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ohtobeleah · 1 year ago

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Bruises // Jake Seresin

Chapter Two: [Tactile Takedown]

Summary: When a missile is headed right for Roosters F-18, Jake makes a decision that could end up costing you your life.

Series Warnings: Heavy themes of violence, sexual assault, torture. 18+ content. Minors DNI. Mature themes. Being held in captivity. Hostage style situation. Main character death! Whump, Angst. Conversations that discuss antisocial & antisemitism views.

Word Count: 4.4k

Author Note: THIS SERIES IS CONFRONTING, FICTIONAL, AND DEPICTS IMAGES OF TORTURE. DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THIS SERIES WILL BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR MENTAL STABILITY. CURATE YOUR OWN TIMELINE.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

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Tuesday - April 18th 2023. D-day.

“How you doing back there Hollywood?” Jake asked as you settled into a steady climb, You’d just taken off from the carrier that had taken you out into the middle of nowhere to complete a mission that seemed somewhat impossible. But you were told these guys were the best of the best, that they don't get any better than the Daggers. An elite group of Naval Aviators who had completed some of the most insane covert operations you'd been blessed to read about. “How's my radar looking?”

And now? Well–now you were one of them.

“Radars clean Hangman.” You confirmed all the while trying to calm the pit of nervousness in your stomach. “Recommend increasing to three hundred knots, you've got Dagger Two approaching at around ten o'clock closure.”

“Confirmed.” Jake replied as he pushed up on his throttle, it sent your head into the back of your chair a little from the force of gravity changing around you. “Increasing speed, Rooster you still with me?” It was just the three of you, Rooster, Hangman and yourself. A small yet tactile team of experienced and highly trained naval aviators sent it to disable a rogue insurgent group that was making far too much noise for the United States navy to ignore.

The mission? Dismantle what Nav-Con believed to be one of the two main insurgent camps situated in the middle of a communication desert. With one highly explosive missile and two of the best air to air combat pilots the navy had ever seen, you were tasked with getting in through a valley that had been similar terrain to a mission Bradley had flown a few years prior.

That was why he was chosen. Experience.

Jake Seresin had a reputation, he was the Hangman. He had two confirmed air to air kills and wouldn't lose sleep over a third of forth. From what you could gather since being assigned as his weapons system officer, Jake took risks. Risks that paid off well. He was highly skilled and that somewhat egomaniacal belief that he was a god given gift to aviation made it easier to pull through with such risks.

That was why he was chosen. Taktical ability to compartmentalise.

But Jake Seresin had a fault. He had a single thread loose that if pulled could undo all that male bravado. He cared, deep down, about his squadron. His colleagues had become more like family than anything. He couldn't turn that blind eye that was so necessary to have if this mission were to fail.

And that's why you were brought in. Why you were chosen for such a dangerous mission. You would have been easier to lose against Robert Floyd or Mickey Garcia and the Admirals all knew it. Jake didn't know you. You were a pivotal part of the mission design, a means to an end if necessary.

You were simply expendable:

From the Admirals who had tasked Bradley and Jake with this mission to Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, they all knew that if it were Bob or Fanboy sitting in Jake's WSO seat, he wouldn’t take so many risks. And for once–they needed him to take risks. To not think and just do.

“I'm right behind you, Hangman.” Bradleys voice came through the comms as clear as day. He was taling right behind Jake. “We’re looking good so far.”

“Better not have just jinxed us Bradshaw.” Jake sighed as he made a small turn right, heading down into the canyon below. “We get in, we get out and we go home.”

You had spent the last month revising the mission, sitting in hour long debrief sessions with Rooster and Hangman to go over critical points of the mission. You knew they were close, but there was an underlying sort of animosity you couldn't quite figure out.

And that's why they were both chosen for this mission together. There would be no love lost between the two.

“Still nothing up ahead on radar Hangman.” You spoke firmly with enough conviction in your voice to cover up the fact your heart was racing a million miles an hour. You never thought in your wildest dream you'd make it to TopGun and then further, a specialist unit. But this was not the time to doubt your ability. “All systems go back here, max ceiling is three hundred feet if you wanna keep out of line of sight.”

“Aye aye Hollywood.” Jake had never flown with a weapons system officer before. This was his first mission with one. When he’d been called into Admiral Simpson's office one random Thursday afternoon before finishing for the day–He thought for sure he was about to have his ass handed to him for something he’d surely done.

“Hangman.” Admiral Simpson stood at his desk to greet the aviator who looked a little green around the gill upon first entry. He gestured for the flight suit clad, broad shouldered man to sit in the empty seat beside you. “I'd like you to meet Lieutenant Y/N “Hollywood” Y/L/N, she’ll be joining us here for the foreseeable future.” Jake listened as he sat down beside you.

Without hesitation he sent you a strong smile that took up the entire expanse of his face, completely intoxicating and undeniably hollywood.

“It's nice to see some fresh meat around here, keep the competition guessing.” Jake chuckled as he extended his hand to shake yours. “I'm Lieutenant Seresin, Jake.” He was all confidence and cocky ego until you touched his hand, until your hand shook his back in a friendly gesture. Jake wasn't going to pretend that he didn't feel that sharp spark, that jolt of energy, that lighting strike that ignited his skin when you touched him. “But everyone calls me Hangman.”

“Hollywood here is actually joining us as a WSO Seresin.” Admiral Simpson explained as he let his elbows rest against the old oak desk that put some distance between where he sat and where Jake sat, completely unaware that your presence in North Island was about to completely change the trajectory of his career. “She’ll be your WSO.”

“I’m sorry–” Jake retracted his hand from yours as he shot Admiral Simpson a look, he had previously warned you of this reaction, so you chose to remain silent. Taking in your surroundings and observing Hangman's emotions. It was your job to be observant after all. “Since when do I fly with a WSO? I've never flown doubles before and I don't intend to start now.” Jake argued before he turned back to where you sat. “No offence sunshine, I'm sure you’re great and all, it’s just I don't particularly play well with others.”

“I'm more of a midnight rain kinda girl.” All you did was eye him off with an emotionless expression. Jake didn’t appreciate your tone, he did however appreciate the way your eyes nearly sparkled in the warm afternoon sun that came beaming through the window of Admiral Simpson's office. “I’m not too over the moon about working with you either.” It was a dig. “With a callsign as transparent as Hangman I’m sure I’m in great hands.”

“And I’m sure Hollywood has some outstanding depth to it.” Jake was quick on his feet with his comeback before he frowned a little more and turned his attention back to Admiral Simpson. “Why not Bradshaw?” He groaned, seemingly unimpressed by the decision to dump a WSO on him after years of flying solo. “He doesn’t have a WSO, or Coyote!”

It was then that Admiral Simpson pulled out a cream coloured file from his desk draw and slid it across his desk. He let out a sigh that told you someone wasn’t coming back from this one.

“Because we need it to be you.”

“Approach the canyon entrance with caution.” You directed from behind as you watched the Radar closely. “Remember, we only engage if absolutely necessary.”

“Once we’re in we make this quick.” Rooster spoke firmly, he had been a little hesitant to accept this detachment knowing its risk to reward ratio. But he’d been promised a shore leave after this. A well deserved vacation. “Let’s get to work.”

“Copy, heading into Risk Range now.” That was the name on the cream folder Admiral Simpson had passed you and Hangman on day one. Risk Range. Because once you were in there was no way of pulling you out. It was risky, and a mountain range that expanded as far as the eye could see. “Hollywood, have that laser guide ready for me.”

“On it.” It was like they knew you were coming, because as your radar began flashing with approaching enemy aircraft you knew immediately that they knew. It was a gut instinct.

“Rooster evade left! Hangman break right, we’ve got company.” Jake didn’t waste a second of time reacting accordingly. He broke right as Rooster tailed off. It was the very definition of an ambush, cold calculated and premeditated. “Jake!”

“Hangman on your left!” Rooster's voice came through panicked on the comms as Jake did his best to avoid the enemy aircraft that had seemingly come out of thin air: stealth pilots. Trained to be completely unseen until they wanted you to see them. “Break left!”

“Breaking left!” You twisted and turned and left fingerprints on the canopy as you tried your best to get a better visual. It was madness, pure madness. One two three six how many were there? “Come on, talk to me Hollywood, tell me what you see!” As Jake asked you what you saw you felt your heart pounding inside your chest as you saw a single missile. With wide eyes and panic racing through your veins, you spun around.

“Smoke in the air! Smoke in the air! Six o’clock Hangman break right!”

“Deploying flares!” It was only by the skin of what felt like his nose that Jake was able to avoid a direct hit. These guys were ruthless, where one was evaded another would pop up. “Rooster, talk to me man where you at?”

“I’m here! Hollywood, tell me what you see!” You could have sworn the next few seconds played out like a three hour long Christopher Nolan movie. Time stood still as Jake turned around to expose the full scene playing out on the big screen. A surface to air missile was aiming right for Bradley Bradshaw.

“Jake—“ It was a mumble, a murmur even. It threw a spanner in the cogs of this well oiled detachment you thought you knew everything about. Every angle, every concept, every reason why the three of you were specifically chosen. Because as Jake made a decision that would send the F-18 the two of you found yourselves to be in into the side of a mountain range, you realised there would be love lost, a hell of a lot of love lost if anything happened to Rooster. Bradley Bradshaw was Jake Seresin wingman, period. “It's on him.”

