bridge2sickbay drabbles of 2010-01-03 :)
Name of drinks were the prompts, and I filled my three rounds a little less literally than usual. Be warned - NO smut this time.
Pike, Number One, Kirk - Mind Eraser (warning: sad)
"I can't believe that's him," Kirk says quietly, almost whispering, as he looks through the tiny window in the door into the hospital room. There's the man he rescued from the Narada, who'd survived all that shit and had managed to walk on his own two feet again only a year ago to return as instructor at the academy - and who's now off worse than ever.
"Better believe it, Kirk," Number One says roughly. He's never met her before, but there've been rumors about the two. Judging from her looks now... he still had no clue. If this were his lover, he wouldn't be able to stand here and watch this without falling apart.
"He's in coma with no prospect of improvement, the doctors say," the woman adds. "Too much damage from the radiation. His brain -" her voice breaks, but she stands straight and distant and he doesn't know what he could offer her to ease the pain.
A fucking baffle plate, a fucking radiation overload. Something that could happen any day on a starship, but it so wasn't supposed to happen to Pike.
Death would've been a simpler solution, Kirk thinks. This... is a zombie, a man whose body is kept alive for a brain that would never work again.
"If they'd rescued him three minutes faster, it would've been only his body. Three minutes." Kirk can see her balled fists, as if she could wrestle the time back from fate.
"You never know," he says, shaking his head, thinking of some of his badly injured, disabled-for-life crewmembers. It didn't always look like a better alternative.
"At least I could've spoken to him," Number One says. "Could've said all the things I never said, not even after the Narada. Fuck. FUCK." She pushes her fist against the wall so hard that it leaves a notch, then spins on one heel and leaves Kirk standing in the corridor.
He looks through the window once more and gives a quiet salute to the man on the bed, fervently wishing that if it was him, someone would have the guts to just pull the plug.
***
George Kirk, Jim Kirk (and Pike too) - Hologram
"You watched it," Pike asks him when he finds him in the bar.
Of course it would be Pike, and of course it's not really a question.
"You always keep your material lying around?" Kirk asks back slurred, having had already a few too many.
"Only holo simulations that might be useful for the academy," Pike says and sits down next to Kirk. "And not everyone hacks into the simulator file folders because they want to pass the Kobayashi Maru test."
"How's that useful to ban the last minutes of a man into a simulation?" Kirk asks, ignoring the admiral's latest words. "How, fucking dammit Sir, is that necessary?"
"Bridge activities are voice recorded since the first days of spaceflight -"
"That's not what I asked," Kirk snaps. "This isn't what the sim contained. You added the images. Everything and everyone. When I started it, I could even smell the fucking smoke on the bridge!"
"I used it for my dissertation. I wanted to have it realistic."
Kirk shakes his head, slowly. "Don't you fucking lie to me. You finished your degree ten years ago. The simulation got updated six months ago. Ten years ago, there wouldn't have been even the holo suites around to play your little simulation!"
Pike orders a drink for himself, stretches his fingers above the bar top. "Yes," he says at last. "I updated it."
"Why?"
"I thought that maybe one day, you'd want to see it."
"No."
"Yes." Pike gives him a glance.
"I never - never would've wanted to see that."
"You could've stopped it. Talked to your father instead. I added a lot of background information about him. You'd be surprised…" Pike takes a sip from his drink. "Believe me, I enhanced it for you, but I didn't want you to find it without me."
"Who do you think you are," Kirk blurts out, or at least he tries, but his view is a little foggy by now, and it's hard to keep up his anger, now that the sadness beneath it suddenly surfaces and slaps him in his face.
Pike smiles a little to himself before shedding another glance at Kirk. "I'm the man who made you join Starfleet on a dare to do better than your father. I thought it was only fair that you got a more objective view on someone who must've haunted you all life."
Kirk chews his bottom lip, desperately searching for a good answer, or at least a good curse, but none comes forward; instead, he slips down from the chair to the ground, finally felled by the many drinks he'd had.
When he comes back to conscience, Bones is looming over him. He doesn't remember everything, but he remembers enough to call Pike two days later and ask him for a visit in the simulator together, to watch the Kelvin's last minutes.
