Any and all forms of Star Trek don't belong to me, just Danny.
The description of meditation I have in here is true; I regularly meditate, and I have experienced brief zen multiple times, and it is exactly like that. It is difficult to achieve silence and inner peace, I acknowledge this, but let me tell you, it's just like I described. My mother came to see me on one of those zen trips and was convinced I had done drugs; you don't need them. Just meditate, and the trip will come.
I honestly can't believe that I have to say this, but reviews are really appreciated. So far I have 1.
I hate to be pushy, but come on now.
The first thing that Danny has to decide is what track of Star Fleet to pursue. There's a few things to do; the command courses are out (she doesn't trust herself with the power, her listening ability, or not to buckle under the pressure), but that still leaves navigation, engineering- plenty of things. In the end, she goes in the med track; she was always good with biology, and she enjoys helping people. Along with the core classes, she has to take several in xenolinguistics, xenobiology, a phrenology class and several others in sensitivity to other species, like a specialized soc/psych class. They give her several more tests, and find out she has a high psi score, which could be beneficial in the med unit (or harmful, depending).
Being a cadet is interesting; it's like college, which she never got to experience. She fits in better here, because some of the other cadets aren't human and aren't sure how to act, or what some of the tech they use actually does. She makes friendly acquaintances, most notably an Orion woman named Gaila; her skin is emerald, in contrast to her fiery red hair that cascades down her back in ringlets.
Gaila reminds her a bit of a friend back home (that's how she thinks of her old life; back home. It's much less painful, and she can pretend that she has the option of going, or calling her parents), a girl named Lynn; both are bubbly and excitable, with very little shame. She flaunts her exotic green skin and men, and women, appreciate it. A lot. She often tries to be Danny's wingwoman when she manages to persuade her to go out with her and her roommate on Friday nights.
Her roommate doesn't come home much, but she keeps her side clean and makes sure to do her dishes and clean up after herself, so Danny isn't concerned. Most nights she studies, but before she goes to bed, she pulls out 4 pictures; a picture of her parents and her, an image of her sister, and one of her baby brother, all hooked up to the tubes and the monitors that had made up his existence of 3 months (it was one of his better pictures, taken during the week long period where he hadn't had a ventilator shoved down his throat), and an image of her grandparents (occasionally she'll bring out the pictures of her friends or extended family). She sits them on the windowsill next to her bed and bows her head; she lights a stick of sage incense (incense was a tradition between she and Nana, but sage was the only one that didn't bother her Mom, so she does both to appease them and get their attention), and a candle. She tells them about her day, and asks them for guidance, and for forgiveness for taking so long to wake up. Danny doesn't have it in her to pray yet, but she does begin meditating again; it's hardest the first week-everything that she banishes from feeling makes it's way forward, and she has to let it out, or the exercise is useless. But when her mental discipline is up to snuff again, she hits zen and it's exhilarating; she sees the connections around her, spreading out like a pattern above her, in glowing threads. Everything is frame by frame and she understands everything. She later asks herself why anyone would need drugs when they could meditate- but figures that it's hard for anyone to face themselves and come to know their own mind.
Other things happen; John doesn't call her. After a month goes by, she calls his number, and gets an automated voice saying that the number is disconnected. It worries her, but she knows that it's out of her hands. Danny adds him to her queue of people that she misses.
Halfway through the second semester, she's fitted into interspecies ethics. She notices almost immediately that she's one of the few who seems to take this seriously right off the bat. She sits down next to Gaila's roommate, who is gracious enough to reintroduce herself as Uhura. Danny reminds her of her name as well, and the two make small talk, until the instructor comes in, and everyone falls silent, gawking at him.
Danny doesn't really get it until she puts on her glasses, and then it clicks; he's a Vulcan.
That alone really isn't enough to make everyone stare, or it shouldn't be, in her opinion. What makes them gawk like morons is his eyes, which takes her a second longer to spot; his eyes are human. Well, she thinks, clicking her pen and hitting the record button on her tape recorder (a trick that her mother and father both employed when they were in school), that's interesting.
"I am Spock. Some of you I am acquainted with in Advanced Phrenology, but for those of you who are not in that particular class, don't bother." There's a bit of murmuring at that, but he doesn't react. "I am not an instructor who can be talked into giving a better grade; what you receive is directly parallel to the work you put into the class." Danny decides that she likes him already.
He begins the lecture by asking an obvious question, "for what reason is it useful to know a species' ethics and customs when dealing with them? Can anyone tell me?"
Next to her, Uhura's hand goes up immediately. There are no others. Hesitantly, Danny raises hers as well, if only because she thinks it's easy. She's relatively convinced that he won't call on her.
Of course, Danny is incorrect.
"Miss Gianano. Your thoughts?"
"Oh," she flounders, before finding her voice, "ethics are important because respect is important, and different species have different thoughts on respect. For the Federation, this is especially important, so that there are no misunderstandings that could lead to war, God forbid. It's especially important for representatives of Star Fleet because they represent the Federation."
"Well said. Uhura?"
"My answer is much the same." Uhura admits, and the lecture goes on.
