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In the aftermath of his death and improbable resurrection, Jim Kirk received a fair number of visitors. Spock and Bones had been there when he'd first woken, and there'd been a steady stream of visitors since - his mother, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov. Even the older, alternate versions of himself and Spock had come to see him. None surprised him as much as when Admiral Christopher Pike strode into his room.
"Sir." Reflexively, Jim straightened as best he could on the biobed.
"Relax," Pike said casually. "I'm not on duty, and you sure as hell aren't."
I might never be on duty again. Jim shoved the thought aside, focused on the visitor he had in this moment. "Good to see you up and around, sir. Last I heard, you were still in surgery."
The last he'd heard… that had been before he'd begged Admiral Marcus to let him go after John Harrison - Khan - whatever he wanted to call himself. Things had gotten very busy after that, and Jim hadn't had the chance to follow up on Pike's condition.
Then he'd gone into the warp core, and as he'd died, he'd hoped that Pike had survived.
"This wasn't nearly as bad as the surgery after Nero," Pike's voice brought Jim back to the present. "I was only on restricted duty for a week."
"Good to hear it, sir." And it was.
"You, on the other hand," Pike glared at him, "are looking at weeks of PT. What the hell were you thinking?"
"That if I didn't fix the warp core, they were all dead," Jim answered almost reflexively, but he knew Pike would understand he meant every word.
… Or maybe not, considering the odd look Pike was giving him.
Just as Jim was starting to shift uncomfortably under that too-knowing gaze, Pike grinned.
"I have got to stop daring you."
Jim blinked. "Sir?"
"I dared you to do better than your father, and by God you did - by a factor with several zeroes behind it," Pike said.
Jim started to protest, but Pike's glare sent the words right back down his throat.
"Then I dared you to respect the chair."
"You told me I wasn't ready for it," Jim corrected him.
Pike quirked an eyebrow at him. "Isn't that a dare?"
Jim thought about it for a moment. "I guess so. But I failed that one."
"How do you figure?"
"How do you not figure?" Jim waved a hand vaguely toward the windows of his room. "Half of San Francisco destroyed. Almost all of the Admiralty dead. A section of Starfleet operating in secret for subversive means."
"None of that is your fault."
"Isn't it? After Khan attacked Headquarters, I … lost it. I was emotionally compromised and didn't recuse myself from duty per regulation 619. Instead, I demanded to be put in charge of the mission to bring him back."
"Commander Spock's report says that Admiral Marcus wanted - ordered - you to kill Khan."
"He did. Spock talked me out of it." Which was putting it mildly, considering the headache he'd gotten after arguing with Spock both verbally and through their bond. The bond that Starfleet didn't know about yet - and explaining why he'd saved Spock's life on Nibiru without telling them had been a challenge.
Despite the privacy Vulcans normally had around such things, not telling them had been Jim's choice. Spock had accepted the necessity, but Jim's own caution had kept the bond secret. Given the existence of Section 31, Jim could only be glad that secret was still kept.
Instead, he'd chosen to call the Admiralty on their hypocrisy. "If you really believed in the Prime Directive," he'd said, "we wouldn't have been at Nibiru in the first place, trying to save a civilization that was doomed to die by natural causes."
He'd been thinking about all of that too often since he'd woken up, and with effort Jim shook it off to focus on Pike. "So we took off to Qo'noS, and played right into Khan's hands, and that mess outside is the result. So, yeah, I failed."
"Bullshit."
Jim frowned at Pike.
"You're not responsible for any of that," Pike told him. "If anything, you're responsible for it not being worse."
Jim shrugged, unwilling to believe Pike but also not willing to argue with him.
Pike's next words were unexpected. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
Jim snorted. "Cool that you can quote Shakespeare and all, but captains aren't kings."
"Aren't they?" Pike countered, and Jim stared at him. "I'm not talking about fairy-tale kings, or despots. I'm talking Henry the Fifth."
"Fourth," Jim said.
It was Pike's turn to frown. "What?"
"The quote. It's from Henry the Fourth, Part Two. Henry the Fifth is we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, and once more into the breach."
"I didn't know you were a student of the classics."
Jim shrugged, hoping it looked casual. "My dad had a few antiques."
Pike gave him a questioning look, but let the subject drop - at least for now. "I meant the actual king, not the play. Leading troops into battle, bolstering their morale, that sort of thing. More to the point, kings have to live with the consequences of their decisions, and usually can't sleep as a result. Still want to say that captains aren't similar to kings?"
