Title: I Follow (1/3)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Sam Kirk, Jim Kirk, others
Warnings: mentions of child abuse
Summary: Sam wants nothing more than to save his brother, until the day he realizes Jim never needed saving.
A/N: Sam started telling me about his life late Tuesday, and he continued to talk all through the night, in my dreams and into the following morning. He had a lot to say about a destiny I hadn’t imagined could be his. It turns everything on its head. This is his story.
*Side Note: In this version of AOS, Jim and Sam are a little over two years apart in age. Also, it’s part of canon in the AOS universe (created by Abrams) that Sam left when Jim was approximately eleven to live with their grandfather (refer to IDW’s On-Going comic series); but before this reveal, it was generally assumed Sam ran away without a clear destination in mind. I’m going on that principle, except with things slightly “altered”.

Sam is a hard worker. He simply cannot be anything else, given a disastrous mistake he made when he was young. In the end, though, his diligence does not help him survive. He is George Samuel Kirk; the fate is in his name. An omen, Sam told a friend once. His parents thought they were naming him for greatness. Instead they cursed him. That is why, for Sam, the final unfortunate turn of events in his life comes as no surprise.

~~~

His mother stays away from home for long stretches of time. Why wouldn’t she? her thirteen year-old son thinks. He lost her child. There is only grief here to greet her.

Sam tries to be a better person anyway. His flunking grades turn into near-perfect scores. He doesn’t slink home past curfew with bloody knuckles or bruised eyes from after-school fights. He’s such a model student that all of his teachers marvel at the transformation.

Well, not all of them. Some of them still say, whispering loud enough that he can hear them, “He’s trying, god bless ‘im, but it won’t make up for what’s been done.” One day in the open school yard to a new faculty hire, the wagging tongues tattle with ease. “Don’t you know about the Kirk boy? Let his younger brother wander off. Ruined that family, it did.”

When they realize he is listening—all of the students are listening—their mouths snap shut like bear traps, but the damage has already been done. For years afterward, Sam cannot look his classmates in the eyes.

Without his mother, the good behavior seems like a waste; yet Sam doesn’t have the heart to still his obsession. It no longer becomes a matter of catching her attention, of making her life a little easier, since she isn’t around to notice. He does it because he is young and there is nothing else he can think of to do. Some kids believe he is full of pride and jeer at him for it. Sam doesn’t correct them, doesn’t tell them he has no pride left, only this penance.

Frank, the parental figure left in Sam’s life in his mother’s stead, is no less of a louse now that Jimmy is gone. He hits Sam like before, not two days after Winona has taken to space again with a frightening deadness in her eyes, and Sam lets him. Maybe Frank realizes then Sam is hurting in a way that he can’t match with his fists. Over the next few months, the abuse dwindles along with Frank’s interest in terrorizing a hollow-eyed child. By the time Sam is moving on to a new grade in school, his stepfather is absent too, staying gone a lot of days or sleeping in a drunken mess on the living room sofa when he is around. Sam drifts from room to room of the old farmhouse, present only in the odd creaks of the floor boards and the idle breeze that stirs the curtains at the windows.

It’s no life, really, and he knows it. Just the same it’s the only life he has, one he has to bear.

So he does, shaping a plan in the long hours he spends looking at the starlight beyond the corn fields. Jimmy can’t be gone forever. Sam will find him, and this terrible knot in his chest will lessen. His mother will be able to stay in the same room with him, to call him by his name, once again. It’s about penance, yes, and redemption and restoring what they all lost the day Sam came home without his brother.

In that moment, his studiousness gains a true purpose. The only way for Sam to find Jimmy is to follow him into space. To search every star, every colony, every cranny of the galaxy that a person would want to hide in. And to get himself into space, the path for Sam is obvious.

With long-standing anticipation, in his eighteenth year, George Samuel Kirk applies to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. The application is accepted without question.

~~~

Life is easier in the Academy. The campus sees Sam Kirk, son of the hero George, and that he can handle. There is no mention of Jimmy from anyone, but Sam isn’t foolish enough to think no one knows of his burden. He is proven right, of course, the week after orientation when a summons comes from one of the counselors in Health and Wellness.

