The First Time
She Caught a Change
(or she realized he was staring)
She laced up her boots, listening intently to the doctor's lecture on the severity of the situation once they passed through those doors to the awaiting colonists. She glanced up as the man paced past her, dark eyebrows lowered over his eyes and a light perspiration lining his forehead. Most of the night had been spent in this manner, McCoy running over in his mind everything that could go wrong and voicing his concerns to the captain, who at one point went so far as to feign sleep to get the doctor to quiet for a few minutes. Of course, the attempt proved futile when McCoy sat by his head to talk persistently into his ear.
Her eyes shifted over to Kirk who sat across from her, not three feet away, her thoughts pondering if any of his friend's worries were reaching home.
Her hands stilled.
With his mouth in a firm line, elbows resting on knees, and both hands clasped loosely together, blue eyes bore into her brown.
McCoy finished his speech. Breathless, he turned to Kirk expectantly. At the man's continued silence, McCoy shared a glance with Uhura, who then cleared her throat and reported no further contact from the ship.
Kirk's gaze didn't stray.
"Jim?"
Had it been any other moment, any other time, Sonja Laxely would have taken his stare as a challenge; a provocation for her to rebuke his reckless plan and deliver one of her own. Of all the times she had done this in the past, only once had Kirk actually permit it. Though they had been one minute away from Death's doorstep at the time.
But something was off.
There was a deliberate intensity he was sending that she couldn't decipher. There was no doubt. But there was no certainty either.
"Jim, for Pete's sake, we're on the clock here!"
He stood. Himself once more, he delivered assurances with a confidant grin and directed his crew seamlessly.
Released from his hold, Laxely lowered her gaze to the task of re-tightening her already laced boots, pausing only a moment to marvel at the painful ache in her chest. She breathed in slowly.
He called her name.
They moved forward.