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Shining On The Quay, 1/4
-- 1 --
“I am relieved.”
Chris listened hard as he spoke, allowing himself to relax fractionally when he heard nothing but a calm, even tone, the only shadings those of pride and approval directed toward the young man standing in front of him.
He heard nothing of his disappointment at only having had one brief go at the Enterprise, none of the hatred he channeled toward the chair, none of the grief at losing so many--cadets and friends--before he even knew it happened.
His smile was real, too; as genuine as he could make it, and he thought Kirk understood as he stepped away and turned to face the rest of the academy. Chris eased back, the chair moving smoothly under him, and let the Enterprise's new captain take the moment.
Chris remembered the bar from his own Academy days. The more he looked, the more he was sure nothing had changed; if anything, the place looked even grungier than it had then. It was packed so full it was hard to judge, though. The bouncers at the front door let his group in without a second glance--clearly Ensign Colt, his newly assigned aide, was in possession of advance planning skills that also extended to discreet bribery. Until now, she had registered on Chris's radar mostly for her stellar record at the Academy and the fact that she apparently had no issues with her assignment. Chris was going to have to pay closer attention to the woman; there was no telling how useful she might end up being while he was in recovery from the next round of surgeries.
“Hell of a party,” Leonard McCoy shouted, still only barely audible over the solid wall of sound in the room. His eyes swept over Chris and and the bloody entourage Chris traveled with these days, thanks to the the ongoing medical crap. McCoy's look was sharp and knowing, despite the slightly rumpled look to his uniform and the glass of liquor in his hand. “I was beginning to think you weren't gonna show.”
“The effort involved in getting anywhere that's not a hospital is … somewhat ridiculous,” Chris answered.
“Damned glad to see you're making it,” McCoy said, handing Chris his glass and waving at the bartender for another. It proved to be single-barrel bourbon, if Chris was any judge (which he was): aged to perfection and as smooth as silk going down.
“Sir--” Lt. Andrews, the charge nurse for Chris's case, objected, and Chris resigned himself to handing over the glass.
“Doctor's orders,” McCoy interrupted without hesitation, and Andrews, all six-two of him, subsided without another murmur. McCoy leaned closer to Chris, establishing at least an illusion of privacy. “I took the liberty of checking your chart--being the first doctor to sink his claws into you has some ongoing privileges--and nothing they've got you on is gonna take offense to a little of Tennessee's finest.”
McCoy took the glass the bartender slid down the bar to him and raised it.
“Outstanding,” Chris answered, tapping his own glass against it and meeting McCoy's smile.
It was a hell of a party, fitting with the strange circumstances. Front and center, a wiry man wearing Engineering colors had the crowd yelling and singing along to one of the more cheerfully obscene songs Chris could ever remember hearing one minute and leading them in quiet, reflective ballads to honor those who never came back from Vulcan the next. Chris made sure he was tucked back out of the way--it wasn't his party--but word filtered out that he was there, and a quiet, steady stream of people found their way to his corner. His people, for the most part; the ones he'd interviewed and hand-picked for the Enterprise, but also cadets who'd filled in the skeleton crew, for whom he couldn't be more than a name on a duty roster.
As the night wore on and Chris nursed his bourbon--no need to push his luck, not with the next round of surgery scheduled in less than a week--he came to realize he knew almost every face. Kirk had made a few changes; had filled in for those they'd lost, but even then, Chris recognized them. He approved of the choices, all of them, right down the line--even the ones he wouldn't have made himself, because he could see how they'd fit better with a team led by Kirk.
The sheer number of people started to wear Chris down after a while. His strength was up tenfold from where he'd been on the long trip back to Earth after the final confrontation with the Narada, but that wasn't saying much. Lt. Andrews was good with the tricorder--half the time, Chris never even noticed him scanning vitals--but he made a point of hauling it out as they discussed whether Chris needed to call it a night. Andrews was leaning hard toward yes, but Chris proposed a compromise of a little air and relative quiet.
As much as Chris hated the constant monitoring, it wasn't Andrews's fault. Chris reminded himself a thousand times a day that it was what it was; that nothing about serving the Federation came with a guarantee; that space and all its spectacular rewards had never been without considerable risk. He acknowledged that he'd never thought he'd care if the risks became reality because he assumed he'd be dead, but then the universe always did have a strange sense of humor--and so here he was, allowing a highly trained, exceedingly specialized medical professional to decide if his central nervous system could handle another hour of sitting and watching life go by.
“Looks good, sir,” Andrews said, squinting ever so slightly at the rapidly scrolling charts. “No medical reason to return to Base.” He sounded vaguely aggrieved, as though the tricorder had betrayed him with the steady readings.
