes. Well. They did now , anyway, ever since they’d went to go visit those shops in person a few years back.

The captain seems to get it - he looks just as at home here as he does on the Bridge of the Enterprise , if in a different way. The comfortably alert ease of his movements is the same in each setting, as if nothing and nobody can truly cause him harm in either location. He actually carries himself a little like the way Chekov’s older sisters do, which is honestly very reassuring, considering their mission.

“Alright, I - Spock, loosen up, we’ve talked about this already, you stand out looking so stiff - I trust you to remember the plan,” the captain says, drawing the away team into a loose semi-circle with a gesture, now that they have made it past the main entrance. “Get in, get any info you can, get out. No drawing unnecessary attention, no picking fights, no going off on your own. Stick to the buddy system and don’t play the hero, capiche?”

Everyone present nods.

“Good,” Kirk continues, flicking his gaze around the group. “Spock’s with me, Sulu and Chekov are a team, Adomaitis and Jones, Kerehoma and Evans. Report back here in an hour with anything you find. If you get separated from your buddy, I expect an immediate message on the comms. If you can’t make the meeting time, I expect a message - and if you can’t send one, you have another hour before all alarms will be raised and we blow this place open. We don’t fuck around on trade moons, folks, because that’s a good way to get yourself kidnapped and shipped off to the next galaxy over and never heard from again. So stay safe, got it?”

Chekov bobs his head in agreement amidst a chorus of nods and murmurs of assent. The captain nods back, then turns and - just, melts into the crowd as if he had always been a part of it. Spock trails a step behind, looking vaguely uncomfortable but considerably less rigid than he had when they first arrived. It would be easy to lose sight of them - especially given how they’re dressed.

For recon purposes, all the officers are in civilian clothing at the moment, and seeing their half-Vulcan first officer in civilian clothes was a bit strange, if rather, well, humanizing . Spock hadn’t had any civilian clothes on board the ship, so the captain had lent him a few of his own for the mission, meaning they were dressed fairly similarly.

The navigator had no idea why the captain had plain T-shirts, jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket with him while they were in space (or why he had a spare cargo jacket and set of boots for Spock) but the result was just rugged enough for them to blend in pretty well with the rougher crowd that seemed to favor the moon.

He turns to glance at Sulu, to see the other man grumbling again as he stares suspiciously at their surroundings. He recalls that the pilot had been particularly confused about why Starfleet was allowing the illegal activity to continue, until Uhura had explained that they couldn’t stop it, since it’s not entirely clear who has jurisdiction over the trade moon - Deicu being right on the border of the Federation, the Cardassians, and the Klingons, in a patch of unclaimed space.

“Calm down,” Chekov says, nudging his shoulder. “You’ll get us jumped if you make yourself a target by looking suspicious of everything. Relax a little but stay alert. If you have to be suspicious, limit it to only a handful of people, not the entire market as a whole.”

“How do you know that?” Sulu asks him incredulously, thankfully turning his attention away from his grumbling. Chekov nudges him again to get him walking as they begin looking for sources of information. “Seriously, you’re like, twelve. What do you know about black markets and sketchy trade moons?”

“First of all, I’m twenty-two,” Chekov responds, debating about whether or not to be offended, before discarding his offense in favor of scanning their surroundings. “Secondly, I was helping to run a black market business in a sketchy trade center at age twelve. I was in charge of running the numbers for literally everything since I was the best at math, while my sisters, mothers, and aunties were the face of it all and did the rest of the work.”

“Wait, what ? ” Sulu stops walking for a moment, before he realizes that Chekov isn’t about to stop walking, and nearly trips to catch up. “How did that - does Starfleet know about this ?"

“Of course!” He pauses for a moment to listen in on a conversation and read a flyer, before continuing. “Starfleet approached my family in the interest of having them be underworld spies for them. There was a lot of bargaining involved, but it ended up with me getting into the Academy a year later and Starfleet protecting my family from the law.”

At the following silence, Chekov looks up from a pamphlet he’d snagged off a booth in the street to see Sulu staring at him with wide eyes. Sulu’s mouth opens and closes for several long moments, before he scrubs his hands across his face and adamantly shakes his head.

“You know what? I don’t want to know. Let’s just get back to doing our job,” he declares, before leading them into a nearby store. Chekov shrugs, putting the odd conversation out of his mind and trailing behind him.

An hour later and they have heard only a rumor that there is a weapons ring dealing with Romulans on the moon, but nothing more substantial or more detailed than that. Chekov hopes the others have learned more than they have, as he and Sulu make their way back to the meeting point. 

