A Moment of Grace
1st Place, 2004 ASC Awards
Featuring Kirk Category
Note: Joan McCarthy is an original character who first appeared in
"The
Porch". This is a companion piece of sorts to that story.
A Moment of Grace
It had been a very rough year.
He wasn't the type to dwell on misfortune. He had a way for handling
grief. Keep moving. Think about the ship, your crew, your job,
problems to solve, new challenges to overcome. Work out, exercise.
Do something constructive. If you keep busy enough, eventually everything
will work out.
It always worked. He made it work.
But here, tonight, it didn't work. His brain kept repeating one thought
over and over again, like a mantra: It had been a very rough year.
Kirk was lying in bed in his old room on his family's farm. He could see
out the windows. It was winter, there was snow on the ground.
Christmas, actually. Not that you could tell from the surroundings.
No decorations, or lights, or religious icons, or any sign of the holiday his
family had celebrated each year.
The moon was full and reflected brightly off the snow covering the fallow
cornfields.
He turned his thoughts to the one thing that always made him happy, or at least
too busy to be unhappy: the Enterprise, in spacedock above Earth.
The damage incurred during their last mission had been bad enough that Starbase
11, their normal repair depot, could not handle the repairs. So they
decided to combine the repairs with a refit of several systems, and made an
unscheduled trip to Earth.
One month's leave for all hands, during Christmas, and on Earth at that.
The crew was ecstatic. Even Spock was excited, for Spock. At the
last minute, he had been able to arrange transport to a scientific conference on
Rigel.
Jim hadn't expected to see Earth for the duration of the five-year mission, but
here he was, back in Iowa for the second time in six months. The first
time had been to bury Sam and Aurelan.
It was so quiet! So quiet he couldn't stand it. He couldn't sleep.
The thought kept coming back like an annoying insect buzzing in his brain:
It had been a very rough year.
On his first night back home, he had tossed and turned for about an hour while
trying to dispel that thought. Then he had given up and decided to go back
to the Enterprise.
The refit team wouldn't let him. They didn't mind anyone else coming
aboard for a short visit, but he and Scotty were specifically forbidden.
The team lead had even gone to Komack to enforce it. They knew Kirk and
Scott would be over the ship with a fine-tooth comb before taking her out, and
they did not need the added pressure of working with the likes of them looking
over their shoulders.
He had used all his command presence, then all of his charm, and then some of
his temper, to no avail. He was grounded until well after New Years.
So he had come back to the house and tried to get to sleep again. He
hadn't had much success, either that night or the nights since.
He couldn't figure out what was different, why he was so uncomfortable here, in
a place he thought he loved. He shifted in his bed, turned on his side,
and his gaze fell to the worn spot on the carpet next to his bed where his dog
had always slept.
The thought came again, this time with a disjointed follow-up: It had been
a very rough year, and he was back on the farm, where it was too quiet, because
there were no dogs there anymore.
No wonder he couldn't sleep. A farm without at least one dog is just,
well, wrong.
Something else nagged at the corner of his brain, but he evaded and escaped.
He ordered his thoughts to the new phaser array being installed, and how they
would be able control firing directly from the bridge from now on, instead of
relying on relayed orders to phaser control. Then he thought about Winston
Kyle, wondered if he was really ready to pass the OCS admission boards.
Kyle was very sharp, and would make a splendid officer. Jim decided he
would do well on the exams if he kept his confidence level up. He'd be
sure to check in with him before the...
The thought hit him again: It had been a very rough year, and he was back
on the farm, where it was too quiet, because there were no dogs there anymore.
Exasperated with himself, he decided to go on the offensive. Instead of
trying to get rid of the thought, he chased it down:
Okay, it's been a rough year. So what? You've had others.
It had been a very rough year, and he was back on the farm, where it was too
quiet, because there were no dogs here anymore.
Well, what do you expect? You had to find a good home, there's nobody left
to take care of them...
He couldn't follow the thought any further. He tried, but he had trained
himself too well. Keep busy. Think about something else. Maybe
you should go for another run.
Earlier this evening, as he had done twice a day since he'd returned home, he
ran down the snow-packed road leading away from the farm. He went as fast
and as far as he could go, until he felt sick from exertion. Then he
turned around and walked back.
When he got back, he started the second half of his routine. He went to
his old makeshift gym in the barn, and did pull-ups and pushups until he
couldn't lift his arms anymore. Then he looped his legs over the pull-up
bar and started on sit-ups. By the time he couldn't do any more of those,
his arms had recovered a little, and he went back to pull-ups. Then back
to
sit-ups. Back and forth he went, until he collapsed on the cold dirt floor
with sweat dripping off him.
Jim thought going for one more run tonight was a good idea.
Exercise is a good, constructive use of time. I never have enough time to
exercise as much as I want on the ship. I can't sleep anyway, so why lie
here doing nothing?
And it was cold, and the moon was full. Perfect running weather. He
leapt out of bed to put on his workout clothes.
While he was standing naked on the cold floor, the thought snuck in again.
It had been a very rough year, and he was back on the farm, where it was too
quiet, because there were no dogs here anymore, because there was nobody left to
take care of them.
His parents were both dead. After their father died, Jim and Sam had
discussed what to do with the farm. Neither liked the idea of selling; the
farm had been in their family for centuries. Either Sam would come back,
or Jim would have a family here, someday.
In the end, they had hired a property management company to take care of it in
their absence. The company maintained the house, leased out the fields to
a local farming consortium, and handled bills and such.
Now Jim decided he wanted to sell. He circled around that idea for a few
minutes, and then made up his mind to call the management office first thing in
the morning and see if they were interested in purchasing.
