Author's Note: Written for the comment_fic prompt: wrestling with the fact you'll never be as amazing as the person whose name you were given

By Any Other Name

George has always known he was named after his father.

"If you'd been a girl I wanted to name you Winona," Daddy tells him once, "after my favourite person in the world. But you were a boy."

"So he named you after his second favourite person," Mommy chimes in with a smile, and Daddy rolls his eyes and pulls her close to kiss her.

The truth is that George is an old family name, passed on through generations, but right then it feels like the best name in the world.

x x x

When George is four, Mommy and Daddy leave for a mission in space. He's just turned five when Mommy returns, alone except for the squirming baby in her arms. Your brother, Jim. George learns words like dead, and brave, and hero, and that they're all things he never ever wants to be. If Daddy hadn't been a hero he'd still be here, and Mommy wouldn't be so sad.

It takes George a while to notice that Mommy doesn't use his name any more. Jim gets to be Jim, but George is Sweetie, Baby, Junior. One afternoon he's playing with his toys when Jim crawls over and reaches for one of his trains. Not wanting baby spit all over his things, George quickly pushes him away, and Jim falls over and begins to cry. In an instant their mother is there, scooping up Jim and rounding on George, eyes blazing. "George Samuel Kirk," she begins, "don't you dare-"

She stops suddenly as if all the fight has gone out of her, and sits down abruptly on the couch. "Don't push your brother," she says, in a very different tone, still absently rocking Jim in her arms as tears begin welling in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mommy," George tells her, scrambling to his feet and hugging her legs.

"I know, baby," she says softly. "It's okay." She wipes away the tears and tries to smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. George just hugs her tighter, wishing, not for the first time, that he'd been named after someone, anyone else.

In the end it's Jim who saves them all, by learning to talk. By ten months he's mastered "Mama" and "Doggy", as well as "No", which he uses a lot. But George isn't satisfied.

"George Samuel Kirk," he says firmly, staring through the bars of Jim's crib. He may hate it, but it's still his name.

"Jor Sam-oo Kir," Jim repeats obediently, then claps his hands together. "Sam!"

"No," George says, but then he pauses. Sam. Sam Kirk.

It has a nice ring to it.

"Sam-sam," Jim says, and George smiles for the first time in a long time.

"Yeah," he says. "Sam-sam."

George Kirk may be a dead hero, but Sam Kirk can be anything he wants to be.