Disclaimer: Star Trek, duh, isn't mine. And if you don't know that by now…I worry.
WARNING! WARNING! If you haven't seen Nemesis yet, this contains spoilers. Nothing you won't find in pretty much any conversation about Nemesis, and it's only a couple of lines that you could probably scroll past if you're careful but…figured I'd warn you.
This was supposed to be posted on the 19th. But nooooo…Fanfiction had to die, and screw up my timing. Never mind that the entire chapter is based on the fact of it being the 19th, not the 21st, but hey, FF had to die. It always does. But I'm not bitter. Nope. Not bitter at all…
Chapter Forty-Three:
Where Does the Time Go?
"Hey, Jim!" McCoy called down the corridor, "do you realize what today is?"
Kirk turned, with a puzzled expression. "Aside from the sixth day of shore leave, absolutely nothing. Nothing important, anyway."
McCoy shook his head incredulously. "Not important, he says! And this is very possibly the most important date in the last year!"
Kirk gave him a strange look. "Okay…I don't know what calendar you're using, but on mine the nineteenth is pretty much a blank."
"Well of course it's not on the calendar. It's only important to us. Us meaning everybody on the ship and everybody interested in everybody on the ship," McCoy said by way of clarification.
Kirk stared at him for a moment, and finally just said the thought uppermost in his mind. "What?"
"It's only important to us and our friends," McCoy said patiently. "An anniversary."
"Nobody's married!"
"Did I mention marriage?"
"Anniversaries, marriages, weddings, they're naturally connected."
"But not necessarily. You sure you don't know what July nineteenth is?"
[A/N: Anybody guess the answer yet?]
"I'm leaving," Kirk announced. "Nowhere is it in my plans to deal with your calendar games. Two days ago it was Disneyland, today it's Yosemite. There's a mountain that needs climbing."
"Why?" McCoy asked, and immediately regretted it. "Because it's there," they said in unison.
Kirk nodded. "Exactly. So, you enjoy the nineteenth. I'm going."
"Now wait a minute," McCoy protested. "It'll still be there on the twentieth. You should stick around today."
"Not unless you give me a very good reason."
McCoy knew when it was time to surrender. "Fine. I'll explain. It's everybody's anniversary. We've been around for a year."
This only led to Kirk giving him a very, very strange look. "Um, Bones, it's nobody's birthday. And even if it was, we've all existed a lot longer than a year…"
"Not existed like that existed," McCoy said impatiently. "I mean existed."
"And that's at 35 years, remember all the excitement a few months back?"
"In a broad sense, 35 years, yes. But more narrowly, we're exactly at a year."
Kirk wasn't irritated. He was well past irritated. "Are you planning to make sense any time soon?"
McCoy rolled his eyes and went on with painstaking clarity. "One year ago today, a fifteen-year-old girl somewhere in California went on her computer, went on to Fanfiction.net, logged in, and posted the first chapter of a story titled 'How Would They React?!' And here we are. One year, 43 chapters, 304 pages later."
Kirk blinked. "Has it been a year already?"
McCoy nodded. "It's right there on the website. Posted 7-19-02."
"That's…that's…" Kirk frowned. "I can't decide what it is."
"Oh?"
"I'm torn. It's either dedication…or insanity."
McCoy nodded. "I'm not entirely sure myself. I doubt she is either."
"Probably not. How do you think it ever got to be 304 pages?"
"That's the other mystery."
"Well, anyway, having acknowledged this, what do you want to do about it?" Kirk asked, and immediately realized that he needn't have bothered.
"Well, I was thinking…" McCoy began.
"That we should throw a party," Kirk finished. "Of course you were."
"Well, yeah, I was," McCoy agreed. "So, how about it?"
Kirk sighed. "I should have my head examined, but…all right. Fine. We'll have a party."
McCoy beamed. "Great! I'll get started planning right now, I bet we can be ready by seven or so…"
"Wait a minute."
"What?"
"Jones is having nothing to do with this," Kirk warned.
McCoy nodded vigorously. "Right. I fully agree. Nothing at all. I'll go shopping myself."
"I'm coming with you."
[A/N: Kirk and McCoy, wandering through a Raley's…somehow I have never pictured them grocery shopping. I suppose they have to eat…nah, they've got replicators. Moving on at a rapid pace…]
* * *
At seven (or so) they were ready. At five (or so) (that is to say, right now as this is being typed) the author decided that she'd been coherent (with the exception of April 1) for an entire year, and that coherence is overrated. And so interesting things were brewing at seven (or so) in Rec Room Three. Why Rec Room Three? Because it's always Rec Room Three.
