DISCLAIMER: Roses are red, violets are blue, I don't own Star Trek, and neither do you.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is for teaberryva, who requested that I do a piece from Sarah's POV about Pike.
If you've never read any of my Pike/April family ficlets before, this story will probably confuse the heck out of you. I suggest you go to my profile and read either "The Good Shepherd" or "Deal or No Deal" if you don't want the heck confused out of you.
Also, my description of Number One is from the novel Vulcan's Glory, which I have not read but maybe I should. I got it from LJC's Stories of Awesomeness which I have read and you definitely should.
In my universe Sarah is eight years older than Pike. So for those of you who are age-crunchers like me keep it in mind :).
And if you want to, imagine Jeff Bridges (with less flyaway hair) and Sigourney Weaver as the Aprils.
DO THE DEW
By Christina TM
"Chris? What is that?" Fourteen-year-old Sarah Pike peered at the bright green liquid in her younger brother's glass.
"Mountain Dew," Chris answered.
"Mountain What?" It looked like radioactive witch's brew.
"Mountain Dew. You want some?" Chris offered the cup to his big sister.
What the heck. "Sure," Sarah said cautiously.
"It's good," Chris encouraged.
Sarah lifted the cup to her lips and risked a taste.
She shouldn't have. "Aw!" Sarah swallowed the drink and gave the cup back to Chris. "That's disgusting, Chris!"
Chris looked a little miffed. "No it's not."
"Where did you get that?"
"Dustin." Chris took a swig of the vile concoction. "His dad said I could take a bottle home with me 'cause I liked it."
"Because," Sarah automatically corrected his grammar. "Did you ask Mom?"
"No."
Sarah opened the refrigerator and located the bottle. "Do you know what's in this?" She asked as she read the ingredients.
Chris appeared to be thinking. "Um…water?"
"Somewhere, I'm sure," Sarah muttered.
"Sugar?"
"Mostly." Sarah put the bottle back in the fridge.
Chris downed the last of his cup. "I like it."
"You know, I wouldn't think it would get this hot in Idaho," Sarah remarked to her boyfriend.
Rob April shrugged. "It's a desert. Just like Mojave." He held Sarah's chair out as the Pike and April families settled themselves around the restaurant table.
"Hi," the waitress said. "Can I get drinks for you guys?"
"I'll have a Mountain Dew," Chris piped up.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you still drink that stuff."
"I can't believe you can't believe it," Chris deadpanned.
"So will I," Rob said to the waitress.
Sarah regarded her love with a disbelieving look.
"It's good stuff," Rob told her.
"Yeah, you might give it another shot sometime," Chris joined in.
As her father chuckled at the scene, Sarah dropped her head into her hands.
Cadet Pike let himself into his dorm room. "One exam to freedom," he told his roommate, who was hunched over the desk.
Steve Hunter let out a sound that was half grunt, half groan. "Yeah, one way or the other." He handed Pike what looked like a bottle wrapped in silver paper. "This came for you."
Pike frowned. "What is it?"
"I don't know."
"Who's it from?" There was no label on the package, just a small envelope that read "C Pike, 137 Cochrane Dorm."
"I don't know."
Pike glanced up at his roommate. "Anything you do know?"
Steve put his datapad down and stretched his back. "Yeah, temporal mechanics is gonna kick my sorry ass tomorrow."
"It won't be that bad," Pike began opening the envelope. "We'll hit the books as soon as I open this thing."
Steve belly flopped onto his bed.
Pike set the bottle down and read the typewritten note.
Chris-
We'd say don't use this as an excuse not to sleep, but the first rule of command is never give an order you won't be obeyed.
Good luck on finals.
_\\// Sarah & Rob
With a confused frown, Pike tore the paper away. Underneath was a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.
"Chris? Is it ticking?"
Pike smiled. "This," he held the plastic bottle in front of Steve's weary face, "is what we will have to thank when we ace temporal mechanics."
"Hear ye, hear ye, crew of the USS Rotterdam!"
