Title: The Mohorovicic Incident

Author: Milliecake

Fandom: Star Trek (2009)

Category: Adventure/Drama/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Mild swearing, violence

Disclaimer: Do not own, just a fan creation

Summary: The time line has changed and Jim Kirk has had to fight for his captaincy. When an early away mission goes wrong and the life of the youngest crew member hangs in the balance, he must fight once again for the Enterprise…this time to keep her.

Author's Notes: Apologies for the delay in finishing this, after losing this chapter the muse didn't just go away, she fled screaming. Looks like it will be December 2012 before we get our next Star Trek installment. Anyway, thank you for reading, hope you all enjoyed.

OoOoO

Restless fingers fidgeted with the edge of a med bay blanket that stubbornly refused to fray. Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov could not help a small sigh as he observed his Captain, the older man's words soundless through the clear panels of the Doctor's office in Medical Bay. Fading bruises still marred the Captain's features, but they were his badges of honour for his victory.

He had been fortunate enough to have been discharged two days earlier, while Chekov was consigned to stay for at least another two days. Or at least until Doctor McCoy stopped threatening to sedate him if he so much as put a toe out of bed...again.

He wished very much to be back on duty as soon as possible, but Doctor McCoy had been firm. I didn't plug you over on that ship just to let you start leaking all over the Enterprise's deck, Chekov believed the words had been. Still, he felt light duties would have been an acceptable compromise and had pestered the Doctor with his reasonable pleas until a painful jab and the hiss of a hypo had incapacitated him for a few hours.

Now he was very wary of the Doctor who clearly had the tactical advantage when it came to silencing opposition to his rule of Medical Bay.

Yes Chekov had been injured and it had not been pleasant but seeing the Captain released from enforced captivity made him itch to be back in uniform once again. And perhaps seeing that he was fit for duty once more would ease the tension that still existed between the Doctor and the Captain.

It was with embarrassment that Chekov could recall much of his superiors' argument, even more so that he knew he had been the sole cause. He wished he had not caused so much trouble but he could see no way to repair the damage himself.

So instead, Chekov was forced to watch their strained, stilted discussion through the glass, unable to suppress another tiny sigh. This time he received a nudge to his leg that brought him out of his reverie.

"Hey, we boring you?" Sulu was perched on the edge of the bed but the helmsman's grin informed Chekov it was a joke and not a question to be taken seriously.

Still, the youth felt abashed he was ignoring his friends and he struggled to sit up straighter, wincing at the pain the small movement brought him.

"Carefully Pavel." The gentle admonishment came from Uhura this time, as she stood to adjust his pillow, then smoothed out the blanket his fingers had been worrying at. Yes, she was just like his sisters, treating him like a little boy but he just smiled innocently at her.

"Eet is nothing," he told her, with a loose shouldered shrug. And it was the truth, he did not see the importance of his injury other than he was healing. Uhura had not fussed over Captain Kirk. If anything she had been dismissive of the older man, laughing at his groaning, languishing attempts to gain her pity and consolation when she had visited Medical Bay.

"Don't say that," she chided, but still gently, pushing the curly hair from his forehead. "You saved the Captain's life."

"And ours with those telemetry calculations," Sulu chipped in. "I mean look at you, not even eighteen and saving the ship."

Chekov could feel a blush warming his cheeks at their praise and he smiled shyly. "Eet is what anyone else would have done. You saved us too Hikaru," he pointed out. "I have read ze reports."

Now it was the older man's turn to blush slightly, but he grinned too.

"Spock has put him in for a commendation," Uhura added, eyes sparkling.

Chekov could feel a delighted look spread across his own face at that news. "Congratulations Hikaru, you deserve this very much!"

He had read what Sulu had done for the Enterprise, piloting her with such expertise under such extreme circumstances. He felt he was very lucky to have as friends such distinguished members of the crew.

Uhura suddenly swept her long hair back behind her shoulders before reaching for a data padd she'd brought, offering it to Chekov with a small flourish. He hesitantly took the padd with a puzzled look, seeing the other two share a quick, secretive smile.

"This was meant for your birthday," Uhura told him, leaning over slightly to turn it on.

Chekov glanced quickly towards the Medical Bay's office, wondering if what she was about to give him would be considered contraband, to be kept hidden.

The Doctor had been overly strict on what he'd allowed Chekov to work on while confined to Medical. Half a dozen projects were going unattended and the young Ensign had felt he was being unfairly restricted when his data padds were confiscated at the end of each evening. He would have been keen to point out to Doctor McCoy that he had been injured in the stomach, not his head, if he were sure the consequences wouldn't have involved the biting jab of a hypospray.