“It's the bourbon,” Chris told him. “I'm sure Dr. McCoy would back me up on that.” Andrews sighed, a long-suffering look on his face, and then winced as an over-enthusiastic conversation, one punctuated by waving arms, sent a pyramid of shot glasses crashing down onto the bar, people jumping back to avoid being splashed with the virulently blue Andorian ale they'd contained. Chris bit back a grin and maneuvered the chair out of his protected corner and out into the small side yard that adjoined the main building.
The sudden drop in noise was welcome, as was the cooler temperature, but Chris got the biggest boost from not having to be on. Out here in the night, he could breathe and shift around to try to get a little more comfortable in the chair and no one would take it as a sign of... boredom, weakness, unusually rapid healing, unusually slow healing--whatever they wanted to read into it. Even Andrews's fussing, as unobtrusive as it was, was easier to take without an audience.
“Ten minutes,” Chris said, a compromise between the quieter surroundings and the ever-present night chill; Andrews nodded and tapped his PADD to start the clock. It used to be that Chris had a near-perfect grasp of time passing, but one of the lingering effects of his time on the Narada--no one was sure if it was caused by the neurotoxins themselves or the psychological stresses of extended torture--was that he couldn't judge time worth shit now. Of all the side-effects, it was laughably minor, but also one of the most aggravating. Andrews never commented on it, simply set timers and clocks and made sure Chris always had some frame of reference. Chris wasn't sure if he was more grateful for the man's actions or his steadfast refusal to make an issue of it.
Andrews had just said, “Time, sir,” when the door banged open, and two breathless, staggering shadows slipped out onto the flagstones. Chris didn't mean to pry, but they were making no effort to keep their voices down, and it was easy to identify them.
“Bones. Bones, shit, is the world spinning for you?” Kirk groaned. “It's goin' like a top for me.”
“Yeah?” McCoy answered, with the dry affection Chris had come to know well on the trip back to Earth. “Imagine that--you've only been drinking with that baby-faced Russian for an hour.”
“Fuck, he said it was vodka, but holy shit, am I wasted.” Kirk had his arm around McCoy's shoulders; Chris was fairly certain it was the only reason he was still standing. “Stay with me for a couple of minutes. Let me get my bearings. Captains aren't supposed to be like this.”
“Now you're gonna worry about what captains are supposed to be like?”
“Shut up, Bones. Show some respect.”
“Here, shift over.” McCoy got Kirk down and sitting on a low stone wall. ”I could probably find something to perk you up.”
“Oh, god, you're gonna jab me, aren't you?”
“Only if you ask me nicely,” McCoy said dryly as he fumbled through a small medbag. He produced a hypospray and had it up against Kirk's neck before he could get away.
“Ow, shit, why do your cures always hurt?”
“Quit your whining and let that stim get through your system.”
It got quiet; Chris should leave, or at least move forward to let them know he was there in the shadows, but Kirk was talking again, low and not sounding anything close to as drunk as he had been.
“I couldn't not drink, Bones.”
“I know.”
“Can't refuse a drink in honor of the ones who died on your watch.”
Chris's hand tightened so hard around his glass of bourbon he was surprised it didn't shatter.
“You're not doing too bad, you know?”
“With what? This?” Kirk gestured toward the hypospray and then grabbed for McCoy when even that overbalanced him. “'Cause, Bones, I know it's practically a cliché with us, but I might throw up on you.”
“Last time I looked the whiz kid had Scotty on the floor. I'd say you're holding your own with the booze. I wasn't talkin' about that. I was talkin' about--”
“Yeah,” Kirk sighed. It was quiet again for a few seconds. “Thanks, Bones.”
“You're welcome, Jim.”
“No, really. Thanks. All those people… They gave me the Enterprise and all those people were there; it meant something to look out and see you.”
“God, you're a maudlin drunk. How did I not know that?” McCoy's voice was gentle for all that he was shaking his head in dismay. Kirk flapped his hand again and let McCoy haul him to his feet.
“You know what he told me?” They'd gotten almost to the door again when Kirk spoke. “Spock. Not the Spock inside, the other one. He told me my dad saw me take command. You know, in his world.”
“He couldn't have been more proud of you there than here,” McCoy said quietly. He slanted a glance sideways that met Chris's without hesitation, as if to tell Chris he'd known Chris was there the whole time. “Couldn't have been more proud than we are here.”
“Now who's a maudlin drunk?” Kirk pushed the door open, and they dove back in. Chris stayed out in the cool darkness for a few more minutes, but then went back in to be around his people for as long as his body would hold out.
The next round of surgeries didn't go well; Chris didn't need the full briefing to know that. Opening his eyes and seeing Phil Boyce in the chair next to his bed told him everything he needed to know, even before he could really focus enough to see the seriousness in Phil's own eyes.
