Chapter Text
Jimmy is twelve when they meet the Orion ship. Nobody wants to tell him anything, because— well, because he’s young. Jimmy gets that, but just because he’s twelve doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. He knows it was a slave ship they found. He knows what Orions do to slaves.
Sometimes, people forget how easy it is to get into Starfleet databases.
It takes a bit of doing— Jimmy’s gotten a little bit bigger since he last tried this— but he manages to pick his way through the spider web of wires between the walls easily enough, climbing three stories (having started a story lower than his own quarters to avoid suspicion) with the clever use of the central cooling system and atmospheric control pipes to aid in his advance. He makes it to his preferred Medbay escape route (the ventilation shaft is more than wide enough to let him slip through, though he’s never used it to get in before) and listens until there’s only the quiet whir of life support machines left to hear. Then carefully, carefully, he unscrews his entrance and crawls inside.
Success. Besides the patients (of which there are a few), Jim is alone, which means his escape route is still safe.
Grinning to himself, he reaches out to grab the nearest PADD off the front of the biobed.
“You don’t look like a doctor.”
Jimmy stiffens at the strange, cheerful voice. He looks up from the PADD to see the patient to whom it belonged wide awake.
Also, very small.
“... Hi.”
She is very thin, long-limbed in a way that speaks to sudden growth spurts. There’s a bruise over her left eye, disappearing into the fiery red of her close-cropped hair. She watches him with big, liquid eyes, an easy smile crinkling them at the corners.
“Did they take you from your owners, too?” she asks, tilting her head to one side.
Jimmy blinks.
“No, I live here with my Mother,” he says. “The Federation doesn’t believe in slavery.”
“No?” the girl blinks, genuine puzzlement clear. “Then how does one find their husband?”
“... I don’t know, I’m only twelve,” Jimmy says, frowning. “It just… sorta happens, I guess.”
“That seems… weird.”
“Slavery’s weird,” Jimmy retorts. “Barely anybody does it anymore, except for Romulans, and they’re crazy.”
“Romulans?”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, what’s your name? Also, can you walk?” he asks, glancing at the PADD again. “You look pretty beat up.”
“It’s because I was too young for the market,” she explains with a smile. “So I don’t tempt anyone too old. I’m called Gaila.”
“Gaila is pretty,” Jimmy says, setting the PADD down. “If you’re strong enough, I can break you out of here.”
Gaila pushes down her blankets and throws her legs over the edge of the bed. She’s wearing a hospital gown, the kind that opens up in the back.
“Are we escaping the ship?” she asks.
“Of course not! But Medbay sucks, so let’s go to my room. We can watch holos or play chess or something until dinner— they probably won’t notice you’re gone ‘til then.”
“Oh— alright.”
Jimmy smiles brightly.
“C’mon— through here.”
There’s a short drop that makes Gaila squeak, but other than that, their escape goes off without a hitch. They end up in the hall just outside of the Kirk Quarters, Jimmy rapidly screwing the panel back into place while Gaila watches.
“Kirk.”
Jimmy starts, looking up into the cool, dark eyes of Number One.
“Um...”
“You have staged an elaborate escape,” she remarks. “How long did it take?”
“Err… if you count the time we spent talking? Forty minutes. I started from the floor below, and we had to go slow ‘cause Gaila’s ribs are messed up.”
Number One nods.
“Clever.”
“I need something for her to wear,” Jimmy says, nodding to Gaila. “Mommy’s dresses are too big, though, so I was thinking she could wear a long shirt or something? But the stuff Sam left behind is all too short for that.”
“So what it your plan?”
“Well, Captain Pike’s really tall…” Jimmy trails off, frowning. “But I haven’t managed to override the code to his quarters yet.”
“Still?”
“I’m almost there.”
Number One stares.
“I will get you what you need,” she says. “But you must work harder, Kirk.”
“I’ll get it done, Number One, promise!”
She nods, then turns to Gaila.
“What is your favorite color?”
Gaila blinks, surprised at the sudden attention.
“Uh, green?” she says.
“Chris doesn’t have too much green,” Number One says. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Could I get one of his green shirts too?” Jimmy asks hopefully.
“Perhaps.” She glances at Gaila. “Go to your quarters, Kirk. I will bring you what you need.”
*.*
Thirty minutes laters, Jimmy has his arms full of green fabric.
“Thanks, Number One!”
“Cut off the sleeves before she wears them,” she orders. “She shall not wear his rank.”
“Well, duh.” Jimmy drops the shirts on the bed and hugs Number One around the middle. “Thank you.”
Number One pats his head hesitantly, though not without her usual grace.
“I will keep Doctor Fonseca occupied,” she tells him. “Have fun.”
“We will.” Jimmy let’s go and turns to Gaila.
“So,” he starts as Number One slips out. “Your options are three-quarter sleeve, regular sleeve, or no sleeve.”
*.*
“Fonseca to Bridge.”
Chris hits the comm.
“Pike here.”
“One of my patients is missing.”
Pike’s mouth pinches.
“Which one?”
“The kid.”
“Goddammit.” Pike gets to his feet. “I’ll be right down.”
“Find Kirk, too,” a different, but no less familiar voices chimes in from Medbay’s end.
“Winona?”
“Jimmy.” Fonseca sounds amused. “He’s the only one that’s managed to get out of a locked Medbay before.”
Pike freezes.
“Pull up the security feeds,” he orders. “I’ve got a feeling I know how she got out.”
*.*
“Wart wants to be… a squire?”
