Trigger – Chapter 6
Marisa let her eyes flicker closed, tilting her head back and letting the warm water run down her face. It felt so good to be able to get off all of the grime and grease from working on the weapons systems all day. She let her eyes open slowly, squirting shampoo into her hand and lathering up her hair. It would be nice to just go grab some dinner with Nyota and then crash early. It had been a long day, and Marisa was beyond tired.
It had been one of her best days on the Enterprise so far, though. And she hadn't seen Kirk at all. Absolutely no correlation between the two, of course. Oh, who was she kidding? She had an entire day without someone making fun of her, someone smirking at her, someone yelling at her, someone calling her a hypocrite, someone calling her a child, or someone making her so mad that she seriously contemplated murder. She had also had an entire day without getting mysteriously drawn to someone's too-bright blue eyes, but her mind didn't quite process that part.
Basically, Marisa had a good day because she hadn't seen Kirk. When she did see Kirk, she had a bad day. The line was thick; the sides were black and white. She wasn't quite sure then, why those eyes kept popping up in her head. As she rinsed the suds through her long blonde hair, she figured that Nyota – as much as she hated to admit – was right. Kirk was attractive. That was a fact. That didn't mean she was attracted to him. His personality was enough of a turn off that he could have been a Greek god and she still wouldn't have been attracted to him.
It was quite the opposite, in fact. She loathed him. She loathed him on sight, she loathed him on principle. Clearly, he didn't like her either, so there didn't seem to be a problem there. Like she had said – black and white. There was a little something nagging in the back of her mind, a slight shade of gray creeping in. Marisa wasn't sure what it was, but it was clearly wrong. She shoved it back.
She turned the shower off, and was instantly struck at how quiet it was. All she could hear was the steady drip-drip-dripping of the water from the showerhead. Sighing softly, she wrapped herself in a towel, heading back out to her postage-stamp sized bedroom. It didn't take her long to get dressed and ready, her long blonde hair almost completely dry. She pulled it up in her usual ponytail, pulled on her Starfleet boots, and headed out the door. She didn't even wait for it to finish closing before she headed down the hallway towards the mess hall.
"Marisa!" She heard her name being called from across the room the moment she stepped through the doors. She glanced around, her eyes passing over the faces of many unfamiliar crewmembers before finally alighting on Uhura's. She was sitting at a table on the other side of the room with Chekhov, Sulu, Spock, McCoy….and Kirk. Marisa's face fell.
"Marisa!" Nyota called her name again, catching the look on her face. Marisa sighed. And her day had been going so good up until now. She let her eyes flicker closed for a moment, drawing strength for the confrontation that was sure to come. She was going to stay calm. She wasn't going to let him ruin her day. This was, after all, black and white.
Pressing her lips together thinly, Marisa headed to the buffet line, filling her tray slowly. Sooner or later, she was going to have to go to that table. She didn't really know anyone else, so it wasn't like she had an excuse to sit elsewhere. Besides, she had promised Nyota she'd eat with her, and it would seem odd if she just suddenly didn't. Really, the woman must have planned this. Marisa was going to have to have a little chat with her later.
"Hey." She slid into the seat in between Nyota and Sulu, setting her tray down on the table. Kirk was at the opposite end of the table, and she had put him there purposefully. Marisa wasted no time in picking up her fork and digging into her meal. She had been working all day and she was hungry. Besides, if her mouth was occupied with eating, it couldn't go and make smartass comments to Kirk.
"Good evening, Cadet Ward," Spock greeted her formally, and Marisa couldn't help but smile slightly. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that he and Kirk were friends. They seemed to be polar opposites. Everyone else at the table repeated some form of the greeting, and even Kirk grunted slightly. Her smile widened. Maybe he was avoiding her too! He hadn't looked at her yet, that was for sure. Maybe this night wouldn't go as bad as she thought.
"Where's Scotty?" She asked, looking around for the older man. He had told her he'd meet up with her at dinner, and she was assuming that he'd take a considerable less time to shower than she did.
"Right here, right here," he grumbled, his voice coming from behind her. "Aren't you ever goin' to learn to be patient?" He sat down next to Chekhov, his tray filled with a sandwich the size of his head. Marisa just laughed.
"Holy hell, Scotty, is that thing big enough?" She shook her head. What was it with the Engineering Officer and his sandwiches? He ate one everyday, if not more. Marisa wasn't sure whether it was a habit or an addiction.
"Well, I tried to add bacon but then I couldn't fit me mouth around it," he replied, completely serious. He was looking down at the massive thing on his plate, as if he had just realized that it might pose the same threat even without the bacon. Everyone laughed, and Marisa set her fork down, grinning. Leave it to Scotty to completely get rid of whatever tension there had been at the table.
