FIC: Rush (STXI/Reboot; PG-13)
Title: Rush
Author: Emluv emluv
Beta: Danahid danahid
Fandom/Spoilers: STXI/Reboot
Characters: Winona, Jim
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: approx. 3,200
Warnings: Nothing overt, though it hints at child abuse and genocide
Disclaimer: Star Trek is owned by the Roddenberry estate, Paramount Pictures, and probably a few others who are not me. No profit made, no infringement intended.
Archive/Distribution: Please ask.
Date: March 10, 2010
Summary: Life is a journey, but maybe also a destination…
When Winona Kirk starts having contractions three and a half weeks early-five days before the U.S.S. Kelvin is scheduled to return to Earth-she laments her second baby’s unfortunate timing and resigns herself to giving birth in space. She and George knew it was a danger when she chose to remain aboard for the last leg of their mission; her due date and their return date were just a tad too close for comfort. But they’d agreed the risk was preferable to being separated for three long months, particularly in light of Winona’s plan to stay in Iowa with the children.
By the time her contractions are six minutes apart, the Kelvin rattles like a beast in its death throes. Winona’s wheelchair flies through the ship, bound for the medical shuttle, as George’s voice echoes through the compromised decks. Labor pains war with panic, and her doctor’s assurances ring hollow.
Then the shuttle is powering up, leaving without George, and she’s pushing, bracing, barely holding on. The vulnerable craft launches into space as the tiny child emerges from her body. Only much later, looking back, will she acknowledge it as a race to see which would escape first-the shuttle or her son.
~*~
Jimmy is three months old by the time Winona pulls herself together and dismisses the baby nurse. Starfleet paid for her-part of the bereavement package for the widow of the Kelvin’s heroic acting captain-and Winona has been glad for the help. But she has no intention of wallowing in her misery, or of allowing a stranger to raise her baby.
When Jimmy starts crawling at five months, she wonders if she wasn’t a bit precipitous.
Winona is a lieutenant with Starfleet, a science officer with advanced degrees in biology and chemical engineering. She can handle two small children.
~*~
Sammy is easy. An intelligent child, slightly ahead of the curve, he is mostly serious and thoughtful, much like his father. He listens when Winona tells him to do something, he’s happy playing with the neighbor’s kids, and he lives for visits to his grandparents’ farm.
Jimmy is nothing like Sam. At eight months old, he starts to talk, and pretty much never stops. By nine months he’s toddling recklessly around the living room and within weeks Winona’s installed child-proof gates in every doorway. It takes Jimmy two days to learn how to open them.
Fearing he will leave the house and get lost-or worse-Winona hangs bells high up on all the outside doors. She’s tempted to hang one on Jimmy, too. At least then she’ll know which direction to chase when he finally makes a break for it.
~*~
When Jim is four, he teaches himself to ride Sam’s old bike, though he’s too short to sit while he pedals. At five, he sneaks out on Sam’s hover-board, getting half a mile down the road before he falls and breaks his arm. The first Winona hears of her wayward son’s adventures is when the postman stops by to tell her he’s called an ambulance.
She’s worried of course. Until she finds him flirting with the ER nurse. Then she focuses on calming down Sam-whose hover-board is broken in two-and struggles not to laugh.
Safely home, his arm in a cast, Jimmy lies with Winona in the old hammock out back, gazing up at the stars. He recounts his daring exploits, oblivious to her quiet scolding. His childish voice fills with pride at his accomplishment-“I got it up to two meters before it started to wobble! Sammy never goes that high!”-and if he’s in pain, he fails to complain. Even injured, he fidgets and wriggles, unable to remain still. Winona sighs, brushes his sandy hair back off his forehead, and presses a kiss to the scrape on his cheek.
It is a relief when Jim starts school. A bigger relief that he likes it. More often than not, the calls Winona gets from Jim’s teachers involve praise and promotion. It’s obvious he’s a leader-or perhaps ringleader is the term-but even when he gets into trouble, it’s more mischief than anything else, the actions of a curious boy seeking out his place in the world.
