Where Voices Speak Out

Jimmy was different when he got back from Tarsus. Of course George and Winona knew what had happened, knew they hadn't been to blame, knew it would take time. But nothing prepared anyone for the reality of not being able to protect one's children from the worst humanity had to offer, or the shattered, awkward figure who'd returned in place of their golden boy. He was fourteen, and slammed doors and cut classes were difficult enough without the specter of Kodos hovering, unspoken, behind all of them. His parents could only imagine what he'd seen.

Jim wasn't really talking.

His mother, grateful to have him back at all, hovered. Hovered, and plied him with food which he ate with a greed he seemed to simultaneously loathe, and babied him. She didn't mean to, and George wasn't sure Jimmy didn't need to be treated like a child sometimes. He just wasn't sure Jimmy was a child, anymore. And he'd lost something in the process.

There was counseling, for them, too, as his parents, but Jim was even more sullen after every session and the reality was that there was nothing anyone could do to erase the experience and give Jim back his adolescence. Sometimes, lying in bed, one would turn to the other and begin the question that lay unspoken between them: What had happened to their boy? What wasn't he telling them? The temptation to ask would, at times, feel unbearable, but neither of them did. They just waited, and tried to be there for him. Jimmy and George Jr. had always been close, but George was a senior in high school and no matter how much he wanted to be Jimmy's friend he had his own distractions, his minor successes and failures no less earth-shattering in context next to this Thing that had Happened.

But things got better. Not fixed, but Jim went from sullen to merely quiet. Watchful. It was still heart-wrenching, seeing what had been a happy, brilliant, beautiful child grow into this subdued, self-conscious, isolated young man. He was a stranger, moving about his life as though it was merely a place-marker, no longer relevant or real. He hoarded food, and watched the news with more investment than was common for his age. He never brought girls or boys home, or spoke of any at school. He wasn't mean or thoughtless, and he didn't act out much. But he was no longer the same Jim.

George came into the living room one night to see Jim leaning forward on the edge of a chair, eyes straining as if he could exert his will on the image before him. George circled to see what it was, and sucked in a breath. There had been trouble in the Gorlan system, a Federation outpost with tenuous diplomatic ties. Instead of turning it off, he sat on the sofa, slightly behind Jim's chair, where he could watch both. They sat for some minutes, the room quiet but for the heated demonstration on the screen.

"The Federation," Jim said suddenly, a bitterness in his voice George didn't recognize. "They think they can tell people who they are. What they want. Like they can just come in and fix everything. Like it'll be better. Like it means anything."

George waited, holding his breath, but Jim fell silent. And he told himself, it's now or never. "It means something, Jimmy," he said quietly. Jim didn't move. "But it's not a panacea. It has to be a choice. You have to want it to mean something."

Jim laughed. He hated that sound--it was too old for the slight figure of his son. "Right. So when bad things happen you just didn't wish hard enough. You have no idea, George. You don't know what it was like and you don't know what happened and there wasn't any kind of choice."

He was angry, but he wasn't leaving. Wasn't watching George, either, but maybe that was good enough. "That's not what I said," he continued. "I said you have to want it to mean something--not that wanting it makes it so. The Federation... it's an ideal. And Starfleet is part of the attempt to carry out that ideal. They don't always succeed, just like people don't always succeed. Both have failed pretty spectacularly in the past. And it's not an ideal everyone can share--but if those who believe in those ideals believe they can't be realized, then there's no point in having them."

"There's no point in having them if Starfleet can't show up on time," Jim spat, and George sat very still, hoping he'd know what to do, now that Jimmy was finally talking. "Those people trusted Starfleet. They trusted them not to let them die. Not to leave children without parents, old people without food, a madman with the power to kill half the population. They bought into that ideal by going out there. And they were wrong. No one did anything." He turned, suddenly, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the back of his chair. His hazel eyes burned amber in the flickering light from the vidscreen, with an intensity George hadn't seen in over a year. "No one did anything, do you understand? Your ideals, your Federation... it's meaningless. It's a charade. Just... words, to make people like you feel better about themselves."

George took a deep breath, watching his son, who had always cared so deeply and wanted so much. And believed so hard. "What did you do?" he asked quietly. Jim didn't answer for a long time, his chest rising and falling.

"I couldn't save them," he said finally, the anger turning inward. Jim's eyes unfocused, trained on some horror George could never share.

"Who?"

"All of them," Jim whispered. "I can't save them all. The five kids with me lived... Five. Out of how many? Four thousand, one hundred and seven." The official count of dead, George knew, was 4,108. Jim wasn't counting Kodos, but then, most people didn't. "And maybe they'd have lived without me."

"Didn't you think it'd be better to fend for yourself?" George asked, watching Jim closely. His head shot up, eyes boring into George's like they had been the screen, earlier. "Didn't you waste time, energy and food? Shouldn't you have joined Kodos, secured your own safety? You didn't know those kids, did you?" It was a guess. "What were they to you?"

Jim's face was pale and livid. "They were people," he said, his voice cracking as it rose. "I had to do something. I had to do whatever it took. Don't you see that? I did everything I could and it wasn't enough. I could have... I could have killed him first. I could have gotten word out sooner. I should have..."

"You should have been faster," George said quietly. "Jimmy, only you know whether you did everything you could. But you had a choice, and you chose your values over your life. The fact that you lived doesn't mean you failed. It just means that reality doesn't always conform to what we want it to--but the world would be a much bleaker place if no one believed it might, someday. Like you do."

Like he'd forgotten he did, George added silently. Jim looked away, his mouth a grim line, his eyes wet with the first tears George had seen. And George knew the greatest gift he could give his son was not to tell him he couldn't change the universe.

Muse: James T. Kirk
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Words: 1,253
Disclaimer: Star Trek and related properties belong to Paramount, etc. I'm not sure who William Shatner's face belongs to. Just borrowing for non-remunerative fun.