"...Pike found me when I was right about twenty." Kirk said very, very quietly. "I had no intentions of ever joining until he found me in that bar. I joined because he challenged me, and I never back down from a challenge. What happened to you, after Tarsus? ...I ran away. I ran from them, the doctors who refused to leave me alone so I could think, who tried to drug me because I couldn't sleep, who kept telling me it'd be alright."

His fingers squeezed hard against each other, "I spent five years of my life learning how to live on the streets. I could tell you a lot of bullshit about how I lived, how I finally got my first cycle in a gamble that ended up with me in the hospital and then having to sneak out because I couldn't pay and wouldn't give them my information. About fights and trying to learn because I didn't want to be a bum for the rest of my life." His lips twitched - smile, frown, grimace, hard to say. "Took fifteen credits worth of classes before I even got into the Academy. At least that's what I tested out of."

"What drives me? Before the academy, survival. Before I got on this ship, proving myself. Now? ...Fuck if I know sometimes. Still want to prove myself, but I want to protect them all. This ship and its crew and anyone else who appears here." He closed his eyes, "Maybe this is still just one big challenge, and I'm determined to keep going at it."