"Oh, shit," Cupcake muttered.
"What?" Jim asked as they hopped off the shuttle in San Francisco. They –and the other surviving cadets- were three weeks late but they made it home.
"I just spotted your mother," he told her. "She's headed this way… fast."
"Comma…" Before Jim could even finish one word, Winona practically slammed into her. The women didn't give a shit that most of the people around them were watching. Jim just melted into her mother's arms.
"I'm okay, mom," she muttered against the other woman's shoulder. Winona leaned back just enough to look Jim over. "I'm fine, I promise."
"James Teresa Kirk, don't you ever scare me like that again," her mother said. Jim could feel her tremble.
"Wasn't my idea, mom, trust me," Jim said with a chuckle. She wiped the tears off her mother's face before anyone could hold them against her later.
"Gavin Parker Hendorff, get your ass over here," Winona ordered. She was definitely in mother mode if she was calling them by their full names.
"Ma'am," he said as the woman let Jim go and hugged him.
"Are you okay?" the commander asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Jim took good care of me," Gavin said with a smile.
"She tends to do that. Your mother is on her way here," Winona warned.
"Understood, ma'am," he said. The tall cadet glanced at Jim with wide eyes. If this was her mother's reaction, Gavin's mother was gonna be a whole lot more interesting, especially since she already lost one child in action.
"You two did an amazing job," the older Kirk told them. "I hear a medal is in the works."
"Another one?" they both asked at the same time. That would make two in just over a year, which was uncommon for a pair of cadets.
"Yep. Chenowyth's report said, and I quote, 'Lieutenant Kirk and Lieutenant Hendorff are fine young officers who performed with uncommon bravery. They ensured the safety of their ship and crew without regard for their own well-being and are directly responsible for saving the lives of everyone that survived the attacks on the Farragut. It is my recommendation they be awarded medals for valor and Kirk promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander upon her graduation from the Academy.' He's very impressed with both of you. I don't know if the promotion will happen but the medals are almost a sure thing," her mother said.
"You memorized the report?" Jim asked. She wasn't surprised that her mom read the report, Chris had access and probably gave it to the engineer. She was just surprised that Winona memorized it.
"Of course I did. My baby girl's a hero," Winona said.
"See, I told you," Gavin muttered. Jim just rolled her eyes at him, she didn't want to admit he was right.
"I did what I had to do. The rest is details," she said.
Winona smiled, "That sounds like something your father used to say. 'If you're doing what's necessary, the details aren't important.' I always liked that one. He would be very proud of you, just like I am."
"Come on, mom. Don't make me cry," Jim muttered.
"You made me cry, it's only fair, sweetie. Oh, and heads up, you made Chris cry too," her mother told her.
"He's gonna hug me, then he's gonna kill me."
"I can't breathe, guys," Jim muttered, this was more than she expected from her and Gavin's friends. And she thought her reunion with Chris was gonna be bad. The man hugged her, checked her over, said she did a good job and threatened to wring her neck if she scared him like that again.
"Don't care," Gaila said. Jim was the middle of a grumpy doctor, sexy Orion, hot linguist and badass pilots sandwich. She had a feeling that her friends were never gonna let her out of their sight again.
"I'm fine. I didn't even get hurt this time," she told Bones, Gaila, Hikaru, Nyota and Gary.
Jim glanced over at Cupcake but he wasn't having much luck either. Xi, Delaney and Prescott had him in a group hug of their own. When their friends finally let them go, Jim thought she could breathe but she should've known better. The two groups switched. They all weren't as close as Jim and Bones or Gavin and Xi but they were all still worried about the two 'idiots who almost got themselves killed' according to Bones and 'made us cry when we found out' according to Gaila.
"Heard you kicked ass, superstar," Xi whispered against her shoulder.
"I didn't do anything special," she told him. "Those things pissed me off so I killed them, simple."
"Maybe to you. Gav's my best friend, thank you for saving him," the young engineer said.
"He saved me first, Biao," Jim told their brilliant friend.
She glanced over at Gavin, who was listening to Gaila fuss at him like his mother did. The command cadet took a deep breath as it suddenly hit her how right that statement was. 'Dammit,' she thought to herself, 'I'm so screwed.'
Jim got quite the surprise when she read the roster for her Fed History class. Kevin Riley. One of the kids she saved on Tarsus Four eleven years ago. She shouldn't have been that surprised, the kid swore he'd join up one day. His scores were off the damn charts and he was signed up to study navigation, with a minor focus in engineering.