The day of his appointment, Sam is not nervous. His answers have been well-practiced since the age of sixteen. Upon entering the center, he gives the receptionist his name in a quiet undertone and takes the only available empty seat in the waiting room admist a sea of other red uniforms. No one around him looks pleased at their circumstances. Sam keeps his eyes focused on the floor between his shoes.

“How bad is it?” a rough voice says.

Sam transfers his gaze to look at a pair of uniform boots on his right.

“My smell,” the guy next to him clarifies. “How bad is it?”

Sam looks at the owner of the voice. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Thank god,” mutters the man, slumping into his seat and closing his eyes.

Sam notes how wrinkled the cadet’s uniform is, like it had been slept in, and how unkempt his appearance is with a shaggy haircut and the scruff of a two-day old beard. Within Sam, a small spark of curiosity flares, causing him to ask, “What are you in for?”

The man peeks open one eye and snorts at Sam. “What is this—the principal’s office in grade school?”

Sam looks away, remembering belatedly that socializing never works in his favor. “Never mind,” he says tersely.

The silence of the waiting room stretches, broken only by the shuffling of feet and the occasional intercom call of the receptionist as she beckons a cadet to the next available counselor. Sam has closed his eyes to gain an illusion of aloneness, but that illusion is suddenly shattered when the cadet in the chair beside his, the one with the sarcasm that bites, murmurs, “Sorry I snapped at ya.”

Sam shrugs his shoulders minutely.

The scratchy drawl persists. “I don’t have any reason to be here, and these idiots know it.”

Same here, Sam thinks. He swallows down the words, though.

“I’d know if I got a problem.” Now the man sounds angry. “‘N I don’t!”

Sam wonders who is really sitting next to him. His eyes open of their own accord; his mouth moves, too. “Sometimes, through no fault of our own, we don’t have a choice. I’m here because I’m a Kirk.” He smiles humorlessly.

“Is Kirk a first or last name?”

Sam looks askance at him but offers, “Last. People call me Sam.”

“Well, Sam Kirk, nice to meet you. Name’s McCoy—Leonard McCoy.”

Sam shakes the proffered hand. As McCoy’s arm moves, the flap of his unbuttoned jacket shifts to reveal an object tucked in the curve of McCoy’s armpit where no one might see it.

“Is that a flask?” Sam asks, incredulous.

McCoy grins. “Care for a drink?”

“George Samuel Kirk,” the intercom says in the receptionist’s voice. “Please report to Room 345.“

McCoy tucks the flap back over the top of the flask. He gives Sam a sloppy two-fingered salute. “Well, no drink for you looks like. Big Brother calls.” He eyes Sam one last time, remarking in the world’s driest tone, “Give ’em hell, kid.”

The door to the waiting room opens to reveal a person who only looks old enough to be a graduate student tapping her clipboard impatiently. With a touch of dismay, Sam leaves McCoy and the flask of rebellion behind.

It turns out the counselor doesn’t know about Jimmy and doesn’t care to know. He asks Sam a few boring questions about his life goals and his motivation to join Starfleet, checking boxes as he goes, and fifteen minutes later dismisses Sam with a pass for the class he missed. But not without a warning.

“You’ll have a session like this once every semester until you graduate so don’t be surprised, Mr. Kirk.”

“Why?”

“It’s a mandate from upper management—your advisor,” the counselor tells him blandly.

Sam mulls over that answer as an assistant hurries him out to make room for the next appointment but cannot understand it. Like the other new recruits, he hasn’t been signed an advisor yet.

