Fic: For You I Came This Far, Part 2 of 4
Back to Part One | Back to Master Post | On to Part Three
Her first day in Australia cooled her off considerably, even though it was definitely summer there, and she decided she could check her messages without breaking anything sometime in the middle of her second day.
From Jim she received an OK. See you next time. Under other circumstances, she might have been disappointed, mostly in herself, but it wasn’t worth crafting an explanation. Especially since Jim appeared to like Pike, despite the fact that he’d rather explicitly used George. It still angered her every time she allowed herself to think about it.
From Pike himself she got, I’m sorry. She deleted that one right away.
From Number One she got, For what it’s worth, he really is sorry. Yes, I know that I don’t need to apologize for him.
From Phil she got a lengthy ramble about some martini bar Cait dragged him to, which ended with, About what Chris did--I don’t blame you for calling him names. I didn’t know he’d invoked George until he told me after you left. I told him he was forty kinds of asshole, if that helps.
She sent Phil back a description of all the Australian microbrews she’d been drinking, and finished with, Thanks. I’m glad I didn’t punch him, because I’ve gotten this far without assaulting a superior officer.
After that, she set a filter on her account to send all the messages she really didn’t want to deal with into an entirely different folder, and decided to re-up her scuba diving certifications.
* * *
Winona returned to the Yorktown at exactly the moment she was expected to return, not even hungover, and was very glad to see that Pike wasn’t there to see them off.
* * *
A week or so into the new mission, Number One called on Winona while both were off-duty, and said, “I’m certain you don’t ever want to discuss this, but--”
“With all due respect, sir,” Winona said, but One cut her off.
“No,” One said.
“No?”
“No, you’re not going to avoid this conversation by telling me very politely to go fuck myself,” One said.
“Excuse me?” Winona tried the eyebrow of doom, but One was apparently immune.
“You don’t need to forgive Chris. Frankly, I don’t care if you do or not. You don’t ever need to talk to him again. What I need to know is if you can remain professional. He’s still one of my closest friends, and it would take a bit more than some ill-considered words to change that. The same goes for Phil and Cait.”
Winona nodded, a short, sharp gesture.
“I will support you in any decisions you make to avoid him in the future, but I would rather you do not leave my ship because of this.” One smiled, hesitant. “I doubt he’ll be on the Yorktown much, especially once the Enterprise is completed.”
“Oh,” Winona said, realization dawning. “Oh, good God, no. Shit. I mean--” She sighed. “No. I’m not leaving the Yorktown, at least not before my contract is up.” She smiled weakly. “I’m here as long as you’ll have me.”
One nodded. “Good.”
“You didn’t really think I’d transfer because of that.”
One shrugged, and sat on Winona’s desk chair. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really know you well enough to judge one way or another, and you did seem . . . very angry.”
“Oh,” Winona said. She paused and licked her lips. “No, I’m still angry,” she said, slowly, “but how I feel about--about Captain Pike’s recruiting tactics doesn’t bear on our relationship, professional or otherwise.”
One smiled. “I had hoped not.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Chris and I,” she said, and hesitated.
Winona held her breath. It was common knowledge that Pike and One had been involved somehow, years ago, but she’d known even before she got on the ship that it was something no one ever mentioned.
“I’ve known him for a long time,” One said. “Not, from what I gather, as long as you have, but much more in depth. He . . .” She sighed. “You know, from your point of view, I can see how what he did was pretty unconscionable. I wouldn’t forgive him either. I don’t even know why I promised him I’d say anything.”
“I don’t think he’s a total waste of a human being,” Winona said, “if that helps.”
“Damning with faint praise,” One said, and smiled. “He’s not. But this is neither the time nor the place for me to convince you that he’s worth giving another chance, and I’m not the one who gets to decide whether he is worth it to you.”
Winona nodded. There was really nothing she could say to that.
“Phil outright refused to say anything to you unless you go to him.”
“Okay.” Not that she was going to, but it was nice to know that his friends disapproved of what he’d said.
One stood, and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Well, anyway. That’s the last I’m going to say about it unless you have any questions.”
“Nope,” Winona said. “Thank you, though.”
One nodded and left.
* * *
A few days after that, Winona got a message from Jim, delayed because they’d been out of comm range. What the hell did you do to Pike?
--None of your damn business. And really, the number of people who seemed to think it was their business was just annoying.
It is my business when he’s trying to transfer me to someone else’s advising pool.
Oh. She forwarded the entire thread to One and appended: Can you tell him not to be any stupider than he is already?
I can try, One replied.
A few hours later, Jim sent back, Thanks.
* * *
Perhaps it was because of the incident with Pike, but Cait Barry didn’t show up in Engineering for nearly a whole month after the Yorktown took off again. One day, though, Winona was on her back under a console, rewiring it because she had the time, when she heard the XO say, “That looks like fun.”
Winona pushed herself out, sat up, and said, “It is, sir.”
“Is the transformer on the right end of the board still giving you output issues?” Cait asked, and sounded wistful.
“No,” Winona said. “I fixed that one a year ago. Sir.” She wiped her hands off on her uniform and stood up. “Sir, I know this was your department for years, but I don’t think we’re in any need of your help at the moment.” She was a few centimeters shorter than Cait but she’d been a few centimeters shorter than everyone for her entire life, and besides, she’d been a commander since Cait was probably at the Academy.
“Oh, I know,” Cait said, “but I figured if nothing was going on, I might come down and look.”
“If you’d like to schedule a time to come down and go over what we’re doing down here, that would be great.” Slowly, very slowly, she started to back Cait toward the door. “At the moment, though, we’re taking advantage of the downtime to fix some of the problems that have been annoying but not threatening. You’re welcome to read the report on it once we’ve finished, sir.”
“Of course,” Cait said. “I read all of the reports that come out of Engineering. Whoever you’ve got writing the reports does an excellent job.”
“It’s Lieutenant Patil,” Winona said. Just a little bit more . . .
“Ah, speaking of Nik,” Cait said, “is he still in charge of the . . . you know?” She made a face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Winona said. Cait Barry’s dislike of stills in engine rooms was legendary. Winona had asked Phil once how he managed to overlook that flaw in her personality, and he’d snorted and shook his head. “But thank you very much for stopping by, Commander. It’s nice to know that you still take an interest in your old department.” She backed Cait up just another step and the XO was in the hallway; Winona hit a button to make the door close and to lock it temporarily.
It rang immediately, and Winona blithely ignored it, returning to her position under the console. Her personal comm buzzed a couple times, but she ignored that, too. If something was actually wrong, there was the intercom.
A half hour later or so, Winona’s comm buzzed again; she checked it this time. After deleting several textcomms from Cait that she declined to read, she found the newest one was from Phil. So Cait just came in here and railed for about ten minutes about how the ‘new’ chief engineer had no respect for authority and had kicked her out of Engineering.
--And?
I asked her what she was doing in Engineering, and when she didn’t have an answer that wasn’t ‘poking around,’ I said, well, good for Winona.
--I’m sure she didn’t like that answer.
Actually, she stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about her anymore.
--Oh, good.
* * *
Winona really liked the Yorktown’s short mission format; she enjoyed the lack of commitment to a five-year mission, and she really didn’t mind seeing Earth regularly. She also found it very convenient because it allowed her to keep pretty good tabs on Jim. When they returned ten months later, he was a year and a half into his studies; “halfway done,” he insisted.
