1
Winona doesn't sleep anymore. She gets a few hours here and there, but any more than that and she starts having nightmares.
They keep sending her to shrinks, and they all diagnose her with PTSD and write her prescriptions for drugs she never takes. Because they make you soft and Winona has a job to do, dammit.
And if she wakes up some nights, remembering the feeling of George's arms around her, stifling screams in her pillow, well. She's not on duty. There's nothing they can do about it.
She doesn't see the boys much. The occasional shore leave or sub-space transmission, but that's all.
It's Jimmy's twelfth birthday. So she calls. He needs a haircut, she notices, and he's gotten taller. His eyes are still bright blue. Of course they would be. Of course. Winona knows; she just seems to forget between times she sees him.
And then a year goes by. And Winona is stuck light-years away when she hears about Tarsus.
She'll kill Frank. She'll fucking kill him.
2
Winona gets leave after the Tarsus thing. She goes home. Well. "Home." She doesn't like to use that word to describe Riverside.
It was always small and gray, and now George and Tiberius are dead. It's worse. Even before she sees Jim, it's worse.
Sam is gone, and Frank is drunk (had he always been a drinker?), and Jim has this terrifying look in his eyes.
Frank should be glad she doesn't have her phaser.
Because Winona looks at Jim and he gets it. Better than she ever did. And she wonders why the hell she ever thought leaving was a good idea.
Jim is like Winona. She knows how to deal with him. Especially now. Because he's got a part of him left somewhere in space, too.
She looks at Jim, and she wants to divorce Frank, to take Jim, to resign her commission and just go. She doesn't want to let Jim out of her sight again. So he'll never be alone.
But she doesn't. She doesn't know if she can.
3
Winona probably thinks about Tarsus more than Jim does. She knows it's ridiculous to go through this, time after time, beating herself up about something she couldn't have done anything about. But she does, because… well, it's not like she hasn't been to enough shrinks already. What can they tell her that she doesn't already know?
Chris Pike answers that question.
He calls at the worst possible time. She's two drinks away from passing out (she knows the exact number; she's had time to count) when she gets his wave.
And she didn't ever actually kill Frank, but Jesus fuck, she just might kill Pike.
And she tells him.
"I swear to God, Christopher Pike, if he dies I will tear you to pieces with my bare fucking hands and a smile on my face. You see if I don't."
Jim enlists anyway. Chris Pike is a bastard.
4
Jim calls. Sam doesn't, and Winona gets that. She doesn't expect him to, and it doesn't make her angry. He's married now, to a doctor or a physicist or something, with a kid on the way. And hell, it wasn't like she called her parents, either. George is dead, and Sam might not even know where she is.
But Jim calls. Half the time, he's drunk off his ass and it's four in the morning and Winona can't tell from his muffled voice whether or not he's crying. But she's probably just imagining that, because Jim's a lot stronger than Winona is. Stronger, angrier, smarter, faster. Too fast, maybe.
She should have known getting him that bike was a bad idea.
He calls her the night before he takes the Kobayashi Maru. For the third time. She tells him she didn't raise him to be suicidal. He tells her she must not have been paying attention most of his life.
This is what they do. They joke about it, because Jimmy almost killed himself when he was nine. And when he was thirteen. And when he was seventeen. And since those didn't take? He enlisted. Because space always gets you in the end.
Except that it doesn't, because Winona's retired. The admiralty finally persuaded her to (somehow). But she's still convinced she's going to hate Pike as long as she lives, and Jim hasn't made any progress in convincing her otherwise for the past three years.
And then he hangs up, says he has to go study, and Winona doesn't hear from him. Which drives her crazy, because it's the Kobayashi Maru, and Jim would have called. Jim's always the one who calls.
She's having her usual drink(s) before bed, half-watching the news, and there he is. Jim. Winona nearly spills her glass of Jack.
Oh yes, Chris Pike? Is going to die.
