Title: What's In a Name
Characters: Kirk, Uhura, various
Rating: This chapter: Strong T for adult themes
Word Count: 8400 (this chapter)
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for all AOS movies, various spoilers for TOS universe elements, no knowledge of which is necessary to understand the story. Specifics footnoted or explained at the end of each chapter.
This chapter, specific spoilers for the TOS episode Plato's Stepchildren. If you have no idea what that is, please go read a synopsis of it, or be forewarned I'm warning about some, at least for me, fairly squicky things including non-graphic telepathic and minor physical non-con. If you at all think that's not for you, please skip this chapter, though I would hope I've not been more ick-factor than that episode was, only rebooted it as if it were filmed for today's screens, in fairly general terms and with a more realistic aftermath than the sweeping-under-the-rug that TOS was so fond of doing.
So, while there is humor here and there and a satisfactory ending, this is not exactly a happy unicorns-and-sunshine chapter, people. You've been warned. It's not a straight-up reboot, but it's close.
Summary: Five times Nyota Uhura called Jim Kirk something other than Captain, and one time he was glad to return the favor
A/N: This WIP has been meandering around on my hard drive for quite some time, bits and pieces being added to it here and there, and at the encouragement of some very good writing friends in the LJ/Dreamwidth community I finally have enough of it finished to start posting.
There are times when being the first Federation starship to ever make its way into a certain sector of space is the most amazing thing imaginable in the universe. Just in the first two years of this second mission, they've seen more wonders than he could have ever dreamed were possible as an Academy student, or even as a young, starstruck captain. Met dozens of new species, set foot on countless new worlds, charted hundreds of new star systems, and every day since they left Yorktown after their first mission ended has been one fantastical adventure after another.
Certainly, there have been setbacks. They've lost good people. Too many good people; that comes of being in the most dangerous job in the business, in the least charted area of space, weeks from outside help. There have been grievances, conflicts, crimes, wars, even tragic accidents – such is the law of probability, and such is what seems to be the unwritten law which lingers still around this new ship, more cautious though he's grown as a captain, as a leader. There are a few ghosts which haunt the Enterprise-A, even if he's the only one who sees them, and even if he only sees them in dreams. They serve as a reminder, a memorial, to the responsibility he holds, the magnificent and horrifying responsibility he must take more seriously than ever before. One cannot dwell on the past; therein lies madness. But it would be foolish, and almost desecratory on this ship, to not learn from it.
But for the most part, the last year of their initial mission and these last twenty months of the second have been some of the best times of his career, full of adventure and mystery and family and life and laughter and everything in between. Missions of science and exploration and discovery, set like beautiful homing beacons to chart their progress through the galaxy.
Then there are the ones where he would really like to just burn the entire planet to the ground and warp the hell out of Dodge.
Like this one.
"Dude. I need you to get it together. Meditate, take a nap, take a freaking swing at me if you have to, but I need you to snap out of it."
For a second it looks like said swing might just be forthcoming, but after a moment the look fades to something more resembling shame than anger. Damn it, he can't stand that look any more now than he could almost a decade ago, it should be illegal.
He kicks the unyielding door one more time for good measure, and accomplishes nothing more than basically spraining a toe, pain which is sharp enough to distract him from this all-new SNAFU which keeps becoming more AFU with each passing hour.
This is what they get for answering an unusual distress call. Again.
One day they'll learn.
It had been an innocent enough distress signal, asking for urgent medical assistance, and since that's always an excellent way to instigate a First Contact, he'd really thought no more about beaming down with Uhura to begin preliminary communications. It's been a sleepy week aboard ship, which is the only reason Bones decided to come himself – pure boredom – and Jim took the opportunity to leave Sulu in command of the Bridge, let him log some hours in the chair during a harmless planetary orbit. He'd seen no reason to not let Spock come along, after cutting off a fifteen-minute ramble about some weird vegetation readings his CSO wanted to investigate, and that had been a mistake, obviously, as now the ship is stranded above them without four of her senior officers and a probably freaking out command trainee-cum-pilot-cum-amateur-botanist at her helm, outranked only by Montgomery Scott and a couple of people buried in Ops below decks who have zero command training in a crisis situation.
Yeah, not good. This is one he has to learn from, if they ever get out of it.
Said distress call had been genuine enough, the Councilman who appeared to be in charge of the tiny but stately settlement grievously ill with an infected wound. Bones's gruff TLC and the wonders of modern medicine had set to work immediately, while Spock had wandered off to investigate the city itself, leaving Jim and his Comms Chief behind to begin negotiations for a First Contact.
Spock had returned in time to warn them, but not in time to prevent them from finding out firsthand, about the natives' very strong, very deadly telekinetic (psychokinetic? Jim has no idea, and the correct term doesn't really matter, they can freaking move things and control people with their brains, okay) abilities, nor the fact that they apparently for the last century have had a nasty habit of luring starships into orbit and taking from them any crewmen who might be useful to their society, forcing them to integrate through sheer force of overriding will.
