Disclaimer: Still, three stories in, don't own anybody except for Rosie. No monies, nada. Just for fun :) The only thing I get out of it is knowing I'm writing something people enjoy.
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When Rosie got back to her and Jim's apartment, she looked for something for dinner. After digging around she found a frozen pizza in the freezer. "Perfect," she smiled as she set the oven temperature. "Quick. Yummy. And definitely not replicated." They had a replicator in the apartment; most apartments came standard with them nowadays. But Rosie hated replicated food. Popping the pizza into the oven, she hurried off and took a shower while it cooked.
The pizza was finished when she came back into the kitchen, dressed in blue fleece pajama pants and an oversized tshirt. She cut it up into pieces and then sat down in front of their television. She was not, however, expecting to see the chaos in London when she flicked the screen on.
Terrorist attack. Explosion. Bomb of unknown origin. Destroyed. The words flashed across the screen. Rosie watched them in horror, the words not really registering as she looked at the remaining rubble of what used to be a large Starfleet data archive. "Oh my god," she breathed, setting the plate of pizza, completely untouched, down next to her as the news station reported the current death toll. "Forty two people? Who would do that? Why? Why a data archive?"
Her attention remained fixated on the screen, watching as Starfleet personnel were dug out of the rubble, both alive and possibly dead. The news never did answer her questions though.
After another few minutes, her horror was increased tenfold, as an urgent news bulletin cut into the one about the London bombing. It read: Attack on Daystrom Conference Room. Rosie leapt out of the chair and dashed to her videophone and started making frantic calls to anyone in Starfleet.
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It was long past midnight when Rosie hung up on what had to have been her four hundredth phone call. No one had any information on anything that was going on at the Daystrom session. She'd kept the news on, but it wasn't giving much detail either. All it really did was make her more frantic, watching that jumpship hover up along the building and start firing. She was just about to make another call when the front door opened, and Jim and Spock walked in.
"Jimmy!" she shrieked and ran across the room. "Oh my god! Are you okay?!" She wrapped her hands around the upper parts of her arms and looked him up and down. He looked beat up, exhausted, and defeated. When he didn't reply, she turned to Spock, "What happened?"
"Admiral Marcus received a confession from a man claiming that another man, named John Harrison, had forced him to commit a terrorist attack on a…" Spock began explaining as he and Rosie moved Jim towards the couch.
"The Starfleet data archive. I know, I saw," she cut in on Spock's explanation as Jim sat down heavily. She gestured towards multiple seats. "Sit, sit."
Spock nodded and moved towards a chair as Rosie sat down next to Jim, wrapping her hand around his. "This man, Harrison, it seems he attacked the archive in order to force an emergency session at Daystrom, just to attack it. We do not know who his intended target was," the Vulcan finished.
"Oh my god," Rosie repeated, sighing heavily. "Thank goodness you're both alright. I don't know what I would do without either of you."
"Pike's dead," Jim finally broke his silence.
"What?"
"Pike. He's dead. That bastard killed him."
"Oh no…" the tears filled Rosie's eyes.
Spock stood to go, "I will leave you alone to grieve. I am deeply sorry for both of your loss."
"No! Please stay…" Rosie sniffled. "You don't have to go…"
"I am going to go attend to the wreckage of Harrison's ship with Mr. Scott," Spock said as gently as he could. "Jim managed to jam the ship's engines with a gun, so the ship crashed."
"Is he alive?" Rosie asked as clearly as she could.
"I do not know. Jim believes he saw him warp out of the ship somehow as it began losing altitude."
Rosie nodded. "If there's anything, I know you and Scotty will find it. Let us know anything as soon as possible."
Spock nodded, but didn't say anything. He quickly left, as Rosie turned and wrapped her arms around Jim.
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It was a little after sunrise. Jim was still awake, but Rosie had dozed off, her head resting in Jim's lap as she slept, when Jim's communicator chirped. Jim was going to ignore it, but when Rosie stirred a bit, he flipped it open. "Yeah?"
"Jim," Spock's voice came through the device in his hand. "Mr. Scott has found something in the wreckage of Harrison's ship. He has asked to see you and Rosie right away."
"We'll be right there," Jim answered and shut the communicator. He watched Rosie sleep for a moment, watching the peaceful fall and rise of her chest with her breathing, and wished he didn't have to wake her up and make her remember the events of the past twenty-four hours. Gently, he nudged her shoulder, "Rosie. Wake up." She mumbled something unintelligible, but one green eye cracked open and peered up at him. "Scotty found something."
It took a moment, but one the words registered, she leapt up. "I knew he would. Let's go!"
"Woah woah woah," Jim placed his hands on her shoulders. "Let's get dressed first."
"Oh," Rosie answered, glancing down at her pajamas. "Yeah, let's do that. And then go."
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The pair was dressed and out the door in record time. They dashed across the open plaza across from their apartment, where Spock and Scotty were standing waiting for them.
"Captain! Rosie!" Scotty told them both excitedly and angrily. "I found this in the crashed jumpship. This is how the bastard got away." He heaved up the metal contraption and placed it in Jim's hands. Jim grunted under the tubular piece of equipment's weight.
"What do you mean?" Jim said, bouncing the thing in his arms to get a better grip.
"It's a portable transwarp beaming device," Scotty answered.
"Seriously?" Rosie said, craning her neck to look at it. "I thought that was just an idea…"
"It is," Scotty answered glumly. "I cannae tell you how or why there's a fully functional one here in the Captain's arms. I've been helping with the theory to put it into reality, but it seems that's no longer necessary."
"Yeah, yeah," Jim interjected, "can you tell where he went with it?"
"Aye, Captain," Scotty did as he popped open the screen and coordinated flashed. "Already did. And you're not going to like it." Jim, Spock, and Rosie glanced at the coordinates. "He's gone to the one place that we just can't go."
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A/n: Whoo! More chapters still! This one's been soooo much easier to write than Learning Curve was. Anywho, please let me know what you think, good, bad, otherwise! Feedback is always encouraging no matter what!