“I should have known they'd drag you out of retirement to deliver the bad news.” Chris didn't think his voice sounded all that bad, not for having been only marginally conscious for close to a week.
“Perks of having served under you,” Phil answered, and when Chris managed to get enough air to snort disbelievingly, Phil narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”
“Straight up, then.” Chris wasn't sure if he wanted to hear it, but he didn't think he had the option to pass on the truth. At the very least, he trusted Phil with everything he had and better to get the news from him than anyone else.
“They've gotten a handle on it, but there's some kind of mutation going on and it's piggybacking onto everything it can.” Phil paused to let that sink in, then said, “The geniuses out there are in extended discussions, but what it boils down to is the less you do right now, the more they can isolate it and knock it down.”
“Doesn't sound too bad,” Chris said, knowing damn well there was more, or Phil would have let one of the Fleet doctors deliver the news.
“Well,” Phil said. “When they say less, what they really mean is they want you out. Completely. Induced coma.”
“Let them put me under and hope I wake up eventually?” If it had been anyone else, Chris never would have gotten the words out. As it was, they came close to choking him. It was Phil, though, and there were some things a captain could say to his Chief Medical Officer, even after a lot of years had passed. Phil's eyes were steady on his, and Chris took a deep breath. “I don't have a choice, do I?”
“I don't think so, Chris.” Phil's voice was gruff, the way it always got when the news was shit but he couldn't not give it. “Let them do their job. I'll be keeping my eye on them.”
The room had a tall narrow window that let Chris see the Bay when the bed was angled right; he watched the shadows creep across the water as the sun slanted lower and lower. Phil stood nearby and watched it with him.
“Okay,” Chris said, finally, looking at Phil so he'd know Chris was good with it. “Tell them to do it.”
Phil nodded and put his hand on Chris's shoulder for a hard squeeze before he slipped out of the room and turned the rest of them loose. Chris turned his head back to the window and kept his eyes on the Bay until the drugs dragged him under.
Phil was there when he opened his eyes just long enough to hear it'd been a week and a half and they thought it was working. Chris thought he might have nodded before he slid back under, but it might have been a dream. The next time was a little bit less than a week, and the time after that was only a few days. After that, he was awake at least a little every day. Phil was almost always there, but at one point Chris could have sworn he saw Jim Kirk in the plain, old-fashioned chair they kept by his bedside.
They started backing off on the drugs even more as the weeks dragged out; by the middle of the fourth week, when it happened again--Chris waking up to see Kirk asleep in the chair--Chris was coherent enough to lie there and wonder what the hell was going on. Kirk was stretched out with the chair tipped back so he could lean his shoulders against the wall while his feet were propped on another chair. He stirred after a few minutes and saw Chris watching him.
“Do I even want to ask how you got in here?” Chris said, or at least tried to. With as little as he'd been talking lately, it came out more a croak than anything.
Kirk stood and stretched with a touch of that familiar smirk, shifting a PADD off his lap, just as there was a quick tap on the door and Andrews led the usual gaggle of nurses and techs in to supplement their scans with the dozens of subjective questions Chris had to answer himself. Kirk got himself out of the way, and Chris kept himself amused tracing the near-visible shock waves run through the crowd as they ID'ed his visitor.
“Bones talked to Dr. Boyce and got me in the front door," Kirk said once the room was clear. "Andrews told me I could hang out as long as I wanted, but I think he thought I'd be out of his hair in ten minutes once I sat in that chair.” Kirk poked at the offending piece of furniture with his foot. He reached over and picked up the bottle of water they kept around to force-feed Chris when he was awake. As inoffensive and mundane as it was, it symbolized still one more thing Chris had no control over; it was generally one of Chris's least favorite things to see, even this time, when he really could use something to clear the layer of drug-scuzz off his tongue. Kirk asking wordlessly, a quirk of an eyebrow, made all the difference.
“Clearly, he underestimated the years you spent sleeping through lectures in even less comfortable circumstances.”
“Yeah, or I screwed him over somehow and he's on a revenge kick under all that Zen.”
“Could be preemptive,” Chris suggested, and let Kirk take the water bottle back. “Your reputation does tend to precede you.”
“Like a fucking wrecking ball some days,” Kirk muttered, dropping back into the chair with a wince.
“So now that I know how you're here, why don't you tell me why you're here.” It wasn't the most gracious way to greet a visitor... but the restricted access wasn't for medical reasons, per se. Andrews had pushed it through after one too many visits from the Federation had left Chris's heart rate in unacceptable territory according to his standards. Phil had backed him to the hilt; Chris deeply regretted having been unconscious for the show. By all accounts, it had been pretty spectacular, but then, Phil always had loved chewing out idiots.
