A/N: So, it's been well over a year since I last wrote any fanfic. I am not entirely sure how that happened, though I spent a lot of time working on myself, which in the long run is probably more important. I am now working on my Ph.D, so I still can't guarantee that I'll update on a set schedule. On the other hand, I've reworked and reread LFSS, which makes it much easier to write this story. It's a bit difficult to continue a story when it's been forever since you read its prequel.

Speaking of LFSS, I entered it into a contest. If you follow this link, you can vote for it: inkitt stories/35150.

Oh, and a word of caution: this chapter contains graphic depictions of rape. If you've read this far, you already know that Jim has been raped. Now, I have finally said what happened in its entirety.

Chapter Two: Together

Together we stand…

Jim was screaming. He wasn't doing it out loud anymore, but Spock could still hear it echoing through his head.

Spock rolled off of his t'hy'la immediately and knelt next to him on the bed. Jim's eyes were closed, and his body was twitching sporadically, and even as he noted these facts, Spock registered a heightening of the level of pain Jim was experiencing through the bond.

He needed to analyze this situation quickly and ascertain the correct course of action to minimize Jim's suffering and eliminate the source of said suffering if at all possible. Spock was fairly certain that this was a highly unusual occurrence that was not customarily involved in the mating rituals of either of their species. As the sex act had barely begun and Spock had withdrawn from Jim's body immediately upon noticing his t'hy'la's distress, he was 86.2547% confident that the human was not in physical pain. Therefore, the logical conclusion was that Jim was suffering from some sort of psychological trauma.

He stopped to consider his options briefly. While he did not want to make Jim's situation worse, the only path available to him that did not involve "waiting it out" required Spock to enter Jim's mind. This course of action could traumatize both of them, but Spock had not been lying when he told his t'hy'la that he would never be alone again. He could not in good conscience allow Jim to suffer this alone now.

All hesitation forgotten, Spock reached forward and laid his hand over Jim's meld points.

Spock crouched beside a derelict house on the edge of a decaying field of what had once been corn. His throat tightened as he looked over the field and noticed a few telltale lumps in the field that sure as hell hadn't been corn before they died.

He pushed down his horror kicked a heel through the dirt in frustration. He needed to bring back food for the others, but all he kept finding were increasingly inedible crops and dead bodies.

As he crept around the side of the building, he ran face first into a man who seemed to be doing the same thing as Spock with the exception of the fact that the man appeared somewhat successful at his task. He was carrying a few cans of food, a loaf of bread, and two and a half bottles of water.

Spock analyzed the situation before putting his hands up in a placating manner and backing away. Better not to appear a threat, especially to someone who had such a weight advantage. The man wasn't more than average height, but he was sturdily built and could probably overpower Spock quite easily.

No, that wasn't right. Spock was a Vulcan, and Vulcan strength was far superior to even the strongest of humans. Even still, Spock knew somehow that he would not win in a fight with this man.

Spock turned to run, but before he got more than a few steps, the man stopped him. "Hey, kid!" he called.

Spock looked back to see the man tearing a small piece of bread off of his loaf and offering it to him. He stared at the man in disbelief. The guy was giving him food. It was food, the most scarce and sacred resource on this god forsaken rock, and the guy was offering it up like it was nothing. "My name is Andy. I'm not going to hurt you." He held the bread out a bit further. "Here, take it. I'm sure you're hungry."

Hesitantly, Spock reached out and snatched the bread out of the man's hand before he could change his mind. Once he had it though, he didn't know what to do with it. He should bring this back to the rest of the group, but it really was a very small piece of bread and there wouldn't be enough to split between all of them.

His stomach rumbled. He was so hungry.

Spock couldn't help himself. He ate the bread.

"Take this, too."

Spock turned and barely managed to catch the chocolate bar before it hit him in the face. He tilted his head as he looked at the candy bar, and a thought came briefly to his mind, a vague recollection of his mother telling him that chocolate wasn't good for Vulcans though he couldn't remember what her reasoning was.

He was still hungry though.

Ah, fuck it, he thought.

The chocolate didn't last long after that. Spock crammed half of it in his mouth, desperate for more. He didn't care that he was making a fool of himself or that there was chocolate smeared around his lips. It was so good that it was all he could do to slow down and savor the last few bites.

The man cleared his throat, and Spock jumped. He had been so lost in the taste of the first food he had had in three days that he had almost—almost, but not quite—forgotten the man was there.