"Uhura's been working on it for a couple of weeks now," Sulu was saying, as she navigated the device to one of the more security restricted sections of the ship's computer.

"As I said, it was going to be a surprise," she said, straightening, "but I think you can have it now."

Chekov looked between the two, unable to read their playful smiles, then back to the padd. He couldn't begin to fathom what it was on the padd they wanted him to see.

"Go on," Sulu encouraged.

Chekov hesitated. A familiar self-conscious feeling flooded him, arising every time he had to give his authorisation code to the ship's computer. It was a source of merriment to some of the other crew members, but Sulu and Uhura both knew of his frustration and...humiliation, that such a thing as a computer did not consider his level of Standard worthy.

Yet his friends were waiting expectantly and he sighed, mentally shaping the v's in his head and willing his mouth to follow suit. "Ensign Authorisation Code: Nine Five W-Viktor..."

"No, not like that," Uhura stopped him mid sentence, her fingers hovering over his mouth. "Naturally."

He winced, shifted in the bed. Why was she torturing him like this? Did she not know he was an injured person?

"Ensign Authorisation Code: Nine Five Wiktor Wiktor Two." There, he had said it and now the computer would rebuke him.

"Access Granted." The computerised female voice responded briskly.

Chekov blinked in surprise, then looked up at his friends with wide eyes. Realising what they had done, his astonishment burgeoned into a brilliant, dazzling smile.

OoOoO

The kid was beaming from ear to ear. Following Jim's line of sight, McCoy hesitated in reciting the medical report back to the distracted Captain and frowned slightly. He'd warned Chekov's friends the kid was meant to be resting, healing, not turned into some excitable puppy.

He tossed the padd down to the desk, rubbing at his eyes. Jim wasn't particularly interested to know his own progress report anyway, only that he was clear for duty and the injuries he'd sustained on Io X weren't going to affect his responsibilities. McCoy was tired, irritable himself, he hadn't been sleeping well since the whole incident. As a skilled doctor, he'd recognised the symptoms, knew the cause, could easily recommend a treatment. But as one to ignore his own good advice, he'd prescribed himself a few shots of liquor off-duty instead. Even light years from Earth, old habits died hard. There was comfort in the routine and physician heal thyself be damned.

"I guess we're done here," he told the disinterested Captain.

Sitting before him, Jim nodded, brisk and professional and the distance between them suddenly gaped wider than ever before. McCoy silently cursed himself, cursed his sharp, thoughtless tongue and the misery he heaped on the people around him. But he knew, the longer he left it, the more irreparable the damage, the harder it was going to get.

May as well grow a pair and do this now, he thought, sourly, as Jim pushed to his feet.

"Look, Sir," McCoy began, awkwardly. Then pushed on, "Jim. What I said...back on the Mohorovicic." He slumped back in his chair, raising his eyes to meet the Captain's, ashamed but unwilling to back down from the apology he'd been running through his head for days. "I was wrong. I'm sorry." He wasn't one for big speeches.

Jim's face didn't change, his blue eyes remained steady, cool. He nodded. "Accepted."

It was an aloof acknowledgement, one of a Captain to an officer and McCoy glanced away, through the glass to where Uhura, Sulu and Chekov were still sharing their youthful friendship.

He expected the whisk of the office door, was jolted by surprise when instead, Jim retook his seat, sitting back calmly to meet McCoy's eyes, his own thoughtful. After a moment, he spoke. "I didn't start this."

McCoy blinked, racking his brain for what had been said in their earlier conversation, wondering with clinical detachment if sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption would cause loss of short term memory so rapidly.

"I...Captain I don't..."

"This. The Enterprise," Jim continued, gesturing about the office. "This was Pike's dream."

Well that was as clear as creek water. It was unusual for Jim Kirk to be so...cryptic. McCoy knew him to be an up front, plain talker. He still didn't have a clue what the younger man was getting at and had a feeling the Captain was trying to make him understand something. But he didn't have the damnedest idea what.

Jim tilted his head to the trio outside in Medical Bay. "You think Chekov is too young, right? For this."

McCoy was still bewildered but at least recognised the argument as familiar territory.

It hadn't been so long ago that he, Jim and Spock had been discussing the crew and the kid's age had cropped up, resulting in a three-way argument whether it was right for Starfleet to recruit children onto potential warships. Of course Spock had been logical, pointing out that lack of maturity, not years, was the very real barrier to a Starfleet career. Jim had been more profusive, citing how Chekov had been the one to work out how to intercept Nero's ship, that youth had a lot to offer in terms of thinking beyond the proverbial box.