“Yeah.” Jimmy crunches on his lollipop absently. The movie he chose for her was The Sword in the Stone— a fun movie, even with all its morality lessons. “It’s like… well, they serve knights, who are like normal soldiers, but better because they work directly for the king, and in return for their services they get trained to be knights too.”
“And he is a ward of Kay’s father.”
“Yeah. His parents are dead.”
“Parents?”
“You know— a mother and a father.”
Gaila gazes blankly at the blond. “I don’t understand.”
Jimmy blinks.
“Well, I don’t have a Father— my Daddy died when I was born,” he says. “But a Mother…” Jimmy trails off. “Mothers give bedtimes and make you brush your teeth in the morning. My Mommy’s pretty fun, even if she makes me eat vegetable and stuff— she lets me play in the engine room and helps me sneak onto the bridge so she can see Pike’s face when he realizes I’m there. She hangs my blueprints on the wall when I come up with a good design, she tells me stories about when she was a kid on Earth, and she gets really happy when I learn to do something new.”
Gaila thinks about that for a moment.
“I don’t think I have a Mother,” she tells him after a moment.
“That’s okay,” Jimmy says. “Sam went away to college— there’s an opening.”
*.*
Jimmy’s not in the engine room. He’s not in the rec room. He’s not in the cafeteria. He’s not on the bridge. Pike thinks it might be opposite day when he catches himself being pissed at Jimmy for not being on the bridge.
“Where the hell did that kid take her?” he hisses to Winona. “She’s sick— underfed, bruised ribs, trauma we can’t even begin to understand—”
“Hell, Chris, I don’t know why you’re so worried,” Winona says. “He’s not gonna hurt her.”
“He helped her crawl into the wall,” Chris points out. “You know it’s basically a jungle gym in there! She can’t move like she’d need to—”
“If that’s the case, then they’re still stuck inside the walls and we can find ‘em easy,” Winona says. “And if she was in real trouble, Jimmy would have got Syruk or somebody right now. Syruk?”
The Vulcan dips his head.
“Jimmy has not contacted me for any reason in the last six hours,” he says. “Though he mentioned that he was going to spend some time in his bedroom.”
Everyone goes quiet.
“Jimmy never spends time in his room if he can help it,” Chris says.
“Sure he does— when he’s binge watching.” Winona grins. “Did you forget to check his bedroom, Chris?”
“How could I forget to check a place he’s never in?” Pike sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Winona?”
“Yeah.”
“I never should have let you bring that baby on board.”
“No, probably not.”
*.*
Winona’s the one that keys in the code to her quarters, but it’s Pike that walks in first. It’s Pike that marches into Jimmy’s room spitting mad, ready to tear the kid a new one.
It’s Pike that deflates the moment the door slides open.
The girl and Jimmy are sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by pillows. There’s a holo on, something with 2D animation that makes Chris’s eyes hurt. The girl’s wearing—
“That’s my shirt,” he realizes. They butchered it.
Jimmy looks up and grins like he’s done nothing wrong.
“She likes green,” he explains. “And she’s not allowed to wear rank, so we cut the sleeves off.”
Oh. Well, if that’s all they did… No, Pike still feels violated. Jimmy Kirk was probably in his room.
He needs to change the codes. Immediately.
“Jimmy, you know how we’re always telling you to stay put when you’re in Medbay?” Chris asks carefully. “Because you need to get better and that’s best done in Medbay?”
“Yeah.”
“The Orion girl—”
“Gaila.”
Pike pauses.
“You got her name?” He sounds surprised. “You speak enough Orion to get her name?”
Jimmy blinks.
“Gaila speaks Standard,” he says slowly, like he might be worried that Chris is actually stupid. “Don’t you, Gaila?”
The girl— Gaila— nods, but doesn’t speak.
Pike suppresses a sigh.
“We’ll get to that later,” he decides. “The point is, Gaila is really hurt. She needs to go back to Medbay and heal.”
“No she doesn’t,” Jimmy says. “I never do. Mommy never does.”
“Well,” Pike smiles slightly. “You Kirks are a special case.”
“Exactly!” Jimmy reaches out to take Gaila’s hand, tugging her towards Winona. “Gaila, this is Mommy— just like we practiced, alright?”
Gaila nods and steps forward, arms raised to wrap around Winona’s waist. Winona stays perfectly still.
“Jimmy says you’re my Mother now,” she tells the blonde solemnly. “Hello, Mommy.”
Winona stares at the little green girl, then looks up at her son.
“Really?” she asks flatly.
Jimmy shrugs.
“She’s my sister now,” he says. “We decided.”
Winona sighs. The last time Jimmy decided something about someone, it was about marriage. She’s not sure if he’s given up on that dream just yet.
It’s better to let his decision stand.
She pats Gaila’s head carefully.
“Well, you know, Jimmy,” she says conversationally. “You were supposed to be a girl. We had a name picked out and everything.”
“Oh? Is that why I have the most unimaginative name in all creation?”
“Yep! We wanted a girl.” Winona’s lips curve into a smirk, “And while you’re about halfway there—”
“Hey!”
“Having a real girl around here might do me some good.”
“Winona, you’re not serious.”
Winona shrugs. Gaila still hasn’t let go. “Why not?”
“So, you see, Captain Pike,” Jimmy says cheerfully. “Gaila’s my sister, which means she’s a Kirk. Kirks are special cases.”
Pike looks at Jimmy, then Winona, then Gaila, then back to Jimmy.
God-fucking-dammit.
He doesn’t think he will survive another one.