A Familiar Story. Part One.
Title: A Familiar Story
Rating: R-ish
Pairing: Kirk/pretty much everyone...
Warning: Female!Kirk. Spoilers for the new Star Trek.
Summary: Jimmy Kirk is certainly her father's daughter. A look at the events of Star Trek XI, if George and Winnona had had a girl. In response to the
st_xi_kink prompt "Holy god, someone give me girl!Kirk/ANYONE. I MEAN IT. MCCOY, CHEKOV, SULU, SCOTTY, SPOCK PRIME, UHURA, ORION!GIRL"
It’s a familiar story, and it goes something like this:
The captain goes down with his ship. It’s simple. He sacrifices his life so his crew can live. He gets everyone who isn’t already dead from the attacks off the doomed vessel, and moving toward the promise of safety. It is with a calm and cool serenity he sits in the chair and waits. He faces death bravely and with dignity, waiting for the end to come.
"If it’s a boy," he says, his voice cracking, as he listens to his wife’s labored breathing over the comm, "we should name it after your father."
"Jim." She says, as she tries to focus on something other than the pain and the loneliness. She closes her eyes to pretend George is standing with her, because she can’t do this alone. "Jim is a good name, but what about your father’s?"
"Tiberius?" He laughs, because he is so close to crying he needs to do something else, "You gotta be kidding me, no. That’s the worst."
He hears the crying and his heart beats twice as fast, and then slows down.
"What is it?" He should be there; he should be holding her hand.
"It’s a girl. She’s beautiful."
"She looks just like you, doesn’t she?"
"No. She looks like you, George." She sobs, "Her eyes, they’re just like yours."
"You gotta name her." He says softly and very seriously, "I only had names for boys." He laughs again, because it’s better than crying.
He’s not scared; he knows that. He is something else, something heavier and quieter: he is regretful. He wants to watch his little girl grow up. He wants to scare off her boyfriends, and teach her how to drive. He wants to take her out fishing and hold her hand the first time she goes into space. He wants to do so much.
"Winny? Sweetheart, can you hear me? I love you." He tells them both, "I love you so much."
It’s a familiar story; the captain goes down with his ship. But, here is where it gets a little different. Here is where the wife watches as her husband’s ship explodes. Here is where a child loses a parent seconds after taking her first breath.
Winona Kirk cries out from the emptiness that consumes her. She cries for the loss of the man she loved. She cries for the loss of her daughter’s father. She cries, and she cries. She can’t do this alone.
"Jim it is." She says, holding the baby girl against her body. "He wanted to name you Jim."
She can’t do this alone, but she has to.
---
And here is where it keeps going; the baby grows up into a little girl with torn jeans, messy hair, bruised arms, and bleeding lips. The mother has trouble looking at her sometimes, because the grief is still raw and aching and damnit if that little blonde girl isn’t her father’s daughter.
They call her Jimmy, and they call her Jaime, because they think it’s weird to call her anything else.
She calls herself James.
---
When she’s eleven her mother has to go off-planet, again. She kisses Jimmy goodbye and tells the girl she’ll be back before she even knows it. She nods and holds her mother close for a second longer, but she won’t let herself cry.
Her stepfather had always tried to be nice to her, but she could see the derision he held in the lines around his mouth, the furrow of his eyebrows, the twitch in his lower jaw, and the glint in his dark eyes.
Her mother has been gone for a few days. She speaks to Jaime for at least an hour every night, and she speaks to her husband too, but in short clipped messages that hardly lasts more than ten minutes. It’s after one of these that James looks over at the man
"I know you hate me." She says to him, and it seems to echo in the quiet farmhouse. "Because I remind her that you’ll never be as good as he was."
He slaps her, and pink finger marks stay on her cheek for the rest of the night.
---
Two weeks later, she sneaks into her stepdad’s garage, steals the antique car he is so damn proud of and just goes.
She feels the purr of the engine and loves the way it handles. Of course, she’s a little short, so it was hell adjusting the mirrors, but she doesn’t care. Nothing matters.
There is the road, the car, the speed, the blaring music, the feel of the wind and heat, and that is all. There is nothing else.
She almost hesitates as she pulls the E break, swerves the car, and jumps out. If she waits a fraction of a second she’ll go down with it. The thought of her mother being sad is the only thing that stops her; she jumps.
Scrambling, James manages to pull her body up over the ledge. Dirt covers her leather jacket and dark jeans.
She looks over at the quarry and a smirk twinges at the edges of her lips; it is the first of many.
She feels sated.
"Is there a problem, officer?"
Whatever the officer was expecting, this dirt covered little girl is not it.
"Citizen, what is your name?"
She smiles, through the bleeding of her lower lip. And despite the ache all over her forearms and knees, that must be covered in raw pink flesh and blood, she feels good. That burning feeling of all the anger and frustration that she can’t ever remember living without is gone. For now.
"My name," she says slowly and deliberately as she puts her hands behind her head, "Is James. Tiberius. Kirk."