“What? I can't be here to show a little solidarity?” Kirk waited to see if Chris was going to bite but didn't seem too upset when he didn't, waiting only a moment before admitting, “If I'm here, everybody's too busy gossiping about that to get their panties in a twist if I take an extra hour to sign whatever crap absolutely has to be finalized this minute.”
“They never tell you about the paperwork,” Chris said. “Better learn how to sign in your sleep, or you'll always be a month behind.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Kirk said, as the door opened and one last tech, an ensign by his collar, came in with yet another round of questions. He was painfully young, obviously new to the job, but he ran through his list quickly and with no hesitation. It was going to take a long time before Chris stopped thinking about seven starships of cadets and the pitiful handful who came back, and he thought he saw a flash of the same thing in Kirk's eyes.
“It's quiet here,” Kirk said, after the young ensign had left. “Gives me a chance to breathe in between everybody telling me for the thousandth time how much trust the Federation's showing me.” He picked up what Chris had assumed was a second PADD; upon closer inspection, it proved to be a bound paper book, an antique that Kirk handled with easy familiarity. “Normally, I just sit in here and read until someone throws me out.”
The laugh caught Chris by surprise; it had been long months of grim test results and even grimmer prognoses, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually laughed. It came out a little rusty, but felt good anyway. “Jim Kirk, closet reader of the classics--I'm not sure what exactly I should do with that information,” he said, in response to Kirk's raised eyebrow. “I'm sure somebody would pay good money for it, but I'm not sure where to start.”
“Play your cards right and you could get a bidding war going,” Kirk said. “The Fleet crowd that's stroking out about me and the Enterprise would probably give you half the city to keep it quiet.”
“That might be worth it, just to watch them choke on having to talk to me,” Chris mused, smiling without any real pleasure at the expression on Kirk's face. “What? You didn't actually think they'd appreciate my not dying after giving up those codes, did you?”
Kirk's smirk faded into something grim. “That's the problem with Starfleet right there--too many rear-echelon admirals with no idea of what it's like out there, and it's not going to get any less messy now. You'd think they'd--” Kirk stopped abruptly; taking a deep breath, he shrugged and nodded toward the bank of screens monitoring Chris's existence. “Sorry,” he sighed. “I didn't mean to rant at you.”
Chris was happy to note that every reading was still within the acceptable range, but he... just couldn't find the energy to get into a detailed analysis of Starfleet command. He should--he'd always encouraged his junior officers to speak freely, to acknowledge the political reality of a closed system like the Council and how it affected their careers and lives--and a stubborn part of him insisted he was taking the coward's way out, but the rest of him was willing to let Kirk use the medical crap as an excuse. Just this once.
The silence that fell wasn't quite easy, but Kirk leaned back and held up the book. “Yeah, so if you were thinking about supplementing your pay, now's your chance.”
“If I'm going to make this sale of information convincing, I'll need details,” Chris said, more than a little surprised to find himself playing along. He gestured for Kirk to hand over the book. “The Last of the Mohicans?”
“It's a classic,” Kirk answered, mildly. “Maybe a little stiff, but still, 'One shot, one kill'… It's hard to beat if you like that kind of thing.”
“I'll take your word for it,” Chris said, handing the book back. “Never even downloaded the file.”
“You're kidding,” Kirk said. “You've never read it? You're not just, you know, losing things from whatever those slugs did to you?”
“Given that I'd do--and did--just about anything to get out of a lit class, I can pretty much guarantee Nero's not responsible for my not having read your darling.” Chris was tempted to note the stardate; not only had he laughed, he'd voluntarily made a joke. About Nero.
“Wait, wait, I'm having a moment here,” Kirk snickered. “Christopher Pike, captain of the flagship, skipping out of class? Another idol bites the dust.”
“Former captain,” Chris said, ignoring the 'idol' part. “And I'm sure you'll recover.” He was enjoying the interaction--he didn't have so many personal visitors that the novelty of actually having a conversation had begun to pall--but the after-effects from the drug therapies, to say nothing of the surgeries, were still kicking his ass. Ten minutes of excitement was about his limit. He laid his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes for a couple of deep breaths.
“Thanks for the hiding place, but I'll clear out and let you rest now,” Kirk said, and when Chris opened his eyes, the other man was on his feet, reaching for the heavy tunic slung over the back of the chair.
“Did I miss somebody throwing you out?” Chris waited until Kirk shrugged, then closed his eyes again. “Don't leave on my account.”
“Nah, I'm not that scared of the paperwork.”
“Stay, Kirk.” Chris actually didn't mean for it to come out like an order, but he could always blame his loss of control on Nero's toxins. “Me having a visitor will make the psych and empath teams happy.”
“I live to serve,” Kirk said after a few seconds, and Chris could hear him settling back in the chair.
