Chapter Text
The Riverside bar hadn’t changed.
Same flickering sign. Same sticky floors. Same old men with union jackets and hands that shook from decades of labor. The same pool table Jim had nearly cracked a rib falling off of when he was sixteen.
He hadn’t meant to end up back in Iowa. It just happened.
Like gravity.
Like failure.
He blew into town three weeks ago on a borrowed bike and a favor from someone who owed him. Crashed on a couch. Picked up part-time work fixing old transports no one cared about. Spent most nights here, nursing drinks he didn’t pay for and collecting numbers he’d never call.
He was bored.
He was bitter.
He was wired for violence and charm in equal measure.
Jim played two games of pool. Won one. Lost one. Made a girl laugh. Made a guy mad. Leaned on the bar like he owned the place and let the alcohol simmer in his gut like gasoline waiting for a spark.
He was 22 years old and didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Didn’t know who he was supposed to be.
Didn’t care.
He wasn’t dead.
That was enough.
For now.
The bar is loud, sticky with cheap beer and long stories. Jim’s leaning on the counter, bruised knuckles wrapped around a glass he didn’t pay for. He’s been here for hours, but time doesn’t move when you’re not expecting anything better.
Then she walks in.
Not dressed like anyone else in this place. Controlled, poised, not here to drink or lose herself, here for something else. And Jim, well. Jim notices.
He watches her order a tray full of drinks; complicated ones, not the watery brown stuff they serve in plastic. She’s too put together to be here. Too sharp for Iowa.
He moves in like it’s instinct.
“That’s a lot of drinks for one woman,” he says, grinning as he eases closer.
She ignores him.
“And a shot of Jack, straight up,” she tells the bartender, cool and efficient, like she’s done this a dozen times and has no patience for games.
Jim’s grin sharpens. “Make that two. Her shot’s on me.”
“Her shot’s on her ,” she replies without looking at him. “Thanks but no thanks.”
He pretends not to flinch. She shut him down like she was brushing lint off her sleeve. But he’s used to rejection. Hell, rejection’s practically a love language where he comes from.
Still, it’s the way she says it. Calm. Dismissive. Like she already knows him. Like she saw everything in the few seconds it took to size him up and decided he wasn’t worth the time.
That? That makes him want to try harder.
“Don’t you at least want to know my name before you completely reject me?” he asks, sliding closer, leaning on the bar like he owns it. “Name’s Kirk. Jim Kirk.”
That gets her to look at him.
He gives her the full grin, the one that gets him into trouble, the one that’s gotten him out of fights and into beds more times than he can count. The one that says don’t you want to see what happens next?
There’s a beat.
A long, echoing silence that doesn’t land the way he wants it to. The kind that makes people squirm.
She doesn’t.
He leans his elbow on the bar, undeterred. “If you don’t tell me your name, I’m gonna have to make one up.”
That gets a look. Sharp. Amused. “Uhura.”
Jim blinks. “No way. That’s exactly the name I was going to make up for you.”
She snorts. Barely. “Uhura what ?”
“Just Uhura.”
He raises a brow. “So they don’t have last names on your world?”
“ Uhura is my last name.”
Jim grins wider, delighted. “So… no first names on your world?”
She doesn’t roll her eyes, but he can feel her wanting to.
“I could tell you my first name,” she says evenly, “but you'd forget it by the time you’re halfway through your next shot, and then I’d be insulted.”
He presses a hand to his heart, mock-offended. “Baby, I will never forget anything you tell me.”
She gives him a look that could kill a man at twenty paces.
He pushes forward anyway, emboldened by the fact that she hasn’t actually walked away yet.
“In fact,” he says, “I remember the first time you rejected me. Remember that? When we first met?”
Uhura laughs just a little, despite herself. It’s the tiniest break in her armor.
Jim takes a sip of his beer like it’s a prize.
