AN: I don't own 'em, I just like to play with 'em.
"I may throw up on you," the man who dropped into the seat next to her said. Jamie looked at him and chuckled, he can't be serious.
"These things are pretty safe," she said to him.
He rolled his eyes, "Don't pander to me kid, one tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. A solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats, and while you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence."
Kid? She couldn't be that much younger than him, five or six years, tops. Jamie thought her view on the universe was screwed up –it wasn't, she's seen some shit– until this scruffy, yet very hot, doctor plopped down in the seat next to her after Captain Pike's flight officer pulled him from the tiny bathroom. He has some major issues with space if that's how he viewed a quick hop from Iowa to California.
"Well I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space," Jamie replied. She wasn't sure why she was having a conversation with him, if he couldn't even ride in a shuttle, he won't last long at Starfleet Academy.
He didn't disappoint, "Yeah, well... I've got nowhere else to go, the ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I've got left is my bones."
Jamie could understand feeling lost, hell; her whole life was an exercise on how to go places without getting anywhere. She knew that she used to have a direction but she lost it somewhere fighting against Kodos' crazy. It wasn't until Captain Pike showed up and issued a challenge, "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's and yours. I dare you to do better," that she had a way to go.
She hated that he had her pegged, they only talked to each other on rare occasions; Jamie was sure that it was because he found her on Tarsus and felt guilty that George Kirk's kid was there. She knew that she'd follow her father one day, no point in putting it off any longer, everyone was expecting her to join Starfleet years ago. She had always scoffed at the idea because she knew that she was about the spend the next few years being compared to two people she didn't really know. It wasn't going to be easy but Jamie was never one to turn down a challenge and Pike knew it.
"Well, that sucks. Jamie Kirk," she introduced herself.
The guy looked at her, "McCoy. Leonard McCoy." He didn't seem like a Leonard, she was gonna have to think up a nickname for him.
They talked to each other the whole way to Starfleet HQ. Jamie thought up random stuff to talk about, she didn't want to be covered in his puke and keeping him distracted seemed to work.
"Look, San Fran." One of the random cadets said from Leo's –not sure 'bout that one- opposite side. If he could've been paler, he would've been.
"It's ok, take a deep breath. We're almost docked and then you'll be on the immovable ground." Jamie reached over and took his hand, "you got this, Leonard. Tell me about being a doctor." Jamie listened as he rattled on about his work as a surgeon and how he did research on different illnesses.
After they docked and disembarked, they both went with Pike. There was paperwork to fill out and gear to get, neither of them seemed to have much. Everything Jamie owned was in a small bag slung over her shoulder and from what she learned so far about Len -maybe- he was in the same boat. Pike took them to the administration building, they ended up sitting side by side when their turns rolled around. They weren't the only students picking up this late, but they seemed to be the oldest.
"Permanent address?" the administration officer asked.
Jamie shook her head, "Don't have one."
The officer looked at her like she was crazy, "I mean your address before joining Starfleet."
Jamie nodded, "I understood the question. I don't have one, I was staying with a friend and I don't have any living relatives." What she said seemed to have caught the attention of half the room. Captain Pike rattled off an address at the officer that Jamie didn't recognize, if she had to guess, it was his place. She mouthed her thanks to him before she continued to answer the rest of the officers questions. They put her, Leonard and the others in a room to take an exam.
Usually, it took days to get into the academy, a mess of tests, physicals and psych evaluations; they were having everything crammed into less than twelve hours. Her advantage –and Leonard's- was that they already had degrees, she blew through her test in a few hours and he wasn't too far behind her. The trip to medical was uneventful thanks to half her medical record being classified. She was checked out and then sent to the shrink. When all was said and done, she ended up standing with Leonard in the Quartermaster's office; which was more like a warehouse. They were issued uniforms, PADDs, communication units, and dorm rooms.
"Can I room with you, doc? I know they'll probably let you have a solo but if they stick me in a room with one of these squeaky clean kids, I will hurt somebody. I'm neat, I can cook and I'll stay out of your way," Jamie looked at him and practically begged.
Leonard gave her a sideways look, as the quartermaster was assigning him a room, "I can go in a double, the kid will room with me." He gestured towards Jamie.
Whatever the guy was gonna say was cut off by Pike, "Put them together in Hernandez Hall." Jamie didn't even see him show up, they were going to have a conversation about all this eventually.
Pike handed her a credit chit, "You two, get some civvies and anything else you might need. And no, kid, you can't pay me back."