Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Trek it is all property of Gene Roddenberry, J.J. Abrams, Paramount, and whoever else owns rights to the franchise. I am not making any profits off of this so please don't sue me.

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Guilty Until Proved Innocent

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Chapter 1

It wouldn't come off.

No matter how hot he had set the shower, no matter how hard he scrubbed, no matter how many showers he took, Jim Kirk could not feel the cleansing effects a sonic shower usually entailed. He couldn't feel clean of what had happened, he couldn't feel much of anything at the moment. And on top of that he didn't think he ever would feel truly clean again. Sure the stains of his own blood and other, more nasty bodily fluids not his own had long since dissolved from his skin. But, not before having done their part in shattering their unfortunate bearer's world to pieces.

Taking in a rattling breath the young man turned off the sonic shower and stepped out. He dried himself off with towels, being careful of all the tender bruises and fresh lacerations that littered his body. He carefully got redressed his standard Starfleet sleeping attire and then slowly walked out of bathroom.

He moved as though he were nothing more than a reanimated corpse. In a way this was accurate, though he was not yet a corpse he did feel as though his soul had died in slow, screaming agony tonight.

As he made his way out of the bathroom Jim limped lightly and gritted his teeth.

The very smallest step sent spikes of sharp pain lancing through his entire being. As he limped into his bedroom Jim Kirk came to a slow halt and looked about both this room and what he could see of the rest of his quarters from the entrance door. All of his belongings were still there, nothing taken. Everything seemed to be in order for a single occupant residing in these quarters.

That was the very problem.

Up until this very night for nearly a year there had been more belongings, these quarters had held not one but two occupants. That had all changed on this night in a matter of minutes. The other occupant of these quarters had packed up all of his belongings and departed curtly, leaving only the zombie-like young man to fill the space.

Exhaling shakily Jim hobbled his way over to the bio-bed that once held two and with pain-staking slowness and effort, climbed in under the covers. Though he now lay in bed Jim knew that sleep would not come for quite some time, if at all.

The horrors of what he had suffered at the hands of one of the Antarian Ambassadors and the devastation of that entire event's aftermath would definitely not grant sleep easy access.

Jim Kirk laid there on his side, staring at the wall with glazed blue eyes, only breathing and blinking.

For what seemed an eternity he just laid there and breathed.

Then the young man's lower lips began to tremble and his eyes grew shiny with fast welling tears. Pale and shaking hands slowly reached over to the other pillow that lay beside the one his head was resting on. Jim reverently pulled the pillow to him, all but burying his face into it and breathing in deep. The scent of the one whom he loved with all his now broken heart lingered in the pillow and filled his nostril. It was the final blow to the foundations that had already been shot to Hell.

First there was a soft mewling sound, like that of a newborn kitten. But after it the sound became louder and more pain. After another second it began a jagged, shattered howl, like the death knell of a wounded animal. Jim Kirk buried his face into the pillow that still smelled of his lover and screamed with all the might his battered body could muster. As he wailed into the pillow muffling the sound, the young man's entire body began to shake with the force of his sobs. Tears gushed from his pale blue eyes as he finally shattered to peaces like his whole world had.

After several long minutes of sobbing uncontrollably Jim finally regained enough of composure for a single moment of coherency. And in that one moment he whispered out a single word, a single name. The name of the one who had left him without even bothering to understand just what kind of state the human was in. The one who had taken one look at him and drawn his own conclusions of the completely wrong and worst kind. The one who had terminated their nearly ten month relationship, packed his things up from here and gotten the hell of out dodge. The one who's comfort Jim yearned for now but knew he would not have.

" Spock."

Then with another soft, pained moan Jim Kirk dissolved back into the tears of despair and devastation where he lay in his bed.

Alone. More or less, abandoned.

He cried until there were no more tears left in him and all his body could do was heave weakly with each sob that wracked it. It was in this state that he drifted off into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

There was the age old addage that people believed that things would be better tomorrow, that with a new morning things would be alright.

Jim Kirk knew different, Jim Kirk knew better.

Things would only get worse.