It’s a mystery that will have to wait to be solved.

~~~

Sam runs into Leonard McCoy two months later by chance on his way towards the exit of one of the student cafeterias. At first, Sam almost doesn’t recognize who he bumped into, not until McCoy catches his arm and looks right at him, saying, “Hey, it’s you. Kirk!”

“Sam,” he supplies, tugging his arm out of the man’s hold. McCoy looks completely different; his hair is neatly trimmed and his jaw is clean-shaven. The cadet uniform has had the touch of an iron recently. Without thinking Sam adds, “You don’t smell bad today.”

The joke takes a second to register but when it does McCoy laughs loudly. “No, I suppose not,” he says with a hint of a grin once he has quieted down. “Been moderately sober for forty-one days. My roommate actually talks to me now that I’m not a slobbering drunk.”

Sam nods with congratulations and moves to put up his tray.

Leonard follows him. “How’ve things worked out for you?”

Sam cannot figure out why the guy would care, but he answers the question anyway. “Fine, I guess.”

“I, uh,” and abruptly Sam’s tag-along looks uncomfortable and grim, “read about your dad in a history class. Sorry I didn’t make the connection when we met.” He sounds sincere when he says, “I hope no one’s giving you shit about it.”

Sam shrugs, but his gaze strays to a section of the cafeteria occupied by noisy cadets.

McCoy’s eyes track in the same direction. “Yeah, those meatheads… every class has ’em.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam mutters. “I’m not here for my father.”

“Of course not,” Leonard agrees. “You’re here for you.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, though it isn’t exactly the truth. McCoy wouldn’t know about Jimmy.

“Listen, I think the sobriety thing’s overrated if I’m supposed to play at being a cadet,” the man at Sam’s elbow drawls, “and you look like you could use a drink, or three.”

He did?

“I know I sure as hell could use one,” McCoy continues. “Even though you’re a kid compared to me—”

“You don’t look older than twenty-two,” Sam points out.

Leonard snorts. “I’m twenty-four. As I was sayin’, you seem like decent company by comparison to most of your age group.”

Sam smiles a little, amused by the way McCoy implicitly sets himself apart.

“You’re what, eighteen?” the older cadet guesses.

“Nineteen.”

“Well, kid, I know a bar that doesn’t check ids. Interested?”

Sam gazes out of a nearby window at the stretch of green lawn and the horizon of campus buildings. He hasn’t left the grounds yet, much to his own roommate’s despair.

Leonard puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels while Sam is silently contemplating his decision. “If you can put up with my bitching, I can put up with yours.”

“Deal,” Sam agrees at last. They trade comm numbers and set up a time and place to meet in the evening.

Later, in said bar frequented by underage drinkers, Sam sits next to Leonard McCoy and listens attentively to a long-winded rant about the trials and tribulations of finishing a residency in a hospital run by morons while trying to shoulder a regular first year course-load as an aspiring Starfleet officer.

Sam himself doesn’t vent—in fact, he stays silent the entire night, even when he hauls a tipsy McCoy back to a dorm for Medical students and trudges back to his own room—but he does, he will realize the next morning, make a friend.

~~~

In Sam’s second year, he is in a study group for a Biology class with a young woman named Aurelan. He doesn’t really need the study group because his grades are the top in the class, but it seems like time well spent just listening to Aurelan debate lab results with another girl named Carol. Aurelan always wins the debates. Sam admires that about her. He likes the slant of her mouth and the pert end to her nose and those baggy sweaters she wears to the library in winter. Sometimes, Aurelan catches his eyes and smiles at him, but he never says a word to her beyond the page of the textbook for the reference she wants to find or to tell her the available time in his schedule to hold the next group meeting.

School work in San Francisco seems no different than in Iowa, except there is more of it and no nosy teachers pestering students to do their homework. There are, on the other hand, plenty of temptations inside and outside campus to reduce productivity. Sam is an expert at single-minded focus, and he turned down a lot of offers to have fun in his first year. This year, most classmates know better than to ask.

He has a different counselor every semester. This simply tells Sam that he is no more important than a check box on someone’s roster, so the answers he gives are as bored as the questions he receives. Yet in the spring, something unusual happens. The older woman overlooking his case file asks him, “Why did you chose the command track, George?”

Sam asks her in return, “It’s Sam. Is there a reason not to?”

She cocks her head and studies him through her glasses. They must be for fashion, Sam thinks, because people rarely wear eyeglasses anymore. “Your grades in the Sciences are much higher, and your placement scores show an aptitude in that area as well. I’m only curious. Your mother is currently stationed on a research vessel, isn’t she?”

“My father,” Sam says, jaw twitching at the mention of Winona, “chose Command.”

“I see. Do you feel you need to follow in his footsteps?”

“No.” Sam looks her in the eyes. “I have no desire to die a hero. I just want a ship.”