Its perfunctory stuff today, mainly what the class will entail, with a subtext that Danny and Uhura both picked up on that said, quite plainly, if you aren't here to learn then don't come back. Danny and Uhura take notes anyhow, just because you never know-instructors at the academy sometimes ask questions on rules and things said on the first day, just to see if you paid attention.
One day in xenobio III, the guy next to her strikes up a conversation with her and she feels the utter loneliness replaced with joy.
He's from Georgia.
His name is Leonard McCoy, and his voice washes over Danny like a warm summer wind. Danny's Mother is from Georgia, but she spent the majority of her life in Alabama; the bottom line being that Danny spent most of her summers in both states with various relatives. She misses them on the whole; she didn't know them well, but they were good people, almost stereotypically so.
He's a hypochondriac with a habit of explaining why space is the worst place to work and a penchant for metaphors. He tells her about boiling to death in space, their lungs collapsing in less than two seconds; dying alone in darkness without the ability to hear. This doesn't scare her as much as it should, mainly because she faced that possibility for a long time.
McCoy is in his mid-thirties and only here at the Academy because he's got nowhere else to go; his daughter, money, practice, and his belongings all taken by his wife in the divorce, and the Academy was the only place that was willing to take a down and out doctor.
One night McCoy and Gaila both, separately, try and talk her into going out on the town with them. Danny's had enough of studying 24/7; she's solitary by nature, yes, but even she needs to get out occasionally. So, she goes with Gaila to some bar (not quite a dive bar, but it certainly isn't as clean as it could be), and McCoy meets up with them later, along with a blond friend of his (Gaila attaches herself to his lips almost immediately, and so Danny winds up chatting with McCoy most of the night).
Danny doesn't make a habit of it, but she actually gets buzzed (she doesn't drink if she can help it normally; alcoholism is on both sides of the family, as is drug addiction, but it's one night out and she's not driving). That's what prompts her to start singing along to the jukebox-not just a jukebox, which is rare enough, but one that is cranking out Johnny Cash, who by now nobody recognizes and someone just picked the song at random.
"I fell into a burnin' ring of fire, went down down down and the flames went higher," she sang out, laughing: her father turned this up so loud it liquefied the air on their road trips, back when he'd been a truck driver and it had been summer. It had only been her parents and her, because Beth hadn't been born yet. They went from coast to coast in the diesel truck, it was fire engine red, and she was so small back then the back seat was like a couch. Johnny Cash, KISS, AC/DC; she heard all of those, and memorized them, because it made her parents laugh.
"Where'd you learn how to sing that?" McCoy asks, and Danny just grins.
"Grew up on it, born and raised. I was the only 4 year old that had the lyrics to 'Sue' memorized, made my cousins laugh their asses off." She chuckles and knocks back another drink.
"Never hear you talk about your family."
"Nothin to tell," she mumbles, her good mood almost completely gone now. "All the ones I know are dead, long time ago," Bones can hear the accent of hers emerging and it makes him raise an eyebrow. Danny had artfully changed the subject any time he'd enquired after her background, and even if she is toeing the line between drunk and buzzed, he's not about to miss this opportunity to learn about her.
"No cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Siblings?"
Danny stays silent before saying, "they died while I was sleeping. Then their kids did. And so did theirs. My closest family now is 4 generations down the line-my baby sister's great-grand daughter. They don't know me, and it'd be too awkward to show up out of nowhere. "Hey, I'm your great-great-great aunt, I've been in cryo for two hundred years, can I stay?" Her laugh is sharp and forced, and McCoy understands, suddenly.
He's noted the way that Danny struggles over what everyone knows; top songs, names, events that have happened in the last decade that weren't technically top news stories. He's familiar with how sometimes she'll get this lost sort of look that makes her look like a child (the part of him that reads those psych papers wonders if he's replacing Joanna with her), the way she'll absently touch the back of her head, as if looking for an injury that should be there.
Danny tells him everything, sitting in the bar, crying and laughing alternately, and Bones listens to her. He genuinely likes Danny, but only as a friend; she's polite, and she can be funny. She does her job well and she's eager to learn, and takes criticisms reasonably well (she certainly doesn't give him heart damage pulling stupid shit, like a certain blond he knows).
What must it be like, to wake up and everything is gone?
Danica weaves a canvas of dreams for Bones with her words; a life before transport beams, PADDs, synthesizers. He's read about the 21st century of course, but Danny knows things in such an intimate way because, unlike the stuffy history books he often fell asleep to, she's actually lived it.
In the end, Bones escorts Danny back to her dorm room and puts her to bed (he takes off her shoes and socks, but he leaves her clothes on); he leaves a glass of water and an aspirin on her bedside table, as well as a note. He leaves early to get ready for Jim's Kobayashi Maru, and prays to god that the little idiot doesn't embarrass himself again.
