Chapter Text
It isn’t often that Jim Kirk’s life was interrupted. Every day he wakes up alone, right before dawn seeps through the windows of his farmhouse bedroom. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes, swings his legs over the edge of his bed, stands, and stretches. These are mundane mornings to pair with mundane afternoons, evenings, nights.
Despite popular belief, tending to a small farm in Middle-of-Nowhere Iowa is boring. Jim’s body aches every day with the strain of all the work, and his mind aches for more. Turns out, off-the-charts aptitude tests mean nothing when you’re the sole owner of a farm no one wants and the sole doer of the jobs no one else will. So, when Jim was pulled from his usual restless sleep by a consistent, loud banging on the front door rather than the typical droning beeps of his alarm, it was at least a little out of the ordinary. The subsequential swinging of legs and stretching portion of his routine was done slightly faster than normal. The knocking persisted.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Jim muttered, well out of earshot from his unplanned company. The third, seventh, and last stairs gave their usual half-hearted creak as he made his way down them, pulling a t-shirt on as he went. He made it to the front door in the kitchen, the tile cold on his bare feet. He opened the door, and was greeted, greeted is a loose term , Jim thought, by three men in suits.
Jim had seen more than his fair share of movies (there wasn’t much to do in Riverside, in his defense) and these men looked like they had been pulled right out of one. All three men were fairly identical, tall with broad shoulders, sporting buzz-cuts and dead looks in their eyes, giving off a general don’t-mess-with-us-vibe. This, like most things, didn’t deter Jim. The large farmhouse was hard enough to keep warm from the already chill October nights, and the wide-open door was letting in the cold.
“Look, if this is about the power bill, I’ll have it next week, and it’s awfully early-” Jim started, only to have his rant cut off before he even really began it.
“Jim Kirk? We need to come in and ask you a few questions,” said the man who had obviously been doing the knocking, and now appeared to be doing the talking. The three men pulled out badges Jim didn’t recognize, but they looked official enough, and Jim’s got nothing to lose. It was this or milking the cows. He stepped aside, and the men walked in. The closed door stopped the cold, but their presence in his kitchen certainly didn’t bring any warmth.
“Have you noticed any suspicious or unusual activity on or around your property in the last 36 hours?” The Talker asked, wasting no time. Jim paused for a minute to think.
“Depends on what you’d consider unusual, gentlemen,” he said as he reached to the counter and grabbed an apple, taking a bite before continuing to talk, mouth full, “Betty, my best cow, isn’t milking like she used to, but the corn is just growing out of control recently...but I’m sure none of that interests you. What, someone escape from the county jail again? I’m telling you, I’ve been in there once or twice, no one really to worry about, if that’s the case.”
“We’re not here to inquire about your livestock, Mr. Kirk,” the same man responded, “we need to know if you’ve noticed any suspicious sounds, or any tampering with your house or any of the barns or sheds outside.” Their lack of emotion was almost, almost, unsettling to Jim. They’d managed not to spare a glance to the sparsely decorated kitchen, not landing on the rusty stove or the peeling paint of the cabinets, but rather kept their eyes trained right on Jim, as if they were observing his every move or trying to read his mind.
Jim laughed anyway.
“If you think someone is hiding out here, you’re crazy. I’d notice, I’m the only one in the house, like ever, and the only one who moves anything around here. Even if someone were here, they’re not going to find anything of value to take. I think you’re wasting your time.” The light from the sunrise had begun shining through the kitchen window, and Jim was becoming annoyed. The man looked at his stone-faced, silent companions, emotionless as ever, which Jim translated as a shrug.
“If you see anything, contact us.” The man handed him a business card that was blank aside from a telephone number in simple black type in the center. These guys clearly weren’t the type for any added flair.
“Yes, sir,” Jim responded, giving a mock salute. He took the business card, already planning to toss it as soon as the men were off his property. The three of them turned to leave, synchronized as if they had rehearsed it, and the opening and closing of the door let in another gasp of cold air. Jim rolled his eyes.
Well, that was weird. He thought, as he walked to the stairs and proceeded to go back to his bedroom to get dressed and go see if maybe, just maybe, Betty would want to work with him today. The usual steps gave their creaks, and he rounded the corner of the hallway. However, his path was blocked by a tall, thin man, covered in some kind of green liquid?
