History - Revised

The sight of himself as a child was jarring.

There was no time to think, no room to breathe. Jim’s blue eyes were blown wide with panic, his vision sending him black dot warnings of hyperventilation. He took measured breaths to slow his heart and balled his fingers into fists so hard that little pink crescent marks were forming in the flesh.

Before him was the expansive window of the deck, that had become a video monitor, and behind him was the majority of his first shift crew, staring at the screen.

“Shut it off,” he ground out through locked teeth. “I can’t sir…” Sulu replied weakly, frantically pawing at the technology before him - to no avail.

---

That morning, despite his First Officer’s protests, Jim beamed down to a newfound Class M planet that they had been hovering over for nearly a week. The blue sphere was called Kasor, and was completely undiscovered until they shot down a Starfleet vessel in trans orbital exploration.

Apparently they possessed incredible talents when it came to technology. Knowing that Starfleet had been mapping uncharted territory, they literally disguised their planet. A porous graph covered the sphere and reflected space back to any passers-by.

If it weren’t for the skirmish with the Starfleet transport vessel, they may never have found them at all.

Now, apparently, it was the Enterprise’s duty to come to a peace agreement with this clearly elusive and readily hostile humanoid species.

Jim hand-delivered a treatise drafted by Starfleet to the ruler’s second-hand man. He wasn’t even given the courtesy of meeting with Koris, the leader of the Kasors.

Upon his return to the Enterprise, Jim and the crew awaited a response to the treatise. They waited for three days, suspended in space, showing signs of faith by remaining within orbit of a planet that could easily attack them.

But clearly, it wasn’t enough.

---

As soon as the angular blue face appeared on the vid, he knew it was Koris, despite never having met the humanoid.

The creature blinked sideways and observed the crew. Jim was more than a little surprised. “Sulu…did we approve any communications?” Jim turned his head and whispered. “No sir,” Sulu whispered back, his eyes glued to the unsanctioned chat screen that was, moments ago, a window out onto the stars.

The vid translated as the creature spoke. Clearly they knew of humans, if they’d programmed their software to translate into English. Uhura was mildly impressed beneath the layers of concern that arose upon seeing the creature.

“You are quite the individual James Tiberius Kirk,” Koris said, his voice rough, like the sound of stone against stone. Arrogance seeped from his posture and dripped from his words.

He leaned forward and stared at Jim, who sat dead still in the captain’s chair.

“I like to know who I’m dealing with, especially when agreeing to peace treaties,” it cocked its head.

“Well,” Jim said, taking in a breath, “what is it that you would like to know?”

The humanoid laughed' it was an odd clanging sound that reverberated off the glossed walls of the observation deck.

“We know all about humans, we’ve known for centuries. We know also of Starfleet, more things than are in the report I’ve been given. Either you are not being honest with me James Tiberius Kirk, or Starfleet is not being honest with me. Either way, it does not bode well for you,” he smiled, revealing a mouth full of sharp, crowded, white teeth.

“Let me show you how easy it is for us to unearth information…a demonstration if you will,” it waved it’s fingers outward, shifting the vid to another screen.

A dry lump formed in Jim’s throat. From what he knew, Starfleet had left nothing pertinent out of the information they supplied the Kasors along with the treaty. He wasn’t sure what this demonstration would involve, but he felt that it was in his best interest to keep his mouth shut and watch the vid.

He looked up, over his right shoulder and saw a stoic Spock, PADD in hand, staring at the vid, an expression reminiscent of shock pulling at his features, so Jim looked at the screen.

It was…himself.

He was ten, and in court.

“You’re request for the adoption of James Tiberius Kirk has been denied,” the judge said. “No!” Jim rose, his lawyer putting a still hand on his shoulder. “For what reason?” the young lawyer in a cheap suit asked. “At the request of his mother,” the judge answered. “But she’s not even on planet, she hasn’t been for two years…" the lawyer sputtered, "the boy is in an abusive household!” the lawyer waved at Jim, who had a black eye.

