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1: Christmas 2238
This is his first real, clear memory of his childhood.
Of course, there are others, snapshots from a past faded into memory, like old photographs sepia-toned with age. A ferris wheel at a country fair; a bonfire snapping and crackling and his hands and face burning from the heat; seeing his reflection in a mirror for the first time and a room - he still can't work out where – which was all clean lines and angles, antiseptic smell and plain white walls.
Then there are scenes, fractured moments for which he no longer has much context: laughing as Sam and Winona chased him through a wood his heart thumping, small legs pounding the ground as fast as he could run and them calling behind him; standing tucked in closely to Sam, Winona on his other side, Sam's larger hand wrapping around his showing him how to hold a stone before skimming it over the lake; swaying dizzily as Winona lifted him to sit astride a horse for the first time and how very far away the ground was, how alone he seemed until he felt Sam's arms wrap tightly around his waist and Sam's breath ruffling his hair.
But he remembers this Christmas with extra-ordinary clarity.
The old farmhouse was all well-worn wood with a honey rich glow, smooth under his hands. If he closes his eyes he can still hear the logs snapping and crackling, from the fire in the main room and smell the strong scent of pine and sap from the freshly cut tree in the corner.
His Nana bustling around, her apron covered in flour, warm cookies within temptingly easy reach to be stolen. Sneaking into the kitchen with Sam, her pretending all the while not to see them even as her lips curled up into a smile, as they raided the baking tray and made off with their haul to hide behind the old couch and conduct a taste test on the most recent round of baking.
The four of them - Nana, Gramps, Sam and himself - decorating the tree, hanging baubles and tinsel and lights. Gramps putting stacks of presents under the tree and growling at them if they got too close.
There was a nativity scene on the old bureau – an old wooden crib, beautiful hand painted figures of Mary, Joseph and Jesus, the Magi and Shepherds, a donkey and a cow, legs tucked under them half-asleep. Nana was from Methodist stock - though she didn't practice much anymore but the crib was there, a reminder, she said, of where they'd come from. And she'd settled him on her knee and told him of his great, great grandmother who'd come to America from Wales and he'd half-dozed listening to her stories of the past, trying to imagine what the people she told him about had looked like.
It wasn't until she slid him off her knee, blinking back into awareness, that he saw the picture. He recognised his mother immediately, she had her head thrown back and was laughing, her hair flowing out behind in a golden stream, one of her hands wrapped around a bunch of flowers which she looked about to throw forward.
But he didn't recognise the man standing next to her.
He'd stumbled forwards, legs not quite working, and reached out, fingers closing on the picture, nose almost pressing to the glass looking at the man standing next to his mother. Blond hair, blue eyes and a wide smile, he'd got one arm wrapped around his mother's waist, caught midway between looking down at her at looking into the camera.
His Nana had reached out to take the picture away from him, set it back beside the crib.
"Who's that?" he asked.
Her fingers traced the man's face, moved from the picture to rest on his head and curl into his hair.
"That's George, your daddy. Remember the stories about how you were born?"
And he does, his Nana and Gramps and Winona have told him the story of his daddy saving them, saving everyone he could. But this is the first time he remembers seeing a picture of him.
That night as his Nana tucks them into bed, comforters pulled up to their chins, she pauses after kissing them goodnight.
"What do you boys want for Christmas?"
"I want to see my daddy," he says.
There are tears in his Nana's eyes and she hugs him so tightly that he can't breathe for a moment.
Of course, he doesn't get to see his father.
It's years before he ever gets to hear George's final message, his voice cracking with emotion, but still clearly heard, over the sounds of the Kelvin tearing itself apart around him.
2: Christmas 2244
Winona remarries and Frank is big and blustering and he tries..."Don't call me Frank, call me Dad."
Jim hates Frank on principal, so does Sam and they never once call him Dad.
For eight months it's okay and they manage, there's a fragile peace in the farmhouse but it doesn't last long. Winona and Frank start fighting first, and Jim and Sam get used to going to sleep to the sound of first, raised voices, and later shouting and screaming and smashed crockery.
One morning two weeks before Christmas they wake to find Frank asleep on the couch an empty bottle of whiskey beside him, and Winona gone.
They get two messages the following day – one for Frank and one for Jim and Sam.
They watch their message in their room, Sam sitting at one end of the bed, Jim at the other. Winona's pale, her hair pulled back from her face and they can see she's been crying, something she's been doing a lot recently.
She tells them she loves them, tells them Frank will look after them, tells them she'll be gone for six months because she needs time to think and she'll be back before they know it, and that they can still have a good Christmas without her.
Jim looks over to Sam, hunched in the corner of the bed with his arms wrapped tightly around him and knows the lies for what they are.
Christmas is a disaster.
Frank is drunk before noon, Sam doesn't say a word all day and it ends with Jim throwing a plateful of food at Frank, who's too drunk to duck, and screaming that Frank will never, ever be his father and was never good enough for Winona, and that all he wants for Christmas is for Frank to get out and never come back.
