My love for Star Trek laid dormant for a little while... But man, is it back in full force. I've written most of this very late at night and without much fact-checking, so I apologize for any mistakes or inaccuracies. I welcome having those pointed out. Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

James Tiberius Kirk is ten days old.

Winona holds him close and doesn't let go.

He's small-so, so small, nearly a month premature. She hears the doctors and nurses whisper about a stress-induced labor and possible future complications and blocks them out. This baby, George's baby, is perfect.

Each time she looks at him she fears her heart will shatter. Her emotions split into two poles, and tear her in half with the separation. He is a beautiful little boy, and she is so happy that he's here, alive and safe and whole. Despite all the advances of modern medicine, Winona has a history of difficult pregnancies. The three miscarriages following Sam's birth had nearly extinguished her hope of another child. And in that respect, James brings her unimaginable joy.

But every glance reminds her of George's absence. This baby was part of the reason he gave his life. She knew her husband well, and his sense of duty to family and crew were evenly matched. Keeping James safe was one of his chief motivations.

He is gone, never having even seen his son, and the boy will be hers to raise alone.

She feels so alone.

The door slides open with a hiss. "Doctor Tevana will be in to speak with you in a moment, ma'am.'

The nurse picks up a tablet and begins checking over their readings. Winona lets out a silent breath. Tevana, councillor on this ship, is a good man. But he does not understand her or her feelings. None of them do.

They are frustrated by her blankness, baffled by her lack of denial.

But there was never any room for denial. She knows her husband is dead, felt his death stab into her chest, and feels it even now. Every breath she takes stings. Her lungs are tight, her emotions raw, and the grief tears through her stomach like a wolf.

So she has no denial. Only fear, anger, and pain.

Without him, her world is dark.

"Would you like me to take the baby during your session, ma'am?" The nurse asks politely.

Winona hesitates.

"I'd rather not talk to Doctor Tevana today," she says quietly.

"Very well, I'll let him know."

Winona looks down at James. The tilt of his nose and the soft curves of his cheeks and mouth are so exactly like George's that she can't quite inhale.

"Nurse," she says, and the woman turns back.

"Maybe you could take him anyway? Just... for a little while."

She closes her eyes as the nurse takes James, removing the weight from her chest.

He doesn't cry. She does.

Jimmy is one year old.

Sammy is nine, and he hasn't ever seen a baby run like this. Some of his friends have younger brothers and sisters, and none of them do. They stumble and toddle around, a few steps at a time.

Not his brother.

Jimmy was in that stage for about three days, a couple months before his birthday-really, he just went straight from crawling to running. Sammy doesn't think any of them actually saw him take his first steps. He was at school and Mom was home with the baby, and Sammy came home to find Jimmy already taking tentative walks around the living room.

He has a mental image of Jimmy pulling himself up along the edge of the coffee table, tiny hands straining to hold on, and going from baby to toddler all on his own.

It makes Sammy a little sad, but he's also proud.

Jimmy is going to be the best younger brother ever.

The second time he almost dies, he's three.

(The circumstances around his birth count as the first time. It's a wonder it took this long to the second.)

"It'll be ok, Jimmy, I gotcha." Sam holds his brother close to his chest, his fingers shaking as he dials the emergency number.

Jimmy is pale and red by turns, his breaths coming in short little gasps. His hands are swollen up, just like his face and his throat.

"S-Sammy," he chokes out.

He can't say his "s" quite right yet, so Sam's name always comes out sounding a bit like a curse word. Usually he has to hold back a laugh, but tonight it just makes him swallow very hard.

If he never heard that again, he doesn't know how he'd live.

"I got you, I promise." Sam blinks tears out of his eyes and makes his voice go real steady on the comm unit.

"Emergency services, Iowa division. What is the nature of your emergency?"

"I don't know," Sam says, evenly. "I gave my brother a dose of cough medicine so he might be able to sleep a little better, and he's-I think he's having a reaction. He's all purple and he can't breathe."

"Is there an adult in the house?" The woman's voice is distant.

"No." Sam's voice gets quieter. "No, it's just us." His heart hurts. "Please hurry. I don't think he'll make it if you don't hurry."

