#protective crew

[udaberrisworld]

You'd imagine that after the kidnappings, landing in alternate universes, landing in warzones, landing in planets with plagues etc the crew would get around to implementing a protocol, like "okay people, Julian's been called to another medical conference, places everyone!" and suddenly there's a queue at the Infirmary, all the runabouts mysteriously break down and there's ten different health inspections at Quark's that have to be signed off for the day after tomorrow.

[newscountryindia]

Protective gear for crew to aircraft deep cleaning – Airlines prepare to resume domestic ops Image Source : FILE PHOTO, PTI Protective gear for crew to aircraft deep cleaning - Airlines prepare to resume domestic ops…

[whatever-souls-are-made-of]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

or, The Greatest Series of Misunderstandings. Ever.

[captainkirkmccoy]

1.

"Budge over."

"Seriously? This is my bed."

An aggravated sigh. "Kirk, I think you can spare an inch."

"Jesus, Jim, get your bony elbow away from my face."

He somehow ended up with half of his Bridge Crew in bed. 

He hadn't slept with someone platonically (he no longer counted Bones in that distinction) since before the Academy, right after Tarsus, when his Mom would fall asleep while he stayed wide awake. Like his crew now, she had welded herself to him like broken pieces of the ship's she fixed. 

Winona Kirk tried to resign her commission when the rescue ship brought her son home. Archer threw the PADD in the trash and told her to take care of her kid and come back when they were both ready. 

She stayed up with him at night and watched the shittiest of holo vids. They watched old Terran reality TV. They played video games. They baked. They did everything but talk, really. 

Until the nightmares really started. 

She would hold him and rock him, like she had before when he was a baby, before she disappeared into the stars. They didn't talk about it (that's what the Starfleet classified shrinks were for) but she was there. 

He somehow willed the nightmares away. Hadn't had one nightmare, night terror, jolting dream until a week after he woke up in Starfleet medical, barely dead, and unsure why. 

Bones sedated him of course and so the nightmares fled behind a haze of good drugs. 

But they returned in full, terrifying force after that. 

And for three days, in the apartment Command had guilt bought him, he slept in a bizarrely oversized bed, tossing and turning and trying to remember to breathe when he woke up. No sense of dying when you were just brought back to life. 

One night, as he dreaded going to sleep (Bones stole his stims so staying up wasn't an option), he found his bed occupied. And his chair and his floor. 

"Kinky." He grinned as Uhura fluffed her pillow. 

"Get in bed, Kirk."

He rolled his eyes at Bones, whose glare was of epic bitchface quality. "New therapy trick?"

"We can't sleep." Chekov muttered from the end of the bed.

"It appears that we all require sufficient rest and no one is capable of doing so alone." Spock added from his folded position in the chair.

So he ended up in bed with his crew. Unaware that they roused themselves from their own nightmares to sneak into his room and help him chase away their own. 

And they all slept better for it. 

2. 

"I'm the Captain." Jim stands, pushing his tore up palms against the wall, wincing as his legs slowly lift him. 

Spock takes a step in front of him. "I'm the Captain." He says, clipping off the end of every last syllable, allowing no argument.

"Fuck no. I'm the captain." Bones growls, pushing into Spock. 

Sulu's swallow is audible, his face hardened and he stands up straighter and taller. "I'm the captain."

Six hours ago, they were debating the merits of playing pranks on the admiralty. Six hours ago, the crew was reveling in their Captain's good mood---halloween approaching, milk runs done, ship back on track. 

Jim had his first good night's sleep in weeks. He hadn't woken up with the metallic taste of death in his mouth or heaving against the pillow. Bones hadn't barged in and had to hold him until his breathing got under control. Spock didn't have to carry him to Sickbay. Everything was back to normal. 

Until this- a rescue mission turned ambush. Pirates and Starfleet deserters with chips on their shoulders bigger than Jim's before Starfleet. Looking for all the wrong things to prove. 

And his crew wouldn't let him be their Captain.

Bones nearly ground his heel into Jim's only non-sore spot on his body (his right big toe). "Let us protect you for once, damnit."

And as Spock growled, as Bones bit a pirate holding him back, as Sulu head-butted another, they took Jim anyway. 

3. 

It wasn't clear who's shot killed Anton Karidian and stunned his daughter, Lenore. 

