Title: Enterprise: The Musical
Word Count: 2,358
Rating: G
Warnings: CORNINESS, musical numbers
Summary: Written for this prompt: Enterprise: The Musical; And for some reason Kirk's the only person who's not singing.
Notes: First number is taken from FAME! the "Hot Lunch" song and the second is "One" from The Chorus Line, one of the best Broadway songs. Please bask in my musical nerdiness.

There was something weird going on with the crew. Breakfast was never this loud or exuberant, nor this crowded. It seemed like everyone possible had come to eat this morning, crammed together as they chatted and laughed. Captain Kirk eyed the whole scene in disbelief, gripping the PADD he'd be looking over closer to his chest as he stood in the entrance.

He truthfully didn't know what to make of it. While for nearly two years now he had been desperately trying for some sort of communal gathering for the crew, he never imagined it'd look something like a high school cafeteria. Jim tried to pick out the familiar faces of his bridge crew but couldn't find a single one. He knew their shift didn't start for another half an hour and wondered if maybe they had gotten breakfast already, missing this strange phenomenon. Carefully, he picked his way through, heading to where Um'na was serving food.

"C'mon, c'mon who's next?" Um'na jostled with an uncharacteristic scowl on her face. No one seemed to notice or care, all stepping up in a disorderly fashion to swipe a plate from her hands.

Jim realized then, now that he was deep in the crowd of his crewmates, that everyone seemed to be doing something related to their positions. There was a nurse from sickbay standing nearby with a group of her fellows looking at x-rays. The table next to theirs was spilling with engineers, all of whom were tossing around wrenches or bolts and the like to each other as they did everything but eat.

Strange of all, no one seemed to pay him any mind. While he was off-duty right now, the crew usually acknowledged their Captain no matter what. A slight nod of the head and a smile, sometimes for the even more advantageous he earned a salute or two. However, he got nothing from even one of the many bodies occupying the cafeteria; no one even looked at him! It was all very, very unsettling,

The noise was senseless, with no definition other than the clash of voice and language. Harsh on the ears and offering nothing to be distinguished. Just as the Captain had made it to the front of the cafeteria absorbed deep in the noise, he heard the first signs of it: one of the engineers, whom he was now every close to, started tapping a beat on the tool box in front of him with two long screwdrivers. The whole crowd seemed to change then, everyone looked up and smiled, bodies all picking on the beat. Then another accompanying rhythm started up, this time it sounded as if it might be a tambourine, Jim couldn't be sure.

Suddenly they were dancing in full swinging, arms waving around and hands clapping in time with the music. That was a saxophone, holy Jesus, Cupcake had a saxophone. People were on tables now, but oddly only those along the back walls. A space had somehow cleared itself before Jim and people were filling it, dancing in the old Terran way that was called swing. Edward Warety, one of their newer ensigns, whipped Gaila around with ease. They spun together and the music continued to pick up in speed, the crew's happy exclamations urging the musicians on.

Kirk was sure they were all mad.

With sudden perfect synchronism, Gaila and other female crew members formed some strange line, grabbing each other's hips and bending over only to stand up, flailing their arms in the air. Others joined in the line, arranging by uniform colour without much difficulty and they began moving around the cafeteria. They leapt about, all facing their Captain with wide smiles as they in sync jumped and threw their arms back.

Then they broke up again, separating into eclectic groups of dancing or just swaying. Some new instruments had appeared and there was now a large crowd of people dancing on a single table. Jim wasn't sure that it was safe, but couldn't seem to find the words to protest. The music had definition now, a numerable combination of instruments beyond the few from before and resembled something like old-age jazz.

Everyone clapped to the beat, laughing and cheering still as they crowded around the table full of people, becoming a swaying colourful mass of people. Jim then noticed the piano, the full grand piano that was occupying a good portion of the room. Gaila had found her way over there and was sitting, bouncing with the music on top of it.