Even now, Jimmy is going stiller, his whimpers and gasps not nearly so loud.

"What's your name?"

"Sam. G-George Samuel Kirk," he says, hugging tighter. "And my brother is Jimmy."

The slight change in her tone tells him her recognizes their names. "Alright, Sam, I'm sending an ambulance right now. They shouldn't be more than a few minutes away. Just stay on the phone with me until they get there, okay?"

"Yeah, ok." Sam mumbles answers to her questions, but mostly he just watches Jimmy's face, the slow flutter of his eyelashes, and keeps two fingers on his pulse.

"You gotta make it, Jimmy," he whispers. "You just gotta."

Jimmy is five, and he thinks kissing is disgusting.

He thinks it's even more disgusting after he walks in on Sam and some girl kissing on the couch. He gags and covers his eyes.

"Sam!" He almost shrieks. It isn't very dignified, but he thinks it's allowed in this moment. There's a smacking sound as they pull their mouths apart and Jimmy gags again.

"Jimmy," Sam's lips turn down-he's annoyed. "I thought you were going to a friend's house after school."

"I decided not to," Jimmy says. "Come play catch with me, Sammy, make her go home."

"Go play outside," Sam snaps. "I'm not babysitting you."

"But-"

"Go!"

Jimmy slams the door and throws his baseball at the tree, as hard as he can. A piece of bark chips off and the baseball lands in the dirt.

He picks it up, scales the tree, and rubs his eyes hard. The boys in his class say that only babies cry, so he isn't going to. But his chest feels all tight and his stomach feels heavy. Sammy hasn't shouted at him like that before, not ever.

And to make it worse, he never even had plans to go to a friend's house after school. He just said that so that Mom wouldn't feel bad about staying at her training all day instead of leaving early. There are some kids at school he plays with at recess, and they like him well enough, but he isn't close to them. He could count on his hands the number of times he's gone to play with somebody outside of school.

Sammy is his only real friend, and if he doesn't have him, he doesn't have anybody.

He stays in the tree for a long time, pushing his knees against his eyes until they go black and starry. The air starts getting cold and he shivers, but he doesn't get down. "Jimmy?" Sam's footsteps come down the cement steps and Jimmy goes quiet.

"G'way," he mumbles.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you. And you know I like playing with you. I was just frustrated, is all. Please come down?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No! I hate you!"

There's a very long pause, then a scuffling sound as Sam climbs the tree too. He touches Jimmy's shoulder, but Jimmy just shrugs it off.

"Hey."

He doesn't respond.

Sam doesn't say anything else for awhile. He sits, not touching, but close enough that Jimmy can feel the heat coming off him. After a few minutes, he rubs Jimmy's back.

"I'm real sorry. I love you."

He lifts his head and sniffles.

"You yelled at me," he says, accusingly and with an edge of hurt.

Sam looks down. "I know." He drapes an arm around Jimmy and pulls him closer. "Sometimes people do dumb things, and sometimes those things hurt the ones they care about the most. I felt awful the second I did it. I can't promise I won't ever do it again, 'cause I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. But you're my only brother, and I can promise that I'll always love you. 'kay?"

Jimmy buries his face into Sam's shirt and hugs him tight. "'kay. I love you too."

They stay like that till the moon is high above them, and they're both shivering. Sam jumps down and catches Jimmy when he slips off the low branch, then they both start heading inside.

An afterthought occurs to him, and he wrinkles his nose. "Why would you wanna kiss her, anyway?" He demands. "She's a girl, she has girl germs. And you got her spit in your mouth! That's gross, Sammy. What if she has a cold or something, too?"

Sam laughs, and ruffles Jimmy's hair. "You'll understand when you're older."

He scowls at that, but then they heat up a container of cheap tomato soup and Sam makes burnt grilled cheese sandwiches, and even though Jimmy has school in the morning, they eat together, huddled under a blanket, and watch old cartoons.

They fall asleep sprawled out on top of each other, comfortable, and don't wake up when Mom comes home.

Jimmy is six, and he's bored in school.

Everything the teacher says, he knows already, and even if they do happen to have something he hasn't heard before, he learns it in less than half the time the other kids do.