“Oh?” she said. They were eating lunch together this time.
“Captain Pike told me it would take me four years,” Jim said, shrugging. “I don’t need four years.”
“Your father needed four years,” she said. “I needed four years. Even Captain Pike needed four years.”
“You all were seventeen or eighteen when you got to the Academy,” he said. “I was twenty-two.”
“Well, all right,” she said.
She saw Pike once, when she met Jim for lunch a second time; he and Jim were talking. Winona stayed at a distance and gave Pike a polite but frosty nod; in return, she got the same, if a little less frosty. Jim raised his eyebrow at the exchange.
By now, she had met his roommate--she thought it was adorable that they thought she wouldn’t figure out that they weren’t just rooming together--and knew where he’d gotten that gesture, since it clearly wasn’t her eyebrow raise.
“No, seriously, what’s going on here?” Jim asked, after Pike left. “He won’t tell me.”
“What makes you think I will?” Winona asked.
“Please?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, “I’ve been puppy-dog-eyed at by the man from whom you inherited that particular expression. It’s not going to work on me.”
“Are you sure?”
She groaned. “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you.” Damn him. The stubbornness was pure her, whether learned or inherited.
“Nope.”
Yeah, but that smile was pure George. She sighed. “Captain Pike told me what he said to you to get you to enlist. We had a disagreement about the appropriateness of invoking George in that particular situation.”
“Oh, that,” Jim said. “Yeah. I figured out pretty early on that he’ll say practically anything if it gets him the results he wants.” He shrugged. “He’s never mentioned Dad again, if that helps. Anyway, the ‘I dare you to do better,’ that’s not why I enlisted.”
His impression of Pike wasn’t all that great, but Winona didn’t bother commenting. “Why, then?”
He shrugged again. “I’m not sure, but that wasn’t it.”
She heard the lie of omission, but didn’t call him on it. “I don’t suppose it matters why you’re here, as long as you’re enjoying it and doing well.”
“Yeah,” he said. “So that’s it? You’re just pissed because of what he said to recruit me?”
She sat back in her chair. “I would think you’d be pissed, too. I remember a certain conversation we had about your father being a human being and not a symbol, just a year ago.”
“But he doesn’t see Dad as a symbol,” Jim said.
“You said he hadn’t mentioned George to you since the night he recruited you.” She could feel the fizz of annoyance running along her spine.
“He hasn’t,” he said. “I read his dissertation, though, and that makes it pretty clear.”
“Oh?”
“You never read it?”
“I don’t need to,” she said, voice sharp. “I was there.”
“Well, I know, but--” Jim pulled out his padd, poked at it for a moment with his stylus, and said, “There. I sent you the unredacted version.”
“Are you supposed to have that?” she asked.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” he said with a shrug, and slouched back down in his chair.
* * *
Later that evening, she shuffled Pike’s dissertation into a folder of other things she didn’t want to think about. But two weeks after that--when she was unpacking her duffel in her quarters on the Yorktown just after they took off--she found the padd with the video of Pike that Phil had given her. She held it for a long moment and stared. It was one of the inexpensive disposable padds that people kept around for the purpose of passing around small pieces of data, and she wouldn’t mind having another blank one, but she couldn’t bring herself to delete the vid without watching it first.
She sighed, cursed herself, and hit ‘play.’
The screen lit up with a tiny Chris Pike; he smiled before he started talking. “Phil,” he said, and his voice sounded strange through the padd’s cheap speakers. “So about that complaint I had last week that all the recruits I was getting were lockstep thinkers likely only to do exactly what the establishment wants.” He laughed, low and self-deprecating. “Two days ago I ended up with a surly, recently-divorced, possibly-alcoholic doctor--you’d love him. His name is Leonard McCoy and I could barely understand the titles of some of his research. I attached his résumé; you can decipher it for me.”
Winona smiled. Ah, Dr. McCoy. She liked him, but then again, ‘surly’ and ‘possibly-alcoholic’ were two of her favorite traits in friends.
“And then last night--” He rolled his eyes. “It’s a long story, but of all the people in all the gin joints in the world, I ran across Jim Kirk--yes, that Jim Kirk--and somehow figured out the right carrot to dangle to get him to join up, too.”
Pike smiled again. “He’s not maybe what I expected, or what you might expect, having met Sam Kirk, but he’s got Winona’s sarcasm by the bucketful.”
She hadn’t known that Pike and apparently Phil had met Sam at one point. Huh. And by the bucketful?
“Anyway, we’ll see. You know I’ll keep you posted, probably long past anything you might be interested in. Tell me what you think of McCoy, if you’re bored. Pike out.”
The vid screen blanked, and she stared at it for a moment more before hitting ‘play’ again.
* * *
Later, Winona snagged a bottle of Sixty-Eight and, after a half hour or so of going back and forth in her mind, finally opened Pike’s dissertation.
George Samuel Kirk, Sr., was born and raised in the mostly-rural Iowa town of Riverside, and often used the ‘Iowa farmboy’ stereotype to great effect. Indeed, commanders, fellow cadets, and his wife Winona all recall the initial jolt of surprise they felt when he first changed from his good-natured country-bred persona to the pin-sharp, authoritative, model Starfleet officer he later came to embody.
She smiled. It was true, and for that matter, the reason she’d pretty much pinned him down and ripped his clothes off the first time.
Despite that, his interpersonal warmth and willingness to mentor younger officers and cadets never changed. . . .
Four hours later, she was completely drunk, tears running down her face, curled in on herself. It was so obvious, to her, and probably to no one else alive, that Chris Pike had known George, probably loved the man. No. Jim was right. George certainly wasn’t just a symbol to him.
In that moment, though, when the command of the ship transferred, Kirk slid seamlessly into the role. Survivor interviews show that he switched chairs with no hesitation and began barking out orders that, models tend to show, bought the ship between 0.96 and 2.38 more minutes than had Kirk used the textbook-recommended maneuvers. A complete listing of the models is available in Appendix B. . . .
She still had another hundred and fifty pages to go, but it could wait.
It took her two more sessions to finish, but she was glad she did.
* * *
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: George
I finally read your dissertation, twenty years late.
Well done.
--
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: George
Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.
* * *
Winona stood in front of Number One’s door, holding two pints of ice cream and two spoons--the good stuff, not replicated. She’d picked it up at their last stopover at a starbase and had been hoarding it for something like this. It took her a moment or two before she could work up the gumption to hit the annunciator, but she finally did.
One answered the door a moment later, still wearing her uniform, but holding a glass of red wine. Winona held up the ice cream, and One stepped aside and let her in. “Izzy’s?” One asked, naming the ice cream place on Starbase XIX.
“Only the best,” Winona said.
One chose the pint of Mexican Chocolate Fiesta, leaving Winona the Midnight Snack, which suited her just fine. “Not that I’m not appreciative,” One said, a few bites in, “but I do suspect you aren’t here merely to share this with me.”
Winona nodded. “I think,” she said, and stopped.
One waited and didn’t try to hurry her; Winona didn’t know if she appreciated that or hated it. She took another breath, and said, “If you’re still willing to convince me that Chris Pike is worth forgiving, I think I’m willing to hear it.”
“Okay.” One smiled, and folded her legs under her. “May I ask what prompted this?”
“I read his dissertation, finally,” Winona said. “It--filled in a few of the blanks.”