With a flick of her wrist, a large pair of Terran sunglasses appeared in her hand and then she sang, clear and sweet: "Shadie Janie!" The crew echoed her and she smiled, pushing the shades onto her nose.

Gaila rose her arm and pointed at Janice Rand who was swaying her hips a few yards from Jim. He looked at her just as every head in the cafeteria did, the blonde yeoman beamed at the attention. The Captain wondered if it was her birthday or something, to warrant a fucking musical.

"Yeoman laaaady," Gaila continued, smiling sweetly at the echoing crowd and pulling her shirt sleeve down to reveal a slender green shoulder. "She'll take your every word, even the absurd! She's got the quick quirk, for all your paper work."

The Captain decided then, very quickly, that it was time for him to leave. All this had taken up longer than he had to spare and while many of the people in here were supposed to be on shift in five minutes just like him, Jim wasn't prepared to find a way to break up this…this madness. He needed to report that there was something wrong with the crew to his officers anyway. That's why he was leaving, really. As quickly as he could, the normally brave Captain escaped the cafeteria. The door slipped shut cutting off the tail end of the crowd's bellow of "HOTTT JAAAAAAAANNIE-----!"

Anyone he passed in the hallway seemed to be perfectly normal, looking over a PADD and they all saluted him as he passed. Jim was relieved for the normalcy. Perhaps there was something in the food? It seemed to explain why only the people who were in the cafeteria were acting strange. So engrossed the Captain was, to find some regularity in his ship, that he failed to notice that while all the people in the Enterprise's hallways did indeed salute him, they all had a particular jaunt and sway in their walk.

The turbolift couldn't take him to the bridge quick enough. As soon as he was there, he stepped out of the elevator brusquely, heading straight for his chair. Everyone turned to look and Spock stood, interpreting his Captain's look of obvious concerned confusion.

"Captian, I trust everything is alright?" he inquired, hands folded behind his back as he regarded Jim from where he stood beside his station.

"No, Spock, everything definitely is not," Jim said gravely, he looked at his comm and pulled up Bones' name, calling him immediately. "Bones this is an emergency, please come up to the bridge."

"Right away, Captian," came McCoy's reply, lacking any of the urgency that Kirk thought he would. He frowned at the comm, wondering what about "emergency" Bones had failed to understand.

Everyone on the bridge was staring at him now, all of them wearing identical expressions of confusion. Obviously, they hadn't seen the oddity of this morning's breakfast, which was only slightly inhibiting to Jim's plans to figure out what was going on. However, he was still sure he would have them all understanding the severity of this musical…epidemic that had overcome much of their crew.

Soon enough, Bones was on the bridge, striding over to where Kirk stood anxiously a familiar annoyed scowl on his features. "Yes?"

"Bones, we have," he paused, for dramatic emphasis, "a problem."

"Yeah, we do, Jim," Bones replied, expression clearing. Everyone on the bridge stood then, in unison. Something seized in realization inside of Jim and he felt betrayed. Bones smiled at him before turning to Spock and they moved together to join everyone else at the front of the bridge. The Captain's jaw dropped and he sat, heavily in his chair, watching in wide eye terror as his fears came to fruition.

Everything went dark, the slight blue glow of the bridge workstations giving the room a brilliant effect. Music began, it's origin unknown to Jim, as the flights focused in on Uhura, Bones, Spock, Sulu and Chekov. They were slowly rising from a crouch, raising shimmering top hats they had pulled from nowhere above then, as the lights lit each of them up to the quickening sound of a cymbal.

Chekov on one end, spun around when he was fully standing, placing the top hat on his head and turning to look straight at the Captain. Beside him Sulu turned towards the teenager, holding the hat at level with his face and looking down before tossing it up to land on his head, turning to look at Jim as well.

The top hat obscured Bones' face, but as soon as Jim looked his way, he pulled it away and dipped his head back, their eyes meeting. Spock simply had his hat upturned in front of him and swayed his head up, the only one not looking directly at Jim.

