FIC: A Wing and A Prayer (STXI/Reboot; PG-13) 2/2
Title: A Wing and A Prayer
Author: Emluv emluv
Beta: Danahid danahid
Fandom/Spoilers: STXI/Reboot
Characters: Kirk and McCoy, with Spock, Pike, and assorted other players
Rating: PG-13, for language
Word Count: approx. 12,200
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Star Trek is owned by the Roddenberry estate, Paramount Pictures, and probably a few others who are not me. No profit made, no infringement intended.
Archive/Distribution: Please ask.
Date: June 30, 2010
Notes: Written for hc_bingo
Summary: Jim Kirk returns from what seemed to be a successful away mission with a mysterious problem.
(Back to Part 1)
~*~
The size of their landing party necessitated their beaming down in two groups. Spock had gone first, taking with him two of the three security officers. After they had vanished from the transporter pad, Jim had stepped into place, along with the doctor, Uhura, and the final security officer. Standing next to Uhura, Jim had been conscious of her sneaking glances in his direction, but he did his level best to ignore her curiosity. It’s not like he blamed her, really. It wasn’t every day you saw a man with wings.
Upon arriving planetside, Jim found himself standing in the courtyard of the government building where he had previously met with the Anterians. The high priest, a being called Danu, stood nearby with Spock and the security officers, as well as with two additional Anterians who looked vaguely familiar, but whose names Jim could not recall. Humanoid in appearance, the Anterians they had met-both male and female-all shared the same whippet-thin physiques, short dark hair, and the bronzed skin common in many naturally warm climates around the galaxy. The similarities in both physique and clothing made it difficult for Jim to remember whom he’d met. Only the high priest’s ceremonial garb, consisting of a white robe trimmed in royal blue and a heavy gold medallion hung from a matching chain around his neck, helped Jim to identify the leader.
With Uhura, McCoy, and Ensign Jeffries close behind him, the captain approached Danu, conscious of maintaining his balance in relation to the slight drag of his wings as he moved.
“Captain Kirk,” Danu began with a nod, “we welcome you back to our world.”
“Thank you, Danu,” Jim responded with a matching nod at the high priest. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“Captain,” Spock interjected. “I believe there may have been a misunderstanding regarding the blessing that the Anterians wished to convey upon you.”
No shit, Jim thought, struggling to school his expression so as not to give away his sarcastic train of thought.
Spock, however, merely raised his eyebrows, as if he knew precisely what Jim wished he could say. “The Anterians are telepaths, Captain,” he remarked, and suddenly Jim understood why Danu appeared amused at the conversation.
“Telepaths,” he repeated. “As in, able to read our minds.”
“That is correct,” Spock replied. “As a touch telepath, my own abilities are far less advanced, yet still sufficient to have detected the mental presence of Danu immediately upon our beaming down.”
“Why didn’t any of us notice this last time?” Jim asked.
Spock tilted his head in what might have been apology. “Captain, neither you nor any of the members of the initial away team tested positively for psy abilities at Starfleet. It is reasonable to assume that you failed to notice because you are psy null.”
Jim’s gaze fell on the high priest. “Was there a reason you chose not to share this information regarding your abilities during our meetings?” It was a struggle to stay calm and keep his growing anger under control, even as he realized Danu would be aware of his underlying emotions.
“I apologize if this decision has been interpreted in a negative light,” Danu stated. His expression had grown more serious, any previous amusement faded. “We immediately realized that none of your party had telepathic ability, and so we assumed our own abilities would be of no interest as we would be communicating in the more traditional manner during our deliberations. Our abilities as telepaths had no bearing on the situation.”
“And yet,” Spock interjected, “your abilities provided you with an advantage as you were able to determine the thoughts and intentions of our delegation without their knowledge.”
The high priest nodded. “This is true. However, you have my word that beyond gaining an understanding of your own good will in coming here, we did not abuse our abilities, nor your trust in our intention to become contributing members of the Federation community.”
Jim regarded Danu as he made his heartfelt declaration. Something about the high priest’s earnest expression, combined with the glimmer in his dark eyes, nagged at him.