“Sorry,” Chris sighed. “I'm not particularly good at this whole healing thing.”
“Really?” Kirk sounded more like himself. “I never would have guessed.”
“Smart ass,” Chris muttered.
“Reporting for duty, sir.”
Chris knew if he opened his eyes he'd be looking at a familiar, maddening smirk; his own mouth quirked up in response. “Ignore me and my moods. Just… go back to your book.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Lie here and keep my heart rate in an acceptable range so the ridiculous number of personnel assigned to my case don't come flooding in to knock me back out.” Chris shifted into a more comfortable position. “Given that I'm not quite clear of the--and I quote--advanced neural degeneration acceleration due to the toxins and the limitations of the synthetic simulacrums in predicting the full effects of the thus-far-undiscovered natural mutagens, they like it better when I'm not moving around much.”
Kirk flicked his eyes around the small room, eyeing it critically. Chris smiled. If it was a little on the grim side, he didn't think Kirk would blame him. “From the barely restrained excitement, I gather that I'm the mother lode of an ongoing research project.”
“Awesome,” Kirk said, with an impressive amount of sarcasm, even by his own standards.
“I'm less excited about it,” Chris said, dryly. “They do a hell of a drug cocktail when they get going, though. I don't even dream.”
“That explains the quality vegetative state you've got going,” Kirk said. “Seriously, you were more with it when I got to you on the Narada than you've been the last few weeks.”
“It's a theory,” Chris said, shrugging. “I think it's working, but you'd have to check with the medical team to be sure. Other than being bored out of my mind from either being asleep or being forced to watch what passes for standard entertainment, it's not that bad. You carrying on a conversation with me is more excitement than I've had in a month.”
“Maybe we could ramp it up a little.”
“Kirk--”
“Relax, Pike. I'm not going to do anything that'll have Lt. Andrews coming down on my ass.” Kirk paused. “Well, not that way. And,” he sighed. “Probably not the other way either.”
Chris couldn't help his snort at the semi-regretful tone of Kirk's words. “Please, don't let my medical condition stand in the way of your social life, Captain.”
“Nah, I am so not his type,” Kirk said. “And contrary to public opinion, I actually can deal with that, so I'm just going to get on with the plan, which is to sit here and read, like you suggested--only out loud, because your brain is gonna be leaking out your ears pretty soon if all you're doing is watching standard entertainment and sleeping. Besides, we wouldn't want it to get around that our senior officers are lacking in the basics of a classical education, would we?”
“I've seen your records,” Chris muttered. “Lacking in the basics is one way of putting it.”
“Think of it like a non-pharmaceutical sleeping aid,” Kirk suggested, opening the book and flipping to the front.
“You don't have to start over,” Chris said. “It's not going to make a difference to me.”
“Yeah, well, this is the second book, so I'm not really starting at the beginning.” Kirk smiled at him, and Chris was reminded of all the instructor evals he'd had forwarded to him, which all basically said the same thing: brilliant cadet, serious attitude. “Trust me, you'll love it even if you are a captive audience.”
“Really,” Chris said through gritted teeth, a little amazed at the man's sheer audacity. Chris was not accustomed to being ignored. “Don't go to any trouble on my account. We could talk--you could bring me up to speed on the latest events.”
“Yeah, like sitting here and getting into the clusterfuck that's currently going on in deep space is going to keep your heart rate acceptable,” Kirk said. “Not that I'm admitting to anything like an irrational fear, but Dr. Boyce holding Lt. Andrews's leash scares the crap out of me. Book it is.”
“Fine,” Chris snapped, not willing to examine too closely why he didn't just run Kirk out of the room. He wouldn't even have to do it himself; one tap on the communicator and his very own attack nurse would take care of everything.
“Terrific,” Kirk said, still with the smile, and sounding every bit as annoyed as Chris. He took a deep breath, though, and dropped his eyes down to the book in his lap. “'It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests…'“
“Aw, c'mon, Admiral, don't tell me you were trying to hide from me.”
Chris looked up from the flurry of actually getting the hell off the ICU and into a regular room, and grinned at the familiar form lounging just inside the door.
“That's what happens when you don't show up for a week. You miss the geniuses figuring out the last piece of the puzzle,” Chris said. “For which I'm supremely grateful,” he added, to the crowd in the room at large.
“Yeah? They got all the crap cleared out?” Kirk smiled--a real one, not his usual smirk. “Andrews isn't going to know what to do without having to run interference for you.”
“You mean other than getting actual work done?” Chris asked. Kirk stepped out of the way to let the last of the techs leave, and then dragged a chair up to Chris's bed. “He may never forgive me for turning him into a glorified guard dog.”
“Well, there's that,” Kirk said, settling himself in the chair, his hands empty for the first time that Chris could remember.