The man took a few steps toward him and held out a bottle of water that was half full. When Spock hesitated, he said, "It's fine. Take it." There was something off about his eyes, about the way the man was looking at him, but Spock couldn't tell what it was.

Spock took the bottle cautiously. The chocolate had made him thirsty, and water was very hard to come by these days. "Thank you," he said gratefully before lifting the bottle to his lips.

He only took a few sips, wanting to be able to give some to the group when he got back to their camp. Before he could put the cap on though, the bottle fell from his fingers and spilled onto the dead crops at his feet. He tried to bend down to pick it up before it was all lost, but his limbs felt too heavy to move. As he straightened back up, he started to feel dizzy. Something was seriously wrong.

The man was coming toward him. He tried to run, but his legs were moving sluggishly. Only his thoughts continued racing. He needed to get out of here. He needed to run. He needed to…

He tripped over his unnaturally heavy legs and fell to the ground, face first into a mushy pile of decaying plant matter. Spock tried in vain to lift himself off of the ground. Whatever this guy wanted, he wasn't going to get it. He scrabbled at the ground, pulling himself away from where the man had been standing, but it was too late.

Before he could move any further, the drugs took full effect and Spock found himself going completely limp.

The man moved toward him swiftly, bending only to pull Spock's shorts and undergarments down before laying down on top of him. Spock felt something warm and hard press against him from behind and held his breath. He was young, but he was also male and had woken up with enough erections to know exactly what the man was pressing against him.

Spock tried to struggle, but by that point, the drug had completely incapacitated him. He was powerless to stop the man from taking what he wanted.

He managed to choke out a hoarse "No!" as the man pushed inside of him. Spock didn't have full possession of his senses, but he felt that. He was being ripped in two and it felt like it. He was small for his age—the product of months and months of starvation—and he found himself thinking nonsensically that maybe if he were bigger it wouldn't hurt as much. Maybe if he were bigger, it wouldn't be happening at all.

The man laughed and shoved his hand between Spock's body and the ground, grabbing his dick. "You know your place now, don't you? Here in the dirt like a filthy whore should be." Spock whimpered as the man roughly pulled at his dick. He was in way too much pain to actually get off on this, but a wave of arousal swept through him anyways closely followed by an intense feeling of shame.

He was being raped, but somehow he could still feel pleasure. There was obviously something very wrong with him.

Spock wasn't sure how long he lay there with the man moving on top of him, but suddenly it was over. The man slumped against his back briefly, before hauling himself up, pulling free of Spock with a jerk that sent pain rippling through him all over again. Tears leaked down his face in a steady stream as the man turned him over onto his back.

He laughed again. "What the fuck are you crying for? You accepted the food. Did you really think I wasn't going to require payment?"

The man walked away from him and didn't look back, leaving Spock behind like he was trash, like he wasn't even human.

The thought made Spock pause. He wasn't human, was he? He had never thought of himself as such, so why…?

And then, Spock realized what was happening. This hadn't happened to him. This was Jim's memory. This is what Jim had been keeping from him all these years. His ashayam, his t'hy'la. His Jim had suffered these horrors. He was in Jim's mind right now, and he needed to get them both out of this memory.

But how was he supposed to do so? Jim's nightmares had decreased in frequency since he and Spock had bonded, but he still had a fair number every month. Usually, Spock would talk to him, touch him, comfort him within the dream, allowing both of them to wake up peacefully. He had never experienced any of Jim's memories from Jim's point of view. He wasn't even sure where Jim was at the moment.

Spock could feel the drugs wearing off and sighed in relief. Once he could move, he could go find Jim. His t'hy'la was undoubtedly in the vicinity. All he needed to do was find him.

To his surprise however, Spock found that once he could move again, he still couldn't control the body he was in. He got up and staggered over to the house next to the cornfield he had been laying in, his eyes still leaking tears, his body aching. He pushed open the broken front door and limped through the house until he found the bathroom.

Once inside, he grabbed the towel the owners had left hanging from the towel bar and turned the spigot to see if any water would come out. A small bit dribbled out, and Spock's body reached forward to catch as much as he could on the towel. It wasn't much, but he was able to use it to wipe the bodily fluids from his lower limbs, utterly horrified when the towel came away bearing red and white streaks.

Spock's stomach heaved and he twisted himself to the side quickly so to throw up in the bathtub. He was still hoping to find some water in the toilet and didn't want to contaminate it with his vomit. Spock was horrified by the content of the memory he had just experienced, and the emotions tied to this memory reflected Jim's own horror, pain, and shame. Spock was overwhelmed by the strength of those emotions and wondered how Jim had managed to keep this contained for so long.