Jim had not taken kindly to the fact that they wanted his Chief Medical Officer to be one of those people.
(He is still a little pissed that apparently neither he nor Spock are considered enough of an asset to their stupid elitist society to even be considered, but that's a point to be argued after he gets his people out of here and makes this palace a crater for the things this so-called High Councilor has put them through today.)
If he's still so revulsed and shaken by the horrible ten minutes spent having his thoughts and will-power pawed through and examined and twisted and he's going to stop thinking about it now by this deranged Greek god wanna-be, he can't imagine how Spock's dealing – and he doesn't want to imagine, because his skin is still crawling and he's not a telepath who buries his emotions so deep it would take a transporter to retrieve them.
They both have baggage a-plenty, and this day is going to go firmly in the never-going-to-talk-about-again category, thank you very much.
He takes his life in his hands and moves back across the room, stopping to crouch in front of his First Officer. Spock still looks…lost, is the best way to put it, but at least he's starting to pull himself back together, duty superseding anything else as Jim knew it would – the only question was how long it would take. And if anything in the room would be left standing when it did. He hates the fact that they're out of time, but he has to be the bad guy for both of them right now.
"You good? Because we have like ten minutes left before they come back, and we have no idea what that 'evening entertainment' they talked about is going to entail. I need to know you're front and center, ready to take any chance we have."
Spock's eyebrow inclines a fraction. "Do you have a plan, Captain."
"Mm, vaguely."
"That does not inspire one with confidence."
"Hey, you know I do my best work when I'm improvising."
"I could cite a dozen situations which prove otherwise." Spock's eyes dart to the door as noise sounds in the corridor beyond.
"Yeah, I hear them. Look, if all else fails, you're the fastest out of all of us. If you can get out of the buildings you might be able to rig some kind of communications to the ship, so you see an opening you run for it, understood? With or without us. I'll figure something out."
"Understood."
Jim highly doubts the order will be followed, but it's the spirit of the thing, after all. He appreciates the gesture.
The door swings open with an unearthly shriek of hinge, and the dour servants from earlier who'd 'shown them to their quarters' motion for them to proceed down the corridor toward the evening's entertainment.
Maybe, just maybe, he can still salvage some kind of diplomatic solution out of this?
Yeah, who was he trying to kid.
Honestly, there must be some unwritten law in the universe that says some backwater species must use every melodramatic means at their disposal to make their lives a living hell at least once every six months. Just to keep them from becoming complacent, or something.
They've been experimented on, fought in battle, fed alien parasites, taken hostage by terrorist cells, captured by slave traders, attacked while on shore leave, and even that one very memorable occasion kidnapped to be exhibits in an alien zoo – and yet each time gets even more ridiculous than the last.
"Seriously, Parmen?" he mutters, rolling his eyes when he wakes up this time. "That's the best you can do?"
"Jim, for gods' sake stop giving him ideas!"
He rolls to his hands and knees, and smiles – a dark, dangerous thing. "You're going to have to do better than that, Councilor."
The elder frowns in displeasure.
"Seriously," he says, coughing slightly as he regains his feet. "Spock's already tried to kill me what, twice over the years?" He turns to his First, who raises an eyebrow and silently holds up three fingers. "My bad. Three times." He shrugs. "Extenuating circumstances, but still. You could at least try something original if your goal is to drive a wedge between us or something. What exactly is your goal, anyway?"
He hears a stifled giggle that can only come from Uhura, seated beside McCoy and dressed in some ridiculous skimpy costume that's supposed to be native Platonian garb but only looks like some roleplaying scenario gone wrong, all flashing jewels and billowy sleeves and not a whole lot else. He'd like to see the servant who told her she had to put it on; he suspects the guy is unlikely to be speaking in a normal register (or having children) anytime soon. He's only seen one female of the species in this entire city, and she was a timid little thing no doubt cowed by centuries of misogynistic societal mores.
There's that weird lurching sensation again, and oh look. He's suddenly sitting at a table that's covered in weird fruits and ornate dishes, some replica of a ceremonial banquet, and Spock's somewhere far down the table, equally unable to move from a similar seat. The magic holodeck-without-a-holodeck back and forth is getting really, really old.
What now.
"Have you reconsidered, Doctor McCoy. Lady Uhura."
He snickers at that, and then has to stop as a telekinetic grip tightens around his throat, choking him.
"Stop it," Bones snaps, and yeah, that's his for real freaking out tone – he's at the end of his rope and probably about to do something catastrophically stupid like promising to stay here if the Platonians let the rest of them go or something.
The grip loosens, however, and he inhales as quietly as possible. He may be cocky, but he's not stupid. This guy's obviously a few pieces short of a chess set, and only an idiot makes himself an easy target.
