Bad words ahoy! Sorry, but Jim is a little potty mouth.

Chapter 7: The Runner

The rest of Jim's hospital stay was a relatively silent affair after Frank's confession and really, what could compare to the man who had been the monster under his bed even well into adulthood finally apologizing to him and asking for his forgiveness? It was weird. Just... Weird. Since the moment he had stepped into his room on the Enterprise all those weeks ago to find that alien speaking with Bones's voice everything had been weird.

The hospital had kept him for four days before telling him he could be released when his vitals came up and stayed at acceptable levels. While he still looked too skinny they had no medical reason to keep him longer even though they insisted persistently that he stay. Jim wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. He had begged his doctor to keep his name off of any official files and away from public domains. He didn't want Starfleet finding out not only where he was but also that he had gotten himself in trouble. Again. And he was in the hospital. Again. He didn't want his name to flash across the screen and people to come looking for him. He couldn't deal with that.

A few times Jim had been forced to do a double take thinking that the doctor who walked into his room was Bones and he was back on his ship sailing off into the unknown that was the final frontier. But it never was. Jim wasn't sure if he was glad it wasn't his bed friend or not. While the numbness that he had felt for the last few weeks had begun to dissipate somewhat there were still times, hours late in the night or early in the morning when a wall of sadness and depression would slam into him and he'd curl on his side wanting to hide from everything. Wanting to fall into the dark hole inside of himself and sink, sink, sink down until he was so far away he couldn't feel anything at all.

It almost wasn't fair. He had finally found a place that was his – his ship. He'd had a group of friends who liked him, admired him, respected him even. He had a family who loved him and Sha'Thrill had taken it away. Ripped away that happiness and the home he had built for himself. But even with all his anger Jim didn't think he had done the wrong thing, no. Never. He would never risk the lives of the people he loved by staying on the ship while the alien held a gun to Bones's head.

But oh, how he had wanted to. Wanted to stay with the people he loved and who loved him.

Jim Kirk wasn't a man who loved. He was broken in ways he would never admit to even himself. He had loved before, given his heart so fully and it had snapped back at him hard. Slicing his heart in two and leaving him running. He wasn't a lover, he was a runner.

Her name was Lynn and she was beautiful. Brown hair, blue eyes and skin brushed with freckles that collected together to form a soft tan across her otherwise blush red cheeks. She was beautiful with her hair and her eyes and her forget-me-not hips that swayed with each step and with the tune of any dance. Her laugh was like bells and freedom and space and second chances. She was everything but at the same time she was nothing. Her black heart was her Achilles heel. But Jim loved her. He truly did. Before he realized that he preferred more muscles and harder skin with different equipment than a woman's, he loved her.

She was his light when he'd come home from Tarsus. While everyone else was scared of him she wasn't. She took his screaming and his tantrums and his tears with all the finesse of a girl beyond her years. He hid at her house sometimes when Frank was being nasty or he just couldn't run away from his demons anymore. She was his saving grace in a time when he was walking through the pits of Hell determined to destroy anything and everything.

They didn't fall into bed together until he was sixteen and she was nineteen and that in itself should have spurred the red flags in anyone's head but Jim didn't care. He just wanted to fuck and curse and be loved and Lynn could give him that. He never used protection, it didn't matter. He couldn't have kids anyways so fuck it. Lynn didn't question it, never questioned it.

It was the first time he felt himself fall for someone but it wouldn't last. Nothing ever did.

Jim had been good. Didn't sleep around. Stopped using the drugs that made him able to get through the day. He had a good job working at a HoloCar repair shop just outside Riverside – having already flipped the bird to all of the teachers and administrators at that stupid high school and walking out. He loved Lynn with all he had even though it may not have been much. He still lived at home but ever since he'd finally fought back everything had calmed down some. He'd slammed Frank back against the wall and screamed harder than he'd ever screamed at anyone and pulled his hand back to punch him like he'd punched the guard who had tried to rape one of his kids on Tarsus. But he'd stopped himself from impaling his hand into Frank's ugly face by deflecting his power into the wall just left of the man's head. His hand had slammed through the wood and the plaster and stayed there until Jim had jerked it out. Broken bone and split fingers all. Frank must have seen something in Jim's eyes because he didn't retaliate, didn't even move.