McCoy had been the only voice of dissent. The only healer who had already seen injuries so brutal, deaths so wasteful...the only father among them.

"He's seventeen for crying out loud!" he answered Jim, exactly as he had answered back then. A simple answer to the argument that, to him, seemed plain as day.

Jim paused, considering him again with that calm, unreadable look. "Did you ever read Pike's dissertation on the USS Kelvin, about the way my father died?"

The change of subject again caught McCoy by surprise and he wiped a hand over his face exhaustedly, patience starting to slip. "No Jim I didn't. Look, I'm not following you..."

"Did you know, back then, Starfleet was more concerned about the loss of the ship than what actually had happened?" Jim continued. "On the board of inquiry that followed, they questioned Captain Robau's actions, questioned his decision to investigate the anomaly, his decision to go over to the enemy ship." Jim leaned forward. "It was suggested that the Kelvin could have made it out of the system if my father had been less concerned about saving the crew. About saving me and my mother."

McCoy frowned at that. Not that it was unexpected. Starfleet had its share of higher up, number crunching assholes. And it was easy to pick apart field decisions from the comfort of an office.

"Pike wasn't even an officer when he wrote that dissertation," Jim pointed out. To McCoy he didn't seem bitter or perturbed that Starfleet had been so dismissive of his father's sacrifice. Maybe he'd had a long while to come to terms with it. "But it changed him. It made him want to change Starfleet. Bones, he's the one who started all of this. And it all began with my father."

Jim's gaze had turned a piercing blue, the very look he got when he was fast onto something, something that other people hadn't yet caught up with. McCoy recognised that look.

Months earlier at the Academy, sitting across from McCoy in the mess hall, he'd been pondering his failure of the Kobayashi Maru test. His eyes had suddenly lit up in the exact same way with the realisation that the test was designed to be unwinnable, the cocky look that followed meant he was going to try to beat it anyway. And only weeks later, on the Enterprise's maiden voyage, that very same look, trusting his instincts enough to storm the Bridge, knowing they were flying into a trap.

And later again, that utter, blazing certainty that drove him to wrest the Captaincy of the Enterprise and ultimately go on to save Earth.

McCoy realised that while Jim Kirk lacked Spock's cold, inhuman logic and Chekov's aptitude for maths, had no skill in linguistics and could barely fly a ship with passable grace, he embodied something else entirely...a brilliant mind open to the possibilities with the gut instinct of a true commander, someone who would never look before leaping, because he would never need to second guess himself.

Slowly, the older man was beginning to understand, the niggling question why Pike, against all reason, had promoted Kirk to First Officer all those months ago.

"Chekov, Olsen, Spock, me...we were all Pike's choices," Jim said. "He didn't care about Chekov being a kid, or Olsen being reckless or Spock being...well, Spock," he added, with a wry grin. "Or...that I was the repeat offender who got drunk in bars. He took each of us and put us all here, on this ship."

Out in the Medical bay, Spock had joined Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. The First Officer caught the Doctor's gaze, inclined his head to McCoy, a padd in his hand. By his look, McCoy could tell he had a report to deliver to the Captain, but he'd have to wait until McCoy was done here. Because there was no way in hell he was ending this conversation now, not until Jim was done talking.

"Pike picked you not because of who, or what, you were," he said, carefully, "but because he'd seen your potential, what you could be."

Jim nodded. "When I took over as Pike's relief four months ago, you know what he told me? 'Now you're Captain, it's no longer a question of who'll let you, but who will stop you'."

McCoy frowned at that. "That's a hell of a lot of responsibility to dump on someone's shoulders."

Jim grinned crookedly at that, he didn't seem to upset by that responsibility anyway. "That's why I have you. And Spock."

McCoy grimaced at the image that popped into his head. "An angel and a demon on each shoulder? Should I ask which of us is holding the pitchfork?"

He'd never admit it, not even under threat of death by transporter malfunction, but Kirk's laughter at his words brought more comfort than he'd ever have thought. And a glimmer of hope that maybe things would be ok between them after all.

"You know why I signed up for the Academy?" Jim asked, suddenly.

"Well it wasn't the food," McCoy shot back, sourly. It wasn't his best rejoiner, but he felt like he was back on even ground with the Captain, clawing back three years of friendship and trust that he'd almost destroyed in three thoughtless seconds.

"Or the health benefits," Jim replied, wincing as he shifted his bruised body in the chair. "After Pike found me in that bar, I read his dissertation that night. I realised that, what my father did, that his legacy wasn't just saving me. It was about changing attitudes in men like Pike, about not being so afraid to be out here, discovering new civilisations and planets. Saving people."