She makes a thoughtful noise at the back of her throat and jots something down on her padd. Sam refuses to answer the rest of her nosy questions, and inevitably she has to dismiss him to move on to the next patient. Nobody mentions changing his track of study again.

~~~

Everything changes at the beginning of his third year. Sam is ready to push through the semester so he can be one step closer to joining the senior ranks of the cadets in his field; he wants to throw himself headlong into the career destined for space. It’s almost time to start thinking about shipside assignments. Some people are crashing from the stress of their intense courses and future plans; Sam meets it all with infinite calm. That calm, one of his instructors once remarked, is a necessary trait for commanders. It’s one of the few times he has been complimented in his classes on something other than his diligence to do the work load in a timely manner and to make good grades.

He has about an hour before his next class, a lecture series with Admiral Komack about interplanetary diplomacy that usually sends half of the room to sleep, and stops by the nearest cafeteria to grab lunch. The hall is already packed, but Sam manages to slip into the food line without fuss.

“Man, what is this shit?” the young cadet in front of him complains. “Why is it even the replicators produce awful food?”

“We’re government-run,” Sam replies, fishing for a fork and a spoon. “Budget cuts.”

A burst of group laughter echoes through the hall. Sam ignores it but the other cadet rises on his tiptoes to peer over the crowds of people. “It’s that dude,” he says. “Thinks he’s a real riot. He made my prof so mad the other day because he was snoring in class.”

“Sounds like trouble,” Sam murmurs idly. There really isn’t anything good to eat in this particular cafeteria. If he hadn’t been in such a rush, he would have remembered that.

“Can you believe he’s the son of that Federation hero, what’s his name, Gerald or Geordie or… Geronimo?”

An Orion girl on the other side of the blabbermouth says indignantly, “It’s George Kirk, dumbass. No wonder you’re failing history.”

Sam, previously immersed in contemplation of a wilted salad or a jello bowl, snaps his head up. “What?” He looks between the two cadets, repeating, “What about the son of George Kirk?”

The Orion eyes him, no doubt liking the fact that he is clearly older than she is. Her red mouth curves in a wicked smile. “Who cares about Jim? What’s your name, sweetie?”

Sam’s mind goes utterly blank for a second.

“Yeah, his name’s Jim,” the guy at Sam’s elbow agrees eagerly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the throng of people. “Jim Kirk. He’s a freshman recruit just like me!” He beams.

Sam doesn’t hear anything else because now that he’s looking he sees it, sees Jim. Hair like gold in the sunlight; one boot propped on a bench as he chats with a lovely dark-skinned woman with an annoyed expression. Jimmy looks like every holopic of their father Sam has ever seen.

Sam abandons his tray and turns around in a sort of daze, the call of “Hey, man, where’re you going?” distant in his ears. When he arrives at his dorm, his often-absent roommate isn’t there. He is struck by a vague sensation of relief but it quickly melts away into something gray and muzzy like the rest of him. In the next instant, Sam has locked himself inside the room’s tiny bathroom. There he throws up repeatedly, twisting the nozzle of the sink to spray full blast just in case someone might hear.

~~~

Tracking down his advisor usually isn’t easy, but the day after a restless night it’s a task as simple as Sam hacking into the man’s schedule and the campus security feeds. Sam is waiting for him just outside the steps of the faculty office building. There had been some kind of emergency board meeting for all of the high-ranked commanding officers.

Christopher Pike isn’t alone. Komack is with him.

“You missed class,” the Admiral accuses Sam as soon as they are in hearing range of one another.

Sam ignores him. To Pike he says, “I need to talk to you.”

Komack hates being ignored but before he can tear into Sam for breaking some proper code of conduct, Pike lies smoothly to his bristling companion, “I had an appointment with Kirk. I completely forgot. Can we reschedule our discussion for another time?”

Pike’s hand is on Sam’s shoulder in the next instant, steering him into the building and shutting the entrance door on any protest Komack might have made.

“Sam,” Pike begins after they barely step foot in his office, “I wanted to tell you.”

“Tell me?” All of the conversations he had concocted wherein he tries to explain to his advisor about Jimmy vanish in a heartbeat. Sam pushes the hand from his shoulder, feeling dizzy and betrayed. “You knew… about Jimm—about my brother?”

“Son,” his advisor says softly, “I always knew.”