That was the last time Frank hit him.

So Jim was good. Sure he had a shitty life set out for himself but he had some prospects looking up for him. A job, half an education, a roof over his head with a man who didn't beat on him and a girl he loved with all the love he had in heart. Which wasn't much but it was still there.

Lynn had called him up one day so happy and laughing she was in tears. She told him to come over. "Come now Jim, please you have to Jim. Fuck, Jim just get here please."

So Jim asked no questions just drove down the dirt roads and past speed limit signs that he was breaking just so he could get to Lynn, the girl who loved him and who he loved for years and years. The love of his life.

He'd gotten off his bike and ran into her home where she was practically jumping, hopping up and down in the kitchen. He ran up her all breathless and heart beating fast. She had looked away biting her lip holding back a smile before reaching behind her back and pulling out a slim, white tube. She held it then slipped it over and Jim realized it was a pregnancy test and his heart sank. She giggled then turned it again showing him a positive result.

"Positive. We're having a baby, Jim."

Jim had licked his lips feeling the anger and hatred that he hadn't felt in years rear its head again. Consume him.

"Who?" He'd demanded staring Lynn in the eyes. His fierce ice no match for her cheating blue. "Whose is it?"

"What..?" At least, Jim can admit now, Lynn had had the decency to look confused. Hurt even. "It's yours honey why wouldn't it be. It's your baby Jim. I love yo-"

"No," Jim had said so plainly, so clearly as if this was any other day and Lynn had just asked him if he wanted sugar with his morning coffee. "I can't have children, Lynn."

It wasn't the first thing he'd been told after they rescued him from Tarsus IV but it was something. After all, a symptom of prolonged malnutrition was reduced fertility, or in Jim's case – complete destruction of his active sperm. He couldn't have children. Ever. His sperm were dead before they left his body, or however the fuck it worked. It was impossible, Jim knew – he was sure of it. He'd checked and tried and tried all different kinds of pills and hypos, even illegal shit that made him sick for days or made him his stomach swell and face grow beat red until the doctors just shook their heads when they saw him and turned him away with an I'm sorry, please don't come back on their lips.

Lynn had sputtered, her smile gone as recollection dawned on her. That's when Jim turned around and walked out the front door. He didn't turn around when Lynn had yelled after him begging for forgiveness and pleading with him to stay. He didn't turn around when he'd mounted his bike and she screamed that she'd made a mistake but she loved him. So much, she loved him. He didn't turned around when he left her house or when he passed the 'You Are Now Leaving Riverside Iowa, Home of the Kelvin Memorial Shipyard' sign. He didn't turn around even when he passed the 'You Are Now Leaving Iowa' holoscreen. He never turned around because there was nothing left for him there. He needed to leave, to ditch the life he'd had for another.

It want until four years later that he finally stopped running. It was when he'd already hit rock bottom and could go no farther that he'd turned around. He had nothing but strength and experience and knowledge but it was time to go back to Riverside. If nothing else he wanted his father's things from his old room – that is, if Frank hadn't sold the whole damn property yet.

He'd come home just in time to be slammed into a bar table and dared to do better by the man who had claimed to know his father. And he'd taken him up on the dare. He'd do it because he needed to stop running. He did it because he needed to find his purpose. He did it because James T. Kirk never walked away from a dare.

He found out later that Lynn had birthed a boy she named Jack. He was brown eyed with red hair with a round chin and small mouth. No trace of Jim anywhere in any features. Lynn had married a man who she had graduated Riverside High School with named Wren. Their wedding was a small affair but their picture had appeared in the paper and stared straight at Jim. Lynn's white dress was perfect, her beautiful hair pulled back and too much makeup covering up her freckles. Wrens' read hair and round face stuck out like a sore thumb on the otherwise black and white newspaper article. Jim had looked at the articles, skimmed the section then threw away the paper feeling nothing.

"I brought you some clothes," a voice said tentatively from the door to Jim's hospital room. It was Frank with a bundle clutched tight in his hands and a sheepish look on his face. Jim shook himself and rubbed at his eyes not realizing he had fallen asleep. "I signed the papers and you're free to go whenever you're ready."