“Okay, so you’re a cadet,” he says, like he’s already known it for an hour. “Studying, preparing to go…,” he waved an indifferent hand skyward, “out there. That-away. What’s your focus?”
“Xenolinguistics." she answers smoothly. "Let me guess: you don’t know what that means.”
“Let me guess. Study of alien languages: phonology, morphology, syntax, variability in different mediums of aural conveyance, symbology. It means you’ve got a talented tongue.”
“for a moment I thought you were just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals.”
“Well, not only. "
And she laughs. Full-on this time.
That sound goes through him like heat.
And Kirk knows he's won.
“Come on, then,” Uhura says, gathering her tray of drinks with impossible balance and grace. “You can sit with me. But I’m not sharing.”
Jim smirks. “Wasn’t gonna ask. I like a woman with strong boundaries.”
She leads him to a corner booth tucked in the back of the bar; quiet, half-shadowed, away from the music and the crowd. It’s the kind of spot people choose when they don’t want to be overheard. Or when they’re tired of pretending they’re part of the noise.
Jim slides in across from her. She sets her drinks down in a careful arc around herself and nurses her first one like she’s got all the time in the universe.
He watches her for a moment, something in the way she sits, sharp and self-contained, but not cold. She’s not defensive. She’s just solid. He feels the words bubbling up before he can stop them.
“You’ve got one of those faces,” he says.
Uhura raises an eyebrow.
“The kind people probably tell secrets to. Without meaning to.”
She doesn’t smile, but her mouth twitches like it wants to. “And you’ve got one of those mouths.”
Jim raises his glass in salute. “Touché.”
They talk. Mostly nonsense. Flirting that flirts with meaning, circling around anything real. He teases her about the way she orders drinks like she’s negotiating a treaty. She fires back with a comment about his posture;“You lean like you’re trying to win something.” He shrugs, says he usually is.
“I’m a new Starfleet recruit,” she says, almost offhandedly.
Jim whistles low, mock-impressed. “Ah, so you are one of the chosen ones.”
“Chosen?”
He gestures vaguely upward, mimicking her earlier gesture. “You know. Bound for the stars. Noble missions. Impossibly tight uniforms.”
She laughs into her glass. “It’s not noble, it’s practical. Earth’s… fine. But I want to go where language hasn’t even figured itself out yet.”
“You say that like it’s romantic.”
“It is.” She meets his eyes. “Think about it; trying to understand someone who’s never been understood before? That’s connection. That’s peace.”
Jim studies her for a moment, all pretense dropped. He likes the way she says it. Like she believes it. Like the whole galaxy makes sense to her when she’s chasing meaning.
And then she asks, “What about you? What do you do?”
He opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because the truth is; he doesn’t know. He hustles. He fixes things. He fights when someone looks at him the wrong way. He drinks too much and laughs too loud and wakes up most mornings wondering what the hell he’s still doing here.
But he doesn’t do anything. He just is.
Jim clears his throat, trying to laugh it off. “Be professionally charming, mostly.”
“Mm,” she says, unconvinced.
But she doesn’t press. She just takes another sip of her drink and looks at him like she’s already figured out too much and is deciding whether or not to say so.
Jim watches her over the rim of his glass. She’s on her third drink, still hasn’t shared. He respects that.
“Okay,” he says. “Real talk.”
Uhura glances up, wary.
“No jokes,” he promises. “No innuendo, no charming bullshit.”
“That’ll be a first.”
He smiles faintly but holds her gaze. “Why’d you really join Starfleet?”
She doesn’t answer at first.
The silence stretches between them, comfortable but heavy. Jim leans forward, resting his forearms on the table. His eyes are steady for once, no glint of amusement behind them.
Uhura sets her glass down slowly.
“My family,” she says. “My parents. My brother. They died.”
Jim’s breath catches.
“They were on a shuttle,” she continues, voice even. Too even. “Transport malfunction. Hull breach. Pilot error. Doesn’t matter.”
Her fingers tap once against the glass. “I was supposed to be with them.”
