i.
There was an odd familiarity about the man sitting before him. Kirk had never seen him before, but the familiarity remained.
Dad.
The word flashed briefly in his mind, but he ignored it. It had to be the alcohol.
His eyes were soft, and there was just something about him that made Kirk want to fly into his arms and welcome home his long-lost father.
Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose. "What was your name again, sir?"
"Pike. Captain Christopher Pike."
Kirk nodded, suddenly realizing how thick his tongue felt in his mouth. "Pike. Right." Not Dad?
Pike tapped against the surface of the table.
He called me son earlier.
Kirk had known several men who used the term "son." With them, it was always derogatory, and Kirk wanted to hurl it back into their faces. With Pike…
It-it felt right.
When Pike left, Kirk let the name turn over in his mind a few more times: Dad.
He decided to roll the name off his tongue – just once. "Dad."
It felt as natural as breathing.
ii.
He couldn't tell if he was choking on fear or just – well, choking.
Dammit, this is the third time today.
He had to get to Pike, he had to get to Pike, he had to –
Was the guy taunting him?
Of course he was.
He was going to feel like crap later. Definitely. But for now…
"I got your gun," Kirk forced around the crushing of his larynx. The confusion on the Romulan's face almost made him laugh.
Well, if he could breathe, he probably would have.
He fired.
No time to recover, I gotta get to Pike.
He navigated his way through the ship, finally stumbling upon the room that held his superior officer.
Dad.
He almost said it, he almost breathed it out.
Pike's eyebrows furrowed, and he asked what in the hell Kirk was doing there.
"Just following orders," he said with a smirk.
Pike almost smiled at that.
Kirk leaned over to undo his straps, and he felt Pike's arm on his back, and he was looking at a Romulan ready to kill.
But Pike had beaten him to it.
He leaned back onto the gurney, and Kirk almost said, "Thanks, Dad."
But that could wait.
It was time to go home.
iii.
He needed a breath.
Bones had been following him around for the past hour, and only now had Kirk managed to escape the doctor's watchful eye.
He ducked into a corridor and bent over.
His hands shook, and he forced himself to take several deep breaths. The floor dipped around him, and he briefly wondered if the ship had turned.
No. The hall was still closing in on him.
His breaths came faster and more labored, and he slid to the floor, curling his hands into fists in an attempt to stop the trembling.
People had almost died.
His crew. Himself. Pike.
Oh my God. Kirk pressed his hands to his eyes, trying to still his breathing. Calm, deep breaths, Jim. Calm, deep breaths.
Once he had composed himself, he stood and made his way to the medbay.
"Jim."
"Captain."
Pike smiled. "How're you holding up, son?"
Kirk raised an eyebrow, taking a seat beside the older man's bed. "You're asking me? You got tortured, for Christ's sake."
Pike hummed in acknowledgement but continued to look at Kirk expectantly.
"I'm fine."
Pike raised his eyebrows in question.
Really, Dad. But he stopped his words short. "Really. I'm fine. Pike."
Pike seemed unconvinced, but Kirk clearly wasn't willing to share.
He didn't have the heart to tell the man he'd almost lost another father.
iv.
So he'd been busted back to cadet, lost his ship, received the dressing down of his life, and all he'd been trying to do was help his friend.
Granted, he had lied on an official report, but well…he had been trying to avoid exactly this.
He sighed, taking another drink of alcohol.
Fuck it all, really. He had nearly died (he'd counted – it had been four times within six hours) to earn his position as captain, and he hadn't lost a single member of his crew – then or now. And, because of that loyalty and that fear of losing one more person that he cared about, he had been punished. Severely.
He respected the chair. He did. And maybe he wasn't the most conventional captain in the world, but then, that's not why Pike had recruited him in the first place.
Well. He'd need to work his way back up the ranks.
Eventually. After he got out of the Academy.
He waved his hand at the bartender, asking for a different – stronger – drink. He was tired of thinking.
There was a girl at the bar. As he was about to ask her name, Pike sat down, a smirk dancing on his face.
Kirk groaned. Cockblock.
"How'd you find me?"
