Spilled Milk
Title: Spilled Milk
Author: pearlstar178
Pairing(s): Jim Kirk/ Carol Marcus
Rating: PG Language mostly
Summary: It's been years since she's heard his voice. Life altering events seem to be their thing.
Notes/Warnings: none except that I do not own Star Trek. This was originally written for a challenge but it didn't really fit the parameters
Carol drops a pint of milk in the middle of the isle in the grocery store, stands there for a moment and watches the patterns it makes spilling all over the tiles. Her eyes want to dart to the vid screens that are broadcasting the live speech from Starfleet command but instead she stares at the white seeping into the unsealed cracks on the floor.
She has driven, actually driven, the extra distance to go to one of those old fashioned grocery stores that sells things such as milk in glass jars. It is part of her attempt to distance herself them, from the numbing heart ache that is reality. There is a planet missing up there in the sky, a whole planet. That type of grieving, is not something that at 25 she has quite figured out how to navigate yet.
Baking seemed like the best option. Carol would much rather pour herself into work but the labs had shut down for the ongoing memorial services. Brownies seem like the next best thing to star charts. The results are instantaneous delight. Shit, nothing beats chocolate, not even empirical science.
There is no escaping the news footage of the memorial services for the fallen Starfleet cadets. Even in eastnowheresevil they have vid screens. Figures. It’s not like she wants to avoid it per say, just wants to go and get some milk-- get some perspective outside of San Francisco. Starfleet headquarters was not a place she wanted to be, for oh so many reasons.
Then he’s there. Eyes as dry as the night she kissed him goodbye, body still speaking volumes.
It’s his voice that got her though, shoots the milk right through her fingers.
Captain James T. Kirk is such an excellent public speaker. His voice translates so well over the air waves. The darling of the federation, with the stunning blue eyes, he will be filling up the time slots on TV every night for moths after the Narada Incident.
It’s not so much the speech he is giving that gets her. She’s out of .practice of shifting through his bullshit speak and getting to the heart of the problem. Though not so out of practice that she can’t hear the insecurity dripping from every, and together we will move foreword .Bullshit
The real kicker is that some idiot must of left his mic turned because she can hear him loud and clear in the crowd of thousand gathered outside for the memorial service. It always surprised her a bit how that boy could sing. It’s been years ( she could calculate the time down to the hour) since she’s heard that voice and that song. The last time it was in the middle of a corn field, callused hands splayed over her stomach.
They had been having , that conversation but she had decided to leave him with some parting wisdom on the stars. It was somehow easier than saying, I’m you Jim. He would have some how screw up her meaning anyways. Heard, I'm leaving you Jim or you’re not worth it Jim, such a disappointment Jim. No one could ever love you. The boy could always read volumes into the silence. It was just that sometimes he heard it wrong.
Carol took it upon herself to make sure that he caught her drift.
“It’s a trick see.” she told him “ The stars I mean. Look at them. They’re all light-years away. Some of them aren’t’ even there any more.”
It’s a creepy concept, one that as and adult she has made it her life’s work to correct. Genesis. New life with new possibilities, blank canvases and the memories of past mistakes should make steady hands. ( she tells herself this because its about creation not destruction.)
The stars look so vibrant and full of light, full of life. With all the technology available to them, the ability to travel that distance, it was still a crap shoot what you got when you landed.
No matter how pretty those stars looked from Earth they could be dead and gone when someone got there.
Now she spends her days trying to find ways to create or re-create life- start over again.
Carol is the queen of re-creation and by the looks of it her Jimmy is pretty dam good at it too.
No doubt that boy is going to be called Captain Kirk someday real soon. She used to salute him instead of kissing him goodbye. She did it to be, well her own dam self, but in made for a better ending than an old fashioned movie kiss.
She told him ,“Someday Jimmy, you’ll be looking back at Earth and you’ll see this exact moment- right here, right now.”
“ Whenever you need to remember where you’ve been Jimmy, just look at the sky.” She doesn’t mean to sound like a bad movie, just to give him strength because when she leaves she’s not coming back.
He turned to her then, slowly running his hand up and down the length of her, and smiled.
She understood telepathy in the moment, because she knew just what he was thinking. That moment right then, that was love.
It worked silently, the qusai bond of theirs. When they were teenagers she could read him like a book. It was her thing, the looking and seeing, the listening and actually hearing. There were also those terrifying moments of vulnerability when he would rub small circles into her back, when she was certain he knew her too. That he read on her body a story worth coming back for or more importantly, worth staying for.