"Do you remember when we first met, Scotty?" The sound of Kirk's voice made Marisa stiffen. Clearly, she wasn't oven yesterday's incident yet. Forcing herself to relax, she took another bite of her meal – more eating, less talking. Instead, she just listened.
"How could I forget it?" Scotty moaned. "I was stuck in that godforsaken ice trap with that gremlin and no food and then you of all people come waltzing in going on about saving the universe and telling me what I did in the future." Scotty paused to take a breath, and Kirk filled in the rest.
"And the whole damn time you were talking about how all you wanted was a sandwich!" He chuckled, and the rest of the table joined in. Even Marisa couldn't help but laugh – it was just so typically Scotty. It was odd, sitting at the table with these people, laughing about some silly story that happened last year. It reminded her of being back at the Academy, her home for years, when she and Kim and their friends would sit around the table at lunch and gossip about who Kim liked this week and how difficult the quiz in their last class had been. That had been so normal.
The past week, however, had been anything but. It was like Marisa was living a whole other life. She had left the Academy; she had left Kim. She was in space for the first time, and aboard the best ship that Starfleet had at that. She had known no one and had to learn an entire new job, which she was expected to perform flawlessly. And she had met one of the most infuriating people she'd ever known, and she had felt like she'd been on a rollercoaster ever since.
Sitting here, though, just eating dinner and chatting about nothing at all, made the Enterprise seem less like some big new adventure and more like…home. Marisa smiled to herself, stabbing another bite with her fork as the conversation flowed on around her. She could get used to this.
"So, Ward." Her peaceful reverie was broken by the sound of McCoy's voice. She glanced up, meeting his gaze. Unfortunately, that meant she had to see Kirk out of the corner of her eye. Damn her and her good peripheral vision! She tried to block him out, instead focusing on the doctor sitting across from her. "Tell us more about yourself," he prompted.
"Tell you about myself?" She repeated, raising an eyebrow. Talk about vague. "What do you want to know?"
"I don't know. Where you're from, what you like to do, that sort of thing. Whatever you kids talk about these days." He frowned, and Marisa smiled. The doctor seemed grumpy, but he had been nothing but nice to her since she had first stepped foot on the ship, and everyone else spoke quite highly of him.
"Well," she started off, absentmindedly twirling her fork in her pasta. She didn't really want to talk about herself - it was always a bit awkward – but she figured she might as well get it out of the way. McCoy didn't seem like the type to just let it go. "I grew up in Arizona. I have an older brother. My parents divorced when I was 12." She paused, glancing back up at McCoy. He seemed to be listened rather intently. So did everyone else at the table, actually, now that she looked around. She guessed they didn't get new people that often.
"I'm really not that interesting," she told them, setting her fork down. "I'd rather hear about you guys. I mean, you live on the Enterprise!" They had to have tons of fabulous stories about intergalactic adventures.
"No, no." It was Kirk who waved her off. "We're not that interesting either. Besides, you live on the Enterprise now, too." Huh. She supposed he was right about that. But she hadn't been there long enough to have a real space experience – unless you counted become mortal enemies with your captain and yet still managing to have a civil conversation at dinner with him.
"How old's your brother?" Nyota asked, prompting her. Marisa sighed inwardly, willing the conversation to die. Instead, she propped an elbow on the table, letting her chin rest in her hand.
"He's about five years older," she replied. "He works on Earth, at a company that researches new shuttle technology. He's an absolute genius." She smiled just thinking about Jason. She hadn't seen him in awhile, and she reminded herself to send a message to him later tonight to catch up.
"Does he still live in Arizona?" Nyota asked again. Marisa shot her a look. Couldn't they go back to telling stories about Scotty's obsession with sandwiches?
"No, he lives in New York now. But my mom still lives in my hometown. She's a teacher at the high school there." Marisa shrugged, taking another bite of her pasta. Maybe now no one would ask her any more questions.
"Why'd you join Star Fleet?" Sulu asked. She didn't know him that well, but he seemed nice enough whenever she had been on the bridge. That was a hard question though. She paused for a moment, finishing up her bite before answering.
"I don't know for sure. It was something new. I'd never seen space before." She replied with a shrug. It was a challenge. It was a change. It was an opportunity to make a difference. Marisa had never thought of doing anything else, especially after her brother went into the shuttle technology industry. He would come home for holidays and tell them about all the cool new things they were making and what ships were capable of doing. And now Marisa was finally on one.
"I remember when Kirk joined." Nyota spoke up, clearly catching Marisa's hint about ending the conversation. Thank goodness. She grinned at the man at the end of the table, and Kirk groaned. Marisa's interest was piqued.