The judge sighed, “unless you have substantial evidence to support this claim of abuse, the ruling stands,” the judge banged the gavel.

The vid shifted. Jim was outside of the courthouse, looking at the street. Voice recordings were playing over the video… “What the hell happened to that tape!?!” his lawyers voice screamed. “How could you lose the one piece of evidence we had that James is being abused?!” “I didn’t lose it!” another voice yelled back. “When I went to retrieve it, it was gone, someone erased it!”

The vid shifted again, from Jim staring into the street traffic… to a wide fist delivering a punishing blow to Jim’s young face.

He reeled, his body smacking against a worktable and then collapsing to the ground. Once down, a muddy work boot arced up and hit Jim in the ribs. The boy coughed and cried, dirt caked into his lungs, blood drying on his face. 

Just seeing the vid, Jim could feel the stream of blood trickle down his face, the dirt burn in his throat.

They were outside, the scuffle had been recorded by a street cam. They installed two cams every mile, even out in the rural areas.

His stepfather drug him up off the ground and wrapped a callous hand around his small neck, squeezing. In an instant, the scene shifted and it was Spock with his hand around Jim’s neck on the deck of the Enterprise. 

Spock gasped and dropped his PADD to the floor, where it cracked. 

Again the scene shifted to Jim, outside the courthouse. “Suicide attempt in progress,” a sterile voice said. The vid zoomed in on Jim’s hand, circles appearing around his prints. “Male, age 10, name, James Tiberius Kirk, dispatching law enforcement.”

But the boy on the screen took off running, just as the light turned and the traffic rumbled to life.

“Nooo!” another boy screamed. Daniel.

The video melted to a camera recording from the cemetery. Daniel and Jim stood at Jim’s Dad’s grave. “Happy Birthday James,” Daniel said, a weak smile on his face, as he pulled a box out of his pocket and gave it to the blonde. Jim smiled, turning the gift over in his hands like it was made of gold, and before even opening it, he threw himself into a hug with Daniel.

The scenes were shifting so fast that it was giving Jim emotional and visual whiplash.

Now he and Daniel were outside of Daniel’s ramshackle house, his friend’s weary hands gripping his face. “We’re all we need James. Just you and me. All we need is each other. We can do this. We can get through this.” Again, the scene shifted to the street outside of the courthouse.

Just before a jet-black luxury car plowed into Jim, Daniel tackled him to the ground. They collided with the concrete, narrowly escaping death. “How could you do that!” Daniel screamed over the roar of the traffic, fists dug into Jim's suit, shaking him. “How could you leave me! Don’t you ever leave me!” he scolded before breaking down, crying into Jim’s shoulder.

Then Jim was on the ground, cradling the dead body of his dog, Scott. Tears streamed down his face, leaving trails of peach in the smeared dirt on his cheeks. He rocked Scott’s lifeless form back and forth, a hand in the blonde fur that was matted with drying blood.

“Don’t call me that,” he heard his voice yell. “Don’t call me your son, I’m not your son!”

“Don’t say that,” he heard his mother say.

“Why not?!” Jim erupted. “Where were you when he beat me? Where were you when I starved.”

Jim was twelve, falling to the ground in exhaustion beneath the summer Iowan sun; so thirsty that he couldn’t even sweat.

He was so furious at his stepfather for intentionally killing Scott, because that dog was the only thing that brought him joy at home. So mad in fact, that he stole his stepfather's ’65 Chevy Corvette and drove it off towards the quarry.

In shock he watched the vid show the police chase, the street cams that witnessed the cherry red piece of history sliding off the edge of the quarry and disappearing in a ball of fire as he leapt from the vehicle, just in time.

And Levi beat him for it, severely. The vid rolled back to the footage. There was sound in the clip, but you wouldn't need it to hear knuckles beating flesh. Your mind could hear it just from watching.