“Danu,” he began, weighing his words, aware of the need for diplomacy. He could hardly call the man a liar outright, particularly as he suspected the high priest was merely leaving out a few pertinent details. “While I believe in your good and honest intentions, and your desire for your planet to join the Federation, I feel it is important to impress upon you that not all Federation planets would agree with your stance regarding your telepathic abilities. Some might question your reluctance to share your abilities, suggesting you look upon them as a potential advantage over other Federation member planets. I strongly suggest you take this into consideration in your future dealings with the Federation.
“I also suspect that your reading of us went somewhat beyond determining our own good intentions during our previous visit,” Jim concluded.
Danu nodded toward the captain, as if acknowledging his suspicion as fact. “Captain Kirk, you continue to prove yourself a wise and able leader for your crew,” the high priest declared. With a quick gesture, he dismissed his own two assistants, and looked toward Spock. “Commander, perhaps you and your crew members would appreciate some refreshment. I believe your captain and I need to discuss this next matter privately.”
Spock stood straighter, as if to plant himself in place. “I believe that would be unwise.”
Jim, however, stared into the high priest’s calm gaze and gave a brief nod. “No, Spock, it’s okay. Almost unconsciously, he shifted his back muscles, causing his wings to ruffle gently and rise a few inches above their normal resting position, though he kept them tightly furled.
“Captain, regulations state-”
“I know what they state, Commander. I take full responsibility.”
Spock’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, but he simply nodded and turned to leave.
McCoy side-stepped toward Jim. “Captain, are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind?” he demanded in low tones. “Haven’t they done enough to you?”
“It’s okay, Bones,” Jim murmured, giving his friend’s arm a quick squeeze. “It’ll be fine. I don’t think this was supposed to be a bad thing.”
“Right. Wings. Jolly good time. Everyone should get a set,” the doctor grumbled under his breath.
“Bones, just go with the others,” Jim told him, nodding toward where Uhura and the security team had somewhat reluctantly gathered with Spock near the entrance to the building. “I’ll see you in a while.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” McCoy added as a parting shot, then walked off, shaking his head.
As soon as they were alone, Jim turned to Danu. “So. I’m assuming these wings were part of that blessing you mentioned. Commander Spock indicated there was some sort of misunderstanding. Perhaps you could explain?”
The high priest nodded. “Let us walk, Captain, and I will attempt to make our intentions clear on this subject.”
“I’m afraid I don’t move too quickly,” Jim warned as they turned and began to traverse the path that led around the building toward the public gardens. “These things have wrecked havoc with my balance.”
“My apologies that you have found this transition difficult,” Danu said. “Have you attempted to use them yet?”
“You mean fly?” Jim asked, somewhat startled. “Don’t you know the answer to that?” he continued, feeling a bit resentful at the idea that the high priest had a window into his thoughts and actions.
“Ah, Captain, I spoke truly when I told you that we would not delve randomly into your thoughts. We fully comprehend that non-telepathic individuals would consider this to be an invasion of privacy. While some thoughts are difficult to avoid-strongly felt emotions, primarily, which often come to us unbidden-most require a concentrated effort on our part to discern. I have no sense as to whether you have attempted to fly. I know only that you are…disturbed by our gift, and concerned that the wings will have an adverse effect on your life. That was not our aim. A blessing should always be of benefit, even if those results are not always apparent at first.”
Jim walked slowly as he absorbed the high priest’s words. He was tempted to demand answers to his questions and never mind what the intentions behind the so-called blessing had been, but Danu’s tone was almost pleading and Jim somehow sensed how important the circumstances were to the Anterian.
“No, I haven’t tried to fly,” he said. “There’s not exactly room aboard the Enterprise. And even if there were, I’m not sure it would have occurred to me. When the wings began to manifest, I had no idea what was happening,” he explained. “All I knew was that my back hurt, quite badly. Once my chief medical officer determined that I was actually growing wings, I was…shocked,” he continued. “There was the pain, but also confusion and…dismay,” he agreed with a nod to Danu’s earlier assessment. “I wasn’t thinking about what to do with wings-but what to do about them.”
They had reached the rear of the gardens, a broad expanse of desert-like plantings that stretched to a low stone wall running along the border of the landscaping. Below them lay the edge of the city, a rocky expanse that fell away beneath their feet to a broad, sand-covered plateau reaching as far as the eye could see. The heat of the Anterian sun, an older and more developed star than Earth’s, beat down on the planet, causing the air to shimmer and ripple.