Jim’s thoughts were halted by a sharp pain to his neck, followed by black nothing.
-----
The first thing Jim noticed when he woke up was the heat. His clothes were stuck to him with sweat, and his sheets were soaked. He’d kicked all of his blankets to the foot of his bed, and the heat was still close to suffocating. The uncomfortable feeling pulled him from sleep without any drowsiness. He sat up quickly and assessed his situation. He had no idea what time it was. He didn’t remember getting into bed, or falling asleep. He certainly didn’t remember cranking up the thermostat. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, pushing the sweat collected there back into his already damp hair, and tried to think past the headache pounding behind his eyes.
Right, the men in his kitchen, he thought, suspicious activities. I wonder if they- Jim’s thoughts were interrupted by the memory of being knocked out by a man in his house. Oh shit.
Jim’s house had never been broken into before. He lived far from town and didn’t have any neighbors. The old dirt road to the farmhouse drags on. Besides creepy men on official business, he didn’t get many visitors, warranted or not.
Well, when he thought about it, his house seemed perfect to rob. Jim jumped out of bed and grabbed his baseball bat from the closet in his room. He stepped out into the hallway with the bat lifted up to his shoulder. He stopped to glance at the thermostat. 94 degrees. Someone broke into his house, and turned the heat on?
“Jesus,” Jim said aloud to no one, or to someone, if they were actually in his house, and listening. He switched the knob on the thermostat to off .
Maybe the best option was to call the police. However, the Riverside Police Department and Jim Kirk weren’t on the best of terms, and haven’t been in a while. As far as Jim was concerned, drawing attention to himself wasn’t the best idea. Whoever was in his house hadn’t killed him yet. Just knocked him out...then put him to bed. Surely, if killing him were going to happen, it would have while he was unconscious and defenseless, right? He thought about all the movies he’d seen where murderers turned their killings into some kind of game. He gripped the bat a little tighter.
He made his rounds through the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom, throwing each door open quickly and looking around, finding nothing. He was completely on edge and his muscles were tight, but every empty room made it a little easier to breathe. The idea that someone was still in his house started to feel more and more irrational. He crept down the stairs and checked the living room and kitchen. The locks on the door were all intact and locked, just as he had left them. He went to each window, expecting to find one broken. He couldn’t find any indication that someone had made it into the house that way.
These findings were beginning to make Jim feel worse rather than better. He was starting to worry that he was losing his mind, but he couldn’t have made up what happened the night before. The heat that had not yet dissipated was the only reminder that something wasn’t normal. As far as he could tell, nothing had been stolen. Nothing about his situation was making any sense. After checking the entire first floor, Jim returned to the kitchen. He remembered the business card the men had given him the night before. Maybe calling them was a good idea, the worst they could do was laugh in his face when he voiced his paranoia, and they didn’t seem to be the type to laugh at anything.
However, the card that he had left on the counter was no longer there. Something about this revelation rattled him. Why was everything in his house the same, besides his connection to the men that he was growing to suspect had something to do with what was happening to him?
He took a deep breath as he internally reconciled his paranoia and the fact that the only places left to check in the house were the attic and the basement: prime locations for a slasher film murder scenario. The stairs to the basement led up to the kitchen, so he grabbed a flashlight from the drawer beneath the silverware and began his descent down into the dark. He held the baseball bat in one hand and the flashlight in the other, which was dimly lit, because of course, the batteries were running low.
The wooden stairs creaked with every step he took, and when Jim reached the bottom he gave the area a quick sweep with his flashlight. Every shadow on the concrete walls and piece of old furniture stored in the basement looked menacing. After a few tense seconds, Jim came to the conclusion that there was, once again, nothing to worry about. Just as he began to turn to walk back up the stairs, a clatter of something falling to the ground made him jump back and let out an embarrassing yell, and he trained his flashlight towards the direction of the noise. He relaxed his stance when he saw the old calico cat that comes in and out of the house as she desired, which he allowed because her now graying fur didn’t mean she still couldn’t take care of all the mice during the winter.
