Thanks for the reviews, everyone! I really enjoyed writing this and I'm happy to see that apparently you enjoy reading it. I just love Chris and Len together, so there'll probably be more of this in the very near future...
Joana arrived just two days after Leonard had left Medical and she immediately brought life and laughter into his rooms. She bounced on the bed, chased Jim through the hallways, held a cake-baking session with Nyota and Gaila, in the course of which they messed up Leonard's entire kitchen and managed to annoy even Spock with her endless questioning of everything.
"I never thought that a human child could be quite so inquisitive," he remarked.
"Which translates to: He thinks she's adorable and as bright as a button," Nyota said, her eyes twinkling. Spock didn't object. He was busy explaining to Joana why Vulcans had pointed ears.
Joana got acquainted with every pet on campus, which included the Archers' litter of Beagles, and consequently, she also met all four of Admiral Archer's and Hoshi Sato's children. Charlie, Yumi, Mal and Sarah were aged between eleven and six and together with them; Joana explored most of the Academy grounds during her first week.
"You should get her to come more often," Hoshi remarked to Leonard when she came to collect her kids one evening. "They get along very well. Yumi and Sarah are quite impressed with her. Yumi told me the other day that she wants to do ballet too, because my friend Joana does it, and Sarah named one of her dolls after her. Mal and Charlie have actually both made plans to marry her, when they are grown up."
Leonard laughed at this. "They'll have to fight with Jim, then. He's already announced the same thing."
"Ah, but there's one little problem: Jim Kirk will never grow up." Hoshi grinned.
"True," Leonard had to admit.
Yet it was fun to watch Jim playing with Joana. He was forever inventing new games for her and sometimes Leonard had to remind him that he, as opposed to Joana, was not on holiday and had classes to go to.
"Can I come, too?" Joana asked.
"You wanna go to school during your holidays, honey?" Jim shook his head. "Trust me, it's boring."
"I just want to see what it is like. Please."
"Well… if you promise to sit still and keep quiet, I guess I could take you to my Romulan class. It's Hoshi teaching, and she probably wouldn't mind. After that, it's Advanced Tactical with Pike. I'm not sure what he'd have to say about you being there, but I guess, we could try. Or do you have any objections?" He looked at Leonard.
Leonard shook his head. "You will be bored," he warned his daughter. "You had better stay and play with Yumi, Sarah and their brothers."
"But I want to go with Jim!" She insisted.
"Alright then. But don't blame me for not having warned you."
While Hoshi wasn't bothered in the least by Joana's presence in her classroom and even managed to include her into her program – Did you know that your name means 'laughter' in one of the Romulan dialects? – Chris at first didn't even notice her.
Only when he looked up because a student he had questioned on standard evasive maneuvers didn't answer his question, he saw her sitting in the last row next to Jim.
"What's this?", he asked, obviously torn between a frown and a smile. "Cadet Kirk, are you bringing your girlfriends to class now?"
The assembled students roared with laughter and Joana blushed.
"I'm not his girlfriend!", she announced proudly. "He's something like my uncle."
"Is he now?" Chris' eyes were twinkling with good humor. "Well, I hope, he has been teaching you something about tactics, because I'm going to ask you what to do with this enemy vessel right there." He pointed at a ship on the chart he was working with.
"That's easy," Joana told him confidently. "You just shoot it and boom! It is gone."
"Well you hear, gentlemen, ladies," Chris said seriously in turning to his class. "There's a piece of valuable advice for you. You just shoot and boom!"
After class, when the students filed out of the room to go to lunch, Joana stepped to the chart and watched in fascination, as the little ships fell back and regrouped, replaying attacks and defensive maneuvers Chris had been teaching about.
"This looks like the game Mal and Charlie always play. I didn't think grown-ups were allowed to play."
"Hey, I play. Don't I count?" Jim objected.
"You're not a grown-up," she told him seriously. "You're Jim."
"There you go," Chris said, smiling. "I totally agree with you, little one."
"I'm Joana McCoy," she told him.
"I know, dear. You have your father's eyes." Chris looked at her, then started to put his teaching materials away with a soft sigh.
"I need to get to my astrophysics class now." Jim said.
Joana frowned. "Astrophysics is all about numbers, isn't it? Then I don't want to come. It's boring."
"It is, but I don't have the time to take you back to your Daddy's right now, hon. You'll have to come along, I'm sorry."
"It's alright, Jim," Chris interrupted. "I'll take her."