When Uhura came into focus, a piano joined the cymbal in the music. She was doing some strange nod to him, one hand on the rim of the hat and the other rose up, her hand lax. It reminded Jim oddly of a cat as she moved, smiling and quirking her eyebrows each time she looked up before finally ducking her head fully away under the hat.

The rest of the crew on the bridge did their own little jig with their hats before the music finally fully swelled and they all lined up in a single line and then crisscrossed, all the top hats held down over their eyes. Moving into a single file line again, they all walked forward, turned around and raised an arm before quickly turning again and raising the top hat off their heads into the air. That was when they began singing.

"One!" they all sang in chorus and Jim stopped trying to pay attention to their dance moves. It was too much to take in, especially with all the moves including their top hats.

"Singular sensation, every little step he takes," Bones picked up, voice deep and smooth continued the song.

"One!" the chorus sang.

"Thrilling combination, every move that he makes," it was Spock this time, his voice a tenor to Bones' baritone.

They stepped up to stand together, in the middle of the room, as the rest of the crew—or chorus as Jim had embarrassingly began to refer to them as—danced around them.

"One!"

"Smile and suddenly nobody else will do!" Spock and Bones sang in unison. "You know you'll never be lonely with you-know-who."

"One moment in his presence and you can forget the rest," now everyone was singing and doing neat tricks with their top hats in sync. Jim had the odd feeling this song was about him, what with the way everyone was staring at him with huge smiles. It was somewhat frightening and while Jim was flattered, kind of, he really wished they would all stop.

"For the boy is second best to none, son
Oooh! Sigh! Give him your attention
Do I really have to mention he's the one."

Everyone stepped back and again, Bones and Spock had center stage. Jim had the time to wonder briefly, why it wasn't Uhura and say Gaila (who had somehow managed to also make her way into this number) that weren't serenading his glory.

"He walks into a room and you know he's—" Spock sang.

"Uncommonly rare, very unique," Bones started, and then Spock and he were jumping back and forth, "peripatetic, poetic and chic."

Wait, what?

"He walks into a room and you know from his—" the two leaders continued, without seeming to interpret Jim's logical dismay at being called 'poetic and chic.' "Maddening poise, effortless whirl—"

"One thrilling combination, every move that he makes!" the chorus interrupted, all tossing their top hats as the crossed in front of Spock and Bones as they did, cutting the two from sight. "He's a special guy."

"—strolling."

The Captian couldn't take it any more. It stopped right here, right now. Having a song sang about him was all well and good, but not when it insisted upon calling him anything like chic or even implying that he did anything such as strolling.

"That's it!" he yelled, jumping up from his seat and waving his arms. The entire room froze, eyes wide and turned on their angry Captain. He glared at them all, raising a finger to point and jab at them as he spoke. "What is this?! I don't even—-I can't take this any longer! Explain yourselves."

Spock, who seemed to have recovered from Jim's outburst the quickest, calmly sat his top hat on his head and clasped his arms behind his back. "Captain, this is a musical number—"

"No fucking shit, Sherlock!"

"That we have been preparing for a while after watching the film Cabaret for Terran cinema night," the Vulcan continued, ignoring Jim's outburst. Around him, the chorus—-damnit, the crew were looking very put upon, gripping the rims over their top hats and looking at the Captain worriedly. Guilt settled in Kirk's stomach. "Rehearsals have been going on for the past two months, upon which every eve before you were notified with a memo."

Jim's shoulders slumped as the anger drained from him and relief that he wasn't somehow in some crazy musical reality took hold. "Really? I don't remember getting any memos about musical numbers….what were they titled?"

"If You Loved Two Ladies."

It was then that everyone burst into laughter. Jim stood bewildered in the center, looking around at the entire shift that had managed to fit onto the bridge, all laughing at him. Then he spotted Bones, looking smug, who was the only one not laughing (besides Spock) and it hit him.

"Happy April Fools, Jim."