InsaneJournal

The gowns in medbay weren't flattering by any stretch of the imagination and Pike was still paler than normal, but he still managed to exude an air of authority. Although there were a few differences between the Enterprise-A and the original Enterprise, the medbay looked nearly identical to the one on his own Enterprise. A detail which was both reassuring and unsettling. Christopher had always felt most at home on his ships. Like most captains, he got restless if he was planetside for too long. Medbay, however, was not his favourite place. There were always things to be done and he wasn't a fan of idly wasting his time (even under the guise of recuperation). His fingers were moving over the PADD, trying to catch up on everything he'd missed in the past five years when the door slid open. He looked up, wondering if it was just another member of medical staff, but when he saw the command gold and the familiar visage of Jim Kirk, his blue eyes lit up.

"Jim!" he said with a smile, the sight of the young man helping to ease his discomfort. "How have you been?" It wasn't the best opening line, but what did you say after coming back from the dead?

If anyone noticed their captain pacing outside of the medbay doors for at least five entire minutes, no one said anything. In fact, only one crewman stopped to acknowledge him, and that was enough for Jim to stop being an idiot. He tugged his uniform better into place and strode into the medbay. It was one thing to know that people from other timelines and dimensions were showing up unannounced and without real explanation, but it was another entirely to see that Admiral Pike had, essentially, come back from the dead. He had been struggling since Bones informed him of the arrival with just how to handle it.

He coughed into his fist and then smiled over at Pike as he approached, the promised bottle of scotch at his side. “Admiral,” he said. “You look - better than you did the last time I saw you.” Insensitive, perhaps, but true. He wasn’t dying or dead at Starfleet HQ this time. “Been keeping busy,” he said, which was more or less the best answer he could give. “How are you feeling? Bones patched you right up?”

It reminded Christopher of when Jim had first come to see him at medical in San Francisco after the events of the Narada. That same look of uncertainty, which Pike understood. Hospitals - and medbays - weren't the most comfortable place. But Kirk looked older too, more mature. The captaincy suited him, but he also thought he could see the toll it had taken on the young man.

"I should hope so," Chris said with a smile and a levity that almost seemed out of place for the current situation. He wasn't sure how things had gone. He remembered the attack, but he didn't know how it ended. But he knew what it was like to see those you cared for dead in front of you. "Been better, but been worse. McCoy did a stellar job. I probably owe him at least a bottle of bourbon. I'm good, though. Or well, as good as I can be."

Christopher paused and gave Jim a look. "You don't need to beat around the bush with me. Whatever it is, feel free to say it."

It occurred to Jim, suddenly, that this must have been what it was like for Spock and Scotty and Bones and his crew to know that he was dead and then to see him alive again. Of course, that a few weeks, not five years. Still. He snapped out of it and dragged a chair over to the side of the bed, holding out the scotch. “I forgot glasses. I’ll see what I can find around here.”

Once he’d secured them two - what were they, beakers? He hoped they were clean and non-toxic - he poured them each two fingers’ worth and handed one to Pike. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, clearing his throat. “I guess I didn’t expect anyone coming back from the dead.” He shrugged and sat back in the chair he had pulled over. “Not that I’m not glad you’re here, of course.” He looked at the liquor and then back over at Pike. “I assume you’re expecting a full briefing, and you don’t want me to leave anything out?”

"Jim, its ok-" he protested when Kirk went hunting for glasses. "It's alright, son. I imagine it's a lot to take in for anyone."

Pike sniffed the beaker and swirled it around before raising it. "Here's to not being dead then."

Christopher took a long slow sip and leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment. Apparently dying - or almost dying - took a toll on the body. "No need to doctor reports for me. I want to know everything, but that's me. That can wait. Jim, how are you doing? I.. well, apparently I haven't seen you in five years, but the last thing I remember is the firefight and then the explosion and Spock mind melding and…" There wasn't a need to finish that sentence, so Pike just let it trail off and took another sip.

