They were up for large portions of the night, discussing doctored torpedoes and pointed ears – and fooling around in between conversations, naturally. When Captain Kirk snuck out ninety minutes before Alpha shift began, though, Carol Marcus's bubble of happiness seemed to go with him. Unable to fall back asleep, she got up, mixed herself some instant hot chocolate, and sat at her desk. Her stomach was tying itself into knots and she wasn't sure why. For some reason, her nose was also stuffed up. She made herself laugh with the casual thought, did his allergies somehow wear off on me?
There was another thought in her mind, you shouldn't have let things get this far.
"Computer, start a personal log entry," she said. It was best to talk things out, sometimes, even if you did it all alone. Personal log entries were encrypted and could only be viewed if the person gave permission or the computer was fed proof of her death. If she couldn't hash this out with a girlfriend, the computer would have to do.
"Dr. Marcus's personal log, stardate, um," Carol hesitated, then continued, "well, the stardate is the same here as it is in the official logs. I don't really need it. Today marks six weeks since I started a sexual and romantic relationship with Captain James T. Kirk. And this morning, he used the word 'love.'" She paused. That's quite a beginning. "Not, specifically, 'I love you,'" she said, "but it sounded a bit like that's what he meant. And I said back to him what he'd said to me. I'm not sure I meant it the same way."
Carol stood up from her desk and paced around the room twice to clear her head. She had always been a bit too formal in her logs. It was hard to open up to a computer.
"If you'd asked me a year ago, I would've insisted there was no chance of my falling in love with anyone ever again," she said confidently, "and if you'd asked me six months before that whether I was ever going to trust anyone ever again, I would've said 'hell, no.' Nothing gives a girl trust issues quite like the triple blow of being betrayed by family, Federation, and fiancé all in one week."
"My thoughts on both love and trust have softened since then." Her hair was still loose and messy from the night's activities, and she was absent-mindedly twirling a lock around and around her finger while she tried to articulate the reasons for that softening. She settled on, "I suppose time really does heal all wounds. Time, and all the therapy I've been through with Dr. Piper." Piper was the psychiatrist at Starfleet General who had counseled the majority of the crew through the fallout of the Khan incident. He'd personally insisted on helping Carol as well, even though she'd technically not been a crewmember at the time. "Plus, I suppose serving on this ship has helped me. Leaving home and exploring the fringes of space, with a crew that genuinely believes in exploration and discovery, got me away from everything that reminded me of my father and of Wissam. It's been said that a change of scenery helps a broken heart, though this is an extreme case," she added.
Suddenly she realized that she needed to relieve herself. "Pause entry," she said, and spent the whole trip to the bathroom trying to organize what else she wanted to say. When she returned to her desk, she stayed standing. She was overwhelmed with nervous energy, and didn't know why.
"Resume entry. So, all right, I'm soft. In a good way. But that doesn't mean I'm whole again. The aftershocks of the Khan Incident aren't done with me yet. I still can't think of my childhood without experiencing a sense of dissonance between 'Dad' and 'the traitor, Admiral Marcus.' I've come to doubt my reasons for being in Starfleet and explore career options outside of it. And furthermore, I'm sleeping with my captain, which I would've never considered doing before," she said.
"Which brings us back to my reason for this log entry. Jim Kirk seems to be taking our relationship very seriously. I'm pretty sure he's not going to propose marriage," – and she chuckled before adding – "In fact, I'm pretty sure he's temperamentally incapable of proposing marriage to anyone. He has his own emotional baggage to carry around. Of course, who doesn't? But anyway, it does seem like he wants to continue seeing me. The question now is, do I want to keep seeing him? Can I keep seeing him, when I'm so muddled?"
Carol sat back down, in silence and no closer to an answer. The technique she tried next was a bit old-fashioned: "All right, here's some pros to a relationship with him. He makes me laugh, he brings me interesting books, he's full of energy and a love for life that can really be contagious. He encourages me to do my best work. He's brilliant, in a lot of ways. He cares about me and I know he'd sacrifice anything to protect the ones he loves." In fact, he's already sacrificed everything to do that. She went on, "I find him incredibly attractive, he's a good lover, he's more sensitive than his reputation suggests." Once, he refused to stun my father in front of me, even though my father absolutely would've had it coming. "And . . . it's nice feeling like you're not facing down the entire galaxy all alone. I forgot what a high it is to be in love," she finished. Though I've seen how short-lived that feeling can be, before.
"Okay. Cons of continuing to see him. He gets bored easily. I might end up being number sixty-four of a hundred, or maybe he's only number four of ten, I don't know. I haven't completely moved on from the last man who broke my heart." Maybe that belongs on a list of reasons why Jim Kirk should stop seeing Carol Marcus, not the other way around, she mused. Out loud she said, "Furthermore, he can be extremely impulsive. Not a bad thing for a captain, not a great thing for a boyfriend."
Carol sat for a moment and ran over the list. It's not a true confession, yet. You're leaving out one big, uncomfortable fact. With a sigh, she said, "But most importantly, I wouldn't be willing to change my career plans for him. And, I don't think he'd be willing to give up his career for me. Which wouldn't be an automatic end to the relationship, if my career goals didn't involve going back to Earth for another degree. Maybe, I mean. I haven't heard for sure yet. But when I do hear, if I am offered a place on Earth, I'm going to have to leave Jim. And if I continue to see him now, I might be setting us up for a more painful breakup in a month or two." Carol rubbed her face in annoyance, unable to think of anything to add. "End entry." She didn't feel much clearer about her choices.
Well, that was pointless. With a sigh, she drained her cocoa mug. It was getting close to the start of her shift in any case. She quickly hopped into the sonic shower and focused on getting herself presentable for the day. Stockings, uniform, boots, combed hair, lipstick – somehow, it all seemed much more challenging with a distracted mind. The phrase "in a month or two" ran through her head. In a month or two, the schools might reject me. In a month or two, I might have to leave. In a month or two . . .
It all clicked just before she left for her shift. She froze in the middle of applying mascara and said to her own reflection, "I'm silly, aren't I?"
She tossed the brush onto the counter and stepped out of the bathroom. "Computer, start a supplemental log entry," she said in a rush. "The stardate is in the database. When I was a little girl, my father told me a story. A sultan condemns a man to death and the man says, 'Your highness, if you let me live for one more year, I'll spend that year teaching your horse to talk.' So the sultan is intrigued and he grants a reprieve. A little later the man's best friend sees him out in the pasture trying to teach the horse to talk. He says, 'You're only delaying things. You'll be executed once they realize the horse can't talk.'
"But the man says, 'Listen, I bought myself a year. In a year, I might die of natural causes. In a year, the sultan might die. In a year, maybe this horse will learn to talk.'" Carol finished triumphantly, and then realized that she'd just told a parable to a computer. Computers don't understand your metaphorical points, she reminded herself.
"Um, the idea is, you never really know what'll happen in life, and if you give up before you start, you'll never know what miracles are possible. So you know what, personal log of mine? I'm not going to break up with Jim Kirk yet. I'm going to wait and see. The horse might talk. End entry." Carol smiled at nothing in particular, and turned around to face the day.