First time I try writing something in this fandom, don't be too hard on me!
So, this was supposed to be longer, but I chose to post it as a one-shot first. If the flashes popping in my head don't disappear soon, I'll probably post a second chapter to conclude it for good.

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He didn't know why he'd said it. He really had no idea. It's not that he didn't think it through. Maybe it was because he was so exhausted. Maybe it was because he just wanted something good to happen that day, anything. Maybe it was because he didn't want to walk away from his team. Not after the horrible fucking day they'd had. Not now.

All he knew was that he'd said it. And he shouldn't have.

"Just go ahead, Admiral."

God, he'd said it without a second thought. That in itself showed how unfocused he'd been. McCoy was patching up his hand (the Captain had refused to make a stop by sickbay first), and the whole team was still on edge. He just wanted the Admiral to show whatever he wanted to show and let them be.

But he should've payed closer attention. Damn it, he usually did!

Pike was a clever man, so he probably had his reasons to insist that much.

"I don't think it's a good idea, Captain. You should see this privat-"

"Just go ahead, Admiral."

Damn, he should have shut his mouth and listened.

But he was so damned tired. They had just retrieved the last kids from "the camp" and he knew he should be glad because he had saved them. The Enterprise had saved them. They were safe, aboard the ship. But he couldn't be satisfied. He'd seen the way they'd been treated. He'd seen the camp, the storage rooms where they slept, ate and cried their fucking conscience out.

His memory kept jumbling past and present together and he hadn't been paying attention to the signals in the Admiral's voice.

He didn't understand why Pike didn't want to say or show or read whatever the hell he wanted to say or show or read to him in front of the entire crew.

But Captain James T. Kirk had cut through the doubt with a "Just go ahead, Admiral." And so the Admiral pinched his lips and nodded.

Oh God, how he regretted he'd said those words.

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He didn't recognize the scene at first. But then his mind caught up with the holo and he felt himself stiffen and straighten up on the chair, making McCoy swear and order him still so he could finish whatever he was doing on his left hand. Then Nyota understood and she gasped and spun in her chair to face the large screen full on. That caught the doctor's attention and he finally deigned to look up.

"Holly shit."

Truer words were never spoken. Or that would have been Jim's thought if he even was aware of his direct surrounding.

No no no no no no.

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"Stop talking about your damn sex friends, Orion chick!"

The guy on the left lower corner said to the beautiful, beautiful woman on the other side of the room.

The Captain felt something lurch forward in his chest and he only noticed he was clenching his fists harder than his wound allowed when McCoy noticed and touched his wrist softly to call him back. Jim didn't even glance his way, his attention so totally, unflinchingly focused on the screen.

"Holovids from the surveillance cameras of the Farragut?" Sulu guessed, disbelieving.

"In all probability, just after the first and most effective hit on the ship by the Narada," Spock added, always one for the details.

But Jim wasn't listening to them. The holovid was of bad quality and in black and white, but there she was, on the upper right corner of the screen, in the middle of what looked like an engineering room that had served for battle. She was sitting on the floor, and was holding a man -human, for all Jim could see- between her legs. He was giving her his back and was leaning on her, clearly wounded in the stomach as he was holding his middle. She was stroking his hair, Gaila. Beautiful, sweet Gaila.

"Don't talk to her like that," the wounded man said with difficulty, and Jim felt a surge of fierce approval.

It was immediately washed away by such a powerful mixture of regret, guilt, pain and sadness, that he knew he should be glad to be sitting.

Damn. He knew how this ended.

"He's not my sex friend. He's my little survivor."

No no no no no.

Her voice was just as fierce as it was sweet. It was clear and loud, but Jim thought he could hear something in it. Something that twisted at his chest and made him feel uneasy.

"And he's a warrior. You'll see, he'll do it. He'll pull us through this."

There was such unbreakable faith and determination in her words that Jim though she was talking directly to him. Just like she had, all those times at the academy, when they slipped out of the main buildings to hide behind bushes and get high while staring at the stars. She would look at him and say, "you and I, we're the same. We're survivors." And he'd know she was right.

"I swear to God I'll hit someone if you don't shut up about that Jim fucking Kirk already!" the first man said, and Jim didn't even register the gasp and the stares as the name rung in the room.

"Don't talk to her-" the lying, wounded man tried to defend again, but his words stumbled upon a coughing fit and he couldn't finish his thought. That was when Jim realized how young the man -the boy- looked and sounded.

"Shh, Palmer, don't talk. Just listen to my voice," she was so soft and gentle that anyone not really knowing her wouldn't have recognized the bubbly, perky and sensual Orion girl from the Academy. The smart engineer girl who could kick anyone's ass but preferred to make love and ignore the gossips.

"I'm telling you, Palmer, he'll find a way. He'll understand what this means. A lightning storm in space," she huffed as if it was a cosmic joke she had just understood, "he's already on it as we speak, I'm sure. And he'll save us, Palmer."

She was so calm, so sure, stroking his hair to soothe him.

This was killing Jim, he realized. The words, the meaning, the faith. It was killing him. And yet he didn't move. He didn't even take away his hand from where it still was in McCoy's grasp. He was perfectly still as he stared at her face. He was trying so hard to focus on her soft features. To imagine the green of her skin and the vibrant red of her hair. It didn't look bright enough, in black and white. It look banal and sad and this was not Gaila.