“I’ll drink to that,” Jim said, raising his glass too and giving Pike a tight smile before sipping from his glass too. He pressed his fingers against his own forehead when Pike brought up the mindmeld. He had been thinking of that himself, in those last moments before he had died, too.

The question about how he was doing took him off guard. It wasn’t often that people asked him that. As the captain, he was expected to be fine or at least not show when he wasn’t. “I’m - fine,” he said. “There was a rough patch a few years back, another one, but I’m fine.” He lowered his glass to his lap and bounced his knee a little nervously. What was it about Pike that always made him feel like he wasn’t the commanding officer anymore? He knew exactly what it was - an intense eagerness to prove himself and make Pike proud.

“After you died,” he said carefully, “I got the Enterprise back and we were ordered to an off-the-record mission that pretty much all went to hell.”

There were questions about his own death that Chris wanted to ask, things that would have been left out of official reports, but that was for another time and place. Or at least, until the second glass of whiskey.

"Jim…" It wasn't the 'what the hell have you done now' voice, but the 'talk to me, i'm concerned voice'. Thirty years in the Fleet had given Pike the ability to imbue one word with any myriad of meaning depending on the situation.

"You deserve the Enterprise. There's no one in Starfleet I'd rather have passed her on to. And you went through a hell of a lot those first few years as Captain, and you know what? I will always stick my neck out for you, because you're a hell of fine officer, Kirk, and you do me and your father proud. I'll always think of her as mine, even if this is a new one, but that's because I watched her being built and she was my.. Everything then." There was more to that story as well, but that could wait.

"There's a reason though I wanted you to serve as my first officer - because you're good. And we never had the chance to command her together. And I'm not going to try and take her away from you now. So don't worry."

Pike took another drink of the whiskey and raised an eyebrow. "So tell me about this god-forsaken gone to hell off-the-record mission. What the hell happened after… after I died?"

Jim felt better about deserving the Enterprise now than he did five years before, but it still puffed him up to hear Pike say it. He often wondered if it was the admiral’s death that helped him come into his own. Or if it was his own death. Maybe some combination of the two. “I’m not worried about you taking the Enterprise from me,” Jim said confidently, because that thought hadn’t crossed his mind, though maybe it should have. “But I am glad for the advice and - well, anything you can do to help. Once we get back to Earth, of course, if you want to transfer back to Headquarters, that’s fine too.” Though he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be for another month, maybe month and a half, before they were back that way again.

After another sip of his drink, Jim let out a breath. “Admiral Marcus sent us off to find the person behind the attack. His name was Khan.” Jim kept on talking, explaining everything that happened during the mission, Admiral Marcus’s role in it, who Khan and his crew really were, until he got to the end of it. “At that point, the only way to save the ship was for me to go inside the warp reactor and manually get it back in balance.” He didn’t think he had to say how that turned out, and he found himself staring at his now-empty glass and scratching the back of his neck. “You can talk to Spock or Lt. Uhura for the details on how they tracked down Khan after that,” he said, “or read the official reports. Since I was - gone.”

"Whatever you need, Kirk, I'm happy to help." Pike couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of transferring back to HQ. "If I never have to sit behind a desk again, I'll be a happy man." He knew he'd have to check in with Command since his situation was unusual and not quite like the normal travelers that seemed to be arriving here. "As long as you don't mind having me aboard, that is. Wouldn't want to cramp your style." There might have been a bit of mischief in the look Pike gave Kirk with that last statement.

Christopher listened attentively as Jim recounted everything, his hand tightening into a fist as he sipped the whiskey. If he could just get his hands on Marcus… and Khan…

There was, of course, no need to finish that sentence. Christopher knew. "Jim.." The name was spoken softly this time as he set aside his empty beaker and leaned over to put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "I'm sorry. Sorry I wasn't there, sorry you had to go through that, sorry Marcus was a --" He didn't want to finish that train of thought. "I'll read the reports. Got to keep myself entertained in medbay somehow. I'll talk to Spock and Uhura when I get out."