Eight phasers were trained on the man, his tight grip on Jim and Lenore's gun trained on both of them. 

It didn't matter. 

They did what they had to do. 

4. 

Barnett rubbed the bridge of his nose, the beginnings of a James T. Kirk level headache surfacing and pounding through his head. He would call down for a hypo but McCoy was the Doctor on duty and would no doubt laugh at his face. 

Thirteen resignation letters graced his desk. 

In various ways, they all said: Fuck off. 

Kirk's Bridge Crew knew what Barnett knew. He couldn't lose them. 

The tenuous probation that they had placed Kirk on after the Harrison disaster and then Anton Karidian, fuck, Kodos's return had been extended. And the board would probably rule against allowing Kirk to continue his commission. 

Alexander Marcus had been a crazy ass but his ruling on Kirk had been correct.  

Or so they thought. 

"Never have I encountered a more loyal crew, Rich. It's goddamn cultish." Bullock told him after the resignations showed up. 

"I say we teach 'em a lesson. Let them resign." Lewis added. "Get the kid out of Starfleet. We'll be better for it."

"Spock has threatened legal action on behalf of his father and the Vulcan Council." Barnett reminded them, reading the last lines of the First Officer's letter. 

"And I think the engineer threatened to beam us to the Klingons."

"Well, God knows where he sent Archer's dog."

Barnett sighed. He couldn't lose McCoy. Or Uhura. And God knows what would happen if they did let them go. He could see piracy becoming a thing.

He made his decision. 

An hour later he got a holo message from Winona Kirk. 

Hate to think what would have happened if you made the wrong decision. 

5.

"Please, come home."

Jim shook his head, Mia's arms tightening around his neck, Kate's hand at the small of his back. Home? But this was home. 

"Jim." Another voice. Broken sounding. Hurt. He knew that voice. "Darlin', please."

Dr. Jones said the voices would stop eventually. Head injuries caused all sorts of imbalances, upset to the equilibrium and so on. He was bound to feel confused. 

He kept forgetting how he got from place to place. How he ended up there. How he met his wife. 

"We're safe, Jim. You can leave."

Didn't he make a deal? Didn't he give something up for someone else? Was it Mia? Or Kate?

Didn't he die for them?

No, not them. For a ship. For his family. Not this family. 

"Come back to us."

Mia's soft curls tickled his cheek as she buried her face in his shoulder, Kate moving closer to his side, her fingers curling into his shirt. 

He had wanted to get out. He wasn't supposed to be there for too long. Right?

"We can never leave you. But they will." Kate whispered. 

"Don't leave me like your daddy left you," Mia sobbed. 

He remembered now. 

Walking up to the Icari people. Asking them to spare his ship, where his crew were losing memories, getting lost in their dreams, pulled into other lives. Two crew members became cold corpses while walking across the ship. One ensign jumped out of a chute, sure that was the only way to escape. 

The Icari were only protecting themselves. Jim only wanted to protect his crew. 

He made a deal. His memories, on Icarus, for his crew. 

But his crew, just like their captain, couldn't let go.

And he was better for it.

[captainkirkmccoy]

As part of some kind of penance that the admirals cooked up to make the lives of the Bridge crew a little worse, they have to serve on a panel for prospective cadets. 

"Recruitment has taken a dip. Need your help convincing them otherwise," Archer says as his assistant passes out collated packets of approved questions and highlighted 'suggested' answers. 

Bones sighs and rubs at his forehead. "Sir, with all due respect, I've got a coma patient to look after."

"Can it, McCoy. You need to be here. Until our golden boy quits his sleeping beauty act, you're all required to pull PR shifts."

They grumble and shuffle into the room, none of them expecting the packed seating area and standing ovation as they walk in, various young men and women clapping around reporters and other Starfleet officials.

"Recruitment panel, my ass." Bones mutters. Spock quirks an eyebrow in response as they file onto the stage and into their seats. The applause dies down and the attendees find their seats. 

A moderator, a portly man with vintage round glasses and caterpillar eyebrows, smiles the widest, most insincere smile Bones has ever seen. 

"Well," he booms into the mike. "I don't think any introductions in order since you've seen these heroes on the news feeds." 

Bones notices the flinches as the word hero hits the bridge crew. Only Spock is impassive but his jaw tightens. If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't notice it. 