"We were in Iowa, waiting for our transport shuttles to take us to the Academy the next day," she smiled to herself. McCoy was smiling too; he clearly knew the story. Marisa grinned, taking a sip of her water. "We went out that night to a bar in town. I went to order drinks, and who was there? Kirk, of course. He hit on me. I rejected him." Here, Kirk made a noise of protest, but Uhura held up her hand and he fell silent.
"The boys I was with didn't really appreciate it, but when has Kirk ever backed down from a challenge? Next thing I knew I had blood splattered across the front of my dress and the four of them were on the floor, wrestling around like animals." She rolled her eyes, and Scotty chortled loudly. "Somehow, Pike figured out that this made him a perfect candidate for Star Fleet and recruited him on the spot."
"What do you mean?" Kirk protested, though he was grinning. He looked much nicer when he was grinning than when he was smirking, Marisa noticed. "I am the perfect Star Fleet candidate. After all, I'm captain, aren't I?" He spread his arms wide, his grin matching it. Marisa rolled her eyes.
"What was that for, Ward?" He asked. His voice was still teasing, but Marisa couldn't help but tense slightly. "Are you saying you doubt my captaincy?"
"I think I've made my opinions on that perfectly clear," she replied with a roll of her eyes. She knew she shouldn't – she was supposed to be eating, not talking! But she couldn't help it. She was never one to back down from good-natured banter, despite the fact that she knew it could go downhill fast. Kirk was still grinning, not smirking, so that was good. It was only when he started attacking her character when Marisa knew she was in trouble.
"Well, I can't argue with that," he replied, leaning forward slightly. To her left, Nyota laughed. Marisa took a chance and looked up from her pasta, glancing towards the end of the table. He was still smiling, his blue eyes brighter than usual. He was looking right at her. So was Spock, she noticed as her gaze shifted to the left. His expression was much harder to make out.
"What do you think? Think you could be captain, Ward?" He pressed on, raising an eyebrow. He just wasn't going to let it go, was he? She sighed.
"I don't particularly want to be." She replied simply. Unlike you, I'm not on a power trip. Luckily, she kept this last part in her head.
"Oh," Kirk replied, the corners of his lips curling upwards. "So you don't think you can handle the pressure? You don't think you're got the skills?"
"I don't think I have the ego," she replied, the words slipping out of her mouth before she even had a chance to think about it. Dammit. Well, she couldn't take them back now. He leaned back. She chanced another look at him. He was still smiling, but the look in his eyes had her worried. Was that smile turning into a smirk?
"So you think I've got an ego, do you?" He replied. "You think I'm full of myself?" He was looking straight at her, and Marisa made sure to not look directly into his eyes. She instead focused on his lips instead, watching as they formed the words. He had very nice lips, she found herself thinking. Dammit. She cursed again. What the hell was she thinking? She frowned.
"Yes, I think you're full of yourself." She replied, a bit short. Truthfully, she was distracted by the errant thought that had just passed through her mind. Why did she just think that? He did not have nice lips. And even if they were nice in shape, that was all that she meant. After all, Westerners perceived beauty through symmetry. Kirk just had symmetrical lips. That had absolutely nothing to do with what lips did. Ah! She willed herself to stop thinking about his lips. Instead, she dragged her gaze up to meet his eyes. Sure, it was a bad idea, but she was a little concerned with what she had just realized. She wasn't exactly thinking straight.
"So you think I'm full of it," he repeated, his eyes sparkling dangerously. Marisa's own eyes narrowed. Where was he going with this? "Well, guess what? I think you're kind of full of it too. After all, you have to have a certain about of ego of your own to be able to call me out on my bullshit." He smirked. Damn!
"So you admit it's bullshit?" She decided to ignore the comment about her ego, instead focusing on the offensive. Because clearly, defending herself against false accusations wasn't her strong point. Sure, she got the message across, but her rationality went out the window. Better to keep Kirk on his toes instead.
"You think it is," he replied, leaning forward again. "So you admit you're arrogant too?"
"I never said that," she shot back.
"You didn't have to. It was implied."
"Like hell it was!" She was leaning forward too, her dinner forgotten. As was her plan to not talk to Kirk. That's the third Kirk-related goal in two days at which she had utterly failed. Clearly, coming to the Enterprise had completely ruined whatever self-control she had.
"Listen to yourself! Everyone else is just sitting here, letting me go on with my so-called bullshit. You're the one always rolling your eyes or scoffing at me. Clearly, you think you're so above all of us, including me." He smirked, a full, all-out, devious Kirk smirk. Holy hell, those things should be made illegal.