“Not if I can help it.” Jake mumbled under his breath as he swung around and headed straight for where Rooster was.

“Banit coming in hot on your tail Rooster, break right!” It was your confirmation that you were all in, every decision Jake made in the sky affected you and vice versa. There was nowhere to run, not here in this mess. “Jake, deploy flares!”

“Deploying flares!” It was only the smallest of miscalculations that caused it. If Jake had deployed his flares just three seconds prior, then perhaps you wouldn't have been hit. Perhaps you would have been able to save Rooster without sacrificing your own safety. Perhaps if Jake had deployed his flares just three seconds earlier, then the missile that hit the tail end of your F-18 with such force, that it blew the ass end right off the aircraft, wouldn't have knocked you out from the impact.

The explosion was the last thing you heard. The warmth of the fire that kissed your skin was the last thing you felt before everything was cold again. So cold. So cold that it almost burned.

“Y/n!” Jake shouted with a panic in his tone of voice as he shook you softly. “Hollywood! Wake up!” There was blood dripping from your nose, a sign Jake wasn't too keen on but other than that? He couldn’t see any other physical injuries. You still had both arms and legs. “Lieutenant Y/L/N wake up!” It was all so muffled, like you were under water, you could hear Jake calling your name, you could feel him shaking your body, but you couldn't talk, couldn't open your eyes. Until you did, slowly and with a groan. “Oh thank god.” It was the first thing you heard Jake say clearly without the muffled understone. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“What happened?” You asked softly as you tried to sit up. “Where are we?” Jake could recognise the panic taking over your being as he kneeled beside you, helping you to sit up with a groan. He noticed the way you held your ribs on the right side of your body, most likely bruised at the very least from the impact of your parachute deploying. “What happened?”

“We got shot down.” Jake said the four words no aviator ever wanted to hear. “You blacked out on impact.” He explained tentatively, not wanting to scare you any more than you already were. “I pulled your chute.”

“Rooster! Head back to the carrier, abort the mission!” It was the last thing Jake could communicate to his wingman before he lost his radio. The fighter jet was totaled, there was no saving it.

“Hollywood we gotta go! Punch out!” Jake shouted over the warning signals that blared in the cockpit as he spun out of control. There was no worse feeling than burning in. He hadnt experienced it often, only once before–but it still felt the same if not worse than that last time. “Y/n?” When you didn't respond Jake knew something was wrong, as he turned to look behind him he saw you slumped forward and unresponsive. “Dammit Hollywood!” Jake did the only thing he could think of that would help you– he reached over and pulled at the yellow and black ejection handle between your legs.

Almost immediately the canopy went flying as you shot out of the fighter jet. Jake saw your chute deploy–relief flooded his system before he pulled his own ejection handle. It sent him flying high into the sky at the speed of light. He just prayed when he hit the ground he’d be able to find you alive and well.

The time between the moment Jake hit the snow covered ground below to the moment he found you lying between the trees was far too long. He ditched his chute and ran and ran and ran until he was at your side. But there wasn't a mountain he wouldn't climb to reach you. That much was true. You were his WSO. His responsibility.

“Rooster?” You asked as it all came racing back. “Did he–?” You didn't even need to finish your sentence before Jake was giving you some sort of peace of mind.

“As far as I know he turned back to the carrier after we got hit. I haven't seen him doing any flyovers.” Jake explained softly as he assessed your current state. “How many fingers am I holding up?” You watched as Jake held his hand up in front of your face and moved it side to side. You followed his every move.

“Two.” You said confidently, still sitting in the snow. “I'm fine, promise, just a little bruised.”

“You think you can walk?” Jake was helping you to your feet before you even gave him a response. “I'm sorry you're in this mess with me, it's just–” It was your turn to interrupt as Jake wrapped your arm around his shoulders to help you stand. If you had seen him demonstrate this kind of behaviour three days ago you would have sworn black and blue you were dreaming, or that some fictitious creature from another realm had replaced the Jake Seresin you’d been flying with for the past few weeks. But after seeing his harrowing attapet to save his wingman's life without a single second of hesitation, you knew Jake actually cared about the people around him.

“It's fine.” You hissed as you took your first guided steps on wobbly legs after falling out of the sky. “You were protecting your wingman, I would have done the same thing.” Jake had a pretty nasty gash on the side of his head from when he’d landed pretty ungracefully. The side of his helmet cut into his temple on impact. “But now we’re down here, with no backup.”

“E-stats are still working.” Jake reminded you as he continued to help you further into the woods, hoping that it could break the chill of the raging wind. “They’ll see us, hopefully, if we just stay put surely the carrier will be able to track our location.” You knew right then and there that Jake was bluffing, you were smack bang in a communication desert.

“Hangman–” You sighed as he helped you sit down against a rock that was further in, Jake didn't miss the way you squinted as you did so, still holding your ribcage like something was wrong. “I don't think anyone will come back for us.” You did your best to try and block out the pain radiating whenever you took a breath in. “It would make more noise than they want to make.”

“You don't know my squad Hollywood.” Jake smirked as he shook his head slightly with a chuckle. He was right, you didn't know the lengths they’d all go to for each other. Jake reached out to cup your cheeks softly, the pad of his thumb swiped at the blood that had dripped down from your nose. “Someone will come, we just gotta get comfy till then.” There was a moment of silence that passed as Jake really took a moment to drink in your features. Even through all the snow and all the worry your eyes still sparkled the same way they did when he first met you in Admiral Simpson's office. “Your ribs? You think they’re broken?”

“Probably just bruised from the impact.” You replied, lost in your own mind as you stared at Jake’s features. From his eyebrows to his emerald green eyes that you swore swirled with desire. Everything was perfect, even the dusting of that five o’clock shadow that was threatening to expose his not so clean cut navy aesthetic.

“Can I have a look?” You missed the feeling of Jake's hand on your cheek the minute he was gone and had pulled away. You couldn't help but to chuckle as you compiled and started undoing your flight suit.

“You trying to cop a feel Seresin?”

“Would that be the worst thing in the world?” He teased back almost too quickly to not have already been on his mind. Jake was as careful as he could be when you had undone your flight suit enough to expose your black under shirt. He watched as you lifted up the cotton fabric enough so that he could press his palm softly against where your ribs were killing. His heart broke when you whimpered, he knew you were holding back as much as you could. “I know why they call you Hollywood, you know.” Jake thought a distraction from the pain and the situation in general would be good. He kept pressing his fingers around your side trying to see if he could feel anything unusual. He knew it hurt like hell, but when your eyes met his as he looked up at you from where he was kenaling beside you–he hoped the distraction helped.

“Oh yeah?” Jake could hear the pain in your voice as you tried to breathe through his poking and prodding. “What's the consensus?” You groaned through gritted teeth as tears threatened to spill down your cheeks.

“Your dads Rick Neven.” Jake concluded as he finished up his examination. “I thought maybe you were some childhood hollywood hotshot at first but then I overheard Mav telling Mando that you looked just like him.” Jake paused for a moment, reading the terrain of your reaction—when you didn’t totally annihilate him for figuring it out, he pressed on. “You don’t like people knowing you’re practically Navy Royalty, hence your mums maiden name.” He shrugged all the while you worked to fix your flight suit up. “And just like you said, just bruised, not breaks.”

It was hard to believe the same man who hadn’t really looked in your general direction for the better half of the time you knew him was paying this much attention to you now. But then again, he had been the one who got you into this mess in the first place. If you were gonna play the blame game.

“Guess there was some depth to it after all huh?” You referred back to the very beginning, to when you had first met Jake. He smiled at you with that golden boy grin that took over the entire expanse of his face.

“Yeah, yeah I guess there was.” Jake knew just by flying with you, albeit reluctantly, these past few weeks, that you were an extraordinary weapons systems officer. You knew your stuff as well as he knew his shit and together you actually made a pretty decent team. He’d been wrong about you personally though. He kept his distance knowing you were only supposed to be around for this particular detachment then you were off again. There was no real reason to get to know you when you'd be gone in the blink of an eye. But oh how Jake was kicking himself for that thought process. Because now here he was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with the very same WSO he’d been actively trying to not get to know. Something told him though the pair of you were going to have a hell of a lot of time to get to know one another. “The sun's starting to set, we should probably find somewhere to spend the night, maybe make a fire.” Jake looked around, trying to see if there was a place in eyesight where the two of you could make camp for the night. It wasn't ideal, but what else was there to do?

“Yeah–yeah that's probably–” Before you could finish your sentence you heard the unmistakable sound of tree branches being crushed under the weight of footsteps. You spun around to see what was behind you and your heart sank into your stomach.

Insurgents, pointing guns directly at you and Jake.

“Jake.” You whispered as you stood slowly, they didn't make any attempt to move from their positionings. Crouched behind rocks, trees and some were just out in the open. They were everywhere. Surrounding the both of you so that there was no way out.

“Get behind me.” It was the only thing Jake could think about, protecting you. He got you into this mess and he was sure as hell going to get you out of it. He ushered you behind him, making sure to keep turning periodically to look at all angles, wondering if there was by chance a way out of this. “Listen to me, you say nothing, you hear me?” Jake reminded you as he assessed how many you were outnumbered by. “No matter what you don't say anything.”

