Prompt: Pike, Kirk - ... but I want instead to see if you yourself will pass this way.
″That is James Kirk?″ The bartender had to be fucking with him because Christopher Pike knew that there was no way in hell George and Winona Kirk's son would be lying beaten and bloody on a table in some dive in Iowa. It didn't matter that it was fucking Iowa and the kid was around the right age, or that he'd heard of Winona having the trouble dealing with the boy once he hit the teenage years, but...
No, it couldn't be.
Except the bartender was nodding in acknowledgment and on closer inspection Chris did have to admit that beneath the blood and bar floor grime there were hints of both parents in his features and expressions.
Well, shit.
He'd always known that any kid of the Kirks was destined to wind up in space and giving life a hell of a ride, but clearly the kid wasn't managing to find his way there on his own. This, however, was not quite how he'd envisioned his opportunity to assist in carrying on the Kirk legacy.
Thinking, Chris leaned on the bar and alternated between reading data called up on his PADD and staring at the kid as the glazed expression gradually wore off his features and he gathered his wits enough to order another drink. Right, as if he needed any more of that tonight.
The more he watched the young man the more he saw images of George transposed over his features and the more appalled he became at what this young Kirk had decided to do with the second chance that his father had paid so dearly for.
The more he watched, the stronger his determination to get the kid on a shuttle and headed for San Francisco in the morning with the other recruits. He could convince him to enlist, convince him the he had purpose and usefulness yet in him. He'd show him the possible future that all the other recruits had seen and yearned for and get him to want it to. Somehow.
Straightening from the bar, Chris glanced down at the PADD once more and winced at the number of black marks on Kirk's official record. He had a feeling that James T. Kirk would take the most infuriating and ass-backwards road to get to the grand future he was about to offer him.
He really hoped it would be worth it.