A/N: Okay, Angst!fic ! Requested by jdpenny121, this is an angsty story of (so far) undetermined length. General whumpage and H/C will abound if all goes well. Ah, some parts later on may be a tad trigger-worthy, so this your warning: if torture or the idea of torture disturbs you, do not read this tale. There won't be over-the-top torture, but it will still be there. This chapter was going to be longer, but I've saved the second half for chapter 2. Review, and you will be able to read the next chapter without waiting too long. Thank you!

Memory was a funny thing, Kirk mused. He lay on his back on his bed, fingers laced across his chest and one knee drawn up. His eyes tracked the grooves on the ceiling, tracing the same pattern over and over again. The shift had ended an hour ago, and Kirk had gone to bed early.

But like every night for the past two months, he stayed up late in his quarters, turning memory over in his head.

For instance, happy memories: brief, fleeting, but sharp within the moment. They faded quickly over time. Kirk wondered if this recall failure was why Man kept pursuing happiness: he always forgot about it.

Frightening moments: crisp and clear when happening, but one could only remember flashes afterward. Maybe that was why Kirk could never figure out how he got so banged up in a fight: he couldn't remember what exactly happened.

Selective as memory was, it seemed that the only details that remained as fresh as ever were those attached to tragedies. Sad moments, disasters, and even cases of guilt stuck firmly in the mind, refusing to leave. Kirk had seen many tragedies over the years. Some ached more than others. But the worst memory he had now by far consisted of just three, little words.

He wasn't the only one affected by those words. But he was definitely the most disturbed by them. He was responsible, he was addressed, and he was the one who gave the damned order.

It was all his fault.

The rest of the bridge had tried to convince him that, when one looked at the entire situation, it could be traced back to Starfleet. Spock had even showed up one night with practically a flow chart analyzing every aspect of those circumstances which logically proved that Kirk made the best call in every case and that if anyone was at fault it was Starfleet for sending them on that mission in the first place.

Didn't stop him from blaming himself.

Eventually the bridge crew learned to just let him be.

And every night, Kirk went to bed early and remembered, turning the memory over and over in his mind, trying to figure out how things could have gone differently, what he could have done.

The mission was doomed from the start. From the moment Starfleet gave them their orders everyone knew it was a bad idea. The cloaking device they had retrieved from the Romulans had only barely worked- it failed completely once they were back in Federation space. The scientists of Starfleet and the Federation had eagerly accepted it, studying its operations and configuring it for starships.

Now, they had a prototype.

And who better to field test it than the ship that first stole it?

They had all been assured that the new cloaking device worked. It passed every laboratory test and trial run thrown at it. All it needed, before being issued as standard in the latest ships, was field test miming a combative/stealth approach.

Namely, it needed to be used exactly how one would use it in a real-life situation.

Like when up against an enemy.

It was entering the lions' den in nothing more than a lion costume, Kirk had thought, and he told them so. The scientists and admirals refused to hear his reservations, still telling him to carry on with the mission. Fly into the Neutral Zone, activate the cloaking device, and fly into Romulan space undetected. After zipping around for a while, return to Federation space with a report on the cloaking device's performance.

It was a complete disaster.

They weren't supposed to encounter any Romulan ships, much less a full patrol. And the cloaking device wasn't supposed to fail, despite Scotty's valiant attempts at resurrecting life into the thing.

Long story short (because memory only recalled flashes during intense, frightening moments) Kirk found himself running through a Romulan Bird-of-Prey, phaser in hand, uniform torn and his shoulder bleeding. The warriors on the ship were chasing him, a fact he was keenly aware of every time a disruptor hit the bulkhead nearest to him.

Pelting through the dimly lit corridors, he would see glimpses outside, into space. His heart lurched every time. His beautiful, silver lady was spinning, bleeding from her hull, fires burning near her engines, and firing desperately against her attackers. The complete silence that met Kirk's ears when a phaser shot ripped through her shields was an eerie, morbid contrast to the visual explosion.

And then Kirk was twisting through some pipes and diving behind a door to escape his attackers.

He opened his communicator, sensing that now may be the last opportunity he had for privacy before the Romulans zeroed in on his position. "Enterprise, come in!"

"Enterprise here, Spock speaking."

Kirk breathed a sigh of relief. At least Spock had made it back onboard. A half-crazed smile twitched at his face at the hilarious realization that Spock was the only person who could be in command of a dying ship in battle and still sound so monotonous and professional.

"Beam me aboard, quickly!"

"Acknowledged." Kirk could feel the tingle of the transporter beam before Spock even finished speaking. They must have tied in the communicators to the transporter room.