Danny wakes up in the morning with a splitting headache and a vow to never drink again. She notices the water on her bedside table immediately, and downs that and the accompanying medicine as soon as she can get her hands steady. She feels absolutely gross; she slept in her clothes (if she'd been naked or in her pajamas, that would have ended any sort of friendship she had with Bones, so it's a bit of a double blade), and her breath is sour while her hair is lank and greasy from both the environment she'd been in the night before and the late time waking up (her Italian genes as well as her Native American ones result in a rather greasy complexion and scalp if she doesn't keep up with it), so she immediately strips and enters her shower when her head stops spinning. Normally, her shower are 20 minutes tops, this one takes the better part of an hour with how vigorously she scrubs, shaves and washes herself.
She finds her note from McCoy when she goes to wash out her glass- it's short, concise and brisk, just like him, but it still makes her smile.
Don't forget to stay hydrated. Hangovers are hell without any fluid in your system, Danny.
Her classes for the day aren't until later in the afternoon, leaving her with little to do. One glance outside makes her decision for her; a walk wouldn't kill her- and if it pained the hangover, it serves her right for drinking enough to get one.
30 minutes later found Danny seated on a picnic table, sketchbook open in her lap, looking up to memorize the way the light filtered through the gaps of the pine tree. It's only a while later that she realizes why she'd drawn this one specifically. When it dawns on her, she's torn between laughing and crying; and just like that, she lets herself be swept away in the rush of memories; it happens occasionally.
"Come on Danny!" Nina grins down at her, scampering up onto the next branch without a thought. In contrast, Danny has to be careful, and remind herself not to look down or she'll get dizzy.
They're 9 and 10 years old respectively, only separated by a few months difference, climbing the towering pine tree in the corner of Nina's yard; it had been Nina's idea to do this. She said only someone without fear could make it to the top, and had immediately darted to the truck to pull herself up. Danny follows, trying to talk her out of it.
The pliancy of the branches makes Danny nervous, and she looks farther u; her Dad knows about trees, he loves the outdoors, loves the smell of the earth, and making things grow. He's shown her what to look for when she climbs; stability, most of all.
She sees the discoloration almost immediately.
"Nina, we can't go up any further, the branches are rotting!"
"Don't be such a baby!" Her voice is a life time away, she's so far ahead. A moment later, Danny knows that she's put her weight onto the wrong branch; the splintering, sickening crack resounding in the still afternoon. More follow in milliseconds and Nina comes crashing through.
There is no thought (in time, this moment will make Danny question her thoughts on religion, centuries later in a future she struggles in), only a moment of icy fear slicing her spine before Danny reacts; Danny reaches out and grasps, her fingers digging into scalp and chestnut hair. Nina begins screaming (later Danny's arm will be so swollen she won't be able to move it) and thrashing, trying to tear away from the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. Danny holds onto Nina as long as she can, and it's just long enough for Nina to get a grip on a branch.
The two of them are silent as they climb down.
It's only after their feet are on the ground, and they are facing one another that they burst into tears; actually, it's Nina that begins to wail, wrapping her arms around Danny and crying forcefully and loudly. Danny doesn't move; she can only think and imagine if she had been a split second later. She holds her friend a little tighter, and she thanks God (because she believed in a higher power, back then-believed everything would turn out wonderful, that angels kept people safe and evil didn't exist)
It's cold when she pulls herself out of the memories, and she realizes that the sun is beginning to go down. Her drawing is finished, only on auto pilot- she hates it when that happens.
One of the psychiatrists that had spoken with her had said that her subconscious was so rattled by the lifestyle change it sought solace in submerging herself in what she knew; in this case the only thing that she could do was remember.
It's nice to know that cities don't really change; even after so long of living in one, Danny can still pretend that she's back home, in a sense, when she walks down them; people really don't change. They walk down the street without really seeing anyone else, and in turn, Danny can blur their faces just enough that everything is like it used to be. Languages, sounds, smells- all of it blurs together as she walks back to the Academy.
What amuses her greatly is that bike messengers still exist; she'd have thought bicycles would be long gone by now, but now. She's glad some things never change. This changes when one almost gets hit by a hovercar- a cabbie. They start yelling at each other on the curbside. One more thing that hasn't changed.
Danny makes herself some tea and settles down on the bed to speak with her family. She lights the incense and bows her head.
"Hi, Nana, Mama, Dad. I had another flashback today. I guess I should just prepare for those anytime now… I saved Nina from that tree. I'd almost forgotten it," she takes a sip, letting the taste settle on her tongue, and then swallows, the warmth spreading pleasantly. "I had a hangover, too- I think I told McCoy about where, I'm from. He didn't do anything, I'm pretty sure- he left me some water and aspirin, and a reminder to keep drinking. Water, that is. I don't think I'll be drinking again any time soon," she laughs uneasily. She gets to the point about what's bothering her soon enough though, "I saw an argument between a cabbie and a bike messenger, on my way home. It bothers me, that centuries later, and with other species involved, we still can't even get along." She laughs darkly and looks at their pictures. "I just wonder sometimes if there's any hope for us. Can I…can you send me a sign, that maybe there's something in the universe still worth going on for? I'm not gonna lie, I think about seeing you guys a lot. Just…I don't ask for much. I need some help. A sign is all. I love you all. Good night."
She opens her window and puts her cup in the sink, then goes to bed.
The next morning, the graduating class is called in for the disciplinary hearing of James Tiberius Kirk.