***
Kirk, Spock - Nirvana
Kirk knows he shouldn't obsess about something that happened in another timeline. He shouldn't, it's useless and pointless and doesn't change a fucking thing in this timeline. Or if it changes anything, it mostly damages the good things he has here, like Bones at his side. Bones, who's given him a more than explicit piece of his mind regarding mind melds and Vulcans who couldn't keep their thoughts to themselves.
Kirk couldn't stop thinking about the old Spock's words anyway, and even as he manages to stop giving them too many thoughts during the day, in the night, his subconscious takes over and all the things he wants since forever find an outlet in his dreams, dad-mom-sam-family.
When he can't stand it anymore, he takes two weeks off and flies to New Vulcan. It breaks his heart, the way Bones shows him off in the transporter bay, because Kirk knows that Bones' snappish words barely manage to cover the anger and hurt that really reign in the heart of his lover and friend. Kirk leaves anyway, alone.
"I cannot give you what you need," are the first words Spock speaks to him.
As if any Spock in any universe is a match to Jim Kirk.
It takes three days to have Spock agree into more mind melds. Kirk takes every moment he gets offered, and then some, paying it back a little by sharing his own, much shorter life. Mostly he's like a sponge, reveling in all the things he sees in Spock's mind, all the adventures they share, the good moments and the heartbreaks. He laughs and smiles, and he weeps over a dead friend and his own death. He takes everything he can get.
"Only one more," he says on the last day. "Only one more," Spock agrees.
*
Just one last meld, and it's enough for Spock to erase every single memory he'd surrendered, every thing he'd ever shared about Kirk's past and family. In the end, all that is left is one young James T. Kirk, who never knew his father and barely saw his mother and had not yet to bury his best friend.
"Thank you," McCoy says as they come to pick up the sedated captain.
"He would hate me, if he knew," Spock says.
"He would, but I won't be the one to tell him," McCoy states. "Are you alright, Sir?" he asks Spock, unusually gently.
"All is well with me, doctor. I am pleased I could help the captain one last time."
Spock watches them leave, the only man to whom he'd ever have entrusted his memories being carried away with not a trace of the knowledge he'd given him.
So this means truly dying.
***
Pike, Number One, Kirk - Mind Eraser (warning: sad)
"I can't believe that's him," Kirk says quietly, almost whispering, as he looks through the tiny window in the door into the hospital room. There's the man he rescued from the Narada, who'd survived all that shit and had managed to walk on his own two feet again only a year ago to return as instructor at the academy - and who's now off worse than ever.
"Better believe it, Kirk," Number One says roughly. He's never met her before, but there've been rumors about the two. Judging from her looks now... he still had no clue. If this were his lover, he wouldn't be able to stand here and watch this without falling apart.
"He's in coma with no prospect of improvement, the doctors say," the woman adds. "Too much damage from the radiation. His brain -" her voice breaks, but she stands straight and distant and he doesn't know what he could offer her to ease the pain.
A fucking baffle plate, a fucking radiation overload. Something that could happen any day on a starship, but it so wasn't supposed to happen to Pike.
Death would've been a simpler solution, Kirk thinks. This... is a zombie, a man whose body is kept alive for a brain that would never work again.
"If they'd rescued him three minutes faster, it would've been only his body. Three minutes." Kirk can see her balled fists, as if she could wrestle the time back from fate.
"You never know," he says, shaking his head, thinking of some of his badly injured, disabled-for-life crewmembers. It didn't always look like a better alternative.
"At least I could've spoken to him," Number One says. "Could've said all the things I never said, not even after the Narada. Fuck. FUCK." She pushes her fist against the wall so hard that it leaves a notch, then spins on one heel and leaves Kirk standing in the corridor.
He looks through the window once more and gives a quiet salute to the man on the bed, fervently wishing that if it was him, someone would have the guts to just pull the plug.
***
George Kirk, Jim Kirk (and Pike too) - Hologram
"You watched it," Pike asks him when he finds him in the bar.
Of course it would be Pike, and of course it's not really a question.
"You always keep your material lying around?" Kirk asks back slurred, having had already a few too many.
