George Kirk doesn't like being dead. Though, it seems he's the only one. The rest of them seem to love it, peace and relaxation, no jobs. It's like heaven only darker. Because there is no such thing as Heaven but this place is pretty damn close. All soft pastels and every necessity you could imagine – and some you can't. It's a beautiful place, full of life (ironically enough) and people laughing. It sounds almost like the Kelvin did before it burned up in the atmosphere. The sound sets him on edge, but it makes him happy. He saved eight hundred people – including his wife and son – and that's worth dying for. He'd like to believe that he'd love it if not for one simple fact.
He left his family.
He hates himself, wants to tear his own heart out because they never should have to grow without him. Jimmy should have learned how to throw a punch from him. Also, that throwing punches is wrong and will get him locked up in his room without supper if he should attempt it. Sam, he should have learned how to protect Jimmy, instead of only knowing how to protect Sam; Winona should have had him to lean on when it all got to be too much. And, from what he can see in the Watching Pond, it got to be too much the minute she landed planet-side.
George blames himself for not being there. He blames himself for being stupid and sacrificial and a goddamn martyr when he should have been a coward and gotten into a shuttle with his family. He blames himself for letting it get this bad.
He watched, instead, how Jimmy learned to throw the punch at anyone that mentioned his father. He watched as Sam ran away from home and left Jimmy behind. He watched his boy rail against a man that never should have been there in the first place. But, what breaks his heart, is Winona. Winona, so bright and full of life, is now dull and finding more solace in the blackness of space because she thinks it brings her closer to George than being with the boy that has his eyes.
('Oh, Win, what have you done? He asks the air and wonders if she can hear him – separated by life and death and space and stardust)
He blames Winona for how wolf-like Jimmy has become. But, mostly, he blames her for the scars that Jimmy shouldn't have. He blames her for Tarsus IV and the aching feeling that Jimmy has every time he sees food. George blames Winona for Jimmy's eyes, for the empty glass-like look that they carry, and the haunted weight in his steps. In his fast steps. In the steps he learned while running, running, running from Kodos and hunger and pain. George blames Winona for that.
And George hates Frank. Not for taking his place, not for selling his stuff, but because Frank is in the spot that George wants to be in and Frank sucks at it. Frank, who is mean and angry, George who is inadequate and drinks himself into a stupor to pretend Winona loves him. Mostly he hates Frank because Frank let Jimmy nearly run his own ass off of a cliff. George knows hate, he knows the feeling inside his chest like a monster pacing in a cage, and he has never hated a man more than he hates Frank.
It doesn't matter, though. Not really.
Because Jimmy grows up, Jimmy gets into fights. Jimmy has an IQ that is off the charts – literally – and George wonders what the hell he's doing with his life. Then he starts rebuilding George's old motorbike and George smiles. Maybe his boy can make something of himself, he's good with his hands (most of Iowa's female populous can attest), and this is the beginning. The motorbike jumps to life under Jimmy's hands and then the boy is off. He's racing down back-roads and taking turns too sharply for the bike to like. But Jimmy rebuilds it still. Clings to his father in the only way he knows.
And, now, Jimmy doesn't believe in 'no-win' scenarios. Because he's a fighter; he's had to become one (like the wolves, but even a wolf has to have a pack). And it nearly breaks George's heart to see Jimmy sitting in his room and charting different scenarios for George's death. To see him manipulate the image, manipulate the world around his small hands, and find the perfect path that George could have taken to survive and be a hero. It really breaks his heart when Jimmy can't find one – for all that genius, he can't change the past – and he all but folds in on himself, sobbing hysterically that he can't save his (family, future, past) father.
Until the bar; 'till Jimmy hits on the wrong girl and gets into another goddamn fight – and this one is with Starfleet. George knows how they fight and George knows that Jimmy doesn't stand a chance. Because Jimmy knows how to throw a punch but Jimmy is better at taking one. Something inside twists at the thought; his boy didn't grow up defending himself, he grew up hiding himself. He blocked punches and threw one for every few that he took. Jimmy takes hits.
