Six Birthdays (Part One for SBR, February 18)
'No'? *sigh* Still 'no.' You can keep your litigators to yourself.
Birthday: James T. Kirk
Anybody who knew anything about James Tiberius Kirk of course knew his birthday. He was mostly glad that, when the day rolled around, they forgot what it was.
Jimmy hated his birthday. He avoided it however he could.
Jim got drunk on his birthday. Then he could forget that he had one.
His first year at the Academy, Jim Kirk had simply not shown up. He hadn't shown up to breakfast, he hadn't shown up to class, and he hadn't shown up for the Kelvin Memorial Service. His girlfriend, his instructors, and the various Starfleet Officials involved were not amused. Cadet Kirk didn't much care. So far he had shown up to everything else, and he figured that had to count for something. He had shown up for his life, thank you very much.
The next year, Bones McCoy had filed paperwork asserting that Cadet Kirk's absence on the day in question was due to a Medical Emergency. He told Jim, with dripping sarcasm, that he had had to get somebody in the Computer Science Department to hack in and delete the first version he'd sent 'cause he'd accidently put in the word "Unexpected" and damned if he was gonna get court-martialed, before he even got commissioned, over something as stupid as that.
The third year, Cadets Kirk and McCoy were busted. In their defense, they had been out on maneuvers and, having only just returned, they were a little sleep-deprived. Obviously, if they had been thinking clearly, they would have realized that the reason Starfleet had been able to send them all on maneuvers - on the ships of the main fleet - was that the powers-that-be had taken advantage of all of the personnel who were returning to San Francisco for the Anniversary. Further, they would have realized that having all of those extra personnel in town might increase the likelihood that they would run into some of those personnel and be recognized. They might even have realized that going to the bar where Kirk's parents had met, when they were cadets themselves, to finish out the evening was a bad idea. It is doubtful, however, that it would have occurred to them that Captain Christopher Pike would be at the same establishment… Pike was honoring the day in his own way; and, though he had started much later than the other two, he was one of Starfleet's finest: He carried it well, but the twinkle in his eye as he ordered them to sit down - because he was buying the next round - indicated that he was well on his way to catching up.
That year, the paperwork was filed by Pike after his hangover remedy had kicked in. It simply stated that they had been "unavoidably detained".
When Captain James T. Kirk arrived on the Bridge that morning, Commander Spock, his Chief Science Officer and Second-in-Command, stood and moved toward him. His posture was at its most formal. Impressed, and curious, Kirk looked around at the other members of the Bridge crew. They each met his eye and nodded: Obviously they knew what Spock had in mind, and agreed with it. The Enterprise had been so busy on the edge of known Space that he hadn't even realized what day it was until Spock gravely intoned the words that were, clearly, on the lips of every one present, "Happy Birthday, Captain."
Later that evening, Kirk looked at the people gathered around the table in Rec Room One: Their faces were lit from below, and they were smiling. It occurred to him that every single one of them was genuinely happy to be here. (Okay, so sometimes, with some people, you had to take that as read…) He grinned. He was glad they'd remembered his birthday. And he was really glad he'd shown up.