Star Trek: Pike's Fate

Ensign Bean

"Sugar?...Kris?"

"Pardon?" Oh right. Uhura's asking if I want sugar. I shake my head slightly to clear the brain fog. "Sugar? No, thank you,"

Uhura scoffs at not wanting sugar. "What kind of Brit are you?"

"The Scottish kind,"

Uhura laughs. She knows I'm right. I don't call myself a Brit, nor do I call myself an American. I was born in Ottawa, Canada. I will never call myself an American, even though Chris adopted me. I am Canadian, just like my biological father.

Then there's the Scottish part of me. Yeah, that doesn't like to be called British. It's ingrained in my DNA not to like being called a Brit. Canada is a happy medium. And I am not changing nationalities. Besides, Starfleet doesn't require you to be American.

"Alright, what's got your goat?"

Oh, Uhura, you should know not to say that to me.

"We don't have goats on the ranch. We have cattle," Uhura looks at me like I'm stupid. And we all know I'm far from stupid. Everyone in Starfleet is far from being dumb. "but it's Chris. He's been acting strange,"

Uhura rolls her eyes at my cheek. "Strange how?"

"Like he's hiding something,"

"Do you think he knows?" Uhura lowers her tea cup from her mouth.

Oh god. I hope not. If he knows, why would he be acting so weird? If he knows, wouldn't he confront me about it? Chris would slowly bring up the topic. He's tried several times...who told him? Uhura couldn't have. I practically made it an order, but Chris is a Captain. He can override my command.

Uhura never would have gone along with telling him. No, without my permission. And why ask if he knows if she told him? No, she didn't tell him.

"It's a possibility," I utter, picking up my tea.

"Are you okay with that?"

"No...but I have no control over that."

Uhura nods and turns to her pad. She looks over a paragraph before sliding the pad into my hands. As she does, she asks me to translate the Italian into English.

Right. She knows I know Italian. Years ago, the chief engineer spoke Italian, and with the ungodly amount of hours I spent in engineering as a child, I picked it up. Now, it's a second language, and one Uhura is learning along with Gaelic. She proposed we learn that one together, and we are.

I can have short conversations with Blake and her family in Scotland—very short conversations. It's safe to say my small talk in Gaelic is very small.
_____

"Is he still acting strange?" Uhura asks as if I know exactly what she means.

"Who?" I sit up from the floor and stare at her on my bed.

We've been lying on my bed and floor since she finished her shift. Uhura didn't bother to change out of her uniform before coming here. She even brought her workpad. I took it immediately and put it on my coffee table. She took that as a reason to lay on my bed—a pretty good reason, if I'm being honest.

"Captain Pike?" Uhura prompts.

Oh. Right. Yeah, no, he's still acting strange. It's nerve-wracking, and it's not helping my situation. Precarious situation. I'm still waiting for the all-clear from Avery. Even then, it'll be dicey going back to Jupiter.

"Oh, yeah, Chris is," I sigh, laying back down to look at the stars painted on the ceiling. Chris and I painted these back when I first boarded Enterprise as a child. We took great pains to find what star patterns I liked best, which constellations I liked beside each other and where I wanted to put them.