For some reason, Sam wants to punch something. Someone. Maybe Pike. But he’d get expelled for that. Then again, what does that matter now that Jimmy is back?

The world greys at the edges.

“Are you all right?” Pike asks with sharp concern, moving towards Sam.

Sam throws out a hand. “Don’t. I—” Suddenly he can breath again; he’s not close to panicking. Sam drops his hand back to his side and snaps to attention. “Never mind. I’m late for class, sir.” He skirts the edge of a bookcase so he doesn’t have come close to a man he used to think was on his side, a man he trusted.

“Sam,” Pike calls him, “Sam!”

But Sam doesn’t want to stay. The world is upside-down—everything he thought he knew, that he has tried to live with. Jimmy has come back, the mission is pointless, and his mistake is bearing down again, like a monster come to life. His feelings are too tangled to sort. All Sam knows is terror.

It’s enough to speed him through the corridors, out of the building, and to the very edge of campus. There he clings to a low wall and breathes, just breathes for many hours.

~~~

“Hey, the craziest thing happened…” Leonard McCoy is saying as he drops like a ton of bricks into the booth opposite of Sam. Meeting in the dimly lit O’Reilly’s bar near the Bay docks has been a weekend routine between them for two years. McCoy pauses mid-sentence in order to lean over the table and peer at Sam’s wan face. “Shit, Sammy, are you sick?”

Leonard likes to call him Sammy for some inane reason or another. Sam never minded much, though sometimes it reminded him of his little brother, who used to call him that; the memory has been always bittersweet.

Today, though, Sam does mind. He minds more than he could possibly put into words. “My name is Sam,” he corrects Leonard, then waves off his friend’s concern. “Couldn’t sleep last night. It’s nothing.”

Leonard’s frown lessens, though his fingers twitch like they want to wrap around an invisible tricorder. “How long have you had trouble sleeping?”

Sam gives him a bland look. “I’m not one of your patients.”

“Well make sure you don’t become one!” Leonard shoots back but there is no heat to the retort. McCoy settles into his seat and eyes the open beer bottles in front of Sam. “Looks like you started already. Where’s mine?”

Sam slides the bottle he had set aside for Leonard across the table.

“So, let me tell you about all the new morons that just fell off the boat. I swear to god each year the recruits get younger and dumber.”

Sam closes off his senses to the busy bar around them and lets his friend’s voice flow over him. He isn’t in the mood to think, and luckily Leonard will do the talking for both of them if he stays quiet.

“We’ve already had ten substance abuse cases, and some jack-wagon thought climbing the IDIC statue donated by the Vulcans was a good idea until he fell off and busted his head open. Worst part is he was sober while he did it. Can you imagine raising a devil like that? I pity his parents. That wasn’t the worst of my week of hell, though. I caught somebody pilfering out of our main medical supply closet to treat himself. Fuckin’ idiot. Does he think we doctors are only good to stand around and twiddle our thumbs all day? Wait, that’s what I wanted to tell you. You’ll never guess what his name was.”

“Jim,” Sam says automatically, because Jimmy is pervasive in his thoughts even when he’s trying hard not to think. So why not now too?

Leonard blinks at him and raises his eyebrows. “How the hell did you know that?”

The beer seems to have dried his mouth out. Sam cannot speak. He pushes out of the booth, fumbling for enough credits to cover all of the drinks he had.

“Hey,” Leonard is saying from the periphery of his vision, “Sammy, what’s going on? Sam?”

Sam puts the money on the table and uses the back of his hand to wipe at his eyes. “Tonight’s not good for me. I’m sorry, Leonard.” McCoy has set his beer down. Sam purposefully doesn’t look at his friend’s expression.

“Damn it, Sam, I’m the one who’s sorry. I told you way back I can be an asshole even when I don’t mean to be.” His voice gentles. “Something’s eating at you. I’ll let you talk this time, I swear.”

Sam shakes his head. “It’s not—something I can talk about. Really, I’m sorry,” he apologizes again. “See you next weekend.”

Leonard doesn’t try to call him back to the table, probably too surprised to react. Sam is grateful for that.

~~~

Keeping to himself is just as well, it seems. He ditches most of his classes for the next week and haunts the hangouts frequented by the underclassmen that he avoided for a majority of his Academy years. Sometimes Sam spies Jim, and sometimes he doesn’t. In any instance, he can never move from his hiding spot. He can never speak.