Catching sight of Kirk, Spock, and the other two teams, they make their way over just as the captain looks up from his watch with a raised eyebrow.

“Cutting it kind of close, you two,” he remarks. “I was beginning to wonder if I was going to need to send in the cavalry after you.”

“A shopkeeper was talking to us and mentioned a rumor about the weapons ring existing,” Chekov explains. “We were hoping to get more information, and then when there wasn’t more, we had to figure out how to leave without creating suspicion.”

Kirk nods comprehendingly, clearly understanding perfectly what had happened, which Chekov appreciates. Sulu had tried to leave as soon as they’d gotten their information from the vendor, and Chekov had needed to do damage control so that the vendor didn’t alert the whole moon as soon as they left that some suspicious people were wandering around asking questions.

“Right, well I kind of suspected we’d have some trouble getting dirt on these guys,” Kirk admits, unperturbed. “You don’t make it this long doing stuff that big under the Federation’s nose without being good at covering your tracks. There’s one more place I want to visit before we’ll head back to the ship and come up with another plan of action.”

Kirk motions for the group to follow him and begins weaving his way through the crowd again. Chekov cheerfully window shops on the way, spotting a few things of interest he’ll be mentioning to his moms during their next transmission. Kirk ducks down a few different streets, followed by the others, before moving into a nearby alleyway.

All the warning they have is a shadow slightly darker than it should be before the captain is rapidly trading blows with another figure.

They duck and weave around each other in sharp bursts of motion, trading kicks and punches that are either avoided or blocked every time. Each hold they try to put the other in is countered almost as it happens, and the others are still too surprised to do much more than stare in shock - not that they are able to do much more in the cramped alley, as Spock clearly wishes to.

Suddenly, in the middle of an overhead blow, the captain freezes, body going rigid.

“ Mom ?”

All movement stops as everyone turns their attention to the blond-haired woman currently frozen in the middle of blocking the halted blow from the captain. She blinks, before relaxing in unison with the captain as they both size each other up.

“Jimmy? What are you doing out here?” she asks, rather unfairly, in Chekov’s opinion, given that she’s here too. “Don’t you have a ship to run?”

“What am I - what are you doing here? I thought you were on shore leave!” Kirk blusters, wrong-footed in the face of such an unexpected encounter. The woman - his mother it seems, dear gods - just smiles cheerfully back.

“I am! I decided to pay Deicu a visit in my downtime,” she replies, looking almost charmed by their grungy surroundings, before reaching out casually to wrap a hand around the long antennae of a knee-high being that is now running by. “Hand it over pipsqueak, or forfeit those sticky fingers of yours.”

Pipsqueak lives up to his name and squeaks, before passing back what appears to be Lieutenant Kirk’s wallet. She looks at it, gives Pipsqueak a look , before he all but throws a ring of keys, a few bills, and a credit chip her way. She releases him and he scrambles away. Chekov resists the urge to pat himself down for his own belongings.

“You’ve gotten sloppy,” Kirk tells her, eyeing the briefly-stolen possessions judgmentally, before shaking himself and narrowing his eyes at her. “Wait, let me get this straight. You had shore leave and instead of visiting Sam, Aurelan, and the kids, you decided to spend it on a trade moon ? Specifically, Deicu ? Why ?”

Lieutenant Kirk’s smile fades a bit as she grows more serious.

“Doing a favor for a friend,” she explains. “His cousin went missing on Deicu three days ago, and he called me to see if I could track her down before she disappeared off the grid. Wasn’t expecting to find you here too. Especially in this alley - I thought you were traffickers taking advantage of the fact that I was in an alley alone.”

“Yeah, I gathered by the fact that you jumped me. We’re here to gather intel on a Federation-based weapons ring doing deals with the Romulans,” the captain offers, despite a sharp look from Commander Spock. “Heard anything about that when looking for your person?”

“Can’t say I have,” his mother muses aloud, eyes scanning the area. “But I still have one more place to try - saved the best for last, like I’m sure you did too.”

“The bar,” Kirk nods in confirmation. “I was just on my way there next. If you want to join us, there shouldn’t be an issue. Two birds, one stone and all that.”

At the reminder that there were more than the two of them in the alleyway, Lieutenant Kirk glances over towards the rest of them. Her eyes are sharp and assessing, though not cold, as she looks them over. After a moment, her lips quirk up into a slight smile, and Chekov has to blink away the afterimage of the captain’s own grin at the sight.