You’d seen movies before, what could happen to a woman held as a prisoner of war. You couldn’t help it when your mind went straight to that awful place.

“Jake, don't let them take me away from you.” It was the worst situation Jake had ever found himself in. “Please—don’t let them.” You begged as tears streamed down your face. You fisted at the back of Jake's flight gear he had yet to take off. Holding him as close to you as you possibly could. You were beyond terrified.

“Put your hands where I can see them!” One of the insurgents shouted as he stepped closer, still aiming his assault weapon directly at the two of you. “Don’t make any sudden movements besides raising your hands above your head.”

He was wearing all black clothes, they all were. Against the white of the snow it made them stand out like sore thumbs. But they did well enough to cover their faces. No identities were exposed besides your own and Jakes.

“I want your word that you won’t hurt her.” Jake growled as he began to raise his arms around his head. Palms facing out. You didn’t dare to move as Jake felt you balling his uniform in your hands a little tighter. “Don’t you touch her.” Jake had his attention drawn to the insurgent in front of him all the while you had your face buried between his shoulder blades—trying to shelter yourself from this hellscape. “Touch her and I swear I’ll kill you all.”

“Lieutenant, I highly doubt you're an incompetent man, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt when I remind you that you have absolutely no authority or power whatsoever in this situation.” The insurgent snickered as he approached closer. “Take the girl.” He tilted his chin in the direction of his men standing off to the side. Before you could react, they were on you.

“JAKE!!” You screamed at the top of your lungs as one of them wrapped their arms around your waist and pulled you away harshly—Jake felt your hands slip from the Normex of his flight suit as he spun around to try and grab your wrist.

“Don’t touch her!” Jake warned again.

“No! No! Stop please—PLEASE!” Jake hated your pleas, your screams would forever haunt his heart. His fingers grazed yours as he whipped around to reach for you. “LET ME GO! GET OFF OF ME!”

“I SAID DONT TOUCH—“ Before Jake could finish his sentence he was in the ground lying in the snow face down. The insurgent making the orders had hit him over the back of the head with his gun. It was enough to make you stop struggling, enough to make you stop resisting.

There was a moment where you just stood there in the detainment of insurgents, taking in everything that was happening. Just how were you going to survive this? This wasn’t in the mission parameters.

“Get them to the truck, before we lose any more light.” The insurgent ordered before he turned around, shouting over his shoulder at his men. Jake lying out cold in the snow was the last thing you saw before it all went black. You felt a pinch at the side of your neck before everything went black and your knees gave in.

“Keep them alive, for now.” It was the last thing you heard before everything went numb. “I want answers.”

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indeedcaptain · 3 months ago

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Regulatory Relations, Chapter 22: The Captain

Holy fucking shitballs, yall. This is the end.

Posted on my AO3 here.

All I really have to say after this is thank you.

☆☆☆

Dear Mom and Dad,

Dear Winona and George,

Guess what!

Hi,

[Are you sure you want to close the program? Your content will not be saved. YES / NO]

☆☆☆

On the first day after the trial, Kirk took ShiKahr’s public transit from Amanda and Sarek’s house through the city center, and out the other side. Alone on the train as it flew along its magnetic track, he watched out the window as the now-familiar sandstone buildings whirled by. They passed the judicial complex where he had spent the entire previous day: he had walked in a suspect and walked out a free man. It rose up before him, sprawling and imposing, passed in an instant, and then vanished. Kirk turned forward again, letting the rest of the city pass him by, and waited for his stop.

The Vulcan Science Academy complex was housed on the outskirts of ShiKahr, built without formal boundaries to account for its near-constant expansion. It crept further and further out into the Forge— the buildings nearest the public entrance were the oldest, their corners sandblasted into curves by the desert wind, but the newest ones, built to house new advances in technology and new fields of research, were still sharp-edged and angular. The hospital was one of the oldest buildings in the complex--- one of the oldest buildings in the city, according to the lecture Spock gave Kirk and Bones that morning over breakfast. It had originally been a temple, housing healers in the millenia before Surak, a holdover from Vulcan’s war-torn history. Even after the wars had ended, the people who lived on the planet needed care, and so the temple of healers remained, now known as one of the most advanced teaching hospitals in the galaxy.

Kirk gave his name at the front desk, which was manned by a young Vulcan woman wearing scrubs and a student badge, and was granted entrance. He rode a swift and silent elevator up to the eighth floor and stepped out into a warmly lit hall. Enormous windows at either end of the hallway and the recessed light bulbs set into the ceiling gave the impression of midday sun, despite the early hour. He heard voices coming from the left side, and so he turned that way.

Around another corner he found two Vulcan doctors and a third human one, deep in conversation next to a bench and a variety of potted cacti. The human doctor, with graying red hair and a petite build, turned to him as he approached and said, “I thought you might come by.” Sarah April nodded to the other doctors before she gestured in front of her, and Kirk fell into step beside her. She led him deeper into the labyrinthine building--- the layout designed before the Vulcan preoccupation with logic--- and eventually stopped next to a closed door with a Vulcan sign appended to the front, a phonetic translation of April’s name. She smiled with sad eyes and said, “I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

Kirk nodded, and opened the door.

Admiral Robert April lay quietly in a biobed, surrounded by beeping machines and sensors. His head had been shaved, electrodes stuck to his scalp in a neat grid, and his dark skin was sallow under the lights. For a moment Kirk stood in the doorway, unwilling to wake him if he was resting, but then April rolled his head on the pillow to look at him.

“Enter,” he said, and Kirk did. There was a chair tucked into the corner with a blanket folded over the back of it. Kirk dragged it next to the bed and sat. The whites of April’s eyes were yellowed with exhaustion. Kirk looked at him; the man who had set everything in motion. How much of his behavior was Elise pulling the strings? How much was April unleashed?

“What do you want, Kirk?” April’s voice was tired, dry, almost a whisper. Kirk had had grand plans--- he had rehearsed what he wanted to say on the train ride there. He had told Spock where he was going and what he wanted to do, and Spock had sent him off with a kiss and a promise to see him later. But his words failed when he looked at the battered body of the man he had thought was his enemy.

He still saw the phaser fire before it tore through Spock when he looked at April. He saw himself on his knees in the gritty dust of Kindinos, and saw the sniper with the plasma rifle settling her sights on both of them. But he also saw the blinking brutality of the neutralizer and April’s muffled screams beneath it. He saw April, months ago, trying to pull Spock to safety with a promotion to a science ship far from him. He saw April fighting that hidden programming to allow him and his crew to leave the 31 ship with Elise in tow.

Elise would have hated what he was about to do--- she never could have understood it. Maybe that was why he had to say it.

“Thank you,” Kirk said. “For what you tried to do for Spock.” April rolled his head away from Kirk, looking up at the ceiling, and scoffed tiredly.

“For all the good it did, in the end.”

Kirk shifted to the edge of his chair. He had expected defensiveness, or the silent treatment; not this bone-deep resignation. “For all the good it did? Admiral, if you hadn’t forced the issue, you would still be stuck on that ship and that woman would still be running Section 31.” April looked back at him. “Spock and I only put together all the pieces after we had to start talking about marriage and bonding, and we only did that because you were going to take him away otherwise.” Kirk considered April’s shaved head, the scattering of machines and their symphony of beeping and whirring. He could have left then, his mission accomplished. But something in April’s haggard face told him that the other man was lost.

“I’m sorry that she did this to you,” Kirk said recklessly. “And I’m sorry for putting you here.” April shook his head shallowly.

“I knew…” he said slowly. “I knew that the charges were a sham. I knew they wouldn’t stick. This was what I wanted.” His voice dragged, like he was having a hard time connecting his mind to his mouth. “You can go, Kirk.”

Kirk didn’t move. “What are you going to do next?”

“Resign,” April said. “Retire.”

“That’s it? You’re going to give up?” The volume of his voice rose involuntarily. April’s eyes flashed to him--- the first movement that matched the vigor that Kirk had come to expect from him.

“What would you have me do? Weasel back into a desk job after I defiled everything Starfleet stands for?”

“And how much of that was voluntary, Admiral? How much of working for 31 was voluntary at all?”

In a blink, the fight melted back out of him. April looked away from him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anymore.”

Kirk leaned back in his chair, and for a moment they sat in silence, the only sound the beeping of the machinery. Then Kirk said, “Can I be honest with you?”

“I doubt anyone could stop you from doing so.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore, whether or not you know if it was voluntary,” Kirk said. “Enough of it wasn’t, and then you fought it. What matters now is what you’re going to do about it.”

April raised one hand weakly and gestured at the hospital room around him. “And what am I going to do about it?”

“Fix it,” Kirk said. “Find a way to talk about what you can’t talk about, and then help fix it.” When April finally looked at him again, there was a spark of life in his eyes: there was hope, a desperate hope, and the yawning cavern of an isolation that Kirk could only begin to understand.

“How?”