He doesn’t say anything.
Not sorry. Not that’s rough. Not I understand, because he knows better than to say that. Knows that some things don’t want comfort. They just want to be said.
“I joined Starfleet because I needed to leave Earth,” she says. “I needed to go somewhere they never went. Somewhere I could stop being their daughter, their sister. Somewhere I could be something else.”
Her voice is steady, but her hands are clenched in her lap.
Jim watches her for a long moment.
“I get it,” he says quietly.
She lifts an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“I didn’t say it was the same,” he says. “But yeah. I get it.”
She searches his face. Like she doesn’t believe him. Like maybe she wants to.
Then she exhales, slow and soft. And it feels like something opens between them; quiet and real, a space carved by pain that neither of them asked for but both of them carry.
He doesn’t say anything else. He just sits there with her. And it’s the most honest Jim’s been in years.
Jim’s stretched out, one leg hanging over the bench. He’s buzzed but not drunk. Warm but not reckless.
He feels… good.
Which is suspicious in and of itself.
Uhura leans back, finishing her last drink, and gives him that look again—the one that makes him feel like she sees straight through his skin.
“You know,” she says casually, “you could do it.”
“Do what?” he asks, tipping his glass toward his mouth. “Impress you?”
She doesn’t laugh. “Join Starfleet.”
Jim nearly chokes on his beer. “What, they recruiting out of bars now?”
She raises a brow.
“Oh wait,” he grins. “They are. I forgot. You’re the advance team. Are the quotas really that low this year? They sending cadets into dive bars to rope in disasters like me?”
“That’s not a compliment,” she says.
He shrugs. “Wasn’t meant to be.”
Uhura sets her glass down gently. “That thing you rattled off earlier; xenolinguistics?” she says. “Nobody pulls that out of their ass. You’re either a genius or a fraud. And I don’t think you’re a fraud.”
Jim blinks.
No one talks to him like this. Not without trying to fix him. Or recruit him. Or fight him.
“Look,” she says, “I don’t care what you’ve done, or who you pissed off, or how many bars you’ve been kicked out of. I’m just saying… you could be something. Something more than this.”
Jim stares at her.
And it hits him hard and fast that she means it. She’s not mocking him. She’s not playing.
Uhura gives a half-smile, but her gaze doesn’t soften. “Think about it, Jim Kirk.” She gets up and leaves.
And for once, he does.
The hangover hit around 06:00.
A dull, insistent throb behind his eyes, like his brain was reminding him: you’re not the kind of guy who makes good decisions, remember?
And yet… there he was. Standing at the edge of the launch pad, wind tugging at his jacket, watching the Starfleet shuttle hiss steam into the rising Iowa sun.
He could still turn around. He could still go back. Back to the bar. Back to nowhere.
He took a breath.
And climbed the ramp.
The interior of the shuttle was sterile and quiet; rows of seats, a handful of other recruits already buckled in. The buzz of preflight systems hummed in the walls. It smelled faintly of disinfectant and nerves.
Jim scanned the cabin lazily, and then he saw her. Uhura.
Sitting near the middle, legs crossed, data PADD in her lap. Calm as always.
He caught her eye and grinned.
“Small galaxy,” he said, sauntering down the aisle.
She barely looked up. “You're late.”
Jim winked. “Had to make a dramatic entrance. Otherwise you might not have noticed me.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t show.”
He laughed, dropped into the seat behind her, and started strapping in.
"You know, I never did get that first name." He says. He can tell that she's smiling even with her back turned to him from where he's sitting.
Mccoy does end up throwing up all over Jim's shoes. By the time they touch down, Mccoy's already given Jim half his flask, and a packet of crackers from his pocket.
McCoy’s offered three aggressive rants about shuttle design, one personal vendetta against seatbelts, and exactly zero apologies.
They’re inseparable by the time the doors open.