“Shit, you scared the hell out of me,” Jim said to the cat as he dropped the bat and flashlight in favor of kneeling down to let her nuzzle on his hands, “by the looks of it, you might be losing some of that gracefulness.” He could admit to himself that her company was comforting. He stood back up after some therapeutic petting. This time, when he turned around, he was face to face with another person.
Jim, who had been in his fair share of fights, immediately swung at the intruder. The man, however, grabbed his fist faster than anyone else Jim had ever fought could have. In a split second, Jim found himself with his arms pinned behind his back. He immediately began to struggle as he tried to pull free from the man’s grasp.
“What the hell? Let me go!” Jim yelled as he tried in vain to break out of the man’s arms. He did know, however, when to accept defeat, and eventually stopped fighting as it became apparent that his strength came nowhere close to that of the intruder’s.
“Are you finished?” The man asked him calmly.
Jim was not calm. Jim was pissed, and scared, and therefore began to swing at the man’s face again. The man easily blocked his fist with his forearm. Jim jumped backward and out of the man’s reach. To his surprise, the man-made no attempt to bridge the gap and try to harm him again. This gave him time to catch his breath, collect his thoughts, and come up with the logical next step in this messed-up scenario. He bent down to pick up his flashlight from where it hit the ground.
“What do you want?” Jim asked as he stood back up, the beam of his flashlight dragging along the man’s body until it reached his face. Any other words he was about to say were caught in his throat.
The man was looking at him analytically. Jim’s eyes were on the man’s face, where scabbed over cuts stood out against his skin, dark green where they should be red. His eyebrows were sharp and upturned with their tips close to touching the ends of his hair, styled in the worst bowl-cut Jim had ever seen. His ears were the last straw, green-tinted and ending in a Tolkein-style point, making him look as though he had climbed out of one of the novels that were crammed in Jim’s bookshelf upstairs.
“I’m going crazy,” Jim said aloud, to himself this time, feeling lightheaded. He leaned back against the wooden handrail of the basement stairs. What the hell was happening to him?
“I can assure you that you are not, James,” the man told him, voice just as even as the first time he spoke.
From the way Jim saw it, he could do one of two things, the first being pass out on the basement floor, and the second, play along with whatever was happening as if he were not losing his mind. Resilient as always, he chose the latter.
“How do you know my name? Who are you? What are you?” Jim asked in a single breath. This time, the man paused before responding to his inquiry, as if he were unsure how to answer the string of questions.
“I know that you are James T. Kirk, because I took the liberty to seek this information while you were unconscious last night. My name is S'chn T'gai Spock.” he answered. The man paused before continuing, “I am what you would call an extraterrestrial.”
----
If Jim closed his eyes, he could focus on the feeling of the floor under his feet, his elbows against his old kitchen table, the rickety sounds when he shifted in his chair, and the heat from his coffee mug against his hand. When he opened them, however, he could focus on nothing except the being that sat across from him, occupying one of the usually vacant chairs at the table.
He had offered the intruder a cup of coffee, he was always hospitable, although it had felt more like a weak grapple for some kind of normality. The man had declined, just as respectfully as it had been offered, and now sat with empty hands and a rigid posture that made Jim’s back hurt just from looking at him.
“So, let me get this straight,” Jim said, his hands pressed to his temples as he ran the man’s words through his head, again, trying to get the most basic facts down as if he didn’t feel like his world was collapsing, “you’re an alien. You want me to call you Spock. You were observing Earth, and something brought your...your ship, down into my field.”
The alien, Spock, nodded, with admirable patience, considering this was at least the fifth time Jim had gone over a variation of this list.
“So, I guess the next question is to ask what you want from me?” Jim asked with no expectations of the answer. What did he have to offer an alien?
Spock hesitated before answering, “I...am in need of your help. I examined my ship, and although the damages are not major enough to render it useless, it does need repairs before it can be used to leave Earth. I need access to tools, and another’s assistance would speed up the process exponentially. As you witnessed, you are not the only one aware of my presence here, and the sooner I am able to leave, the better.”
Jim thought of the countless hours he put into fixing his tractors, ploughs, and other farm equipment. How different could a spaceship be?
Jim Kirk, repairing a crashed spaceship with a not-so-little green man.
“Okay, sure, I’ll help you,” Jim told him, grinning.“When do we start?”