It's the first, but not last time Frank takes his belt to Jim's back.
Six months later Sam leaves and Jim steals and crashes the Corvette.
3: Christmas 2246
Tarsus IV is beautiful.
It's green and rich, a fledgling colony with trees and woods and fields and they're doing it right. The colonists have taken to calling it New Eden amongst themselves and they're only partly joking.
Jim has six months of living with his aunt, uncle and cousins in paradise before the fungal outbreak strikes and they watch helplessly as the crops in the fields wither and die and those in the storehouses turn to rotten heaps of inedible sludge.
The animals die first and then the people begin to succumb and just when they think that it can't get any worse Kodos issues his edict.
When the ships finally turn up it's four months too late.
They ship the survivors home and when he gets back Winona and Sam are waiting for him with solicitous hands and gentle questions and they treat him as if he'll break if they so much as breathe hard around him.
But Jim's learned what it is to break and what it is to survive.
Therapy is part of the deal and he knows they'll never let him be unless he goes along with it. For hours that blend into days and then into weeks he sits for an hour or two at a time in an office decorated in tones to soothe rather than stimulate. Dr Merryweather doesn't quite live up to her name, but she does give him time to speak and time to just sit when he needs it.
He talks until his voice is hoarse, tells her in exacting detail every little thing that happened from the moment he arrived on Tarsus until the minute the rescue ships left. It plays out in color on his closed eyelids as he recounts it all.
She tells him it's okay to be angry. He tells her he's just tired and wants it to be over and then he locks every single memory as deep down inside him as he can.
A month after he's cleared he's sitting in the kitchen, hands wrapped round a bowl of soup, because he's still getting used to the taste of real food, and learning how much he can eat in one go.
"What would you like for Christmas, Jimmy?" Winona asks and she's all smiles and reaching out a hand towards his shoulder.
He thinks about that for a moment and blinks and fixes his gaze on her face.
"I want my innocence back."
He watches her crumble and learns how powerful words can be and thinks that perhaps he hates himself as much as he hates her.
4: Christmas 2254
It's Christmas Eve and he's had a row with Winona.
She'd bailed him out that morning, she always does and it always ends the same way – with her reproachful looks and him promising not to do it again.
Of course, those promises are only good until the next time. The next time being when he hits on the wrong girl (or guy) and his radar's pretty adept at this point at picking out who the wrong ones are, because they're so much more fun than the right ones.
He's being a dick and he knows it but it's easy and he's not sure how they got here or how they can get back to being anything than what they currently are.
And if he's not hitting on the wrong people his blood is singing for a fight and really it's so easy, with just a few words and a certain look to push someone over the edge. Once the fists and knives come out it's easy to get what he wants and he's already carrying enough scars to prove how good he is at getting what he needs.
But today he doesn't want to fight, or fuck for that matter. He's still sore from the round he went last night with the guy two towns over and all he wants is a drink and maybe a chance to catch up with Sam.
He parks the bike outside a bar, asks the bartender to give him something with a kick to it and gets a tall glass filled with luminous blue liquid that he approaches with care. The first sip burns his tongue and strips his throat and he can feel it curl warm into his belly, tendrils of it sliding along all his nerves until his whole body feels like it's taken a deep breath and relaxed.
His tongue feels a little numb by the time he's finished the first drink but the world around him is settling into a golden glow and it seems like a good idea to have another. By the time he's finished that his whole mouth is numb and he weaves and stumbles through the crowd to get to the communicator panel.
It takes a little longer than usual to punch the number in, his fingers don't seem to want to go in the direction he wants them to go, but he finally hits send and as the screen flickers and comes clear Sam's face is smiling out.
"Hey Shammy, how you doing?"
The smile drops away like a gate slamming closed.
"Are you drunk?"
"No. I've jusht...just had a drink to celebrate the season."
"Mom told me you'd just got out. What do you want?"
What he means to say is that he wants to catch up, what he wants to say is that he misses Sam and wants to see him and can he come visit over Christmas. What he actually says is, "Just wanted to wish you a Happy Christmas, Sam" and his thumb hits disconnect sending the screen blank before Sam can reply.
5: Christmas 2258
The first Christmas after the loss of Vulcan and the fleet comes around far too quickly. Most people are still counting their losses - family, friends and colleagues and the entire Federation still mourns the loss of Vulcan.
Jim would have liked to spend the season with his crew, because they are his crew now, even Starfleet have said so. And if the Enterprise is nowhere near ready to go out yet, she will be in a couple of months. They don't have long to wait – even if it feels like an eternity to him.
But he's a captain now, signed, sealed and approved and the health and welfare of his crew is the most important thing he has to worry about. So he's given them an extended leave because right now they need to be with their families.