Jim thought about arguing further, but then shrugged. "Let's say they are. What of it?"
"It's mostly a reminder that you are alone at the top, but not alone in how you feel."
Jim managed a chuckle. "You get a star on your shoulder, and you learn psychology?"
Pike grinned at him in return. "At least you didn't say, with age comes wisdom. Back to the point… What you did epitomizes the chair. It's not about you when you sit in it - it's about them, your crew."
Pike paused, studying him. Jim felt both proud and embarrassed at the admiral's words, and his first instinct was to brush them off with a casual, flip comment. But doing that felt wrong, so he simply nodded an acknowledgment.
"Of course," Pike said after a moment, "I never expected you to nearly kill yourself, even if it was to save your crew."
Jim blinked. Again. Nearly? He'd actually killed himself… Oh. That bit of information was something else the Admiralty didn't need to know, not as long as Section 31 was active. Suddenly, he felt more tired than he had even after he first recovered.
Pike seemed to pick up on that exhaustion, because he stood. "Get better, Kirk. Jim."
"I will, sir. Thanks for coming by."
Jim managed a smile as Pike turned to go, let it fade with Pike's footsteps. He'd been too focused on the miracle of his life and the work of his recovery to think about the implications of everything that had happened, but he knew he'd have to talk to Bones and Spock about just how much they should tell Starfleet.
Maybe Bones shouldn't have brought me back, he thought with morbid humor. Then he kicked himself. He hadn't wanted to die, hadn't sought death as a means to escape - if he hadn't gone over the cliff with his father's antique Corvette as a kid, he sure wasn't going to choose a painful death by radiation burn as an adult - and he was glad to be alive.
Even if it meant dealing with ugly truths he didn't like.
*
Pike hadn't been joking about the weeks of physical therapy, Jim thought as he kicked off the edge of the pool for his last lap. Swimming, walking, running, lifting weights - he'd done all of those and more during the last month, and he was finally starting to feel almost as strong as he'd been before Khan.
Which didn't mean his physical therapist, Lana - a petite woman almost his mother's age who had formerly competed as a weightlifter in the Terran Olympics but failed to make the Federation Games team - was about to let him off easily. She was waiting for him at the edge of the pool, a datapad in her hand.
"Ten seconds slower than last time," Lana said. "What's got you slacking off?"
"Going for endurance over speed is not slacking off," Jim countered.
"If you're going for endurance, give me two more laps," Lana said. Jim grinned at her, then kicked off once more.
When he finished the final lap, Lana nodded. "Good. See you tomorrow for weights."
"Sure I can't see you tonight for drinks?" Jim asked, toweling off his hair.
"Why do you keep asking, when I keep refusing?"
Jim grinned. "If you didn't want me to ask, you'd tell me to stop."
"You keep telling yourself that." Lana turned and strode toward the locker rooms.
"That's still not telling me to stop," Jim called after her. She pretended not to hear him.
He showered and put on his dress uniform, then started for the exit. It was time to face the Admiralty once more, to give his side of the story. They'd already heard from everyone else involved, and now it was his turn.
Jim suspected he had Pike to thank for their courtesy in waiting until he was mostly recovered, even though Pike had recused himself from the inquiry in an abundance of caution. Or maybe they were still reeling in the aftermath of the attack at HQ, where they lost fully half their members plus a few seasoned starship command teams. Either way, even after an early-morning session with Lana, Jim felt ready to take them on.
Four and a half hours later, Jim was reconsidering that readiness, not because he was physically exhausted but because he was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Answering the same questions asked with slightly different phrasing three or four times while not revealing more than they needed to know was more taxing than he'd expected.
Thankfully, he could truthfully say that he'd blacked out in the warp core and had no knowledge of his medical treatment after that, other than what he'd been told, which was probably equal parts hearsay and gossip, and the Admiralty surely didn't want either of those, did they?
Finally, it was over, and Jim was dismissed. He rose, then regarded Admiral Barnett, who'd led the questioning, with a level look.
"I have a question, sir."
Barnett looked surprised. "What?"
"What happened to Khan and his people?" It was the one question neither Spock nor Bones had been able to answer, and Jim found not knowing rested heavily on him.
"Still in cryo-sleep," Barnett replied. "Somewhere they can't hurt anyone again."
It wasn't really an answer, but Jim suspected it was all the answer he'd get. He nodded his thanks and strode directly from the room to the nearest bathroom. He ran cool water over his wrists, then his face, and by the time he'd dried off, he was feeling almost normal again.