“And left others,” One said. “Ah.” She took another spoonful of ice cream and ate it slowly. “I don’t know where to start. He was my captain for almost ten years, my friend for nearly the entire time; more for a few years in the middle there.” She pinned Winona with a glare over the pint container. “Not that that’s particularly any of your business.”
Winona held her spoon and ice cream up in surrender. “I wasn’t asking about that.”
“I know,” One said, and sighed. “Maybe you should tell me what you remember of him.”
“Have you seen pictures of him when he was in his early twenties?” Winona said. “He was, well, blond, for one thing. Not blonde like me.” She pulled out the end of her ponytail and looked at it--same color it had always been. “Dark blond. He was still tripping over his own feet and his tongue and if I hadn’t known better, I would have been very surprised that he’d managed to make it as high as lieutenant at that point. Smart, obviously, and polite, but he still managed to say about eight stupid things before breakfast each day. Metaphorically speaking.”
“Hm,” One said. “I’ve never seen him like that before. Captain Pike always knows what to say, sometimes to the point of being exasperating. Well, except--never mind.”
Winona smiled. Most people lost any ability to talk at the same moment. “I’m given to understand that he was on the Kelvin with us for his three months back before that but I don’t remember him at all. Of course, I was in the awful, hormonal-mess, constant-nausea part of pregnancy at that time, so I’m not sure I remember George during that time, but still. I do remember George complaining about him sometimes.”
“What did George say?” One asked.
“Oh, just that there was a baby cadet following him around and asking annoying questions. By the end, George thought Pike might actually be useful someday, so there’s that.”
“Someday,” One said.
“Oh, he was probably nicer than that,” Winona said. “George loved nothing more than being a mentor, and, for that matter, a father.” She blinked and looked away for a moment, and then took a decisive bite of her ice cream. “Anyway,” she said, “yeah. I really didn’t believe that Lieutenant Pike turned into Captain Pike until, well, I had proof.”
“Strange,” One said. “Very different from what know.” She dug out another perfectly hemispherical spoonful and ate it before saying, “Well, you know his service record.”
Winona nodded.
“You know he’s got my friendship and loyalty, as well as Phil’s and Cait’s, and practically everyone else who has ever served with him.”
She nodded again.
“I don’t know if I have anything else to say other than that.”
“Yeah,” Winona said. Because, really, what else was there to say?
“Now,” One said, “after this conversation, do you think we’re close enough friends to trade pints?”
She sounded so hopeful that Winona laughed, and handed over the Midnight Snack.
* * *
The Yorktown’s next stop on Earth was almost exactly a year after the last one. It got extended to a full six weeks, due to some much-needed upgrades to the warp core, and she was looking forward to seeing what the ship could do after that. Commander Barry had whisked the overseeing of the task out of Winona’s hands, claiming it was her one allowed interference a year, and Winona let it go gracefully. It just gave her more time off to go visit her grandkid--well, grandkid and a half: Aurelan was pregnant again and due in early March.
Her supposedly-yearly comms with Jim had turned into weekly comms, if she was in range, especially as the math got more complicated. He swore he was going to graduate at the end of the year, and the class schedules he’d chosen attested to that fact. More than once she asked him why he wasn’t going into engineering, with a head for equations the way he did, and the answer she finally believed was, “Math makes my brain quiet down.”
She’d only nodded in response.
Jim actually met her when the ship landed, but it was eight in the evening on a Wednesday, and convenient for his schedule. She had to go through debriefing, but met him for a beer afterward--and wasn’t it strange for her to go out drinking with her baby son? Nonetheless, he was almost twenty-five, and although his taste in beer was execrable (seriously, Budweiser Classic? Might as well be drinking cow piss), the ever-amusing Dr. McCoy joined them. At least he had decent taste in beverages; he and Winona got sidetracked into a discussion about various types of whiskeys that finally had Jim saying, “Hey, she’s my mom.”
Winona just laughed and paid off their tab.
A day or two later, she took the scenic route back from lunch. The weather was surprisingly decent; the sky was an almost-unreal shade of blue, and it was pleasantly cool. She hummed under her breath as she headed for her temp quarters, but stopped short when she came to a corner and who was waiting at the transit stop but Chris Pike.
“Captain Pike,” she said.
“It’s still Chris,” he said, voice carefully neutral, his face pleasantly blank.
“Then it’s still Winona,” she said.
He nodded.
Winona supposed she didn’t blame him for his caution; the last word she’d ever said to him was ‘bastard.’ Still. She didn’t have a ton of practice at this next part. Holding grudges, sure. Releasing them, not so much. “Ah,” she said, and inhaled through her nose.
He waited.
“You want to try this over again?” she said, after another thirty seconds or so.
“This conversation?” he asked.
“No,” she said. Damn, he was going to make it hard on her, wasn’t he? She probably deserved it. “More like the last two years’ worth of non-conversations.”
“Okay,” he said, and smiled.
And it was as simple as that.
Well, no, of course it wasn’t. They both tiptoed around each other for a couple weeks, only interacting in events that included the whole group, but one day, at lunch, Winona saw Chris eating alone, and she only hesitated for a few seconds before going up to his table and saying, “Can I join you?”
He looked up, smiled, and said, “Of course.”
After that, it was simple.
* * *
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: food?
Do you have plans for dinner this evening?
--
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
No. What did you have in mind?
--
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
Food. Maybe beer. Possibly live music.
--
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
I could stand all of that. Meet you outside Chawla Hall at 1900 and we’ll figure the rest out?
--
Three weeks of détente and they’d managed only two lunches together outside of the whole group. On one hand, half the point of not being mad at Chris anymore was for the comfort of Jim and their mutual friends and coworkers, so perhaps that wasn’t strange. But Winona had actually hesitated before accepting his dinner invitation. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat dinner with him; she still remembered the first portion of the disastrous Grumpy’s dinner as being, well, not disastrous. He was pleasant company; witty, well-read, up-to-date on politics and ‘Fleet gossip, and not difficult to look at.
No. Not at all. She shoved that particular observation as far down as it would go--which wasn’t very far--and leaned against a tree. The weather had taken a turn for the worse; it was barely above freezing and there was some sort of ‘wintry mix’ precipitation, but she had a reputation to protect, and had only acknowledged the cold and wet by wearing a sweater under her jacket.
Chris appeared a minute or two later, wearing a ridiculous knit cap, in addition to his heavy coat and what looked like a fisherman’s sweater. “Let’s get out of the cold,” he suggested, and they stepped into the lobby of Chawla Hall for a moment. He took off the hat, which left his hair in disarray, tufts sticking up and curls starting to form around the edges. She couldn’t help but smile.
He noticed, and shook his head, trying to flatten his hair down. “I’m sure it’s sticking up all over the place, but I walked halfway across campus to get here. The hat was necessary. What kind of food are you in the mood for?”
“I could eat pretty much anything,” she said.
“Yes, but what do you want?”
Winona consulted with her stomach, and said, “I really don’t care. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Anything warm,” he said.
“That leaves out ice cream for dinner, I guess,” she said.
He laughed. “True. What kind of pizza do you want?”
“Who says I want pizza?”
“You wouldn’t even pick a type of food. I picked the type. You get to pick the specifics.”
“That’s fair,” she said.
“Of course it is,” he said with a grin. “So, good pizza, or good bad pizza? Deep dish, New York-style, Andorian-Bolian fusion gourmet?”