“You must be my son’s crew,” the captain’s mother addresses the away-team for the first time, in the same no-nonsense tone she was using with Kirk. “Call me Winona. It’s nice to finally meet some of the people keeping this reckless idiot in line.”

“It is our pleasure Lieutenant Kirk,” Spock responds immediately over the sounds of Kirk’s protests, before a raised eyebrow from the woman has him amending, “Winona.”

“I’ll have you know that I only get that from you,” Kirk complains, as his mother turns to him with a clearly skeptical expression.

“I seem to recall your father being a bit of a daredevil,” she counters, ignoring the curious stares from the crew. “Besides which, Sam never got in half as much trouble, and your Nana always said that you were worse than me growing up, so what’s your excuse for that?”

Kirk tosses his head a little, willfully ignoring the question. He turns his attention back towards the group, turning his back towards his mother, which she smirks at a little playfully.

“So! A lesson about intel: people often loosen up at bars, and common meeting places like that are great for listening to the local gossip. If there’s information to learn, we’ll hear it there. People like to talk, no matter how well someone covers their tracks. So I say, let’s go check it out.”

Clapping his hands together, Kirk motions for them to continue on through the alley, now joined by Winona. Chekov watches her curiously as they walk, and he can tell the others are watching her too.

Upon arriving at the bar, Chekov hears Sulu’s mutterings start up again. The place is run down, dingy, and more than a little grimy. Chekov will admit to the fact that the bars in other questionable trade centers are usually much nicer than the ones on trade moons, but it’s not too bad of a venue in his opinion.

Kirk and his mother lead them through the crowd towards a free booth in the back. They all have to squeeze in a bit tightly to manage - Jones, Kerehoma, Evans, and Adomaitis sliding in first, followed by the ranking officers. Winona snags a chair from a nearby table, glaring the being sitting at that table about to protest into staying quiet, and sets up at the end.

“Alright, drinks. We have to blend in, so we’ll each be getting something,” the captain says, glancing at his mother. “Mom, want to join me? There’s going to be a lot to carry back, with all of us here. Yes, I’ll buy your drink for you, so don’t bother asking.”

His mother nods her agreement and walks off with him, leaving the officers by themselves as they make their way across the room. The officers left behind exchange confused looks, glancing between themselves and their surroundings.

“I guess we stay here then,” Adomaitis says softly, their eyes moving towards the Kirks to watch their progress. Following their line of sight, the rest of the group watches the pair as well.

Winona and the captain walk up to the bartender together, and the crew watches from their seats in the booth as they place all of their orders, taking the woman in properly for the first time since they’d met her fifteen minutes ago. She’s all dark wash jeans, worn leather jacket, and hard liquor with a supernova smile and bright, jaded eyes. She’s been leaving them all a little awestruck almost by accident, and yeah, they can see the family resemblance.

The pair of them are mirror images of each other, slightly distorted. While the captain’s features look more like his late father’s, the set of his shoulders, the grace he carries himself with, the sly but kind smiles he gives out, and the whip-cord fast intelligence are all Winona. Paired with a similar fashion sense, and there’s no way they can be mistaken for anything but family.

“I met the captain’s brother shortly after the Narada incident,” Sulu suddenly comments, eyes locked onto the pair. 

“You did?” Chekov asks, looking at him curiously, along with Spock and the others. Sulu nods a little, propping his head on his hand.

“I also met his sister-in-law and niblings - the gender-neutral term for a sibling’s kids, Jones,” Sulu explains, catching sight of the other officer’s confusion before the man had even opened his mouth, before turning his attention back to the Kirks. “I thought it explained a lot about Kirk, seeing him interact with them all,  especially his brother. They’re all geniuses, and quirky as hell, but now meeting their mom…”

“It explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Chekov agrees, smiling a little at the sight of Winona ruffling the captain’s hair as Kirk himself protested.

“Yeah, it does.” After a moment, Sulu continues thoughtfully, “I think I also understand now why the Admiralty keeps sending them to opposite ends of the galaxy - I had wondered. That woman is terrifying, and so is the captain when he’s in the right mood. I’m a little afraid of what they’ll end up doing when put together.”

“Isn’t it exciting?” Chekov enthuses, smiling widely at the thought. “This’ll be great. I can’t wait to tell my Baba the next time I call home. She’ll be so happy to hear about this - she misses her days of adventure and danger.”

