About ten minutes later, everyone else who wasn't a cadet had left the bar it being around two in the morning and the bar was closing. As well as everyone needed to be up early to catch the shuttles back to the academy. Farrah was left outside waiting for her father to come and scold her. She had considered leaving with Nyota but knew she should just deal with it right away.
She heard the door open and turned to look seeing her father coming out of the bar.
"How is he?" She asked him looking behind him at the closing door.
"Beat up," He told her the obvious. "He's getting cleaned up in the bathroom," He explained to her.
"Look, dad I'm nineteen not twelve. I can go to a bar with my friends if I want to," She said to him in her defense.
"Yeah, your right. But you can't get into bar fights," He said to her and seeing her embarrassed look he continued. "Yeah, I saw you jump on that guys back. And there was glass on the floor you could have been hurt," He reminded her of the champagne bottle Jim had broken on the guy's head.
"I'm an idiot I get it. I just wanted to help. He looked like he had had enough." She said to him with conviction and bringing up the memory of Jims bloodied face being punched by the cadets.
"Yeah, he sure did..." He replied nodding his head in agreement. "You catch his name?" Christopher questioned her.
"Yeah I did. And you're not gonna believe who he is," She said to him with a small smirk.
"Who?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"He said his name is Jim, Jim Kirk," She said to him with a full blown smile at the look of surprise on her fathers face.
"Kirk?" He repeated her with a look of disbelief on his face.
"That's what he said," Farrah told him nodding.
"Hmm..." He mumbled pulling out a data pad from his pocket.
He typed in some things and brought up a file, Farrah came up behind him to get a look but he hid it in his chest. "You're not allowed to see personal files," He reminded her.
"Oh come on!" She said to him in a pleading tone while pouting.
"Sorry, rules are rules," Was his only reply as he turned away from her and looked at the data pad, scrolling through the information on James Tiberius Kirk.
"You're just trying to teach me a lesson." Farrah mumbled but she was ignored other then a small smile on Christophers face that she couldnt see, as his back was turned to her.
A few minutes later, Christopher switched off the data pad and turned to go back inside the bar to speak with Jim. The information in the data pad convincing him that he was indeed George Kirk's son. Farrah moved to follow him but Christopher turned and gave her a look that said to stay right where she was.
"Ugh!" She grunted in frustration but held up her hands in surrender then backed away from him.
She watched as her father walked inside the bar and counted to sixty before she slowly opened up the door thankful it wasn't squeaky. She peaked inside seeing her father and Jim sitting at a table staring each other down. She took a moment to study Jim wincing slightly at his bloodied face with hat looked like two napkins stuck up his nose.
She couldn't help but feel slightly guilty, she was the cause of those injuries but Jim wouldn't back off and the cadets had no business coming to her defense. They would not be getting a good word from her to her father, no one would. She didn't want people being nice to her just because she was a Pike but she had no control over what people did.
Plus she found she kind of liked Jim. His attempts at flirting with her had made her laugh, and although they were interrupted she would have like to continue talking to him. But she also knew he was probably not interested in just talking with her.
She pulled off her shoes so they wouldn't make a sound and walked further inside the bar and away from the door keeping behind the wall to listen to her father's conversation. She couldn't help it, she was curious about this Jim Kirk.
"You know, I couldn't believe it when I was told who you are," She heard her dad say to him.
"And who am I, Captain Pike?" Kirk replied to him.
"Your father's son," Christopher answered him.
"Can I get another one?" She heard Kirk call, probably another beer she thought.
"For my dissertation I was assigned the U.S.S Kelvin. Something I admired about your dad, he didn't believe in any no-win scenarios," Christopher said to him.
"Sure learned his lesson," Kirk replied sarcastically.
"Well, it depends on how you define winning. You're here, aren't ya?" Christopher said to him. "You know, that instinct to leap without looking, that was his nature too. And in my opinion, it's something Starfleet's lost," He admitted to Jim.
"Why are you talking to me man?" Kirk said to him and she couldn't help but wonder the same, what did her father see in him that she didn't. At least what she didn't see yet.
"Cause I looked up you're file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts. So what is it? You like being the only genius-level repeat-offender in the Midwest?" Her father said to him as she inched further into the room but still staying out of sight. So Jim was a genius, who would have guessed? What the heck was he doing in a bar like this then? she wondered.