He emerged from Starfleet's temporary headquarters into a San Francisco afternoon that was more sunny than cloudy and for a moment, he basked in its warmth.
The door opened behind him, and without looking to see who might have emerged from the building, he stepped to the side to let them pass. Only whoever it was didn't pass, just stood there, a presence at his left shoulder. Jim scowled and turned, his rebuke dying on his lips when he recognized Admiral Pike.
"Sir," he said.
"Barnett said you held up pretty well, all things considered." Pike studied him for a moment. "How bad was it?"
"Bad enough." Jim inhaled a deep breath, let it out slowly. The weight of the secrets he was keeping suddenly felt overwhelming. He cast down the bond he shared with Spock, but that was mostly for his own comfort.
"Can we talk, Admiral?" Jim almost blurted the question, but he didn't move to take it back.
Pike looked curious, then interested. "Come for dinner tonight. Gina would love to see you again. And she has a meeting after, so we can talk. Seventeen thirty?"
"I'll be there, sir."
*
At 1725, Jim announced himself at the Pikes' apartment. He'd only been there once before, not long after the Nero incident, when the admiral's wife wanted to meet the men who'd saved her husband and he and Spock had joined them for dinner then. Gina Pike had been grateful without being overly demonstrative or, worse, hero-worshipping, and Jim understood immediately why Pike had married her.
So when she answered the door, his grin was honest. "Doctor Pike. Thanks for having me on such short notice."
Her answering smile lit her brown eyes. "You're welcome any time, Captain, but don't I remember asking you to call me Gina? Only my students call me Doctor Pike."
"I'll call you Gina if you'll call me Jim," he countered as she stepped back to let him inside.
"Two bottles, Kirk?" Pike asked from where he stood behind his wife. Like Jim, he'd ditched his uniform in favor of more casual clothes.
"One for now, if you want." Jim offered a bottle of a Paso Robles Pinot Noir to Gina. "And one for later, because we'll need it." He offered a bottle of single-grain bourbon to Pike.
"No," Gina said. "No heavy talk during dinner. I get enough of that from Chris."
"Yes, ma'am," Jim said, and followed the Pikes into their home.
Two hours later, Gina glanced at the chronometer and declared she had to leave. "Getting the comm set up to New Vulcan will take a few minutes, and I don't want to be late for the meeting with the new Science Academy."
"Thanks again, Gina," Jim rose, thanks to the manners both his grandfathers had drilled into him, and was only mildly surprised when she came around the table to hug him.
"Don't be a stranger," she told him.
Jim promised he wouldn't, then picked up the plates to carry them into the kitchen to allow his hosts a private goodbye.
Pike followed a minute later with their empty wine glasses, and Jim had a moment's amusement that cleaning up after a meal with an admiral wouldn't even make the top ten strangest things he'd ever done in his life.
When the last dish was put away, Pike pulled a pair of tumblers from a cupboard. Jim followed him into a sitting room, and reached for the bourbon.
"So, what's so serious that it takes a McCoy special to talk about?" Pike asked as Jim extended the bottle to pour.
Jim poured his own glass and took a healthy swallow before he met Pike's gaze. "I'm asking you to keep everything I'm about to tell you in confidence."
Pike's glass froze halfway to his lips. "Kirk -"
"Please, sir," Jim said. "If not for me, then for the respect you have for my father."
He watched Pike's surprise spread across his face. Jim didn't often invoke his father - preferred not to talk about him at all, actually - and he'd done it deliberately to convey how serious he was.
"All right," Pike said finally. "Unless not revealing it will hurt someone."
"It won't," Jim assured him. "Not that Spock or I can see, anyway."
"Commander Spock knows?" Pike only sounded curious.
"He was there for all of it, sir. Of course he does."
Pike nodded thoughtfully, then gestured with his glass "Tell me."
Now that the moment had arrived, Jim wasn't sure where to begin. He took another swallow of the bourbon to buy himself time to think.
"Begin at the beginning," Pike suggested when Jim remained silent even after that drink.
"Never say that to Spock," Jim quipped. "He'll start with the birth of the universe."
Pike chuckled, and Jim let out a breath. "Spock's as good a place to start as any. We're bonded."
Pike choked on his bourbon, and Jim winced. "Sorry, didn't realize you were sipping."
"Bonded," Pike repeated when he could talk again. "As in married?"
"No," Jim assured him. "A warrior bond, a bond between brothers. Apparently it was rare among Vulcans even before Nero."
"How did that happen?"