"I repeat my offer," Parmen gestures grandly. "Remain among us, and live in comfort the rest of your days, which will be many thanks to the wonders of this planet's natural resources. Do so peacefully, and I will allow your companions to return to their ship in peace."
McCoy glances to his left as if in question. Uhura leans across him, and with the sweetest of smiles makes a universally vulgar gesture with both bejeweled hands.
He tries desperately not to die laughing; obviously that means basically the same thing in any language because Parmen grows as red as the tapestry behind him in a matter of seconds.
"Not used to people's thinking for themselves, are you," McCoy drawls. "Welcome to the Federation."
To his right, he hears Spock sigh, as if giving up all hope of this conversation being resolved diplomatically. Bless him, his peaceful Vulcan apparently still had some hope of that.
Jim will just be satisfied if they get off the planet without anyone dying. At least anyone from his crew. The rest are highly negotiable.
Increasingly highly.
"I weary of your insolence, Doctor. Were your gifts not so valuable in our society, who has no such healer among us, you would not be so fortunate. As to you, my lady." The elder turns to Uhura, who only raises a bored eyebrow at him over the end of the long, bejeweled braid she's playing with. "You have been nothing but a troublesome influence in this house since you arrived."
Damn. What did she do in the two hours they were separated? He is so getting that story when they're out of here.
"Much as it pains my spirit to so treat a member of the fairer sex –"
"Yes, yes, you can spare me the sexist rhetoric," Uhura snorts. "Skip to the end, Councilor."
Even Parmen seems to pick up on the fact that the word clearly is just a placeholder for asshole, because he turns an even darker shade of red. And yeah, that's genuine borderline insanity Jim can see in his eyes now, the terroristic, despotic anger of a dangerously intelligent man hellbent on turning the entire world to his own ends.
She's going to get herself killed.
And then he's going to have a Vulcan at DEFCON 1 in the same room with a telekinetic wack job and the Enterprise might as well just torpedo the whole planet and be done with it if that's the case because, hello Armageddon 2.0, countdown in five.
This is not what he signed up for today.
"Lieutenant, stand down," he snaps, his voice cracking across the room like syntheglass shattering.
All three heads turn to look at him in varying levels of surprise, and Bones with something that looks like alarm. He forgets, sometimes, that Jim's looked madness in the face at close quarters more than once – and that he's seen its consequences, done quicker than you can even think, can even move to stop them. One hair-trigger reaction is all it takes for your world to fall apart, and he's not having it now. An ordinary planetary dignitary, some random terrorist they might be able to stand against, even laugh at, after all they've seen – but something, some horrible gut instinct deep down, borne from years long past, tells him this is not a man to be trifled with.
Parmen only looks slightly amused at his intensity, and a little predatory, like a snake moving in for the kill. "Dear me, Captain. Such dramatics. One might think you harbored certain…less than professional feelings toward some of your crew members."
Jim about chokes on his tongue, because, ew. That's like…vaguely incestual, at this point.
"You're joking, right." Uhura looks more amused than anything else. "Not in a million years."
"Hey!" He folds his arms, aggrieved. "Little uncalled-for."
"I'll get my tiny violin, Farmboy."
"Now that's just rude!"
He knows exactly what she's doing, and if they can stir up enough of a hornet's nest in distraction then maybe it will be just enough for one of the other two to take Parmen out. It may be the best chance they have.
After all, they can't be in any worse situation than they are now.
He just had to go and jinx them.
When will he ever learn to keep his mouth (or mental mouth) shut in situations like this, because they definitely can be, and are, in a worse situation.
So much worse.
This is so messed up he can't even begin to think about sorting it out, and he'll be lucky to still have an intact command crew when it's over. There's so much creep factor going on his skin is crawling, but there's literally nothing he can do about it, trapped physically in place as he is by Parmen's telekinetic abilities.
His challenge had been met with a sadistic amount of enthusiasm, and more cunning than he'd given the Platonian councilman credit for. He's not sure if Parmen actually knows about Spock and Uhura's relationship, or if he's just going on gut instinct based on some of the things that happened earlier: but whatever his motives, he's using that knowledge in a way that might effectively break up the entire command crew, if something doesn't happen to save them in the next ten minutes.
He's not sure he can ever look either of them in the face again, or that he will want to.
It's a little hard to recover from being forced to make out with your First Officer's fiancée right in front of him. And there's no regulation on the books for what protocol happens after that.
Back at the spectator's box he can hear Bones pitching a fit to bring the house down, but that's not preventing any of it from happening. He only has time to whisper an apology before the psychokinetic control is taking over again, muffling and dulling everything under a cloud of helplessness and the knowledge that he's destroying everything he's ever cared about.
Suddenly a sharp, stinging pinch at the back of his neck drives back the confusion for a lucid instant. His yelp of surprise is swallowed abruptly and fingers tighten in warning in his hair.