"Maybe I love it," Kirk replied smirking through his bloodied face.
"So your dad dies. You can settle for a less-than-ordinary life. Or do you feel like you were meant for something better? Something special," Her father said to Kirk and she couldn't help but smile, that was what she had told him when she wanted to join Starfleet. It had closed their argument.
"Enlist in Starfleet." He said to Jim with a convincing tone.
"'Enlist?'" Kirk repeated him with a laugh at the end. "You guys must be way down in your recruiting quota for the month."
"If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You can be an officer in four years. You can have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada..." Her father said to him not fazed by his laughter.
"Are we done?" Kirk interrupted him.
"I'm done," Her father said standing up as Kirk took another drink. "Riverside Shipyard. Shuttle for new recruit's leaves tomorrow, 0800." He said to Kirk so he would no where and when to go.
"Now, your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mothers. And yours. I dare you to do better," Christopher said to him while staring him down, asking him to go against this.
Finally he looked away from Jim and Farrah backed behind the wall again watching as her father left the bar.
As she heard the door close she turned her attention back to Jim watching as he looked down at the table in thought. Her father had his input; it was time for her to give her penny.
"The Captain is an excellent judge of character," She said to him making him look up at her.
"Hey! What are you still doing here?" He questioned her but she ignored him.
"If he sees something in you, like he so obviously does... It means there's something there." Farrah said looking at him with a soft smile and staring him in the eye and he couldn't help but compare this cadet Noël's stare to Captain Pike's, it was the kind that seemed to reach deep within ad see your soul.
Jim tried to hold her gaze, one filled with knowing before he looked away from her at the table to pull himself together and then back up at her again. "So, are you going to tell me your first name?" He said with a smirk.
"Nope. I'll tell you in four years," She said to him with a teasing smirk.
"I might just hold you to that," He replied to her with a nod.
"You should. See you around Jim," Farrah said to him with a small smile before she left the bar and James Kirk with his thoughts, of Starfleet and a certain blonde cadet.
The next morning, Farrah stood outside the shuttle beside her father waiting for two people. Nyota was already seated saving her a spot beside her.
She looked up as someone walked closer to the shuttle and it was none other than a certain doctor fried of hers.
"Lenny!" She shouted out to him waving as he got closer to her.
He didn't reply and continued staring at the shuttle with fear.
"It's not so bad! You did it on the way here! Nothing happened!" Farrah reminded him walking over and joining him in step to the shuttle.
"Yeah, what a dumb idea that was. I stayed inside my hotel the entire week! I would have died had you not brought me sustenance," Lenny said gesturing to her.
"Calm down would you. These shuttles are perfectly safe, they hardly ever crash," She said trying to quench his fears.
Leonard "Lenny" McCoy just turned his head in her direction and gave her an 'are you kidding me?' look.
"Sorry," Farrah whispered to him knowing what she was saying was not helping him.
Leonard turned away from her and took a deep breath before basically running up the shuttle steps and turning left. Farrah sighed before following him inside.
"Lenny, the seats are to the right not left," Farrah reminded him as she watched him walk away ignoring her.
Leonard kept walking until he came to the bathroom and opened up the door just as Farrah came outside the door he closed it in her face turning the "unoccupied" sign to "occupied"
"Your using the bathroom. Sorry... Had a blonde moment there as they said in the old days," Farrah said to herself before apologizing again to him and turning away.
"I am not using the bathroom! This happens to be the only seat in the entire shuttle without windows," Lenny called out to her through the bathroom door.
"They check the bathrooms before flight. Your going to be kicked out," Farrah explained, reminding him when he had tried the same thing on the way here and was kicked out of the bathroom by an officer and made to sit in a seat forcfully.
"I'm a doctor. I'll show them my credentials and tell them I suffer from aviaphobia," Lenny said to her while pulling out his credentials from his pocket.
"Alright. Don't say I didn't warn you," Farrah told him walking away from the door and back outside to her father who gave her a questioning look.
"Don't ask," She told him with a shake of her head.
They turned around together when they heard the sound of a Motorcycle pulling in and watched as Jim Kirk wearing the same clothes from the night before, his shirt with dried blood still on it and parked in front of them.
"Nice ride man!" One of the workers shouted.
"It's yours!" Kirk told him tossing him the keys before turning to Captain Pike.