He wanted to give Jim a hug, the kind you felt through and through. Dying wasn't an easy thing to do. But given the biobed and everything, it'd be awkward, so he settled for giving Jim a reassuring shoulder squeeze before settling back in the bed. "So, is that when the tribble comes into play? Because you look exceedingly good for someone who spent a bit too much time with warp reactor."

Kirk thought back to when he almost took a desk job and realized he was, once again, glad that he didn’t. “I’ll be glad to have you here on the Enterprise,” he said. He fingered the edge of his glass and cleared his throat. He turned and looked at Pike’s hand on his shoulder, relaxed visibly under the weight of it, and smiled. He maybe hadn’t realized just how much he missed having the admiral around, even when he was being dressed down, but especially for moments like these.

“Bones figured out that Khan’s blood brought a tribble back to life so he did the same thing to me.” He held up a hand and paused. “Don’t worry, no superhuman homicidal tendencies or anything of the sort, I promise. I’m sure if you ask the good doctor, he’ll brag all about it at the same time bemoaning the fact that his pet is gone.”

Pike studied Jim closely. Once they were out of here, he'd need to buy Jim a drink, or two, given everything he'd gone through. It was lonely and tough being Captain and he hoped Jim had the support he needed. "I'll make sure to ask McCoy about it then. Besides, I'd rather talk about that with him than talk about myself."

"Good. I wouldn't have been too happy to come back only to find you dead." It was an understatement, but it still needed to be said. He motioned for Kirk to refill their glasses and took a sip. "So, what's going on here, with all this? What's going on?"

That was an easier thing to talk about, the travelers that had begun appearing. “About five months ago or so, a nebula opened up,” Jim said, noting the sector and location, “and then people came through it, unconscious but alive, in these little biodegradable bubbles. We have no explanation, but Starfleet’s looking into it. We managed to set up a deep space transport operation where everyone gets beamed here to sickbay when they come through, and we’ve been housing them here temporarily, on board the Enterprise.”

Chris nodded. It was easier to focus on this - missions, problems, works, than to think on the fact that they'd both been dead and were now here. "Any other unusual activity?" he asked, pulling up a map of the sector on his PADD. "How are we- how are you doing for space?" The Enterprise wasn't built to be a cruise ship. And the amount of travellers… well, it could potentially put a drain on the ship's resources. "What does Starfleet Command have to say about the situation?"

“Nothing else unusual, no,” Jim said. “Everyone seems to come in at different points in their lives. Some injured or close to death, others just fine. You’re the first who has come through from our timeline. That’s the other thing that’s odd about it. We’ve got people like Jadzia Dax and Kathryn Janeway, from the future, but from Spock Prime’s timeline, not this one. The timeline where the attack on the Kelvin never happened.” If mentioning the ship his father died on affected Jim in that moment, he didn’t show it.

“We’re fine on space. This has all been approved and re-assigned from command. We were nearing the end of our five-year deep space mission when it happened, and we were the closest to the nebula at the time as well. Our last stop, at Yorktown, was a services and maintenance stop. Moved some things around down on deck D for more quarters. Some of the travelers are in rooms of up to four, but it’s the best we can do. And we’re encouraging them to pull their own weight, though it’s not mandatory. Several who have been around for some time now, Kate Beckett and Steve Rogers, for two, are part of the security team. Peggy Carter - you probably woke up to her pretty face after Bones’s - started a liaison program to acclimate them all. It’s not taking up as much crew time and resources now as it did at the start.”

"Any others after dying?" Pike asked, giving voice to the elephant in the room. There was no point to beating around the bush with Kirk, they'd been through too much together. But if he had shown up, then perhaps others could too -- Marcus, George.. He sighed. Either of those would be complicated.

"If I wasn't here , then I'd say perhaps our timeline was exempt from it somehow - which would at least provide us a control, but my presence here seems to disrupt that hypothesis. So this nebula seems to be wreaking havoc with everything." He rubbed at the crease on his forehead with his fingertips. It was enough to give him a headache. "Seems you have the situation well in hand. I'm impressed. It's not exactly a situation that Starfleet prepared you for. Good job, Jim."

Christopher knew the cost of stressful situations though. "And you? How are you doing? Finding time to get some rest and have some fun?"