"Did you just roofie me?" He mutters once his mouth is free again, eyes darting back to the spectator's box where McCoy is in full-blown, arm-waving argument with a bored-looking Platonian councilman.
"He wants a show, give him a show," she hisses, lips close to his ear in a weird, oddly business-like mimicry of what a minute ago had been a hazy cloud of feelings not really his.
"I don't –"
"Shut up and listen. McCoy figured out what gives the natives their powers," she whispers, hair brushing his neck in encouragement as he awkwardly puts his hands around her waist, careful not to touch anything that could be considered grounds for a Vulcan to rip his arms off.
"It's a compound absorbed into the bloodstream. Kironide. Massive concentrations. He had enough in his kit to give me a dose, but it hasn't taken effect yet. You, have a metabolism four times as fast as the rest of us thanks to that superblood. Burn through it and get us out of here, Jim."
Okay, so the jittery feeling isn't just due to the fact that he's trying to figure out what the hell to do with the knowledge that his Chief Comms Officer apparently intentionally just stuck her tongue down his throat for the sake of a mission. Or at least allowed it to happen. Or something.
Their lives are so messed up, it's a wonder any of them pass a psych eval anymore.
"Uh, look –"
"Not discussing this now. I'll give you an opening, don't leave me hanging." She glares at him in a reassuringly non-sexual way, then slides off his lap as quick as Parmen had psychokinetically shoved her onto it, leaving him staring and more than a little weirded out.
Also, he's feeling really trippy, head buzzing and extremities tingling and he still hasn't dared to look at Spock and it's not happening now because Parmen's figured out something's gone wrong with his disgusting plan and is moving off the dais toward them.
Crap.
Focus, Jim. He hasn't got the faintest idea what this even means, or how to control it. Or what it is. Or anything, right now.
He tries thinking hard at a cup on the nearby table, and nothing happens. Tries harder, and only succeeds in giving himself a stabbing headache behind one eye. For a second it feels like it might legit just blow out of his skull, but then the pain subsides into more of the same strange burning sensation, like he's on the worst acid trip in history.
Parmen grabs Uhura's wrist, shouting something nearly unintelligible over the pounding in his head.
He closes his eyes for a second, and tries again to move something on the table. Red-hot waves flood his entire body, stabbing painfully at every nerve center, but nothing happens.
Bones is trying to get off the dais now, restrained by two stone-faced servants, while Parmen gesticulates furiously – finally ending by raising a hand to obviously backhand Uhura, who promptly ducks under the blow and elbows him in the throat, hard.
Atta girl.
Unfortunately, the elder is much stronger than he appears, and has psychokinetic abilities atop that. His screech of rage might be choked and hoarse from throat damage, but the force with which he throws her across the room into a hanging tapestry is very, very real.
Jim sees red.
An entire wall display of ancient pottery at the other end of the hall suddenly shatters into a thousand pieces.
Parmen whirls around, eyes wild.
"O-kay, so that's how that works."
"What is this?"
"Hmm?" He cracks his neck one direction, then the other, and stands, takes a menacing step toward the elder. "This, is me being a representative of the Federation and not beating you to a pulp for what you just did, Parmen."
The man looks a little alarmed, but not actually frightened. That is, until Jim reaches out with one hand to halt a dagger flying at his head in mid-air.
"Seriously, like I said. Try something original." He spins it with one hand, only slightly wobbly, and sends it flying down the hall…to embed itself in the stone wall.
Jesus, how much of this stuff did Bones put in that hypo?
Another, more cautious flick of his fingers releases Spock from his restraints, and flings the two guards away from Bones a moment later, smashing them into a nearby wall with enough force to knock them out but (he hopes) not kill them. Bones immediately casts him a warning look, then sprints toward Uhura, who is already picking herself up gingerly, thank goodness. Parmen's sexism had probably saved her life, because he could just as easily have tossed her into the stone pillar next to the tapestry display.
"That all you got, Parmen?"
"You – how did you – "
"Let's just say, my people are better than your people." He gives the man a mirthless smile, and shoves him back toward the dais, depositing him back in his seat with a little too much force. "Now sit like a good boy while the adults talk. Bones?"
"I think she's okay, Jim."
"I'm fine, Captain," Uhura calls, and to her credit she looks more pissed than hurt, although she's moving pretty stiffly, and that costume's not doing much to hide some pretty spectacular bruising.
"You good, Spock?"
"That is a relative term, but I believe it could be applicable."
"Well, that's something." At least he doesn't appear ready to kill Jim for anything that's happened in the last ten minutes, so that's a definite check in the plus column. He finally bites the bullet and actually looks at the guy for the first time since the debacle really took a nosedive, and yeah, wow, maybe they'll make it through this with just a couple of transfer requests instead of the complete implosion of a series of relationships that have taken almost a decade to build.
Annnnnd that's not kiro-whatever buzzing in his head, that's hysteria, Jim, get it together.