He's turned down invitations to see a real Glaswegian Hogmanay from Scotty and to go and spend time with Bones and Joanna. Chekov and Sulu looked like they were about to issue invites of their own until he chased them out saying he already had plans.
Which rather leaves him at a loose end until his communicator beeps and there's a message from Pike. "Expect you in 2 hours, don't be late."
He ends up knocking on Pike's door with 5 minutes to spare.
"Jim! Come on in," Pike's on his feet and even if he is walking with a cane and a slight limp.
Jim slides through the door, holds out the bottle in his hand and watches Pike's mouth curl up into a grin.
"Thoughtful of your to bring the good stuff, hope you don't mind sharing it with a friend?"
Pike ushers him through and Jim's half turned, teasing Pike about the progress he's making with the physio so he's in the room before he looks up to see the friend is Winona.
"Jim," she stands and her hands are brushing down smoothing non-existent wrinkles out of her Starfleet casual, a nervous gesture he recognises only too well.
Pike's hand is in the small of his back, Pike's breath soft on his cheek and damn the man for knowing him so well. "Are you going to run or are you going to stay for dinner?"
He owes Pike. For the chance he took, for three years of bailing his ass out of all the trouble he got into at the Academy but most of all he owes Pike for the Enterprise. If Pike wants to trade on that to get him to sit down with Winona he's not going to fight it.
So he pastes a smile on his face, sits at the table and cracks the bottle open.
The conversation is stilted for the first half an hour, and Pike carries the brunt. But the lubrication of great booze and good food loosens things up and soon Winona's talking about her time at the Academy and with her reminiscing Jim finally gets a glimpse of what she might have been like before.
Over the course of the evening he gets to hear more stories of what his father was like from both Pike and Winona and there are photos and holos – some of which he'd seen and some he hadn't - which shatter forever the much polished image of the hero of the Kelvin and show him instead the man who had fiercely loved his wife, his friends, his job and his infant son.
If Jim's honest with himself - and the last few months have taught him the value of trying to be honest with himself - it's not what he wanted, but maybe it's what he needed.
When he leaves he doesn't say sorry to Winona, because they have more than enough things they need to forgive each other for. But for the first time in 15 years when she reaches out to hug him at the end of the night he doesn't flinch away. Instead he steps into the circle of her arms, closes his own gently around her and feel her lips brush his cheek.
Over her shoulder he can see approval in Pike's gaze.
+1: Christmas 2259
"You know you're the scandal of Starfleet?"
Bones's voice is warm and gruff, and he's having to work to suppress the laughter but can't keep it from reaching his eyes.
"Really? Do tell me more?"
Jim settles a little more comfortably in the Captain's chair and surveys the crowded bridge.
"According to Pike, Admiral Komack's almost apoplectic and was last seen stomping off muttering about misappropriation of resources. He doesn't really approve of throwing the whole ship open to families of the crew and shuttling everyone up here and letting ... civilians run riot on a serving ship of the fleet..were the words he used, I believe. Apparently Admiral Barnett's on your side."
"Barnett always was," Jim grins as Bones slides around behind him and leans down to bring his mouth closer to Jim's ear.
"Spock's handling it well, all things considered."
Spock, in fact, is looking rather perplexed at Joanna, who has a 6 ropes of different coloured tinsel clamped in one hand and a bunch of mistletoe in the other and is waving them both at Spock.
"You need to lift me up so I can hang these," her voice carries clearly over the deck.
She's not in the least put off by Spock's raised eyebrow and stern look.
"And then you have to kiss me under the mistletoe. It's tradition," she informs him with all the seriousness a ten year old can muster.
"Ah, tradition." Spoke inclines his head gracefully. "I understand. One must be mindful of one's past."
Joanna holds her arms out to be lifted and Jim would swear he can see Spock's lips twitch upwards into what passes for a full on grin in the Vulcan.
"She's gonna be a heartbreaker," he says and Bones groans and drops his head lower.
"Don't even start. Besides, I'm going to use you and Spock to scare off any prospective suitors in years to come. If they can stand up to the two of you they might just be worthy of taking her out."
"I think you have a few years before you need to worry."
"Eggnog, Captain?" Chekov appears with a tray laden with drinks and Jim takes one, takes a sip and spends the next two minutes turning an interesting shade of red while Bones slaps him hard between the shoulders.
"Mr Scott's recipe I believe?" Jim wheezes.
Chekov nods and disappears, dispensing drinks to crew members and their families, helped by Sulu and Jim hands the drink back to Bones who downs it in one which is pretty damn impressive.
"So this is what you wanted for Christmas, huh?"
Jim looks around, sees his crew, and their families and knows the scene on the bridge is pretty much being replicated on every deck of the ship.
"Yes. It really is."
Bones's hand, as it closes on his shoulder, is warm and his smile is a promise that Jim'll get everything else he wanted once they have a little privacy and quiet.
~ ends ~