In her arms she held her son, her new born son, James Tiberius Kirk. Tears slid down her face as she sobbed, but the tears she shed were not of happiness. She had been speaking to her husband, who had still been on the USS Kelvin as it was attacked. One second, he was there. The next, he wasn't.
George Kirk, Captain of the Kelvin for twelve minutes, lost his life to save his wife, the son he would never get to see, and eight hundred others from a Romulan ship.
Winona cried her heart out, and clutched her baby boy to her chest as she did. She only stopped when he began crying.
Taking a breath, she realized she was holding him too tight. She loosened he grip, and started shushing the newborn.
"Shhh, Jimmy, it's okay, shhh, it's alright," Winona cooed. He soon stopped with his mother's gentle rocking.
She lifted him up to look at him. Jimmy opened his eyes. He had such brilliantly blue eyes, just like his father's. A wave of sadness crashed over her, but she did not let it take over her. She had to be strong. She had Sammy at home, and she had Jimmy now, too. She had to be strong for them. She had to be both a mother and father, now.
She wasn't sure if she could do it.
Winona tried her hardest to be a good mother to her boys, especially Jimmy. It was easier when Jimmy was a baby, when he just looked like a baby. But as he got older, he started to look more and more like George. She couldn't stand seeing her husband in his face. She hadn't found closure, and it only made her sad. What was worse, he even began acting like George. He was just as smart, just as curious, just as clever, just as everything.
She was a good mother to him, when he was little. She did everything a mother would do. She played with him, she put his pictures on the fridge, she taught him how to tie his shoes, she brought him to parties, punished him when he misbehaved, everything. But as he got closer and closer to being a teenager, he began to be more and more like George.
Winona began spending less and less time with her boys. She began spending more time out of the house, anywhere else, with anyone else. She didn't think of it when she was out, but always felt a pang of guilt when she came home to a messy kitchen from Sam trying to cook. More often than not, Jimmy and Sam would be asleep on couch with the tv still on, huddled together. She never woke them up to send them to their rooms.
The one time that she went to a bar while her boys were home alone, she met a man. He took her mind off of the boys and George and her looming reinstatement into Starfleet. He wasn't very handsome, no, but he was very kind. His name was Frank. Frank and Winona began dating. Jimmy seemed to like him, having never had a father figure. Sam seemed skeptical of him. Only four months after their meeting, Winona and Frank were married. Jimmy was overjoyed, but Sam was resentful.
A month after the wedding, Winona left for space. She didn't want to, but it was her job. She thought her boys were in good hands with Frank. What she didn't know was the ferocious drunken monster he would turn into when she was gone, and how he would beat the defenseless boys.
She returned a year later. Sam was sixteen, and very resentful. Jimmy was twelve, and very adventurous. How much he looked like his father shocked Winona, but she tried to ignore, by looking at Jimmy, as little as possible. When he told her how he got to skip to a grade below Sam, he smirked. The same smirk George had worn so often. She couldn't stand.
Winona slapped Jim as hard as she could. He doubled back, and looked at her, tears in his eyes, unbelieving of what she had just done. Sam stared, and Frank laughed(this was when she realized all the video calls about Frank were true, but she ignored this, as well.). She ran from the room as fast as she could.
This was when Winona began to push away her problems. This was when couldn't look at her son anymore. This was when she began grabbing every chance to leave Earth that she could. She always felt guilty leaving her sons with the monster she had married, all alone without their mother, but she felt worse being with them. She tried to make up for it by sending presents, but it never worked. She had become a bad mother; her worst nightmare.
"He WHAT!?" Winona screamed at the screen, which Frank occupied.
"Yeah, Jimmy drove my corvette off a cliff and nearly got himself killed. Damn brat payed for it," Frank spat of the screen.
"And Sammy ran away?"
"Yep."
"Where's Jimmy now?! Is he okay?!"
"I locked him in his room," Frank paused. "For now," he added.
Winona ran her hands through her hair. "What am I going to do with him?" She sighed.
"Doesn't he have an aunt and uncle on that new colony... um... Tarsus IV?"
Winona sat up. "Yes! We can send him there. Working on their farm should do good."
Winona did not know how terrible of a mistake she had made. She would never forgive herself for it later.
Jimmy talked to his mother once while on Tarsus. He was furious with her, and it ended with Winona yelling she wished he hadn't been born, and Jimmy ending the call before she could apologize for what she had said. Months went by without any contact.
"Captain, we're receiving a message from Starfleet. Priority One," Winona heard the communications officer say.
"In my office." The Captain walked out of the bridge, returning fifteen minutes later. He spouted off coordinates and who he wanted on an away team, and so on. After a bit, the Commanding Officer placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Captain, what exactly is going on?"
He sighed. "The crops on one of our colonies failed, and the governor decided to kill four thousand of its inhabitants to preserve the rest. From gathered information, there are almost no survivors. We are to go there and search for them."
