Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

“You need to talk to him.”

Christine spun around to see Nyota’s serious face. “What? Who?”

“‘Who?’” She was incredulous now. “Spock, that’s who.”

Christine sighed. “I don’t think he wants to talk to me.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s all he’s wanted to do this whole time,” Nyota corrected her. “Look, if you had heard what he sang— just… talk to him. ”

“He sang? About me?”

Now the look she was getting clearly read “You can’t be this stupid, can you?” “I mean, after your very fun but completely brutal breakup number…”

“That is not what that was!”

“Which is why —” Nyota took Christine by the shoulders and pointed her toward the door. “—you need to talk to him!”

Christine froze, staring at the door.

“Unless I’m wrong and he means as little to you as your song implied?”

“Is that how it came across?” Christine asked despondently, turning to look at her.

Nyota winced. “Kinda? And it’s certainly how he took it.”

Christine couldn’t help the sudden bark of ironic laughter. “God, to think I was the one freaking out that I don’t have a place in his life.”

Realizing this was a bigger conversation, Nyota pulled her to sit on a nearby bench. “Why would you think that?”

Christine rolled her eyes. “Boimler,” she admitted. “He, uh, was so taken aback by Spock joking and laughing. He thought he’d done something… because everything he ever read about Spock— which was a lot, apparently?— never mentioned anything like it.” She sighed. “And it was clear none of it mentioned me or our relationship either.”

Nyota considered what she said carefully. “You know, I think I wasn’t what Mariner expected either. But just think, if you met someone famous from 120 years ago… someone you really looked up to even, read about extensively, that doesn’t mean you know them. Like if I met Hoshi Sato tomorrow, she could have turned out to have a whole relationship I didn’t know about. I read a book once, an old Earth novel called Possession by AS Byatt, and the entire premise was that these scholars found out that the poets they had separately dedicated their lives to studying had this whole affair and no one knew about it.” She paused, looking at her friend carefully. “Let Spock be the one to tell you whether you have a place in his life or not, not some history books that haven’t even been written yet.”

Christine nodded numbly, trying to absorb what Nyota was telling her. “I need to talk to him.”

“Yes!” They stood and Nyota pushed her toward the door again.

Chapter Text

Having stumbled back onto the bridge, Spock was quickly determined by Pike to be unfit for active duty

“Good work with the Klingons,” the captain praised. “Go sleep it off.”

Spock quashed the urge to give him a jaunty salute, instead nodding firmly before somewhat unsteadily making his way off the bridge.

He did not anticipate that Christine would be waiting for him at his quarters.

“Um, we need to talk,” she said nervously.

“I believe you have already said everything that needed to be said,” he stated as he accessed his door.

She followed him in. “No, I don’t think I did.”

He swung around, almost losing his footing. “Nurse Chapel, I need some space, as you would say.”

Christine sniffed the air pointedly, landing on the scent of his breath with surprise. “Are you drunk?”

“It would appear so,” he replied, retreating to the replicator, where he stared at the screen in consternation.

She came over and pushed him towards the bed. “Go lay down, drunky. I’ll get you some water and something to eat. What do you want?”

Spock uncharacteristically flopped down on his bed. “I want plomeek soup,” he replied, somewhat petulantly. “The replicator’s plomeek is subpar, however.”

She shrugged. “The replicator is what we’ve got, you want it or not?”

“Yes,” he grumbled.

She began programming it in.

“Christine?” he called a little pathetically.

“Spock?”

“You never answered my question.”

She looked over confused.

“Why didn’t you tell me you got the fellowship?” he clarified. “I gathered from your song that you don’t want to be with me anymore, but I’m still confused as to why you couldn’t just… say so.”

Christine thrust the tray at him. “Eat your soup.” She sighed, rubbing her face as she paced in front of him. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how. I’m so excited about this opportunity, but it means leaving the Enterprise for at least three months. And I didn’t want to disappoint you.” She frowned. “That’s not right. I didn’t want your disappointment to color this thing that I’m so happy about.”

“You did not believe that I would be happy for you?” he wondered, swallowing his plomeek soup heavily. “Have I given you reason to think that I wouldn’t support you furthering your career?”

“No?” He hadn’t, come to think of it. “You don’t mind? That I prioritized my career over our relationship.”

“I only mind that it means our relationship is over,” Spock mumbled into his soup.

“It doesn’t have to be,” she countered. “I didn’t mean to make you believe that it is. I just was only thinking of myself and the opportunity.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “Would you want to do this long-distance for three months?”

“Obviously I would. I’ve been in long-distance relationships before.”

“Fuck, good point,” she conceded.

He put his tray down on his side table, scooching himself backward into bed. “Will you stay, Christine? We can talk more when the bloodwine stops pounding in my skull.”

She lay down beside him. “Poor baby,” she consoled him, running her fingers through his hair.

He sighed with contentment. “I have missed you.”