Uhura catches sight of them as she steps off the shuttle. She clocks the stained boots, the ridiculous grins, and the easy camaraderie.
Jim raises a hand in greeting. “Hey, roomie,” he calls.
“I pray we’re not in the same dorm,” she says, deadpan.
McCoy glances at her, then at Jim. “Friend of yours?”
Jim shrugs. “Kind of. She talked me into joining.”
McCoy stares at her, then at Jim again. “She knows what you’re like and she still encouraged you?”
Jim smirks. “She believes in lost causes.”
Uhura sighs and keeps walking.
Jim and McCoy follow.
They have no idea what’s coming.
But for once, Jim’s not walking into it alone.
Uhura, Kirk, and Mccoy are filling out the enlistment forms together, all of them a bit older than the other first years.
"We need to put two emergency contacts?!" Kirk whisper shouts, which makes the other two beside him scroll down to that particular section and groan.
"Doesn't work when you leave it blank, And it doesn't work if you try to make somebody up!" Jim throws his head back in defeat after his attempt to circumvent the requirement.
"I tried to input dead relatives' names and it gives an error as well. This is pathetic." Nyota sighs.
"Bones, can I use yours?" Jim peers over Mccoy's shoulder.
"I don't have anyone either, and what the hell did you just call me?"
"No one?" Uhura gapes. Mccoy glares down at his PADD instead of answering her. "That's perfect." He looks up at her, pissed off. "We'll be each others." She holds out her PADD for Mccoy.
“Alright.. you two better not get yourself killed or I’m out of emergency contacts again.”
"We're not going to be on training missions till second year, Bones."
"Why do you keep calling me that?" To his annoyance, Kirk just smirks.
He taps in his name on Nyota’s form, then glances at hers. His smile falters a little.
“...It’s asking for a full name.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I know it is.”
He looks up at her. Not teasing this time. “Can I have it? Your first name?”
Uhura stares at him for a beat. Then rolls her eyes, softly.
“Nyota,” she says, almost grudgingly.
Jim repeats it under his breath, testing the sound. Then he smiles.
“Nyota,” he says again. “I won’t forget it.”
“You better not,” she mutters, but he can see the corners of her mouth twitch.
Jim Kirk hadn’t even unpacked his duffel bag before he found his way to a bar.
Not just any bar, either. Not some loud cadet dive, full of first-years trying to impress each other. No. Jim Kirk had standards. He found a quiet, upscale lounge a few blocks from campus. The kind of place where high-ranking officers drank their worries away. Where professors unwound after making cadets miserable all day. Where no one expected to run into a brand-new, fresh-off-the-shuttle cadet.
And Jim? Jim saw an opportunity. He played it smart. Didn’t walk in cocky. Didn’t draw attention to himself. Just found a seat at the poker table, ordered a drink like he belonged there, and waited. And it didn’t take long before someone noticed him. An older officer, silver at the temples, just tipsy enough to feel generous.
"New around here?" the officer asked.
Jim smiled, easy, harmless. "Something like that."
"Starfleet?"
Jim tilted his head, considering his words carefully. "You could say that."
And that was all it took. Because as far as these guys were concerned, he was just some smooth-talking ensign or an off-duty recruit. Not a first-year cadet who had only been in San Francisco for five hours.
They let him join the game. He played cautiously at first. Lost a few rounds. Let them underestimate him.
Let them believe he was just lucky when he started winning. Let them laugh when he played dumb, asking questions like, "Wait, does a straight beat a flush?" Or, "So... how much are those little blue chips worth again?"
And by the time they realized what was happening? By the time Jim had cleaned out half the table? It was too late.
"Jesus Christ," one of them muttered. "Kid, you sure you’re not security ops?"
Jim just grinned, pocketing his winnings. "Beginner’s luck, I guess."*
They all groaned. He walked out 200 credits richer. And he slept like a damn king that night.
He showed up to his first tactics class still feeling smug. Until he saw the professor. And realized it was the same guy he’d hustled last night.