“I am sure as one in command of so many people, you understand that there are often different ways of looking at a given situation,” Danu mused, staring into the distance. “On occasion, it is necessary to look at a problem from another point of view.” He smiled and turned to Jim. “If I were to tell you that your wings are temporary-that we never intended them to be a permanent alteration to your anatomy, or any sort of burden-would that change your perspective, Captain?”
Jim felt all the air rush out of his body, relief taking over all thought in that split second. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Yes,” he added. “That makes things easier.”
Danu indicated the wide open landscape before them. “Perhaps now you would like to go for a short flight,” he suggested. “I assure you, you are quite capable of doing so.”
“Really? I can really fly with these things?” he asked, suddenly feeling a spark of curiosity and anticipation.
Danu simply stepped back, head bowed, hand extended toward the desert beyond them.
Never one to back down on a dare, even an unspoken one, Jim stared out into the distance for a moment, then took a cautious step up onto the low wall. He stood with his arms at his sides, hands clenched into nervous fists, and tried to feel the muscles that controlled his wings. Almost instantly, the wings rose and extend behind him, arcing up to each side, broad and powerful. A gentle breeze ruffled his feathers before catching up under the wings themselves, lifting, encouraging, making Jim feel almost weightless. He took a deep breath and flexed his back. He felt his wings press down against the air currents, felt the ground fall away beneath his feet. With another flex, he soared up into the sky.
As soon as he was airborne, Jim let out a gasp of delight. Instinct had him pulling his legs up into his body as he flew, making for a tight, more aerodynamic line as he cut through the air. From there he experimented with flapping his wings, then gliding as he became more in tune with the shifts in the air around him. He used his body as a rudder, leaning to one side or the other in order to change direction. Gaining control, he turned to sweep over the gardens where he and Danu had walked, swooping down low so he could see the high priest where he still stood, watching him, then pulling up high to clear the building before he took off over the small capital city. As he passed over the building, however, Jim realized the roof was covered with a highly polished material that reflected his image like a mirror. For the first time, he could see his wings, spread wide and strong to either side, brown and golden feathers catching the sunlight until they glowed like burnished metal. They were breathtaking.
Though he was tempted to sweep back over the building for a second look, Jim continued on. He wove back and forth, taking in the narrow streets and low, broad buildings from overhead, watching the occasional cluster of Anterians as they went about their business.
It was an incredibly liberating sensation. Jim had never felt quite so in control of his own destiny, or quite so free. Flying under his own power took his love of speed and danger to an entirely new level.
Finally he turned back, making his way out to the city’s border and flying along it until he saw the gardens where he had begun his flight. Then he turned upwards and soared straight into the air, beating his wings, climbing higher and higher until the land was no more than a speck beneath him and his lungs felt tight in the thinner atmosphere. He hovered for a moment until the need for breathable air forced him to turn and dive. The ground rushed at him, much as it did in a space dive, only now there was no parachute, just his own wings and strength to save him. For an instant he wondered if he could do it-if he was equal to the task. Unwilling to risk crashing, he pulled up well before there was any danger, then flew in a spiral pattern over the garden until he came to rest on his own two feet once more. He laughed again, a joyous sound, even as he sucked in great gulps of air. He felt out of breath and utterly rejuvenated all at the same time.
Danu walked up to meet him, a smile gracing his smooth, even features.
Jim grinned at the high priest. “Thank you,” he said, and this time, his thanks were for an entirely different reason.
“I told you we do not delve into minds without permission, but you were correct to suspect that was not entirely accurate,” Danu told him. “We wished to gift you with an experience that would hold special meaning, and so I looked into your mind and your heart with this singular purpose. It was my goal to find your one, true desire, that which you needed most.”
“And you saw wings?” Jim questioned. “Or…you saw that I wanted to fly?” Despite his sheer pleasure at the experience, he was puzzled by the high priest’s conclusions.
Danu simply continued to smile. “Remember, Captain, that not every experience is what one expects it to be,” he said. “Those we anticipate with great joy can bring hardship, while those we dread can bring gifts we might never have known otherwise. Rarely is an experience merely one thing or the other.”
Jim frowned, still unsure of the high priest’s meaning. “Regardless of your intention, Danu, I do appreciate this experience,” he assured him. “But, you did say the wings were temporary,” he added carefully.
