A/N: You guys! We've reached the final chapter! *screaming* It's been such fun, seriously, and a really great learning experience for me. I think I can hereby declare my first fanfiction story a resounding success. ;) Over 1000 views, (!) 11 reviews, (thankyouthankyouthankyou!) 20 followers, and 14 followers. Y'all are the ones who motivated me to keep going with this, so I can't thank you enough. A million hugs to all!

On to the chapter notes, after that ramble: Ohh my goodness. This chapter was so hard to write. After so long piecing Jim together through the eyes of others, I had no idea how to write him up close, so I'm not sure how well this turned out... Please do let me know what you think! Also, if anyone's interested in more of my Star Trek work, I have another story published called little boy blue, that I'm actually rather proud of. If anyone's wondering, I do also have some more ideas and stories in the makings, but school is getting pretty busy so I may be a bit slow-paced, I'm afraid.

Once again, thank you for reading my story and sticking with me through my Trek journey. It's been a blast, and it's far from over, I can assure you. Live long and prosper! xx

Battles leave marks on a man. Jim knows this better than most.

He tells himself that what's done is done and what he's lived through happened a long time ago. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. He tells himself that he can't change the past and he's moved on besides it. Maybe it's a lie, maybe it's not. He tells himself he doesn't mind, doesn't care; doesn't hear what people whisper behind his back when they think he can't hear. He always hears them. He always has.

He tries to believe that if he smiles long enough he'll start to mean it, and maybe it works but maybe it doesn't.

When Starfleet asks for his next of kin he left the space blank. (That open wound had finally scabbed over years ago, so he'd thought.) When the shrink they made him talk to asks him how he feels, he says he's fine and laughs to make sure the maybe-lie sticks. (He knows that the sheer amount of problems he has could drag a lesser man down. He's no lesser man, he's fine.) When they ask him to talk at the anniversary of the Kelvin Disaster he shrugs and pretends it doesn't burn. (They don't wish him a happy birthday. That's okay, he's never celebrated it before.)

He didn't have a plan when he signed up for joining the organisation that screwed up his life five times over, and he can't fault the way the other cadets grumble because they've been waiting years to get into Starfleet and he was accepted when he still reeked of alcohol.

The Academy is really nothing he's never seen before, but that's nothing new. Jim'd seen more of life (and death) than most dirtsiders ever would by the time he turned ten. He says sir and ma'am and doesn't think about the last time he had to do that, on a backwater planet by the name of Tarsus.

(He's careful with what he says, though no one can tell, because he knows how people can twist others' words. He knows how to blend into the crowd, and sometimes it's just to be so bright and loud that people stop paying attention to him. He knows how to bite his tongue, how to smile with his teeth and not with his heart. He's playing a dangerous game but he loves it too much to stop.)

He's fit, fitter than he's ever been, (fitter than he was when he was running for his life; fitter than he was as a vagabond mercenary; fitter than he was when he was nothing more or less than stardust, jumping from galaxy to galaxy,) and he breezes through all the physical stuff cadets have to go through. He's smart, as he always has been, and even though he's hungover in half his classes he passes with flying colours, sparking up the rumours that he sleeps his way to the top or bribes the teachers with his dead daddy's famous name. (Oh, how Jim hates his father some days.)

He's loud but not brash, he's sassy but respectful, he's funny but not outrageous. If his last name wasn't Kirk, he could even be likeable.

They love to hate him, and they hate to love him, and Jim watches them and can't decide whether to laugh or cry.

He doesn't have a plan, no, but then he meets Bones and somehow things change.

McCoy is hilarious. Jim can't get enough of the guy. He's got aviophovia, and yet he's in Starfleet. They're the odd ones out, McCoy and Jim, and Jim likes him for that alone. He's not sure what Bones- McCoy- sees in him, but the older man never tells him to piss off once and for all, and he never just up and leaves like Jim had instinctively expected him to.

He didn't plan for Bones, so things change without him even realising it. Suddenly Jim has a (mostly normal) friend, which is new and not altogether unwanted. He has someone who cares if he disappears for a weekend, who grumbles and grouches but loves with his whole heart and soul. It's nice.

The Narada Incident comes and passes, and Jim's still Jim. He's strong; he knows he can get through it. He won't fall apart, no matter what people expect, and he never has before. What's so special about Jim is that when he smiles he means it, no matter what's really going on. His confidence isn't faked, it's just over-exaggerated so that everyone else has no choice but to believe him. He knows what he's capable of, he's seen what he can do. But this is important; this is who he is. It's not that Jim thinks he's unimportant, it's simply that he knows there's always someone who's a bit more important. Bones, Jim's best friend, and a better brother than Sam ever was, will never understand this simply because Jim's mind is a chaotic spiralling mess of genius and it doesn't make much sense to anyone but himself.

Except, things change after the Narada Incident, because suddenly Jim has a crew. Being a Captain is nothing new, he's been leading people for years, manipulating them even when he was a little boy flying through the stars with a crazy mother and an angry brother, but now he has a crew, who are supposed to love him and who followed him to their certain deaths even though they may not have liked him all that much beforehand. Jim's used to Bones; and Gaila, who's now dead; and Uhura sometimes, who was a maybe-friend, despite their banter; and pretty much no one else, which Jim didn't mind in the least. But now his little family has added four-hundred members and that's certainly unexpected. He's not use to having to fake his laughter for so many people who genuinely care, and it's harder to convince people that you aren't bleeding when there's an entire group circling you.

His friends learn to help him, whether they know it or not. He relaxes, he smiles easier, he breathes. He's happy.

He's worried that it'll be his downfall.