---
She gets drunk for the first time when she is fourteen. She wakes up in bed with a girl six years older than her. They are both nude completley. She doesn’t remember all of the night, but she remembers enough.
She remembers pinning the dark haired woman against a wall and kissing her. The woman had tasted like beer and cigarettes. When they got into bed, James let go and the other girl, whose name she didn’t even know, took over.
She looks at the still-sleeping form. Make up is smeared around her eyes and mouth; there are scratch marks across her pale skin. She doesn’t look as beautiful as James remembers.
---
She wanders home, barefoot, in someone else’s jeans and shirt, because she can’t find the clothes she wore.
She feels empty, and she isn’t sure if that’s better than the anger or not.
She never comes to an exact decision, but she repeats that nights events the following week.
---
She gets a reputation, quick.
That Kirk kid. Lost cause. Mother must be so disappointed.
Young thing will spread her legs for anyone. Always smells like alcohol and cigarettes. Pot sometimes, too. Crashed her poor step dad’s car when she was only eleven. Such an insufferable, insolent girl.
She’s a lost cause.
---
When she is sixteen she has sex with a man for the first time. He is nearly ten years older than her, but he is cute enough, with short brown hair and dark eyes. His name start with an ‘L’ or something.
He’s a doctor, just graduated, went to the University of Mississippi, he’s here in Riverside visiting an old friend. He’s already drunk when he starts speaking to her.
He buys her (and himself) another drink, and there aren’t any girls that catch her eye tonight. So, James thinks, why the hell not?
They stumble back to his hotel room. He clearly knows what he’s doing, but his movements are slightly dulled due to alcohol.
It hurts a bit, but she bites down into his collar bone.
When he finishes, he falls asleep on top of her, and she rolls her eyes.
Ten minutes later when he wakes, he starts babbling about how he’s so sorry, but he’s got a fiancée waiting back home- and sure they don't always get along, but you see they love each other and he wants to be with her forever, so as James could clearly see: this was a mistake. Don't take anything personally.
Jimmy laughs and dresses. She takes her time, and the guy can’t keep his eyes off of her young body, even if he is trying desperately to hide it.
"Don’t flatter yourself, Doc. You weren’t that great."
The next guy is only five years older. Jack or Jake or something. He’s just another new recruit for Starfleet waiting for transport.
Freud would have a field day about her daddy issues, but what could she say? She loved a man(or woman, or occasionally nonbinary gendered species) in uniform.
---
By all accounts, she should be failing. But she’s not. Horrific attendance and no homework at all.. In fact, she is missing from class more often than she is there. She shows up on test days and hits on whoever is seated next to her.
Sometimes she gets lucky, and she gets a number. Sometimes she isn’t lucky, and she gets called a whore.
But, she always gets perfect scores.
---
And then, it happens. It’s a day like any other, only it’s not. It’s the day that changes her life.
The place is full of cadets in their red uniforms and Jimmy Kirk is at the bar. It’s her third or fourth shot. She can’t remember. She’s on probation, again. She’s managed to avert jail time again, something about her sincere smile and dead hero father always manages to get her reduced charges.
Her eyes raise to follow the movements of a darkskinned woman with long black hair who approaches the bar and orders fire tea, beer, cardasian sunrises, and a slusho mix.
"That’s a lot of drinks for one woman." She comments, leaning over on to the wood of the bar to get a better look at the woman.
The woman glances out of the corner of her eyes to see the woman with short blonde hair smirking at her. She’s wearing a white shirt that shows her small curves and flat stomach underneath a dark motorcycle jacket.
"And a shot of Jack," she adds, "straight up."
"Make it two," James comments. The bartender knows her well, "her shots on me."
"Thanks, but no thanks." She’s still sizing James up out of the corner of her dark eyes, "Her shot is on her."
"Don’t you want to at least know my name before you completely reject me?"
"No thanks," she replies. "I’m fine without it."
James has made a game out of chasing after straight girls, because with enough alcohol in them they’re almost always fair game. And this one sure is beautiful.
"You are fine without it." There is a pause. The alien seated between them looks annoyed.
"It’s Jim. Jim Kirk." She continues.
"Isn’t that a guy’s name?" The girl asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Most people would say it fits me pretty well. Named after my granddad. Wasn’t like my mom and dad would get a chance to have any more kids."
The girl is silent again as she waits for her drinks.
"Come on," Jim presses, "if you don’t tell me your name I’m gonna have to make one up for you."
"It’s Uhura." She replies, a smile on the edge of her lips.
"No way! That’s the name I was gonna make up for you. Uhurua what?"
"Just Uhura."
"They don’t have last names where you’re from?"
"Uhura is my last name." She replies. There is annoyance and intrigue written on her face.
"They don’t have…" Jim pauses and blinks while she thinks of the word she is looking for, "first names where you’re from?"
Uhura rolls her eyes, which Jimmy takes as an invitation to approach her.
She’s a little shorter than Uhura, a little wider in her shoulders, and a little smaller in her chest. Her hair is clipped short, somewhere close to a boy’s style. Her eyes are playful and flirtatious as she checks out Uhura again. The woman has fantastic legs.
