Marla could remember the day exactly when she had first seen John Harrison. She had been coming back from a history lesson, The Eugenic wars, to be precise. Her friends chatted to her excitedly about their lessons, who was hooking up with who, who was the hottest cadet there. She wasn't paying attention; all she could think about was how stuffy the men of today were, they were too uptight and boring. Everything was to regulation if you were in Star fleet or not, everything had to be prim and proper.
She wasn't watching where she was going causing her to bump into someone. "Excuse me," Marla said as she bent down to pick up her books. Her eyes flicked upwards to look at the man she bumped in to and her breath caught in her throat. He was gorgeous. Not in a traditional sense, or cookie cutter male model but gorgeous in his own way. He was average height but he was lean, causing him to appear taller than he already was and slicked back dark hair. He handed Marla one of her books.
"Moby Dick," he said. "Oh lord," Marla thought. His voice was sexy and he'sBritish. The only downside was the uniform. It was clear by the badges on his breast and shoulder strap that he was somewhere high up on the Starfleet ladder, not someone who should be fraternizing with lowly cadets.
"One of my favourites," He said, handing her back the rest of her books before standing and straightening his uniform. Marla stood there with her mouth open, she was sure she looked like a fish. "Miss," the man said, nodding at her before walking away. Marla turned to her friends, Carol Marcus stood there with her eyebrows raised in surprise, Christine Chapel looked positively delighted.
"I think Christine is planning your wedding." Carol said to Marla, jogging to keep up with her pace.
"She's not!" Marla retorted, pushing open the door from the main campus of Star Fleet to outside. It was a hot day: plenty of students milling about outside or lounging under trees for a bit of shade from the California heat.
"Ladies," Jim Kirk addressed them, going the opposite way up the stairs from them. His eyes lingered slightly on Carol, who rolled her eyes in disgust.
"He makes my skin crawl," Carol said, noting the look Marla and Christine were giving her. "Honestly, he is such a creep, first with you" she pointed to Christine. "Look I'm sorry but he's a womanizer and a complete imbecile."
"Oh you're British has popped out again," Marla said. She turned to Christine, "Anyway, don't worry about it, we all have the person we regret being with and yours is-"
"James Tiberius Kirk," Christine said.
"Yeah, but hey that Vulcan commander – eh? Pretty cute!" Marla said, elbowing Christine in the rips playfully.
"Or that doctor." Carol added.
"Ok stop!" Christine yelled. "We are talking about that guy that Marla bumped in to. You know tall, dark mysterious and brooding?"
"Oh please like I'd ever have a chance with him!"
"When was the last time you had a boyfriend?" Christine asked her, Marla fell silent. "Exactly that is why we need you to casually bump into Mr British Man again!"
However weeks went past and Christine and Carol dropped the subject of Mr British man entirely. And for a while Marla had forgotten about him too, there was far too much stuff she had to do: history exams for starters and an essay that was at least two weeks overdue. Painting was just much more entertaining for her at the moment. Right now she was painting a portrait of Alexander the Great, strewn around her room were reference pictures of Alexander's bust and various reliefs. Alongside the various splotches of paint and clothes thrown about, it was no wonder her old roommate had decided to move out. Marla didn't mind however, it gave her more room to do her work and was certainly a lot quieter. Her first roommate had been an Orion, and due to the conflicting personalities in less than 3 weeks the Orion had moved out. Her second roommate had been a complete fanatic about cleanliness and punctuality, installing a daily router for cleaning the room, alarm times and even going so far as allotted bathroom times, Marla's was considerably smaller than her roommates. Star Fleet had given up completely with the roommate situation.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and was just about to pick up one of her brushes when Christine burst through the room.
"I have gossip!" She announced jumping onto the spare bed.
Marla put down her brush and sat on the opposite bed. "What's this?"
"Gaila and Jim."
"Ok? No offense but why should I care and why are you so happy about that?"