"I thought it was just a coincidence when I saw your name as one of my instructors. You said you didn't want to join the fleet," the kid said as he walked into the lecture hall early for the first day of classes for the plebes.
"Changed my mind in '54 and joined up in '55. Long time no see, Kev," she said as she gave him a quick hug.
"Eleven years, seven months and some change. You look good, Lieutenant Commander Kirk. That's weird," he said.
"It's new and I'm technically still a cadet. It'll take some getting used to. Luckily, I'm not the first person to get promoted that high while in the Academy," Jim told him.
Her mom was right, she and Cupcake both got medals and Jim got a promotion in light of her serving as the acting commanding and first officer of a ship in the middle of an emergency. With everything that happened, she kinda forgot that part.
"Who'd you save?" Kevin asked. Jim gave him a look and he chuckled. "We were five and twelve when we met, it's not that hard to figure out. Saving people is your thing. Always has been."
"A ship and half it's crew," she muttered.
"Sounds like you. Any advice for this class?" he asked.
"I'll give you a pass on the Tarsus stuff… I advise skipping over it," Jim told her young friend. "I already have a recommendation for them to change the material because it's wrong as hell but I doubt it'll happen this semester. I sat through ten minutes of it before I bolted. Barnett knew what was up, so I didn't get into trouble. I'll warn you before we get to it."
"Works for me," Kevin muttered just as other cadets entered the room. Jim watched the cadets and glanced at the time.
"Hello, all," she said when it was time to get started and they were all settled. "I'm Jim Kirk, your instructor for Federation History one-oh-one. I'm gonna start with the giant elephant in the room… Yes, I am that James Kirk, the Kelvin Baby. No, I do not like talking about it. I was two minutes old when the ship was destroyed and I only know a tiny bit more than this class covers about that day. I can't answer questions about the other Lieutenant Commander Kirk, I never met him, so don't bother asking." She paused to let it sink in before she smiled. "Alright, now that that's out of the way, we're gonna start with Jonathan Archer and the founding of the Federation…"
Jim couldn't sleep. She tried everything she could think of except let Bones sedate her. The blonde knew what the problem was, even if she couldn't –wouldn't- admit it to herself. Jim glanced at Bones and Gaila sound asleep on the doctor's bed and decided that there was no way she was gonna wake him up to hypo her. She pulled her Cochrane Institute of Alpha Centauri hoodie on over her tank top and leggings, slid on a pair of flip flops and went for a walk.
She didn't pay attention to where she was going until she ended up in the last place she should be, standing outside Cupcake's dorm. Against her better judgement, Jim knocked on the door. Less than a minute later, a very shirtless Gavin opened it.
"Oh, that's just not fair," Jim sighed.
"Hey, it's my dorm. If you want to even it up, you can go shirtless too. I won't mind," he said. Jim rolled her eyes.
"You gonna let me in or what?" she asked.
"Come on in, Jimmy," Gavin said as she stepped into the dark room. "Guess I'm not the only one who can't sleep." She shrugged as she kicked off her flip flops and tossed her hoodie over Gavin's desk chair before flopping down on his bed.
"Move over. I'm not sleeping in Xi's bed," the tall cadet told her.
"Where is Xi, it's like two in the morning?" the blonde asked quietly.
"With some girl he met. He may not act like it around you but the kid's got game," Gavin said with a chuckle.
"What's so special about me that I can't see his game?" Jim muttered.
"Plenty," he whispered. She knew he didn't intend for her to hear that but she couldn't resist the obvious bait.
"Uh huh. I think it has more to do with you than me," she told him.
"What makes you say that?" Gavin asked as he lay on the bed next to her, looking up at the ceiling.
"Dumb doesn't look good on you, Cupcake," Jim said, resting her head on her hands so she could look at him. "What's that thing you boys always say? 'Bros before hoes.' If I had to guess, Xi doesn't flirt with me because he doesn't want to piss you off."
"Why would that piss me off?" he asked her.
"You know why," she told him.
"I do. Do you?" Gavin countered.
"I do." Jim took a deep breath and looked at him, "How long have you been in love with me?"
"A while," he answered, turning to look at her. "How long have you loved me back?"
"A while," she whispered honestly. "Now what do we do?"
"Right now, we're gonna get some sleep. We'll figure the rest out later. Okay?"
"Okay."