He would have to, stayed that is, so she left. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t count it as one of her best decisions.
Drifting off to sleep Jim always liked to serenaded her a bit. It struck her odd even then that at seventeen he would choose that song to sing to her. It brought them full circle though.
This time they had bagpipes. They alone are a were as an excuse as any to cry, never mind the death.
Distantly Carol hears a voice calling her back to the present. Realizing she’s closed her eyes she sees him in all of this blue eyed and blonde haired glory. He’s gangly and awkward, a mess of arms, legs, and his shit eating smile. She’s known him for less than a decade and loves him more each day.
The same hair and eyes, his voice will be the same once it changes. He looks like a mini clone of the man on chocking out the words to amazing grace. For now though, David’s voice is sweet and innocent, colored by the childish annoyance of having your day ruined by a careless, so uncool mother.
“Mom? Mom, what happened?” He’s obviously both concerned and horrified by the mess at his mother’s feet. Turned away for one minute to get some candy and his mom is breaking things in public.
“Stay right there David. I just have to get this cleaned up then where are going. Ok?”
She makes a move to reach for a mop or something that will clean up the mess before she realizes that for once this is not her job.
She taps her foot a bit and sends death glares to the store employees who are just staring at both her and the broadcast. It’s not that she doesn’t agree that life for all of the Federation is never going to be the same, it’s just that beings everywhere were still going to be need to buy their dam food. Silly little boys would still be kept from stepping in the broken glass.
Everyone still had to do their dam job, even if it meant just getting a mop and a dustpan.
No matter what happens just carry on. That was their secret to things. Sometimes the rewards were unexpectedly not awful, they were wonderful.
She wants to scream a little, say , don’t you even hear what the man is saying? Instead she gabs some store bought brownies and tells her son they are going to picnic under the stars.
David hums amazing grace under his breath when they leave the store and Carol hears Jim in his voice.
That night, James T. Kirk will make one finally speech in honor of all his fallen classmates. He will tell them all that their future is written in the stars. Carol Marcus will watch from a distance and listen, fill in all that he’s not saying. Later, she will send him a picture of the night sky and hope he remembers.
Author: pearlstar178
Pairing(s): Jim Kirk/ Carol Marcus
Rating: PG Language mostly
Summary: It's been years since she's heard his voice. Life altering events seem to be their thing.
Notes/Warnings: none except that I do not own Star Trek. This was originally written for a challenge but it didn't really fit the parameters
Carol drops a pint of milk in the middle of the isle in the grocery store, stands there for a moment and watches the patterns it makes spilling all over the tiles. Her eyes want to dart to the vid screens that are broadcasting the live speech from Starfleet command but instead she stares at the white seeping into the unsealed cracks on the floor.
She has driven, actually driven, the extra distance to go to one of those old fashioned grocery stores that sells things such as milk in glass jars. It is part of her attempt to distance herself them, from the numbing heart ache that is reality. There is a planet missing up there in the sky, a whole planet. That type of grieving, is not something that at 25 she has quite figured out how to navigate yet.
Baking seemed like the best option. Carol would much rather pour herself into work but the labs had shut down for the ongoing memorial services. Brownies seem like the next best thing to star charts. The results are instantaneous delight. Shit, nothing beats chocolate, not even empirical science.
There is no escaping the news footage of the memorial services for the fallen Starfleet cadets. Even in eastnowheresevil they have vid screens. Figures. It’s not like she wants to avoid it per say, just wants to go and get some milk-- get some perspective outside of San Francisco. Starfleet headquarters was not a place she wanted to be, for oh so many reasons.
Then he’s there. Eyes as dry as the night she kissed him goodbye, body still speaking volumes.
It’s his voice that got her though, shoots the milk right through her fingers.
Captain James T. Kirk is such an excellent public speaker. His voice translates so well over the air waves. The darling of the federation, with the stunning blue eyes, he will be filling up the time slots on TV every night for moths after the Narada Incident.
It’s not so much the speech he is giving that gets her. She’s out of .practice of shifting through his bullshit speak and getting to the heart of the problem. Though not so out of practice that she can’t hear the insecurity dripping from every, and together we will move foreword .Bullshit
The real kicker is that some idiot must of left his mic turned because she can hear him loud and clear in the crowd of thousand gathered outside for the memorial service. It always surprised her a bit how that boy could sing. It’s been years ( she could calculate the time down to the hour) since she’s heard that voice and that song. The last time it was in the middle of a corn field, callused hands splayed over her stomach.