"I know you better than you think I do."
And, as much as Kirk hated to admit it, Pike was right. And sometimes…sometimes he wondered just how well Pike knew him.
Kirk laughed, recalling the first time he'd met Pike and Uhura. He'd handled himself just fine and probably would have won that fight had he been sober –
Well. Things would have gone differently.
Pike grew serious, and Kirk's face fell.
"They gave her back to me. The Enterprise."
Kirk felt the sting of being punched in the gut. An unfamiliar lump tightened his throat, and he felt his insides churn. That's my ship.
He stared at the older man, who was carefully watching him. Kirk looked away, wanting to scream, to yell, or to break down into tears. But he didn't.
"Congratulations." His heart wasn't in it.
Judging by Pike's face, he knew.
"Watch your back with that first officer," he practically spat out as he took another drink of alcohol.
He was only half-listening to Pike until he heard, "You're going to be my first officer."
He looked back to the admiral.
Pike continued. "The dean and Marcus took some convincing. But…every now and then I can make a good case."
Kirk was fighting tears. After a moment of silence (mainly used so that he could be sure that he was capable of talking around the tightness in his throat), he said, "What'd you tell them?"
Pike's words were gentle, and Kirk briefly wondered if this was what it was like to have a father. "The truth. That I believe in you. That if anybody deserves a second chance, it's Jim Kirk."
His vision blurred slightly, and he looked away so Pike wouldn't see him cry.
"I don't know what to say." He knew Pike could hear the tears in his voice. But, for some reason, he really couldn't care less.
"That is a first." He regarded the younger man with a smile. "It's gonna be okay, son."
Son. The word rolled off Pike's tongue so naturally.
He swallowed back the tears, determined to thank him, to call him dad just once.
And then they received a distress call.
Well.
He'd have time to do so later, he supposed.
i.
His mind was buzzing with a thousand different things he had to take care of. He couldn't isolate anything right now; he had to see how Pike was doing.
He ran through the hallway, ignoring everyone who tried to speak to him. Seeing Spock's uniform, he slowed his pace.
And he saw.
He stumbled backwards, firmly believing that his eyes were deceiving him.
But even as he begged any supreme being that might ever have existed, he knew what had happened.
He forced his feet to move forward.
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but he didn't notice. He didn't notice much of anything right now.
His throat tightened and his vision blurred as he looked to Spock, silently begging the Vulcan to give him hope.
He didn't respond.
No, he begged Death. Not this man. Not him.
He reached out and pressed his fingers against Pike's neck, begging the universe to let there be even the faintest throbbing.
Nothing.
No, no. The words tumbled through his mind. I should have been with him in his final moments.
He willed the strongest man he'd ever known to come back to him, to ask him why the hell he was crying, to call him son one last time.
Still nothing.
His heart dropped into his stomach, and the ache it left grew with each breath he took.
Another father lost.
The pain reached every inch of his body, and it was all too much for him. He fought the hot tears threatening to spill over, he fought the ache in his chest, but in the end, it was just too much.
His father was gone.
He leaned his forehead against the man's chest, mourning his loss.
Dead.
The word hit him like a train, and he fisted his hands into Pike's uniform. Not now, not now. He –
Kirk's shoulders shook with his sobs.
Not him.
He pulled away, still clinging to the one man who believed he could be better, who made Jim believe he could be better.
I never called him dad.
The knot in his throat was getting tighter.
I never showed him how much he meant to me.
Tears spilled from his eyes, but he didn't wipe them away. He didn't have the strength.
I wasn't there for him when he needed me most.
The realization broke him further.
He let himself cry for a moment longer, and then he took a breath. The time for grieving had passed.
He struggled to his feet, resting his hand on Spock's shoulder – not to comfort the Vulcan, but rather to draw strength from him.
He knew he needed to begin taking care of things, to find a way to bring justice, but right now…
Right now he just didn't have the strength.
Another father lost.
The sentence flashed in his mind, more vividly than before.
So many lives had been lost already, but Kirk could only think of two:
The father he'd never had.
And.
And the father he'd never known.