“Yes. They will wither as they grew, over a period of a day and night,” Danu assured him. “I regret that this will bring you some pain, but little worth having in life comes without some small price.”
“I understand,” Jim said, and he did. If there was anything he was familiar with, it was suffering for the greater good, whatever it may be.
~*~
They spent a little while longer on the planet, so that McCoy could discuss any medical concerns with Danu. Then they all drank a toast with the bitter ale favored by the Anterians to a fruitful relationship between their planet and the Federation, and the Enterprise landing party took their leave.
By the time they reached the ship, Jim’s wings were beginning to droop, feathers molting along the corridors on the way to Sickbay. McCoy grumbled about needing to chase after Jim with a broom but said little else about it. He settled the captain on his biobed behind the privacy screen and began organizing the hyposprays he would need to manage the pain that was certain to start again soon.
Jim met with Spock to discuss an interim report to the admiralty. While he would only remain out of commission for a short while longer, he was painfully aware of how even his brief need to relinquish command would appear to the brass. He wished he had been able to keep the entire incident with the Anterians under wraps until the situation had been resolved, particularly given the fact that he had barely missed two shifts when all was said and done. He would speak with Pike himself, once he was back to normal, and he could only hope that his mentor could help him put a positive-or at least neutral-spin on the whole bizarre debacle.
Of course, it would be advantageous if Jim could furnish a concrete reason for the Anterians’ unusual gift. Unfortunately, despite their time on the planet and his discussion with Danu, Jim felt unprepared to do so. He knew the high priest intended to help him in some way by blessing him with wings-he had said as much-but Jim was still sifting the Anterian’s words and implications, trying to come up with a clear picture.
“How you doing there?” McCoy asked, his question cutting through Jim’s confused thoughts.
Glancing up, he realized he must have been shifting unconsciously as the pain began to build in his back. His spine ached again, and his wings felt heavy against his shoulder blades, as if too weak to hold their own weight. He could sense the strain it was causing him to keep them furled in the way the muscles pulled taut across his lower back and shoulders.
“Yeah, starting to feel it,” he admitted quietly. He had his hands up under his pillow and he pressed one cheek against the soft surface, allowing himself a deep breath that caused his wings to rustle and sent a shower of feathers silently to the floor around him.
“I figured,” McCoy said with a nod. “No sense letting it get too bad, seeing as how we know it’s short term.” He picked up the loaded hypo beside the bed and glanced at the dosage. “Here you go.”
Jim felt the firm press to his neck, heard the pop and hiss of the device as it unloaded into his system. He let out a sigh, already feeling himself relax. Then a wide yawn overtook him and he glared up at the doctor.
“Bones,” he admonished, trying for angry betrayal, but aware his tone held more whine than anything else.
“Sorry, kid, but it’s just for a while. Better than watching you squirm through all that pain for no reason. A little extra rest won’t hurt ya. God knows you normally run on a deficit.”
“Not the point,” Jim murmured, sleep overtaking him. He felt a warm, gentle hand card through his hair, and then everything was darkness.
~*~
This time when Jim woke, there was no sense of disorientation, nor any lingering pain. He lay on the biobed with the sheet pulled up to his shoulders. His hands and feet were free; if there had been any need for restrains, they had already been removed. Turning over slowly, Jim felt nothing out of the ordinary-no stiffness or sense of imbalance-to indicate that just a few hours earlier there had been wings sprouting from his back.
He sat up, still moving with caution, knowing McCoy could charge in at any time, hypo in hand, to scold him for making light of his condition. But he felt…fine. One hundred percent, actually, which seemed a little odd given what he had experienced. Jim was used to professing he was in tip-top shape in order to escape the confines of Sickbay at the earliest possible moment; it wasn’t typical for him to actually feel that way when the doctor let him go.
“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.”
And there he is, Jim thought, turning to find McCoy propped in the doorway to his office. “I’m still pissed at you,” he responded, feeling the need to get the jab in while he could, knowing he would let the doctor off the hook almost immediately.
McCoy arched an eyebrow. “What, because I knocked you out? CMO’s privilege,” he stated. “How you feeling?” He pushed off the wall and came over to check the monitor over the bed.