(Jim calls that night. Winona swears to herself she'll just leave it, talk to him tomorrow, but of course she doesn't. It's Jim.
He tells her he's coming home.)
5
Winona doesn't really know why she's still living in Riverside. Frank's alcoholism finally got to him, and she just hasn't bothered to move since he died. But it's home for Jim, the way it never was for her, and she's done enough leaving.
She meets him at the shuttle station. He grins at her, and she's happy to see him, really she is, but it looks so empty. He's nothing like George.
He hugs her so tight, and it reminds her of the way he would hold her fingers in a vice grip when he was a baby, trying to keep something close. It makes her want to cry a little, but she doesn't because it's Jim and it's Winona. They don't cry.
Not unless they're both smashed, and there's no one around, and there's no reason not to.
He spends hours on her couch while she sits in a chair next to him, passing around a bottle of something expensive and possibly somewhat illegal. She asks him what happened, and he tells her. Winona should feel grateful for this. There aren't many people her son will actually talk to, not like this, and she should be glad she isn't just being left alone to worry like she used to. Like she still does with Sam.
But she knows Jim better than this. If he thinks he can hold something back from her without her noticing, he's got another thing coming. But she doesn't tell him that. She just listens.
She knows Jim. It's like knowing herself, and it's enough most days.
He kisses her cheek at the station before he goes back to Starfleet. And she wishes she could be happy for him, but there's something hidden behind his father's blue eyes, and it's killing her not to know what it is.
He calls, because Jim always calls.
They give him the Enterprise. Of course they do.
6
Winona doesn't hate Spock at first. Because Spock is safe. Winona isn't sure exactly what they are to each other, but it doesn't really matter. Because she knows Jim. She knows him. He's… Not the type.
They're on shore leave, and Jim calls to tell her he's "dragging my First Officer along, because he's avoiding his asshole of a dad and some shit on Vulcan. That okay?"
Winona thinks it through. If they're friends, fine. Jim's actually kind of good with people, and Winona likes Bones. And if it's more than that? Well. She knows enough about Jim's life from thirteen to twenty-six that it's got a good chance of not working out. Because it's Jim. So, "Okay."
So they come to Iowa for leave, and that's the first time Winona hears it. She knows she isn't supposed to, but she does.
Sweetheart. Jim calls him sweetheart.
And that's when Winona starts to hate Spock. It isn't like the kid's done anything. He's actually really nice. And honestly? Winona never really expected Jim to come home with the kind of person you actually want to introduce to your mother.
But he does. And there's Spock. And Winona is scared shitless because Jim called him fucking sweetheart. And it sounds strange coming from him. But she knows he means it. And that's the beginning of the end. Winona knows. She's seen it. She's lived it.
It's the same thing she saw in Jim's eyes day he was born. Her son has so much love, so much it's almost killed him. And that love tethers you. And one day? Jim's going to be alone. And it's hell. And she almost thought, almost, that all the years between nine and twenty-five might have stopped this from happening. But obviously, it didn't.
And that scares the fucking hell out of her.
7
It's not a shotgun wedding in Vegas, but it's pretty much the equivalent as far as Winona is concerned. Jim calls. Of course he does. He's a little buzzed, she can tell, but at least he calls her. And all right, maybe he's a bit like George.
She realizes that she might have been trying to protect George, all those years. To let him leave. Because if Jim is Winona, not George, as everyone seems to think, then George gets away clean. And maybe that was always the point.
But it doesn't matter so much now, she thinks. Maybe it's just the booze talking. She'll have to talk to Bones about that. He's standing behind Jim now, waving drunkenly at the screen as Jim tries to swat him away. And she wants to ask him at what point in a person's alcoholism one becomes completely apathetic, ambivalent. He probably knows from experience. With alcoholism and dealing with Jim. Not that those are mutually exclusive, anyway.
"Sorry about that, Mom," Jim is saying as Bones grumbles at him and hands him a drink. Winona shrugs, smiling.