They give him the option to go to an advanced school on a Starfleet scholarship, but he says no. He doesn't want to move away from Sam. They offer to put him on an accelerated track or let him skip a grade-Mom says no to that. Sometimes Jimmy thinks she just wants him to be as normal as he can. But she says she thinks he'll have a harder time making friends with kids that way.

(He still doesn't have any close friends as it is, but he doesn't tell her that.)

So he brings his PADD to school, and hacks into the school's connection to download whatever he wants to read. While Miss Walker teaches basic math and words, he reads chapter books and starts memorizing his times tables. She doesn't get mad, as long as he passes the tests.

He's still bored, but at least Mom is happy.

Frank and Mom get married, and they all move in together.

Jimmy is seven, and he hasn't hated anybody before. But he hates Frank.

He hates him.

When they first meet, when he and Mom first start dating, Jimmy is cautiously hopeful. He doesn't want a dad, not really, but he thinks that maybe this new man could at least be his friend, and maybe take over some of the stuff that Sam has to do. He never complains, but Jimmy knows it stresses him out sometimes.

Their initial meeting goes pretty ok. Mom introduces them, and she looks a little happier than usual. For that, Jimmy decides that he could make himself learn to like Frank. If he's nice.

"Kids." Frank nods to them and shakes their hands, not saying anything else besides a comment on Sam's baseball glove.

After that, they don't see much of him until he and Mom get married. And when that happens, they find out what Frank is really like. Whenever Mom is around, he makes any disparaging remarks and barbs with a joking tone, ruffling their hair (a little too hard to be friendly) or slapping their backs. But when Mom leaves, back to work aboard a freight vessel, all of the humor is gone. And he isn't just not nice, he's mean.

He hates Starfleet, he hates aliens, he hates learning or being corrected or anything that isn't exactly like himself.

So he really doesn't like Sam or Jimmy.

"Sam?" Jimmy lays his hand against his brother's door, rubbing his eyes with the other hand. They're hot and burning, and his chin trembles. "Sammy, can I come in?"

Sam's voice is choked. "In a little while. Give me a minute."

The first time Frank hit Sammy, he ran off for the night. But the next day, Jimmy overheard the man threaten to do the same to him if Sam took off again.

So now he closes himself in his room, but he doesn't leave.

"Please?" Jimmy whispers. "It's ok if you cry. It doesn't make you a baby, not after that."

Sam lets out a strangled laugh and the door swings open. His eye is turning black, and his arms are bruised. Jimmy hugs him around the middle, gentle.

"You shouldn't let him hit you, Sammy," he says, fierce. "You're faster than him, I know you could get away."

Sam cards his fingers through Jimmy's hair, and speaks so quietly that Jimmy almost doesn't hear him. "If I did that, he'd hurt you instead. So it's worth it. And besides, it won't last forever."

They lock themselves in Sam's room and don't come out till morning.

Jim is almost nine, and Sam is gone.

He goes to Sam's room early one morning, beaming, ready to show him the science project he'd finally finished before bed. All he finds is an open window, an emptied closet, and a note.

Dear Jimmy,

I'm leaving. I hate to do it. I was going to try to wait it out a couple years, till I turned eighteen and maybe filed for custody, but I can't. I can't stay here anymore. I hate to leave you, Jimmy, but all this is killing me. I don't know where I'll go, but I know it'll be somewhere far away where nobody knows who I am and nobody will hurt me.

Mom doesn't believe what kind of a guy Frank is, not without seeing it. Maybe this will prove it to her, and you two can be ok again. I hope so. I love you, so you better look after yourself. I'm sorry I won't be able to do it for you. But we'll see each other again someday. I don't know when, or how, but we will. I promise.

Love, Sam

He stares for a long time, then hot tears spill onto his face. He doesn't even try to stop them, as he crumples up the note and throws it hard.

How could he? After he promised he'd always be there.

Thinking about it makes his stomach clench, and he can't breathe in all the way. Sam's closet is still open, so he closes himself in there and tugs down one of the few things Sam left behind. It's an old sweater, dark blue and worn out at the elbows. It smells like laundry detergent and dust and Sam's soap.