“Chekov, no offense,” Kerehoma suddenly says, breaking free from the bubble of conversation the others were having, her voice quiet from across the table and her dark eyes perplexed, “but I have so many questions about your family.”

“You would not be the first to say so,” he responds cheerfully, just as the captain and Winona return carrying several armfuls of drinks.

Sulu takes his drink and peers into his opaque glass suspiciously as Chekov accepts his with a smile. In the corner of his eye, Chekov can see Spock staring at his glass curiously, and overhears a bit of Kirk telling him quietly that there’s nothing but water in his glass. The other four officers accept their drinks with quiet thanks as Winona finally catches sight of Sulu’s inspection and barks out a laugh, tossing back something that looks like whiskey. Setting the glass down, she turns to him.

“No worries, pilot, Jimmy and I made sure they weren’t drugged,” she says. For some reason, Sulu now looks alarmed instead of just wary as he glances down at his glass, but Chekov leaves him to Winona as he turns his attention to his own glass. He’s rather touched that the captain seems to have remembered his preference for yorsh , rather than straight vodka like most people assumed, and happily swallows several mouthfuls.

“Alright, everyone. No drinking too much here, and the buddy system still applies. Stay within eyesight of the group at all times, and don’t let your buddy wander off alone for any reason,” the captain says. After a moment, an almost dangerous smile spreads across his features. “Now, let’s get to work, and let these guys screw themselves over.”

Only hours later, they are all back on the ship, readying a unit to go down and bust the weapons ring and rescue their captives. It turns out that the person Winona was looking for had seen a deal going down that she wasn’t supposed to and had been taken, same as several others they’d seen through a window of their base location.

Winona and Kirk were both bouncing ideas between each other in half-sentences, driving the rest of the Bridge towards confusion and irritation. Spock was watching, clearly fascinated by the exchange, waiting for their plans to be run by him.

“I’m just saying, what if we -”

“No, we can’t, because then -”

“Good point. So what about -”

“Oh, and then if we -”

“Yeah, that should work. Spock, your thoughts?”

The pair turn towards the First Officer in unison, and the half-Vulcan blinks in response. There’s a minute tilt to his head that Chekov now knows means he is thinking things over. The rest of the Bridge is quiet, waiting on his response.

“The plan is logical,” he finally says, causing the rest of the Bridge’s jaws to drop. Chekov is rather impressed by the man’s ability to speak Kirk - clearly he is more experienced than the rest of them are. “There are a few points where a slight change would cause an increased probability of success by thirty point two four percent, but otherwise the plan is sound.”

Both Kirks watch him for a long moment, before a slow, pleased smile creeps across Winona’s features. It looks so much like the captain’s own, in the rare times where it’s boyish rather than sly, that Chekov hears several quiet inhales from around the Bridge at that sight.

“Well, well,” she says quietly, voice warm with approval. “You chose well with this one, Jimmy.”

“Told you,” he says mildly, though a pleased expression belies his nonchalance.

A beeping sound at Uhura’s station breaks the spell of silence then, and all eyes turn to her as she receives the incoming transmission. Her eyes scan the contents of the message quickly, before she turns back to Kirk.

“I’ve just received a message from the weapons ring,” she says, a little grimly. “Apparently they caught sight of the intel group just as you were all leaving and managed to figure out you were here. They said you have half an hour to go alone with everyone on that team before they kill their captives and, quote ‘make you wish you were never born’, end quote.”

A subtle tension permeates the air after that announcement, and Chekov turns his attention away from Uhura and back towards Kirk and his mother.

Winona and the captain now have matching smirks, their sharpened gazes mirrors of each other. Everyone in the vicinity is suddenly fighting the urge to shift a little away, very much aware now of why the Admiralty doesn’t want them on the same ship.

“Oh, they just made a mistake,” Winona says, glancing over at Jim. “Ready to show the idiots why they should never pick a fight with a Vandal - much less two of them?” Kirk’s smirk widens into a razor-edged smile, and the glint in his gaze seems to get even sharper at her words.

“Absolutely. You’d think they’d learn by now not to get on our bad sides. After all, no doubt word has spread throughout the underground about what happened the last time we were on a trade moon together.”

Chekov almost feels sorry for the dealers, knowing what his captain is capable of alone and given the predatory expressions on both of the Kirks’ faces. However they have a job to do and people to save, so he simply stays sitting at his station and prepares for the coming engagement.

He knows that look on Kirk’s face, and if Winona is anything like her son, then there’s no doubt they’ll win the coming confrontation.