"Four years? I'll do it in three." Kirk told him before turning looking at Farrah and winking at her quickly then turning away and walking up the shuttle steps.
Christopher turned and smirked at his daughter before she smiled at him and walked inside the shuttle after Jim. Farrah came up behind him and stifled her laughter as Jim banged his head against a metal beam that said 'low clearance'. Farrah watched him go and sit down then walked past him to her seat beside Nyota who smiled at her in greeting.
"So, four years? How about when I graduate I get that first name. Three years from now," Kirk said to her with a smile.
"If you graduate," Farrah said to him with a smirk.
"When I graduate," Jim corrected her.
"You need a doctor." They heard a female voice say.
Everyone turned to look as Leonard was ushered to the seats by a female officer. "I told you people, I don't need a doctor, damn it, I am a doctor!" He shouted.
"You need to get back to your seat," The officer said to him calmly though he was starting to get on her nerves.
"I had one in the bathroom with no windows!" He shouted at her.
"You need to get back to your seat now!" The officer yelled at him.
"I suffer from aviaphobia. It means fear of dying in something that flies." He yelled at the officer while gesturing around the shuttle.
"Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or else I'll make you sit down!" The woman threatened him.
He just stared at her before nodding seeing she was serious and sitting down beside Jim. "Fine," he muttered.
"Thank you," the officer said to him.
"This is Captain Pike. We've been cleared for takeoff." Her father's voice came over the comm.
"I told you," Farrah said to him from her seat with a satisfied smirk. Lenny just glared at her in return for her words.
Leonard looked across the shuttle at his friend. She had been right that afternoon when she told him they would be seeing a lot of each other. The next week she came in again, this time with a twisted ankle. Then a few days later a broken finger. It seemed she had trouble not injuring herself, but in that time the two of them formed a friendship. One so well-formed that Farrah had somehow managed to convince him to come with her to Iowa to get away from the wife, well ex-wife now that there divorce had been finalized. He'd had to leave the state just to get away from her, apparently she owned the planet too. Farrah told him to join Starfleet, he wasn't sure how she did it, something about facing up to your fears. But the next thing he knew he did the admission exams and got the letter saying he had been accepted.
Sighing her turned away from basically his only friend in the academy and to the man next to him that he notic looked like he had just been beat up not 5 hours ago. And being the physician he was, knew he as correct. Instead of commenting on that though. He commented on his own feelings. "I may throw up on you."
"I think these things are pretty safe." Jim said to him in reply.
"Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in 13 seconds. A solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian Shingles. See if your still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." McCoy rambled on to him as the shuttle lifted off the base.
Kirk looked around awkwardly not sure what to say, that last line was a bit insightful, but the stuff about the eyeballs was not giving him any confidence.
"Lenny! Stop! Your freaking me out!" Farrah called out to him
"You should be freaked out!" Was his shouting reply.
Jim looked between the two of them feeling just a small amount of jealousy that the two of them appeared to know each other. "Well, I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space," Jim told him.
"Yeah well, the ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones." He said taking a sip out of a silver flask.
"Oh how is Sara?" Farrah asked him.
"It's Mara. And she's a bitch." McCoy corrected her.
"That's what I said!" Farrah reminded him of the time she and Mara had met.
Farrah had come into the med center with a fractured rib, she had made Lenny her go to Doctor as he was her friend and would wait till he could see her rather than go to the other Doctors. But she had taken off her shirt and been left in only her bra as Lenny had scanned her ribs seeing a small fracture. She was just about to put her shirt back on when Mara came inside the room, flinging the curtain open like she owned the place and assumed that Farrah and Lenny were sleeping together. They most certainly weren't and would not, viewing each other like a sibling would a brother or sister but Mara had freaked out and called him a cheater, even though they were in the process of a divorce. Farrah had pointed it out and Mara told her that they were still technically married and that she was a "home wrecker". What Lenny had ever seen in her was a huge mystery.
McCoy held out his flask in Farrah's direction but she shook her head and turned away from him so instead he offered it to Kirk who drank from it himself, even though he felt hungover from last night.
"Jim Kirk." He introduced himself as he handed back the flask.
"McCoy. Leonard McCoy." He replied back taking another sip of the alcohol.
Does anybody else just love McCoy? I just love writing about him. I also love Kirk, and Spock.. and everybody but still!