"What colony, Captain?"
"Tarsus IV."
"Oh my God!" Winona nearly screamed, and slammed both hands over her mouth and stepping back from her station. Every head on the bridge turned towards her.
"What's wrong, Lieutenant?" The Captain asked, somewhat annoyed.
"My-My son is on Tarsus!" She said, panicked. The annoyance disappeared from the Captain's face and only concern and determination remained.
Winona just stood there as the ship headed towards Tarsus. It only took thirty minutes, but they were the longest thirty minutes of her life.
She took several deep yet ragged breaths. "Captain, permission to join away team," She said, staring the man directly in the eyes.
He stared back for several seconds. "Granted."
Three away teams beamed down to the planet. They searched for anyone, anyone at all, who wasn't dead. Everything was broken and run down, and the streets where littered with bodies. Winona searched through the bodies with her eyes, hoping to God none of them were Jimmy. She appeared composed and calm- or, as calm as any of them could be- on the outside, but her eyes shown with anger, worry, and were frantic. They searched inside every building, finding little more than starved and bloodied bodies. Many of the colonists were murder victims, rather than starvation victims.
Several screams pierced the uneasy silence. Winona, a security guard in tow, ran as fast as she could towards the source of the scream, inside of an apartment building. She ran up the stairs.
Four children, no older than twelve, were huddled in a corner, crying. The youngest appeared to be six. One of the security guards was somewhat wrestling with an older boy, who wore ragged clothes and was much skinnier than he should be. He was trying not to harm the boy, but it was hard not to when he was wielding a knife.
"JIMMY!" Winona shouted over the noise. He stopped.
Jimmy stopped and stared, dumbfounded at his mother. The knife fell from his hand. He blinked, and he began shaking. The children had stopped crying.
"Mo... Mom?" He whispered, his voice hoarse. He fell to his knees. Winona ran over to he son, and tried to wrap her arms around him. He pushed her away.
"Don't touch me!" Jimmy screamed.
"Jimmy-"
"JIM! My name is Jim!" He yelled.
"Jim, I-"
"This is ALL your fault!" He was straining his voice to yell as loud as he could at her. "Y-You sent me here! W-Why would you do that?" Now, he broke into tears.
Winona felt her heart drop like a ton of lead bricks. This was her fault. She was his mother. She ignored him because he looked like George, and it had lead to this.
Winona was a terrible mother.
As he grew older, Jim ignored his mother. Winona tried to talk to him, forgetting completely about how he was almost George, only her motherly concern remained for Jim. But he refused her.
He got into so much trouble, but always kept his grades up. She watched him grow into an adult, hateful of her and of everyone else. He acted cocky and arrogant, and was arrested several times.
She watched him leave for the bar that night. He didn't return. A week later, Winona received a message saying he had joined Starfleet and was at the Academy. She was so happy. She didn't care that she probably wouldn't see her youngest son for a log time. She only cared that he was doing something he wanted to do.
She read about how he became Captain of the USS Enterprise, the best ship there was, and how he saved Earth from Nero. She watched as he became better and better, and learned about everything from Admiral Pike. All she felt was love and pride for him.
When she was told how he had died saving the Enterprise from Khan, she was devastated. But when she was told he was brought back to life, she was relieved. The second she caught wind of Jim waking up, she left Iowa for San Francisco.
Winona walked towards Jim's room, nervous. Every fiber of her being was screaming to leave, that he didn't want to see her after four years of being away, but she kept going. Before she could enter the room, she was stopped.
"You're his mom, aren't you?" A doctor with a Georgian accent said.
"Y-yes, I-I am," She said.
"I'm Leonard McCoy, a friend of Jim's," McCoy said. "Now, look. Jim's told me about you, and I've read up on ya, too. How you were part of the away team to Tarsus. Don't you dare bring it up. Don't you hurt him more." Sadness and anger covered McCoy's face, and Winona could tell he was a true friend.
"I wouldn't think of it," Winona said.
He stepped out of the way, and Winona entered the room. Jim was awake, and was talking with a Vulcan and two pretty young women. She cleared her throat, and they stopped talking, and turned to her.
"Mom," Jim said.
"Jimmy..." Winona's heart melted and tears started pooling from her eyes. She ran over and enveloped him in a hug. "Jimmy, I am so so so sorry. I wasn't there for you. I'm so glad you're okay. I'm so sorry I was never there! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Everything she felt spilled out from her mouth.
"Mom."
Winona stopped, and looked up at her son, who was now struggling to stay awake.
"I love you."
Winona smiled and laughed. "I love you too!" She said. It's all she ever wanted to save to him. She loved him for being him, for being James Tiberius Kirk. For being so like his father, yet so very, very different.
Winona was finally the mother she had wanted to be.
End Note: So. Is this good at all? This is my headcanon for Winona Kirk. She tried so hard to be a good mother, but failed so horribly. But the way Jim turned out in the end proved she was a good one.