Because Winona is kind of a badass, at least in my head. Planning on another chapter, going through the events of the movie until... some unspecified point. And yes, there will be Kirk/Spock. Because I'm not really capable of writing something entirely het. So. Enjoy.


1

Winona knows what it is to be left. She knows the sound of her father's car as he leaves on yet another business trip. She knows the look of sheer hate on her mother's face the day she leaves. She understands the nuances, the intricacies of being alone.

She is a spitfire of a nineteen-year-old who leaves home the first chance she gets on the back of a Harley Davidson. She just goes. Because her dad is never home and her mother is long gone and Winona's always been too loud. Too loud and too big for all this.

She doesn't think of it as getting even. There's no one here for her to leave behind.

She isn't sure where she's going until she hits San Francisco. The city is huge, and there are so many people, and it's loud enough to drown Winona. So she stays.

2

Winona likes two things: fixing things and fighting. Because both of them are tangible. Neither one leaves you alone.

So she gets a job as a mechanic and she gets a reputation. And she drinks, because no matter how far from her family she gets it's the only way she knows to deal with shit.

3

George doesn't save her. He was never her hero.

He's this naïve little farm boy from Iowa or Idaho or something with quick blue eyes and an easy smile. And he drives the shittiest bike Winona has ever seen.

She laughs at him when he brings it in, tying dirty blonde hair up in a bandanna. He gets all offended, which only makes her laugh harder. No one makes her laugh like George does.

So when he asks her out the day he comes to pick up his bike, she says yes.

George is the polar opposite of the boys she used to date back home. Those memories are all leather jackets and rough hands and tequila. And George? George brings her fucking flowers.

He takes to calling her "sweetheart." She throws him a dirty look the first time he tries it, but he just laughs. And somehow Winona doesn't want to punch him. Because when George says "sweetheart" he isn't saying "I am the asshole patriarchy using cutesy, condescending endearments." When George calls her "sweetheart" he's really saying "I love you." Winona knows this. Which is why she makes sarcastic remarks every time he says it. Because it's her way of saying "I love you, too."

And that might be just slightly fucked up, but no one ever accused George and Winona of being entirely sane.

4

She doesn't join Starfleet for him. She'd sent in her application months before they even met.

But the day she finds out she's assigned to the Kelvin she almost cries.

Of course, her boyfriend is the first officer, and she can be very persuasive when she's pissed—according to said boyfriend. So she isn't all that surprised.

It's the relief that's making her tear up, that's all. She's not getting left behind this time.

5

They have a shotgun wedding in Vegas their first shore leave on Earth.

George calls Tiberius from the hotel, because he's always been the good kid. Tiberius reminds Winona of George, laid back and quiet, but intense, in this weird way that shouldn't work, except that it does. Winona likes him.

George asks if she wants to call her parents. But her father is dead and she doesn't know where her mother is. She never had anyone to leave back when she was nineteen, and she doesn't have anyone to call now. But she does have George.

So they find this little wedding chapel (George thinks it's hilarious that Vegas is still the place to go for a quick wedding). He's wearing a button-down shirt and a suit jacket. Winona is wearing jeans and her leather jacket, which doesn't piss George off because it's so Winona, and he sort of thinks it's better like that.

6

They name him after his father, because George is old-fashioned like that, and Winona doesn't mind because she's exhausted and he's healthy and he's beautiful.

George Samuel Kirk Jr.

The name's too big for him. George says he'll grow into it. Winona knows he won't. He's more reserved than George, not as intense, and he's not as loud as Winona.

So she calls him Sam. It sticks.

Winona loves the look on George's face the first time he holds Sam. Because it means she doesn't have to know, anymore, what it's like to be alone.

7

Winona is the Kelvin's Chief Engineer and her Head of Security. She loves her job. It's who she is, who she's always been, really.

And she's got George, and she's got Sam, who's almost five now. He's been staying with Tiberius, who's great with him. And everything feels right for once.

Then Winona finds out she's pregnant again. George is ecstatic. He says she deserves a girl. It isn't going to be a girl. Winona knows. But she doesn't tell George that.

8

She goes into labor, and George holds her hand in medbay until his shift. She rages at him when he leaves. And he smiles at her like he does when he thinks she's being ridiculous.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, sweetheart," he says, and she glares at him, teeth clenched.

"Just shut up and get out, George."

He blows her a kiss. "I love you, too."

9

George is gone. George is gone, and the baby is a boy. Winona knew he'd be a boy.

His name is Jim. Why the hell did she let George name him Jim? After her father who left, named by her husband who's gone. Who's gone, but Jim looks so much like him it hurts. He has blue eyes.

But he isn't anything like George. He's loud and angry, and his tiny hands grasp her fingers like the world will fall apart if he doesn't. No, Jim isn't like George. He's like Winona. And it's so much worse, seeing herself in those electric blue eyes that are so much like his.

Jim scares the hell out of Winona. Because Winona knows what it is to be alone, and she can feel it in Jim, too.

She doesn't hate him. She can't. He looks so much like George, and it hurts, but she still can't hate him. The universe has already started punishing him; she can't do it too. He has George's eyes, dammit.

10

Winona knows what it is to be alone. She knows the feeling of being left. And she marries Frank because Frank doesn't leave. He's as ingrained in Riverside, Iowa, as it's possible to get.

And… it's not that she loves him. Not really. It's just… well. The kids need someone to be there.

She's already decided. She knows what it is to be left, and this time. This time she needs to be the one doing the leaving. Not like the time she was nineteen. Not on the back of a Harley Davidson with her whole life ahead of her and… hope. Not when she'd had that empty house anyway and no one to leave.

Not when George was still alive.

No. This time? This time Winona just has to get out. To go, and to have someone to leave behind.

She hates herself a little bit for that. Because Sam is still just a kid, and he doesn't really get it, and Jim… is Jim.

And if she's being completely honest with herself? She's leaving because he's so much like her and she can't stand it anymore. Because he needs to understand this.

He's not going to have control, in the end. And he needs to get that. Because one day, one day he's going to be alone. He's going to have to learn what that feels like. To know that feeling, to accept it.

And she hates that she does this. But she does it, because… Because George is gone, and this is all she knows how to do.