Chapter Text
“What is your name, citizen?” The android drones.
Jimmy has got two skinned knees, the heat of the sun on his back, and blood running down his palms. He looks up to the looming hunk of tin, chokes on the dust in his lungs and on his shirt, does his best to pretend there isn't a cliff behind him, and says “My name is James Tiberius Kirk.”
(This would be the last time for over a decade Jimmy would say his name with pride.)
There is a car smashed to bits in the canyon behind him and Jimmy can’t help but grin as the smoke raises lazily into the air. Later, he will feel sick. Later, he will realize how close to death he had come. But later is still far off for the moment. His heart is beating like a drum in his ears, there are pinpricks of excitement and joy curling around his arms and settling into his fists.
He did it.
James Tiberius Kirk.
He drove that car. He smashed it to bits. He drove it off the cliff. (Later he will add on that he broke at least five laws, trespassed through six different fields, and pissed off Starfleet enough they actually pressed charges. How was he supposed to have known there was the bones of a starship being put together at the bottom of the canyon? How was he to know he blew up the beginning of the reborn Enterprise?)
Frank always said he got the wild from his father and none of the brains of his mother. Sam always muttered that Jimmy was too quick for such a slow brain.
Jimmy didn’t care. He had done it. He had proven there was a way to be a Kirk in Frank’s house. There was a way to be something more than a broken little boy from a broken little family. Sam would have to come back. Sam would have to admit Jimmy was right. Sam would have to…
Jimmy was picked up by the back of his too big leather jacket and his grin didn’t drop from his face until hours later when it finally dawned on him, sitting at the station, his jacket piled up under his head and his back against the desk of the night clerk, that no one was coming.
Sam wasn’t coming.
Frank’s screams still echoed in his ears from the comm link in Jimmy's dad's car, and Jimmy didn’t think anyone could ever call Winnia back from the black unless George somehow popped back up at the door and apologized for being so late. Jimmy was twelve years old, stuck at a police station, and slowly realizing that no one cared. No one cared that he had proven you could be a Kirk and still be planet side. No one cared that Jimmy was alright. No one cared further then the fact there was a car in ruins at the bottom of a ravine.
The police kept asking if Jimmy knew what he had done, and curled up against the desk, Jimmy was starting to realize that all he had done was smash a car. As far as the universe cared, Jimmy had simply proven an angry old farmer and Sam right.
His body was too quick for his brain.
Jimmy curled into the jacket and pretended his fingers didn’t slip over holes from where Sam had taken a knife to George's old Starfleet patches sewn into the fabric.
…***…
Jimmy was born into screams and the ruins of an exploding Starfleet ship. It was only fitting he would be damned off world into a work program under the same circumstances.
The judge slammed a gavel down onto the counter and peered over an old battered padd at Jimmy. “You, young man, are incredibly lucky Starfleet is going to drop the worst of the charges.”
Sitting and staring at the steel counter, Jimmy cynically wondered how any of this is luck. He's twelve years old. His mother refuses to appear even over comm, Frank doesn’t actually have guardianship, let alone parental rights, and his life has just been sold to the fleet.
Fleet already took his father, claimed his mother, and stole the light from his brother’s eyes. Now Jimmy owes the next five years to working for the fleet. His body has already been sold, what is the fleet going to take next? His soul?
Jimmy was born into screams and an exploding starship, he'll be damned if he goes out the same way.
…***…
Jimmy is twelve years old. He’s got anger beat into bruises on his back and ribs. His knuckles have never been clear of scrapes since he was old enough to remember, and he’s got a too quick body and a too slow mind.
Jimmy is twelve years old, he is dying by inches in a corn field and the day of his sentencing, he is hauled out onto an old tub of a hauler to be dragged off world. The small crew takes one look at him and doesn’t see Jame Tiberius Kirk, the Kelvin Baby. They see a pissed off little pint sized brawler and think we can work with this .
The four months Jimmy is on the hauler, Neverland, he is never idle. The crew of sixteen have him work every station on the ship and force him to learn off every padd they have hidden away on board. Jimmy learns how to fix a warp core on the same day he learns how to accurately navigate an asteroid belt, and he is the only one who is surprised at the sheer joy these tasks alight in his eyes.
Jimmy was born into a family of geniuses, there was never any doubt that he wouldn’t be the same. Jimmy is angry and the crew of the Neverland don’t try to tell him not to be. They all saw the shiner he walked onto the ship with and they all read the report given by the juvenile detention facility, but these men and women were also children once and they pushed aside the warning in the file. Instead, they teach the boy to throw a punch, stitch a wound, curse in such a way a Kiligon would blush, and they push him to be so much more .
Jimmy is twelve years old, he has anger burning through his veins and every day, that anger is slowly losing the kindling it had been choking on. Jimmy isn't saved by the Neverland, but it is the first time since he was a toddler that someone looked at him and thought the stars would reach down for this blond haired boy and snatch him away.
The crew looked at Jimmy Kirk and they wondered why no one had ever cared.
…***…
Jimmy turns thirteen years old elbow deep in the comms panel of the Neverland and two months out from Tarsus IV. For his birthday, he is given a small piece of replicated apple pie and a cup of ginger ale.
It is the first time he has ever celebrated his birthday.
The crew pretends they do not see his wobbly smile or the tears in the corners of his eyes. What they do instead is slap down a padd that holds the information needed for a Starfleet academy to print his ‘high school diploma' since he tested out of the courses.
Jimmy technically hasn’t even finished elementary school.
The Captain smiles over a cup of coffee as black as the universe outside the porthole. “Did you think we just having you underfoot for our own sake?”
Jimmy doesn’t bother to give this an answer. (He is there under court order after all.)
The Captain taps the padd with a finger. “You did the work. Most of it was caught verbally and transcribed, but congratulations kiddo, you're a minted high school graduate. All you have to do is sign.”
Jimmy looks down at the padd and then twists in his seat to stare at the fleet Officer that had been sent along for the ride to ensure Jimmy made it to the workhouse, and had instead melded perfectly into the engineering department.
The captain follows his gaze. “Yup, he signed off on it too.”
The officer (Jimmy had never bothered to learn his name. Too angry and stubborn to more than acknowledge the man as ‘avoid at all cost') lifts a cup and smiles. “All you needed was your guardian to sign, and well, here I am.”
Jimmy looks down at the padd and hopes his embarrassment isn't showing on the tips of his ears.
“Come on, Kirk. Sign it!” one of the navigators shouts as they burst through the door, juggling padds in their hands. “You really don’t want to do high school twice.”
“J.T.” Jimmy says, his hands shaking a bit as he picks up a stylist and scrawls out a chicken scratch signature. “I’m a teenager now, I think J.T. is a bit more appropriate.”
He doesn’t say that Jimmy got left behind somewhere between the ravine and a corn field. He doesn’t say that being James Tiberius Kirk felt like a horrid joke from the moment the comm to his mother just kept ringing and ringing and ringing. He doesn’t say that in the bowels of the Neverland, J.T. echoed clearly and with authority while Jimmy dropped between Jeffery tubes and the warp core.
The captain’s lips twitch up into a small smile and J.T. is given another slice of pie. “I hope you know this doesn’t mean you get out of your shift at the scrub down, J.T.”
J.T. let’s himself groan. “Aw, but it’s my birthday!”
(For the first time, this doesn’t feel like a sin.)
…***…
J.T steps out onto the landing zone on Tarsus IV and wonders if he ever left Iowa. Sure, the grass is an odd shade of green and the wheat swaying in the distance looks more like a winter crop then a spring growth, and the sun looks a little too small in the sky, but it's Iowa.
Corn field, cows, and all.