Everyone tells her Jim looks just like George, but when Winona stares into those bright blue eyes, it’s her own searching restlessness that glimmers back. It frightens her a little. And makes her proud.
~*~
The boys are seven and eleven when Winona meets Frank. She marries him within the year.
Frank is not George Kirk-no one ever could be-but he is fun to be with and easy to talk to. He likes to slow dance to old music and tinker with antique cars, and when a blizzard brings Iowa to a standstill, he builds an army of snowmen in the yard. Plus he’s willing to spend time with Sam and Jim, which Winona thinks is almost more important than anything.
And she cannot deny the appeal of a warm body in her bed at night, or of adult conversation. Of someone who will hold hands with her as they run, flat out down a stretch of road, and let go only when her long, limber stride outstrips his own.
She could never beat George, but she doesn’t think about that.
It takes the boys time to adjust to Frank, especially Sam, who still has memories of his father. But Frank eases the way, not expecting them to call him Dad, understanding that a little rebellion is natural. He takes Sam on a fishing trip, just the two of them, and throws balls for Jim when he wants to try out for little league.
She watches ties begin to form, like gossamer silk. She sees her boys start to stretch their wings, and feels her own urge to fly-long suppressed-begin to unfurl.
By the time Winona gets the call from Starfleet, asking her to serve as science officer on the U.S.S. Larken, it’s been two years and they feel almost like a family.
It’s another year before she realizes they aren’t.
~*~
On her first leave, six months into the mission, Winona gets three days off in Iowa. At dinner the night she gets back, Sam tries to tell her about school while Jim interrupts continuously. When Frank slams his hand down on the table and orders them to shut the hell up, everyone jumps.
Winona stares at her husband across the sudden silence, shocked at both his loss of temper and the boys’ immediate reactions.
“Sorry,” Frank says, his smile sheepish. “They just don’t know when to stop.” He nods at Sam and Jim. “Eat your dinners, and let your mother get a word in edgewise.”
When she runs up to wish the boys goodnight (they both insist they're too old for tucking in), Winona asks them, very quietly, if everything is all right. Sam waves off her concern, switching the subject to his science project. Jim stares at her with unreadable eyes and asks if he can come when she heads back to the Larken.
Six months later, a week before her next leave, Winona receives an emergency communication, routed through Starfleet Command. Jim has driven his father’s old car off a cliff and Sam has been picked up for hitchhiking. Frank is being held by the Riverside police, and the boys are being held by Family Services.
~*~
Frank is out on bail by the time Winona gets back. He’s waiting for her at the house, bags packed and in his hover-car. He looks worn out and defenseless. When she asks him why, all he can do is shrug.
“It was harder with you gone. I never signed up to be a single father-not to someone else’s kids.”
“My kids,” she says. “Our kids. That’s what you said before. When you told me to go off-planet, that it would be fine.” If her tone is bitter, she thinks she can be excused. Seeing as how she’s refrained from punching in his face.
His dark gaze skids away from hers, and she remembers how George always looked her in the eye whenever they fought. Whenever they spoke at all, really. Except the last time, but she can hardly blame him for that.
“Never mind,” she tells Frank.
She waits until his car is a speck on the horizon, then goes inside and calls her lawyer. The divorce takes a week and a half, pushed through by people in high places. It’s the first time Winona has used George’s reputation to get something accomplished, though it’s not the last.
~*~
Jim has a new edginess, a sense of urgency to all his actions. Winona can’t quite put her finger on it, the motivations behind his behavior or who she should blame. Frank, for the abuse? Herself, for leaving? Jim, for growing up too fast, too smart, too determined?
He starts coming home with his face bruised and beaten, knuckles bloody, clothes torn and stained. She asks what happened, who he was fighting, if he’s all right. When she reaches for him, he shies away, avoiding questions and touch in equal measure.
He’s always running, never slowing down, constantly in a rush to get somewhere. The calls start coming from school; when he’s not cutting classes, his smart mouth’s in overdrive.
“His grades are still stellar,” his teacher tells Winona. “But with the way he’s racking up absences…”
~*~
“What if you went somewhere new?” Winona asks. Sam is already leaving for college, has one foot out of the house entirely.