He moved back to the sink, looking into the mirror above it for the first time. Jim's emaciated thirteen-year-old features stared back at him, his mouth and cheeks still coated in chocolate. Spock suddenly realized exactly where Jim was. If he was in Jim's head, reliving his memories, then Jim must have taken refuge within Spock.

The shock of the memory had confused both of them as to their true identities, but it was time for them to leave this place.

Spock closed his eyes and focused on their bond, drawing Jim's katra out from its hiding place within his own. Then he opened his eyes and met Jim's in the mirror.

"Jim, it is time for us to leave this place." He spoke softly so as not to frighten his t'hy'la. You do not belong here anymore. Come home with me. Please."

The Jim in the mirror said nothing for several seemingly endless moments, and then he closed his eyes and said, "Yes, Spock."

When Jim woke up, he was wrapped in Spock's arms. For a few moments, he allowed himself to soak in the comfort his bondmate offered him. Then, he remembered that Spock had just witnessed Jim's most terrible secret.

Shit, he hadn't just witnessed it; he had fucking lived it.

Jim stiffened and sat up, pulling away from Spock as he did so. "Spock, I…"

"Jim, don't," Spock cut him off. "I will not accept any apologies for what just happened. You have done nothing for which you need to apologize."

Jim looked at Spock disbelievingly. "You can't honestly mean that." He heaved himself off of the bed and grabbed a pair of boxers to cover himself up. He knew that Spock was the only one present, but he already felt exposed enough without having this conversation in his goddamned birthday suit. "You can't tell me that what you just went through doesn't horrify you, doesn't disgust you? Can you really say that?"

Spock stood up and carefully put one hand on Jim's shoulder, using the other to cup Jim's chin. "Jim, listen to me. I am horrified and disgusted, yes, but not by you. What you lived through was both horrifying and disgusting, but you are not either of those things. You did nothing wrong. You did not ask for it, and you did not bring it on yourself."

Jim looked up at Spock through the tears he refused to let fall. He wanted to believe what Spock was saying so fucking badly. He wanted to be able to absolve himself of blame. In his head, he knew that the events that had occurred were not his fault. He knew that almost anyone would have fallen into the same trap and that it wasn't anything he specifically had done that had led to what had happened.

And yet, he couldn't put aside what he was feeling, and his feelings told him that he deserved everything he had gotten.

"Jim," Spock said softly. "I can feel what you are feeling, and I know you feel as though you could have prevented this. I know you feel like it was your fault and that you should be ashamed of how you acted." The Vulcan leaned forward to rest his forehead against Jim's. "But I was there, and I can tell you with certainty that the monster in your head is him, not you."

The tears began to leak from Jim's eyes, and he angrily wiped them away. "This is so fucked," he whispered hoarsely. "How can you even stand to be near me? Even if it wasn't my fault, I'm still… I'm damaged goods. I tried so hard. I shoved all of that shit behind a wall and I buried it so that you would never find out that I'm…" A sob broke free, and the tears fell faster. "…that I'm fucking broken. You don't deserve that, Spock. You deserve someone whole, someone good and honest, someone who isn't selfish enough to try to keep you even though it's obvious that you are so much better than I could ever be. I tried so hard to be that, but I couldn't… I just can't!"

His next words broke out of him as an anguished cry. "I'm not strong enough!"

Spock stared at Jim in shock. How could his t'hy'la possibly think that? "Jim, your past doesn't make you weak," he disagreed. His eyes searched Jim's face, his heart sinking as he looked at the utter devastation that encompassed it.

"Jim, look at me. Please, ashayam."

When Jim finally raised his gaze to meet his own, Spock declared, "You are, without a doubt, the strongest person I know. You have survived your family, you have survived Tarsus IV, and you have survived what that man did to you. You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, and that isn't because of your looks. It is because your soul is the brightest I have ever had the privilege to know. Your soul isn't dirty, and it definitely isn't damaged. You are exactly who I deserve, and more importantly, you are who I want. It is not selfish to keep me if I want to be kept."

Jim whimpered, and Spock pulled him in, wrapping his arms around the human and holding him close. He pressed his nose into Jim's hair, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. "Jim, you and I will figure this out, but please… Please remember that you don't have to go through this alone. We are in this relationship together, and we will handle this in the same manner we do everything else: together." Spock pressed a kiss to the top of Jim's head. "Is that agreeable?"

Jim sniffed, and his voice was still thick with tears when he capitulated. "Yes. Together."

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading! Let me know what you think.