Jim looked at him questioningly, then at Joana.
"Is that okay with you?"
She nodded. "We get along, don't we?"
Jim smiled, ruffling her soft blond curls with his hand. "Alright. I'll see you later then."
And he took off, to leave Joana and Chris to return to Leonard's apartment.
"You know," Joana said, "everybody always talks about you."
"Do they?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded. "All the time. But whenever my Dad walks into earshot, they stop, like they don't want him to hear about it. Except for Anya. She just keeps talking. You know Anya? She's cool. She lives in a house full of plants."
"I know her. She's a very good friend of mine."
Joana looked at him thoughtfully. "Is my Dad also your friend?"
"Truthfully, I don't know, Joana."
"I'll ask him for you," she offered.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Chris replied, sighing.
Joana had been staying with her father for a week and a half, when the day Admiral Archer had fixed for the trial of Ryan and Samosa arrived.
As Leonard prepared to attend to it, he was glad to be able to leave Joana with Hoshi, who was about to take all five children to San Francisco Aquarium.
"It's no trouble, really," she assured him, "I promised them this trip anyway and they are thrilled to have Joana coming with them."
Leonard smiled at the petite woman standing there amid a tangle off excited children and yapping Beagles claiming her attention and he somehow envied Jonathan Archer for his large, chaotic, but nonetheless happy family.
"Have fun," he told the children.
"We will," Mal told him quite seriously as if that was an indisputable fact.
"Let's go then," Jim said, nudging Leonard to come with him. "Let's see what they'll do to these bastards."
Leonard nodded. He was not to keen on seeing Ryan and Samosa again, nor on testifying in front of the whole assembly, but he knew that it had to be endured. And after all, it was going to be rather satisfactory to watch how his tormenters got their asses kicked out of Starfleet for good.
Admiral Archer had set it up as a public trial and most of the cadets who didn't have classes at the moment, as well as a number of instructors and nearly every member of the Academy board was present. While Archer presided, two civilian instructors and the three board members who held the rank of Captain, but were currently appointed as Commander of Cadets assisted him, forming the panel of judges. There was no jury, as was common for this kind of trial and both sides had to present their arguments themselves and bring in witnesses who would support their claims.
Archer called Leonard first, and avoiding the curious, sympathetic and hateful looks that followed his every movement from various parts of the large hall, he rose to give as accurate an account as he could. He omitted everything alluding to his first clash with Ryan and Samosa, though.
After he had finished, Archer motioned him to sit down.
"Commander Spock. You were at the scene of events. I would like to hear your report of it."
"Certainly." Spock got up, standing as stiff and looking just as formal as always; he was positively radiating accuracy and objectivity.
"The morning of the fifteenth of August, I met Cadet Uhura to help her prepare for her Advanced Vulcan Linguistics exam and she voiced her concerns about Dr. McCoy. She had not seen him in a while and apparently her friend, Nurse Christine Chapel, had told her that he had not appeared at Medical that morning. As she had classes to attend to, I promised her to help looking for him and upon meeting with Christine Chapel and James Kirk; I proposed a systematic search of the Campus grounds."
"You teamed up with the pointy-eared hobgoblin?" Leonard whispered to Jim. "Hard to believe."
Jim snorted. "It was Nyota's idea. She was frantic, and she trusts him."
"Might be because she's sleeping with him."
"She is? No way!"
"Hush."
"We split up to conduct a more effective search," Spock continued, utterly unperturbed by their whispering. "During the course of that search, which lasted for more than two hours, I ran into Captain Pike, who joined me. He voiced his suspicions of Dr. McCoy having suicidal tendencies."
"You thought I was about to kill myself?" Leonard hissed to Chris, who sat next to Anya at his other side. "You wish!"
"I most certainly don't," Chris replied, looking hurt.
"I therefore suggested enlisting the help of Dr. McCoy's therapist, Counselor Anya Olivantes." Spock nodded towards her. "She pointed out that from her experience, if anyone had plans of such nature, he would naturally search for a secluded spot and there are not many such places to be found on the Academy grounds."
"Trust Spock to take a methodical approach," Leonard muttered.
"After another twenty-seven minutes of searching, we met Cadets Ryan and Samosa on the engineering grounds near hall 415 and as they acted rather suspicious, we decided to investigate further. They did not volunteer the information, however. Cadet Ryan attempted to fight me and run, but I convinced him to refrain from it."