Kirk shifted his chair closer again. “Listen,” he said. “On Vulcan, what she did to us is called nekwitaya …”

Their situations were different, of course; the sheer volume of scarring in April’s brain was going to require a lot more hands-on medical care than Kirk had needed. But there was no better place for April to recover than on Vulcan, where a planet of telepaths and scientists understood the gravity of what had been done to him. Here, though there was no undoing what had been done, April stood a chance of healing from it.

When Kirk left, Sarah April was sitting outside the room, reading on her padd. She stood as he exited, concern pulling her eyebrows together and deepening the creases in her face. Kirk sent her Dr. Rowan McIntire’s contact information, and then he went home.

☆☆☆

The rest of that day was spent on logistics and organization. Kirk and Spock’s bonding would have none of the violence and circumstance of Spock and T’Pring’s koon-ut-kal-if-fee . They were not children, and there would be no challenge: they needed only their consent and a telepath to perform the bonding. Kirk was vaguely disconcerted by the sheer number of details that went into what was, in effect, a simple backyard wedding ceremony, and made a note to give Janice a commendation for coordinating both their engagement party and their first wedding with seventy-two hours’ notice.

Despite the fervent and genuine invitation that Kirk had extended, Neera Ketoul excused herself from the bonding festivities after he returned from his visit to April. “I do have other clients to attend to, Captain Kirk,” she said, but she shook his hand warmly when he walked her to the aircar that would return her to the transport hub and away.

“If there’s ever anything that we can do for you, just say the word,” Kirk said. “We could not have done this without you.”

“Maybe not,” she agreed, with her hand on the door of the aircar. She considered him, her dark eyes and skin shining under the hot Vulcan sun. “My people are not part of the Federation,” she said. “There is a lot of mistrust on both sides, perhaps too much to overcome. But men like you make me think that someday it could be.”

Later that night, as Bones washed and dried the dishes from dinner, Amanda reached out to the clan to request the services of a healer to perform the bonding, and Spock convinced a local restaurant to cater enough food for at least twenty people on such short notice, Kirk received a high-priority message on his padd from Starfleet HQ.

Dear Captain Kirk,

Congratulations! Though, naturally, the details of your court-martial are classified, I’ve received a new set of orders that make me think I can guess how it went. I’ve been called to Vulcan immediately to assist with [THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN REDACTED].

My formal title might be regulations administrator, but not many know that this role includes enforcement, compliance, and oversight, as needed. I think I’m going to have a lot to do over the next few months.

I’ve been asked to assemble a team for it, which is why I’m reaching out today--- it’s a bit irregular, but if you’re willing to sign off on the transfer and if she agrees, I’d like to request Yeoman Janice Rand for it. She’s got an unparalleled grasp of how and why regulation works in practice, and I could use a mind like hers for what we’re trying to do.

Let me know what you think, and what she thinks.

My best to you and the commander. :)

LC Kathleen Lee

Kirk read the message twice before carrying it to Spock, claiming the open seat next to him at the island in the kitchen. Spock scanned it and said, handing it back, “If Yeoman Rand takes this post, I do not believe we will see her again in any short amount of time.” Bones turned to them curiously, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed. He cocked an eyebrow up.

“Oh, I think we’ll see her again,” Kirk said. “It’ll just be when she’s running for president of the Federation.”

☆☆☆

On the second day after the trial, the morning of his and Spock’s bonding ceremony, Kirk sat undressed on the end of their bed and stared at the empty text block on his padd screen.

Dear Mom and Dad, I’m getting married today, again.

I’m Vulcan-bonding with my first officer today.

Did you go to Sam and Aurelan’s wedding? Would you want to come to mine?

Spock stepped out of the bathroom, barefoot and in an untied robe, and sat down next to him to look at what he was working on. Kirk closed the program and tossed the padd on the bed behind him before leaning into Spock. He was warm and fresh from the sonic, olive and bronzed from months on Vulcan.

“Do you wish your parents were attending?” Spock’s voice was gentle.

“Not enough to have written them about it earlier,” Kirk said, and when Spock leaned over him, one long hand against his sternum, he let Spock push him backwards onto the bed. “There’s so much to fix before we’d even get to that point.”

Spock’s lips brushed the skin behind his ear, down his neck, across one collarbone. “At our current rate, we will have another wedding in approximately eighteen months. You can reevaluate at that point.” Kirk laughed, and Spock’s hand skimmed down his arm, flipping their hands to be palm-to-palm and pressing his down into the mattress.

“I thought you were tired of parties,” Kirk teased. Spock nipped at him.

“I have been convinced of their utility,” he said, and slid his hands under Kirk’s hips in a clear attempt to distract him further. His efforts were successful.

The survivors arrived at the house just as the sun was beginning its graceful descent towards the mountains on the horizon beyond the Forge. Kevin wore his dress uniform, but the others were in civilian attire: Ellie and Tommy in near-matching black suits, much to Mira’s delight, and Martha in a dress. Mira wore a hot pink one-piece garment that Kirk couldn’t have named if he had tried, but he watched with a grin as Ellie teased her dryly about having brought party clothes to a court-martial (“We were only coming to testify!”) and Mira defended herself (“Wasn’t I right, though?”).

Bones also wore his uniform. He sidled up to Kirk as they greeted the survivors at the front gate, Vulcan’s closest approximation to a mint julep in hand.

“Seems to me like you’re starting to wrap things up here, Jim,” he said. “You’ve got more time. No need to rush back into things.”

Kirk glanced sidelong at him as his friends passed by, led by Amanda towards the garden where the bonding would take place. “I think I’ve had enough time away,” he said. “I don’t want to sit still any longer.”

Bones’s eyes were shrewd. “But you did sit still for at least a little bit, right?” Down the road a pair of figures began to materialize out of the heat shimmering off the pavement: a round human figure with a short dark thatch of hair, and a bear-sized lump of white and brown.

“I did,” Kirk said, and watched as the two abstract shapes slowly became Rowan and Suk’han as they approached. “Actually, this is someone I’d like you to meet.” Rowan wore her everyday professional attire that Kirk had come to recognize, but she had woven cactus blossoms into a crown and placed it jauntily over Suk’han’s ears.

“You’re looking well, Jim,” Rowan said, and smiled approvingly. He grinned and shrugged back at her before turning to Bones.

“Rowan, this is my chief medical officer, Bones. Leonard McCoy, this is Rowan McIntire. She, ah… she’s the new therapist.”

“Oh?” Bones extended his hand, turning completely towards her to get a better look.

“The famous Dr. McCoy!” Rowan shook his hand and accepted his inspection. “Tell me, how do you get Bones from Leonard?” As they clasped hands, some sort of mysterious medical understanding passed between them; when Bones smiled back at her, it was genuine.

“You ask him politely, ma’am,” Bones said, and Rowan laughed wickedly. Suk’han, apparently tired of not being the center of Kirk’s attention, pushed her head against his sternum and leaned a portion of her significant mass against him.

“Hello to you too,” he murmured, and passed his hands through the thick fur at the base of her neck. She nuzzled him sweetly, and for a moment, abandoning his pretexts at dignity, he threw his arms around her neck entirely. Then he released her, left Bones and Rowan to get to know each other, and went to find his husband.

The senior staff of the Enterprise were next to arrive. In small groups they beamed down outside the garden gates: Sulu, Chekov, and Pike, then Uhura, Chapel, Janice, and Priyal Khan at Spock’s invitation, and then Sal Giotto and Scotty. Uhura’s feet had no sooner settled into the sand before she was moving, throwing her arms around Spock and Kirk. Spock’s hand came up to stroke affectionately over the back of her hair, but Kirk couldn’t help himself: he picked her up and swung her in a circle as her laughter rang out. There were embraces and back slaps and handshakes all around from his friends; they accepted him back into their ranks as if he had never left.

“God, it’s good to see you all,” he said, grinning so hard his cheeks ached. He squatted next to Chris’s chair to hear him better over the hubbub. His crew mingled in the garden among the cacti and shrubbery with Spock’s parents, Rowan, and the Tarsus survivors. Amanda and Rowan talked quietly by the table of beverages, and something Rowan said made Amanda’s quiet laugh burble through the garden. Suk’han was ecstatic on her back as Mira, Uhura, and Chapel cooed over her spots and rubbed her belly. “How have things been?”

“Surprisingly quiet,” Chris said. “Seems as though you’re the magnet for most of the trouble that the Enterprise gets in.”

“Hey, now,” Kirk complained, and his eyes found Spock across the way, dark and handsome in the goldenrod light of dusk. “Spock was gone too. Maybe he’s the magnet.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, son,” Chris laughed. “Maybe someday you’ll convince someone else.” He navigated his hoverchair carefully around Amanda’s plants to talk to Spock, and Kirk basked in the presence of so many of his loved ones. As he stood alone, looking over the assembled, something painful twinged in his heart. Sam should have been here. After so many wounds had been healed and problems solved, part of Kirk thought that Sam and his ridiculous mustache should have emerged, laughing and whole, from behind some curtain. It didn’t seem fair that, after everything, Sam and Aurelan were still dead.

