They are holding a celebration. Trying desperately to find a sliver of happiness, despite all that's been lost.
Every impression she's ever got from Jim Kirk led her believe he'd be in there lapping up all the attention sent his way. He should be basking in his achievements, glowing from everything he had somehow accomplished. Instead he is standing out here in the dark and the cold looking more than a little bit broken.
She realizes he is standing in the shadow.
She recalls all the headlines she's read over the past week.
'George kirks son follows in his footsteps'
'James Kirk lives up to his father's legacy'
'James Kirk a hero like his father'
For a moment she wonders how it feels to live in the shadow of a man he will never meet. To be constantly compared to someone that he has never known.
She wonders how much it hurts.
She watches as he sighs deeply and buries his face in his hands and she feels her heart break a little, because it just isn't fair.
His father may have saved 800 lives but he saved the whole damn planet and he deserves some recognition of that. He doesn't need to hear that his father would be proud of him, he needs to know that the rest of the world is. He needs living, breathing people to appreciate what he's done on his own merit. He needs them to appreciate who he is not who his father was.
He looks so much like George Kirk and she thinks maybe that's why people have so much trouble separating father and son, why when they look at Jim they can't help but see George as well.
She wonders how he feels about that.
She has never made her dislike of him a secret and in spite of everything that's changed, that hasn't. She still does not like him, but now she respects him, respects the fact she is alive because of his actions.
If someone had told her a year ago that she would one day feel sorry for Jim Kirk she would have laughed in their face, but standing here watching him shake with suppressed emotion, she does.
Because what he did was fantastic and amazing and extraordinary and far greater than anything his father ever accomplished but still the world can only see George kirks son.
She wants to scream at every person on this stupid planet to stop being so blind, so cruel, because Jim should be standing tall and proud, not sitting in the dark and the cold feeling more than a little bit broken. He shouldn't still be in the shadow.
He stands now with what she now knows is his mask firmly in place, ready to go back into that room and be the arrogant man she once believed he was, but now knows he isn't.
Now she has seen a glimpse of the anguish and pain that he carries around with him day after day.
She wonders how he copes.
She watches him walk away and can only hope that one day someone, somewhere will shine a light on captain James T Kirk, and that the world will see the brilliant man for who he is.
She hopes that one day he can step out of his shadow.