Jim woke with a start. Something was horribly wrong. Was the fire siren on? Was there yet another emergency meeting at Starfleet HQ? And then he understood that it was neither. Pitiful crying filled the room. Clara hadn't woken up yet, but she certainly will if the crying continued. Quietly but swiftly, Jim pushed off the blanket, got out of bed and picked up four-month-old Christopher Kirk in his arms. Actually, calming Chris in the middle of the night was usually Clara's job - she was the nanny, not Jim. But tomorrow was the big day, and Mrs Kirk deserved all the sleep she could get. That's how Jim found himself with a kid in his arms, standing by the window and desperately trying to calm him down. One subject never studied at Starfleet Academy was child care, so all Captain Kirk had was a few minutes and the starry sky.
"Hey mate," he smiled. Chris offered his father a weak grin in return. Then went back to whining.
"Hey, stop that! We don't want to wake up Mummy." The whining continued.
"You know why we don't want to do that? Because you know what we're going to do tomorrow." Chris stopped, then looked carefully at his dad. He had heard the story so many times in the last two weeks, and two weeks is a lot when you're four months old. Still, it didn't hurt to hear it once more.
"No more crying, aye? That's better, mate. We're Kirks, and Kirks aren't crybabies, are we? Now for the story. Tomorrow we will wake up, have some breakfast, pack what's left of our things-"
Chris gurgled in a questioning way.
"Of course we'll take Teddy! Then we'll find Spock, and Bones, and Scotty, and Uhura, and Chekov, and Sulu, and Carol - don't tell Mum I called her Carol, okay? What was that? No, the Doctor comes later. So we'll get into a shuttle... You remember when you were last in a shuttle? We were taking you home for the first time, and Mummy was so happy and I was so confused and Spock was so annoying! And the shuttle will take us to the Enterprise. She's the most beautiful thing in the world, Chris. After you and Mum, of course. Just you wait and see."
Jim walked up closer to the window and pulled back the old-fashioned curtain Clara had insisted upon when they first moved in.
"See the stars, Christopher? That's where we are going. Five years among the stars, can you believe it? Just think - all these places we've never seen before! And if we get bored, we'll ask the Doctor to take us somewhere in his blue box. You love that blue box, don't you?"
Jim laughed softly. Chris had already calmed down and looked like he was seriously considering going back to sleep.
"You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that box. I've told you the story a hundred times, haven't I?"
Chris mumbled affirmatively.
"So there was this girl on the Enterprise. Oswin, she was called. She was pretty, and clever, and... well. Then she got transferred to another ship. First voyage, ship crashes, I never see her again. Until an ion storm breaks out, and we're stuck in the middle of it. That's when the blue box appears on the bridge. And out stumbles none other than a copy of Oswin, down to the very last detail. To cut a long story short, she saved the ship. And then she said she'd like to stay for a while. A year later, you come into the story. So bedtime now, Chris. Tomorrow we're going to meet the stars."