A/N: I'm purging my files, so expect several updates in a row. I apologize for any errors or lacking quality - some of this is old and hardly edited.

The Boy Who Would

It had been a long day and tomorrow promised to be longer. Jim sighed under his breath and curled up under their thinnest blanket for his watch. He always made sure to take the longest shift since the others were so young and desperately needed the rest.

It had only been a week, he'd guess, but it felt like months. Everyone was hungry. He'd managed to snag some supplies and spread them out for the first few days, but feeding thirteen growing children was difficult in better times, let alone times like these.

Kodos' soldiers were everywhere, nobody had eaten for the last two days, and Jim had the awful feeling that things were going to get worse before ever getting better. He shut his eyes a moment on the despair that tried to devour him, body and soul. He was tired. He was so damn tired.

Sighing once more, Jim opened his eyes, refusing to neglect his self-assigned duties. These children were his now and he would take care of them, no matter what it cost him. Maybe because there had never been anyone to take care of him, maybe because, just like him, they had no one else. Either way, it didn't really matter why.

He was James Kirk, he was stranded in hell, but he was his father's son. When it came right down to it, Kirks did not surrender – not to the odds, not to death, and certainly not to a bastard like Kodos. Jim knew, like he knew his mother might as well have died with his dad and that nothing would ever be easy, that one day the whole universe would know it. He would show them.