They settled on Neapolitan and ended up at Punch, splitting a Milanese pizza, a Greek salad, and an order of extra focaccia. Chris dunked his focaccia--and the crust of his pizza, and one of Winona’s unfinished crusts--in what looked like half a bottle of balsamic vinegar, precariously balanced and constantly refreshed in a tiny puddle of olive oil.
“How on earth did you do that? I’m fairly certain the surface tension of olive oil shouldn’t hold that much vinegar.” She poked at it with a fingertip.
“Lots of practice. Don’t do that; it’ll--” He sighed, as the balsamic vinegar ran all over the plate.
“You were done eating,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.
A jazz trio was setting up in the corner, piano, bass, and drums; the instruments were all Terran and acoustic, but the pianist was Andorian. Zie started playing for a soundcheck a few minutes later, a tune very familiar to Winona.
“Ahh,” she said. “George loved this song. He tried to convince me it should be the first dance at our wedding but I put my foot down. At dancing in public, that is.”
“Hm,” Chris said, and she turned to look at him. He looked--frozen, as if he had no idea what to say, or maybe was afraid of what she was going to say next.
“We’re going to have to mention him at some point,” she said. “It’s been twenty-four years. I’m not walking wounded the way I was during the interview.” She shrugged. “I miss him sometimes, but not in a way that renders me catatonic or anything.”
“I miss him too, once in a while,” he said. “He was the first useful mentor I had.”
“Right,” she said, a frisson of anticipation coming over her. She almost never got to do this, almost never got to talk with someone who had known George and thought of him as a human being. “You--your dissertation. It was--you never made him out to be something he wasn’t.” She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“It’s obvious that you,” she said, and stopped. Loved him, but she couldn’t say that, so she made an indistinct gesture. “Anyway, yes.”
“It wasn’t George,” Chris said, barely audible over the music.
And, just like that, all the pieces fell together.
“I don’t remember you,” she said, a long moment later. “I know you were on the Kelvin for three months but I can’t picture you at all during that time. It’s not just because of pregnancy brain, is it.”
It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “No. One of the things I did for Pzilf--” the XO at the time “--was make up the duty roster, which meant I always knew where you would be and could put myself as far away as possible.”
“And I wasn’t eating in the commissary at the time because it made me nauseated,” she said.
“George would occasionally send me to deliver your meals,” he said. “I’d leave them on your desk when you stepped out.”
“All that trouble,” Winona said.
“Cut me some slack,” he said. “I was nineteen. You were ten years older, married to my supervisor, and pregnant. I would have done a lot more than rearrange the duty roster to avoid you.”
“All this time?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes, and no,” he said, and looked away. “More of an acknowledgment, I suppose, of what could be, were the situation entirely different.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her heart started pounding, the center of her palms aching. “Same here.” Because it was true, and made her want to jump out of her skin, although she didn’t know if it was with desire--because she definitely felt that--or fear--she felt that too--or what.
Chris looked at her sharply.
“Not when you were nineteen,” she said. “When you did the interview.”
“It was a year after,” he said, but some of the lines in his forehead smoothed out. After George died, he meant. Five years after his training stint on the Kelvin.
“Yeah,” Winona said. “It--I--it was too soon.” Fuck, it had been, and she remembered the aching guilt as much as the completely-inappropriate desire. One of those, though, she still felt--and maybe it wasn't inappropriate anymore. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. “Are you skipping over the important part of that confession?”
“If it’s what you want,” he said, very carefully.
“It is most emphatically not what I want,” she said. She slugged down the last of her beer and stood, holding out one hand. “Let’s go.”
He stood and dusted off his hands before he took hers. “Where are we going?”
“Literally, or metaphorically?” She headed for the door; he followed, still holding her hand.
“Either.”
“Literally, your place, I suppose.” She looked at him briefly, to make sure he was still on board. “I’m in temp housing.”
He nodded.
“Metaphorically . . .” She shrugged, and let the door to Punch’s swing closed behind her. “The situation is entirely different now.”
He smiled, quick and bright. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That is,” she said, momentarily hesitant, “if it’s what you want.”
“It is,” he said, using her hand to pull her closer, “most emphatically what I want.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and stood on her toes. “Does that usually work for you?”
“No, not really,” he said, lips almost against hers, and then leaned down to kiss her.
He tasted like garlic and balsamic vinegar and the beer he’d had with dinner, and a few things she didn’t recognize, but after a few moments, she didn’t notice any of it--only noticed his mouth, and tongue, and his hands on her waist, warm and broad.
“Holy shit,” she said, long moments later, as she sank back onto her heels. “If you can kiss like that, I suppose it doesn’t matter how silly your lines are.”
“I’ve heard that before,” he said, equal parts smug and chagrined.
Winona laughed. “Come on; let’s go. It’s too cold to stand around kissing on street-corners.”
“I hadn’t even noticed,” he said, and she smiled.
It didn’t take that long to get back to Chris’s place, on the third floor of Glenn Hall. His apartment was small, military-neat--both of which she expected--and painted a strange shade of purplish-gray, which she did not. Not important, though. She toed off her shoes by the door, as did he, and then turned expectantly to look at him.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.
She gave a half-smile, and shook her head. “Nervous?” she asked.
“A little,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Not about--this.” She gestured between them. “More about what comes after.”
“Breakfast?” he said.
“And then what?”
He sighed. “I don’t know if this is going to sound pathetic or romantic, but after nearly thirty years, Winona, I’ll take whatever I can have.”
Romantic. Definitely romantic. Shut it, you, Winona told the sappy part of her brain. “So you’d be okay with this being just one night?”
He shrugged.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” she said, awareness blooming where it hadn’t been a mere moment before. “Fuck it. I have no idea how this is going to work, but we can figure that out later, right?”
“I think so,” he said, and they met halfway.
Jesus, she could kiss him all day and all night, if he kept this up. Well, not that she wanted to stop at first base, really, but damn.
“Bedroom’s through there,” he said, indicating a door behind him, and they half-walked, half-stumbled into the room.
Chris had his hands up her sweater before she could get to his, and just the feel of his hands against her skin was electric. She found his mouth again, and his hands settled against her ribs as he switched his attention to the kiss. His thumbs stroked just under the bottom edge of her bra, and as she pulled away, one shifted forward to brush between her breasts.
She grinned. "Back hook. You think I wear Starfleet-issued bras off duty?"
"Some women do," he said, and leaned in to nibble on her earlobe.
"Mmm," she said, and buried her nose behind his ear, breathing in garlic and basil and something faintly citrus-y, probably from his shower gel. As he found the hooks on the back of her bra, something floated up through the haze of desire threatening to take over, and she said, "Wait."
Immediately he stilled before straightening and pulling his hands away. She grabbed his hands before he got too far, and said, "No, not--I didn't mean stop touching me, or go stand in the corner. It's just--look, is there anything I need to know before we do this?"
"I'm clean," he said. "I can't get you pregnant, at least not right now, although I suspect that's less of a worry than disease."
"It would take rather a lot of medical assistance," Winona said, lips twisting. Those days were long since over.
"Also," Chris said, with a pause so short that she barely registered it, "don't grab the hair on the back of my head."
She nodded. "Okay."
"This is fine," he said, cupping one hand around the back of her head. "This is not." He wound his fingers into her hair and tugged gently--not enough that it hurt, but enough that she knew exactly what had happened. His next words confirmed. "Especially not if--when--I'm going down on you."