Fuck, this was killing him.

How could Pike do that to him? Why –

"How do you know?" Palmer's voice was weak but it held something like... hope? That only pushed the knife further into Jim's chest.

"How do I know? I know because I told him I loved him, little one. And he didn't say anything back."

She seemed almost content at was she said. Almost. But Jim heard the pain behind the words. It was the flutter in her tone. He had heard her talk so much over the last years that he knew every step of her dancing voice enough to notice. She was wounded too. Maybe bleeding. Maybe dying.

His eyes checked every inch of her body, searching for a sign that she had been hit by something, but he couldn't see anything. Helplessness crept through his spin. If he didn't know where she was hurt, how could he help her? He tried to focus harder but his brain wasn't working. How could he ever help anyone like that? Damn it.

Jim didn't realize McCoy had said his name. Once. Twice.

"Wha-?" The kid didn't have enough strength to even try and talk now, he seemed almost sleepy, his head falling on the side some more. Gaila kept stroking. The third man, the farthest away from them, almost hidden by the wreckage didn't seem able to move, but he was quiet now, his eyes still open and black and shining.

"Because he understands what I mean, Palmer. Because we're the same. Jimmy and I, we're survivors."

"'m tired, Gai."

"No, you're not. Listen to me. Just listen to my voice, when I finish my story, someone will find us. I sent the message, they'll hear us and they'll come to get us. But I have to finish my story."

Palmer just nodded, and Gaila's hand stopped stroking to go brush away something from her own cheek.

"Don't you want to know why I say that? Why we understand?"

Palmer didn't answer this time, and something seemed to break in Gaila's body because she made a jerking movement and Jim wanted to reach out and touch her but he couldn't.

Palmer wasn't moving anymore. He was unnaturally still. His chest no longer going up and down, his hands no longer nervously clenching his stomach.

The silence stretched on, and in the Bridge, not a sound disrupted it either. Then –

"Tell me why."

It was the first man. The one removed on his own corner, alone, broken, by himself.

"I want to know why."

Gaila looked like she was trying to smile, but the quality of the vid was so bad Jim couldn't be sure.

"It's because ," her voice was not as loud, not as clear, and Jim was begging her to stop talking and to save her strength. Please, stop talking. "This is nothing compared to what we've already lived, human boy. We grew up two seperate -" she took a second to breathe deeply and shook her head softly, but she didn't re-open her eyes. "- lives in two separate worlds, but we have both known … things."

Her mouth said things, but her tone said horrible, horrible things.

"I just survived, you know. But he... he is a hero. Since he was a kid... already a hero and... it didn't break him... us. Stronger. Genius. Trust him... save us. all"

She had more and more trouble breathing and talking, and once again, Jim begged in his head. For the third time in his whole life, he begged.

And just like the two first times, he knew it wouldn't work.

"Nyota my... dear, dearest b-best friend. She doesn't... doesn't see it. Thinks it's … sex."

He could see it now. She tried to snort at the very notion but blood ended up splattering her face. Her hands went to clean it like an automate.

"She so..." she kept talking, trying to tell her story, to keep the other man focused.

Jim had stopped begging. You fool, he thought instead.

"smart but... doesn't see the courage and..."

"It's okay, Orion chick," the man said softly, and he could actually talk without problem. Jim hated him for it.

"No you have to know," Gaila looked adamant and Jim suddenly thought that this, this was what would break him for good. She opened her eyes just then, as if to show that it was not over.

"I love them s-so much. I, the Orion slave, l—love th-."

"I get it, Gaila. It's okay. They probably love you too," the guy tried to stop her, as awkwardly as it was, as tired an attempt as it was, he tried.

Jim felt so tired.

So tired and angry.

"I know. She lo—oves me and he- he loves everyone. Loves l—life so much. That's why. He -"

"Jim for God's sake!"

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This time Leonard pulled so hard on his arm that Jim couldn't miss it. His head snapped to his left, but McCoy was looking at Uhura. Only then did the Captain hear it. See it. His Communication Officer was sobbing.

Nyota Uhura. Crying gut wrenching sobs that she tried to stop by placating both hands on her mouth. She didn't even try to dry her tears, she just wanted to keep quiet so she could hear.

Jim knew he should, but didn't look around to evaluate the state of the others.

"Enough," he said, his voice lower and more raucous than normal. Nobody reacted. "I said that's enough."

Chekov – not logical and composed Spock – Chekov was the one that stopped the holovid at his Captain's order. Admiral Pike's picture came back full screen, and Jim realized this had barely taken seconds, and not the eternity it had felt like. Pike's face was grim and closed, and his eyes looked at Kirk's as if trying to gauge the man's reaction while preparing for a wild beast's attack.

"I owe you an apology, Admiral," Jim said, his voice still all broken and wrong, but strong and powerful, "for I should have listened to your advise. I will take the rest as well as our communication to a private room now, if you're okay with it."

"Kirk, it's okay if you want to-"

"Ensign Chekov, send the communication and transmission to my ready room and protect the feed from any external viewers. Mr. Spock, please take Lieutenant Uhura to her rooms or to sickbay. Mr. Sulu, you have the con."

McCoy tried to protest, he did, with all his southern swearing and hidden worries, but Jim was nowhere to be seen. Captain James T. Kirk was leading his ship.

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So?

Should I just stay away from Star Trek for ever or should I give it a try?