"Go, so you can hurry back."

Jamie chuckled at him, "I'll be back in no time. You won't even notice that I'm gone."

Their training cruise was over and they had been back on the ground for a few months. They were going on another one in February, until then, they had classes to take. Jamie was assigned to be Pike's teaching assistant this year and she agreed to work on the ship gave her something to do while Bones worked on his neural grafting project, from what she could tell, he was making progress. Pike, Jamie, Uhura and Lieutenant Commander Spock were going to be in Riverside for a few days before everyone went on Winter –Christmas- Break. Uhura was working with the communications department on the comm relay system and Jamie would be working on the weapons systems, they were rooming together.

"I always notice, darlin'. Go, before I make you late, I'm running out of reasons not to pull that uniform off your body."

Jamie smiled and kissed him, "Time for me to go work on our next big adventure."

He rolled his eyes, "You really think we'll be on the Enterprise?"

She nodded as she walked out the door, "Awesome crew for an awesome ship."

She sat next to Uhura on the shuttle, "Well?"

Uhura looked at her, "Well what?" Jamie glanced at Spock and back at Uhura. The linguist shook her head and shrugged.

"Doesn't even notice." Jamie watched him for a few minutes, he was hard to read but not impossible. She saw his lip twitch, he noticed, but if Jamie had to guess, he was a stickler for regulations.

"Give it time, Ny," she whispered to her friend.

Jamie felt like she won the lottery when Uhura came to her on the Republic, "You can call me Nyota." They sat down and Uhura explained that she thought that even though Jamie was smart, she didn't care about others and used her father's name to get what she wanted. Now that Jamie spilled about part of her childhood, Uhura knew that wasn't the case and felt bad that she made that kind of judgment without any real reason. They both glanced at the Vulcan sitting across from them; it was going to be a long three days.

They got to Riverside and after a quick change of clothes, both women got to work, Jamie found herself with Spock. "Do you see the issue, Cadet?"

She nodded, "Yes sir. We'll need to reroute this if we want it to maintain power levels. Permission to speak freely, sir?" They were both under a panel and he had grease on his face. He nodded.

"The person in charge dropped the ball. It's lucky that you and I are both proficient in engineering so that we can fix the issues we've found so far but, all of this shouldn't be necessary."

Jamie and Spock were working on the coding for the phaser banks and everything they've attempted to do required them to fix something else first. Taking out the first panel was annoying but this was getting ridiculous. Once or twice is normal, but they were at two dozen manual repairs and counting.

"I wonder if Uhura is having this issue too," she said to him. Spock reached for his communicator, comm'ed Uhura and asked that if she was having similar problems with the communications system.

"Yes sir, we are. It's like someone tossed the coding together and hoped it would work," Ny said over comm.

"Understood, Cadet. This issue appears to be greater than Cadet Kirk and I initially assessed as well. We will contact Captain Pike and select a new course of action based on our current observations." Uhura told him that her team would meet them in the yard manager's office. Jamie pulled herself from under the panel and followed Spock. They met Captain Pike at the bottom of the ramp.

"Jamie Kirk, as I live and breathe." It was a voice that she hadn't heard in a long time.

She turned and smiled, "Hi, Frank."

"What are you doing back in my neck of the woods, you hate Riverside?" he asked as he gave her a hug.

She smirked, "Working on the Enterprise. This is Lieutenant Commander Spock and you know Captain Pike. Commander, this is Frank, my former step-dad." He said hello to everyone before finding out what was going on as the small group headed to the yard manager's office.

He looked at the three of them, "The Project Manager for your ship is a real piece of work. He's fleet but only barely, I think he's avoided being kicked out by sheer luck. Name's Lieutenant Ramsey. If he can get it done fast and cheap, he'll do it. A few of us filed grievances but Starfleet always sided with him, maybe you'll have better luck, it's time the yard manager did something about that guy. I don't know how he thought nobody would notice something as major as the computer systems."

Jamie nodded, "That explains a lot. The system is a mess, my nephew has better coding skills and he's four."

Frank smiled, "So, little George is doing good?"

Pike chuckled, "He's not little anymore." Jamie pulled up a holo on her PADD of her with Sam, Aury and the boys, Bones took it during break.

"He's a research biologist, it's Doctor George Kirk now. His wife works in the lab too. Peter is four, my mini-me. Alexander will be one in May," she told her step-dad.

"What about you? You have a family, someone special?" She nodded and swiped to the next holo, it was her with Bones and Joanna in Georgia.

"Leonard and Joanna. She's not mine, before you ask, but I love her just the same. Len's fleet too, he's a surgeon."

Frank smiled, "You look happy, that's enough for me, kid." He nodded to the yard manager's office, "Here you guys are. Don't be a stranger, Jamie. You need anything else, let me know." He squeezed her shoulder and made his way back to the project he was working on.

"He looks a lot better than the last time I saw him," Pike said from next to her and she nodded.

"Well, he was on a lot of pain medication."

Frank's injury was brutal and he self-medicated. He never took it out on her but he needed help and an eleven year old wasn't the person to help him. He looked good, better than she thought he would. Spock didn't say anything, Jamie followed his eye-line over to Uhura and the two officers she was working with. That girl was like honey to a bee.

"You aren't her teacher anymore," she whispered. Spock's eyes flickered to Jamie's. "Life is too short to wonder if you should've, could've or would've done something. And Nyota Uhura is not someone you wanna have regrets about. You should go for it... Sir."