Jim looked at the man and nodded signaling him into the room. Frank walked in and sat in the chair he had occupied for the majority of Jim's hospital stay. He handed the clothes to Jim who thanked him silently then went into the bathroom to change out of his hospital shirt and baggy pants. He deliberately did not look at himself in the mirror as he slowly put on his shirt and pants. The clothes were actually new, Frank must have just bought them if the nice smell and tags were anything to go by.

Their relationship, while still strained, was improving. Frank told him about his AA meetings and talked animatedly of his sponsor who lived in the next town over who helped him during the worst of his addiction, when his hands itched for a bottle and his mouth watered thinking of alcohol. The older man explained to Jim how he had picked up smoking on occasion when he just needed to have a drink but knew he shouldn't. Couldn't allow himself to lose his sober chips they had given him for increments of time without alcohol.

One time, late at night when Jim wasn't allowed to eat because of a test the next morning and Frank hadn't wanted to go home yet, the man had whispered to Jim quietly about his counseling sessions his sponsor had asked him to go to to help with his anger. The sessions, while difficult and angering in their own way did actually help.

"I don't want to be yer Dad, Jim." Frank had whispered into the dark room when Jim's eyes had been dropping. "You already had a dad. I just wanna be yer friend."

When he was finished dressing, Jim went back out to see that Frank was no longer in the room but the door was cracked open enough for him to see the shadow of the man with a hand to his ear. He was on the phone.

Grabbing his meager things Jim collected anything that was his then walked to the door. He had his hand on the door for it to swoosh open when Frank's voice caught his attention.

"Lookie here Pike, if he doesn't want to talk to you then you best just stay away and quit callin' me. I ain't in charge of him... No, he didn't tell me anythin' and if he did I wouldn't tell ya ...'cause that's not my business!" He stopped talking for a second but when he spoke again Jim almost involuntarily took a step back. "Alright Fleet-bag, I get your confused but if he don't want to talk to you I ain't gonna make him fucking talk to you!" With that the sound of a comm closing echoed through the now seemingly silent hospital floor. Jim's eyes were wide staring at the slightly shaking shadow of the older man outside his door as Frank clutched the comm tight in his grip. He stood like that for a few minutes and Jim feared going outside the room lest the man who used to beat on him would return in full force. But then Frank surprised him yet again when he took a deep breath, then another and relaxed his shoulders before putting away his comm unit and turning back to the door to come into the room only to run into a still shell-shocked Jim.

"Oh..." Frank said in surprise seeing Jim. Jim cleared his throat and licked his lips after a minute.

"I'm ready."

Frank nodded and turned to walk out. Jim followed a foot behind smirking when he saw a nurse at her station scowling at Frank. Most likely for yelling on her floor.

It wasn't until they were pulling into the long dirt path that was their driveway that Jim finally spoke.

"Thanks for that. With Pike and all. I'm just... I'm not ready to deal with all that yet..." Jim refused to look at his step father choosing instead to stare out the window. Frank said nothing but squeaked the truck into the space he usually parked in. He leaned forward after turning off the engine.

"He's called me three times, Jim. He's worried about ya." Jim nodded. He knew. He didn't know what he wanted or what he was going to do but he knew Pike cared for him. Frank shrugged. "I told you befor' that this is yer house too an you can stay as long as ya want but you gotta talk to someone."

"I will," Jim said quickly lying through his teeth. "I'm just not ready." The older man nodded biting at his lip and scratching the thick stumble on his cheek. Jim looked over at him for the first time an idea popping into his head. "I want to help out on the farm. Do some work. Fix the fences or paint or mend the roof of the barn. Anything. I don't care." He wanted to do something with his hands. He needed to get out of his head for even a few hours. Frank looked over at him with a strange expression on his face. His eyes were creased at the sides and the side of his lip was upturned almost like... Almost like he was smiling. He was smiling, Jim realized. He didn't think he'd ever seen the man smile.

"Well for now I think you need to git up'ta yer room an sleep for a bit but in a few days I think we can work something out. I could always use some help around the farm." Frank was smirking with a small glint in his eye. It wasn't menacing or scary but rather comforting. As if he was excited to start working with Jim. Jim let a small smile cross his lips and he nodded feeling himself starting to get tried.

"I'd like that," he said getting out of the car and closing the door behind himself. Together the two of them walked into their home.