He buries his face in it and sobs. It tears through his chest and makes his shoulders shake, and it hurts. His throat goes raw and his eyes sting and he can't make himself stop, no matter how hard he tries.

Sam is gone.

Jimmy is nine, and Winona can't believe how much he's changed in the five months she's been away. Her last visit had been brief, only a few days, and since then he's grown at least three full inches.

His eyes look much older. She knows why. When she received the call about Sam running away from home...

It's her fault, for being away so often. The authorities are looking for him, but they tell her not to hope. Sam's academic record speaks to his intelligence, and if he doesn't want to be found, they say he won't be.

She'll never stop hoping. He's her boy, and all she can hope is that he'll come home when he's ready, safe and whole.

In the meantime, she has another son to worry about. And she is worried.

His face is blank when she firsts walks in, bags slung over her shoulder. She drops them and hurries to him, crouching down.

"Jimmy," she breathes. She hugs him tight.

He pushes away weakly, body stiff. "Don't call me that," he snaps, eyes fierce. "Nobody gets to call me that. It's Jim."

"Alright. Okay. Jim." She pulls him back in and cups the back of his head, inhaling the smell of his hair. "I'm so glad you're al-safe."

She almost says alright, but she knows he isn't.

"Don't go off-planet again, Mom," he whispers, his hands fisted into her uniform. "Please. Don't go. Stay."

It's the first time he's made such a request since he was four years old. She nods numbly and hugs him closer.

She gives her response just as quietly. "I'll stay."

Jim is eleven. Mom's been gone for six months, the first sixth months of what's supposed to be a year-and-a-half science mission. She stays planetside for eight months, the longest since he was three, and she would stayed longer if he asked.

But he feels too guilty to ask.

"It's a good posting, Jim," she'd says, tugging one curl of her blonde hair. "Eighteen months isn't too long, and it'll only be in the nearer parts of the Delta Quadrant. It's-we need the money, and I could get a job here, but I can't-" Her eyes are very large, and full of too many things. He knows it's hard for her to be planetside for too long-that she is labelled George Kirk's Widow even more than he is George Kirk's Son.

"It's okay, Mom," he replies, giving her a cocky grin. "I'll take care of myself. You know I can."

"I do know. And Frank will help," she adds, kissing his hair and rubbing his back. "He'll keep you safe while I'm gone."

She still stubbornly believes the best of Frank, so he's still here. But when she leaves, he's as bad as ever.

He gets Dad's antique Corvette out of storage and makes Jim clean it, talking about how much it'll bring in when he sells it. Privately, Jim vows never to let him.

On the day he turns twelve, he drives it over a cliff.

Jim is thirteen. Tarsus IV is the Galaxy's premiere pioneer school, so the ads say, and his Mom is resigned to it.

"You can't stay on Earth alone, and Frank is-" her voice goes angry, and she breaks off. They've been divorced for four months, and there are three restraining orders in place. She finally believed everything. It's too little too late, but he'll take what he can get. "You can't stay on Earth alone," she repeats. "This next mission is only a year, but that's plenty of time for you to get to know the community and go through the semester."

"I don't want to go to a pioneer school," he says, scowling.

Her mouth is a tight line, stern. "With your record, none of the other schools will take you. Your behavior lately has been..." She sighs, shakes her head. "It just keeps getting worse, Jim. What's next? I won't have you end up in prison." The shuttle is cramped, so she has to twist to put an arm around him.

He turns his head away.

"It sounds like a nice school," she says. "With nice people. They'll teach you to work hard. And you'll be off-planet. That's what you want, isn't it?"

The whole thing sounds awful to him. But it isn't like he has much choice at this point, and going without a fight might mean he gets out sooner.

So he acquiesces. "Yeah, it is. Maybe it'll be... okay."

Her shoulders loosen and she exhales. "It will be."

When the shuttle arrives and they unload his scant belongings, she fixes his hair and kisses his forehead. "You will be good, won't you? At least try."

He nods, and gives the thinnest of smiles. "Yeah. I'll try."

Jim is fourteen.

He feels old-so old that sometimes he half wishes that each day were his last, just so he could be done and rest.

He has taken a life, and that will never leave him. He has learned not to trust anyone who wants something from him.

He knows what it is to starve.