Jim looks sullen, but Winona knows she has his attention. “Where would I go?”
“There are places,” she says, deliberately vague, curious as to how he will take the suggestion-as a promise or a threat. When he doesn’t even blink, she smiles. “Colonies that offer accelerated study programs. Research opportunities for kids with high test scores and no tolerance for learning things they already know.”
Jim has no patience with boredom. That she much understands. She remembers the night he asked to join her on the Larken, knows instinctively that, despite everything, it had been less about what was happening at home than what might happen out there. Maybe it’s time he has his own adventure.
Blue eyes meet hers, and they hold a glimmer that’s been absent for months. Winona grins and ruffles his hair. Jim doesn’t pull away.
~*~
Three weeks after Sam leaves for college, Winona and Jim travel to San Francisco. She puts him on a transport to Tarsus IV, then takes a shuttle back to the Larken.
When word comes down-famine, Kodos, four thousand dead-Winona is halfway across the galaxy.
Nothing can make the ship move fast enough-not her dead husband’s heroism or her own threats of violence. For the first time, space is in her way.
~*~
Winona does not know this child-this silent, too-thin version of her baby. Jim sits and stares out the window, moving only when prompted. Day in, day out, she reminds him to get up, to wash and dress, to come to the table and eat. He picks at his food, as if doubting it’s real.
There are healers-for his body, for his mind. He succumbs meekly to their poking and prodding, but refuses to answer their questions.
“Survivor’s guilt,” they tell Winona.
Maybe, she thinks. Probably. But not only. A piece of him is gone, broken, dead. Winona isn’t sure she can ever revive it.
She goes out and lies in the hammock, alone, and stares up at the stars. She wonders if it’s possible for her to leave the planet without tragedy trailing in her wake.
~*~
Jim heals. Slowly.
Winona can feel her own restlessness pressing at her skin, bursting boundaries, and wishes the excess could flow into Jim like a surge of electricity. She wants her son back.
Three months after coming home, he returns to school, attending classes and staying mostly out of trouble.
A month later, he starts to run. He goes out every morning with the sunrise. Winona listens to the sound of his feet, pounding down the drive and out to the road, always a little bit faster than the time before. Part of her aches to join him, to stretch her muscles and match his stride and let the wind take them away.
Instead she gets up and makes real coffee for both of them. It’s enough that he’s moving again.
~*~
He graduates at sixteen and refuses to go to college. Once Winona thought Starfleet, but she knows better than to suggest it now. Still, she sees he’s restless. Recognizes that itch to move. Knows it from his childhood. Knows it from herself.
She consults down at the shipyard lab and ignores the shuttles coming and going, transporting new cadets. But they pull at her like strong ocean current. When she gets off work, she goes out and runs until she can no longer see the porch light when she turns toward home.
Jim works odd jobs-mechanic, handyman, bartender. Starts coming in later and later, sometimes not at all. He staggers home smelling of liquor and women. When George’s father dies and leaves Jim money, he spends part of it on a motorcycle.
He used to run for the love of speed. He used to run toward something, though Winona never knew his destination.
Now he runs like something is chasing him, hard on his heels and determined to drag him away. He races across the skyline as if expecting to take flight, churning up dust, daring the speed to consume him once and for all.
~*~
When Starfleet calls, Winona hesitates.
Sam has moved out, moved on, plans to marry soon. But Jim…
Every time she leaves, she loses more of Jim. If she lets him out of her sight again, she fears he will vanish entirely. It’s all happened so fast, like one gigantic exhalation-whoosh and his childhood zipped by.
She wants to rewind time, to scoop up that little boy-the one always in such a hurry to move, to fly, to escape, to be out on his own. She wants to hug him close, tie him down and never let him go.
Instead she waits for him at the kitchen table, waits for the sound of his bike, the soft slam of the screen door. He comes in, startled to see her, and she realizes it’s nearly dawn.
Jim’s shirt is torn beneath his leather jacket. A dark bruise colors his jaw, another higher on his cheek. A cut under one eye competes with a smudge of pink lipstick.
“Past your bedtime, Mom,” he teases, and suddenly Winona feels old.
