The first time she'd set foot in Iowa, it'd been a year ago. The summer heat hadn't been quite as intense, it had just been about to give way to the chill of fall. However, the landscape wasn't much different. Just as unremarkable as before. Flat, vast, the horizon seeming to never end as far as the eye could see, but with nothing to break that monotonous scene.

Karina still found it better than anything she'd seen before Starfleet.

She'd spent the majority of hiatus in New York with Camille and her family, but when Jim had invited them out to Riverside for a week, she'd jumped at the chance. It'd only been two weeks, but she missed the older cadet who'd become like her big brother more than she'd thought she would.

Cam had come along, too, of course, and Bones had been there the entire time, but the pair of them weren't involved in this particular excursion. Karina wrapped her arms around Jim tighter and tighter as the motorcycle he'd rented took off, the wind whipping her long brown hair that stuck out under the helmet, and she wished briefly she'd thought to pull it back.

The pair of helmets had a radio system, and Jim asked her, "How you doing back there, kid?"

Self-consciously, Karina realized she'd gotten to nigh on clinging to him. She pulled back a little and resolved to enjoy the ride. "Fine. Just a first experience, you know. Never ridden on one of these."

Jim laughed a little. "Well, don't worry. I'm an old pro."

Karina narrowed her eyes, realizing the gesture was slightly lost. "Jim. You haven't driven one of these for a year. Unless you secretly got a motorcycle sometime in the past year."

"Enjoy the journey, Kari. Everything else is details."

Admittedly, she did like the feel of the wind whipping past her, the horizon giving the impression that they were motionless until she gazed down at the road beneath them and saw it flying by. She could get used to one of these things, but driving one of her own…? Fortunately, she didn't really see that being an option with her future. The amount of time she'd be spending in space was going to make driving opportunities pretty thin on the ground.

"So where are we going again?" she asked, mentally sighing in exasperation at the hair blowing in her face. Her instinct to brush it away directly combatted her desire – and the wisdom thereof – of holding onto Jim for dear life.

"I want you to meet someone," Jim called back.

"Why not Cam or Bones?"

"Just trust me on this one. Besides, Bones has already met her."

"Her?" Karina asked, her tone quite clearly implying the direction of her thoughts.

"Oh, breathe, Kar. It's just my mother," Jim replied.

"Your…mother?" Karina didn't know why the idea seemed so ridiculous to her. She'd known Jim had a mother, knew that she'd been an officer of Starfleet. For some odd reason she'd just assumed the woman was dead. Jim didn't talk about her much, and Karina had just never questioned why. She didn't talk about her parents much, either. Then again, she'd barely known them.

Jim kept driving for about half an hour, and Karina lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Jim didn't question it. That was the thing about Karina. These days she either talked your ear off about anything under the sun or was silent for hours on end. There was no in between anymore. Something had changed in the girl since their encounter with the Romulans back in January.

Jim gritted his teeth. He'd never been a big fan of Romulans, considering how his father had died. After they'd beaten him to a pulp and nearly killed them all, he was even less fond of them than before. He wriggled his nose involuntarily, glad it had fully healed without a trace of crookedness. A grin spread over his face when he remembered Bones' expression.

"Unbelievable," he'd muttered. "Of course you get off scot-free facially. That break should have bent your nose in half, permanently. How'd the ladies like your new look, by the way?"

Jim winced inwardly. It had been an out-of-body experience, almost, having women look at him and then look away awkwardly. Cam and Karina were different, of course. He wasn't about to try anything with either of them. However, getting into his second advanced weapons course and having Juliet Harper flounce over, sit down, stare at him for a while and then pronounce, "You look awful" was not real high on his list of positive experiences.

Camille, on the other hand, had found it hysterical. Painfully so.

"How much farther is it?" Karina finally asked. Jim smiled.

"I was wondering whether you were alive back there," he said. "Yeah, we should be pulling up pretty soon."

"How long has it been since you saw your mother, Jim?" she asked. "You never talk about her, so it has me kind of curious."

"Well, I brought Bones up to meet her the first week off. We've been by her house a couple of times."

"Why are you bringing just me this time?" she continued, and Jim braced himself for another barrage of questions.

"Mostly," he said, "because she's been in the market for someone to 'mom' lately. And I think she's realizing that I'm a bit past that phase."

"So you're offering me as a teenage sacrifice?"

Jim pulled it to a stop in front of an ancient-looking cabin. It stood in the middle of a field, like a picture of a homestead from one of the equally-ancient textbooks the nuns used when Karina was growing up. Almost completely gray logs, it looked as though it were in need of some serious repairs. Karina eyed Jim, her face clearly saying, "You let your mother live in this run-down shack?"

Once again, Jim winced inwardly, guilt permeating his shell. He didn't exactly feel great about the way he let his mother live. But then again, sometimes he thought she liked it. Plus, she wasn't exactly decrepit. The woman would probably insist on fixing the house up herself if she wanted it.