There's a time and place to fall apart over this shuttlewreck of what's left of his family, and this isn't the time or place. They're officers first.
Duty sucks. For the record.
"Think you can find our communicators?"
"I will make the attempt, sir."
Awesome, they're back to the sir again, something he thought they dropped months ago, soon after their second launch. At least when not in a public setting in front of junior crew.
He sighs, watching forlornly as Spock leaves the room with a speed he really can't blame him for.
Yeah, it's been a day from Hell.
"Jim look out!"
Bones's shout comes just a second before he realizes he's lost track, distracted, of the intangible thread of power that's been keeping Parmen pinned down. It's a mistake that costs him.
A lot.
So, the geology team will be interested to learn he discovered firsthand the amount of force it takes to actually crack stone with a human body.
Good times.
At least he has the time to start a tuck-and-roll, meaning his arms are nearly covering his head when he hits, preventing his skull from being the first point of impact. So, silver linings.
The sight of said arm bending in that particularly hideous and unnatural angle in combination with the horrible jittering of the kironide in his bloodstream is almost enough to make him lose his breakfast and last night's dinner right there on the floor of the council chambers, dignity be damned. Except that ugh, crisis happening, and why won't his head stop spinning so he can figure out what's going on.
Something turns him on his back instead of his side, and the spinning goes from a whirlwind to just a lazy loop-da-loop.
"Jesus, Jim, you really did a number on this…y'can't dislocate the other one once in a while, it always has to be this one? Hey, hey! Stop trying to move!"
Yeah, he'd do that if he could tell if it was him moving or the ceiling, but that's not happening.
And where's Parmen?
"I don't think you have to worry about him. Well…maybe you do, but not about him bein' a problem to anyone anymore."
He blinks rapidly, trying to clear both his vision and his pounding head. Worried eyes swim hazily into view, finally unfuzzing like a clearing transmission as the throbbing in his shoulder and arm eases just a fraction. Ah, the wonders of twenty-third century drugs.
"Yeah, that's all I can give you with that kironide in your bloodstream, we have no idea how it's going to react as you burn through it." A soft whishing sound, and light footsteps. "Took you long enough, it all went to hell as soon as you left!"
"…So I see. Is the captain badly injured?"
"I'm good." He grits his teeth and pulls himself to a sitting position with his good (better) arm, clinging to Bones's shoulder with a bone-crushing grip as everything takes a dangerous spin around him. "Ship?"
"Unharmed, in orbit and awaiting beam-out instructions. I was able to retrieve two of our four communicators and saw no point in delaying my return to the chambers in searching for the other two at the present time."
He chances removing the hand from Bones's shoulder to grasp his head, trying to stop the room from doing a graceful tilt to the left in the blinding, halo-ringed lights. "And…Parmen?"
When there's no immediate answer, he finally realizes over the ringing in his ears that there's a heated altercation still going on at the other end of the hall – and when he turns to look, his blood runs cold.
Swearing under his breath, he scrambles up with less coordination than he'd like, ending up nearly falling over but for Spock's quick lunge to catch him carefully by his only good arm and set him back on wobbly feet.
"Bones, why did you give her a dose of this stuff? I can barely control it, how in the world did you expect her to?"
"Because we didn't know for sure if she'd be able to get close to you, and I had to keep Parmen's attention distracted! Someone had to have a plan here, because I dead sure wasn't going to just stay behind on this rock and play house with a bunch of sadists!"
"She's going to kill him. Let go of me, Spock."
"Captain, perhaps it would be best –"
"Look, I want him dead as much as you do, but no officer of mine is sinking to his level!"
His voice may not be the most powerful in the world, but it has carried across an entire Engineering section once when comms were down aboard ship, and it certainly has no problem carrying now across a moderately-sized banquet hall. (The fact that every glass on the banquet table shatters in dramatic accompaniment due to his losing hold of his control on this awful kironide only adds to the effect.)
It's almost comical how everyone usually just kind of freezes right where they are to look at him when he uses that particular tone, like they're all guilty children caught sneaking cookies by an angry parent. He doesn't break it out very often, but when he does? His senior officers know to duck and run, and the newbies figure it out very, very quickly.
At least, his senior staff usually freeze.
This time, Uhura doesn't even appear to have heard him, much less registered the command inherent in the statement, because Parmen is still dangling about a foot off the floor against the nearest stone wall, clawing frantically at an invisible hand that's obviously cutting off his air supply. All around them, a storm of chaotically flying objects is pinging off of the pillars and nearby furniture at the unleashing of what is likely an entire afternoon of carefully controlled emotion suddenly hacked by this horrible psychokinetic triggering mechanism.
Bones is burning that recipe for disaster as soon as they get back on board.
He takes one step and nearly passes out as his arm shifts, unsupported and likely in three or four pieces in addition to being dislocated.