“The Larken’s heading out and they’ve asked for me again.”
Jim pulls up a chair, swings it around and straddles it, resting his chin on hands folded over the seatback, though even now he seems to be moving. “When do you leave?”
“I haven’t said I’ll go yet.”
Sandy brows arch. “How come?”
Winona shrugs, feeling foolish. She can see it now. Her overgrown boy with broad shoulders, work-roughened hands, stubbled cheeks, boundless energy. He may be running, but it is no longer her job to stop him. Can’t be her job.
She thought he wasn’t ready to stand on his own, but maybe it’s her.
“I need to check with Sam. See if they’ve set a date.”
Jim nods slowly, eyes knowing.
~*~
She’s been in deep space for nearly a year when a comm comes through from Starfleet Command. Heart in her throat, Winona waits until she has reached her quarters before asking that they patch the message through.
She is not sure what she expects, but it is certainly not the news that Jim has enlisted.
~*~
Jim’s second year at the Academy, they are all on Earth for Christmas, and Winona insists they spend it in Iowa. Sam comes with Aurelan, and Jim shows up in his red cadet uniform. He only stays twelve hours before grabbing a shuttle back to San Francisco, and even those twelve hours are a blur of movement and gestures, stories and names. Some are familiar-Archer, Pike-while others are brand new-McCoy, Uhura, Gaila.
The rush of words is like a flowing river, strong and powerful and determined in its direction.
Winona still is not sure where Jim wants to be, but she suspects he is headed there, and that is all that matters.
~*~
The Larken is in the Laurentian system when the first distress call comes through. Only with the second call-this one panicked-does the starship set a course for Earth. By the time they arrive, there is nothing left to do.
After everything-after Vulcan implodes and Nero attacks Earth and Jim somehow stops it all-Winona remains in San Francisco, waiting for the Enterprise to return. She is front and center when the shuttle lands, bringing with it the senior crew. To assure her presence and her proximity, she has used her name quite shamelessly. (Not George Kirk’s widow, no, not this time. Today she is James Kirk’s mother, nothing more, nothing less.)
She expects to see Jim first, spilling out of the shuttle in a blur of energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on whatever comes next. So it comes as a surprise when a young woman steps off the shuttle, followed by several men, one barely old enough to shave. Jim exits last, his face a mass of half-healed bruises, wearing plain Starfleet black in the absence of a colored tunic to indicate his rank or department. He’s speaking with a Vulcan in science blues, their conversation low and serious.
Winona watches the two men walk down the shuttle steps, and sees the moment Jim acknowledges his return to Earth. His foot hits solid ground and he glances up, his eyes unerringly meeting her own. Jim’s smile is shy and boyish, but in every other way that matters, her son is a man.
Starfleet has kept the press at bay, but the admiralty is out in full force. Jim turns to meet the brunt of the onslaught, head held high, the rest of his crew closing protectively around him.
Winona understands in that moment that there will be no going back for Jim. No return to cadet status or threats of expulsion. There will be questions and perhaps haranguing among the upper ranks, but at the end of the day, James T. Kirk will be a captain. Perhaps even of the Enterprise.
He speaks with each of the admirals in turn, briefly and politely, shaking hands. His movements seem to indicate he has all the time in the world, yet he excuses himself after mere minutes. Blue eyes calm, gait unhurried, Jim crosses to where Winona stands.
“Hi, Mom.” He brushes a kiss over her cheek.
Winona cannot remember the last time Jim kissed her. She thinks he must have been a little boy. Reaching up-and when did he get so tall?-she takes his face in her hands, thumbs tracing lightly over the faint bruises that decorate his cheeks.
The cocky grin appears, the one she has always loved, and his eyes twinkle as he all but reads her thoughts. “You should see the other guy.”
Winona laughs, and hugs him close.
END
Author’s notes: This story emerged from my first attempt at writing in quite a long time. It was not where I started to go, but I’m quite glad that it is where I’ve arrived. With much thanks to Dani, for dragging me (not really) back into fandom, for her encouragement, and for her thoughtful comments, and most especially for making me wonder just what Winona Kirk was thinking all those years.