As Kirk vanished, he saw that the Romulans had finally found his position.

He stumbled on the transporter pad when he rematerialized. An ensign manned the transporter, dividing his attention between Kirk and someone on the floor. The ship rocked horrendously, sending both men into the nearest wall.

"Ensign! Report! Who's back on board?" Kirk demanded, shouting over the noise of his groaning ship.

"I don't know sir!" the man yelled back. He pointed, and Kirk realized that the body on the floor was Lt. Kyle. "The last explosion sent him into the bulkhead and knocked him out when I came in. I know I've beamed aboard you and Lt. Adams, but I don't know who all he got."

Kirk smacked the bulkhead was his fist. "Very well. Stay at the transporter in case we need to get more people outta there!" he shouted as he ran out.

The halls were chaotic as repair crews ran everywhere, desperately trying to fix what they could. Kirk surged his way to the bridge in record time, storming out of the turbolift onto the scene.

The bridge was a clatter of noise and frantic measures. Uhura was multitasking like never before, relaying emergency calls, assessing damage reports and still monitoring the Romulan channels to try and crack the code. Sulu and Chekov moved as one, doing what they could with the damaged ship to avoid getting shot at and still hitting their attackers. It wasn't much, Kirk could tell they just lost some sort of power by the lights flickering ominously overhead.

As if sensing his presence, Spock vacated the captain's chair and simultaneously appeared at his own station. "Two warbirds coming from starboard," he reported gravely, towards Sulu and Chekov. "Upwards evasive recommended."

The deck tilted as they complied, and the ship groaned as she moved. "Engineering! What've we got?" Kirk piped down from his chair, desperately trying to get a hold on the situation.

"We've lost shields 2, 4, an' 5," Scotty reported. He sounded rushed and, something Kirk had never heard from him before, panicked. "The cloaking device is absolutely fried… navigation… severely diminished… can't…" the static increased and the channel died.

"Scotty!" Kirk whirled. "Lt.! Get back Engineering!"

"I'm trying sir!" Uhura cried. "Circuit short outs are racing across the board!"

"Fix them!" Kirk roared. Something collided with the belly of the ship and they rolled, spinning over onto their back. Kirk experienced a peculiar sense of vertigo as he looked at the upside-down warships on the screen while standing upright. The benefits of artificial gravity.

"Who do we have back on board?" he demanded, asking Uhura, Spock… whoever heard him. "I haven't heard from Riley, McCoy, Garrick or Barrows!"

"I think Riley's back!" Sulu shouted over his shoulder. "I thought I saw him- or was that before you guys left?" Another explosion, this time from port.

"NOT helping, Lieutenant!" Kirk shouted.

"There was considerable transporter usage," Uhura managed to report, one hand still deftly flying over her controls. "Unknown who's come and gone!"

"Captain," Spock's urgent voice carried across the hectic bridge. "Shields and sections of the primary hull have reached the breaking point. Two more direct hits and we will not survive the resulting breach."

Kirk's gaze snapped to the battlefield before him. There was only the Bird-of-Prey in view right now, lurking ominously towards him.

No way to tell if anyone was still on it.

There was another blast to the ship and lights died, emergency power spluttering on to bring them back to life. The odds were awful.

"Only one more hit before the ship dies," Spock reported.

"Scotty! Do you have warp power?"

"Aye, sair, barely!"

"Stand by!" Kirk still gazed out at that Bird-of-Prey, trying to divine if it held anyone else inside. Spock was also scanning it, but bio-sensors were slow…

"Their phasers are powering up, Captain."

Chekov had the course set in for a massive retreat, Sulu's hand hovering between the warp drive and the phaser button, for whatever Kirk may command.

"Power levels reaching their peak."

"Warp out!" Kirk shouted, part to Sulu, part to Scotty. Both men responded with professional ease and sheer desperation. It always took only seconds for Kirk's command to travel into execution.

And in those time-suspended seconds, three little words crackled through the bridge from Uhura's console.

"Jim, beam me-"

And they were at warp.

And the silence was white. It was so white and deafening that no beep came from any button, no klaxon blared its warning, and no chatter filtered through from Uhura's board. Nobody spoke, all frozen in their positions from warp, hardly daring to breathe as those last, three, little words drifted down and landed softly on the deck like embers from a fire.

Even when reality slammed back into everyone else and they clattered to make sure they were en route into Federation space and then inside Federation space, Kirk sat in his chair absolutely stunned. There was some kind of roaring in his ears, a buzzing sound, and those three words tumbled around endlessly in his brain.

For James T. Kirk, who came back for every last crewman, had just left his friend behind.