She nodded again. That was why she'd asked, after all, and she had no desire to invoke memories of torture.
"You?"
"Clean," she said. "Other than that, no knives, no wax." She kept her tone light.
"Duly noted," he said. "There's a pocketknife in the top drawer of my dresser, on the left side. I use it for hiking or camping, things like that. Do you want me to move it?"
She shook her head. "No, that's fine." It might not have been fine if she would have discovered it on her own, but now that she knew it was there, she could forget about it. "Can we get back to the part where you were about to prove that you can undo a bra single-handed?"
"Sounds good to me," he said, and tugged her sweater over her head.
She returned the favor, but took his undershirt with it. "Hello there," she said, and backed up a few inches so she could see him properly. Twirling one finger in the air, she looked at him expectantly, and he held his hands up and spun around slowly. "Nice," she said. "Very nice."
And by ‘nice,’ she meant ‘really, really hot.’ She hadn’t expected him to be young, and he wasn’t, from the gray in his chest hair to a few scars attesting to many years in active duty, but they certainly didn’t make him a damn bit less attractive.
"Thank you," he said. "Now you?"
Winona spun around herself, but lifted her hands with her index fingers pointed up and alternated raising and lowering them.
When she faced him again, he looked incredibly amused. "First, you're wearing too much clothing. Second, did you just do the Hokey Pokey?"
"That is what it's all about," she said solemnly.
Chris laughed, and slid his fingers under the hem of her camisole, raising it slowly. "What's next," he said, "the Chicken Dance?"
"If that's your thing," she said, and gasped as his nails scraped gently against her shoulderblades. "Ohhhh."
He pulled the camisole off over her head, and threw it aside. On the way back down, he did, as a matter of fact, undo her bra one-handed, and she caught it in one hand before it fell. Throwing it at the chair, she lifted her chin and watched him look at her.
She was well aware that she was pushing sixty, had had two children, and had generally eschewed cosmetic work, but from the look on his face, she might as well have been twenty-nine again.
"You're beautiful," he said, finally raising his eyes to her own.
Winona turned around again, this time making beaks out of her hands and opening and closing them, and Chris laughed. Grabbing her belt loops, he pulled her against him and started undoing the fly of her jeans, hands working in the nearly-nonexistent space between them. Once he'd pushed her jeans down off her hips, she wriggled a bit to get them to fall the rest of the way on their own, and started working on his pants.
He gasped as her knuckles brushed against his skin, just inside the hollow of his hip. She backed up just enough to finish quickly and finally, after they both stepped out of the pooled fabric, finally they were both fully naked.
It only took a moment for him to drag the sheets and blankets down to the foot of the bed and to order the lights down to thirty percent before he held out a hand and guided her to sit and then lie down on the bed. A moment later he joined her and skimmed a hand down her side, from her shoulder to mid-thigh, and she laughed and pulled him in for a kiss.
He slung a thigh between hers and, with a hand on her rear, encouraged her to wriggle closer, so that they were pressed together from lips to ankles, nearly. “Mmmph,” she said, and hooked her calf behind his knees.
“Good mmmph?” he asked, nibbling on her earlobe.
“Mmm, yes,” she said, and scratched her nails lightly down his back. He gasped again, and she pushed back just far enough that she could run her nails lightly over his shoulders.
“Oh, keep doing that,” he said, barely above a whisper.
She hmmed again and pushed his shoulder until he lay flat on his back, and she was straddling his hips. His knees were up, so she tucked her rear end against the creases between his hips and thighs--conveniently putting him just where she wanted him--and leaned over, scratching lightly through his chest hair. He tipped his chin up and arched slightly, and she said, “Gorgeous.”
“Glad you--think so,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.
Starting at his neck, she ran her nails over his skin--not hard enough to leave even a faint mark--down his shoulders, down his arms, over the soft skin of his forearms and across the centers of his palms, before going back up and then coming down his chest, following the line of hair so it wouldn’t tickle. She stopped when she ran into her own legs, and started back at his neck again, this time with flat palms.
Chris watched her for a while, and then, when she was spreading her fingers over his ribs, covered her hands with his and then tugged. “Come here,” he said. “What you’re doing is nice--very nice--but you’re too far away.”
“I’m too far away?” she said, squeezing her thighs against his hips.
“Well, okay,” he said, “your breasts are too far away.” He pushed his hips up against hers a little bit, and she laughed, leaning forward and walking her hands up to the pillow.
“Close enough?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, and brushed the outside of her breasts with his fingertips, gently.
Winona closed her eyes and bit her lip and managed to keep back the moan, even as he cupped her breasts in broad, warm palms. When he lifted his head and flicked his tongue against her nipple, though, then she did moan, and leaned over so he could have better access.
And access he did--tongue hot and just the slightest bit rough, lips soft in contrast, and just the slightest graze of teeth. He couldn’t have done better if she’d ordered off the à la carte menu, she thought, and laughed.
He raised his eyebrows at her, and she smiled and rolled off, landing next to him. “Your turn,” she said.
“I can work with that,” he said, and sat up to kneel between her legs.
He started the same way she did, with fingernails, but as she was too ticklish that didn’t last long. “Stop,” she said, laughing and squirming.
He did, smiling, and switching to open hands, and enough pressure to keep it all pleasure. Still, though, it was a tease, as were his lips below her ear, and his erection against her. Once he’d traced the shape of her body with his hands and lips, though, he leaned down, kissed her until she forgot everything but the feel of his mouth on hers, and then scooted down the bed.
“This okay?” he asked, and kissed the inside of her thigh.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, ohhhh.” She clenched her fists in the sheets and held on for dear life.
He had her begging in--she had no way of telling how long, actually; it felt like immediately and also maybe four hours later. But she was sobbing out his name before too long. “Oh, God, Chris, please.”
The bastard, of course, just chuckled and doubled down, tongue circling at exactly the same speed. A moment later, one finger slid inside her, carefully, just the tip, and she gasped. “Oh, God, yes, please, don’t stop, more, fuck!”
The words were falling out of her mouth without really any thought or effort on her part, and finally--she swore he’d been down there forever--finally he gave up on trying to draw it out any longer. Or something, because all of a sudden he was doing exactly what she needed and it was building to that final climb and then everything exploded into a thousand points of light and she shook helplessly.
“Oh, my God,” she said weakly a few minutes later. “Damn.”
“I presume you enjoyed yourself?” he said, head pillowed on her hip, and she shivered just at the sound of his voice.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think you might have to try again.”
He looked up at her, raised an eyebrow, and then ducked his head again.
The second orgasm came even faster, as they often did, and Winona tapped him on the shoulder when she was coherent again and said, “I honestly didn’t mean that as a challenge, but I am not going to say no any time you want to do that.”
He smiled, and crawled up the bed to kiss her. “Convenient, as I like how you taste.”
“Maybe I’d like how you taste.”
Chris closed his eyes and made a quiet, desperate noise, but said, “Actually, as much as I’d love to let you find out, I’d rather--”
“Yes, that sounds good, too,” she said, and kissed his ear.
“Condoms, lube, anything else?” he asked.
She wormed a hand down between them to check, and said, “Nah, not necessary. None of it. Unless you want.”
“I’m fine without if you are,” he said, and rubbed himself against her.