What Levi didn’t see was Daniel coming up behind him with a wooden bat. The Slugger cracked and splintered against the man’s broad back, giving Daniel enough time to pick up James and start walking towards the road. 

“I need a fucking ambulance,” he heard his best friend’s voice shout into a phone. “Your request is denied,” the cold voice returned, “due to insufficient funds and an excess of familial debt.” “Fuck you!” The boy screamed, throwing the cell on the ground.

“The kid would have died if his friend hadn’t managed to get him here,” a doctor said, on a vid from a the small hospital. She was in the hall, speaking to another doctor. Someone’s been roughing this kid up for years, the red marks are past fractures and breaks,” she threw a holo onto the nearest wall, lit up with so much red that it looked like a Christmas tree.

“What he did to your dog, he’s going to do to you,” he heard Daniel’s voice, overlaid on the swirling mix of images that raced across the screen.

“Attempted homicide in progress,” the cold voice said, this time the vid focused on a river. It was night, freezing cold, the river was iced over, save for a broken hole at the surface. “Four minutes until health and safety officials reach destination. Victim, male, Daniel Scott, age twelve.”

A kid on a motorcycle raced up the road and slid the bike to the ground on the bridge over the river. Jim’s warm, rapid breath evaporated as he ran over to the guardrail and gauged where the hole was. He peeled off items of clothing, then he backed up, stopped, and ran forward, leaping over the guardrail, into the freezing river, using his elbows to break any ice that stood in his way.

There was no vid in the water, so the next shot was of his boxer-clad body hauling his best friend up the embankment, back to the bridge. He put shaking hands on Daniel's chest and pressed down after breathing into his mouth. Push, breathe, push, breathe, and scream. Finally, Daniel spit out water and shook as hypothermia's icy grip took hold of him. He coughed violently and Jim pacified him with reassuring words.

Jim ran and got the clothes he had taken off. He pulled off Daniel’s wet clothes and slid his own dry clothes on his friend. Then he dragged the boy over to the motorcycle that lay lifeless in the street. He turned it on, letting it heat up, draping both their bodies over the humming hot metal.

A voice clip played over the scene. It was from another day, a different time...

“You saved my life James,” he heard Daniel’s voice say.  Jim huffed out a breath and replied, “that’s nothing Daniel…you…you saved my soul.”

The vid changed. It showed he and Daniel in the schoolyard. There was a large boy, Lukas, standing over thirteen-year-old Jim, beating him mercilessly with his fists.

Jim, the real Jim, the adult Jim that was currently the captain of the USS Enterprise, lurched forward in his chair, all color gone from his face. He felt physically ill. He knew what was coming next.

"Stop it, you're going to kill him," Daniel shouted. He was bruised and bleeding, locked in Lukas' henchman's grip.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to kill him,” Lukas said. “We need him alive so he can watch,” he pulled on Jim’s hair, pulling his bleeding head up so he could lock eyes with Daniel.

“Watch what?” Jim asked, blood spilling from his mouth.

“You crossed me James,” Lukas said bitterly, “so now you’re going to watch me take the only thing you’ve ever loved away from you.”

Before the words even processed in Jim’s mind, Lukas nodded at the henchman, Decan, who pulled a shining silver knife out of his jacket.

Daniel screamed as Decan drove the blade into Daniel’s abdomen.

Kirk’s mouth flew open in a shattering scream. Lukas let him go, Decan backed away, and Jim scrambled towards Daniel in a fumbling knot of beaten limbs.

It was like Daniel fell to the ground in slow motion, his face twisted in shock and pain, a hand grasping the gaping wound, where the knife jutted out.

Jim remembered it like it was yesterday. How the cold wet ground seeped through his pants, how the air smelled vaguely of sulfur, how bright the red blood was against Daniel’s pale skin, how heavy his dying friend felt in his arms.