If the discussion had taken place during one of their off-duty shifts, McCoy would have shot back with an Earth saying - if you go about poking things with a stick, don't be surprised if it turns and bites back.

To him, the Universe was best left well alone. Unlike Kirk he'd never had a burning passion for Starfleet and space exploration, he'd signed up for the Academy to escape an ugly divorce in which a woman he'd once loved had done her level best to destroy any remaining happy memories for him on Earth.

But he understood. Jim's passion for adventure, for exploration, playing the good guy and winning the fight... it wasn't about pride or arrogance, or being seen as a hero, all those things McCoy had accused him of being back on the Mohorovicic.

It was his father's legacy and it was Pike's. It was showing others how to have courage in the face of fear in a way the Kobayashi Maru could never do.

And it was sending a clear message to the Starfleet admiralty, to those inflexible men and women that were no doubt watching the young Captain with predatory eyes, that Jim Kirk would continue that legacy.

That he would go and go boldly, where others feared to tread.

OoOoO

"Captain." Spock's cool greeting met Kirk as he strode across the Medical Bay, McCoy a figure trailing behind.

Kirk nodded to the gathering of his Bridge officers and turned his attention to his young Navigator. "How are you feeling Mr Chekov?"

The Russian looked slightly startled to be the sudden object of so many eyes, but he straightened to attention as much as he was able. "I-I am perfectly fine now Keptin."

"Like hell you are," McCoy cut in gruffly, checking out the monitor above the bed. "Five more minutes then visiting hours are over." When Chekov opened his mouth to protest, "No discussion."

Kirk was forced to hide his smile at the stern, overprotective tone and finally allowed Spock to draw him aside.

"We have received a communication from Starfleet," the Vulcan began without preamble, turning the data padd he'd been holding over to Kirk. "The Enterprise wasn't the only ship to have suffered a direct attack."

Kirk frowned as scrolled down the communique, feeling McCoy approach, peering over his shoulder without even trying to appear unobtrusive. The Doctor never did like being left out of the loop, especially when it came to command matters.

"It appears, however," Spock continued, "that we are the only ship to have survived."

"What?" McCoy gave voice to the shock Kirk felt.

Two other ships, USS Newton and Endeavour, both constitution class. The first destroyed, the second missing without a trace.

"And no one knows who those people were," Kirk finished, handing back the padd. Spock took it wordlessly. "Still, we survived, and with no fatalities. Thanks to you Spock."

The Vulcan raised an elegant brow. "Thank you but I believe it was what you would call a...team effort, Captain. There were many involved in our success on this mission, yourself included."

Kirk felt a sudden impish urge. "So modest Spock when you were the one who decided to take out that other ship by losing to a game of chicken."

McCoy snorted at that, and though Spock remained impassive, Kirk thought he detected a gleam in the other's dark eyes. "I can assure you Captain, it was the logical choice."

"Winning by losing," Kirk mused aloud, grinning. He was pretty sure he could eke Spock's 'solution' out for a few weeks worth of amusement yet. "Pure genius Spock. It would never have occurred to me."

"If one wins the scenario, then does it matter as to how one came to that victory?"

"Ha! I knew it!"

"Captain?"

"When I beat your little test at the Academy, you sure as hell thought it mattered then."

"That was...different."

"Different how?"

"Oh for the love of..." McCoy exploded, huffily, folding his arms. "Get a room both of you. Or better yet, get the hell out of my sickbay. People here need their rest. Including me."

Spock hesitated, then conceeded with a small, polite nod to the Doctor, the gleam still lurking in his dark eyes as he departed.

Kirk appeared oddly uncertain for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision, turning to face McCoy. "Me and Spock have a few mission details to go over tonight. Just small stuff for the log." He glanced towards the door, then back at McCoy. "Maybe you'd care to join us."

It was an open invitation, a chance to return to how things had been before and if McCoy was honest, it was something he had dearly missed. Jim's friendship. Jim ragging on Spock. McCoy ragging on them both. He nodded briefly, hoped to god Kirk didn't take his silence for anything, even the small lump that had appeared in his throat which was clearly something of a medical nature that he'd have to get checked out.

Kirk turned to leave and McCoy glanced towards his only patient, ready to usher out Chekov's friends, considering whether to confiscate the data padd the kid was holding onto like it was his teddy bear.

"Oh and Jim," McCoy said, suddenly finding his voice and Kirk paused, turning back before the sickbay doors closed on him. "Next time you have me beam down to a freezing, exploding moon full of armed mercenaries and falling ice, we're taking those damn redshirts."

Kirk grinned. "You got it," as the doors slid closed.

END