"Everyone else is just sitting here," she replied, raising her eyebrows, "because they're grown used to you. I'm new. I expected my captain to be a nice, responsible, mature leader – not some pig who asked me out to dinner my first five minutes on the ship!" Her voice grew a bit louder, and so did her anger as she watched Kirk's smile widen with the memory.
"Forgive me if I'm a bit confused on how someone like you became captain," she continued, her voice flat, "and that I have enough sense to call you out on it before you get us all killed." Kirk raised an eyebrow, propping his elbows on the table and leaning forward even more.
"You think I'm going to get you killed? Such little trust, Ward. It hurts, really." She rolled her eyes. "See? There you go with the eye-rolling again!"
"Because trust is the absolute last word that comes to mind when I think of you!" She shot back with a disbelieving little laugh.
"Well you're going to have to learn to trust me," Kirk replied with a devious smile. "Because like it or not, I'm your captain."
"Again with the whole captain thing!" Marisa cried, throwing her hands up into the air. "You don't think I don't know that by now? You repeat it every five damn minutes! Clearly, you just like the sound of it – or your own voice. Or both, actually." She shook her head. "And you wonder why I think you're arrogant."
"Well clearly you use a little reminding," Kirk shot back "Unless this is the way you treat all your superiors."
"It's the way I treat people who sexually harass me at work!" She glared at him.
"I was only trying to be friendly."
"Oh, of course." She laid the sarcasm on thick. "Why didn't I think of that? You must ask everyone out to dinner with that insufferable little smirk."
"What if I did?"
"Then I'd seriously question your sexuality – or your sanity." She was glaring now
"You'd question my sexuality?" He repeated. The smirk was back in full-force. "Then clearly I haven't been doing my job well enough." He raised an eyebrow.
"Don't even think about it Kirk." She leveled her gaze at him. "You can't just harass people like that!"
"I don't harass people," he countered, the smirk sliding off of his face. "You're overreacting. Most people enjoy a little teasing now and then to lightening things up."
"Oh!" She laughed, a humorless, dark laugh that was too loud and too sharp. "Of course. Teasing. Because I enjoy being called arrogant. Or a hypocrite. Or a child." She hissed, her eyes narrowing.
"Maybe you should learn not to take things so damn seriously." He shot back, all humor gone from his eyes.
"Maybe you should learn some manners. Or did your mother never teach you those?"
"Actually," Kirk replied, his voice flat. His entire face had changed, and it made Marisa pause. His eyes were steely; gray almost. There was no humor in them anymore. His jaw was rigid – there wasn't even a hint of a smile on his symmetrical lips. He was angry, angrier than she had ever seen him before. "Actually, she didn't. She was dead." He spat out the last word like a particularly nasty curse, or a medicine that tasted absolutely vile. Marisa was dumbstruck.
Kirk stood up from the table abruptly, knocking over some of the drinks. Without another word, he swept from the room. Everyone in the mess hall had fallen silent; they were looking over at the table their captain had just left in such a rage. Everyone at the table, on the other hand, was staring at Marisa. Marisa was still staring at the spot where Kirk had been sitting just a minute ago.
Why did this always happen? Could they not even have a civil conversation without it descending into an all-out war? One minute they had been fine, bantering back and forth almost like friends. The next, he was furious and he was gone. Of course, most of the time it was her who lost her temper. This was a change. She supposed she should be glad she had the upper hand – she had won, so to speak. But she wasn't. Kirk's anger had been different than hers. When Marisa was angry, she was loud and vicious and sarcastic. When Kirk was mad, he was silent and fuming, locked down. His anger was deep.
And Marisa hadn't helped by hitting a sore spot. Not that she meant to or anything – how was she supposed to remember his entire family history? She had enough things to be worrying about. And yet she couldn't help but feel bad. His mother had died after all. For a moment, she considered apologizing. But hold up! Had Kirk apologized for the way he treated her? No. He'd justified it! She had given him plenty of opportunity during the conversation, and he'd either brushed her off or made excuses! He was impossible.
She stood up from the table as abruptly as Kirk had, though without upending anyone's glass. The liquid was still pooled on the table, dripping to the floor. No one had made a move to clean it up. She swept her eyes over the table one last time, a small frown on her face. Sulu looked confused. Nyota looked concerned, and so did Chekhov and Scotty. McCoy looked thoughtful, his eyes piercing into her. And Spock, well, who ever knew what Spock was thinking? He probably knew what she was thinking herself. Well, let them think what they want, she decided. And with that, she left the mess hall, cursing the day she ever met Captain James T. Kirk.
AN: Well look at that! A semi-regular update! Crazy, I know. This chapter was just eh for me. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it – I can't seem to get their dialogue down. And just to let people know, there will be a bit more action coming in future chapters instead of just daily life. Anyway, thanks for all your reviews guys! xo, bassline.