Kirk shook his head. “Not specifically, no. Well, maybe they would have died in their timelines, too, like you would have if not brought here, but no one else that I know who’s been dead, no.” He let that sink in for a moment. Would someone else be able to arrive, back from the dead, like Pike did? He didn’t linger on that for very long. He laughed nervously. “Thanks. I’m doing what I can. The difficult part is finding something to keep them all busy.” He thought of people like Lucifer, like Tony Stark, who would get into trouble otherwise.

Again, he was surprised about the concern for his own well-being. “Well, to be honest, right now I’m trying to figure out if I should be treating the travelers as members of the crew.” Which, to Jim, meant hands off. “Or if they’re exempt from that.”

Pike gave Jim a smile. "I was Commandant of Cadets at the Academy, Jim. If you need to find jobs for people, I can do that. Idle hands.."

They could come back to the topic of dead people. Pike wasn't ready to talk about his own death yet, or what it would mean if someone else from the past showed up. Boyce would accuse him of avoiding. Pike called it functioning. "You seem to have some level of integration between the travellers and the crew already, yes? So at the very least, they're functioning like civilian consultants. What aspect of regs are you wondering about - law enforcement? Something else?"

“That’s not a bad idea, really. You could work hand in hand with Ms. Carter, in addition to whatever advisory position you take up with me. If that’s what you want, at least. I’m certainly not going to assign you any position,” he said, “sir,” he added as a lip-twitching afterthought.

“Some of them have trained and we’ve given them non-commissioned positions in various departments, yes,” he said. He had left it up to his senior staff though, to determine who made it through their training and into those positions. “Others are civilian jobs, in the mess, in the lounge, that sort of thing.” As for what regs he was worried about … “I make it a point not to sleep with members of my crew,” he said bluntly, not needing to bring up any specifics. “So if you’re asking me if I’ve been having some fun, then right now, that answer is still no. But I haven’t decided if all of the travelers count as my crew, in that way specifically.” He gave the admiral a charming yet chagrined smile.

"Considering all the hell I gave you, you'd be in your right to assign me a few crappy shifts," Pike admitted. "But thank you. I'll do whatever you need, Captain." Sometimes it helped to show the respect of the title and a proud smile accompanied it. "I'm sure between you, Ms. Carter, and myself, we can come up with something to keep everyone occupied."

Pike was glad for that. Starfleet might go overboard on regs at times, but he would be uncomfortable if Kirk was handing out commissions to civilians.

"Ah, those regs." There was a knowing smile. "I wasn't asking about that type of fun specifically earlier - you can have fun without it being in the bedroom, you know." He ran a hand over his hair, took a sip of whiskey and leaned back in the biobed.

"It's a reg for a reason, you know that. Sex complicates things. Being captain is hard enough without romantic feelings getting in the mix. But it's hard. It's lonely. And sometimes we spend so much time pushing people away when we should be letting them in." His mind drifting back to a particular incident in his own history, when he'd been ready to throw it all away.

"It's a regulation I broke with my CMO. Commander Boyce and I were together for twenty years, but it was never official with Starfleet. And it was.. Difficult to continue working together after the relationship ended." He didn't talk about Phillip much, but considering Pike himself was dead, there didn't seem to be a reason to keep the secret anymore. "Regs are… well, you and I both know that there are times the best thing is to ignore regs. But when it's relationships.. I think the question is, why are you holding back? Can you treat this individual the same way you treat everyone else? Will it change things if you get involved? If they're a traveller, they're a civilian, so most of the issues of power aren't there - but are they attracted to you, or to the persona of the captain?"

Jim grimaced. Of course he knew just fine that he can have fun without being in the bedroom, but he had a lot of fun when he was in the bedroom. And it had been too long. More than he probably ought to admit, really, so he decided not to. He nodded as Pike talked about it. “I prefer uncomplicated sex,” he said, which he knew wasn’t something very easily come by, no matter who he was, who his partner was, or where they were. Still, he didn’t mind seeking it out.