"Because! Uhura found them in her room and kicked him out in his boxers-"
"Ooh, his boxers."
"Shut up!" Christine said, throwing a pillow into Marla's face. "Anyway, he got kicked out and you know Uhura hates Jim more than I do. My point is that it was Gaila, one of the biggest flirts going on campus. Oh do you think he caught something off her? Like space herpes?"
"Oh my god that is gross!" Marla said jumping up from her bed and walking away. "Why would you want him to get space herpes?"
"He told everyone about me. Plus he passed that video around of me talking about Commander Spock, so yes. I would like it if it hurt him every time he went to the bathroom."
"Does herpes burn when you pee?" Marla asked, going to her mini fridge and getting iced coffee out and two clean cups, making sure there was absolutely no paint water in them before filling both of the cups. She handed one to Christine and sat back down on the bed.
"I don't know. I sure hope it does though." Christine replied taking a sip of her drink.
"You can be rather sadistic at times you know. You can be rather scary. Are you sure that bio research even is for you? I wouldn't trust you with weaponized small pox."
"Bitch please, I'd make something better than small pox. But I don't know. Do you remember my fiancé?"
"I remember stories about him." It was a bit of a touchy subject, no one really knew what had happened between the two of them, but no one really wanted to ask. There had been speculations floating around for ages, but after Christine had had a shouting match with one of the other cadets about "keeping your fat ass out of other people's buisness" the subject had been dropped.
"Well, I was thinking that I'd change. Give up the bio research for now. Because star fleet doesn't have that much of a window for bio researches on the ships. I was thinking that if I became a nurse I could go and maybe find Roger."
"That's a very big if. The universe is huge, how will you know where to look?"
"I don't. But that's half the fun isn't it? Going out and seeing new worlds? It'll be an adventure!"
The next time she saw him was at Kirk's hearing. He was sitting close to Admiral Marcus on the high bench. He hadn't said anything the whole time the hearing was going on, but his eyes were boring into Kirk. When Jim said he didn't believe in no win situations his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly, as if he was trying to fight back a smile. Maybe he liked defiance, not following star fleet regulation to the letter like everyone else did, she admired that.
"My god," she thought to herself. "Before he was just ok, but he's fucking gorgeous." He had an air of arrogance about him, just enough however so it seemed more like confidence unlike Kirk who believed he was better than everyone else.
"Cadets, report to hanger 1 immediately." Admiral Barnett said, standing up. The rest of the admirals followed him out of the room. The cadets stood up too.
Marla found Carol walking quickly to the exit where the admirals had gone through. She grabbed the blonde by the arm. "Carol, where are you going?"
"He won't let me on the ships Marla. I'm desperate to get out there, all my life I've been stuck here or in England. He's a control freak and I'll be damned before I see the Enterprise have its maiden voyage without me. He can't rule my life forever." Carol said, shrugging out of Marla's grip before turning quickly on her heel to go and find her father.
"What?" Marla said out loud.
"Her father is an overbearing presence in her life. It's what caused her mother to decide to raise her in England." A voice said behind her. Marla turned around, it was him, sure enough.
"I…um." She stammered. Typical, her mouth wasn't forming coherent words and her brain had turned to mush. "He's near me." She thought. "Oh god he's standing near me, what do I do?"
He stuck out his hand, "John Harrison," He said with a smile. She stared at him for a moment before he said: "And yours?"
"Marla McGivers." She spat out too quickly for him to understand. She took a breath. "Marla McGivers sir."
"There is no need for honorific titles between us." He stuck his hand out. Tentatively Marla took it and they shook hands.
"You should be in the hanger, Marla. Otherwise you won't know your post." He said to her before dropping her hand and walking away.
"Ok." She said, flabbergasted.
Well that's the first chapter done and out of the way. I hope you guys like it! Remember, the more you review the faster I update. So please review with any constructive criticisms or just anything really!