"Jim, stop! You have a concussion in addition to that arm, you're not gettin' in the middle of that!"
"Doctor, neither of us have the power to stop it; what would you suggest in that case, as we likely have only seconds?"
McCoy sighs, scrubbing at his eyes. "I don't know. I just…I don't know, okay?"
Jim closes his eyes for a second, trying to focus somewhere deep inside, buries the pain temporarily under a honed, fiery thread of purpose. Then opens his eyes, ignoring the devolving argument going on behind his back, and slowly lifts his uninjured hand.
There's no way in hell he's going to subject anyone on this crew to more of a mental violation than they've had today already, not even to save someone's life – especially someone so undeserving. But he can, and does, manage to project a sort of slapdash force-field around his firestorm of a Communications Chief, cutting off her own projection like a power cable being sliced through.
In the same instant, every airborne object drops. Parmen slides down into a coughing, barely-conscious heap. And Uhura blinks, startled, and seems to come back to herself almost immediately, looking down at her own hands as if seeing for the first time what she's done.
He knows the feeling.
He has time to see her whirl around and look at him in surprise before his ears start ringing, the tingling sensation he'd been feeling suddenly washing over him in a burning wave before turning into a cold, clammy creep of ice through his veins that closes in like a red-hazed wave.
"Doctor!"
"Jim, don't do this, come on...Here, put him – no, elevate his feet, not his head! Why is his blood pressure dropping? Did Parmen give you anything while we were separated?"
"Negative. Could it be an effect of the kironide's expulsion, Doctor?"
"I have no idea! I need my instruments and the Medical mainframe, you know he's a wild card with almost anything medical. And no one's ever experimented with kironide that I know of. We need to get out of here, I don't care how many First Contact protocols you have to break. He's in no condition to salvage this mess and neither's your girl, you fix this and get us out of here."
"Understood. Stand by for beam-out."
It's at this point his brain says something to the effect of yeah, done with this whole mess, sorry, bye and this First Contact sucks so, yeah. Bye.
Apparently, burning through that much kironide in one giant burst after your body's already going into shock from traumatic injury is not a good idea, but he doesn't find that out until much later.
Due to his dangerously low blood pressure, the re-setting of his shoulder plus surgery to reconstruct his left arm take much longer than anticipated, and by the time he's done complaining five days later about how nauseated the nutrient drip always makes him and why does he still have to wear a stupid sling and no, he doesn't feel like moving anything with his mind and why is he being brain-scanned again when Uhura was cleared three days ago and when can he be discharged Bones, the paperwork's been done and the Admiralty's been updated and basically, all he has to do is sign off on Spock's report on the incident as they're already on their way to the next mission.
Huh. Interesting.
The fact that the report is fascinatingly vague is even more interesting.
As is the fact that, apparently, no one aboard seems to have any clue that something weird happened down there; it's been almost a week, and there's no rumor of any transfer request, no indication that Spock and Uhura are anything but still on course to be married in a few months, no shred of gossip, no horribly inappropriate jokes about threesomes or anything else. And gossip usually originates in Sickbay, so he'd know.
Wouldn't he?
The anxiety is making him almost physically ill, however, so the first hour he's discharged he heads straight to his own cabin for a shower and back into uniform for the sake of familiarity. It takes longer than it should, thanks to the stupid inflatable cast still on his healing arm, but eventually he struggles back into his uniform and sling, cursing his own stubbornness in refusing to call for help, but there's just some things a man needs to do for himself. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he goes out into the hallway instead of heading through the connecting bathroom and chimes for entry.
This is not a time to bank on familiarity over respect.
He has no idea how to handle this, and handling things is not his strong suit on the best of days. This? This could cost him everything, and it wasn't even his fault. Or theirs, but he's responsible for the safety and wellbeing of his crew, so in the end, he bears the blame, pure and simple.
He's a nervous wreck by the time the door opens. Uhura blinks at him in surprise, then to his mystification actually looks happy to see him.
"Why in the world are you in the hallway?" she asks, standing back for him to enter. "McCoy said you weren't going to be released until tomorrow."
"Yeah, well. I annoyed him so much he turned me loose early."
She snorts a laugh. "That I can believe."
He glances around the corner, and sees Spock working at his desk; he'd known this already, having checked both their locations before coming over. His First glances up, and acknowledges him with a nod.
"I can come back if you're busy."
"While I am working, reviewing Mr. Scott's dubiously organized weekly report on Operational procedures cannot be categorized with such precision."
He smiles, but can't actually laugh when his stomach's in knots.
He sits, a little hesitantly, on the couch Uhura points him to, and runs a hand through his hair, hesitating for a minute as they look at him expectantly.
"Okay, look," he finally says, exhaling in a rush. "I have no idea where to start with this."
He sees the two of them exchange a weird, knowing glance, and then Uhura slides off the desk to come sit in one of the armchairs in the sitting area, kitty-corner to him. Still weirded out by Memory, he slides back a fraction before catching himself, and it's a tell he knows has been caught by both of them, because they exchange another one of those looks that are really starting to annoy him.