Sarah put her drink down and brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes as Rob stood on a chair. The Rotterdam's senior staff had all but commandeered the local bar for the first night of their two-week leave.
"Having defended his…" Rob looked down at Chris. "How long was it?"
"Two hundred fifty-two pages and four lines," Chris supplied.
"Two hundred fifty-two and four-line-page dissertation," Rob went on, "my little brother-in-law, your first officer, the gallant and illustrious Christopher Pike will as of 0800 hours tomorrow be promoted to full commander!"
The ship's senior staff erupted into raucous and somewhat drunken cheers. Chris, for his part, was perfectly sober and sitting at the table next to Rob, calmly accepting the accolades.
"Dr. April?" Rotterdam's chief engineer, Susanna Linkletter, leaned over to her CMO. "Your brother doesn't look like he's celebrating."
"He just spent four hours getting the intellectual crap beaten out of him, Link," Sarah explained. "He'd probably rather be anywhere else right now."
"Even though the party's in his honor?"
One side of Sarah's mouth twitched into a knowing smile. "Especially because the party's in his honor."
"Now, as many of you are aware, Lt. Cmdr. Pike eschews all chemically offensive beverages," Rob said, the mild slurring proving that he had not eschewed said beverages that evening. "So, to ensure that he can celebrate with us in his own way…" Rob waved to the bartender.
Sarah nearly snorted her drink out her nose as the bartender produced a martini glass full of bubbling green beverage.
"Is that…" Link wondered.
"Mountain Dew in a martini glass," Sarah marveled. Nice work, Rob.
"And by the way," Rob said to the bartender. "This guy," he clapped Chris on the shoulder, "is an excellent tipper if you can keep up with his Mountain Dew intake."
Chris gave Rob a fondly annoyed look as the bartender called for two more glasses. "Thanks."
"Who loves ya, Chris?"
Sarah shook her head while her brother took a sip of his drink. "Chris, how long have you been drinking that stuff?"
"Since I was…what, six?" Chris took a sip of his drink. "Maybe eight?"
"Don't you think it's a little bit immature for the captain of a starship to be drinking beverages typically associated with overactive teenage boys?" Sarah asked. The USS Yorktown had made an emergency stop at Starbase 30, where Rob and Sarah just happened to be stationed. Sarah hadn't seen her brother for months. She could immediately observe the change command had made in his overall bearing and demeanor, but one thing hadn't changed. He was still drinking Mountain Dew.
"You know, my XO said the same thing to me the other day," Chris said.
"I knew I liked her," Sarah quipped. "What's her name, anyway?"
Chris took another swallow. "I can't pronounce it."
"You can't pronounce it?"
"She's Ilyrian," Chris elaborated. "Her name has over thirty syllables. It's longer than 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'"
Sarah put down her coffee mug. "So what do you call her?"
"'Number One.'"
"You hated it when Rob called you that." Sarah recalled. "You thought it was corny."
Chris shrugged. "I gotta call her something. And I don't drink Mountain Dew at state functions, you know."
"That stuff practically glows in the dark. It can't be good for you."
"I'm not drinking it for my health. I'm drinking it because I like it." Chris lifted his glass as if to salute all of the drink's less-than-nutritious properties. "You don't drink that because it's good for you."
Sarah looked down at her mug. "I like coffee."
"No, you don't. You've kidded yourself into thinking you like coffee by saturating it with milk and sugar to the point you can't tell that it tastes like liquefied battery acid," Chris explained. "But Mountain Dew is good when it comes out of the bottle. No adulteration needed."
"So did you make…Number One try any of that foul stuff?"
"Mmmmhmmm," Chris said around a mouthful of Mountain Dew.
"And what did she think?"
Chris swallowed. "She liked it."
Sarah liked gamma shift, or "night shift" as people called it. At the Academy it actually was "night shift" because there was night, as opposed to a starship where 2300 and 1100 hours looked the same. There was rarely anything going on at night, so duties consisted mostly of keeping Starfleet Medical from burning down and maybe doing some paperwork. Easy money.
