And my feet can't stay on the ground any longer

With every leap of faith I feel a little stronger

Wanna swing from a star in the big blue sky

Don't wanna watch it all go by

So I'm gonna fly

James Kirk loved flying. Loved the feel of wind sweeping through his hair. Loved the way it felt like freedom. What he hated most was the fall

When he was younger, he used to climb to the top of the porch railing and jump out into the hydrangea bush that his mother had planted there in an attempt to cover the peeling paint. He would stand up straight with his arms straight out from his shoulders and head thrown back. There he would stand, waiting for the perfect moment and the voice in the back of his head that would whisper 'jump.'

He would push off from the railing and fly, higher than the house, the Earth, up to the space station. Up to the stars. And then he would fall into the bush. But that blissful moment, that moment where he was weightless was more precious than all the photographs and all the stuffed toys in his room. James imagined that that was the reason that his father had gone into space. So he could fly.

So what if it scared George when he caught Jim jumping into the bush, he didn't understand James's need to feel free. George got to go out and play with his friends, James had none.

So what if it ruined his clothes, made huge holes in his shirts and plants. They were all hand-me-downs from George, hardly new or expensive. And he wasn't likely to have a younger brother; George had told him that so he knew it was true.

And it wasn't like his mother would notice. She spent every waking moment at work trying to do something. James had a feeling that he had somehow done something wrong and she was punishing him for it. He had tried apologizing to her, but she still kept going to work before he woke up and came back right when he was going to bed.

The nanny cared, but he was sure that it was because she had to take care of the laundry.

Nobody really cared; nobody really understood his need to fly. But that was okay by him; that meant that he didn't have to share that moment of pure freedom with anyone else. He would have shared it with George, he might have liked it too, but when George had yelled at him for jumping James had decided not to tell him. He was too old to understand.

So James kept his love of flying to himself and stole away those moments when his mother wasn't home and George was with friends and the nanny wasn't home to jump off anything he could, just so that he could feel that freedom. And at night, he stared up at the sky and wondered if someday he might fly up there, with his father.