And Jim never once looks his way.

Sam is grateful for that, too.

~~~

Aurelan is prettier than ever. She catches up to him on a sidewalk one day and says, “Do you want to grab something to eat?”

Food has no taste these days. Sam shakes his head, belatedly remembering to smile so she doesn’t take offense to his non-verbal reply.

Aurelan stares at him for a long moment, finally letting go of his arm with reluctance. “Okay.” Nearby a classmate calls her name, wanting her attention. “…but you’ll eat, right?”

Sam doesn’t want to lie to her. He stays silent. The classmate hurries along the sidewalk, twining through people, to reach Aurelan’s side. She pulls the young woman away, chattering all the while.

Sam turns in the opposite direction and disappears into the nearest crowd.

~~~

He becomes aware in short order that Jim is not as oblivious as Sam thought he might be.

Sam returns to O’Reilly’s at the appointed time on a Saturday fully prepared to forget about his brother and to make up for ditching Leonard the two weekends previous. But it’s impossible to step beyond the threshold of the bar when Sam sees Leonard in their usual booth and a too-familiar blond head with him.

Leonard catches sight of Sam and grows unnaturally still, face pale. Jimmy turns to look too.

An iron fist batters into Sam’s lungs when they make eye-contact. He loses all sense of how to breath; before he knows it, he is backpedaling through the door, bumping into people but too preoccupied with escape to care. Leonard shapes Sam’s name then with urgency, but it’s Jim Sam is focused on. Jim who says not a word. Jim who watches him with those electric blue eyes, eyes that say to Sam, I know you.

Then Sam is out in the street, desperately gulping down the air he couldn’t seem to find in the bar.

He doesn’t attempt to see Leonard again. Leonard belongs to Jim now and whether Sam ever admits so aloud, he would gladly hand over his only friend to his brother because he owes him so much.

It only occurs to Sam much, much later that Jim might want more than McCoy. That the giving and the repenting have barely begun.

~~~

The decision comes easily, like it was waiting not far out of reach for Sam to find it. Before the month is out, he sends in his notice to his advisor.

Student Hiatus, the form calls it. A necessary leave of absence.

Pike’s response is instantaneous, as though he knows Sam started packing the moment the Send button was pressed. The reply reads: My office. Now.

It’s as brusque as Sam expected. He ignores it. Minutes later, Sam’s comm goes off. After the third frantic ping, Sam picks up the vid call. Pike’s face fills the screen, and the man doesn’t look happy at all.

Sam couldn’t care less. He places his back to the screen and resumes packing.

“You’re not leaving,” his advisor says in a steely tone that makes lesser men shudder, “and you are not going to skip another class.”

Sam shoves his last pair of socks into a duffel bag. “You aren’t my parent, sir. Whether you approve the request or not, I won’t be here tomorrow. It’s your call.” Maybe from someone else, that would sound like a bluff. Coming from Sam, it’s nothing but truth.

“Sam—” He listens as Pike pauses to take a deep breath. “Damn it, Sam, this is not the end of the world! I know you’re angry with Jim—”

Sam whirls around. “You don’t know anything about how I feel!” he spits.

A shadow passes across Pike’s face; perhaps he knows he is fighting a losing battle. He tries for compromise. “One semester off, but no more than that.”

“I want the year. Things have changed. It doesn’t matter if I graduate late,” Sam tells his advisor bitterly. “We both know that.”

Pike lowers his voice. He isn’t gentle or threatening, just matter-of-fact. “When things got tough, your father didn’t run away.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Sam says, tired of hearing this very thing people have told him all of his life, “fuck you. I am not my father.” He stabs a finger at the bottom of the screen to end the call then powers down the comm and pitches it in the trash can under his desk.

Bag slung over his shoulder, he heads out of his dorm room for the nearest stair well. He doesn’t look back, refuses to. There is no need to be scared this time of where he’ll go or what he will do. Jim survived eight years on his own. For Sam, this kind of survival for himself is long overdue.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• I Follow (4/4) – from February 1, 2013
• I Follow (3/4) – from February 1, 2013
• I Follow (2/3) – from January 25, 2013