He took a sip of his drink and tilted his head back, letting the last of the day’s sunlight wash over him. I miss you, he thought fervently. I wish you were here for all this. He pictured Sam as he remembered him: throwing open the door to his hospital room, skipping classes with him after his return to school, showing him around the Academy campus when he first arrived, the holos of him holding baby Peter after he was born. He held the ache in his chest with both hands, letting himself miss Sam, before he opened his eyes again. The ache didn’t go away, but it took up a safe and manageable residence in his heart next to everything else. Then he exhaled and rejoined his friends.

Kirk was turned away from the garden entrance, talking to Scotty and Giotto, and so he didn’t see her when she arrived. He only heard the sudden hush that fell over those gathered, and in the silence, he turned.

T’Pau swept towards him through the garden, the edges of her robes disturbing the sand in tornado-like swirls. It seemed like even the insects and the night-birds had fallen quiet in her presence. Kirk raised the ta’al and glanced quickly at Spock.

“Elder T’Pau,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He felt, more than saw, Spock wind his way through the crowd and materialize at his side. T’Pau considered him, the half-light casting the wrinkles of her face in sharp contrast.

“ S’chn T’gai James Kirk,” she said finally. “Thee and Spock are to be bonded.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She nodded once. Her eyes glinted in the fading light, no less shrewd for her age.

“Thee has done Vulcan a service,” she said. She raised one hand, her robes collapsing down around her elbow. “If thee will give thy mind, I will bond thee.” Spock’s shoulders settled back in surprise as he clasped his hands behind his back, and Amanda’s eyebrows shot upwards before she reined her facial expression back into a warm neutrality.

“It would be an honor,” Kirk said, when he found his voice. Spock shifted closer to him, their shoulders brushing, and they both sank to their knees under T’Pau’s titanium gaze. Their family, their friends, formed a loose circle around them and the leader of their clan as T’Pau raised both hands.

“I will bond thee in the way of our people,” T’Pau said, her voice sonorous in the desert evening. “What thee will witness comes down from the time of the beginning without change. This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way. Kah-if-farr! ”

She lowered her hands, and for a second, before she put her fingers on Kirk’s face, she waited. Kirk closed his eyes and nodded. With that consent, she placed her fingers on his psi-points, and the world around him vanished.

It was dark in the meld. T’Pau’s mind was vast and echoing around him. He could feel the enormity of her intellect, her age, the reverberating katric energy that she carried. He felt very small. He was a speck in the darkness, one single star in the galaxy, and he felt the scrunity when that gargantuan mind came to focus on him.

James Kirk , T’Pau said. This is the Vulcan way. Thee gives thy mind willingly to another?

There was a tiny part of him, ancient and wounded, that longed to flinch, if only out of habit. But he had not spent the past four months excavating his heart to give in to that habit now. I give it to Spock , Kirk said, or thought. He felt the rumble of her approval rattle the world around him.

Speak our words, she told him. I would bond with thee, ever and always touching and touched .

Kirk repeated them back, stumbling at first but then growing in strength: I would bond with thee, ever and always touching and touched. He said them again and again until he could feel his heart beating in time with its rhythm. He heard the echoes of hundreds of thousands of bonded pairs singing with him in T’Pau’s ancestral memory. He repeated them until he could feel himself vibrating with it; he glowed with his conviction. This was for Spock, this was for his best friend and his husband, the man who had walked into hell for him and carried him out--- this was what Kirk wanted to give to him.

Then, in the darkness --- there was light. A golden sun erupted into flames on the far horizon of T’Pau’s mind. It soared from an impossible distance towards him, trailing a burning thread like a meteor shower behind it, before falling towards him. Kirk held out both hands and caught the tiny star in his palms. It burned. It loved him. It unspooled into thread and formed a glimmering road from his hands to some indescribable point in the dark void beyond, stretching on forever. He felt T’Pau’s sudden and fierce curiosity, so like Spock’s, and the roaring approval of those who had come before him as it lit the way forward.

This is the Vulcan heart , T’Pau said. Her voice was as stoic as ever, but beneath it, reverberating through the meld-space, he could hear something that was almost surprise. Guidance is unnecessary for thee now. Follow the bond. There was an enormous shifting around him as T’Pau closed parts of her mind off to him; it was suddenly quieter than he had ever experienced. There was only his mind, and his thrumming heartbeat, and the golden burning string that pulled him forward. Follow the bond, James Kirk, T’Pau said.

Kirk took a fumbling step forward in the darkness, feet falling unsteadily towards the invisible floor under him. Then another. Then another. The string pulled him forward, steadying him, anchoring him. He knew where he was going now. At the far end of the road before him was Spock, his ecstatic curiosity and his secret kindness and the beautiful mind that he had offered to Kirk without reservation.

Kirk wrapped both hands in the nascent bond before him and took off running.

Ever and always, ever and always, ever and always .

The bond grew hotter and hotter in his hands, glowing brighter until it had all but banished the inky void around him. He had been wrong about the color--- it was gold, but it wasn’t only gold. It was the silver of the Enterprise , and the burgundy of Spock’s old quarters. It was the cream and green and gold of wedding streamers, and the blue of a science tunic. It was the umber of Vulcan sand and the black of uniform trousers and the yellow of an Iowa cornfield and the teal of a Tarsus sky. It was everything that was both of them, and it burned in his hands.

The sense of T’Pau was fading, that ancient intellect melting away. It was replaced instead by the insistent surety that Spock was near, that he was following the same path from the other side. The sense of him grew with every step as the bond glowed white-hot until it was too hot to hold. Even when he dropped it Kirk could feel it in and around him.

He was in the center of a star, and it flared around him. He was going to burn with it. It was all-encompassing, inescapable, incomprehensible.

I would bond with thee, he said to the star. Ever and always touching and touched.

Spock said, I would bond with thee, and his voice was everywhere. Ever and always touching and touched . Spock’s mind was everywhere, and Kirk dissolved in it. He settled entirely into Spock’s hands as Spock spun around him.

My Jim , Spock said, nearly purring with satisfaction. They tangled in each other.

K’diwa , Kirk said. In the meld there was no hiding his delight. Honey! Spock’s mind curled around his, and Kirk threw his arms open to accept it. He had not known before how literal the translation ‘meld’ was for what he felt: there was no separating them now as they spun around each other, a binary star system, a hurricane, inextricably entwined. He had feared this intimacy so entirely when they had first married, pushing Spock away to prevent the opportunity from ever arising. But none of that fear remained. There was no part of himself that he wouldn’t trust Spock to see and hold. They swung around each other as the star of the nascent bond burned. It slowly consolidated, condensing down from uncontrollable flame into something more like a bridge. It refracted into every color Kirk had ever seen before it settled into a solid arc from his mind to Spock’s. It glowed.

Spock pressed on it, and it reverberated. Kirk laughed as he felt it vibrate through him, rumbling his bones, lighting up his mind.

Bondmates , Kirk said.

Telsu , Spock said. His voice was steady, but there was no hiding his emotion in the bond: it sang with his pleasure. Slowly Kirk became aware of his body again, as well as his mind and the bond. He remembered that there was a world outside of their minds, T’Pau and Spock’s parents and their friends, and he felt Spock’s amusement at his chagrin.

We will have time, ashayam , Spock said, and in the swirling abyss of the meld Kirk felt his arms come around him. With the bond glowing like a meteor shower between them, he carried them back to the world.

Kirk’s eyes opened. T’Pau pulled her hands from his and Spock’s faces, shaking her robes back down over her wrists.

“Thee are bonded,” she declared without preamble, and she only blinked once as the unruly humans around her whooped and hollered. She caught Kirk’s eyes, looking down on him from where he still knelt in the sand, and she nodded. They were now even, he thought, and somehow he was certain that he and Spock would be welcomed back to Vulcan whenever they chose to return. He turned to Spock, a wide smile splitting his face, and Spock pulled him to his feet. The touch of his hands seared through him. By the time he had turned back to T’Pau to thank her, she was already halfway across the garden, a black-robed mass vanishing into the dark. He watched her go until a pulsing warmth in the back of his head pulled his attention back to the garden. Spock watched him, outwardly stoic, but Kirk could feel him through the bond: a subtle and curious joy that he knew didn’t belong to him. The sun had set while they were in the meld, and in the evening twilight Spock glowed in his vision with some invisible, intangible psychic energy.

He held two fingers out, and Spock met him in the ozh’esta. His eyes widened as their hands met and that energy arced between their hands, flashing up his arm and making his hair stand on end. Spock’s amusement and the dark heat of a promise for later in the evening soaked into his mind.

“I get it now,” he breathed. For a moment the heat overwhelmed him; he only wanted to drag Spock back to the guesthouse and make love to him while the new bridge sang between their minds. But their friends were here to celebrate them; they would have time enough later. With the knowledge of what was to come heating his thoughts, they turned back to their family and friends to celebrate beneath the desert sky.

The night stretched on as Kirk and Spock mingled with their loved ones. Every brush of their fingers or casual touch sparked down Kirk’s skin, driving him to distraction, and Spock’s well-hidden amusement was evident through the bond. Kirk could feel him in the back of his mind, like Spock had a hand on the back of his neck, and he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling his mind against the spot just to feel Spock glow with pleasure on the other side.

Eventually, both too soon and not soon enough, the guests started to say their goodbyes. Tommy and Martha left first, with the promise that they would come by the next day to see Kirk again before they went home, then Mira and Ellie. Rowan and Suk’han followed, much to Chapel and Uhura’s disappointment. Rowan gave Kirk a hug before she left.

