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[youwereameteor]

He's been thinking about the Enterprise a lot lately. To say lately implies that he ever really stopped, which isn't true. At some point during the enedless Starfleet mentoring sessions, Pike had told Jim that it must be Hell to be married to the Captain of a Starship. He'd made a joke about his ex-wife and Jim hadn't really understood what he

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[howto_submit]

"Well, that's a sour look, if I've ever seen one," she said in a light, clipped voice, but there was an edge of curiosity, perhaps even sympathy, in her tone.

She sat beside him in the sand, her skirt a little long today but her hair tumbling loose, close but not touching. Never touching.

[youwereameteor]

"One of my...One of the guys from the Enterprise went home," says Jim, without looking up at her, still turning the Enterprise between his fingers. His jaw tightens. If asked, he probably couldn't put it into words - why it bothers him so much.

Something about Captains and starships.

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"That seems to be happening a lot, lately," she said, the stiffness in her words, her posture, warring with the rare look of empathy that settled on her face.

"Was he a friend, or just a colleague?"

[youwereameteor]

"Is it?" says Jim, almost far away for a moment before he looks at her. He lifts one arm and drops it around her shoulders. He rarely waits for permission from her.

"He was a friend," he says, finally. "He was only seventeen."

[howto_submit]

She sat stiffly under the weight of his arm, unaccustomed to that kind of affection from anyone other than her husband, and more rarely, her sisterwives. It was significant, then, that she didn't try and shrug him off.

"It's not our place to understand God's plans for the people we care about, no matter what their age," she said, the words tumbling out, practiced and repeated over years and years at Juniper Creek. She'd learned well, but now, they felt odd on her tongue. They meant knowing, she knew, the moment she'd opened her mouth.

[youwereameteor]

He does note that she doesn't pull away; that's unusual for Nicki, but Jim isn't arguing, not today. He just tugs her close and takes comfort from her being there.

"Do you actually believe that?" he asks her, not arguing, more interesed that anything. "That we've really got no agency in our own destiny?"

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"I... I believe God gives us all the tools we need to stay on the right path, it's up to us to know what to do with them," she said with a little more confidence, "More importantly, we're not entitled to keep the things we depend on, not even the people we love. You have to trust that, wherever he is now, it's where he's supposed to be."

[youwereameteor]

"At least he's got somewhere to go back to," he says, looking across at her, squeezing her shoulders a little. "You know some people are dead? I hate that fucking idea."

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"Just because they're dead, Jim, doesn't mean they don't have someplace to go," Nicki pointed out, because she still believed that there was some place waiting for them, after they were gone from this life.

[youwereameteor]

He feels a little bit shitty, treading on what she believes like that, but Jim can't bring himself to think it and he's never been able to think it. He just...can't believe in anything but now.

"Did I ever tell you about the other Spock?" he asks, glancing across at her. "The other timeline?"