In which I am thankful for fan fiction. Hope your holiday was awesome!
Chapter Nineteen: In which we break the law just slightly, the hammer falls, and there is swing dancing. Yes, you heard me. Swing dancing.
Also, incidentally, I have put up that one shot I mentioned previously. It's less fluffy than Cam's POV, but still beautiful. Hope you like!
Jim: Enjoy, review, read, have fun.
Karina: Despair.
Jim: Wow. That was a bit dark, don't you think, Kari?
Karina: These are dark times, James.
Camille: Okay...we need to get her to stop reading those mystery novels. Now.
I own nothing! Well, I own Camille and Karina. No one else.
Karina was laying on her bed, a book propped up on her knees, when Camille entered. Normally, Camille knew better than to disturb Karina when she was reading, but when she saw her friend moving toward her, her path not turning as it would were she going to her own bed, Karina said, "At least have the decency to mark my spot when you rip the book out of my hands."
Out of her hands it came. Cam grabbed the marker on the bedside table and said, "Please. Do you really think I'm that heartless?" Eyeing the book, Camille shrugged. "So you're still into antiques?" She reached down and pulled her into a sitting position. "Get dressed. We're going out."
"I am dressed, Cam."
"I mean in something cute. Not the grunge you wear when we're out of class."
"Going out with who?"
"People."
"What kind of people?"
"It's just Jim and Bones. Relax, Kari!"
Karina pulled her knees up to her chest. "Where are we going?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out. Now, come on! You've hardly had a life this year – besides the Russian kid. Now, I know teaching's a noble profession and all, but even those involved have to have a little fun, right?"
There was a silence, and Camille sensed she'd scored a verbal point.
"Cam, I'm underage!" Karina finally protested. "And I don't look any older than I am, either! How do you propose I sneak into a bar, pray tell?"
Camille gave her a look that clearly asked if she was scared. Karina shook her head.
"Not that I'm not all for this, mind you," she amended.
Camille grinned, pulling out a card and handing it to Karina. Karina's eyes widened as she scanned the fake ID, and her jaw dropped at the realism. According to this, she was born in 2238 like Camille, not 2242 like she actually had been.
"Where in the name of the Federation did you get this?"
Camille dragged her to her feet. "Oh, honey. You don't hang out with James Tiberius Kirk for too long without picking a few things up. Now come on. I need to pick something out for you to wear. I refuse to believe you only have a uniform and some grungy clothes in your closet after a year of rooming with me."
"Well, believe it," Karina muttered.
"Then I'm sure I have something that'll work. Come on!" Camille repeated.
Chekov knew that Karina hadn't made any attempt to contact him that day because her roommate had something planned. She'd told him that much. He just kind of missed human contact, that was all.
He actually hadn't made any attempt to see what Sulu was doing over Christmas, like he'd told her. Laying low had just become a habit the past couple of months, one that was rather hard to break. Unless it was Karina, of course. She'd kind of given him no choice. Then again, he'd also given her no choice.
Chekov didn't understand what he was thinking sometimes. It made no sense that he had been so determined to get inside Karina's head back when she was an impenetrable fortress, but now that they'd gotten past that point, she was the one who had to drag him out of his shell. Realistically, it didn't make sense. But he wasn't really going to question it. It wasn't exactly an unpleasant feeling.
She'd told him they'd resume lessons the first day back into class. That was two days away, though. Reasonably, he hoped he'd see her before then. Two weeks without talking to anyone was a long time.
Of course, he'd gone to the track every other day or so at the start of hiatus, then, as the loneliness started to set in, he'd gone every day. Running was, as per usual, his escape, his release. Without the threat of his father hanging over his head, he probably would have signed up for that marathon by now. But knowing he would probably have to leave Starfleet soon warned him against that. What would be the point?
He picked up the communicator. Maybe he should just contact her. Who knew? Maybe she'd actually wanted to today, but knew that there really wouldn't be a point because she was doing something later tonight.
Chekov nearly jumped out of his skin when the door buzzed. He practically leaped off the bed. Who would be at his door? Did Karina's plans get canceled or something? Not that he was complaining. This just confirmed his desire to talk to his friend was not unfounded.
He pressed the button to activate the door. It slid open, to his horror, revealing not Karina, but the last person he wanted to see, ever again. He'd hoped to be long gone far before this happened.
"Well, I was wondering where you'd got to," Andrei said, his tone completely even but his face characteristically belying the possibility of that calmness extending to his thoughts. "Hello, son."
Camille watched her younger friend wincing at the flashing lights but so obviously trying to put on a brave face and grinned. "How you holding up here, kid?"
Karina pulled a finger out of her ear and called back, "It's really loud!"
