Abducted
Author: Gyptian
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Drama
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Winona Kirk remembers that she was almost abducted once, and fights to keep others from suffering the same fate together with her husband.
Winona was only one of many abductees. The first, and one of the few to have been returned, but one of many. In seven years, the numbers rose, until nobody slept easily in their bed anymore.
Shadowy images, some memory, some fantasy, indistinguishable, woke her up screaming most nights. Like tonight, two large hands would immediately close over her shoulders, stroking, and make her lean back against a broad chest. Arms caught her in a sleep-warm hug. "Easy, sweetheart, easy. Shhhh, don't wake up Sam. It's alright."
She turned her head into his collarbone. "They pinched me, George. I only wanted to go back and then they pinched me and it all went black. Like it didn't even matter how well I could fight, they were so much stronger. They didn't even care. I was powerless. Powerless."
Her husband shuffled them around until she was sitting in his lap. "That doesn't sound as bad as some of your other dreams."
"I – was – powerless." She accompanied each word with a punch to his back. He oomphed through it, though it hurt. She'd learned to fight from the best, and they were sparring partners. She won more often than not.
"Yeah, and you hate that more than anything, I know, but think!" He stroked her hair. "They can't hurt you anymore, love. You escaped, you're here, you're raising a wonderful son, and you have the bestest, handsomest, most thoughtful man in the world for a husband. I mean, just look at that jawline, that's gotta cheer you up."
A wet chuckle escaped her. "You smug bastard." She punched him once more for good measure. "I love you."
"I know, I suffer your love every day." That earned him another punch, only just missing his kidneys. "Careful!"
"You can handle it." He could. After her disappearance seven years ago, and near-immediate return, not remembering anything, they'd started hunting. They'd found no answers as to how Winona had disappeared, but throughout the years they'd stumbled upon many more disappearances, where the person taken was never returned.
They were the ones to have found a correlation between the amount of information available about a person and their likelyhood of being snatched and disappearing in mid-air. They were the ones who believed it was aliens from the start, and now headed up the Mid-West American department of Starfleet in combating the aliens in their skies. Rarely seen, but sometimes fought off when one of their ships was spotted.
Winona dreamed about pale, pointy-eared people. Others who survived an abduction claimed the aliens were green, giant men and irresistibly seductive women, straight out of a loopy sci-fi porn scenario.
The budget for space ship development had sky-rocketed world-wide, and they were close to developing a ship that could patrol the solar system for months on end, and perhaps even venture out to see where the culprits were coming from.
A few years later, a pregnant Winona saw off her husband, the proud XO of the world's very first long-term patrol ship: the Kelvin. Their son would be born in his absence.
She worked long hours in Starfleet headquarters, listening to the ships' chatter. Sometimes, she and her husband fought over a bad connection in order to keep everyone entertained. Their mock-threats became legendary. Sam was mostly raised by nannies, during these months.
They were dark times, really, for every person they rescued, ten were taken from Earth. The ships that took them, they discovered, were big barges that, now they ran the risk of being shot at, beamed people up by the dozen and vanished in a blip at the edge of the solar system before Starfleet could give chase.
Orions, they called them. Slavers, they suspected.
Eventually, they were able to engage a ship before it could flee. Ground-to-space phaser canons has been installed just weeks before. A call to desist in abducting people was ignored. Warning shots were answered with direct hits. A second Orion ship joined the fray. A shot from the ground disabled its weapons and engines. The first ship had almost finished with the Kelvin, and turned its attention to the weapon array on the ground.
"Winona, they're going to fire on you. Evacuate!"
"What are you doing steering that ship, mister?" she snapped back.
"Robeau's dead. Everyone beside me and Prakesh is dead."
"Then land! We'll take the heat."
"Like hell. Get out of there."
"And let them kill you?"
"Rather you than me!"
A moment of silence, and a computerised voice announced, "Impact course set."
"George! Don't you dare."
"I dare. It's your life or mine. That's not a choice at all."
"George!"
"Call him James. I've always liked that name. Your father was a good man."
"George Samuel Kirk!"
"No, that's the eldest, sweetheart. He'll be James. Jim for short."
She found she couldn't draw breath. Only a croak came out of her mouth.
"Love you. Take care of them."
Static, and the connection was cut. Her assistant hovered over her. "Are you alright, ma'am?"
"No I'm friggin' well not!"
"Yes ma'am. Ma'am, you need to give the order to evacuate."
"What?"
"You need-"
"No we don't, Smith, look, my husband's just done a kamikaze on that ship. The other one's dead in the water. We're safe." She slumped over the screen, which showed only an Orion ship going nowhere and debris.
"It's Jones, ma'am."
The glare she turned on him sent him out of the room with a squeak.
It was declared a victory. An Orion ship showed up to tow its broken brother out of their solar system, under the watchful gaze of Starfleet's cohort of patrol ships. They were not seen again for two decades.
Winona, after the shock had worn off, immediately went into labour. James Tiberius Kirk was born the day his father died. Winona went on maternity leave, and never came back.
She lives in seclusion on a farm an hour's drive from Riverside.
If you're lucky, you might see one of the boys at the local school if you pass by. Many do. Even after ten years, Kirk spotting is a popular sport, although a pile of restraining orders prevents anyone from coming too close.