It was a very good party. They hadn't brought any livestock back, fortunately. Just some ordinary food of the non-replicator variety, which was enough to make it popular on the Enterprise. And it occurs to me at this moment that writing about the party is, frankly, dull. I don't want to do it. Who cares who sat next to who and made small talk with who? Maybe you, but not me, and I'm at the keys. (I will comment, just in passing, that Jones was sitting with Denise.) And now I'm going to jump ahead to the interesting part, which was at eight (or so).
It was at eight that McCoy threw the second part of his plans for the evening into gear. Kirk had been aware of this, and given dubious permission. At eight McCoy took over the cleared space at one end of the rec room and commanded the attention of the gathered masses.
"We're here, of course, to celebrate the last year. And it seems to me that in order to celebrate the last year, we need to take note of what's been done in the last year. And, well…" McCoy shrugged. "If it's good enough for Hollywood, I figure, why not us? So I would like to announce the first annual Enterprise Awards. I'll be your host tonight, and we have some very interesting people here to present the awards. So, without further adieu we'll move right ahead to our first award. In no particular order, except numerical, we'll begin with Best Villain. Our presenter, Mr. Singh, please?"
Kirk choked on his drink, coughed, was obligingly pounded on the back by Spock, and recovered enough to glare at McCoy, who was coming back to the table so as to clear the space for the presenter. "A word, Doctor?" Kirk hissed.
"Problem, Jim? You agreed to this, remember?"
"You didn't tell me who you were getting to present these things!"
"Wasn't me, it was the author."
"Sure. And who else is going to be showing up?" Kirk demanded in a low voice.
"No one important…" McCoy said evasively.
Kirk continued glaring at him.
Meanwhile, Khan Noonien Singh was holding the attention of the rest of the room. "Let me first say that it is a great honor to be here. And please, allow me to assure you that, while I do want to kill Kirk—don't we all?—I'll do my best to retrain myself."
Kirk was not enjoying himself.
Khan went on. "As I said, it is a great honor to present this award for the best villain of the last year. Best villain, though, is something of an oxymoron, I feel. Perhaps it would be better labeled worst villain. Most ruthless, most relentless, causing the most trouble for the crew of the Enterprise. And the award goes to…"
There was a drumroll somewhere in the background.
"The goose! Star of "In Pursuit of Feral Bronte Leucopsis," Chapter Seventeen."
The goose, who had been sitting quietly at a back table, flapped up to accept the award. It was all Jones could do to keep from diving under the table, which he probably would have done except that he was sitting next to Denise. He restrained himself.
Other people didn't, though their lack of restraint was along different lines. The award, you see, wasn't going to go uncontested.
"Hey! I should've gotten that one! I'm more ruthless!" a Klingon protested from the left side of the room.
"You'd have had my vote," Kirk informed him, and then did a double take. "Why is Kagon here?" he demanded of McCoy.
McCoy shrugged. "Same reason Khan's here. Whim of the author."
"He's supposed to be on Mars!"
"He will be tomorrow. It's a one day deal."
The goose, meanwhile, honked at Kagon indignantly, and then flapped back to its seat. McCoy retook center stage (not to suggest that they had a stage, because they didn't.) to announce the next award. "We're going to stay on the theme we've started here, and continue presenting villain related awards. Next up, our Most Irritating Villain. As this winner is in something of a category by himself, we had some trouble choosing a presenter. Consequently, we had to get our most irritating guest star. Ambassador Fox, please?"
A man in a gray-green jacket, with light brown hair and a perpetual sour expression, took the center. "I'm not entirely sure why I'm presenting this award. Apparently some people [A/N: Meaning me] think I'm annoying." He paused. "I don't think I'm annoying. I'm a diplomat you know. Not bad at it, either. I was only on the Enterprise once, when we were going to Eminiar VII.[1] And granted, I did upset a few people, and I did want Mr. Scott to lower shields and if he had we would probably all have been killed, and I did start threatening court-martials, but I thought that line about diplomacy being a job best left to diplomats was rather well phrased—"
"Could you get to the point?" McCoy interrupted. By then half of the audience had glazed expressions.
"Oh. Right. Anyway…This award is being presented to a crook, a scoundrel and an all around villain who made himself such a nuisance that it's a wonder he was never shoved out an airlock. The award goes, naturally, to… (drum roll…) Harry Mudd, who appeared in chapters 21, 22, 25, and 26."