Hit after hit after hit. This is his son's life now and George doesn't know who to blame anymore.
Then Pike walks in and George nearly laughs. This is what Fate does. Fate is laughing its own ass off at Jimmy. And George is excited. This is Iowa-Jimmy's zenith. This is Starfleet-James Tiberius Kirk's beginning. George is about ready to tap out of Jimmy's life and let it take its course. He almost wants to be surprised years from now when Jimmy joins him and hear stories of his life. But he won't. He's going to see this through. See what happens to Jimmy. No one is there to ask him, but if they had asked how he felt about Jimmy joining Starfleet, George would say he's angry. Angry that Jim is joining the group that took him from his father, angry that he's missing it, and angry that Jimmy has to do it alone. But he's proud. Mostly he's proud.
Then, like everything else in Jimmy's life, it all goes to hell. He's brought up on academic charges for defending his father's ideals and that pointy-eared bastard has the gall to take a cheap shot, knowing full well how Jimmy is affected by George's death. Jimmy is grounded – literally. But he's lucky, he's got Bones. George likes Bones, that Southern badass is good for Jimmy. Leonard McCoy is A-OK in George Kirk's books.
And, if it went to hell when Jimmy is charged academically, then it goes to complete shit. Jimmy is fighting not only against Nero but against that Spock-guy as well. He's fighting against someone that should be his ally. Just like that, George hates Spock. Perhaps not as much as Frank but he finds that Spock's presence near his son sets his teeth on edge.
Until the end – when Spock kicks some major ass and Jimmy gives him a smile; the moment when Spock supports Kirk and steps onto that bridge requesting to stay. Then George thinks Spock might be the best damn thing to happen to Jimmy.
He watches them fondly and tries very hard not to laugh when Jimmy starts trying to woo Spock. He can't contain his laughter when he discovers that Spock has, for the past 2.5 years, been trying to woo Jimmy. Even McCoy doesn't laugh, and if anyone should, it's him. After all, he's been giving advice to both of them. Though, George supposes Bones should be magnanimous if he wants to impress that Communications Officer that's been pining after him for months. What was her name?
Ahuru?
Uhura! That was it.
He smiles when Spock and Jimmy finally get together – ironically, both are prompted by the marriage of Bones and Nyota. He laughs when Spock tries to explain bonding to Jimmy and all Jimmy thinks of is the idea that now he can hear Spock in his head. He grins when they bond and become a married couple. He cheers when Spock rescues Jimmy from himself (and every monster on every godforsaken planet in the Federation). And he cries when, in the end, Time finally takes Jimmy. Spock is devastated, so devastated that it is no surprise when his heart arrests along with Jimmy's.
Bones, Nyota, and Atticus James McCoy give them both a burial fitting for their achievements. George wipes his eyes and steps away, finally, from the Watching Pond. He has seen his boy grow up into a fine man and that is all he could ask for. He turns to go back, back to where ever he is, because it isn't heaven, with all the other ghosts who don't quite care where they are.
Then he sees him. Blonde hair and blue eyes, grin like a Cheshire cat. Standing next to a man with a logical haircut and brown eyes, cheekbones like razor blades; and George starts to cry again. Jimmy, forever 25 here, steps forward, tears clouding his eyes.
There is a moment of silence before they are hugging. Hugging tightly and fiercely and George never wants to let him go. Never. Spock will have to pry Jimmy from him. Jimmy is crying now, and this time George can wipe away the tears and make everything better. This time and every time after. This, George thinks, is what redemption feels like.
"I missed you, Dad." Jimmy says; his voice so very small and young.
"I missed you too, Jimmy." He whispers into his baby boy's blonde hair.
For the first time since arriving – with his son in his arms and his son's bondmate standing, looking as much like a terrifying Vulcan as anyone has the right to look – George doesn't mind being dead.