"Do we have questions?"

Hands shoot up and the moderator chuckles. Bones wants to hit him. 

"Yes, you, my dear, in the blue." 

An attractive girl, probably just past prime recruitment age stands and takes a mike offered to her by some assistant. 

"Um, hi." She says. "I-well, first I wanted to say thank you for all that you've done. It's bad out there," she gestures toward the wide expanse of windows that offer a small glimpse of the extent of the Vengeance's destruction. "But we all know it could have been worse."

A few cameras snap of blinding shots and Bones white knuckle grips the pants under his seat. 

"But what I really wanted to know is something I think we all want to know. A lot of us are thinking of enlisting or already have and we know the cost is high. But is it really worth it? Serving under someone who time and time again has nearly gotten you killed? Watching your commanding officer die and being loyal enough to break the rules to bring him back? Could we expect the same or are we just the red shirts that will die and be forgotten?"

Silence. 

An awkward cough from somewhere in the back.

Bones blinks just as a camera goes off. Will the headline to that one read, Bridge Crew Shocked To Silence?

Spock moves forward and speaks into the mike, his posture as rigid as the day he stood in that very same room calling Jim out for the Kobayashi Maru. 

"Your questions are hypothetical, Miss and so we can not adequately answer them. We can only answer from personal experience and it is illogical to say that our experiences will in any way mirror yours. Is it worth it, you ask? Is the possibility of saving the world and races from threats they are not away of worth the pain and loss of losing valuable crew members? Logic would dictate that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. However, recently I and I believe the crew of the Enterprise learned that the well-being of one often add to the benefit of the many."

"You are speaking of your captain? Captain Kirk?"Another one man stands up. He's in the back and partially covered in a shadow from the overhanging balconies so Bones cannot determine his species. 

"Yes," Spock says. 

The audience explodes. 

A reporter stands up, known only by her bright red badge. "Wouldn't you say that Captain Kirk has cheated death numerous times and at the cost of more lives, perhaps should retire?"

"Are you listening to yourself?" Bones demands before Spock can speak. "Our actions saved Earth during the Narada, right?"

"Yes but-"

"And our actions again helped save Earth from a known terrorist just two weeks ago, correct?"

Nods all around. Even Starfleet administrators and a few admirals nod. 

"Then that was due to the direction we had under James T. Kirk. You don't blame him for anything, you hear?"

Cameras flash again. This time the headline will have something to do with Bones and Jim's relationship, no doubt. 

A few other reporters jump up. "Did you really bring him back from the dead, Doctor McCoy?"

"Do you think your personal relationship and the close bond Kirk has with the crew affects performance-"

"Was there a way to prevent the disaster?"

Bones closes his eyes for a brief moment and feels a small nudge at his hand and then a squeeze. Uhura is giving him the smallest of side glances but he knows the gesture of support. 

It's going to be a long conference. 

[captainkirkmccoy]

While Jim is still asleep, a week after Bones injects Jim with Khan's blood, there are a series of debriefings. 

"And would you criticize Captain Kirk's motivations as reckless and or vengeful?" Admiral Barnett asks across the long table where five other admirals and Starfleet officials sit. 

He's not sure if he sees red but it's a near thing. His hands shake. Hours of patching up their people, pulling double shifts because they're under-staffed, when he could be at Jim's side and this is what they ask him. 

"Lieutenant Commander?" Admiral Barnett asks from behind his glasses. 

And later he doesn't remember what he says but knows it came from the ache in his chest and the pounding behind his head. He knows he growled, maybe shouted, and slammed his fist onto the table. 

"You better damn well hope that he wakes up, or I swear to god. That won't just be on Khan or Marcus," he spits and then jabs his finger at Barnett. "It'll be on you. And you can bet I won't fucking forget it."

All questions about Jim's motivations and character cease sometime after that. He hears that Uhura threatened them in ten languages, Spock told them he would gladly resign if they were looking to place responsibility on someone, and Scotty reminded them that about the transporter malfunction involving Archer's prized beagle. They never had to interview Sulu or Chekov. 

Bones holds Jim's hand on his rare hour off, rubbing gentle circles with his thumb and breathes a sigh of relief for the loyalty this mad bastard he fell in love with inspired. He deserves it.