"By using that Vulcan nerve-pinch of his, I bet," Jim commented.
"Cadet Samosa reluctantly led us to Dr. McCoy. I called Medical to have them send an emergency team down and we proceeded to freeing Dr. McCoy of his bindings."
"He's lying," Anya muttered. "It's quite obvious, if you watch him closely."
"Vulcans don't lie," Leonard replied.
"Fine, then he's 'omitting' or whatever you want to call it. But he's leaving out something."
"Trying to protect Bones, maybe?" Jim suggested.
"No. Trying to protect me", Chris said, shaking his head.
When Archer called on Samosa next, it became obvious what he'd meant by this statement.
"What Commander Spock conveniently forgot to mention is that Captain Pike almost killed me." His voice sounded hoarse as if someone had recently attempted to strangle him. It wasn't too hard to guess who that certain someone might be.
A murmur went through the assembly as everyone turned to watch how Pike would react to this.
"Well, but I didn't, did I?" Chris replied haughtily. "Don't you try and accuse me of handling you roughly when we're here to deal with the matter of you and your comrade torturing a fellow cadet! I gave all four of you a second chance the first time you got into a fight, because I thought that's what it was, students quarrels. A bunch of immature boys brawling over something. I am grieved to admit that I was wrong, I am disgusted at your actions and I'll have to apologize to all of my cadets for leaving such a menace among them instead of making sure you were dismissed in the first place."
He sat down again, outwardly seeming perfectly calm, but anyone who sat near him could see rage flashing in his eyes. Anya warningly put a hand on his arm, whispering something that sounded suspiciously like "Fool!"
So it wasn't a dream in the first place, Leonard thought. I really heard Spock telling Chris to stop or he'd kill Samosa.
Which led him to reevaluate the other dream fragments. Maybe they hadn't been dreams after all.
"This wasn't about giving us a chance," Ryan sneered. "It was about you covering it all up so your protégés wouldn't get in trouble. The whole Academy knows you're sleeping with McCoy and as for Kirk…"
"Just keep your mouth shut, Ryan!"
"Cadet Kirk, I will call and you when I see fit. Until then, please keep quiet," Archer intervened. "For now, I'd like to hear Captain Pike's statement."
Chris got up again, confirming nearly all of which Spock had said and adding very little of his own to the description of events.
"Captain Pike, considering your personal involvement in the matter, I believe it is necessary to also question Cadet Kirk about that earlier incident mentioned by you and Cadet Ryan."
Chris looked as if he was about to protest, his gaze travelling to Leonard, who looked away.
Jim, however, decided to take action. "We drank a little too much and got into a fight, Admiral," he said, shrugging. "Things like that happen every day. Captain Pike caught us fighting and intervened. It was nothing out of the ordinary."
He smiled apologetically at the whole assembly, his bright blue eyes very large and innocent.
Leonard put his head into his hands, groaning.
Good God, Jim, you're unbelievable!
"Nothing out of the ordinary for you, Cadet Kirk," Admiral Archer said sternly. "I happen to know that you have quite a reputation on campus. While Starfleet may be a military organization, we do not support fighting among the cadets, I hope that has been made clear to you?"
Jim nodded sheepishly. He was putting on a good show.
"I hope so," Archer said, sighing. "Anyway, Cadet, you should not drag your friends into it at the very least. Leaving this aside for the moment and attending to the matter in question… I call Dr. Benedetti, head of Medical section four, to give her estimation on the grave injuries that Cadets Ryan and Samosa inflicted upon Dr. McCoy…"
The trial continued with Dr. Benedetti's testimony and Archer giving Ryan and Samosa a chance to defend themselves – they were not very eloquent, nor had they say very much that would help them on – then the panel retreated for further deliberations.
They did not take very long to agree on their verdict: Ryan and Samosa would be stripped of their position as Cadets, dishonorably discharged, and fined with a large sum.
"That's rather lenient," Chris commented, not looking too pleased.
Jim agreed with him. "But at least they'll be gone for good." He paused, then he asked with an unusual hint of respect in his voice: "Did you really almost strangle Samosa, sir?"
Chris shrugged and left it at that.
Anya turned towards Leonard. "How do you feel?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that concern, Anya?"
"I've always been concerned about you, as you perfectly well know. Don't think just because you almost died you'd get out of our regular sessions…"
"My daughter is here for another five days, Anya."
"Perfect, you can bring her right along. We'll have tea and cookies, for a change."