Author: Emluv emluv
Beta: Danahid danahid
Fandom/Spoilers: STXI/Reboot
Characters: Winona, Jim
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: approx. 3,200
Warnings: Nothing overt, though it hints at child abuse and genocide
Disclaimer: Star Trek is owned by the Roddenberry estate, Paramount Pictures, and probably a few others who are not me. No profit made, no infringement intended.
Archive/Distribution: Please ask.
Date: March 10, 2010
Summary: Life is a journey, but maybe also a destination…
When Winona Kirk starts having contractions three and a half weeks early-five days before the U.S.S. Kelvin is scheduled to return to Earth-she laments her second baby’s unfortunate timing and resigns herself to giving birth in space. She and George knew it was a danger when she chose to remain aboard for the last leg of their mission; her due date and their return date were just a tad too close for comfort. But they’d agreed the risk was preferable to being separated for three long months, particularly in light of Winona’s plan to stay in Iowa with the children.
By the time her contractions are six minutes apart, the Kelvin rattles like a beast in its death throes. Winona’s wheelchair flies through the ship, bound for the medical shuttle, as George’s voice echoes through the compromised decks. Labor pains war with panic, and her doctor’s assurances ring hollow.
Then the shuttle is powering up, leaving without George, and she’s pushing, bracing, barely holding on. The vulnerable craft launches into space as the tiny child emerges from her body. Only much later, looking back, will she acknowledge it as a race to see which would escape first-the shuttle or her son.
~*~
Jimmy is three months old by the time Winona pulls herself together and dismisses the baby nurse. Starfleet paid for her-part of the bereavement package for the widow of the Kelvin’s heroic acting captain-and Winona has been glad for the help. But she has no intention of wallowing in her misery, or of allowing a stranger to raise her baby.
When Jimmy starts crawling at five months, she wonders if she wasn’t a bit precipitous.
Winona is a lieutenant with Starfleet, a science officer with advanced degrees in biology and chemical engineering. She can handle two small children.
~*~
Sammy is easy. An intelligent child, slightly ahead of the curve, he is mostly serious and thoughtful, much like his father. He listens when Winona tells him to do something, he’s happy playing with the neighbor’s kids, and he lives for visits to his grandparents’ farm.
Jimmy is nothing like Sam. At eight months old, he starts to talk, and pretty much never stops. By nine months he’s toddling recklessly around the living room and within weeks Winona’s installed child-proof gates in every doorway. It takes Jimmy two days to learn how to open them.
Fearing he will leave the house and get lost-or worse-Winona hangs bells high up on all the outside doors. She’s tempted to hang one on Jimmy, too. At least then she’ll know which direction to chase when he finally makes a break for it.
~*~
When Jim is four, he teaches himself to ride Sam’s old bike, though he’s too short to sit while he pedals. At five, he sneaks out on Sam’s hover-board, getting half a mile down the road before he falls and breaks his arm. The first Winona hears of her wayward son’s adventures is when the postman stops by to tell her he’s called an ambulance.
She’s worried of course. Until she finds him flirting with the ER nurse. Then she focuses on calming down Sam-whose hover-board is broken in two-and struggles not to laugh.
Safely home, his arm in a cast, Jimmy lies with Winona in the old hammock out back, gazing up at the stars. He recounts his daring exploits, oblivious to her quiet scolding. His childish voice fills with pride at his accomplishment-“I got it up to two meters before it started to wobble! Sammy never goes that high!”-and if he’s in pain, he fails to complain. Even injured, he fidgets and wriggles, unable to remain still. Winona sighs, brushes his sandy hair back off his forehead, and presses a kiss to the scrape on his cheek.
It is a relief when Jim starts school. A bigger relief that he likes it. More often than not, the calls Winona gets from Jim’s teachers involve praise and promotion. It’s obvious he’s a leader-or perhaps ringleader is the term-but even when he gets into trouble, it’s more mischief than anything else, the actions of a curious boy seeking out his place in the world.
Everyone tells her Jim looks just like George, but when Winona stares into those bright blue eyes, it’s her own searching restlessness that glimmers back. It frightens her a little. And makes her proud.