"First of all, in answer to your questions," Uhura says, turning back to him abruptly. "No, No, Yes, Yes Probably, and Hell No."
He blinks. "What."
"No, neither of us are pissed at you. No, we're not transferring. Yes, we are still getting married. Yes, it's probably going to be awkward for a while between all three of us, but we're adults and we can deal. And no, I have absolutely no desire to do it again, Spock knows that, and I'm pretty certain you share that sentiment."
"God, yes. It was like kissing my sister." He shivers elaborately, partly to hide his genuine horror at the memory.
"Okay then." She glances back at the desk. Spock merely raises a silent eyebrow of agreement. "So what are you freaking out about?"
"Uh." He frowns, for the first time actually going over what she said and its surprising ramifications. Is it really that easy? Things are never that easy. Not for him. Not for this ship. This is nuts. "…I guess that kind of covered it?"
"Good." Then she smirks, and looks back at the desk again. "You owe me twenty credits, ashal-veh."
Spock honest-to-gods rolls his eyes and goes back to his computer without a word.
"His money was on you just letting it get progressively awkward on the Bridge until one of us provoked you enough over something," she says, sotto voce.
He sputters indignantly for a few seconds before remembering that yeah, that is kind of his typical MO when it comes to these things, except he's matured a little (just a little) in the past few years.
"I'm not sure whether to be insulted or flattered. Or freaked out, because you two are obviously a little touched in the head, as Scotty would say."
"Judging by this report, he would say something far more verbose and making far less sense," Spock drawls, circling something with his stylus and crossing it out with a very long notation in the margin.
This time, he does laugh, and it feels really, really, good.
Uhura leans forward. "Then if that's all, Captain –"
He holds out a remonstrating hand. "It's not," he says quietly, serious once more. "I think you and I need to talk. Off-the-record if you want, but about how that ended on Platonius."
A flicker of brief rebellion, and then resignation, before she nods. She never has refused to stand up to her decisions, right or wrong; one reason he knows she'll make a better command officer than half the existing ones in the 'Fleet, with less training – if she ever wants it.
"All things considered, you want him to stay here for this?" he asks, nodding toward the desk.
She shakes her head, and he feels something inside ease at the knowledge that maybe, not everything has been ruined. Maybe they've been through enough that trust goes deeper than this mission tried to root out.
"Negative, unless you want to be, Spock."
"I see no need for added discomfort. I will be…in Sickbay, should you require me."
"I'll come find you when I'm done," Jim answers quietly. "I think we should both talk to Bones, you and me. At least, I'd like to."
After a moment's hesitation, Spock nods. "That would be wise, given you were unconscious at the time of debriefing."
"Agreed. I'll comm you when I'm done here."
The door shuts behind his First a moment later, and he turns back to find Uhura watching them pensively.
"What?"
"Mm, nothing. Just pondering how different we all are from years gone by."
"You're so not kidding. Was a time he'd have wanted to kick my ass for even mentioning therapy of some kind. Something about oh my god, relationships are zadik what are you talking about I don't have friends."
"We've grown up, Jim."
"Yeah," he says quietly, a little wistfully. "That's what this job does to you."
"It's not all the job does to you," she replies darkly, fidgeting with a long, painted fingernail. "So talk away, Captain. I screwed up. We both know that."
He leans back, waving a hand between them. "We also both were under the influence of something that distorted our perception of reality. There's not a court in the 'Fleet who'd convict us for anything we did in that time, so just scuttle that. It's not really what I care about. Frankly, I'd just as soon see Parmen dead for what he did to you and Spock."
"And you."
"It's worse for Spock, don't tell me it isn't."
"He also has Vulcan ways of healing from mental trauma, and he has me. And, he's not the one who ended up in surgery for six hours."
"It's not a contest, Nyota."
"You freaking coded on the table, Jim. Shut the hell up."
Okay, that's…news to him. Bones should have told him.
"I…didn't know that. And I'm sorry for scaring you."
"Your BP dropped through the floor because you had to stop me from killing that – " She exhales slowly, fingers unclenching from the armrests of the chair. "So just – don't. I deserve a written report in my file for reckless endangerment."
"Yeah, that's not happening. If I did that every time it was technically true I wouldn't have a crew. I mean, Chekov almost killed me the other day in the holodeck when he ran my ski simulator into a tree. So chill."
Her eyes widen slightly. "You told –"
"And if you tell Bones anything different, I will put a report in your file. Poor kid was freaked enough, he didn't need that on top of everything else." He waves a hand in dismissal. "Anyway. I couldn't care less that you choked the dude."
"Then…"
"What I do care about, is the fact that you almost got yourself killed before the plan got implemented, goading a man who was clearly insane. Your skills at reading people are better than anyone else's on this ship; that's not like you. So what gives?"