They had been having , that conversation but she had decided to leave him with some parting wisdom on the stars. It was somehow easier than saying, I’m you Jim. He would have some how screw up her meaning anyways. Heard, I'm leaving you Jim or you’re not worth it Jim, such a disappointment Jim. No one could ever love you. The boy could always read volumes into the silence. It was just that sometimes he heard it wrong.
Carol took it upon herself to make sure that he caught her drift.
“It’s a trick see.” she told him “ The stars I mean. Look at them. They’re all light-years away. Some of them aren’t’ even there any more.”
It’s a creepy concept, one that as and adult she has made it her life’s work to correct. Genesis. New life with new possibilities, blank canvases and the memories of past mistakes should make steady hands. ( she tells herself this because its about creation not destruction.)
The stars look so vibrant and full of light, full of life. With all the technology available to them, the ability to travel that distance, it was still a crap shoot what you got when you landed.
No matter how pretty those stars looked from Earth they could be dead and gone when someone got there.
Now she spends her days trying to find ways to create or re-create life- start over again.
Carol is the queen of re-creation and by the looks of it her Jimmy is pretty dam good at it too.
No doubt that boy is going to be called Captain Kirk someday real soon. She used to salute him instead of kissing him goodbye. She did it to be, well her own dam self, but in made for a better ending than an old fashioned movie kiss.
She told him ,“Someday Jimmy, you’ll be looking back at Earth and you’ll see this exact moment- right here, right now.”
“ Whenever you need to remember where you’ve been Jimmy, just look at the sky.” She doesn’t mean to sound like a bad movie, just to give him strength because when she leaves she’s not coming back.
He turned to her then, slowly running his hand up and down the length of her, and smiled.
She understood telepathy in the moment, because she knew just what he was thinking. That moment right then, that was love.
It worked silently, the qusai bond of theirs. When they were teenagers she could read him like a book. It was her thing, the looking and seeing, the listening and actually hearing. There were also those terrifying moments of vulnerability when he would rub small circles into her back, when she was certain he knew her too. That he read on her body a story worth coming back for or more importantly, worth staying for.
He would have to, stayed that is, so she left. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t count it as one of her best decisions.
Drifting off to sleep Jim always liked to serenaded her a bit. It struck her odd even then that at seventeen he would choose that song to sing to her. It brought them full circle though.
This time they had bagpipes. They alone are a were as an excuse as any to cry, never mind the death.
Distantly Carol hears a voice calling her back to the present. Realizing she’s closed her eyes she sees him in all of this blue eyed and blonde haired glory. He’s gangly and awkward, a mess of arms, legs, and his shit eating smile. She’s known him for less than a decade and loves him more each day.
The same hair and eyes, his voice will be the same once it changes. He looks like a mini clone of the man on chocking out the words to amazing grace. For now though, David’s voice is sweet and innocent, colored by the childish annoyance of having your day ruined by a careless, so uncool mother.
“Mom? Mom, what happened?” He’s obviously both concerned and horrified by the mess at his mother’s feet. Turned away for one minute to get some candy and his mom is breaking things in public.
“Stay right there David. I just have to get this cleaned up then where are going. Ok?”
She makes a move to reach for a mop or something that will clean up the mess before she realizes that for once this is not her job.
She taps her foot a bit and sends death glares to the store employees who are just staring at both her and the broadcast. It’s not that she doesn’t agree that life for all of the Federation is never going to be the same, it’s just that beings everywhere were still going to be need to buy their dam food. Silly little boys would still be kept from stepping in the broken glass.
Everyone still had to do their dam job, even if it meant just getting a mop and a dustpan.
No matter what happens just carry on. That was their secret to things. Sometimes the rewards were unexpectedly not awful, they were wonderful.
She wants to scream a little, say , don’t you even hear what the man is saying? Instead she gabs some store bought brownies and tells her son they are going to picnic under the stars.
David hums amazing grace under his breath when they leave the store and Carol hears Jim in his voice.
That night, James T. Kirk will make one finally speech in honor of all his fallen classmates. He will tell them all that their future is written in the stars. Carol Marcus will watch from a distance and listen, fill in all that he’s not saying. Later, she will send him a picture of the night sky and hope he remembers.