After a while, he remembered that the next day was Christmas, and nobody would
be working.
Then he thought, maybe one of Sam's boys would want the farm when they were
older. He found himself comforted by that thought and held onto it for a
while.
Then the other thought came back again, and he decided to follow it just a
little further.
It had been a very rough year, and he was back on the farm, where it was too
quiet, because there were no dogs here anymore, because there was nobody left to
take care of them, because your whole family is dead.
Still not fully dressed, his sweatshirt in his hand, he sank against the wall to
think.
...
No, that's not quite right. Your nephews are alive, living with Aurelan's
parents on Earth Colony 2. And you have a son.
The night before their parents' funeral, his brother's sons had fallen asleep
with him on the porch after asking him endless questions about what their father
was like as a kid, how he and their mother met, what was the wedding like, and
so on. JT, the youngest, cried himself to sleep while lying in Jim's arms.
George kept asking him about life on the Enterprise, and Jim had told him about
some of the more colorful adventures he and his crew had faced. Peter did
not talk much, but stayed very close.
His own son did not know who he was. He did not know that he had cousins
who were now orphans. He did not know that his uncle, whom Jim loved
dearly, had been tortured to death by a fucking flying parasite.
If he ever had another son - one whose life he was allowed to participate in,
Jim thought bitterly - his name would be George Samuel, Sam for short.
...
It had been a very rough year, and it's too quiet here, and your whole family is
dead, and you have no life outside of your ship.
What a useless, stupid, unproductive line of thought.
Kirk decided to get a hotel room somewhere. He got dressed and packed the
few things he had brought with him. He would get a room, go find a woman,
bring her back to the hotel, and seduce her. That's what sailors are
supposed to do on leave, right? It's practically written in stone
somewhere. Not mope around, thinking about dead families and a
centuries-dead woman.
He grabbed his suitcase and fled down the stairs, out of the house. He had
a purpose and a goal, and that was all he needed to defeat pointless, futile
thoughts.
He was halfway to the flitter when the enemy found another weakness in his
shields and invaded again, stopping him in his tracks.
I wonder if she knew? he thought. Did she die instantly? Or did she
survive for a while, long enough to realize who had killed her?
He hadn't been able to look at her. So he didn't know whether she died
quickly or slowly, didn't know whether she had suffered before dying, and hadn't
offered any comfort as she died. Kirk had a box full of medals that all
proclaimed his bravery in one fashion or another, but he had been too much of a
coward to comfort a dying woman.
It had been a very rough year, and he had no woman, no family, and no close
friends that did not report to him.
He found that he could not complete the twenty meters to the flitter, nor could
he make his way back to the house. For some reason his legs had mutinied
and would not obey his commands to keep moving.
So he just stood still for a while, dropping the suitcase to the ground without
conscious thought. He looked up and saw the pale, wide streak of the Milky
Way cut a path across the sky. The stars had never failed to comfort him;
there was something about their complexity and vastness that he found calming.
They worked their magic this time, too, and for a short while, his tortured
brain had a respite from the thoughts that kept pummeling him from out of
nowhere.
After a while, he lowered his gaze. He saw a light in the darkness that
had not been there before, and heard the soft sound of people laughing and
talking from a quite a distance. The light was due west of the farmhouse,
about half a mile away. Mrs. McCarthy's house.
He had stopped by to visit his old neighbor several days ago, but nobody was
there. He called the property manager - Sam had also arranged for the
management company to look in on the elderly widow and perform chores around her
home as needed - and was told that she was away, spending the holidays with her
deceased husband's family.
It was past one in the morning, and Jim wondered why she had returned at such a
late hour.
Then he remembered that it was Christmas. Mrs. McCarthy always attended
midnight mass on Christmas Eve and had family over to her house afterwards.
He decided to walk over and see her now. A little voice in his brain
whispered that it was rude to intrude on a family gathering, especially at this
time of the night, during Christmas, but it was overridden by the part of him
that needed company. He left his suitcase in the snow, covered the
distance to her house in no time, and took the porch steps two at a time.
But he hesitated outside the door, hearing the sounds of laughter and
overexcited kids running around inside.
How pathetic is this? he thought. Standing outside someone's door at
one in the morning, working up your courage to knock. It was so...needy.
Kirk hated being vulnerable. He ordered himself to turn around and go
home, and come back to call at a decent hour, like normal people do.
But his legs mutinied again, and he was left with no option but to knock.
She was gracious, and welcoming, and happy to see him, as he had known she would
be. She introduced him to the people in her house. He discovered
that he knew some of them, even if he didn't recognize them because he and they
had been children the last time they had met. They seemed to recognize
him, though.
Mrs. McCarthy had not changed, except, of course, that she was older, her gait
much slower than when Jim was a kid.
Everyone smiled, shook his hand, offered him drinks, food, and coffee. The
kids went on with their frantic routine, and the adults went back to their
conversations. He sat down and joined in, a little. But mostly, he
just sipped the excellent coffee and enjoyed the novel sensation of being around
other people in a normal social situation.
His mind kept going back to one thought again, but this time it was a good one.
He had known Mrs. McCarthy would be gracious, and welcoming, and happy to see
him. He had known she would open the door and invite him in.
But for some reason, the smile that had appeared on Mrs. McCarthy's face when
she recognized him brought forth such a feeling of relief and gratitude in him
that, for a moment, he hadn't been able to speak. Then she had given him a
big hug and shooed him in the door, and, thankfully, he regained his voice and
his composure before he could make a complete fool out of himself.
He sat there, and sipped his coffee, and enjoyed the company and the
conversation going on around him. But mostly, he thought about that
welcome, and smiled as he did.
FINIS