Fic: somebody leave the light on (Star Trek XI, Winona, PG)
Title: somebody leave the light on
Author: walksbyherself
Summary: Love is much too simple a word for how she feels about her little boy.
Warnings: Mild language
On Jim’s first birthday, the lawn is full of reporters.
After an hour, Winona goes out to meet them. Jim peers around the edge of the screen door, wearing her old ear protectors with surprising docility. The shotgun rests smoothly along her forearm.
"I would appreciate," she says, voice projecting over the rush of questions, "if you all got off of my property."
The crowd lunges forward and she fires a warning shot over their heads. Jim shrieks and claps like it’s the Fourth of July. "My property," Winona repeats. "Get off it."
George always laughed at her fondness for good old projectile weapons. She likes to think he’d appreciate them too, just this once.
She kisses Jim’s hair as they leave. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
Jim turns five and she just makes it home in time for the party. Her mother gives her a look that says she has no business taking off-world assignments anymore, but Winona breezes past into the dining room, joining in on the last chorus of the birthday song like something out of a maudlin vid.
Jim abandons cake and ice cream to hurl himself at her knees and she lets herself fall, laughing and crying and pulling him into a hug. She will have bruises on her shins for two weeks and she will smile to see them.
The reporters are back at year ten and when she goes out to meet them, she lets Jimmy carry the extra shells.
Frank looks at her like she’s crazy and she smiles like she agrees with him. Nobody is turning her family into a goddamn sideshow attraction and she doesn’t care if she has to shoot every reporter in the Federation to make it happen.
At fifteen, they’re after Jim in his own right.
No one can prove he was one of the Tarsus children--thank God and Starfleet for the seals on records involving minors--but they can make a pretty good guess. He goes out alone this time, carrying her shotgun, and the crews are back in their vans before he brings it to his shoulder. He’s out there a long while after they’ve gone; Winona goes to get him when dinner’s ready.
More than a year later and it still hurts to watch him eat--smaller bites than he ever took as a child, paced steadily so he won’t make himself sick. She thinks this might be worse than when she first got him back and he threw up after every meal, too glad to see food to realize he was full. She carries the conversation with talk about the latest round of experiments at the lab, gossip about old colleagues and rumors of a new starship class. When she brings out the cake at the end of the meal, Jim stares at it like he’s not sure why it’s there.
(They skipped his birthday last year--too close to his return--and when he didn’t even notice, Winona locked herself in the truck and cried.)
Jim looks at the cake and the remains of his dinner and then at her. "I...I don’t think I can, Mom." His voice cracks on the last word and she gets up as his eyes catch the light.
"It’s alright, sweetheart." She wraps her arms around his shoulders; he puts a hand over her crossed wrists. "You can have it for breakfast."
"Thanks, Mom."
"You’re welcome, Jimmy."
Jim celebrates turning sixteen by getting arrested. Winona’s present to him is bailing him out of jail and a promise that next time, she’s letting him stay in lockup over night.
She gets to live up to her promise for the first time two days later.
She’s off-world for Jim’s twenty-first and it’s probably just as well.
If the stories are even half true, she would have had to shoot him.
Just after he turns twenty-two, she gets a canned Starfleet email congratulating her on her son’s recent decision to attend the Academy. It details the year’s term schedule, where to send care packages and the answer to every question except for why.
She hurls the PADD into a bulkhead and no one in the lab is dumb enough to ask.
Six months after his twenty-fifth birthday, Winona’s personal comm chimes.
People have been getting calls like this all day and she doubts they’re even halfway through--an entire goddamn graduating class, and a handful of fucking CACOs to make the notifications. She’s been holding so many hands and making so many cups of tea (and spiking her fair share, if that seemed likely to help) that she feels like she’s already mourned him. Grief is something she’s good at.
So when she answers the comm and Jim is staring back at her, she doesn’t know how to react.
"...Mom?"
“Oh my God." Both hands come up to cover her mouth, before one drops, reaching out to touch the image of his face. "Oh my God. Jimmy?"
He looks like death warmed over and she’s never seen him so handsome in all his life. "Mom, I--"
His voice cracks like he’s fifteen and she’s already murmuring, "Shh, sweetheart, you can tell me later. Just answer me this--are you coming home?"
Jim grins, dragging the back of his hand across his cheeks. "Yeah, Mom. It’s going to take us a while, but we’re all coming home."
"I’ll meet you at the terminal."
"Mom, you don’t have to--"
"You finish that sentence, James Tiberius Kirk, and I will tan your hide until they can make a wallet out of it. I damn well do have to and don’t--" She swallows hard. "Try not to get into any more trouble between now and then, alright?"