“What?” Chris arched an eyebrow. “Nothing new in the war to persuade me that my lost appreciation for the classics is misguided and tragic?” Chris had grown used to waking from the drugged sleep at least three times a week to find Kirk in his room, book in hand. Chris had bitched every time; Kirk had continued to ignore him, and somehow Chris ended up listening to the entire book.
“Oh, there's plenty more where that came from,” Kirk assured him. “It was good timing that we finished it, though.”
“The rework's done?” Chris sat up, finally catching on to the undercurrent of excitement Kirk carried with him. The Enterprise had been in spacedock for nearly a third of a standard year, repairing the structural damage inflicted by the Narada and the black hole Nero had become. It had given Kirk time to start sorting through what it meant to be in command, but it had dragged on long enough to make everyone half-crazy.
“The last inspection was this morning. She's cleared for active duty.” Kirk usually lounged in whatever chair he commandeered; today he was a bundle of barely contained energy. He took a deep breath and added, “We're cleared for the shakedown cruise as soon as we can get everyone on board.”
Chris nodded thoughtfully. “First officer?”
Kirk shook his head. “Not yet. I can go without one for this, but…”
“It's a big decision--”
“No, I'm sure. I'm waiting for him,” Kirk said, and Chris took a not-insignificant amount of satisfaction in the certainty under the quiet tone. Spock had visited--not as often as Kirk, but more than once. He didn't discuss his personal business, and it wasn't something Chris would push, but Kirk's determination would count for a lot in Spock's decision-making process, Chris was sure.
“You're the captain,” Chris said, as much as a reminder as an affirmation. Kirk nodded once, and Chris let him change the subject.
The Enterprise left on her shakedown cruise four days later, and Chris was transferred to the Fleet rehab facility on the same day. It was earlier than anyone had been willing to commit to, which was a plus, but the effort it took to shift his legs a couple of inches wore him out. He insisted on three-a-day physical therapy sessions, which left him doing little more than sleeping and eating when he wasn't on the mats or in a pool. He ran through physical therapists like they were cannon fodder, but then somebody got smart and Lt. Commander Honoria Parker walked into his room, barely five feet tall in the clogs all the PTs wore.
“Admiral, sir, I've heard you go for plain speaking, so I'll cut through the crap.” She looked him up and down, a mixture of annoyance and challenge. “Why exactly do you feel the need to walk again so badly that you're willing to chew up my staff? Because if it's some kind of residual cowboy crap, I can recommend an excellent psych team to work through it with you, and I can get my team back to helping everybody else.”
Chris's first instinct was to throw her out, but she was the first person who had looked at him with something other than a toxic mixture of pity and hero-worship.
“One good reason,” she said, stepping further inside and closing the door behind her. “A specific, concrete goal and I'll have you assigned to my rotation and I'll see to your rehab personally.”
Chris returned her look with one of his own; to be precise, the one that had been known to clear the bridge of a starship in ten seconds flat. She didn't flinch.
“Three hundred acres outside Mojave, most of which I haven't even seen yet, and almost none of which is going to be accessible unless I go in on foot or horseback.” Chris let himself think about the plans he'd had for exactly five seconds, and then shoved them back in their neatly labeled box so he wouldn't go crazy with the what-ifs. “My ship, the one I watched over from the time she was nothing but a plastic mock-up--I gave her away already, but that doesn't mean there won't be another one someday.”
He had to stop for a second, but his voice was still rock-solid when he said, “That's two; do you want more?”
“No, you're fine.” She nodded once and left the room, and the next morning she was the one who met him on the mats.
“I can't give you any guarantees,” she said by way of greeting. “And you're going to hate me before this is over.”
“I'm not looking for any, and I'm fairly sure the feeling's going to be mutual,” Chris answered, and they got down to it. She was right; by the end of every session he could have shot her at point-blank range, but every day, every hour he could see the increase in his strength even when he couldn't feel it, and there was no way he was spending the rest of his life in that chair, not without giving everything he had to getting out of it.
At Parker's insistence he dropped back to two PT sessions a day, with one day a week completely off, but only because she worked him more ruthlessly than anyone else had ever dreamed of and he could barely function even with the reduced schedule. On his day off, he generally counted it as a win if he managed to get himself into a shower. For the rest of the day he made an effort to catch up with the world outside the rehab facility. Given his schedule, he didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt that his news crawl prioritized all mentions of the Enterprise and her crew over the continuing knife's-edge diplomatic dance with the Romulans or updates on the resettlement of the Vulcan survivors.
Chris knew to the minute when the Enterprise came back from her shakedown cruise. He allowed himself the indulgence of watching and rewatching the footage of her docking at Starbase 1, Mr. Sulu taking her in with a gentle precision that Chris felt in his bones.