“Don’t…don’t leave me,” Jim sobbed. “God…please…I need you Daniel,” he said, rocking him back and forth.

Daniel's bright green eyes looked helpless and scared. And at that moment, Jim would have sold his soul to save his friend - but there was nothing he could do. 

Blood began trickling out of Daniel’s mouth. “It’s okay Jim…it’s okay…”

“No it’s not,” Jim clutched at the wound, fingers around the knife, pressing down on the flesh that only gushed more liquid.

“Promise me James…that you’ll never... try to kill yourself again,” Daniel coughed up more blood. Jim was crying, barely able to process what was happening. “Promise me James. Promise me.” Jim didn’t say anything. “Promise!” the brunette shouted.

“I promise,” Jim conceded.

Daniel's face relaxed and his head slumped up against Jim's body.

Dozens of images flashed across the screen. Jim at his father’s grave. Jim at Daniel’s funeral. Jim facedown on the ground, being arrested. Jim walking with Daniel, talking with Sam, running with his dog, working the field, stuck in school, asleep in the hospital, awake in handcuffs. His entire life was spread out on the deck, for the eyes of his crew.

Then the cacophony of pictures came to a stop, Jim still kneeling above Daniel’s body. His quaking hand pulled the knife from Daniel’s chest. He turned it in his hand, the blade facing his rapidly beating heart. He held it there for a moment, letting it pull at the blue fabric of his shirt, right above his heart. He knew what he had considered in that moment. But he also knew what he had promised.

So instead, he looked over his shoulder, with death in his eyes and revenge in his blood; he stood and left…with the knife.

“You are lucky that you did not kill the boy you attacked,” the judge’s voice said. It was a recording, there was no video, it wasn’t public court. “You are hereby sentenced to spend the remainder of your youth, until age eighteen, on Tarsus IV, where you will assist in the colonization effort."

“Don’t you care that you’re being arrested? Sent away?” he was with Sam, standing outside of their house, getting ready to leave. “How can you not care about this, about me?”

“You’ll be fine,” Jim said, “he doesn’t beat you…just me,” he slipped his jacket on. “And hey,” he said to Sam after they hugged, “at least on Tarsus, they’ll have to feed me.”

Sam had a green tinge to his skin and panic in his eyes. "See you in five years," he whispered as Jim walked away towards a waiting transport.

The vid cut to black.

It was like being snapped to a halt on an upside-down roller coaster.

Koris’ blue face re-appeared, his orange eyes boring into Kirk’s soul. He broke the fresh silence.

“Many of these things would be impossible to find or recover, yet I have them,” the thing said. “And I want your Starfleet to know that there are no bounds when it comes to unearthing the past. Until your Starfleet tells us the whole truth…we will not agree to the peace treaty. Full disclosure is required. Good day Captain Kirk,” it said with a sly smirk and then he vanished. The window was once again a window, looking out on the stars and the swirling orange & blue planet.

Jim could feel the weight of tempered breaths and pointed stares. His chest felt like it was being gripped by an iron fist that could easily crush the life out of him. He focused on the stars in front of him; he stood unmoving for a minute, trying to regain some semblance of normalcy. He didn't even remember standing up in the first place. 

Finally he turned around. The first gaze he caught was Spock's. He knew that it wasn't a look of pity but he felt some emotion there, running hot like a stream beneath the ice of his usually stolid expression. Spock looked like he was teetering on the edge of emotional instability, but Jim couldn't help him, not now, not after reliving the darkest days he'd had on Earth.

He wondered what his own face must look like. If his sky blue eyes were relaying the panic he felt coursing through his veins. What Spock saw, what his deck crew saw, they never should have seen, they shouldn't even know.

Slowly he sat down in the command chair. There was only 25 minutes left in Alpha shift, and with a tight grip on both arms of the chair, he steadied his breath and prayed that he could make it.

(All written and drawn work is the sole intellectual property of me. Do not reproduce, quote or take without express permission.)