Jim froze.
The professor locked eyes with him.
There was a long pause.
Then, slowly, the man smirked. Jim grinned back.
Because, really.
What was Starfleet if not a game of high-stakes bluffing?
The first time Starfleet asked him to pose for a recruitment campaign, Jim laughed in their faces.
The second time, he told them to go to hell.
The third time, he didn’t answer at all. Jim just turned on his heel and walked out of the office before the PR officer could finish her pitch about “inspiring the next generation.”
They didn’t get it. They never got it. Jim Kirk wasn’t a goddamn legacy. He wasn’t some bright-eyed kid who had joined Starfleet to follow in his father’s footsteps. He had barely joined at all.
And yet, from the second he’d stepped onto campus, from the second they’d seen the name Kirk stitched onto his cadet uniform, everyone had already decided who he was supposed to be.
Jim had never met his father. His father had been a voice on a transmission, a fading echo in his mother’s stories, a legend sealed in reports and news reels. Jim had never known the man.
But Starfleet sure as hell did. George Kirk, the hero of the USS Kelvin. George Kirk, who saved eight hundred lives in twelve minutes.
George Kirk, who was so goddamn perfect that he didn’t even have to live for Jim to be drowning under his name.
They all thought Jim should be proud to be his son. But how the hell could you be proud of a ghost? How could you live up to something that never made mistakes? That never had to survive being human?
Jim wasn’t a hero. He was a guy who had spent most of his life scraping by, hustling, running from fights when he could and winning them when he couldn’t. He had stolen food to survive. He had burned bridges before they could be built.
Jim Kirk was reckless. Jim Kirk was flawed. Jim Kirk had to fight to be here. But no one wanted to hear that story. They wanted the Kelvin Baby. The son of George Kirk. The walking PR campaign. Jim clenched his jaw as he walked across campus, too aware of the stares, the whispers.
That’s Kirk.
You think he’s gonna be like his dad?
He’s trouble.
He’s a genius.
He’s reckless.
He’s a Kirk.
It never mattered what he did. Whether he aced a test, broke a rule, pulled a stunt. He was always being compared to a man he had never met. And God, was he sick of it. He reached the training deck, needing the space, needing to move, needing something to punch. McCoy found him there two hours later, sweating, breathing hard, fists aching from slamming into the bag over and over.
"You good?" McCoy asked, voice gruff, but not unkind.
Jim exhaled sharply, shaking out his hands. "Peachy." McCoy didn’t buy it. He never did.
"Starfleet bothering you again?"
Jim let out a humorless laugh. "Oh, you know. They just want a couple of photos. A feel-good story. ‘Son of George Kirk, following in his father’s footsteps.’”
McCoy’s face darkened. “Bastards.” Jim smirked, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"Yeah, well. That’s what I get for having a dead hero for a dad."
McCoy was quiet for a long moment. Then, he muttered, “You know, Jim… you’re the one pulling yourself through this place. Not him.”
Jim swallowed. McCoy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I’m not saying your old man wasn’t a hero. But you’re not him. You don’t have to be." Jim set his jaw, staring at the wall, hands flexing at his sides.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Tell that to Starfleet." But maybe, just maybe, one day, he’d believe it himself.
Pike 'requests' the presence of Cadet Kirk for a meeting in his office later that day and Kirk forcibly skips his lectures because he can't stop throwing up. Mccoy rubs his back and brings him water before hypo spraying him with something to relax his stomach. He makes Jim shower and makes him eat an apple and some crackers so he doesn't faint.
"What would I do without you, Bones?" Kirk tiredly says as he lays down on Bones' bed.
"Would it kill you to tell me what's bothering you? I've never seen you this darn nervous before, kid." Bones sits down as he continues to rub Kirks back.
"I have a meeting with Captain Pike." He manages to mumble.
"C'mon Jim, it won't be bad. He probably just wants to meet you and talk about how he knew your father or something."