It was still a surprise to answer the comm unit a week later to find Jim Kirk on the other end, juggling an armful of bags, with a flurry of activity around the edges of the frame that suggested not even the rehab staff was immune to the Golden Boy aura. Chris buzzed him in.
He'd finally worked it out: Kirk was always around, visiting Chris, because that was what good captains did when their people were tied down to hospital beds. It was what every captain Chris had emulated in his career did; it was what he himself did. It was what he'd expect Kirk to do; he just hadn't quite realized he fell under Kirk's definition of his people.
“They, uh, said it was your day off,” Kirk said, as he shouldered open the door to Chris's suite.
“Do I even want to know who your spies are?” Chris motioned to the small table that was supposedly for eating but, since he usually just downed a protein supplement and collapsed into bed, generally served as his desk. The bags and carriers proved to be packed full of containers from restaurants across the city.
Chris felt his eyebrows go up at just how many different cuisines Kirk had assembled. The kid must have spent half the day running from place to place. “I didn't know what you liked. Or, y'know, if there was stuff you couldn't--Anyway. I got a lot of stuff.”
“You didn't have to go to all this trouble on my account,” Chris said. “Food and I aren't the best of friends these days.”
“Today's my last day of leave, so I'm cramming in as much non-replicator food as I can. It didn't seem to be the day for 'less is more',” Kirk said. He busied himself setting things out; Chris saw chopsticks and bamboo trays, flatbreads and dumplings, and a tall, slightly dusty bottle of dark-green glass. “Oh, uh, I know Bones says bourbon's your drink, but when I was waiting for them to pack everything up there was this bottle of sake just sitting there, so I got that, too.”
Kirk made room for a small set of sake cups amid the containers of food, and Chris could only shake his head.
“Why am I not surprised that you smuggled alcohol into a Fleet hospital?”
“Hey,” Kirk said with that attitude that said he couldn't believe Chris was making a fuss about his genius idea. “It's good stuff. It's not like it's the swill the riggers always have brewing in the shipyards.”
“No, but my tolerance is shot all to hell.” The bottle was cool and heavy in Chris's hand. “Two shots and the rest of the day will have to move along without me.”
“I, uh, hope I'm not interrupting,” Kirk said, looking suddenly uncomfortable, or as uncomfortable as Jim Kirk ever did. “Sir.”
“It's a little late for that, don't you think?” Chris answered dryly, putting the bottle back on the table. “You're not interrupting anything,” he added. “Like you said, it's my day off. Not a physical therapist in sight.”
“Yeah, I heard you were going for the Federation record in time spent on the mats.” Kirk shrugged. “I mostly meant if you were expecting someone. I know Captain Robbins is still out in the Neutral Zone on the Yorktown, but I don't know about anyone else…”
Chris edged the chair closer to the table and accepted the chopsticks Kirk gave him.
“Phil likes to time his visits for when I'm too out of breath to bitch at him.” Chris took a bite and kept his expression calm, even if his taste buds were doing a happy dance at getting something other than the protein sludge he usually fed them. “The Admiralty tends toward visiting during the general work week; everyone in the Fleet who's not stationed on the Enterprise is out keeping up appearances with the Klingons; and there's not much family left, at least not ones close enough to trek all the way in here on an average Sunday afternoon.”
“So, one round of this isn't going to engage the Federation media spin?” Kirk held up the sake and Chris gave in and let him pour. It was such an easy capitulation, he wasn't even going to give himself the out of blaming it on Kirk's charm. And the sake was prime.
The shakedown cruise had gone as well as could be expected; no crew members were seriously injured or lost, and no one could have anticipated the unfortunate incident on K-7. Chris was careful not to offer his opinion as anything other than that; the last thing he wanted was for the Enterprise to be captained by someone looking over his shoulder at a ghost. Kirk took his advice thoughtfully, asking for clarification and amplification or arguing his point without being defensive. It was, Chris reflected, a welcome break in his daily routine, and one that he was enjoying greatly. He ate the last three samosas before he realized it; Kirk had a smirk hidden behind his hand.
“I thought you and food weren't on friendly terms,” Kirk said.
“I'd be happy to blame it on Starfleet,” Chris answered. “They may be able to build ships that defy description, but they haven't cracked the food thing yet.”
“I'm not going to complain about being out for a year, but yeah.” Kirk nodded, and beat Chris to the last of the injera. “I've eaten so much in the last week, Bones might even stop bitching about how little I'm massing.”
“Looks like eating isn't the only thing you've been doing,” Chris said, nodding to the pile of unopened carriers lying in an untidy heap near the door.