And that thing? That emptiness, that hidden thing behind his eyes? It's gone. Wiped out completely.
She'll have to ask him how he did that.
Except that she already kind of knows. And it's a bit too late for that. For her anyway.
She never really taught the boys anything about religion. Winona's always been a self-avowed atheist, and George was somewhere in the middle. She's pretty sure Sam's a believer, which might have something to do with Tiberius, but it's not like she minds. At least Sam's started talking to her again. But anyway, the point is, she's started praying. And it's not to anything so well-defined as "god," but still.
She doesn't want Jim to be left alone. Not ever. She prays for that every night.
And she knows Spock a lot better now. She doesn't hate him anymore (well, okay, just a little). And she knows that he's never leaving Jim. Not by choice, anyway. He's a good kid, and he loves Jim. Winona can tell these things. She's never been all that maternal, so she can't exactly credit mother's intuition, but really. It's not like it isn't obvious.
But they're in Starfleet, and Winona knows all about Jim's lack of control, his manic need to be out there, to defend his people. He's like Winona in that respect, too. And God knows George had to save her ass plenty of times when she decided to do something incredibly stupid. Winona can only imagine the headaches Jim's given Spock. She kind of pities the kid, really. But she knows Spock probably doesn't mind. He's like George that way, and that thought both hurts and warms Winona.
So they both drink and talk for awhile, and then Spock shows up. He comes in on the other side of the room, so Winona can't see him at first, but Jim can. And goddammit if his face doesn't light up brighter than she's ever seen it.
"You go enjoy yourself, Jimmy," she tells him, smiling. He grins.
Spock says hello, and Jim kisses him. Winona can tell Spock's a little embarrassed about that, what with them being right in front of Winona and all, so she smiles at him, and he relaxes. As much as Spock ever relaxes.
"Good luck, you two," she tells them, and then signs off.
She finishes the rest of the bottle because she doesn't really know how to feel about all this, and the apathy is enough.
8
Sam and his family show up for a couple of days six months after that. The kids are adorable, and really sweet, but Winona intimidates them. Aurelan—Sam's wife—is a nice girl. She and Sam fit. Winona's glad for that. She doesn't worry so much these days. Sam's fine.
She doesn't hear from Jim, which is weird. But she tries not to think about it.
Because yes, she's retired, and she should be doing normal old-people things like gardening or bingo. But that's so not Winona. Winona is Harley Davidsons and leather jackets and drinking and being covered in motor oil. (She yells at Jim sometimes for driving that car into the quarry. Not because of Frank—they don't talk about Frank—but because that car? Fucking beautiful. And Starfleet pensions don't pay for cars like that.)
And then there they are.
Jim doesn't call beforehand, the little shit. Doesn't call to tell her he's groundside. Just shows up on her doorstep, Spock in tow (Winona's gotten used to them being joined at the hip. It's almost sweet, now). And she yells at him about it for awhile to make herself feel better, and Jim laughs and hugs her.
She doesn't drink that night, and she doesn't pray. Jim's here. And he has Spock, and he has his crew, and he has Winona.
Winona, who knows the feeling of being left, and of being the leaver. Who's hated herself and loved only one other person her whole life.
She still sees herself, sometimes, when she looks at Jim. And Spock, damn the sweet kid, still reminds her of George.
But she's seen what a lifetime of being George Kirk's son has done to Jim, and she knows firsthand how the knowledge that Jim is like her has changed him. She's watched him grow up, fearing the inevitable conclusion she saw the day of his birth. Winona won't lie; she's still scared for Jim. Because Jim is an idiot. A wonderful, sweet, heroic idiot who still cares about his mom enough to call. He's himself.
The motherfuckers blow themselves up. They do. Winona knows this; she's been alone long enough to know this. But Jim isn't Winona. He left on the back of a Harley Davidson, but he came back. He's himself. And Spock doesn't have blue eyes, so maybe, just maybe, they aren't all fucked after all.