Harry came up amidst an enthusiastic round of applause, and accepted the award with multiple extravagant bows. "I am delighted to be here, DE-lighted! After all," he added with a wink, "it's here or the penal colony! But seriously, I am greatly honored by this acknowledgement, and will cherish this lovely statue for the rest of my life. Unless, of course, one of you would like to buy it. Talk to me afterwards about prices!"
"I suppose Harry's here at the whim of the author too?" Kirk commented in an undertone to McCoy.
"Pretty much."
Harry, meanwhile, was far from finished. "Truly, truly, I am honored. And I owe it all to my…er, dear Stella." He waxed poetic. "As I've always said…Behind every great man, there is a woman urging him on, and so it was with my Stella. She urged me on into outer space…I think of her constantly. And every time I do, I go further out into space."
"Something tells me she just watched I, Mudd," Kirk concluded.
"I think so."
Harry was still at it. "Every time I make a deal, I think of her, and it urges me to get the very best price. If I ever go broke, I might have to go home!"
"Can we drag him off of there?"
"Everyone goes on too long at awards ceremonies. It's traditional."
"Bones…"
"All right, all right." McCoy got up and went over to Harry. "Okay, Harry, that's enough, glad you could come…"
"And don't forget everyone, I've got a special deal running on Denobulan flame gems!" Harry put in as he was ushered back to his seat. "Look me up on Mars, I'll give you a good price!"
"Ahem. Yes. As to our next award, we have kind of an interesting one, highlighting our guest star who came from the farthest away within the last year. This one will be presented by our guest star from truly the farthest away. Rojan of Kelva, please?"
Kirk groaned quietly to himself. No one paid any attention.
Rojan the Kelvin,[2] who looked perfectly human despite being as alien as they come, took the center. "I'm presenting this award for the simple reason that I'm definitely the guest star from farthest away. You don't get much farther than the Andromeda Galaxy. 300 years, one way. The winner of this award didn't actually have a long trip, but comes from the farthest away temporally rather than geographically. In other words, he's from around here, but not this century. The winner is… (drum roll…) Mr. Data, appearing in Chapters 6-9."
Amidst applause Data came to the front and accepted the award. "Thank you very much," he said politely, and started back to his seat.
"Wait a minute, what about a speech, Data?" McCoy called out.
Data blinked. "A speech? What about?"
"Anything you want." When Data did not continued, McCoy figured maybe he ought to give a suggestion. "You could just tell us what's been happening to you in the last year."
Data nodded. "Reasonable suggestion. However, do you wish to hear about the last year, or the last year?"
"Give us the last year," McCoy decided.
"Very well. It has been quite busy. There were ups and downs. Two of my friends got married. That was an up. And I was promoted to first officer of the Enterprise. Another up. But then there was hostility with the Romulans. A down. We won though. Still another up. But unfortunately, along the way, I died. I consider that a down."
"I'm sorry to hear that," McCoy said sincerely.
"It may not be permanent," Spock commented. "Resurrections are not unheard of."
"Yeah, although certain of us who need to be resurrected somehow haven't yet," Kirk grumbled.
"Don't worry Jim, I'm sure the BBK is still continuing its noble work."
"I hope so."
Somewhere over the course of the conversation digression Data sat down, leaving the way clear for McCoy to announce the next award. "Next we'll be highlighting another guest star. Our Most Interesting Guest Star, to be presented by a…very interesting guest star. Kara?"
Kirk brightened up at this one. And let us clarify right here that this one wasn't chosen on the basis of the author's interest. (We may have ended up with Garth of Izar in that case.) But a dancing girl from Argelius II[3] is bound to be interesting to this particular group of characters.
"You finally came up with a good presenter," was Kirk's comment on it.
"You would like this one."
"I remember her. She was interesting." Kirk grinned. "Very interesting."
"The rating, Jim, keep in mind the rating," McCoy warned.
Kirk frowned. "And very dead."
McCoy shrugged. "Coherency is overrated, remember?"
"How could I forget?"
The awards ceremony was continuing. "A better title for this award might be Most Unusual Guest Star. And I'm certain these were never seen anywhere else," Kara said, flashing a smile. "The winner is… (drum roll…) the fanged tribbles, of Chapters 39-41."
There was scattered applause (none from the security division). There were no fanged tribbles.