"It'd be fine if it was just that but I.. have some history with Pike."
"Like….?" Mccoy ducks his head, "Sexual?" which causes Jim to jolt and sit up.
"God no! Don't tell me you believe those rumours going around!"
"I don't! I'm just trying to understand, is all." Mccoy looks a bit sheepish. Jim flops back down on the bed.
"I met him when I was a kid. Him and his crew rescued me and some family I had, that's all."
"Jesus.. I have some vaccines that'll make you sick if you don't want to go to the meeting?"
"Your solution is always some version of shoving a hypo in me, Bones."
"That's not a no."
"It's okay…Gotta face the music one day."
It was silent for a while, Jim threw his legs over the edge of the bed to start tugging on his boots.
"Can you walk me to his office?"
"Of course Jim."
Mccoy gets on his boots as well. While they're walking across campus, Mccoy has some more questions to ask.
"Do you think he'll recognize you?"
"Probably. I hope not."
"He knows your name though."
"I didn't use my real name when Starfleet rescued me."
"Mm." Mccoy doesn't ask more. He waves goodbye to Jim after he drops him off and Jim is left there outside of the administration building. Jim stares up at the glass building for a while, before he forces himself to put one foot in front of the other.
Soon enough he's in front of Pike's office. Pike sees him through the glass and beckons him in. Jim does.
Pike made a motion for Kirk to sit.
"How have you been, Cadet?"
"Good. Lots to do." Jim says, and stumbles out a curt "Sir" at the end before he forgets.
"I've been looking over your schedule, are you sure you can handle the accelerated course load?"
"I wouldn't sign up for everything if I didn't, sir."
"Got something to prove? Your father nor your mother didn't take these many classes."
"No, sir, it's umm.. Well I'm trying to finish everything in three years."
Pike eyebrows shoot up almost to his hairline.
"Why on earth would you do that?"
"My friends and I are trying to outdo each other, Sir. Cadets Uhura and Bo- uh Mccoy. We're trying to get everything done so we'll have placements aboard the Enterprise when she's finished."
"Admirable, but don't hurt yourself son." Jim flinched when Pike said that. Pike studied him for a bit.
"Sir, if I may, can I ask why you called for this meeting?"
"I wanted to go over your schedule, and hell, I just wanted to meet you Kirk. I'm surprised you weren't enlisted sooner. Were you recruited here in the Bay?"
"No, Iowa."
"Really. I was there doing recruitment a couple of months ago, but I didn't see you."
"On August 8th?"
"Yes."
"Must've just missed you, sir."
"No big deal, you're here now." Pike busied himself with a few swipes and inputs into his PADD. "You can go now, Cadet. Expect more meetings from some of the Admirals, few of them worked with your father."
"Thank you for the heads up, Sir." Kirk stood up and straightened his uniform and gave Pike a salute before he made his way towards the door. But because he's James Tiberius Kirk, he can't help but put his foot in his mouth. Before he crosses the sensors that would open the door for him, he turns to Pike and says "You don't remember me, do you?"
"Have we met before today?"
Kirk stares at him for a while.
"Nevermind, sorry, sir." Kirk made his escape, nerves fried. He could still see him; Pike, ten years younger, standing over him on Tarsus IV, holding out a hand, telling him it was over. Telling him it was safe. But Pike? Pike didn’t remember him. Didn’t recognize the half-starved kid who snarled and fought and refused to let Starfleet take his name.
Kirk gritted his teeth, forcing down the bitterness. Good. It was better this way.
"Weird." Pike commented as he settled back into his seat. And stared hard at the door for a long while after the Cadet had left.
Jim sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the PADD in his hand. It was filled with assignments, deadlines, things he was supposed to care about. But right now, none of it mattered.
His fingers hovered over the screen, the cursor blinking at him like it was taunting him. His eyes glazed over as his thoughts drifted back home. Back to Iowa. Back to a life that was simple, where no one expected anything from him. No one cared if he failed.
