Title: Of Grief
Fandom: Star Trek [Reboot]
Characters: Jim Kirk
Word Count: 1347
Rating: K
Genre: General, Family
Summary: Grief is a strange thing. At first it crushes you. Makes you feel like there will never be anything else in your suddenly colourless and lonely world. Then you learn. How to get up in the morning. How to put one foot in front of the other and keep on moving even though all you want to do is curl up into a ball and let the darkness consume you.
Author's Notes: My first Star Trek fic. For Ed, I miss you; Post-STID
Disclaimer: I own nothing …

Grief is a strange thing.

At first it crushes you. Makes you feel like there will never be anything else in your suddenly colourless and lonely world.

Then you learn. How to get up in the morning. How to put one foot in front of the other and keep on moving even though all you want to do is curl up into a ball and let the darkness consume you.

It gets easier over time – living. You don't realize it at first. Don't even believe it's possible. But eventually you wake up in the morning and it isn't quite so hard to get up. Isn't quite so hard to breathe. And you realize that you don't mind living despite the pain that lingers from who or what you lost.

It was two weeks since the end of their five year mission into the uncharted territory of space. Everything that needed to be taken care of in HQ had been completed and the Enterprise crew was given a much earned and anticipated extended leave of six months until they were scheduled to move onto their next assignments. Jim Kirk was en route to his childhood home in Iowa. He sighed as he the transport shuttle touched down in the station in Riverside. It had been nine years since the then Captain Pike had picked him up off the barroom floor after a particular brawl. Thinking of the man who had become a father figure to him still made his chest constrict.

Jim unbuckled himself and exited the shuttle to pick up his bag. He slung the duffle over his shoulder and caught a transport into town before heading out to the old farmhouse.

Two years previously his mother, Winona Kirk, had died in an accident on the starbase she'd been stationed at. While he missed talking with her he'd made his peace with the loss of his mother. Sure their relationship had been strained for the majority of his life but after she'd finally left his jerk stepfather they'd managed to form a comfortable long-distance friendship. She'd decided not to return to her home planet after the divorce and the two had never made it to the same place at the same time since he'd been rescued from Tarsus IV. Winona left the Kirk family property and all it contained to Jim – Sam hadn't wanted anything to do with their old life since he'd run away when they were children and his relationship with their mother had remained strained and emotionally distant until the end.

Jim pulled up in front of the old farmhouse and sighed as he took in the aged structure. It was going to take a lot of work to get it back into completely working order.

The next week found him making the areas he needed to use frequently functional – such as the master bedroom and kitchen (though he'd immediately trashed the old bed and had a new one brought in). The following week he decided to check out what was being stored in the attic. After three days of digging through boxes he came across and old dusty portable Music Entertainment System – the modern version of a stereo. It was large and clunky and outdated. The kind that was considered 'in' when he was a child nearing adolescence. He smirked as he remembered that time of his early life. It hadn't been all bad… yet.

He opened the front panel to find the docks for the much smaller Personal Music Players. Looking at the buttons on the front he noticed the system had a port for the old Micro Music Entertainment System. It was a novelty item that everyone went crazy over when he was a kid based on the antique music players of the late 20th century – a cross between the cassette tape and the MP3 player if he remembered correctly. It only held a mere 30 songs, the speakers on the Micro MES didn't get very loud, and once the songs were transferred onto the devices in the order you wanted them you couldn't change them but everyone loved them. There was a deck in the older MES's to allow you to listen to a Micro MES at a louder volume. Friends and lovers alike would create mini playlists and exchange them as gifts. You could have a carry case full of them and grab one at random or pick the one that had your current favourites to take with you on the go. They'd actually remained popular for over a decade before becoming a thing of the past again.

After a couple failed attempts Jim managed to get the Micro MES deck opened and was pleasantly surprised to find one inside. He smiled slightly in nostalgia and removed the little device. His smile froze on his face and there was a pang in his chest. Written on the side of the device in his hand was the words 'By Jodi'.

Jodi had been a cousin from his father's side of the family. The older girl had been very close to both Jim and his brother growing up. Jim would even go so far as to say she'd been one of his best friends. She was over ten years older than him and he remembered driving around Riverside in her hovercar with late 20th and early 21st century music blaring from the speakers. But one day, a day his mother happened to be home for shore leave, they'd received a call and two in the morning. Communications at that hour were never good…

Jim knew it was bad the second he'd heard the incoming communication…

Jodi had been in an accident.

His mother had rushed to hospital where Jodi had been taken, Jim and Sam insisted on going with her. But it was already too late…

To this day Jim had no idea of why she'd been out driving at that hour or what had happened to cause the accident. But he was certain that that was a defining moment in his life. It altered the course of the rest of his life.

Not long after the funeral, after his mother had returned to space, Sam had run away and Jim had crashed his father's corvette in the Riverside Quarry.

Jim stared at the little device in his hands. Blinking as the memories cleared. After a moment he remembered how to breathe. It had been so long since he'd really thought about Jodi. Seeing something that had been hers, something that had been in her hands as it was now in his… He took in a deep breath and put the device back into the MES and checked the power source. He set it to charge while in use and pressed 'play'…

He left out a half-choked laugh, sounding almost like a sob, as the first song started up. He knew this song. Remembered it from the days they'd driven around Riverside. He let the sound wash over him for a few minutes.

He spent the remaining months cleaning out the house, making repairs as he went, sorting through the things he'd keep, store, or junk. Through it all he listened to Jodi's Micro MES.

As he listened to the music the sad smiles and grief filled memories gradually shifted and became happy smiles of remembered nostalgia. As the house was cleaned and put into order his grief over the loss of his favoured cousin, which he hadn't realized he'd clung to all these years, gradually lifted making him feel lighter.

When it was finally time to return to active duty the house looked, not new but no longer neglected and in complete disrepair. It looked more like a home than he remembered it. The old MES was stored in a closet and the Micro MES was tucked safely in his bag. He took in the farmhouse, his home, one last time feeling content for the first time in he didn't know how long before getting into his transport car and heading back Starfleet HQ and his life amongst the stars.

- 30 -

A/N: My dad works with one of my uncles during the summer and has an often frustrating habit of bringing home old furniture and things that my uncle wants to get rid of – leaving us to figure out what to do with it. Recently he brought home an old stereo for me to use. It has an old cassette deck and in it I found an old recorded cassette with the words 'by Ed' written on the side. Ed was my cousin who died in an accident when I was 14 and it was a bit of a shock to see it. I've been wanting to write a Star Trek fic for a while now and suddenly got the inspiration to write this. I hope you liked it.

Completed: May 17, 2014