“Surprisingly good, actually,” Jim told him. He glanced up, trying to read his vitals despite the poor angle.
“Yeah, well, surprisingly, you’re right. All your stats are normal, scans show everything is back where it should be.” McCoy let out a low whistle. “I can’t say I understand how they did it, but those bastards left you pretty much as they found you. I ran a dermal regenerator over your back once the wings were actually gone, just to speed along the healing, but I’m willing to bet you’d have been fine even if I hadn’t.” Walking around the bed, he lay one palm against the center of Jim’s chest for support, then used the other hand to gently prod at the muscles down the length of his back, humming when his patient failed to so much as flinch.
Stepping back, McCoy pinned Jim with an assessing gaze and waved a hand at him. “Give a shrug, twist-move around some and make sure everything’s workin’ right.”
Jim followed his instructions, twisting from side to side, raising his arms, and in general forced the muscles in his back to stretch in various directions. “Not even a twinge,” he remarked. “So, Bones? I’m thinking there’s a shift about to start with my name on it,” he said with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” McCoy grumbled, but the corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Clothes are there. Just make sure you stop and get some breakfast before you hit the bridge. And I don’t mean just coffee,” he warned. “Real food. Your body’s gone through its paces, even if you slept through it. Need to refuel.”
Jim was already hopping up and reaching for the fresh uniform that lay folded neatly on the chair beside the bed. “Will do,” he promised, then headed for the decon showers.
~*~
Alpha shift bled into beta and gamma was on the horizon by the time Jim Kirk finally slowed down. He’d resumed his normal duties but spent the latter part of the day in his ready room, catching up on reports that had been generated while he was in Sickbay and going over the transcripts of Spock’s reports to the admiralty in particular. At the second shift change, he put in a call to Admiral Pike and suffered through the anticipated ribbing after he explained all the details left out of the official report.
“Kirk, you do seem to find yourself in the most unusual situations,” the Admiral told him. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re equally adept at extricating yourself.”
“How bad does this look, really, Admiral?” Jim asked. “For me to be forced to hand over command so early in the mission-”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Pike interrupted him. “You know where you stand with the rest of the admiralty. You’ve got your detractors, sure, and they’re going to try to use any little thing you do against you. But you’ve got supporters, too, Jim. Just remember that. As for relinquishing command, you handed the ship over to your first officer for a little over two days because of extenuating circumstances resulting from a successful diplomatic meeting. You weren’t compromised; you didn’t act irrationally or do something to endanger your crew. You did exactly as you should have done. You let Spock take over, and you returned to Anterius to find out what the hell was going on.”
“If you’re certain, sir.”
“Jim, this isn’t the worst thing that’s going to happen while you’re out there. Not by a long shot.”
“But this should have been a simple, straightforward mission,” Jim protested. “Heck, it was downright boring until we got half a day out of orbit.”
“Not everything’s going to have potential catastrophe written across the top of the mission briefing in big red letters. You know that better than anyone. Vulcan started out as a response to a simple distress call.”
Jim exhaled harshly. “You don’t need to remind me.”
“Kirk, trust that I’ll tell you when you’ve fucked up. And when you need to watch your back.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jim acknowledged with a nod.
“No problem. You should have your next mission brief by now. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“I will.”
“Now go eat something. You look like hell. Pike out.”
Jim fought the urge to chuckle at how much Pike could sound like McCoy some days. Mother hens, the both of them.
He ignored the admiral’s suggestion and turned his attention back to his work, plowing through file after file on his PADD and signing off where necessary. And if his mind wandered occasionally, turning over his conversation with Danu or recalling what it felt like to fly over Anterius, well, he supposed it was only natural.
~*~
“So you still have no real idea why they thought to give you wings?” McCoy asked.
They were four days out from Anterius, bound for Starbase 17 to pick up supplies and a medical team bound for the colony on Gault. Jim had spent most of the time since his release from Sickbay either nose-deep in so-called paperwork or mingling with the crew, attempting to make up for his absence by proving he was healthy and catching up on ship-board gossip. So it wasn’t much of a surprise with McCoy had commed him to come by Sickbay after shift so he could check him out.