“Yeah,” Kirk sighed. “I kind of lost my head with those.” He hesitated for a second before shrugging and crossing the room. He crouched on the floor and opened them one after another, each packed full of bound paper books. “Pretty stupid for somebody who's shipping out in a couple of days with a 30-kilo personal mass allowance, but the dealer was only going to sell them in a lot and I couldn't walk away.”
“Of course you couldn't.”
“They're the first… things I've spent credit on since I enlisted,” Kirk murmured, his hands stroking almost reverently over the books. “Go basejump off Mount Hood, blow a month's stipend at the craps table, yeah, none of that's a problem. But I haven't bought anything since I ditched my bike.”
Chris thought of the sleek electrocycle Kirk had ridden into the Riverside shipyard, and the stunned look on the dock worker's face as Kirk had tossed him the keys. It hadn't even been four years, but it was another lifetime.
“Well, what did you get?” Chris wrenched his brain back to the present and made his way across the room to where Kirk sat surrounded by stacks of books.
“Like you care,” Kirk answered, grinning.
“Maybe you converted me,” Chris said. Kirk snorted, but dumped an armload of antiques into Chris's lap and went to get the sake.
“At least your impulse spending is portable. Mine tends to come in hectares.” Chris wasn't thinking about that, though, so he kept his attention strictly on the room he was sitting in and the company he was sharing. He allowed himself another half-glass of sake and determined that yes indeed, his alcohol tolerance was shot to hell. Kirk worked his way through his loot, finally setting aside three of the books to take with him.
“I should probably get on finding someplace to store these,” Kirk said, eyeing the stacks thoughtfully. “If I had time, I'd sell about half of them, but... Maybe Bones has enough space in his storage locker to wedge them in.”
“Leave them here,” Chris offered. Kirk looked up at him, startled. Chris looked back, something in him pleased at managing to surprise the younger man. And possibly himself, too, especially since he didn't think his offer had much, if anything, to do with the sake. “I doubt McCoy's storage locker has the climate control necessary for things like this,” he continued, evenly. “I can have someone messenger them over to the apartment I keep here in the city.”
“Yeah?” There was a reason Jim Kirk had the reputation he did, and Chris was certain the smile he was receiving was at least partially responsible for it. “That'd be--thanks. I--thanks.”
“You're welcome.” Chris moved back over to deal with the detritus of their take-out feast. “Get them sorted the way you want them, and I'll see what I need to do with them.” Chris had no idea what might be involved but he had faith in Ensign Colt's research skills.
Kirk nodded, still looking bemused, and started sorting the books into stacks while Chris cleaned up.
“I'm just going to leave these here,” Kirk said, pushing his stacks into a corner and dropping notes on top of each. “They're not in your way, right?”
“They're fine.” The room was small, but built for the chair; plus, Chris was still accustomed to ship's quarters, even with being planetside for the last few years. Plus, he was sure Colt would have answers for him before he got back from his first session, so he didn't foresee having to navigate around the stacks for long.
“If you're sure,” Kirk said, more serious than he'd been the entire night. “I'll transfer some credit for packing materials--”
“Jim,” Chris said. “It's nothing; I have the space and I probably don't want to know how much credit you dropped on them. It'd be stupid to let them be damaged because you didn't have a place to store them.”
“Thank you,” Kirk said, still thoughtful and quiet--which was, Chris reflected later, at least part of the reason he was taken by surprise when Kirk kneeled up and pressed his mouth to Chris's, a slow, deliberate kiss that reset everything Chris thought he knew about Jim Kirk. He tasted of the sake, sweet and heady, his mouth hot and lush against Chris's. Against every scrap of good sense he had, Chris let himself be lost himself in the rush. One kiss turned into two, and then three; each one building on the one before, each one stripping off another layer. Kirk shifted closer and Chris found his own hands fitting easily to the curve of Kirk's jaw, thumb stroking a slow, careful path along one cheekbone as he forced himself to pull back.
Chris drew in a deep breath, but before he could say anything Kirk was on his feet, backing away from where Chris sat, hesitating only when he got to the door of the suite.
“Leaping without looking--you admire that quality, remember?” Kirk said, deadly serious now, and the door hummed closed behind him.
Chris sat and looked at the door and the books stacked neatly on the floor, and the bottle of sake next to them. It was a long time before he turned the chair around and made his way into the bedroom.
When he got back from his morning session, Colt had taken care of boxing and shipping the books--all except one, Treasure Island, which was on his desk along with the sake. There was a message on his PADD, originating from the Enterprise, that read, I figured the story of a revenge-obsessed lunatic was probably hitting a little too close to home, so Moby Dick was out, but you can't go wrong with pirates and treasure, right? JTK.
The book sat on the table for a week, until Chris nearly spilled a protein shake on it and told himself it needed to be someplace safer. He wasn't at all surprised to find himself putting it carefully on the small table next to his bed.
Epilogue