He’d never been the type to run away from a challenge. Hell, he thrived on challenges. But this place, Starfleet, wasn’t like anything he’d ever imagined. The expectations, the weight of being Jim Kirk, the legacy of the Kelvin disaster that he could never outrun… It was suffocating.
His breath hitched as his thumb hovered over the “submit” button on his resignation form. One click. And he could walk away. Go back to Iowa. Live a quiet, normal life.
But something inside him, some tiny, annoying voice, told him that this wasn’t the answer.
And then there was the silence.
He hadn’t spoken to McCoy or Uhura about any of this. They knew something was off, but he kept it hidden. He always did. The whole ‘Jim Kirk, the eternal optimist’ thing was getting old.
The PADD beeped again, but he ignored it. The message would be there in the morning.
I could leave, he thought, letting his thumb trace the edge of the PADD. Just pack up and go.
A soft knock on the door broke his thoughts.
"Jim?" Uhura’s voice drifted through the door. "You still up?"
"Yeah," he called back, hiding the PADD under his blanket just in case she saw it.
The door creaked open, and Uhura stepped in, a small smile on her lips. "It’s late. You coming to eat, or do I need to drag you out of here?"
Jim chuckled weakly. "I’m just thinking."
She raised an eyebrow, crossing the room to sit beside him. "About what? You’ve got that weird look on your face."
Jim snorted, letting his head fall back against the wall. "I might just do it."
Uhura’s gaze softened, but she didn’t push. "Do what?"
"Quit," he said quietly, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "Quit Starfleet. Go back to Iowa. Get out of here before I screw everything up."
Uhura’s silence stretched out. Then, she said, simply, "Iowa’s not going anywhere, Jim. But you’re here. You’re at Starfleet because you want something more than that. Don’t you?"
He couldn’t meet her eyes, so he just stared at the wall.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Whatever you’re running from, you’re not going to outrun it by running home. You’re better than that."
Jim swallowed hard, fighting back the lump in his throat.
"I’m not better than this, Nyota. I’m just… trying to figure it out."
Uhura’s voice softened further, her hand still on his shoulder.
"You’ll figure it out. But you don’t have to do it alone."
Jim let out a long breath, letting her words sink in. He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. But for the first time in days, he felt a little bit lighter.
As Uhura stood up to leave, she gave him one last look, a gentle smile tugging at her lips.
"Just don’t make any rash decisions. Think it through."
Jim didn’t respond immediately. He only nodded.
But the thought of Iowa was still there, hovering in his mind. He didn't go for supper.
The cafeteria the next morning was buzzing with the usual chatter, but Jim felt distant, out of place. He was stirring his food, barely tasting it. His thoughts kept drifting back to the night before, the resignation form, his uncertainty, the almost tempting idea of leaving everything behind.
He didn’t even notice McCoy sit down across from him until the man’s voice broke the quiet.
"Hey, you planning to eat that, or just stare at it all day?"
Jim blinked, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "What?"
McCoy leaned back in his chair, studying him. "You look like someone just told you the universe was about to implode. Something on your mind?"
Jim paused, chewing on his lip. He could lie. He could brush it off. But something about McCoy’s bluntness made it harder to do that.
Instead, he muttered, "I’m thinking about quitting."
McCoy’s eyebrows raised.
"Quitting? You, Jim Kirk? What, you’re just gonna pack it all in and go home?"
Jim nodded, his hand running over his PADD absently.
"Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not cut out for this. I don’t fit here, Bones. I never did."
McCoy set his fork down, watching Jim for a long moment before speaking again, his voice quieter now. "I don’t know about you, kid, but you don’t quit because things are tough. You don’t run when it gets hard."
Jim felt a flash of anger rise, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to argue. "You think I’m just some hard-headed kid who doesn’t know what’s good for him?"
McCoy’s gaze softened. "No. I think you’re someone who’s scared. And that’s fine. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ve got nothing to offer, Jim."
