Yeah, okay, two stories in two days. I am a slave to plot bunnies. I won't make it three for three but this little story hit me while I was working on something considerably longer ;) And I've got plenty of other ideas to keep me going, plus another two viewings of the film to make me think of more.

Inspired by the awesomeness of Pike's speech and a discussion with a good friend. Friday at 6.30, right?

Disclaimer: Not mine. There. Sorted.

What did Jim do between the bar and the shipyard?

Prelude

Head pounding, vision fuzzing, mind frothing with far too much alcohol, Jim Kirk gave Captain Pike and his merry men (and women... and aliens that qualified as neither gender...) a five minute head-start before he worked up the effort to leave the bar. His thoughts were tumbling all over the place but one idea somehow clambered to the top of the unsteady heap. Enlisting... He shook his head (ow) and laughed quietly at the thought... But Pike's sincere voice and determined eyes tunnelled through his drunken haze and...

No. No. He downed the rest of his Bud Classic, taking away the tang of blood stuck in his throat, and stood up, hoping that no one saw just how desperately he had to grab for the table to keep himself upright. Damn, he could hardly see straight... When he was sure he could walk, Jim moved away. With a wave to the barman and a promise to stay out of trouble, at least for the rest of the night, Jim shuffled into the open air. Outside, the lingering remains of a sticky summer day didn't help his headache. Each breath was hot and unpleasant. Jim stifled a groan. Some part of his psyche that always held itself above his often juvenile behaviour told him everything he felt was his own doing. The part of him he listened to more often told him some of those Starfleet bastards would definitely feel worse in the morning, and it was that thought that kept him walking.

Only slightly unstable on his feet, he went to his bike and stood by it. Jim knew he was way into DUI territory but as usual he didn't give a damn. He didn't really remember the last time breaking the law really gave him a burst of pant-wetting fear; if it ever had at all.

He closed his eyes as a particularly nasty wave of nausea washed over him. It was definitely time to call it a night, time to crawl into bed and regret the night's madness in the morning to come. But going home... Jim grimaced. Mom wasn't there, was never there, and he had no interest dealing with her “husband” - and he was always that, Mom's Husband, not Jim's Step-Dad. Jim had always wondered if it was the regret of entering into a foolish marriage that had kept his mother in the farthest reaches of space since he was ten. Or was life out there just that amazing? Sometimes Jim wasn't sure if he resented or envied his mother. But no matter what he felt towards her, he had no desire to go home drunk and beaten up yet again, not when her idiotic husband was there brimming with his usual 'you're a pathetic mess and it'll be a damn sweet day when the cops haul you off for good' commentary.

That left one place: the barn. Mind made up, he sat astride the bike, twisted the key in the ignition and felt the engine hum to life. The barn, perfect. It was an old hide-away of Jim's, a place he'd found years ago after yet another run from the police, and he'd kept it secret ever since. The barn was in the middle of a disused field, hidden behind a thick patch of untended crops. It had been standing since the twentieth century, a monument to a distant era, and it was Jim's sanctuary. Full of ancient technology, including a tractor that probably hadn't moved since the 1990s, the barn's solitude had always soothed Jim's racing mind. He had never and would never take anyone else there. He never spoke of it, because the barn was his place to go when he needed somewhere to crash that wasn't the farm – or a cell.

Forcing his sloshed brain to concentrate well enough to stay balanced, Jim drove cross-country. The chances of him being pulled over when he was driving across a field were practically non-existent and after the beating he'd just taken he truly had no desire to end tonight in the local drunk tank.

The ride seemed longer than ever, dust kicking into his eyes. The sheer effort of concentration it took to keep the bike under control stopped Jim's mind from wandering but the alcohol was swirling unpleasantly in his stomach and his head pounded until his vision grew obscured. The barn came into blurred view and Jim reached it just in time for him to stop his bike, get off and throw up everything he had in him.

Head splitting, Jim braced himself with one hand against the barn's door-frame and waited for the last of the dry heaves to settle down. How much of this reaction was alcohol and how much of it was down to the beating he had taken was up for debate, Jim ruefully surmised.

When he felt well enough to move, Jim pushed the barn's creaking door open and stumbled inside. The silence and darkness was a wonderful relief. Jim shuffled past the hulking tractor, into the corner where he kept a rolled up bed mat and a blanket. Settling himself down for the night, he waited for the beating and the alcohol to take him under.

They didn't.

He remained stubbornly awake, the words of Christopher Pike refusing to shut the fuck up. The memory of the man's speech pounced on him now that his mind wasn't flailing under the combined stress of concentrating when drunk and the pain of a vicious fist fight. Jim wanted to convince himself it was the oncoming hangover talking but even he wasn't so stubborn that he could deny the man had gotten under his skin and touched a raw nerve.

Meant for something better...

“Shit,” he whispered, trying to be angry but instead succumbing to the desperate curiosity Pike had sparked in him, because it all boiled down to one question, the same question he'd been asking himself since the truth of his father's sacrifice had really hit home...

What the hell was he doing, hiding out in a barn when he could be out there, as far from Earth as possible on a starship doing something that actually mattered? Wasn't that what he'd wanted: a life where the pace of things went a little faster than watching crops grow and boredom-busting petty crime?

I dare you to do better.

No one had ever said such few words that simultaneously infuriated and impassioned him so thoroughly.

George S. Kirk was a Starfleet legend. James T. Kirk had a criminal record and a serious attitude problem.

I dare you...

When dawn began to rise, Jim was no closer to sleeping. His mind too turbulent for his body to remain still, he forced himself to his feet, wincing as various wounds made themselves known. His thoughts led him outside and once there his eyes looked to the horizon where the shipyards loomed.

He was back on his bike and cutting across country to the dusty back roads before he'd finished processing the thought, driven by a need, some burning desire, to see up close where his future could be spent.

Somewhere, Pike was smirking smugly, Jim was sure.

Dawn was just about to spill into morning when Jim pulled up outside the shipyards. A huge yet only partially constructed vessel dominated the landscape, worked on by countless engineers despite the early hour. It was a monumental sight, this ship, so proud despite its incomplete state. Jim couldn't take his eyes off it. Even unfinished, it was a beautiful piece of engineering. But that wasn't what interested him: it was the places it would go, the distances it would travel... New and powerful, one day that ship would carry a crew into the deepest depths of space.

Four years before he would be allowed to serve aboard such a vessel? Jim felt a grin twitch his lips. He wasn't waiting that long.