Notes: This story is set in 2253, five years before the events of the film. This makes Spock twenty-three, and Jim twenty (according to the Star Trek Memory Alpha, anyway).

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek and I make no profit from this work.


The Stargazers

Seven:

San Francisco was...damn big.

Jim was by no means a shy man - he was brimming over with genuine confidence in most areas of his life. Sure, he had the odd insecurity - who didn't? - but he'd turned out pretty well.

San Francisco, though, was bigger than Jim had possibly imagined.

And if he thought that San Francisco was kind of intimidating, the Academy was a hell of a lot worse.

They just didn't have swanky buildings in his ass-end of Iowa. They were all wooden little lean-to jobs, not swirls of concrete and marble and silicon, with various designs from the Tellarite and Betazoid cultures on the doors to the language school. Hell, Jim wasn't sure if there was a language school nearer to him than Des Moines itself - and Des Moines had been near-dead for the last eighty years.

McCoy had dumped him off with a tour group, saying something about having clinics and coming to get Jim later, in a way that reminded Jim distinctly of someone's mom dropping her kid off at school for the first time. Maybe McCoy had a kid. He was old enough - and hadn't he muttered something about an ex-wife once?

One of the other wannabes, in too-smart trousers and a jumper (that reminded Jim strongly of the oddly plain-but-formal way that Spock dressed) was recognisable, and it took Jim a while to place her. Eventually, he realised that she was the woman who'd been translating for the Vulcan diplomats the other week in Riverside, and he grinned.

Well, she was hot even without that tiny regulation skirt. Nice.

Pity he couldn't remember her name.

She didn't give him a second glance throughout the whole tour, aptitude tests (he nearly backed out, but figured what the hell) or even when they showed the same interest in the xenolinguistics building. Jim reassessed her: command and communications. He still couldn't tell which specialism she'd hunt for, though.

Until she asked about Vulcan.

"Of course we teach Vulcan," the guide said, "but as there aren't any Vulcans serving in Starfleet, there won't be the same cultural component as the other language courses. It's more challenging without it, but we teach useable Vulcan. You can do in-depth courses on Vulcan itself if you take the science specialisms, thanks to the VSA, but not here."

She didn't look all that interested in that, but Jim pricked up his ears at the mention. Wasn't that where Spock was going?

"Of course," the guide continued, "if you take Romulan to a high level, you'll be able to pick up Vulcan pretty quickly just through the news media and online learning. They're still very similar languages."

The cadet looked like she highly disagreed, there, and Jim smirked. Communications. Easy.

"If we're all done here, the next stop is the flight simulations suites..."

Oh hell yes.


The moment McCoy looked at him, he smirked.

"What?" Jim asked.

"It's got you," McCoy said smugly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Told you it would."

Jim flushed. "I'm not signing up."

"Sure," McCoy drawled. "Until they send you your aptitude test results, with the letter of recommendation. Because you'll ace those - freaky kid like you, you'll do good."

Jim scowled. "Just because..."

"Trust me," McCoy interrupted. "I've done my psychomatic training, and I know what I'm looking for. And trust me, kid, you got it. You're what they're after."

"I'm a dumb hick from Iowa."

"Maybe that's what they need," McCoy shrugged. "I'll be level with you, Jim. Most of the cadets here, they're smart. Super smart, scary smart. Even I think they're geniuses, and I'm a damn doctor. I know a genius when I see one. But they're predictable. Vulcans exhibit more crazy-ass behaviour than some of these kids, and while that's damn good in research and sciences and, hell, even basic engineering and mechanic maintenance...that's not a communications specialist. Or research engineers. Or command. In command, that's damn suicidal. You need some out-of-the-box thinking, and you got that."

Jim snorted. "Yeah, but..."

"Don't you 'but' me," McCoy snapped, jabbing a finger into Jim's chest. "You know I'm right."

Jim hesitated. "Look, on the command front, maybe, but..."

McCoy cut him off, yet again, "Even your Vulcan..."

"He's not my Vulcan."

"Even your Vulcan," McCoy stressed again, "told you this was a good idea. Didn't he?"

Jim blinked. "How did you know that?"

"Come on, kid. I know damn well it wasn't my persuasive charms that got your ass all the way out here."

Jim rolled his eyes and snorted. "Come on, McCoy. If even he said it was a good idea, that doesn't mean..."

"Of course it means it's a good idea," McCoy interrupted flatly. "You know anything about Vulcans apart from what I told you, kid?"

"Not much."

"Then trust me on this. He's not going to spin you some line about following your dreams and using all your abilities and yada yada yada. Vulcans don't dream. Metaphorically or literally. They're too damn logical for that - and he's not going to tell you to chase yours. If he says it's a good idea, he's talking pragmatically. And he said it was a good idea."

"And how do you know that he said that?"

"I didn't," McCoy grinned. "Lucky shot."


Jim spent the rest of his time in San Francisco hitting the bars with McCoy (though, thankfully, his sneakers remained puke-free) and trying to hit on the female cadets. The city was crawling with the cadets, both on and off campus, and they stuck out like sore thumbs. About a tenth of the cadets were aliens, and a good seventy percent of the human ones were not only non-American, but didn't have a fantastic command of Standard either.

Hence 'trying.'

He stayed a week, camping out on McCoy's sofa (medical students got good digs!) and eating his food. Which was disgustingly healthy - to the point where Jim seriously considered going hungry. He hadn't eaten so many vegetables since he was about five and his grandmother had come to live with them for a year.

If not for the liberal amounts of good booze, he'd be seriously rethinking this friendship.

Eventually, though, Jim packed himself back onto the shuttle to Riverside, ready to get back to his barkeeping and his motorbike. He slept most of the trip, didn't remember his dreams, and staggered off the shuttle to no welcoming committee and an annoyed glower from the only other passenger on the whole damn ship.

Well, screw you too, lady.

He caught sight of the grey-haired Vulcan that had been speaking to Spock - his father, was it? Jim was too tired to remember - on his way out of the terminal, and gave him a deliberately cheery wave.

The look he got in return was exactly as blank as he'd expected.

The ride home was dark and dreary. In the wake of California, the road was lonely and too cool, and the dark house that Jim pulled up to smacked of isolation and a meagre existence. He could almost hear McCoy asking what it was he liked about Riverside - or even Iowa in general.

The hollow clunk of his keys in the lock even sounded like the doctor putting down that bottle of bourbon on the coffee table in his apartment.

God, Jim needed to sleep.

So badly that he stepped right over the letter, stamped with the Starfleet insignia, lying on the mat, and didn't see it until the morning.