"Only holo simulations that might be useful for the academy," Pike says and sits down next to Kirk. "And not everyone hacks into the simulator file folders because they want to pass the Kobayashi Maru test."
"How's that useful to ban the last minutes of a man into a simulation?" Kirk asks, ignoring the admiral's latest words. "How, fucking dammit Sir, is that necessary?"
"Bridge activities are voice recorded since the first days of spaceflight -"
"That's not what I asked," Kirk snaps. "This isn't what the sim contained. You added the images. Everything and everyone. When I started it, I could even smell the fucking smoke on the bridge!"
"I used it for my dissertation. I wanted to have it realistic."
Kirk shakes his head, slowly. "Don't you fucking lie to me. You finished your degree ten years ago. The simulation got updated six months ago. Ten years ago, there wouldn't have been even the holo suites around to play your little simulation!"
Pike orders a drink for himself, stretches his fingers above the bar top. "Yes," he says at last. "I updated it."
"Why?"
"I thought that maybe one day, you'd want to see it."
"No."
"Yes." Pike gives him a glance.
"I never - never would've wanted to see that."
"You could've stopped it. Talked to your father instead. I added a lot of background information about him. You'd be surprised…" Pike takes a sip from his drink. "Believe me, I enhanced it for you, but I didn't want you to find it without me."
"Who do you think you are," Kirk blurts out, or at least he tries, but his view is a little foggy by now, and it's hard to keep up his anger, now that the sadness beneath it suddenly surfaces and slaps him in his face.
Pike smiles a little to himself before shedding another glance at Kirk. "I'm the man who made you join Starfleet on a dare to do better than your father. I thought it was only fair that you got a more objective view on someone who must've haunted you all life."
Kirk chews his bottom lip, desperately searching for a good answer, or at least a good curse, but none comes forward; instead, he slips down from the chair to the ground, finally felled by the many drinks he'd had.
When he comes back to conscience, Bones is looming over him. He doesn't remember everything, but he remembers enough to call Pike two days later and ask him for a visit in the simulator together, to watch the Kelvin's last minutes.
***
Kirk, Spock - Nirvana
Kirk knows he shouldn't obsess about something that happened in another timeline. He shouldn't, it's useless and pointless and doesn't change a fucking thing in this timeline. Or if it changes anything, it mostly damages the good things he has here, like Bones at his side. Bones, who's given him a more than explicit piece of his mind regarding mind melds and Vulcans who couldn't keep their thoughts to themselves.
Kirk couldn't stop thinking about the old Spock's words anyway, and even as he manages to stop giving them too many thoughts during the day, in the night, his subconscious takes over and all the things he wants since forever find an outlet in his dreams, dad-mom-sam-family.
When he can't stand it anymore, he takes two weeks off and flies to New Vulcan. It breaks his heart, the way Bones shows him off in the transporter bay, because Kirk knows that Bones' snappish words barely manage to cover the anger and hurt that really reign in the heart of his lover and friend. Kirk leaves anyway, alone.
"I cannot give you what you need," are the first words Spock speaks to him.
As if any Spock in any universe is a match to Jim Kirk.
It takes three days to have Spock agree into more mind melds. Kirk takes every moment he gets offered, and then some, paying it back a little by sharing his own, much shorter life. Mostly he's like a sponge, reveling in all the things he sees in Spock's mind, all the adventures they share, the good moments and the heartbreaks. He laughs and smiles, and he weeps over a dead friend and his own death. He takes everything he can get.
"Only one more," he says on the last day. "Only one more," Spock agrees.
*
Just one last meld, and it's enough for Spock to erase every single memory he'd surrendered, every thing he'd ever shared about Kirk's past and family. In the end, all that is left is one young James T. Kirk, who never knew his father and barely saw his mother and had not yet to bury his best friend.
"Thank you," McCoy says as they come to pick up the sedated captain.
"He would hate me, if he knew," Spock says.
"He would, but I won't be the one to tell him," McCoy states. "Are you alright, Sir?" he asks Spock, unusually gently.
"All is well with me, doctor. I am pleased I could help the captain one last time."
Spock watches them leave, the only man to whom he'd ever have entrusted his memories being carried away with not a trace of the knowledge he'd given him.
So this means truly dying.
***