"Actually, I brought you here because I thought you could use some… 'momming.'" Jim concluded lamely. "For lack of a better word. I'm sure you could come up with something more fitting. In some language or other."

Karina, who had been staring at the ground, shook her head. "Actually, I think that's the perfect term."

Jim smiled and put an arm around her. "Come on, kiddo. Let's meet Mom."

Winona Kirk definitely wasn't what you would call a "domestic" woman, that was for sure. Then again, such women were few and far between these days. But that didn't change the fact that by the time Karina was nearly finished with her visit, she'd felt significantly more mothered than she'd ever felt in her life.

The sun was sinking low on the horizon when Winona finally pushed her chair back and said, "You might want to think about heading out soon here, Jim. It isn't always safe to be out on the road at night."

Jim looked at Karina. The visit with his mom had been good for her, he could tell. But Mom had a point. The fields weren't safe places at night for those just driving along. They were popular places for the hover-gangs to hang out – groups of thugs who had somehow engineered vehicles like the ones the robo-cops used. Mom had tried to get the law to crack down on them, it sounded like, but they had more important things to worry about.

Jim wasn't exactly proud of his past dealings with the hover-gangs. But it did make things slightly safer for him traveling on the road alone at night. They knew him, knew his dealings. If it had been just him he would have been more tempted to stay a bit later, maybe check and see if Mom needed anything done around the house tomorrow or something.

But he wasn't on his own. He had Karina with him this time, and regardless of his status with them, hover-gangs weren't exactly known for their chivalry. They wouldn't let Kari get by them without trying to have a little fun first. Knowing he had to protect his friend made it a bit easier leaving his mom's place without fixing some stuff up first.

"Will I see you before you head back?" Winona asked, hugging Karina. Jim hated to disappoint either of them. The pair had bonded so well.

"I don't think so, Mom," he said. "We'll be going back day after tomorrow. And apparently Cam's wanting to find a place for swimming or something tomorrow."

Karina looked from mother to son, slightly uneasy for some unknown reason. "Can we maybe come back after that?"

Jim shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Karina's grin hadn't been this bright in ages. It brought a spark of joy to Jim's heart to see it as she strapped on her helmet. His mother raised an eyebrow.

"You know, you all could just stay with me next summer. That's a viable option." Her look held back nothing. She wanted him to feel every ounce of guilt that he was, and that was just Mom's way. It was how she had raised him…when she'd been on the same planet.

"I'll talk to them about it," he muttered. "That's all I'm going to promise here, Mom. It's Starfleet. I don't even know whether we'll be on the planet next summer."

"Okay, then. Just…call every once in a while then, all right? I'm your mother, Jim. I'd like to hear that you're alive."

Karina's turn came to wince inwardly. She still bore some feeling of responsibility for the disaster that had almost befell all of her friends six months ago. And when you heard the mother of a man that you'd almost gotten killed talk about hearing whether he was alive or not… Well, it wasn't exactly a pleasant sensation.

Jim nodded. "I will, Mom. Once a week good enough for you?"

She shrugged, and Karina shook her head, noting the little similarities in gestures between the two.

"It's better than what I'm getting now, at least." Winona reached up and hugged him. "I'll see you kids tomorrow. Keep safe."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Kirk," Karina said, hoping her voice relayed the tone her voice would have. "I'll make sure he stays out of trouble."

"I'm counting on it," she said. "That's a level-headed one there, Jim."

Jim shook his head. "You haven't seen her take out a platoon of Romulans with a phaser."

With that, he got on the bike and gunned it. Karina wasn't about to be as quiet this time around, it appeared.

"Okay, spill it. What's up with you and your mom?"

"She left me with my jerk uncle for years at a time while she was off-planet. I think that's enough for you to hear."

"Yeah, but she's changed. She regrets that. Can't you tell?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it, Kari."

"At least you have a mom, Jim!"

That got him quiet. How could he sit here and explain to this girl, an orphan, the complicated relationship he had with his mother? She, who saw their relationship and longed for a mother at all?

"I mean, you don't have to be her. You just have to drop her a line every once in a while." She didn't have to state what was implied. Very clearly, he heard it: If I had a mother…

Jim saw a group of hovercraft on the horizon and slowed the ignition. He swore under his breath. They covered the horizon. He had a very narrow window to get through that would keep him out of their line of sight.

"Kari, I need you to be really quiet for about five minutes," he whispered. Not that she'd been talking too entirely much, but this conversation had the potential to go two different ways. Which he'd be perfectly willing to go – after he got her away from this danger.

Though he hadn't told her about the gangs, Karina had an intuition that could sense danger a mile away when she chose to pause long enough to listen to it. He could tell it was kicking in here, because she clung to him, keeping her head pressed against his back. If he wasn't completely focused on getting through the veritable blockade in front of him, he would have thought of how great it felt to be implicitly trusted.

But at the moment, he needed to make good on that trust.