I don't own Star Trek, but i can write fanficiton. I hope you enjoy this.
"What are you doing here?"
It was a harsh whisper but it conveyed the thousand emotions whipping through him.
Jim was aghast. Aghast because how dare Winona Kirk think she could be here? How dare she? What gave her the right?
He knew damn well why she was here; this was her claim to fame now he'd overshadowed his father's legacy. But the audacity she had to come into the family reception room and act like she loved him.
"Oh, Jimmy, I'm so proud of you."
"Excuse me!"
"You've become the spacefaring captain I always knew you would be. I always knew you'd make me so proud. Oh, my darling Jimmy."
He was more than aware that their discussion had drawn attention and pretty sure his hostile stance had a large part in drawing it, but he didn't care. He couldn't.
Couldn't care that Bones and Spock and Sulu and Chekov and Uhura and Scotty and Chappel and Hendorf were all there with their families able to witness what was happening.
In hindsight he wished he'd considered she might do this and prepared himself for it but he hadn't and for the first time in his life, he was completely at a loss for how to deal with the situation he'd been presented with.
"Who the hell do you think you are to come here and act like you care?"
Apparently, Winona was also at a loss, because the sweet façade she'd had was cracking letting her anger and indignation all through.
"I am your mother."
He didn't know if it was the stresses of the past few weeks, the horrors of his life as a whole, the burning resentment he'd always just about managed to force back under the surface or the surprise of seeing her...
Something in him snapped.
"When? When were you my mother? When you walked out when I was four and left me with an incompetent drunkard who wasn't afraid to knocks us about if we misbehaved? When I graduated high school at 11 and you didn't even respond to my comms? When Sammy ran away?"
"Jimmy..."
"When I was arrested for driving a damned car off a cliff? When I returned half-dead from the collapsed colony I'd been sent to and you didn't once visit me in hospital? When I had to sign myself out of the hospital and make my own way home because you didn't come pick me up?"
"I..."
"When at 16, after witnessing mass murder and losing everyone who'd ever cared about me, after months of painful recovery and months of painful survival before that, you turned me away? When you told me to do the universe a favour and kill myself, were you my mother then?"
"Really, you're over..."
"We're you my mother when I was living on the streets, when I was drinking because it was cheaper than the meds they prescribed me, when I worked 3 jobs to keep myself in a tiny apartment and worked myself to exhaustion as the only way to beat the insomnia?"
"I raised you to take care of yourself."
"You didn't raise me at all. You always thought I was a problem, a screw up who'd never amount to anything. You thought I'd die in the gutters so don't you dare come here and pretend you love me now I've actually succeeded at something. You spent the last 25 years ignoring my existence or cursing it. It was a good system. Let's not change it."
"Is it really so hard to believe I want to see my son?"
"You've never wanted to before. If you want to reconnect with someone and indulge in your maternal instincts, Sam is married and has had a kid, last I heard. They might want to see you. I don't. I haven't needed you for the last 20 years. I don't need you now. Leave."
"Jimmy! How dare you? Do you know how hard it was for me? Every time I saw you, I was reminded of him. Because he died and left me with you. And you were always in the way, always needed something. Always crying and demanding attention completely ignorant of what I needed."
"I was a baby."
"I was grieving. Don't blame me for your childhood, if you'd behaved you would've been fine, but you had to act out. No wonder Frank had to hit you a couple of times, you never understood authority."
"I obey authority who earn my respect. You lost that a long time ago. In the last 21 years you've seen me for a total of about three months, you never cared before today, so, please, just leave."
"I..."
"Commander Kirk, the Captain has asked you to leave."
And their surroundings came crashing back, their audience, witnesses to his weakness.
The people who could have become his friends, had they not just seen how monumentally messed up he was.
And yet Hendorf, Hendorf, was asking his mother to leave, looking, if he didn't know better, disgusted with her. Hendorf was getting security to remove her. Hendorf had rescued him from the one threat he'd never before been able to stand up again.