"That's the general idea!" Camille shouted, laughing. She'd thought Karina would be into the loudness, the partying, all that jazz. She was part of the fun squad, after all – the members of the group that included everyone but Bones. Yes, Karina definitely liked to have fun, but perhaps Camille had misjudged what the kid considered "fun."
No matter. What was done was done, and Karina's distress was not going to stop Camille from having the time of her life tonight. Hearing the DJ announce the start of swing dancing and eyeing their men seated at the bar, Camille got an idea.
"Come on," she said, pulling Karina along with her.
Meanwhile, at the bar, Bones grabbed Jim's shot glass as soon as it hit the wood and pulled it away. "Okay, Jim, I think you've had enough."
Jim, his words already slightly slurred, reached out for it, a look nothing short of pathetic etched on his face. "Come on, Bones! Have you ever seen me wasted on less than ten shots?"
"That was ten shots, Jim."
Jim rolled his eyes and managed to wrest the shot glass from Bones. "Whatever."
Bones groaned and was about to grab it back, but breathed a sigh of relief when Camille came up with Karina and Jim was temporarily distracted by Camille's proposition. However, his heart shot into his throat again when he realized what it was.
"All right, which of you boys is going to dance with me?" she asked, positively sparkling with excitement. And sparkling was not a term Bones used on a regular basis.
He snorted. "I don't dance."
Her look belied nothing but disbelief. "Don't expect me to believe that a Southern man like yourself" – she dropped into a drawl on that one – "doesn't know how to swing dance?"
"And a city girl like yourself managing that accent is equally impressive," Karina muttered, barely audible over the blaring music. Camille ignored her.
"Well, believe it," Bones replied in a surly manner, turning back to the bar, "because it's true."
Camille frowned, then looked at Jim, whose grin all but gave her the go-ahead. "Well, if you won't do it, I might just have to dance with Jim then – "
Bones practically knocked over his stool in his haste to get up and grab her hand before Jim did. He muttered something under his breath that sounded remarkably like, "Like hell," as the stool tottered on its legs.
Laughing, Camille dragged him off toward the floor, saying, "Come on, cowboy!" The stool, meanwhile, clattered to the floor. Jim and Karina stared at it for a few minutes, then looked up at each other and broke into fits of laughter.
Jim stood up, stretched, and grabbed Karina's arm in turn. "Well, I can say from experience that Bones isn't much of a dancer, and he was the one who taught me, but I'm fairly certain we can survive without me crushing your toes too much."
Karina froze, and when he tried to pull her along she was practically a statue. He turned back to find her sheet white, and stammering, "Me? Dance? I – I – I don't dance, Jim. I've never danced in my life!"
Jim gave her a look that indicated he clearly didn't believe her, and she muttered, "Okay, fine, I know like, five different styles of international dances. That doesn't mean I'm good at them. And I absolutely have no idea how to swing dance!"
His grin only widening, he gave her another tug and she could no longer resist, giving all of her effort to the last one. "Which is why it's high time for you to learn, don't you think?"
Karina let herself be dragged toward the dance floor, feeling her cheeks go from pale white to bright red. People were staring at them and whispering. It appeared some of them knew Jim. And if they knew Jim, they probably assumed she was his – oh, gross!
Finding a place where they would have decent enough room, just in case she was an awful dancer and had very little control over where she went, Jim took her hand and put it on his shoulder, then placed his on her waist, feeling her tense up slightly. He gave her a look.
"You trust me, right?"
She swallowed and nodded. That boosted his ego slightly after the incident with Camille and the skydiving.
"Okay, then I need you to relax." He took her free hand and raised it up to the proper position. "I'm going to lead with my left, you'll step back with your right and…"
With minor stumblings, she got the basic moves down. Jim shook his head. The kid was not what one would call a natural, but with some learning, he thought she could get pretty good. Two-stepping was not exactly hard to wrap one's brain around, thankfully.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the dance floor, Bones and Camille were practically tearing it up. Almost involuntarily, he dipped her, and she went with it, not allowing herself to be caught off guard. Jim looked over at them and gestured with his head to Karina.
"I'd say those two are perfect dance partners. What do you think?"
She smirked. "I would have to agree. They really should do this more often, shouldn't they?"
"We might need to make that happen."
From her dipped position staring up at him, Camille was laughing softly to herself. Bones frowned, not sure if he'd been doing it correctly. Why else would she be laughing? "What are you cackling about, woman?"
Admiring his ability to hold her in this position for such a long amount of time, she shook her head and sighed. "Oh, nothing. It's just that… 'I don't dance?' You're such a liar, cowboy!"
For a moment, she thought he might have taken offense, but when he brought her back up and started spinning her with even more vigor than before, she knew that, in his own way, he'd seen the humor in it.