Prompt: Pike, Kirk – Memorial Day
Memorial Day
It's not like he made a point to dwell on it or anything, but it was damn hard to avoid the looks cast his way by other students and professors as he walked by the holographic memorial erected in the campus center to honor those lost in service to the Federation.
Once upon a time, Jim had heard, the board had held both names and small pictures, but that time had long since passed. Now they had to constantly cycle the lists of names in order to allow all the dead and missing to be honored.
He'd been taken here twice as a child, along with his mother and brother, to honor his father's sacrifice, and he'd hated it. Not the idea of the memorial, nor the act of remembering the father he'd never known, but the pageantry of it, the media, and the intrusive questions thrust their way that caused his mother's eyes to tear up again and again.
Pike had known, somehow. Known he wouldn't come back willingly to see the ceremony, performed year after year, at midday and amongst the throngs of people with their curious questions and open stares. So when Pike had shown up at his dorm just shy of midnight and said, "Follow me," Jim wasn't entirely surprised, and followed him without argument.
Now, he decided, long after classes had ended and darkness had fallen, he didn't mind being here. So they stood side by side, bathed in the faint blue and silver lights from the projection and surrounded by the stillness and quiet of empty hallways, and waited for the name George Kirk to flash into existence.