Hey everyone! For JulNoWriMo this year I've decided on writing a Star Trek Reboot-based fic. And yes, these will be Jim-centric, meaning there will be lots and lots of angst, good ol' hurt/comfort, and an overwhelming amount of hurt!Jim. I'll try to balance it out, but, no promises!
To further rejuvenate my creative juices again, I'll be using one of the many 100 Themes lists to keep me focused in my series of oneshots (that's probably what this will end up becoming, because if I try to loop everything together this may well end in disaster, lol).
Anyway, I apologize for the non-update yesterday, but we just got back from a one-week trip to Cali today. Oh yeah, fun in the sun and all that. I guess that means I will be double-posting today - darn, my apologies in advance. Well, in any case, I do hope you enjoy, but whatever your reaction to this first piece, please let me know!
~Disclaimer:~ I most certainly do not own Star Trek, whether TOS or AOS. Gene Roddenberry and...I think Paramount...own them. I also am not making any profits off of this story.
Warning: this first drabble will be dark.
1. First Impression
When he first touches firm ground after months spent recuperating in space, he doesn't see vast Iowan fields or the "home" that's always felt constricting, limiting even, to him.
No, he sees reminders of death and destruction everywhere. No matter where he turns, the scarring images pop back up in his head, unbidden.
The sky is no longer a hopeful blue but instead a sickly yellow, a preliminary warning of the horrors found below, of the carnage and depravity running rampant down there.
The plants are no longer a healthy green or golden-brown. In their places are field upon field of decaying, listless grains, grossly discolored by the blasted fungus that caused the entire disaster in the first place.
And the people...oh god, the people...they aren't the robust farmers he grew up around. Not anymore. No, now they are the emaciated skeletons of children who gathered around him after that terrible, terrible execution order. The ones he failed to save.
The woman wrapping her arms around him - Winona, not mom or mother, because those two words describe the role she's never played in his life - is not blonde but instead a brunette with long, flowing hair and piercing gray eyes, just like Aunt Lucy. She's saying Jimmy, over and over again, but his brow furrows because Aunt Lucy always called him Jim (and his kids called him JT). She's whispering apologies for apparently sending him off, but Aunt Lucy didn't do anything wrong. All she wanted was to protect her family, including him - and oh god he misses feeling like he actually belonged somewhere - and how on earth could she have known of Kodos' treachery beforehand? No, that was his own fault, his and his alone. He, James Tiberius Kirk, was responsible for the deaths of over five thousand.
James Tiberius Kirk. He tries to say it, but the words crackle in his too-dry mouth and the dusty air. James Tiberius Kirk. Thinking it will have to do. James Tiberius Kirk.
But the thing is, he doesn't even know who that is anymore. Outcast, genius, misfit, leader, murderer, life-saver - all his roles are whirling and meshing together in his head, moving faster and faster until he can no longer distinguish which one is which -
George Kirk's son.
He scraps that one as soon as it surfaces from his subconscious. What, son of a man he never knew? Please. Son of a hero? Goodness gracious, that one's even worse. As if he hasn't gotten enough of the "Your father would be disappointed" or the "For Pete's sake, live up to your family name!" Everyone (from Winona and Sam who are not his family anymore but really never have been, to the neighbors who are always trying to take advantage of him because of the Kelvin incident, to complete strangers who are completely fricking helpless when it comes to using an ounce of common sense, to even Kodos himself who is - no, was - no, wait - forever mocking him for his part in the genocide when his father saved over 800 lives in twelve frickin' minutes) tells him something along those lines eventually.
Everyone, that is, except his aunt's family, who are long dead.
The only people who ever believed in him, who caught a glimpse of something incredible hidden behind his now-reinforced mask, gone. With a single gunshot each.
He swallows as he remembers the grotesque twisting of their faces - yes, their entire bodies became disfigured, but their faces especially - after he returned to the ruined city to scavenge a week after the mass slaughter. Really, that's the only way to describe it. 'It' being bodies piled in huge mounds littered all over the place, whether in the useless fields or by the ransacked buildings.
And the smell - oh god, the smell - was absolutely awful. Winona's perfume (and for goodness' sake, what the heck is the purpose of primping on a day like this?) unfortunately reminds him of the sickly sweet smell of dried blood and decaying bodies and charred remains and all the other signs of mass genocide present there.
JT. A survivor.
That's who he is now. He snorts. Apparently the universe decided it's not done messing around with his life yet, because he's now lived through not one, not two, but three tragedies that would break normal people: the first being the Kelvin, of course; the second his uncle's verbal, mental, emotional, and physical abuse; and the third?
Tarsus IV.
Two words he will never forget, for as long as he lives. Two words forever imprinted into both his subconscious and conscious; the realm where his nightmares will lurk for years on end; the site where his darkest memories and actions lie; the place where he learned to fear genius and its all too potent power. To fear himself, for possessing that genius and his use of it for evil, however unintentionally.
Accidental murder is a crime despite the fact that it is accidental. Manslaughter, no matter how unintentional, is a serious felony.
If only he'd paid more attention to the warning signs, if only he'd listened to his gut, if only he'd suspected earlier, if only he'd implemented a fail-safe instead of wanting to further his own fame!
He extricates himself from Winona's shaky embrace and turns toward the Starfleet - god he hates them for what they've done to his life, but this stern man working for them is the only person he semi-trusts out of all those who were on that ship with him - officer waiting behind him.