She looks briefly surprised, as if not expecting him to pick up on or say any of that, and then seems to relax once it's clear this isn't a censure. "Simple enough, Captain. Parmen had made it clear after you were taken from the room that his original plans for the evening involved…shall we say, re-enacting certain Greek works of literature for the purpose of his own entertainment," she says calmly.
His blood starts boiling as if the kironide were only dormant and rebirthing like a phoenix.
"Given the subject matter and his ridiculously graphic description of what he intended to puppeteer, Leonard and I both didn't think it would be difficult to deliver the hypo of kironide to you. The dose he gave me, we hoped was enough to let me resist the mind-control until it really kicked in, letting me control my own actions at least long enough to stab you with the hypo. Overall, it was the most logical move."
"I should have let you kill him."
She shrugs. "We were fairly certain it would take effect before too much could happen. And we're trained for this kind of situation just as much as the male officers, Jim. It isn't pretty, but it's part of the Covert Operations module for every cadet."
"Yes, but you're not trained for…gods, what would you have done if it hadn't worked."
"Stop thinking about it. What actually happened, is that he apparently changed his plans. We weren't expecting him to offer me sanctuary on the planet, but apparently my 'warrior's spirit' after I damaged one of his guards who tried to undress me for that ridiculous costume bought me 'good favor.' Apparently that armor was just for show, by the way, no protection where they really, really needed it."
He tries to laugh, but doesn't quite make it because he feels sick, knowing this was happening while he was sitting helpless. Knowing what would have happened, if a combination of bravery and sheer good luck hadn't intervened.
"We weren't expecting the change of plans, so I had to provoke Parmen into shoving me back into the drama. The hypo was already hidden in my sleeve, and with each minute that passed there was a bigger chance he'd find it or I'd lose my grip on it, that stupid dress was so slippery."
He sighs, leans forward wearily with his elbows on his knees, and drags his hands down his face. "I commend your quick thinking, but it wouldn't have done any good if he'd killed you. I almost lost all three of you on that stupid planet, Nyota. We got lucky."
"We make our own luck, Jim. You yourself said that to us all, years ago." He looks up, and for a minute she looks decades older, wiser – maybe they all do, maybe they all are, mentally at least. This business will do that. "We learn from our mistakes so that we don't repeat them, and then they become experience; and we make our own luck. The two rules of uncharted space."
"So you do listen in briefings."
"When you're not boring people to tears, yes." She kicks his ankle playfully. "Seriously, stop the angsting. You're going to go gray before you're thirty-five."
He scowls. "Very funny."
"You know there's no secrets on this ship, the minute you request hair color from SS&R the game's totally going to be up."
"Thin ice, Lieutenant. Thin. Ice."
"Wait, is that why you stopped doing the comb-over thing a year ago?"
"I will demote you to Waste Recycling, I swear."
"Oh, this is hilarious."
"Gamma shift. In Waste Recycling."
"Please. Your comms board would be a worse mess than Starbase Seventeen at the height of the shipping cycles."
"That it would. You and Scotty, you have job security on this ship." He makes a conceding gesture and brushes his uniform off, standing. "However."
"Sir?" The switch back into their official roles is so instantaneous, it should be weird, but somehow it isn't, after all this time.
"Not every officer would have been able to pull off what you did on that planet, knowing the risks and willing to take them," he says quietly. "Don't think I don't recognize the enormity of that, even if it's not in the official reports. Spock did one hell of a redaction on that thing to prevent a further investigation, which also means you'll never be fully recognized for your part in it. For that, I'm sorry."
She inclines her head in graceful acknowledgment.
"Also, for and on the record. I'm going to reiterate what I said six months ago. You need to consider command training."
"I don't –"
"Have any desire to captain a starship, yes I know, Lieutenant. It has nothing to do with that." He gestures in the direction of Spock's desk. "Spock says he never wants to captain either, but it's important he has the qualifications if needed. You need to advance your career to your full potential, and that potential? Is far beyond sitting on a starship Bridge answering the comm."
She looks at him for a second, as if trying to gauge his sincerity.
"Command training will develop the strategic and tactical skills you definitely have but never have opportunity to use in Communications, Lieutenant. And the next time, if we don't make our own luck, those skills in making decisions could save your life. And ours. I will not have an officer aboard this vessel who has no desire to continually better themselves, not when that could save lives."
"I'll consider the logistics of it in relation to my current duties. Sir."
"Fair enough." He offers her a brief smile and then leaves, oddly unsettled. While the conversation had gone well, he has the sinking feeling he's just opened a door, maybe a floodgate, that he could very well come to regret.
Nothing lasts forever.
Zadik - Vulcan word for forbidden
Any elements you recognize from Plato's Stepchildren belong to Paramount, not me, though to my knowledge I've not directly quoted anything, only stolen names and plot points.