She responded by wrapping her legs around his waist, and wasn’t she damn proud that she could still do that. A moment later he was working his way inside her with short, slow strokes, and she was kissing him with everything she had.
“Oh, my God,” she said, once he was all the way inside her. He paused and looked at her, and the strain was evident in his face. “No, don’t stop,” she said, and heaved a couple of breaths. “Please.”
“Well, since you--begged so--nicely,” he said, gasping, and starting moving again, long and deep, letting her feel all of him.
Winona arched under him, eyes shut, hands roaming between his shoulders, his face, and anywhere else she could reach. A couple moments later, though, he slowed down and stroked her cheek. “Damnit, I--should have asked--before,” he said. “Can you--come like this?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’ve come twice already and that’s enough; trust me.” She could, but it wasn’t worth it right now.
“I do,” he said, smiling at her, incongruously sweet, compared to the movement of his body within hers. He leaned down to kiss her shoulder and resumed his previous pace.
She could feel when he was getting close; he started trembling and his rhythm lost its edge of control. “Close,” he warned her, a few moments later, gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Don’t hold back,” she said, because God it felt good, every stroke inside her. She tightened around him, and he groaned. Resting his forehead on the pillow, he snapped his hips against hers, just short of causing pain, and breathed out her name as he came.
She held on through his orgasm and the aftershocks, rubbing his back lightly, and a minute or so later, he withdrew gently and rolled off her to lay on his back, gasping. “You okay?” he asked.
“Hell, yes,” she said, and he laughed. “You?” she asked.
Chris turned to face her, and ran a hand down her side. “Yes,” he said, deep and obviously heartfelt. He put a hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her, lips and tongue strangely gentle.
Winona stopped him after a couple minutes, very reluctantly. “I’m leaking,” she said, “and there’s enough of a wet spot already.”
He smiled. “Go clean up.”
“Do you want me to bring you tissues or something?” she asked as she stood.
“No; I’ve got some.”
He was waiting, sitting in the middle of the bed, when she got back, sheet pooled in his lap, pillows fluffed and squared up at the top. “You’re staying, right?” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I am way too old to fuck and run,” she said.
He smiled, and scooted down to lay on the bed, holding the sheet up for her. She slid in and lay on her side, watching him, her nose only a few inches from his. “Hi,” she said.
“Come here,” he said, and they rearranged themselves so Winona was flat on her back, Chris against her side, his head on her shoulder and one arm across her midsection. She played with the fine hairs on the back of his neck for a moment before asking, “This okay?”
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “Don’t stop.”
She smiled, and brought her other hand up to cover his.
“So, more than one night?” he said, only the barest thread of diffidence in his voice.
“At least two,” she said, and felt the rumble of his laughter against her side.
“You’re on Earth for, what, another three weeks?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I’ll be back in May for Jim’s graduation.”
“And I’ll be setting off in the Enterprise shortly after that. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s try the next three weeks and then see where we are, then, okay?”
“That sounds fair,” she said, and yawned.
“Of course it is,” he said, and yawned as well, his jaw cracking against her shoulder. “Ow. And on that note.”
“Go to sleep,” she said, chuckling.
He raised his face for a kiss, and she granted it before closing her eyes, a smile still on her face.
* * *
The next morning she woke up slowly, enjoying the long, drawn-out moment. They’d apparently shifted position at some point in the night, because she was curled up on her left side, Chris behind her, one hand cupping her breast, his face pressed to the back of her neck. She could feel him, semi-hard, against her rear, and resisted the impulse to squirm against him. He was still asleep, snoring gently in her ear. It was rather endearing, actually; compared to George, who sounded like he’d swallowed a diesel combustion engine, it was positively adorable. She’d shared beds with a few other snorers over the years, but no one had compared to George Kirk. She hoped for Dr. McCoy’s sake that Jim had not inherited that. He hadn’t snored when he was young, but things could change.
A few minutes later, Chris stirred, the snores subsiding into normal breathing. “Mmm, computer, what time is it?” he said, or something close enough that the computer answered anyway.
“It is 0635,” it said. “You have a meeting at 0800.”
“Plenty of time,” he said, and kissed Winona’s shoulder.
“To go back to sleep?” she asked.
“If you want,” he said, but something in his tone made her think that he knew full well that she didn’t want any more sleep.
“Or,” she said, and pushed her rear back against him.
“Let’s go with that one,” he said, and kissed her shoulder again, tongue against her skin. His thumb brushed over her nipple, and she shivered.
The position put him in the perfect place to whisper a stream of endearments, from the sweet to dirty, directly in her ear. Between that and his hand on her breasts and his hips moving slowly against her, she was panting and whimpering in an embarrassingly-short period of time. “Chris,” she said, pleading; she canted her hips to the side, and he chuckled.
She would have been embarrassed that he’d managed to take her apart so thoroughly after just one night together, but it just wasn’t worth it. “Please?” she said.
He sucked in a fast breath, and trailed his fingers down the length of her body, to stroke her hip, the inside of her thigh, and--finally--her cunt, stroking along her labia, and then between.
“Mmmf,” she said, and turned her head as far as she could for a kiss; it was messy, and a little off-center, but she didn’t care--he had his fingers on her clit and her nerves were sparking and oh it was good.
After a few minutes, though, she realized that as good as it was, it wasn’t particularly fast, and time was of the essence. “This is where lube may be helpful,” she said, and he stopped.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
“No, no--it’ll just speed things up a lot,” she said.
“Ah,” he said. “It’s on your side.”
She scooted over a few inches, opened the drawer, and picked through a pile of condoms and multiple types of lube until she found the kind she wanted. Moving back into his arms, she grabbed his hand and squirted a dollop of lube onto his fingers.
He held it carefully for a moment, obviously waiting for it to warm up to skin temperature, but she laughed. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t mind the cold.”
“Hm,” he said, but spread it carefully on and around her clit.
She gasped. “What,” she said. “Have you never--ohhh--ice cubes?”
“No,” he said, sounding amused. “But you seem to be enjoying this.”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh yes.” It was getting almost impossible to stay still, so she hooked one leg back over his for something to strain against.
He apparently understood, as he stretched out the arm under her head to grasp her hand. She squeezed it, hard, but he just squeezed back and sped up his motions.
Oh, fuck, he was good at this. She could feel herself getting close already, and normally it took a little longer than that. “Don’t stop,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so desperate.
“Of course I won’t stop,” he said, lips next to her ear, his voice low and dark in a way that--oh--shot through her like a Risan cocktail.
She jerked, once, but that wasn’t it; so close, though. So close. Just a little bit more--if only he’d--or maybe--
“Winona,” he breathed in her ear, and damned if it didn’t do it for her.
She cried out as stars burst on her field of vision. When she came back to herself, his fingers were still between her legs, but not moving, and his face was buried in her shoulder. “Mmm,” she said. “Damn.”
“I assume that’s a good thing.”
“Like you could have missed that orgasm,” she said, grinning.
Chris made a small noise, somewhere between a ‘hm’ and an ‘ahh,’ that was clearly self-pleased, but didn’t actually say anything.
She shook her head, pulled his hand off of her carefully, and grabbed the lube again. “Here,” she said, portioning more out. “That’s for you. And--” Another pile, this time on her own fingers. “--this is for me, and then I figure you know what to do.”
She couldn’t see his face, but the smirk was self-evident. Reaching down between her legs, she prepared herself, and then wiped her hand off on the sheet. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Mmm, good,” he said. She re-angled her hips, and he reached around to guide himself, and then they were sliding together and oh, the day she’d discovered lube was a wonderful day.