"On the bridge, when I provoked him. It hasn't compromised either of us. But that's the real reason I went back for him on Nibiru. Everything else was true, just incomplete."
Pike considered that for several minutes, then gave a brief shake of his head. "What else?"
Jim told him, then - all of it, beginning with Khan's attack on Starfleet HQ, Marcus' orders to track Khan and kill him, the decision to bring Khan back to face trial, the confrontation with the Klingons, the standoff with Admiral Marcus and the Vengeance, his and Khan's infiltration of the ship, Marcus' murder, and then the desperate struggle to bring the Enterprise's warp core back online in time to do something, anything to stop Khan's murderous rampage.
"That's when you passed out from the radiation poisoning."
"Not exactly." Jim shifted the tumbler in his hands, then looked up to meet Pike's gaze. "That's when I died from the radiation poisoning."
"You died," Pike repeated, his tone flat.
"Yes, sir. Bones synthesized a serum from Khan's blood and brought me back."
"That's not what the record says."
Jim barked a laugh. "Of course not. Marcus was willing to use Khan himself - a devil's bargain if there ever was one. How much more willing would he, or anyone else for that matter, be to use a serum like that on our own people?"
"You're saying you're as strong as Khan now?" Pike asked.
"No. But I came back from the dead, and Bones thinks I might heal faster and age a bit more slowly as a result of the serum." Jim paused, and when he spoke again, he spoke in his captain's voice. "That's not to say that other serums derived from Khan's blood couldn't provide other benefits."
Pike didn't even blink at the tone he'd used, Jim noted with amusement. He hadn't really expected otherwise.
"Why are you telling me this?" Pike asked finally.
"Because I don't know who else to trust," Jim said. "And as long as Starfleet has Khan and his people, there's always a chance that someone will think about using them the way Marcus tried to, and also a chance, however small, that someone else will think about blood and serums and God only knows what they'll come up with."
Pike swore and bolted the rest of his bourbon. Wordlessly, Jim poured again for both of them.
Finally, Pike looked up, his expression grave. "What do you want to do about it?"
Jim gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Admiral Barnett assured me Khan and his people are somewhere safe."
Pike snorted, so Jim didn't have to. "Safe. Right."
"I'm sure they are," Jim said. "Until another Marcus - or, hell, anyone, even Barnett - decides there's a threat that requires extraordinary measures, and then we're in for a replay of all of this, or worse."
Pike pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I thought integrating the Romulan defectors into New Vulcan society was a challenge."
"That's actually coming along fairly well," Jim said without thinking. "It's approaching the Romulan High Command that's …."
He trailed off as he felt Pike staring at him. Pike gave a quiet sigh. "I don't want to know how you know classified information like that."
"The Vulcan I met on Delta Vega is involved in the effort." Jim paused, reconsidered. "By which I mean he's spearheading it. We keep in touch."
Jim watched Pike file that information away before returning to the matter at hand. "What do you want to do about it?"
Jim didn't try to avoid the question this time. "Part of me wants to launch them into the sun, so they'll never be a threat to anyone again. Part of me wants to try to rehabilitate them, because they could be assets on our side."
Pike's lips twitched. "You have no idea what to do about it."
"Not the vaguest." Jim drained his glass once more. "Anything other than killing them is just making them someone else's problem, but killing them feels wrong."
"Even after what Khan did?"
"Even after," Jim said. "The others weren't even awake for it. Killing them for what Khan did…" he shook his head. "I don't believe in no-win scenarios, but the win in this one makes my stomach turn."
Finally, Pike sat forward and put his now-empty tumbler on the coffee table between him and Jim. He looked up and met Jim's gaze.
"We're not going to solve it tonight."
Jim blew out a breath. "I'd hoped you'd have some brilliant flash of inspiration that's eluded me."
That made Pike chuckle. "Those usually come in the middle of battle. Or bar fights."
"Kinda the same thing," Jim pointed out. Then, "Thanks for listening, anyway."
"Thanks for telling me," Pike responded. From anyone else, the words would've been merely a platitude, but Pike's sincerity rang in every word, and Jim nodded.
"So." Pike's tone changed, and Jim found himself straightening at the challenge in it. "Tell me about my crew."
"Your crew?" Jim couldn't help giving him the challenge right back. "My crew, you mean."
"They were mine before they were yours. Most of them, anyway. How are they doing?"
Jim had to grin, pride filling him. "Best in the fleet."
"I know that," Pike sounded amused. "Tell me what I don't know."