"Yes, Mom."
"That’s my boy."
Author: walksbyherself
Summary: Love is much too simple a word for how she feels about her little boy.
Warnings: Mild language
On Jim’s first birthday, the lawn is full of reporters.
After an hour, Winona goes out to meet them. Jim peers around the edge of the screen door, wearing her old ear protectors with surprising docility. The shotgun rests smoothly along her forearm.
"I would appreciate," she says, voice projecting over the rush of questions, "if you all got off of my property."
The crowd lunges forward and she fires a warning shot over their heads. Jim shrieks and claps like it’s the Fourth of July. "My property," Winona repeats. "Get off it."
George always laughed at her fondness for good old projectile weapons. She likes to think he’d appreciate them too, just this once.
She kisses Jim’s hair as they leave. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
Jim turns five and she just makes it home in time for the party. Her mother gives her a look that says she has no business taking off-world assignments anymore, but Winona breezes past into the dining room, joining in on the last chorus of the birthday song like something out of a maudlin vid.
Jim abandons cake and ice cream to hurl himself at her knees and she lets herself fall, laughing and crying and pulling him into a hug. She will have bruises on her shins for two weeks and she will smile to see them.
The reporters are back at year ten and when she goes out to meet them, she lets Jimmy carry the extra shells.
Frank looks at her like she’s crazy and she smiles like she agrees with him. Nobody is turning her family into a goddamn sideshow attraction and she doesn’t care if she has to shoot every reporter in the Federation to make it happen.
At fifteen, they’re after Jim in his own right.
No one can prove he was one of the Tarsus children--thank God and Starfleet for the seals on records involving minors--but they can make a pretty good guess. He goes out alone this time, carrying her shotgun, and the crews are back in their vans before he brings it to his shoulder. He’s out there a long while after they’ve gone; Winona goes to get him when dinner’s ready.
More than a year later and it still hurts to watch him eat--smaller bites than he ever took as a child, paced steadily so he won’t make himself sick. She thinks this might be worse than when she first got him back and he threw up after every meal, too glad to see food to realize he was full. She carries the conversation with talk about the latest round of experiments at the lab, gossip about old colleagues and rumors of a new starship class. When she brings out the cake at the end of the meal, Jim stares at it like he’s not sure why it’s there.
(They skipped his birthday last year--too close to his return--and when he didn’t even notice, Winona locked herself in the truck and cried.)
Jim looks at the cake and the remains of his dinner and then at her. "I...I don’t think I can, Mom." His voice cracks on the last word and she gets up as his eyes catch the light.
"It’s alright, sweetheart." She wraps her arms around his shoulders; he puts a hand over her crossed wrists. "You can have it for breakfast."
"Thanks, Mom."
"You’re welcome, Jimmy."
Jim celebrates turning sixteen by getting arrested. Winona’s present to him is bailing him out of jail and a promise that next time, she’s letting him stay in lockup over night.
She gets to live up to her promise for the first time two days later.
She’s off-world for Jim’s twenty-first and it’s probably just as well.
If the stories are even half true, she would have had to shoot him.
Just after he turns twenty-two, she gets a canned Starfleet email congratulating her on her son’s recent decision to attend the Academy. It details the year’s term schedule, where to send care packages and the answer to every question except for why.
She hurls the PADD into a bulkhead and no one in the lab is dumb enough to ask.
Six months after his twenty-fifth birthday, Winona’s personal comm chimes.
People have been getting calls like this all day and she doubts they’re even halfway through--an entire goddamn graduating class, and a handful of fucking CACOs to make the notifications. She’s been holding so many hands and making so many cups of tea (and spiking her fair share, if that seemed likely to help) that she feels like she’s already mourned him. Grief is something she’s good at.
So when she answers the comm and Jim is staring back at her, she doesn’t know how to react.
"...Mom?"
“Oh my God." Both hands come up to cover her mouth, before one drops, reaching out to touch the image of his face. "Oh my God. Jimmy?"
He looks like death warmed over and she’s never seen him so handsome in all his life. "Mom, I--"
His voice cracks like he’s fifteen and she’s already murmuring, "Shh, sweetheart, you can tell me later. Just answer me this--are you coming home?"
Jim grins, dragging the back of his hand across his cheeks. "Yeah, Mom. It’s going to take us a while, but we’re all coming home."
"I’ll meet you at the terminal."
"Mom, you don’t have to--"
"You finish that sentence, James Tiberius Kirk, and I will tan your hide until they can make a wallet out of it. I damn well do have to and don’t--" She swallows hard. "Try not to get into any more trouble between now and then, alright?"
"Yes, Mom."
"That’s my boy."