Jim stared at him, trying to process the weight of those words.
McCoy continued, his voice dropping. "I get it. This place… it’s not easy. It’s a hell of a lot more than we signed up for. But there’s a reason you’re here. You’ve got something, Jim. Whether you see it or not."
There was no grand speech. No dramatic moment. Just a simple statement, a quiet confidence that felt almost like a lifeline.
Jim didn’t know what he expected. But in that moment, with McCoy’s steady gaze locked on him, he found himself wishing that maybe, just maybe, he did belong here.
Maybe Iowa could wait.
Jim was still riding the high from the simulation he aced when he wandered into the shuttle bay.
He hadn’t meant to end up here, he had been heading back to the dorms, still replaying the last few minutes of the battle sim in his head, breaking down what had worked, what hadn’t, what he’d do better next time. His pulse was still racing from it, his brain wired from the rush of it, the feeling of command, of control, of the puzzle clicking into place.
He was getting good at this.
No, scratch that. He was already good. He was getting better. And then he saw them. A line of starship captains, stepping off their shuttles.
Not instructors. Not Academy officers. Not the bureaucrats who sat behind desks and issued orders from the comfort of Earth. These were the real ones. The ones who actually lived up there, beyond the sky.
Their uniforms were different, not stiff and pristine like the cadets, but worn, shaped to their bodies like second skins. Their boots were scuffed from years aboard metal decks.
And it wasn’t just how they looked. It was how they moved. Like they belonged to something bigger than this place. Like the ground under their feet wasn’t home, just a temporary stop before they went back to the only place that was.
Jim stood frozen in the shadow of a docked shuttle, watching them. One of them, a woman with streaks of gray in her dark hair, was speaking with an admiral. Her voice was steady, confident. She gestured with one hand, and her officers followed her lead without hesitation, without doubt. The others were the same.
There was something in their eyes, something Jim recognized. That same sharp, calculating focus he felt when he was running a sim. That same fire in his chest when he was pushing himself past the edge, beyond what anyone expected of him.
They were commanders. And they knew it.
Jim exhaled, slow.
He had spent his whole life looking for something. Chasing adrenaline, chasing challenges, chasing anywhere but here.
But this was it. It hit him so hard he felt winded.
For the first time, he knew.
Knew exactly where he was supposed to be. Knew exactly what he was meant for.
One of the captains glanced in his direction as they passed, eyes flicking over his uniform, his cadet insignia. Just a second, just a glance, then gone.
But that was fine. Because Jim knew, now. One day, that would be him.
The library was mostly empty, the dim glow of the overhead lights casting long shadows over the desks. Uhura was immersed in her work, a stylus tapping against her lower lip as she analyzed Vulcan syntax.
Across from her, McCoy was hunched over a medical PADD, muttering under his breath about "damn Starfleet thinking everyone should be a geneticist."
And Jim was pretending to study but was actually just watching them.
He was sprawled across the bench, legs stretched out under the table, one foot nudging against Uhura’s knee, the other resting lightly against McCoy’s ankle.
Neither of them told him to move.
Uhura absently reached over and plucked Jim’s PADD from his hands. She barely looked up as she scrolled through it. "You haven’t read a single page of this, have you?"
Jim grinned, resting his chin on the table. "It’s boring."
McCoy didn’t even glance up. "Then why are you here?"
Jim nudged his foot against McCoy’s again, grinning when McCoy twitched but didn’t pull away. "Maybe I just like the company."
Uhura sighed but didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t smiling. Instead, she reached under the table and squeezed his knee once before turning back to her work.
Jim’s grin softened, his hand sliding across the smooth surface of the table to rest near McCoy’s PADD. McCoy, without looking, tapped his fingers against Jim’s wrist in quiet acknowledgment.
No words. Just touch. Just presence.
Jim let his eyes drift shut, feeling safe in a way he rarely let himself admit.