"So, you’re a cadet. You are absolutely stunning. What is your focus?"
"Xenolinguistics, not that you have any clue what that is."
"Study of alien languages," Kirk says easily, leaning against the bar and smirking at her, "Morphology, phonology, syntax.." she trails off and raises an eyebrow. "Means you got a talented tongue." She lets the innuendo hang in the air for a moment before raising her eyebrow.
"I’m impressed. For a moment there I thought you were just another dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals."
"Well," she replies, a smirk on her lips, "not only"
Uhura starts laughing.
"This townie isn’t bothering you, right?" Some large guy asks. Another cadet.
"Beyond belief," Uhura says with another laugh, "but nothing I can’t handle."
"You can handle me." Jim replies, eyes still only on Uhura. "That’s an invitation."
"Watch your mouth," the man replies, shoving at Jim’s leather clad shoulder.
"Relax, cupcake." She replies, voice rough with too many cigarettes and too many late nights, "it was a joke."
"In case you can’t count, farmboy. There are four of us."
"So," she replies, turning to glare. It's about now that the khol around her eyes and her breast are visible to him. He blinks a little in confusion. She barely comes up to his shoulder, "get some more guys and it’ll be an even fight."
It’s still pretty common that it is looked down upon for a man to hit a girl, but something about Jimmy’s cocky smirk makes people forget about that practice. He punches her. She falls against the bar and smiles. The bartender rolls his eyes, as if to say ‘not again.’
She fights dirty, because she has to. With this many guys, there is no way to keep it clean She’s smaller, but she’s damn strong. And she’s had a lot of practice.
She knees the big guy in the stomach and throws him at the second, they stumble over each other and slam into a table which breaks under their combined weight. A third guy punches at her, she dodges most of it, and takes it in the side instead of straight in the gut.
Stumbling, she lands against Uhura. Her hands find balance by resting against the stunning cadet’s breasts. She raises an eyebrow at the woman. A look of fury crosses over her pretty features and she shoves Jim into the second guy who has stumbled up.
Another punch lands. And then another. She avoids them when she can and she does damage where it matters. An elbow to the nose leads number four bleeding all over his uniform, and a kick to the knee has two favoring his right leg.
Nothing matters. There is only the fight. The feel of flesh under knuckles, and the flush of adrenaline flooding her system.
Another punch lands, from number one, and she falls onto a table.
Distantly she registers Uhura telling them to stop as she feels another punch land, but it’s the whistle that catches her attention. She is bleeding down her white shirt and her jaw is so sore she can barely speak. Light headed, and still more than a little drunk, she smiles and says the first thing to come to mind as she stares at a Starfleet Captain.
"You can whistle really loud, did you know that?"
----
" 'nother shot please, Steve." The bartender complies with a 'Sure thing, Kirk.'
She stopped bleeding five minutes ago, so she takes the tissues out of her nose. It's sore as hell, but not broken. Blood is drying on her chest and the collar of the plain white v-neck shirt. Pity. It fit so well, she'd hate to trash it.
"I almost didn't believe it, you know." The Captain says. P-something. That was his name. Pick?Pock? Pike. That was it. Pike.
"Didn't believe what?"
"The bartender, he told me who you are."
"And who's that?" She asks, knocking back the shot. The slight burn is familiar and comforting. She licks at a stray drop and her tongue runs over the split lip.
"Your father's kid."
She doesn't reply to that. Simply motions for another shot.
"I did my dissertation on the U.S.S. Kelvin. I admired your father. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios."
"Learned his lesson." She replies, her eyes on the table as the bartender pours her another shot and leaves the bottle.
"Depends on how you define wining. You're here, aren't you?"
She takes the shot. And pours herself another one.
"And look what good that's done."
"He had that same instinct. To leap without looking, and in my opinion-"
"Why are you even talking to me?" She asks, pouring another shot.
"Because, I looked up your file when you were bleeding all over the table, Jim. Your aptitude test are off the charts. So, what is it? You like be the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest?"
"Maybe I do." She growls, meeting his eyes, "Maybe I love it."
"So, your dad dies. I get it. You're angry, and you're lost. You can settle for this, you can settle for a less than ordinary life bleeding on barroom floors and drinking away your saving from dead end jobs. But, do you feel like you were meant for something better? For something special?"
She holds the shot glass in her hand, but doesn't bring it to her lips.
"Enlist in Starfleet."
"Enlist?" She laughs, "you must be way down on your quota for the month if you're trying to recruit me."
"If you are anything like your father, Starfleet could use you. Riverside shipyard, the shuttle for new recruits leaves at oh-eight-hundred. The Federation is important it's a-"
"Are we done?" Jim interrupts, narrowing her blue eyes that look so much like her father's.
"I am." He replies, standing up and starting to leave. He pauses, in the doorway.
"Your father was Captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives. Including your mother's. And yours. I dare you to do better."
She sits there for a long time after the door closes, staring at her full shotlgass.
part two.