The doctor had given him a clean bill of healthy fairly quickly-also unsurprising. Then he’d ushered Jim into his office, nodded him toward his usual chair, and pulled out the bottle of good bourbon. Jim suspected this little exercise had been the real reason behind his summons.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Jim said. “About why it could be wings, specifically.” He took a sip of his drink. “I grew up fascinated by flying, but it was always about going into space like my parents, so that can’t be it. Then I remembered something.”
“What?”
“The summer I was four, Sam went off to sleep-away camp for the first time, and my mom went back into the black. She wasn’t gone long-maybe a month, something about keeping her certs active-but she sent me to stay with my Kirk grandparents on their farm. I was too little to do much to help yet. I know my grandma had me feed the chickens with her every morning, and I set the table for dinner, little stuff like that, but most of the day I was kind of on my own. I was supposed to stay in the house or the yard, but you know me-had to go exploring. So, one afternoon I was out in the barn, and I got it into my head that I could fly.”
“Oh, jeez, I can see where this is heading,” McCoy grunted.
“You want to hear it or not?”
“Fine, go ahead.”
Jim smiled slightly, remembering the day in question. It had been so hot and he’d been so incredibly bored and restless, no one to play with, his grandma off doing chores and his grandfather overseeing the farm hands. “Anyway,” he continued, “I climbed up into the hayloft and stood up on the edge and jumped. I’d been watching the birds from my bedroom window nights-crows, owls, whatever was around. I thought all I needed to do was to keep my body horizontal to the ground and I’d just glide along.”
“Hah,” the doctor huffed out. “Advanced physics for a four year old.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. I was sure it would work. So I tried, and of course all that happened was I fell like a rock. Busted my arm. I’m not sure which was the worse shock, the broken bone or the fact that my plan didn’t work.”
“Poor little Jim,” McCoy murmured, his voice actually injected with sympathy. “You were just a bored little kid. Someone should have been watching you.”
Jim shrugged. “They did after that. My grandfather Tiberius set me up in his study with a pile of books to read. Told me to stay out of trouble. I didn’t mind so much. I loved books, and he hadn’t trusted me in his study before then.”
“That was it? He sat you down with some books and ignored ya?”
“Nah, Bones, it wasn’t like that. He’d come in each afternoon from the fields, all hot and sweaty. He’d wash up and get two glasses of lemonade from the kitchen, and he’d come sit with me. He had a loveseat in the study, just right for the two of us, and we’d drink the lemonade and he’d ask me about what I was reading. Then if there was time before dinner, he’d read me something. The first thing was the story of Icarus. You know that one?”
McCoy’s brow furrowed. “Greek myth, right? Kid whose father makes them wings so they can escape whatever island they’ve been imprisoned on-”
“Crete,” Jim interjected.
“Right. Only Icarus flies too close to the sun and the wax holding all the feathers on the wings melts, and he ends up falling into the ocean and drowning.” He chuckled quietly. “I guess I can see why your grandpa picked that one.”
Jim laughed. “Yeah, me too. At the time I was pretty embarrassed. I already felt like an idiot for thinking I could really fly. But the story stuck with me. Jumping out of that hayloft wasn’t the last dumb stunt I pulled-”
“You can say that again.”
“Thanks, Bones. Still, it was the last time I leaped without being sure I could land. Might have been a long shot, but it was still always possible.”
“And you think that’s why the Anterians gave you wings? Because that Danu guy looked into your memories and saw you trying to fly out of the barn?”
Jim frowned. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Still can’t believe you let him talk you into flying. Actually flying, goddamnit, like you were a bird and not a starship captain.”
“Come on, Bones. What’s the point in having wings for a day if you’re not going to put them to good use?”
McCoy shook his head. “Infant. Born with a brain, but that don’t mean you use it all that often.”
Jim laughed. “You’re just jealous.”
“Right. Because flying around in a tin can isn’t bad enough, I want to do it with absolutely nothing between me and a painful crash landing.” McCoy stared at him a minute, then reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small box. “Here,” he said, passing it over to Jim.
Jim arched his brows questioningly and accepted the box from the doctor. “Do I want to know?”
He shrugged. “Thought you might like a souvenir.”
Jim pried open the lid and inhaled sharply. Inside the box were dozens of feathers-gold, brown, copper, yellow, cream. He reached in and sifted them gently, marveling at how they caught even the dim florescent lighting in the CMO’s office. “Thanks, Bones,” he said quietly.