His eyebrows shot up when the admiral brought up Commander Boyce. That certainly wasn’t something Jim was aware of. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he’d heard rumors about it, though there was no reason to think that he ought to have. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” he said. He’d seen the toll having a relationship took on Spock and Uhura, even, so he could sympathize even if it hadn’t happened specifically to him. He rubbed the back of his neck at the onslaught of questions and shook his head. “I don’t, really, have a particular person in mind,” he admitted. “So I don’t have any specifics but those are all really good things to consider before, uh, taking any steps in that general direction.”

"Uncomplicated sex is easier to get on shore leave than on a ship," Pike said with a knowing look. Judging by Jim's reaction, it was safe to assume he hadn't known.

Pike's jaw shifted. He'd never been good at talking about his relationship, even when he was in it. "My relationship took second place to Starfleet. It ended because Phil and I realized I would always put Starfleet first."

Chris gave Jim a smile. "Every situation is different. I wouldn't have made it through many of those years without knowing I had Phil to come back to, to give me a reprieve from the being Captain. Because when it was just us, I didn't have to be the Captain anymore. Take it as it comes. Sometimes it's worth breaking regs."

Jim would put Starfleet, this ship, her crew - those things first, and he nodded firmly, understanding what Pike was saying, if not because of the situation, but because of the pull to ship and crew.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, taking in all of the advice. He hadn’t been lying necessarily when he said that he didn’t have any particular person in mind, though his mind did drift to the times he recently spent alone with Mary, a woman who wasn’t like any woman Kirk would ever have chosen for himself. Yet she’d gotten under his skin somehow, maybe because of her wide-eyed wonder at this future she was thrust into, maybe for how completely different their lives were. He shook his head and looked back to Pike. “Did Bones give you any idea when he’ll let you out of here?”

"A few days, I think he said. Apparently he was a bit reluctant to discharge me as soon as I woke up." Pike gave Kirk a smirk that had gotten Pike into and out of trouble as a young man. Despite the smile, Pike felt like he'd been hit by a truck - or worse. And even if he wanted to, he wasn't sure how easily he could get up and walk out of medbay. "Something about it takes more than five minutes to recover from death and all captains are the same."

He reached out and squeezed Jim's hand. "I'm going to be okay, though. And the whiskey helps. Thank you."

Jim knew how much he hated waiting around to be released when he’d been brought back to life, and that wasn’t on board the Enterprise. He knew Pike must be eager to get up and move around. “I’ll talk to him, see if we can’t get you moved to your quarters sooner rather than staying cooped up in here.” He stood up and set the bottle of whiskey on the table beside the biobed. “I’ll leave this here if you promise not to tell Bones it was me who brought it for you.”

"Your secret's safe with me," Pike said with a smile as he settled back against the biobed, weariness etched on his face. "Thanks for the visit. Let me know when you contact Command about me - I'm happy to talk to them in necessary. And if you need help with anything, just let me know. I'm guessing paperwork still isn't your favorite?"

“I will sir, thank you,” he said, adjusting his uniform shirt again. “Uh, no, I still hate paperwork. I usually foist it off to Yeoman Rand or Spock, depending on how I feel.” He grinned at that. Of course, he took care of the classified paperwork himself, but if he could delegate, he wasn’t not going to. And if Admiral Pike had the right clearances, then Kirk had someone else to push the work off at. “But I also know you don’t like it either, so we’ll figure something out.” He paused for a moment, took a deep breath. “I know I’ve already said it, but I need to say it again: I’m really glad to see you, sir.”

"It's a necessary evil," Pike admitted. "Feeling is entirely mutual, son."

He paused before raising an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you can rustle up some extra gold shirts. My greys will feel a bit formal for when I'm out of here. And hopefully you can give me a tour of your ship then?"

“I’m sure I can come up with something,” Jim said, the smile tugging at his mouth growing. “And I wouldn’t let anyone else give you a tour, so you can count on it.”

"Between you and the replicator, I'm sure I won't need to worry about suitable clothes." Pike gave Kirk a proud smile. "I look forward to it, Captain."