"Can you take me now?" he hears himself asking. (He's noticed that, ever since he left Tarsus, he's seemed out of it. As in, he seems to be watching himself from a distance, going through the motions of pretending to have recovered.) Before Tarsus, he would have winced at the hoarseness and rough monotone of his voice. Now, he settles for an even grimmer expression than before.
The officer's gray eyes - just like Aunt Lucy's - soften infinitesimally. "Son, none of that was your fault. Your design will revolutionize terraforming and colonization for the Federation."
"Tell that to the five thousand dead back on that embodiment of hell," he says harshly in reply.
"Son, I won't allow you to turn yourself in. You were not the one who mutated that ingenious design into a mass killing machine."
"I made it possible, though. Without my design, without me, they never would have been able to kill off those five thousand colonists," the thirteen-year-old snaps. "My god, why are you defending me?"
"Because you did no wrong, JT. Without you, the others in the Tarsus Nine would never have survived. Without you, Starfleet would not have come back until the next checkup, scheduled six months away, eight months too late instead of two." Sensing rather than seeing JT's disbelief, the officer gets down on his knees and puts a firm hand on the boy's - can he still be called that after all he's been through? - shoulder. "You saved nearly twenty children's lives, and for that, we - and their parents - are eternally grateful. And you know, you survived longer and smarter than I'll bet 95% of my colleagues would have."
He pauses and swallows, almost appearing to square his shoulders in anticipation for a verbal match, then continues, "JT, the thing is, we need people like you in Starfleet, because, well-" he sighs- "it's not the organization it used to be."
JT - because that's who he is to this Starfleet officer, and he is grateful that one person, at least, honored his request not to call him Jim or James or Jimmy - gives a sharp bark of humorless laughter. "First tell me this - why in the frick would I join an organization that took both my parents from me?" he asks coldly. Winona flinches at his implication, and he feels the slightest bit of remorse for an instant before it is quashed down by his horror-filled memories.
The officer nods almost sympathetically, but JT knows better. They all want something from him in the end, and his point is only proved by the fact that even this man, the first adult he's trusted in months, wants him to do him a favor by enlisting in Starfleet.
"The USS Kelvin, right?" Without waiting for a response, the officer continues, leaning forward almost conspiratorially, "I joined Starfleet to do my part in ensuring that tragedies like that don't happen again."
Without missing a beat, JT replies, "Then explain to me why this tragedy still occurred, sir. Do that, and I'll consider not flipping the bird the next time a Starfleet officer comes by."
Without another word, he pushes the officer's hand off his shoulder - he won't admit how comfortable it felt, how nice it was to know that someone still believes in him - and stalks off down the dusty road back to the farmhouse that was not, is not, will never be, home.
Winona is flustered as she apologizes but the officer simply shakes her hand. "Lieutenant Christopher Pike. I'll keep in touch, ma'am. He'll have to see a psychologist two times a week for at least half a year before he'll be let off. But, ma'am-" he says just as she's turning to go.
She turns back around, a question in her blue eyes.
"He will never again be the Jimmy you once knew," he says softly. "At least make sure that you get to know JT before he becomes James and shuts everyone out."
A pause, then, "Good day, ma'am."
Twenty years later, when JT - no, gosh dang it, he's Captain James Tiberius Kirk now - again sets foot on that godforsaken place because they've apparently re-terraformed it, he shivers involuntarily.
His first thought is that they've cleaned up so well, he can almost believe the massacre never happened.
But then the ghosts of his past all rise up at once, and he's writhing on the ground, mouth open in a silent scream, trying to tell the governor's men who he knows aren't there (but frick if it doesn't seem like they're right there about to chain them all up) to take him, do whatever they want to him, if only to spare everyone else.
"Jim! Jim!" someone's calling, but that's not him, that's not his name -
"JT!"
He recognizes that voice. Gosh dang, but he knows that voice.
Kev.
At first he doesn't realize that he's said it out loud, but then Kev is hovering right there over him and nodding.
"Yeah, JT, it's ok now," he whispers. "Everything's alright. You did well."
He grasps Kev's forearm, his blue eyes dark and wild. "The others?"
"All safe, thanks to you, JT," Kev whispers, that dangerous hero-worship back in his gleaming hazel eyes.
And for the first time in his life, James Tiberius Kirk allows his tears to flow freely.
Wow that was dark. And intense. I need to take a breather for now, and I'll hopefully post up chapter 2 later tonight in the less than three hours I have left, lol.
So with the JT design, another fanfic - not sure what it's called or who it's by anymore because I read it a while back as a guest - had this situation where Jim is an absolutely brilliant kid (I mean he is in AOS too, just not rebellious yet, still the boy with perfect grades and who's eager to please) and he uses that genius to design a crop improver that would essentially be "perfect." But then Kodos' scientists get their hands on it and everything goes to heck, and then Jim blames himself because he's Jim.
For a while, I've also thought that Pike would have known Jim before that bar incident. From what I've seen on this site, lots of other authors feel the same way. So I felt free to take some artistic license. Used that with the twenty years later approach too, because I doubt Kodos is dead. I think that, like in TOS, he would have survived somehow.
Or, you know, I'm justifying it because I want to write some more hurt!Jim later...whatever works for you...
Let me know how I did, please!