She kissed his forehead. “I missed you, too.”

Chapter Text

It was Jim’s last night on the Enterprise so he sat in the crew lounge, idly people-watching as he waited for Sam.

“Well, it’s not like we even had a chance to talk before,” he overheard Nurse Chapel saying. He knew her in passing from their brief mutual time on the Farragut, but they’d never truly interacted. He glanced over his shoulder to see her leaning over a table, talking to Spock.

“You had a chance to tell Lieutenant Kirk,” Spock replied. His brother’s name was stated with such restrained disdain, Jim nearly laughed out loud. He knew he liked Spock for a reason.

Chapel did laugh. “What is your deal with Sam?” she wondered, before lowering her voice. “You don’t have anything to be jealous of.”

“I am not… jealous,” the Vulcan officer bristled, but Jim caught sight of the relief on his face.

“Sure,” Chapel placated him. “Wanna get out of here?”

They passed Uhura on their way out of the lounge, who beamed at the pair’s hasty exit, before coming to join him at the bar. “Buy you a drink, sailor?” she asked cheekily.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” he noted, with a gesture to the bartender for another of the same.

“Hmm,” she smiled thoughtfully. “I’m just happy when my friends are happy.”

“You have something to do with that?” He nodded in the direction her friends had left. “They didn’t seem so happy the other day.”

Uhura shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. “I do what I can.”

The bartender set a new drink in front of Jim and he raised it in her direction. “To Nyota Uhura, keeping us connected.”

She turned her head to the side, noting his slightly melancholy air. “You alright?”

“Just waiting on—”

“Me,” Sam filled in as he arrived. “Sorry, Aurelan called.”

“Aurelan?” Uhura wondered.

“His wife,” Jim filled in.

“I… did not know you were married,” she told Sam with a raised eyebrow.

Sam blushed a little. “Happily, in fact, with three sons.”

Uhura’s jaw may have dropped a bit.

Jim chuckled. “He pretends at being a playboy, but really he’s an old married.”

“You found out my secret,” Sam confided with a wink. “I’m boring.”

“Well, I just see Ortegas— who I absolutely do not need to immediately share this information with,” Uhura said, grabbing her drink. “So I’ll, uh, leave you boys to it.”

“Now,” Sam began decisively as he took Uhura’s seat, “do you want to tell me about this Carol Marcus person Aurelan just met?”

Chapter Text

Jim groaned, dropping his head to the bar. “Aurelan met Carol?”

“Yeah, imagine her surprise as this visibly pregnant woman she’s never met introduced herself as your girlfriend,” Sam said casually, as he indicated to the bartender that he would have one of what his brother was having.

“Uggghhh.”

“I take it I’m going to be an uncle?” The bartender brought his drink over. “Congratulate me! I’m going to be an uncle!” Sam told her.

“Congratulations,” she replied, dryly, before going to help another patron.

“She hates me,” Sam commented with a wry smile.

Jim looked up. “Carol?”

“The bartender.”

“Oh.” His head dropped back down. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Sam,” he admitted into the surface of the bar.

“Who’s playing the playboy now?” Sam joked.

Jim looked up again, frustrated. “I’m serious. I’ve just gotten this promotion, everything is going great career-wise, and then Carol tells me she’s pregnant. She wants me to take a desk job at Starbase 1.”

Sam gave him a side-eye. “Has she met you?” He took a sip of his drink. “I mean, you did talk before you knocked her up, right?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Classy. Yes. We’ve been in an on-again/off-again relationship for years, but it’s always come down to how much time I’m away on the ship. How I won’t settle down. It’s always what breaks us up.” He shook his head. “I have a sinking feeling that she just wanted a baby and I was… convenient.”

“Yikes,” Sam grimaced with another swig of his drink.

“We got in another fight today,” Jim added. “I… may have talked too much about La’an.”

Sam finished his drink with a flourish. “You’re an idiot,” he proclaimed. 

“I might be.”

“Does La’an know about Carol?”

“She does. She told me… how she feels about me, and I had to shoot her down. Because of Carol.”

“Your pregnant sometimes-girlfriend. Again, I say, yikes.” Sam leaned over to look Jim in the face where he leaned on the bar despondently. “Is that the only reason you shot her down?”

Jim nodded. “I feel like a total shit, ‘cause I’d been flirting with her hard, too. But there was… a connection . I can’t explain it.”

“How’d you leave things with Carol?” Sam wondered.

“Uh, she said that if I couldn’t be in our kid’s life full-time, I shouldn’t be in it at all.” He groaned, head down again. “Fuck, I hope she didn’t mean that.”

“Do you love her?”

“Carol?” Jim sighed. “I thought I did… I thought about asking her to marry me at least once. But… it shouldn’t be this hard, should it? Loving someone?” He looked up again at his older brother, imploring him for advice.

Sam shook his head. “It shouldn’t.”