~*~
The boys are seven and eleven when Winona meets Frank. She marries him within the year.
Frank is not George Kirk-no one ever could be-but he is fun to be with and easy to talk to. He likes to slow dance to old music and tinker with antique cars, and when a blizzard brings Iowa to a standstill, he builds an army of snowmen in the yard. Plus he’s willing to spend time with Sam and Jim, which Winona thinks is almost more important than anything.
And she cannot deny the appeal of a warm body in her bed at night, or of adult conversation. Of someone who will hold hands with her as they run, flat out down a stretch of road, and let go only when her long, limber stride outstrips his own.
She could never beat George, but she doesn’t think about that.
It takes the boys time to adjust to Frank, especially Sam, who still has memories of his father. But Frank eases the way, not expecting them to call him Dad, understanding that a little rebellion is natural. He takes Sam on a fishing trip, just the two of them, and throws balls for Jim when he wants to try out for little league.
She watches ties begin to form, like gossamer silk. She sees her boys start to stretch their wings, and feels her own urge to fly-long suppressed-begin to unfurl.
By the time Winona gets the call from Starfleet, asking her to serve as science officer on the U.S.S. Larken, it’s been two years and they feel almost like a family.
It’s another year before she realizes they aren’t.
~*~
On her first leave, six months into the mission, Winona gets three days off in Iowa. At dinner the night she gets back, Sam tries to tell her about school while Jim interrupts continuously. When Frank slams his hand down on the table and orders them to shut the hell up, everyone jumps.
Winona stares at her husband across the sudden silence, shocked at both his loss of temper and the boys’ immediate reactions.
“Sorry,” Frank says, his smile sheepish. “They just don’t know when to stop.” He nods at Sam and Jim. “Eat your dinners, and let your mother get a word in edgewise.”
When she runs up to wish the boys goodnight (they both insist they're too old for tucking in), Winona asks them, very quietly, if everything is all right. Sam waves off her concern, switching the subject to his science project. Jim stares at her with unreadable eyes and asks if he can come when she heads back to the Larken.
Six months later, a week before her next leave, Winona receives an emergency communication, routed through Starfleet Command. Jim has driven his father’s old car off a cliff and Sam has been picked up for hitchhiking. Frank is being held by the Riverside police, and the boys are being held by Family Services.
~*~
Frank is out on bail by the time Winona gets back. He’s waiting for her at the house, bags packed and in his hover-car. He looks worn out and defenseless. When she asks him why, all he can do is shrug.
“It was harder with you gone. I never signed up to be a single father-not to someone else’s kids.”
“My kids,” she says. “Our kids. That’s what you said before. When you told me to go off-planet, that it would be fine.” If her tone is bitter, she thinks she can be excused. Seeing as how she’s refrained from punching in his face.
His dark gaze skids away from hers, and she remembers how George always looked her in the eye whenever they fought. Whenever they spoke at all, really. Except the last time, but she can hardly blame him for that.
“Never mind,” she tells Frank.
She waits until his car is a speck on the horizon, then goes inside and calls her lawyer. The divorce takes a week and a half, pushed through by people in high places. It’s the first time Winona has used George’s reputation to get something accomplished, though it’s not the last.
~*~
Jim has a new edginess, a sense of urgency to all his actions. Winona can’t quite put her finger on it, the motivations behind his behavior or who she should blame. Frank, for the abuse? Herself, for leaving? Jim, for growing up too fast, too smart, too determined?
He starts coming home with his face bruised and beaten, knuckles bloody, clothes torn and stained. She asks what happened, who he was fighting, if he’s all right. When she reaches for him, he shies away, avoiding questions and touch in equal measure.
He’s always running, never slowing down, constantly in a rush to get somewhere. The calls start coming from school; when he’s not cutting classes, his smart mouth’s in overdrive.
“His grades are still stellar,” his teacher tells Winona. “But with the way he’s racking up absences…”
~*~
“What if you went somewhere new?” Winona asks. Sam is already leaving for college, has one foot out of the house entirely.