“You keep my information, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kirk said.

“My new best friend Bones will tell me if you need to reach out and you don’t,” she said, and Kirk’s eyes widened with betrayal.

“I never should have introduced the two of you!”

Rowan shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s too late now.” She waited as Kirk pressed his forehead to Suk’han’s, fondling her ears and accepting a rough-scrape lick across his cheek, and then, with one more smile, she left. Bones appeared at his shoulder.

“I like her,” he said immediately, and Kirk slapped him on the back.

“I’m sure you do,” he said. The Enterprise crew started beaming back up to the ship as well; Bones retrieved his things from the main house and accepted hugs from Amanda and Kirk before he left. As Janice stepped forward with Uhura and Chapel, Kirk snagged her arm.

“If you don’t mind too terribly,” he said. “I have a work question for you.”

“Sure, captain,” she said, and nodded to Christine and Uhura for them to continue on without her. Kevin dropped in behind them, returning to the Enterprise rather than ShiKahr now that the trial was over. Kirk steered them a few paces away from the rest of the crew as Spock saw them off, trying not to twitch as Spock left his side for the first time since they were bonded, and said, “I received an interesting message today.”

Janice’s eyebrows went up. “Interesting how?”

“It was a job offer for you.” Her eyebrows went higher, climbing towards her braided beehive.

“What type of job?”

Kirk considered her, trying to gauge how best to explain Lee’s offer. He mentally backed up, and instead put both hands on her shoulders.

“Thank you,” he said first. “For all your help before the trial. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“Oh,” she said, pleased, and looked down. “I’m sure that it would have been fine, you had Kathleen---” Then she cut herself off, and to Kirk’s immense surprise, blushed. “Lieutenant Commander Lee,” she said awkwardly.

“Now, Janice,” Kirk said slowly, grinning, “What’s all this about?”

“Nothing, captain,” she said immediately. Kirk shook her by the shoulders.

“We are at my wedding, yeoman,” he said, and released her. “I think you can be a little personal, if you want.” She looked up at him, blue eyes enormous, and covered her cheeks with the backs of her fingers before she said, “It’s nothing. It’s really nothing. It’s just…” She took a deep breath and said, her blush returning with a vengeance, “I’ve never met anyone whose mind works like hers before. Like mine. Working with her…” She trailed off and looked down.

“You like her,” Kirk said, and Spock looked over at him in response to his pulse of delight over the bond.

“I don’t know,” she protested. Kirk had never seen her at a loss for words before. “I’ve never even met her in person. I just…”

“She offered you a job,” Kirk said, unable to hide the grin spreading across his face. “She messaged me today. If you want it, I’ll sign your transfer.”

“What?” Her voice was sharp with shock. She covered her cheeks again. The bond in the back of Kirk’s head vibrated and shivered as Spock approached.

“I believe her exact words were, ‘She’s got an unparalleled grasp of how and why regulation works in practice,’” Spock said. “She has been tasked with something in the aftermath of the court-martial, and requested you for her staff.” Janice pressed her hands harder against her cheeks.

“I… But…” She looked up at them, her eyes shining.

“Yeoman,” Kirk said, and felt Spock settle his hand at the base of his spine. The contact sent shivers over his skin, refracting in his vision. “Can I give you some advice?” She nodded. He leaned into Spock’s shoulder and said, “Take the leap.”

Janice closed her eyes and nodded again. Then she dropped her hands away from her face and straightened, and Kirk saw the steel in her spine reassert itself.

“By your leave, captain,” she said, voice high with excitement, and Kirk nodded. With one more mischievous grin breaking out over her face, she turned and ran to where Giotto was waiting to beam up. Kirk and Spock turned to the last of their guests. The rest of the crew then beamed back to the ship, and when Kirk watched them go, it was with the knowledge that he would be joining them soon.

He and Spock helped clear away the detritus of celebration, and under the light of T’Khut stole away back to the guesthouse. Before the door had even shut behind them entirely Spock had pushed him back against it. It clicked sharply in the silence, and before the echo had even faded away entirely Spock was on him, tongue and teeth against his skin and his hand sliding down into his trousers. Finally he could focus entirely on the new bond in the back of his mind. When he closed his eyes, tilting his head back against the door as Spock licked down his neck, he felt not only his own arousal, but Spock’s too, shuddering over the bond in great gasps. He pulled Spock’s face to his so he could kiss him. He slid his tongue past the seam of Spock’s lips as they parted for him, one of Spock’s hands coming up to cradle the back of his head and hold him in place. He listened, and felt it like the ocean: behind a barrier that he could only assume were Spock’s shields, some raging morass swelled. Kirk slid his hands under Spock’s robes, running them up his chest, and he could feel it: both Spock’s heat and skin under his palms, but also the mirror of the feeling through the bond, the way Spock tingled and lit up at his touch. Their mutual arousal bounced between them, magnifying with each pass down the bond of nails against backs and teeth against nipples and tongues against skin. Kirk pushed him backwards towards the bed, pulling Spock’s robes off his shoulders and sliding his hands greedily over the miles and miles of exposed skin. He glowed in the light of T’Khut through the windows, rippled scars and body hair and bony joints all illuminated for Kirk’s admiration. Spock was his, every inch and neuron, to touch and hold and love.

“Yours,” Spock murmured in response as he let Kirk push him backwards onto the bed. Kirk crawled over him, relishing the mirrored drag of skin and hair, the way Spock ground up against his thigh between his legs.

Yours , Kirk thought down the bond, as loudly as he could, and felt Spock’s mind throb in response. The dual sensations of both him and Spock were overwhelming. He was flying blind, but he followed his instincts: he pressed his mind messily against Spock’s shields as he kissed and licked and bit down his body. Let me in, let me see you.

Ashayam--- Spock’s mind-voice was breathless as Kirk took him into his mouth, kneeling between his legs. His own cock throbbed, untouched, as what Spock was feeling flooded over him. He felt giddy with overstimulation, high on the sensation of the reverberating bond, the tether between their minds bouncing with movement and arousal. He crawled back up the bed to retrieve the lubricant from Spock’s bedside table. When he settled back next to him to work him open, Spock peeled back the layers of his shields in a striptease unlike any other.

Kirk did not frequently forget that Spock was an alien, a completely different species than himself; but it had never been so apparent than it did when Spock’s senses started to leak down the bond. His hearing was far keener than Kirk’s, his color vision slightly different, his sense of smell completely different. He closed his eyes to take it all in as he opened Spock up by touch alone. The way Spock saw him, felt him, smelled his sweat and sex--- all of it pulsed and dripped like wax down the bond into his mind. His fingers in Spock sparked with latent psi-energy, now made tangible through their bonding, lighting him up from the inside. Then Spock brought his hand up to Kirk’s face, sliding over his cheekbones and settling onto his psi-points. They slipped into the meld.

His body continued to move on autopilot. He settled between Spock’s thighs and pulled him into his lap. Spock groped at his shoulders and bit his neck as he slid into him, but all of his attention was within. He no longer had any concept of controlling or directing his own thoughts; the bond and Kirk’s mind were flooded with Spock. Spock slid into his mind. Spock pressed him open, the sheer overwhelming depth of his regard and his arousal dripping and licking into every fold and crevice. He could see himself the way Spock saw him: he could see shades that Kirk’s human eyes never could have distinguished. In Spock’s vision, he glowed a thousand shades of gold.

Kirk laced his fingers through Spock’s, pinning his hands down against the mattress, and buried his face in his neck with his eyes closed. He listened to Spock’s sharp little gasps and let Spock’s mind push into his, tonguing him open, laving his love, his thoughts, his lust over everything he was. The bond drew them tighter and tighter, swelling with the energy that poured between them, vibrating until it was singing one clear note between them---

When they came, they came together, and the bond erupted into glimmering shards of light.

☆☆☆

When he awoke the next morning, Kirk’s padd had a notice on it from the Enterprise .

By order of Dr. Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Captain James Kirk is authorized to return to duty, with no restrictions, effective start of next Alpha shift.

His jag of bright sharp happiness startled Spock out of sleep, who turned to him immediately, reaching for him across the bed. “Jim?”

Kirk flopped backwards onto the pillows and tossed his padd out of reach before rolling over Spock, straddling his hips and pressing his forehead to his. Spock skimmed his hands over his back and ass, his question floating over the bond and through his skin.

Kirk said, “Let’s go home.”

☆☆☆

Kirk and Spock prepared lunch in the kitchen of the main house before the survivors arrived. They would spend a few hours together before they scattered back to the far corners of the galaxy; Tommy and Martha to their university, Mira and Ellie to their school, and Kirk and Kevin back to the Enterprise . After they’d all arrived and eaten together, Spock extended a gracious hand in front of him and said to Martha, “Would you care to see my mother’s garden? She has encouraged many non-native plants to flourish here.”