His blood family.
"Captain?"
There was a rushing sound in his ears. It was getting hard to breathe. His nails were digging crescents into his palms and he was pretty sure his shoulders were shaking. His vision was blurring and he was swaying.
'Come on Jim, you're better than this. You're not going to do this in public. Not with your crew around. Get a damn grip.'
Somehow, most likely down to his experience, he managed to force himself into a somewhat composed state long enough to excuse himself from the room and then, clear of their eyes, he ran.
He kept himself together long enough to make it to the place he knew he wouldn't be disturbed.
He fell to his knees, head bowed, arms over his head with his hands braced on the back of his neck as the first sob ripped itself from his throat.
For the first time in years, Jim Kirk broke down.
Years of emotion kept bottled inside, years of trauma brushed aside, all of it came to the surface here. He mourned Vulcan, he mourned the family he'd found and lost, he mourned the cadets from his year who'd been killed by Nero. He sobbed for every life lost, every injustice suffered.
What was so wrong with him that even the people supposed to love him unconditionally couldn't stand him?
What had he done wrong?
Why did death follow him so?
.
.
.
In the end, it wasn't Bones who found him, although he couldn't blame the man for wanting to spend time with his daughter after everything that had happened. That man was what a parent should be, even with Starfleet commitments. He deserved time with Joanna.
Bones couldn't be expected to give that up to find him.
He did wonder how Spock had known to find him though.
Not many people visit the Tarsus IV memorial anymore, after all. Not after 10 years. It was a tragedy sure, but one the 'Fleet tried their best to downplay and keep under wraps. The families of the colonists are few and far between, since for the most part it was whole families who moved out there together. The rest had made their own memorials, or found ones closer to their homes. Or they avoided memorials entirely.
Some days it felt like he was the only one who remembered the people who'd lived and died there. He'd lost contact with the people he'd survived with on arrival back on earth, either because their parents were overly protective or the social workers had insisted. The fewer reminders the better.
They lived, but he lost them anyway.
No-one seemed to have a reason to come to the memorial anymore.
So, while it wasn't a dusty room by any means, the cleaning staff definitely spent more time in there than any other visitors, besides himself after all.
And they were polite enough never to ask about why he spent time there.
Spock didn't comment on his choice of crying spot. Or his emotional outburst. Or the fact that he was probably a mess.
He merely joined Jim on the floor in silent vigil.
"I'm sorry about what I said about you loving your mother, it was out of line."
"You needed to take control. You knew my strategy was flawed and that I was compromised. Now that I have cleared my thoughts and meditated, I understand the reasoning you presented."
"It was still wrong of me. There must have been a better way."
"Perhaps, but, as I believe the saying is, what's done is done."
"Still, I grieve with thee. You didn't deserve to lose her."
Spock nodded and they fell back into silence. They weren't friends, really. But they had an understanding.
A lot had changed in the past few weeks.
Eventually the room was painted pink with the sunset.
"Spock, you don't have to stay here. I'm fine, at least, I will be. You should be with your father. With your family."
"As should you."
"I'm not joining them yet, Spock."
He let his eyes drift to the names on the memorial pillar he was sitting by. He wasn't ready to give up fighting quite yet.
"They'll be waiting for you when you're ready."
"Spock, you do realise my family are dead."
"No, Captain, they're having dinner in the mess hall, or getting ready for the meetings we have tomorrow. We may not be your first family, but we are your crew and you are our Captain. We will be there when you're ready, Captain."
"Thank you, Commander."
Jim stood with his Second and brushed himself off.
His blood family had never been there.
His found family had died on Tarsus or ventured off beyond his reach.
But maybe... maybe it could be the third time lucky.
At the very least, he was willing to give it one last try.
And he was going to give it everything he had.
Thanks for reading.
This can be read as a standalone story but it can be also read in the same universe as JT's logs and Nice Soft Bed.
Please R+R.