Jim looks sullen, but Winona knows she has his attention. “Where would I go?”
“There are places,” she says, deliberately vague, curious as to how he will take the suggestion-as a promise or a threat. When he doesn’t even blink, she smiles. “Colonies that offer accelerated study programs. Research opportunities for kids with high test scores and no tolerance for learning things they already know.”
Jim has no patience with boredom. That she much understands. She remembers the night he asked to join her on the Larken, knows instinctively that, despite everything, it had been less about what was happening at home than what might happen out there. Maybe it’s time he has his own adventure.
Blue eyes meet hers, and they hold a glimmer that’s been absent for months. Winona grins and ruffles his hair. Jim doesn’t pull away.
~*~
Three weeks after Sam leaves for college, Winona and Jim travel to San Francisco. She puts him on a transport to Tarsus IV, then takes a shuttle back to the Larken.
When word comes down-famine, Kodos, four thousand dead-Winona is halfway across the galaxy.
Nothing can make the ship move fast enough-not her dead husband’s heroism or her own threats of violence. For the first time, space is in her way.
~*~
Winona does not know this child-this silent, too-thin version of her baby. Jim sits and stares out the window, moving only when prompted. Day in, day out, she reminds him to get up, to wash and dress, to come to the table and eat. He picks at his food, as if doubting it’s real.
There are healers-for his body, for his mind. He succumbs meekly to their poking and prodding, but refuses to answer their questions.
“Survivor’s guilt,” they tell Winona.
Maybe, she thinks. Probably. But not only. A piece of him is gone, broken, dead. Winona isn’t sure she can ever revive it.
She goes out and lies in the hammock, alone, and stares up at the stars. She wonders if it’s possible for her to leave the planet without tragedy trailing in her wake.
~*~
Jim heals. Slowly.
Winona can feel her own restlessness pressing at her skin, bursting boundaries, and wishes the excess could flow into Jim like a surge of electricity. She wants her son back.
Three months after coming home, he returns to school, attending classes and staying mostly out of trouble.
A month later, he starts to run. He goes out every morning with the sunrise. Winona listens to the sound of his feet, pounding down the drive and out to the road, always a little bit faster than the time before. Part of her aches to join him, to stretch her muscles and match his stride and let the wind take them away.
Instead she gets up and makes real coffee for both of them. It’s enough that he’s moving again.
~*~
He graduates at sixteen and refuses to go to college. Once Winona thought Starfleet, but she knows better than to suggest it now. Still, she sees he’s restless. Recognizes that itch to move. Knows it from his childhood. Knows it from herself.
She consults down at the shipyard lab and ignores the shuttles coming and going, transporting new cadets. But they pull at her like strong ocean current. When she gets off work, she goes out and runs until she can no longer see the porch light when she turns toward home.
Jim works odd jobs-mechanic, handyman, bartender. Starts coming in later and later, sometimes not at all. He staggers home smelling of liquor and women. When George’s father dies and leaves Jim money, he spends part of it on a motorcycle.
He used to run for the love of speed. He used to run toward something, though Winona never knew his destination.
Now he runs like something is chasing him, hard on his heels and determined to drag him away. He races across the skyline as if expecting to take flight, churning up dust, daring the speed to consume him once and for all.
~*~
When Starfleet calls, Winona hesitates.
Sam has moved out, moved on, plans to marry soon. But Jim…
Every time she leaves, she loses more of Jim. If she lets him out of her sight again, she fears he will vanish entirely. It’s all happened so fast, like one gigantic exhalation-whoosh and his childhood zipped by.
She wants to rewind time, to scoop up that little boy-the one always in such a hurry to move, to fly, to escape, to be out on his own. She wants to hug him close, tie him down and never let him go.
Instead she waits for him at the kitchen table, waits for the sound of his bike, the soft slam of the screen door. He comes in, startled to see her, and she realizes it’s nearly dawn.
Jim’s shirt is torn beneath his leather jacket. A dark bruise colors his jaw, another higher on his cheek. A cut under one eye competes with a smudge of pink lipstick.
“Past your bedtime, Mom,” he teases, and suddenly Winona feels old.