“Well, they were too pretty to throw out,” the doctor said gruffly. “Leave it to you to look good even with wings.”
Jim let out a bark of laughter, relieved at the break in the odd tension that had filled the room.
McCoy signed and looked the captain in the eye. “So, what was it like up there?”
“Awesome,” he replied without a second’s hesitation. “Maybe the most awesome thing I’ve ever done.” He took another sip of his bourbon, using the pause to remember. “I was completely in control. Felt like I could do anything I tried. And it was just me up there, no one relying on me not to fuck up, you know?”
McCoy stared at him. “We were relying on you, Jim. We were relying on you not to get yourself killed-to come back to us in one piece.”
Jim felt his warm reminiscence falter in the face of his friend’s admonishment. “I-I know that, Bones. I just mean…I felt free up there.”
A painful silence stretched out between the two men. Jim almost wished McCoy would say something else, even to scold, but his one brief statement burned into his brain nonetheless. He thought about what it felt like to be out there in the sky, flying under his own power. It had been wonderful, and he had felt free, but it was more than that. He understood that, in some sense, what he felt was the sensation he had always associated with his dreams of going into space. The feeling of having no boundaries, of being able to simply go and go and go, never hitting a wall, never being forced to turn back and accept someone else’s definition of enough.
As a child, restless in a world filled with rules and confinement, he’d dreamed of that kind of freedom, and as a man he had been sure that joining Starfleet was the answer. He had taken Chris Pike’s dare because he truly believed there was no such thing as a no-win scenario, that limits were something human beings imposed upon themselves. If he just worked hard enough, was smart enough and strong enough, he could surpass those preconceived notions, those man-made barriers, and win in the face of any ridiculous odds.
Reality had been somewhat different. As a starship captain, he had come to acknowledge that, while it might be possible to find an answer no matter what the situation, he had a responsibility to his ship and his crew, and not all answers were going to be acceptable ones. Whatever freedom he had imagined enjoying as the youngest captain in Starfleet history had come with a price that even he-reckless and daring and willing to put it all on the line-was not always prepared to pay.
Jim thought about the past few months since the start of his official captaincy. The truth was, he had been second guessing himself. Being captain of the Enterprise, day in and day out, was not the same as leading the crew through a single hair-raising emergency situation. The diplomacy, the need to earn his place as leader of the crew, his own doubts regarding his ability to hold his temper and act like an adult-these were aspects of the job he had not thought through ahead of time. Given his own personal history, it was perhaps understandable that he would focus on the hard decisions the job entailed and forget about the little things, the bread-and-butter of being in charge. But sometimes being a starship captain was about those other things-the boredom of days in the black between missions, miles of Starfleet red tape, or grouchy admirals convinced they could pull his strings. And just because he had not considered them before, didn’t mean he could not master them now.
Danu’s words came floating back to him. “…not every experience is what one expects it to be…” Jim considered what it had been like to have wings for a day-the pain required to attain them, the fear he felt at their manifestation, and then the absolute thrill of flying over Anterius completely on his own power. And suddenly he suspected he was beginning to understand the Anterian’s purpose in his blessing.
“Do you miss them? The wings?” McCoy asked.
Jim chuckled. “No, I don’t miss them.”
McCoy’s gaze honed in on his. “You’ve got that look on your face. The one that says you know at fifty paces when a girl’s gonna go home with you, even before you buy her a drink.”
“I think I just figured some stuff out, that’s all.”
“Feel like sharing?”
“It was never really about the wings,” Jim murmured. He picked up one of the feathers and ran his finger along the edge, watching the color shift from bronze to gold with the movement.
“Well, what then?”
“I think it was about remembering that not everything is going to turn out exactly the way you imagine,” Jim replied, his voice quiet. “And that sometimes it can be even better, even if it’s more difficult than you anticipated. But the important thing is to have faith.”
“Faith?” McCoy echoed softly. “Jim, faith in what?”
“Faith that even as you’re falling, you already know how to fly.”
~END~
Author's note: Needless to say, the prompt for this story was wings (sudden onset). I wanted to see if I could approach what was basically a crack-fic topic (at least that's what immediately came to mind) from a serious angle. Much love and thanks to danahid, who insisted my approach worked and encouraged me to keep going.