Hello all! This is my second Star Trek story, and my first ever challenge for the Tarsus IV community…I won't tell you what the prompt is (I don't want to spoil the story!) but feel free to go look it up.

Before I begin, I want to give thanks to my beta, The Laughing Phoenix, for putting up with far too many late night Skype messages and for editing this monster of a story in under 48 hours. She's amazing, and words cannot express how grateful I am. Thanks also to hollow echoes, for encouraging me to do the challenge in the first place, even if it didn't exactly stay under our 10k limit.

The title of this song comes from the OneRepublic song "Marching On", and each chapter is named after a line in the song. Please go give it a listen, if you haven't heard it already. It's an excellent song that I think very neatly sums up the entirety of this story.

Lastly, I hope you enjoy this story!!

Prologue: And We'll Have the Scars to Prove It

There are defining moments in every person's life. These are the moments that shape the person, the moments that reveal the true depths of morals and feelings and intelligence. These moments become the center of a person's sense of self, the center of their belief of where they fit in with the universe, shows them what they will and will not do when pushed to the edge. At times the moments are disquieting, when a person realizes something that they cannot stand to acknowledge about themselves and bury it as deep as they are able. Sometimes the moments are small, unnoticeable. They are decisions made without conscious thought, but send those who make the decisions down certain paths that cannot be changed, even if they aren't aware of the life-changing nature of their choice. Other times they are overwhelming, blazing points of thought and emotion that are so deeply ingrained into a person's psyche, a person's being that it becomes what a person is. These are the situations where the true measure of what a person is- who a person is- is tested without fail.

It is here that people are broken more often than they are made whole.

James Tiberius Kirk is made up of a lot of moments, like all people are. Those iridescent moments, however, the moments that sum up his being, the moments that define what lines he will cross, and what can be sacrificed…he has three of them.

There is first the moment, which is the very first time that he understands, well and truly understands that his father is dead. It's the day that his grandfather Tiberius dies, and he realizes that 'dead' is this horrible thing full of stillness and paleness and tears. It's black mourning and gravestones and shaking hands. It terrifies Jim on too many levels for him to comprehend for a long time. This is the very first time that he understands that he is the cause of his father's death even though he was just a small being just coming into this universe, naked and cold and crying and unaware. He was the reason that his father stayed to drive the ship on a collision course. They say he did it to save the other people too, of course, and it's true- but Jim knows that if it weren't for the fact that he, the squalling newborn, and she, the loving wife, had been present, things might not have turned out quite the same. He can't stop thinking about it, agonizing over moments that could have gone differently. He wants to know more, to reach the epiphany his father reached, to see things as his father, the one that put the empty hole in his heart that he can't even begin to describe, did, but Winona doesn't speak much of those days. It's a long time before he understands that even though it wasn't always easy to love him, to love the reason that her husband was killed, she does love him, sweet and pure and hard- she just can't always show it, and that hurts him too. Even with that love, though, that knowledge of how he was born defines him in more ways than he dares to consider. Winona's love simply isn't enough. There isn't anyone whose love is enough. It's a small eternity before Jim realizes that sometimes, life must be set aside for other things, for greater things. Sometimes, life must be set aside for love.

The third moment is what the Starfleet likes to call 'The Narada Incident'. Three words that make it seem so simple, so cut and dry. Those three words don't encompass Bones's face as he patches up person after person, doing the most good he can for the most people possible even after being awake for nearly forty eight hours straight. They don't touch that broken-lost-little-boy-hurt look on Spock's face with the realization that the one person he knew without fail loved him is gone. They can't comprehend Chekov's stuttering, painful admission that he lost Amanda, or Sulu's gasping breath as he is overcome with terror in a free fall that should have ended in death, or Uhura's choked tears that come later when she can no longer hold back the soul-numbing sadness at the loss of Vulcan. These are only a handful a moments from that fateful trip, a handful of the moments that stand out with agonizing clarity. Scotty's sound of pure horror that sends goosebumps down Jim's arms, Pike's broken form lying on nothing more than a steel plate, Gaila's green skin splattered with blood; these moments and more give him nightmares. With them, however, comes the realization that he is finally, finally, home. These are his people, his family- he finally gets it, gets why his father made the decisions he did, and realizes that he would do the same. It's a blinding moment, the realization that from this moment he is the ship's husband and the crewmembers his children, that they are irrevocably bound together because he cannot, not for a single moment, fail the people under his protection. They are his in ways he is just beginning to understand. Jim also realizes that he wouldn't have it any differently. It's a struggle sometimes, to manage it, but he keeps trying and he gets better every day.

From the day his father died, he gains understanding as to why people choose to die. From the day he stood on the bridge as Captain of the Enterprise, he gains an understanding that there were people for whom he'd die.

But there is the second moment to be considered still, and this moment defines him as much as the others do.

Tarsus IV.

From Tarsus IV, he gains the understanding what he would do to keep people alive.

That, perhaps, was the most dangerous understanding of all.

TBC