“Yes! I meant to ask you about Vulcan pollinators last night,” Martha said immediately, and smoothed a hand over Tommy’s hair as she passed him and followed Spock outside. The door shut quietly behind them, leaving the survivors seated around the island. It struck Kirk that, without his noticing, he and his kids had sat around a table to share a meal for the first time since Farm School. He and Tommy had both found partners with whom they could share what they had endured, Kevin had carefully eaten nearly an entire plate with only one preliminary flinch, and with every moment spent in their company Ellie became a little less private. She was still reserved--- she and Mira had always had different temperaments--- but she shared more of her own interests, rather than letting Mira talk for both of them. Kirk learned that Martha and Tommy wanted children, that Ellie had a partner but Mira was uninterested in romance, that Kevin was the number one scorer across all of Starfleet on a popular holo-vid game. With every detail that he learned about them, their hollowed-out, desolate faces in his memory were replaced with them as they were now: scarred but alive, so alive. Even if they did not stay in contact any longer now that the trial was over, seeing them was a gift to him.

The survivors stayed for three hours, talking over their empty plates. Martha and Spock eventually rejoined them with Martha’s promise to send along her research on artificial pollination for transplanted flowers, and Kirk spent his afternoon drinking in the pleasure of their company. His kids, his friends--- he had asked for help and they had risen to the challenge with a grace he had never predicted.

Their time was winding down when Tommy said quietly, “I’ve been thinking about something since we got here.” All attention turned to him. He released his mask from the side of his head and rubbed the damaged skin self-consciously before resealing it. “I want to find Laika’s parents, and Madeleine and Natalya’s if possible, and tell them the truth.” Martha’s hand found Tommy’s under the table. For a second there was silence around the table as they remembered their fallen friend, the empty sixth chair, who had only tried to preserve their meager water supply and had died for it. They remembered the adults who had tried to save them.

“Yes,” Mira said, voice firm, and Ellie nodded. “They should know.”

“Madeleine and Natalya were Starfleet,” Kirk said, and looked at Spock and Kevin. “Their emergency contacts might still be listed in their cadet files.”

“One of my professors from the Academy had been on the Valiant ,” Kevin offered. “She might know something useful, too.”

Tommy grinned lopsidedly across the table at Kirk, and Kirk grinned back.

Kirk and Spock stood on the long, low front porch as the rest of the survivors called for aircars to take them to other transport or commed the Enterprise to be beamed back up. When it was time for each to go, Kirk pulled them in for a hug.

“Thank you,” he told each one, and each time he received a variation on a theme: I’m so glad you asked. I’m so glad you reached out. I’m happy that I could help you. Thank you for bringing us back together.

Then it was only him and Spock standing in the late-afternoon sun, and Spock asked, “Will you remain in contact with them now?”

“God, I hope so,” Kirk said. “Maybe I’ll let them all get home and settled before reaching back out again, though.”

Then his padd dinged. He pulled it from his pocket.

You have been invited to a group message by Mira Alcanzar: FARM SCHOOL FAMILY. Accept invitation? [YES / NO]

☆☆☆

Amanda and Spock prepared a special dinner for their last night on Vulcan: a wildly illogical smorgasbord of the foods that Kirk had enjoyed most during his time there. Breakfast breads rested alongside the vegetable wrap that he had eaten every day for lunch for three weeks in a row after first being introduced to it. There was a lot of soy; Vulcans had figured out ways to prepare tofu that even centuries of Earth vegans hadn’t attempted. Sarek, home earlier than usual from the embassy, joined them, and though dinner was quieter for his presence it was not tense or unpleasant.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Amanda assured them after they all cleared away the plates, either stored or recycled what hadn’t been eaten, and Sarek had vanished into his office. “But the house will feel so strange once you’ve gone back.”

“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. For us,” Kirk said to her. He dried the dishes that she had deemed too delicate for the sonic and replaced them in their proper places. She handed him the last glass and leaned her hip against the counter, turning to look at him.

“Logic does not need to be thanked, Jim,” she said. Then she laid her hand on his arm. “And neither does family.” His throat tightened at the unexpected words. She smiled as he struggled with his composure and turned to the kitchen at large, where Spock wiped down the table.

“I hope you come visit when you’re able,” she said. “I hope it’s not another twenty years before we get Spock back here.”

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am. But if you could send me a list of anything that would qualify me for clan protection again, I might be able to speed up the process.” He and Amanda laughed as Spock raised an incredulous eyebrow at him, and then they bid her goodnight.

They were halfway across the garden to the guesthouse when a deep voice called, “ Sa-fu. ” Spock straightened immediately and turned over his shoulder. Kirk turned with him as a spark of surprise flickered down the bond. Sarek stood by the back door, illuminated by the light of the main house; it swirled over the waves of his hair and caught in his robes.

“ Sa-mekh,” Spock said, and Kirk felt the twinge of question and confusion in Spock’s mind. When was the last time he had called his father by that word, instead of his name? Had it been before that last catastrophic fight, before Spock joined Starfleet?

Sarek hesitated for a moment, before he crossed to them. For a moment he looked at his son, and his son at him. Then Sarek extended something between them. Spock took it and held it up in the light: it was a wrapped packet of coiled ka'athyra strings.

“Your playing has improved since your youth,” Sarek said. “But it appears that the strings on your instrument have not been replaced.”

“ Ka’athyra strings are rarely sold off of Vulcan, and therefore difficult to acquire while on mission,” Spock said, and gently turned the packet in his hands. He looked at his father.

“Then it would be prudent for you to return in order to purchase them more regularly,” Sarek said. He looked at his son, and though his face remained still, something in his eyes softened. He drew himself up and said, in the measured tones of the perfectly logical, “Your mother would like it.” He stepped backwards, as if to distance himself from what he had said, and instead raised the ta’al . “I travel early in the morning for a meeting, so I will not see you before you depart. Live long and prosper, Spock. Captain Kirk.”

Spock and Kirk both raised the ta’al . “Live long and prosper, Father,” Spock said, and Sarek nodded once before turning and sweeping back into the house. Spock looked down at the strings in his hand before looking at Kirk with something close to abject shock bouncing over the bond. Kirk ran his hand over Spock’s back, leaning into him for a moment, and they continued back to the guesthouse to pack.

Before Kirk fell asleep that night, he sent a message.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I hope you’re both doing well. How is the U.S.S. Sausalito? Are you headed anywhere new?

I wanted to let you know that I’m married now--- to my first officer, S’chn T’gai Spock of Vulcan. We were bonded on Vulcan while we were on-planet for leave. If we ever cross paths, I’d love to introduce him to you. He’s great. I think Dad would like him a lot.

I also wanted to talk to you about something else. I’m not sure if you heard, but there was a court-martial recently--- I was cleared, but the trial brought up a lot of evidence about what happened when I was a kid. If you’re up for it, I’d like to talk to you about it. If you’re not, that’s fine. But the offer stands.

Anyway, that’s all. Safe travels.

Your son,

Jim

He closed his padd and dropped it onto the bedside table before rolling to wrap himself around Spock’s back. Part of him wanted to refresh his messages over and over until the battery died. Part of him hoped that his parents never responded. But he had done his part; the only thing he had control over was whether or not he had sent the comm.

They might respond and refuse to acknowledge that anything had changed, or refuse to talk about Tarsus at all. They might prefer to stay estranged and leave themselves at arm’s distance. But Kirk had reached out. He would leave that hand extended, because that was what he did: he would rather reach out and fail than never try and wonder forever.

In the end, he thought, what his parents decided to do now wouldn’t really matter. He knew that, either way, he would be okay.

☆☆☆

The next morning, Kirk pulled his uniform down off the hanger in the closet for the first time in four months. He held it in his hands, letting it slide through his fingers to the bed, before stripping off his sleep clothes and stepping into them. He sensed Spock’s approach before the door opened, and when Spock entered from the bathroom in his science blues, Kirk turned with his hands outstretched and said, “How do I look?”

Spock scanned him from head to toe and back again, and though his face did not change Kirk could feel him through the bond: pride and appreciation, a flicker of arousal that Kirk noted with curiosity and tucked away to consider in detail later, and his love.

“Ready for duty, sir,” Spock said, and bent to kiss him.

They met Amanda in the backyard with their bags. She was dressed to leave for her own work, hair wrapped carefully to prevent it being tossed in the day’s high winds, and unclasped her hands from in front of herself as they appeared. Kirk accepted a hug and Spock raised the ta’al .

“Please let us know how you’re doing every once in a while,” Amanda said to Kirk, eyes twinkling at them both. “Us human mothers do appreciate a sign of life.”

“I’ll make it happen, ma’am,” Kirk said, grinning. Then, with a lurch of joy and apprehension, he flipped open his comm. “Captain Kirk to Lieutenant Commander Scott.”

“Scotty here,” a welcome voice called back. “On standby for transport, sir.”

“Thank you again, Amanda,” Kirk said, and Amanda smiled warmly.

“You’re always welcome here, Jim,” she said. Then her focus turned to her son. “I love you, sa-fu. ” Spock inclined his head, and as Kirk gave Scotty the word and the transporter grabbed them, the bond twanged with gratitude and warmth and something that felt like daring.

“And I you, ko-mekh ,” Spock said. Before the transporter whirled them away, they got one good look at the expression on Amanda Grayson’s face as she registered what Spock had said. It was beautiful.