Also, for that matter, the day she decided she didn’t hate Chris Pike, because if he was always like this in bed, she was coming back for more. A lot.
But his hand was just short of bruising on her hip, and his breath was hot against the back of her neck, and inside her--ohh, she liked this position. Maybe not for orgasm purposes, but it was still a lot of fun and he was hitting all the right places.
At least for her. “This working for you?” she asked, even though she couldn’t have explained exactly why.
“It’s a little close to the last time,” he admitted. “It’s probably going to take a while longer.”
“Not a problem for me,” she said. She’d picked a lube that wouldn’t absorb too quickly. “Do you want to switch positions to something where you have more leverage?”
“Do you mind?”
“No, of course not,” she said.
He withdrew carefully and said, “Missionary again?”
She nodded, and rolled onto her back; he settled between her legs, and threaded his arms under hers, leaning in for a kiss. “Mm,” he said, smiling. “Now you have to deal with my morning breath.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but I get to watch you.”
His smile widened for a moment, but then subsided into a more neutral expression as he re-settled himself and sank into her again.
And, oh, this was nice, too--she could watch his face, as she hadn’t really thought to last night. He closed his eyes after a minute or so, and she put her hands on his shoulders so she could feel the muscles working. She loved this part, she really did; loved watching her partners chase orgasms for their own sake, as much as she liked having her own. But watching Chris, from mere inches away, all shields down, not paying attention to what he said or what he did, was--
--revealing.
Especially when he opened his eyes and smiled at her. “You feel so wonderful,” he said.
“So do you,” she said, and returned the smile.
His smile grew wider, and he leaned down for another kiss. She returned it, lips and tongue and teeth clashing until he pulled back, panting, and buried his face in her shoulder. “Can’t--concentrate,” he said, muffled, and she grinned. “Do you--need anything?”
“No no no,” she said. “We’ll work on it later. Let go.”
He groaned, and did.
When he collapsed on top of her, she wrapped her arms around him and just held on for a long moment. Her mind ran around in circles for a few minutes, but it all came back to one inescapable fact: there was something more than just sheer physical attraction between them. And damned if she knew what was going to happen, but she also couldn’t walk out without letting him know--something.
“We’ll work on it later?” he asked, before she could say anything.
“I already told you you’re getting at least one more night,” she said.
He gave a brief chuckle, as if more was beyond him just yet.
“In all seriousness,” she said into his shoulder, “I can’t imagine feeling like I do, making love like we just did, twice, and then saying, no, that’s it.” Her heart sped up in her chest and her hands started shaking, but she’d gotten it out.
His arms tightened around her.
“Although I don’t know,” she said, and bit her lip. “If I can live up to twenty-eight years of whatever you’ve built up in your mind.” Whoa. It was a good question, but she didn’t know she was going to ask it until she did.
“You’ve already far surpassed it,” he said, lifting his head a couple inches to look at her. “Far.”
“Flatterer,” she said, but smiled; there was nothing but affection in her tone.
“It’s only the truth,” he said, and rested his head back on her shoulder.
Back to Part One | Back to Master Post | On to Part Three
Her first day in Australia cooled her off considerably, even though it was definitely summer there, and she decided she could check her messages without breaking anything sometime in the middle of her second day.
From Jim she received an OK. See you next time. Under other circumstances, she might have been disappointed, mostly in herself, but it wasn’t worth crafting an explanation. Especially since Jim appeared to like Pike, despite the fact that he’d rather explicitly used George. It still angered her every time she allowed herself to think about it.
From Pike himself she got, I’m sorry. She deleted that one right away.
From Number One she got, For what it’s worth, he really is sorry. Yes, I know that I don’t need to apologize for him.
From Phil she got a lengthy ramble about some martini bar Cait dragged him to, which ended with, About what Chris did--I don’t blame you for calling him names. I didn’t know he’d invoked George until he told me after you left. I told him he was forty kinds of asshole, if that helps.
She sent Phil back a description of all the Australian microbrews she’d been drinking, and finished with, Thanks. I’m glad I didn’t punch him, because I’ve gotten this far without assaulting a superior officer.
After that, she set a filter on her account to send all the messages she really didn’t want to deal with into an entirely different folder, and decided to re-up her scuba diving certifications.
* * *
Winona returned to the Yorktown at exactly the moment she was expected to return, not even hungover, and was very glad to see that Pike wasn’t there to see them off.
* * *
A week or so into the new mission, Number One called on Winona while both were off-duty, and said, “I’m certain you don’t ever want to discuss this, but--”
“With all due respect, sir,” Winona said, but One cut her off.
“No,” One said.
“No?”
“No, you’re not going to avoid this conversation by telling me very politely to go fuck myself,” One said.
“Excuse me?” Winona tried the eyebrow of doom, but One was apparently immune.
“You don’t need to forgive Chris. Frankly, I don’t care if you do or not. You don’t ever need to talk to him again. What I need to know is if you can remain professional. He’s still one of my closest friends, and it would take a bit more than some ill-considered words to change that. The same goes for Phil and Cait.”
Winona nodded, a short, sharp gesture.
“I will support you in any decisions you make to avoid him in the future, but I would rather you do not leave my ship because of this.” One smiled, hesitant. “I doubt he’ll be on the Yorktown much, especially once the Enterprise is completed.”
“Oh,” Winona said, realization dawning. “Oh, good God, no. Shit. I mean--” She sighed. “No. I’m not leaving the Yorktown, at least not before my contract is up.” She smiled weakly. “I’m here as long as you’ll have me.”
One nodded. “Good.”
“You didn’t really think I’d transfer because of that.”
One shrugged, and sat on Winona’s desk chair. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really know you well enough to judge one way or another, and you did seem . . . very angry.”
“Oh,” Winona said. She paused and licked her lips. “No, I’m still angry,” she said, slowly, “but how I feel about--about Captain Pike’s recruiting tactics doesn’t bear on our relationship, professional or otherwise.”
One smiled. “I had hoped not.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Chris and I,” she said, and hesitated.
Winona held her breath. It was common knowledge that Pike and One had been involved somehow, years ago, but she’d known even before she got on the ship that it was something no one ever mentioned.
“I’ve known him for a long time,” One said. “Not, from what I gather, as long as you have, but much more in depth. He . . .” She sighed. “You know, from your point of view, I can see how what he did was pretty unconscionable. I wouldn’t forgive him either. I don’t even know why I promised him I’d say anything.”
“I don’t think he’s a total waste of a human being,” Winona said, “if that helps.”
“Damning with faint praise,” One said, and smiled. “He’s not. But this is neither the time nor the place for me to convince you that he’s worth giving another chance, and I’m not the one who gets to decide whether he is worth it to you.”
Winona nodded. There was really nothing she could say to that.
“Phil outright refused to say anything to you unless you go to him.”
“Okay.” Not that she was going to, but it was nice to know that his friends disapproved of what he’d said.
One stood, and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Well, anyway. That’s the last I’m going to say about it unless you have any questions.”
“Nope,” Winona said. “Thank you, though.”
One nodded and left.
* * *
A few days after that, Winona got a message from Jim, delayed because they’d been out of comm range. What the hell did you do to Pike?
--None of your damn business. And really, the number of people who seemed to think it was their business was just annoying.