“The Larken’s heading out and they’ve asked for me again.”
Jim pulls up a chair, swings it around and straddles it, resting his chin on hands folded over the seatback, though even now he seems to be moving. “When do you leave?”
“I haven’t said I’ll go yet.”
Sandy brows arch. “How come?”
Winona shrugs, feeling foolish. She can see it now. Her overgrown boy with broad shoulders, work-roughened hands, stubbled cheeks, boundless energy. He may be running, but it is no longer her job to stop him. Can’t be her job.
She thought he wasn’t ready to stand on his own, but maybe it’s her.
“I need to check with Sam. See if they’ve set a date.”
Jim nods slowly, eyes knowing.
~*~
She’s been in deep space for nearly a year when a comm comes through from Starfleet Command. Heart in her throat, Winona waits until she has reached her quarters before asking that they patch the message through.
She is not sure what she expects, but it is certainly not the news that Jim has enlisted.
~*~
Jim’s second year at the Academy, they are all on Earth for Christmas, and Winona insists they spend it in Iowa. Sam comes with Aurelan, and Jim shows up in his red cadet uniform. He only stays twelve hours before grabbing a shuttle back to San Francisco, and even those twelve hours are a blur of movement and gestures, stories and names. Some are familiar-Archer, Pike-while others are brand new-McCoy, Uhura, Gaila.
The rush of words is like a flowing river, strong and powerful and determined in its direction.
Winona still is not sure where Jim wants to be, but she suspects he is headed there, and that is all that matters.
~*~
The Larken is in the Laurentian system when the first distress call comes through. Only with the second call-this one panicked-does the starship set a course for Earth. By the time they arrive, there is nothing left to do.
After everything-after Vulcan implodes and Nero attacks Earth and Jim somehow stops it all-Winona remains in San Francisco, waiting for the Enterprise to return. She is front and center when the shuttle lands, bringing with it the senior crew. To assure her presence and her proximity, she has used her name quite shamelessly. (Not George Kirk’s widow, no, not this time. Today she is James Kirk’s mother, nothing more, nothing less.)
She expects to see Jim first, spilling out of the shuttle in a blur of energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on whatever comes next. So it comes as a surprise when a young woman steps off the shuttle, followed by several men, one barely old enough to shave. Jim exits last, his face a mass of half-healed bruises, wearing plain Starfleet black in the absence of a colored tunic to indicate his rank or department. He’s speaking with a Vulcan in science blues, their conversation low and serious.
Winona watches the two men walk down the shuttle steps, and sees the moment Jim acknowledges his return to Earth. His foot hits solid ground and he glances up, his eyes unerringly meeting her own. Jim’s smile is shy and boyish, but in every other way that matters, her son is a man.
Starfleet has kept the press at bay, but the admiralty is out in full force. Jim turns to meet the brunt of the onslaught, head held high, the rest of his crew closing protectively around him.
Winona understands in that moment that there will be no going back for Jim. No return to cadet status or threats of expulsion. There will be questions and perhaps haranguing among the upper ranks, but at the end of the day, James T. Kirk will be a captain. Perhaps even of the Enterprise.
He speaks with each of the admirals in turn, briefly and politely, shaking hands. His movements seem to indicate he has all the time in the world, yet he excuses himself after mere minutes. Blue eyes calm, gait unhurried, Jim crosses to where Winona stands.
“Hi, Mom.” He brushes a kiss over her cheek.
Winona cannot remember the last time Jim kissed her. She thinks he must have been a little boy. Reaching up-and when did he get so tall?-she takes his face in her hands, thumbs tracing lightly over the faint bruises that decorate his cheeks.
The cocky grin appears, the one she has always loved, and his eyes twinkle as he all but reads her thoughts. “You should see the other guy.”
Winona laughs, and hugs him close.
END
Author’s notes: This story emerged from my first attempt at writing in quite a long time. It was not where I started to go, but I’m quite glad that it is where I’ve arrived. With much thanks to Dani, for dragging me (not really) back into fandom, for her encouragement, and for her thoughtful comments, and most especially for making me wonder just what Winona Kirk was thinking all those years.