Kirk and Spock materialized on the starship Enterprise for the first time in four months, and it immediately felt like home again. Kirk closed his eyes, still standing on the transporter pad with his bag over his shoulder, and listened to the music of his ship: the constant low roar of life support and aircon, the beeps and whirrs of panels and machinery fans, footsteps in the hallway and the voices of his crew, and one Montgomery Scott at the transporter control panel calling, “Good to have you back, captain!”

“Ah, Scotty,” Kirk said, and grinned broadly. “There’s no place like home.” They stepped out of the transporter room and were immediately overwhelmed by a chorus of “welcome back!” and “good to see you!” from the crew passing through the halls. Tired engineers leaving the bay after Gamma shift passed bright-eyed Alpha scientists headed down to the science decks early--- the scientists did double-takes at Spock’s reappearance, raising the Vulcan salute and squeaking their hellos before darting down to the labs. Kirk bounced on the balls of his feet, drinking it all in. He had been returned to his ship, rested and repaired and more grateful than he had ever been in his life for the crew that had held space for him while he was away. He wanted to wrap his arms around the entirety of the ship and hold it close to him.

Spock pulled Kirk’s duffel bag off his shoulder and placed it onto his own. “I will return our possessions to our quarters and meet you on the bridge,” he said. Amusement and affection pulsed over the bond, spilling into his mind, as Spock thought, Go. I’ll see you in a moment. Kirk grinned at him, quietly pressing two fingers to Spock’s, and slipped with Scotty into the crowd.

He had thirty minutes before the start of Alpha shift, and he intended to make them count. He started by following Scotty down to Engineering to say hello to the engineers before shifting upward to the labs. He waved to Dr. Khan and Spock’s scientists, many of whom giggled and waved at the return of his formerly unexplained presence in the lab. He stuck his head in the crew mess to shout hello and grab a coffee, did the same in the officers’ mess, popped into the gym and Giotto’s office, and rode the turbolift just to hear the whooshing of it. He climbed a Jeffries tube and scared the living daylights out of an unprepared ensign when he swung out of it. He eventually found himself on the D deck: the longest strip of uninterrupted corridor on the ship, dead in the center and reaching from fore to aft. He didn’t see a single other person in the hallway; it didn’t have a formal use, and mostly served as a conduit to other places.

He raised his hands high above his head, stretching and breathing in the slightly stale tang of recycled air. The oxygen level on the ship was higher than that of Vulcan, and he was high on the difference. He would miss Vulcan. He would miss the guesthouse and Amanda’s kitchen and the purple tile of Rowan’s ceiling. But the Enterprise was his home; this was where he belonged. He bounced on the balls of his feet and relished the feel of his uniform against his skin and the comfortable tread of his work boots against the floor. Then, completely alone, unwatched, and free, he ran the entire length of his beloved ship, laughing like a kid.

Kirk arrived on the bridge thirty seconds before the start of Alpha shift. The turbolift door whooshed open, and it was like the past four months had never happened: Uhura at the communications console, Sulu and Chekov bickering at the front, Spock standing at parade rest by the sensors, already looking at the turbolift when Kirk arrived. Chris wheeled his chair around as a rush of warmth engulfed Kirk: welcome backs and hellos, and Spock’s pleased pride and comfort humming in the back of his mind.

“Welcome back, Captain Kirk,” Chris said.

“Thank you, Admiral,” Kirk said, and grinned. “I relieve you, sir.”

“I am relieved,” Chris said, and for a moment it crystallized between them: that unique love that a captain had for the ship they commanded, and their appreciation for the ship and the crew that they loved in common. Then Chris backed out of the chair-stall and Kirk strode down the steps to it. He flipped the seat back down and, after all his time away, sat back into it.

He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. It felt a little different, after the alterations that Scotty had made for Chris’s chair. But he was different, as well, so that was alright.

“Your orders are to escort me, Morrow, and Drake back to Earth,” Chris said. “Then you’ll head back out to the black.” His eyes flicked to a padd that Kirk hadn’t noticed, resting on the arm of the chair. “That came this morning.” Kirk sat forward and flicked it open to read as Chris made his farewells to the rest of the bridge crew and steered himself into the turbolift.

HIGH PRIORITY

CONFIDENTIAL

Captain Kirk,

It’s been a productive few days for us, but it seems like every time we learn something concrete, it sends us down another rabbit hole of secrets. My prediction of a few months of work may have been premature. We’re not waiting for the investigation to be done, though, before we start rectifying some of the more egregious violations. Please see attached an assignment for after you return the admirals to Headquarters. If you find it more painful than helpful, let me know, but I’ve decided that you and Lieutenant Riley get the right of first refusal on this one.

Two other updates for you: first, Admiral April is remaining on Vulcan for the time being so that he can work with the VSA to repair the damage done by the neutralizer. Though communication is complicated on that front at the moment, he has indicated that he intends to remain embedded with my team until the work is done.

I did tell him what I was going to offer to you, and he said, and I quote, to “call it a belated wedding gift.”

Second: Janice says hello. Thank you again for signing her transfer - she has been invaluable already.

Reach out if you refuse the mission or if there are any complications. If not, report the outcome back to me once completed.

Best,

LC Lee

Kirk tapped on the bond to get Spock’s attention as he re-read Lee’s note. His attention snagged on the phrase ‘right of first refusal’ as Spock left his sensors to stand at his shoulder and read the padd in his hand.

Any guesses?

None that I am willing to put forth.

Kirk tapped to the next page and pulled up the mission itself. Across the top was branded FOR EXTRADITION: CRIMES AGAINST SENTIENT LIFE.

Then beneath that was LAST KNOWN ALIAS: ANTON KARIDIAN.

Anton Karidian was a man who seemingly sprang to life eighteen years previously solely to perform as an actor on various far-flung planets. Beneath the brief dossiere of information known about him was the formal assignment signed by both Lee and April: This alias may be used by the man formerly known as Governor Kodos of Tarsus IV. Investigate, confirm, and if confirmed, capture alive and return to Earth for trial and sentencing.

“My god,” Kirk said quietly, and covered his mouth with one hand. He scanned the information again: it wasn’t much, but it had come from April and Lee. Shock from him and comfort from Spock filled the bond in equal measure. A small part of him wailed in distress at the thought of facing the man who had killed his friends and destroyed Farm School. But there was a larger, louder, stronger part of him that called for justice.

He had already faced Elise and found justice for himself and his friends; here was an opportunity to do the same on a much larger scale. He thought about the eight thousand people that had died on Tarsus: his friends and his teachers and an enormous list of people that he had never met and would never know. They deserved accountability from the Federation; they deserved for their stories to be told. He turned his eyes to the viewscreen ahead of him. Below them was Vulcan, and ahead were the stars, so many little pinholes of light in a black velvet sky. But closer to him were his beloved bridge crew, his friends and his family, and they were prepared to follow him wherever he chose to lead them.

He looked down at the data sheet about Karidian. The troupe that he led was making its way through the Alpha quadrant; they could drop the admirals off on Earth and then continue on an intercept path to meet them before they got to Planet Q, where Tommy and Martha lived. He closed the padd. He would talk to Kevin before formally accepting, but he thought he had an idea about what Kevin might say about it. The Enterprise would take the mission, and he would tell his crew what their goals were when they were closer. He might tell the bridge crew why they had been assigned this mission, this man; he might even tell a select handful what he felt about it.

Kirk might find an unlucky stranger, or he might find the man who had walked through his nightmares. But he wouldn’t do it alone.

“Mr. Chekov, plot a course to Earth. Mr. Sulu, prepare for warp three,” Kirk said, and leaned back in his chair. He crossed his legs again. Behind him, Uhura called the Vulcan interstellar transportation authority to clear their exit, and his helmsman and his navigator in front of him ran through their checks together as they prepared for their departure.

His science officer, his husband, his bondmate stood quietly at his side, and rested one hand on his shoulder before returning to his sensors and scanners. Even when the touch of his hand had dropped away, Kirk felt Spock’s attention through the bond: partially on his console, partially humming at the presence of Kirk’s mind nearby. He would need to learn to shield, at some point, or risk distracting Spock every time he looked over and saw him bent over the scanners just so. But they would have time enough for that; in the meanwhile, he was enjoying the constant comforting hum of Spock’s ever-churning mind in the back of his own.

“Course locked, captain,” Chekov said.

“Ready for warp, captain,” Sulu said.

“Impulse power until we’re out of Vulcan’s range, Mr. Sulu. Then take us away,” Kirk said. The ship hummed and beeped and sang around him as his orders were followed, and he watched the stars shift through the viewscreen ahead until the ship leapt to warp and they smeared into blurry streaks of light.

Ad astra per amorem; and onward.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Martha and Tommy's first child, a daughter, is named Natalya. Giotto and his wife Miriam get to buy their house in Cairo, where they make up for the time they didn’t have. Janice and Kathleen Lee, along with Admiral April, have their work cut out for them. It’s ugly, and Elise does not let go without a fight--- but when it’s over, Lee will ask Janice to marry her. Sulu and Dr. Khan had a great time working together. When Sulu is offered his own command down the line, he takes her with him as his science officer. And Kirk and Spock, of course, live happily ever after.

#spirk #spirk fan fiction #k/s #k/s fan fiction #fake married #regulatory relations #my writing #JEEEEEESUS IT'S DONE!!!! IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!!!

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