Night shift also gave Sarah an opportunity to feel strangely benevolent and purchase a small bottle of the hated and dreaded Mountain Dew for her brother. After watching him return paralyzed from what was supposed to be a simple rescue mission, Sarah found it a lot harder to give him a hard time about drinking the awful stuff.
Since chances of Chris being awake before Sarah's shift ended were slim, she decided to just leave it in his room for him to find when he woke up. He could get some ice to cool it off if he wanted. Though I'm sure he'd drink it warm.
Sarah entered Chris' room expecting to find her brother peacefully asleep. What she found was the exact opposite. Chris was sitting up in bed with his head in his hands, hyperventilating and shaking.
"Chris!" The bottle slid out of Sarah's hand and fell to the floor. She sat on the bed and gently pried his hands off his face. "Chris, can you hear me?"
Chris didn't respond immediately, and Sarah felt her heart break as she took in the tears glassing his eyes and bathing his cheeks.
"How long have you been sitting here like this?" Sarah asked quietly.
Chris took a shaky breath. "Not too long."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I didn't know you were here."
"I don't have to be here for you to call me." Sarah gently squeezed her brother's hands. "You know that."
Chris extracted one hand to dry his eyes. "Sorry," he choked.
"What happened? Did you have a nightmare?" Sarah almost unconsciously reached up to wipe the remaining tears off her brother's face. She was relieved when he leaned his head into the touch instead of squirming away from it like he normally would. Chris hated being smothered and fussed over, and he'd had plenty of both since getting back to San Francisco.
"Yeah," Chris answered tonelessly. A few fresh tears broke free and Sarah handed him a tissue from the side table.
"I could get you a sedative," Sarah offered.
Chris shook his head and swiped at his running eyes. "I hate those. They just make me feel worse."
It was obvious that Chris didn't want the medication, so Sarah let it go. "OK," she agreed. "Anything you do need?"
Chris sniffed and looked down to his left. "That Mountain Dew looks pretty good."
Sarah followed his gaze. "That won't help you sleep."
"I'm not going back to sleep tonight anyway, Sarah."
"I dropped it," Sarah said. "It's probably flat."
"I'll take it."
Of course you will. Sarah gave her brother a quick kiss on the forehead and picked the bottle up from the floor. She started to unscrew the cap.
"Oh, Sarah, be care—"
The sticky mess that Sarah spent the rest of her shift trying to get out of her uniform was well worth hearing Chris' tears turn into laughter.
"Drink it, Sarah."
Sarah glowered up at her brother. "Do I have to?"
"Yup." Chris leaned heavily on his cane. "The deal was that when I was out of the chair you drank an entire glass of Mountain Dew. I held up my end of the bargain. Now you hold up yours."
Eight ounces of repulsive green drink sat twelve inches in front of Sarah, and she wasn't going anywhere until she drank it. She'd seen more appetizing things in the medical lab. "Sometimes I really hate being your sister, Chris."
"Liar. You love being my sister. Now down the hatch. That's an order, captain."
Sarah steeled herself, picked up the glass, and knocked back every ounce of it in one swallow.
"Oof," Sarah grunted as she felt the telltale headache that accompanied rapid consumption of a cold beverage.
"Was that so bad?" Chris asked teasingly.
The pain started to subside and Sarah looked up. "Happy now?"
Chris chuckled at her. "Was that so bad?"
"Yes."
"Wimp."
"Sadist."
"Pansy."
"Cupcake."
Chris busted out laughing. "'Cupcake'?"
Sarah dissolved into giggles and slumped forward on the table.
"You really couldn't come up with anything better than that?" Chris snorted between chuckles.
Sarah lifted her head. "I guess not."
Chris took the glass. "That was mighty big of you, Sarah."
"Don't you forget it," Sarah warned with a finger wag. "Next time you don't want a sedative or a pain reliever or whatever just remember that I drank Mountain Dew for you."
Chris smiled at her. "I know it was the ultimate sacrifice."
With nearly everything about Chris' life having been thrown into disarray over the last few months, it was good to know that some things really did never change. Even if it was something as incomprehensible as his love for Mountain Dew.