"We don't have any fanged tribbles to accept the award, unfortunately, because they're all halfway to the Romulan Empire," Kara explained. "Also, we didn't want to upset those members of our audience wearing red."
The simplest way to smooth over the absence of an acceptor for the award was to simply move on to the next one.
"Next up, we're going to focus on some of our non guest-star characters, characters," McCoy said. "First, a rather nice award. Our Most Improved Character. Harry?"
It seemed that Harry wasn't just there to accept an award, but in an official capacity as well. He bounded up to the center. "Let's all welcome me back to the stage, thank you, thank you. I'm delighted to have your attention again, and let me remind you, if you need a good deal on slime devils from—"
"The award, Harry!" McCoy interrupted.
"Oh, right. That," Harry said, momentarily put out. He recovered quickly. "Well, anyway, I'm here to present this award because of my charm, my good looks, my winning ways. And because I'm the only character who wasn't either a regular on virtually every show, or a one-hit wonder. And, of course, because our dear author just watched I, Mudd. In any case, this charming award goes to a character who began with a five paragraph appearance where he was, essentially, eaten by a plant, to the position he's in now. Probably still likely to be eaten by a plant, but also a regular who's had two chapters centered entirely around him. Also, he now has a first and middle name. The award goes to… (drum roll…) Ensign Richard Samuel Jones, who's appeared by now in far too many chapters to name them all."
Jones was a little surprised. "Me? They don't mean me, do they?"
"Of course they do, they said you," Denise pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but…me?"
"Oh go up and get the award!"
So he did. He went up, accepted the award from the beaming Harry, mumbled a nervous, "Thanks," and escaped back to his relatively safe seat.
McCoy retook the center to announce one final award. "Before this chapter runs on far too long but before we go, we've got one more. Last but not least, a sort of consolation prize for our unfortunately and unintentionally least character. Our Most Underappreciated Character. Grant?"
An inconspicuous man in a security uniform and a mournful expression came to the center. "You probably don't know who I am. People rarely do. Probably because I'm very, very underappreciated. I'll tell you my story. It's short. We beamed down to Capella IV. I saw a Klingon, and consequently shouted, 'A Klingon!' I drew my phaser. I was immediately killed by a native." He shrugged. "And, well, that's about it. Life continued for everyone else and no one even stopped to check if I was buried. But anyway, I'm supposed to give an award. This award goes, with an apology and an assurance that it was completely non-deliberate, to the regular character who has been featured least in the last year. The winner, so to speak, is… (drum roll…) Lt. Uhura."
Uhura came up, with a faintly doubtful expression. "Please accept this award and our heartfelt apologies," Grant said politely.
"Well, this makes up for it," Uhura said with a rueful expression.
"We really are sorry," Grant put in. [A/N: I really am.]
"That's all right. Really," Uhura said. "I've noticed something. People who are written about get into a lot of trouble. I, on the other hand, have had a very stress-free year."
Kirk looked faintly thunderstruck. "She has a very valid point!"
"No, that's Spock. And anyway, don't get any ideas, Jim," McCoy warned. "Captains always get written about. Well, unless maybe someone wrote a story about a universe where you didn't exist."
Further thoughts along those lines never came into existence, as McCoy had to go up and end the show. "Well, that's all folks, I hope you've enjoyed the evening. And I hope you've enjoyed the last year too. It's been insane, it's been complex and involved, it's been strange and unusual. And it's been a lot of fun. And we're going to let one small, semi-sappy note in and thank you for letting us be a part of your lives. Here's to another great year!"
Whew, has it been a year? Guess it has. You'd think I'd have better things to do with my time…kidding, really. I do have better things to do. Somehow I do them and this too. Anyway, many, many thanks to all of you, if I list you I know I'll forget someone and feel horrible later, so…I know who all of you are, you know who all of you are, I'll just say thanks for the reviews and the encouragement again, and move on.
Whatshername: I think I'll just use this opportunity to tell you to stop nuking cities and post. And to wonder why the SPCR is after me, when one considers the rotten things you've done to Simmons.
Wedge Antilles: Excellent! Another convert to Xanthian!
Silverfang: Is the SPCR happy now?
Nenya Culariel: The poultry bit was my favorite too…and I was nice to Jones in this chapter, see?
Alania: Yeah, vacations are good inspirations. And anyway, I just like Disneyland. : )
[1] A Taste of Armageddon
[2] By Any Other Name
[3] Wolf in the Fold