It is my business when he’s trying to transfer me to someone else’s advising pool.
Oh. She forwarded the entire thread to One and appended: Can you tell him not to be any stupider than he is already?
I can try, One replied.
A few hours later, Jim sent back, Thanks.
* * *
Perhaps it was because of the incident with Pike, but Cait Barry didn’t show up in Engineering for nearly a whole month after the Yorktown took off again. One day, though, Winona was on her back under a console, rewiring it because she had the time, when she heard the XO say, “That looks like fun.”
Winona pushed herself out, sat up, and said, “It is, sir.”
“Is the transformer on the right end of the board still giving you output issues?” Cait asked, and sounded wistful.
“No,” Winona said. “I fixed that one a year ago. Sir.” She wiped her hands off on her uniform and stood up. “Sir, I know this was your department for years, but I don’t think we’re in any need of your help at the moment.” She was a few centimeters shorter than Cait but she’d been a few centimeters shorter than everyone for her entire life, and besides, she’d been a commander since Cait was probably at the Academy.
“Oh, I know,” Cait said, “but I figured if nothing was going on, I might come down and look.”
“If you’d like to schedule a time to come down and go over what we’re doing down here, that would be great.” Slowly, very slowly, she started to back Cait toward the door. “At the moment, though, we’re taking advantage of the downtime to fix some of the problems that have been annoying but not threatening. You’re welcome to read the report on it once we’ve finished, sir.”
“Of course,” Cait said. “I read all of the reports that come out of Engineering. Whoever you’ve got writing the reports does an excellent job.”
“It’s Lieutenant Patil,” Winona said. Just a little bit more . . .
“Ah, speaking of Nik,” Cait said, “is he still in charge of the . . . you know?” She made a face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Winona said. Cait Barry’s dislike of stills in engine rooms was legendary. Winona had asked Phil once how he managed to overlook that flaw in her personality, and he’d snorted and shook his head. “But thank you very much for stopping by, Commander. It’s nice to know that you still take an interest in your old department.” She backed Cait up just another step and the XO was in the hallway; Winona hit a button to make the door close and to lock it temporarily.
It rang immediately, and Winona blithely ignored it, returning to her position under the console. Her personal comm buzzed a couple times, but she ignored that, too. If something was actually wrong, there was the intercom.
A half hour later or so, Winona’s comm buzzed again; she checked it this time. After deleting several textcomms from Cait that she declined to read, she found the newest one was from Phil. So Cait just came in here and railed for about ten minutes about how the ‘new’ chief engineer had no respect for authority and had kicked her out of Engineering.
--And?
I asked her what she was doing in Engineering, and when she didn’t have an answer that wasn’t ‘poking around,’ I said, well, good for Winona.
--I’m sure she didn’t like that answer.
Actually, she stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about her anymore.
--Oh, good.
* * *
Winona really liked the Yorktown’s short mission format; she enjoyed the lack of commitment to a five-year mission, and she really didn’t mind seeing Earth regularly. She also found it very convenient because it allowed her to keep pretty good tabs on Jim. When they returned ten months later, he was a year and a half into his studies; “halfway done,” he insisted.
“Oh?” she said. They were eating lunch together this time.
“Captain Pike told me it would take me four years,” Jim said, shrugging. “I don’t need four years.”
“Your father needed four years,” she said. “I needed four years. Even Captain Pike needed four years.”
“You all were seventeen or eighteen when you got to the Academy,” he said. “I was twenty-two.”
“Well, all right,” she said.
She saw Pike once, when she met Jim for lunch a second time; he and Jim were talking. Winona stayed at a distance and gave Pike a polite but frosty nod; in return, she got the same, if a little less frosty. Jim raised his eyebrow at the exchange.
By now, she had met his roommate--she thought it was adorable that they thought she wouldn’t figure out that they weren’t just rooming together--and knew where he’d gotten that gesture, since it clearly wasn’t her eyebrow raise.
“No, seriously, what’s going on here?” Jim asked, after Pike left. “He won’t tell me.”
“What makes you think I will?” Winona asked.
“Please?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, “I’ve been puppy-dog-eyed at by the man from whom you inherited that particular expression. It’s not going to work on me.”
“Are you sure?”
She groaned. “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you.” Damn him. The stubbornness was pure her, whether learned or inherited.
“Nope.”
Yeah, but that smile was pure George. She sighed. “Captain Pike told me what he said to you to get you to enlist. We had a disagreement about the appropriateness of invoking George in that particular situation.”
“Oh, that,” Jim said. “Yeah. I figured out pretty early on that he’ll say practically anything if it gets him the results he wants.” He shrugged. “He’s never mentioned Dad again, if that helps. Anyway, the ‘I dare you to do better,’ that’s not why I enlisted.”
His impression of Pike wasn’t all that great, but Winona didn’t bother commenting. “Why, then?”
He shrugged again. “I’m not sure, but that wasn’t it.”
She heard the lie of omission, but didn’t call him on it. “I don’t suppose it matters why you’re here, as long as you’re enjoying it and doing well.”
“Yeah,” he said. “So that’s it? You’re just pissed because of what he said to recruit me?”
She sat back in her chair. “I would think you’d be pissed, too. I remember a certain conversation we had about your father being a human being and not a symbol, just a year ago.”
“But he doesn’t see Dad as a symbol,” Jim said.
“You said he hadn’t mentioned George to you since the night he recruited you.” She could feel the fizz of annoyance running along her spine.
“He hasn’t,” he said. “I read his dissertation, though, and that makes it pretty clear.”
“Oh?”
“You never read it?”
“I don’t need to,” she said, voice sharp. “I was there.”
“Well, I know, but--” Jim pulled out his padd, poked at it for a moment with his stylus, and said, “There. I sent you the unredacted version.”
“Are you supposed to have that?” she asked.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” he said with a shrug, and slouched back down in his chair.
* * *
Later that evening, she shuffled Pike’s dissertation into a folder of other things she didn’t want to think about. But two weeks after that--when she was unpacking her duffel in her quarters on the Yorktown just after they took off--she found the padd with the video of Pike that Phil had given her. She held it for a long moment and stared. It was one of the inexpensive disposable padds that people kept around for the purpose of passing around small pieces of data, and she wouldn’t mind having another blank one, but she couldn’t bring herself to delete the vid without watching it first.
She sighed, cursed herself, and hit ‘play.’
The screen lit up with a tiny Chris Pike; he smiled before he started talking. “Phil,” he said, and his voice sounded strange through the padd’s cheap speakers. “So about that complaint I had last week that all the recruits I was getting were lockstep thinkers likely only to do exactly what the establishment wants.” He laughed, low and self-deprecating. “Two days ago I ended up with a surly, recently-divorced, possibly-alcoholic doctor--you’d love him. His name is Leonard McCoy and I could barely understand the titles of some of his research. I attached his résumé; you can decipher it for me.”
Winona smiled. Ah, Dr. McCoy. She liked him, but then again, ‘surly’ and ‘possibly-alcoholic’ were two of her favorite traits in friends.
“And then last night--” He rolled his eyes. “It’s a long story, but of all the people in all the gin joints in the world, I ran across Jim Kirk--yes, that Jim Kirk--and somehow figured out the right carrot to dangle to get him to join up, too.”
Pike smiled again. “He’s not maybe what I expected, or what you might expect, having met Sam Kirk, but he’s got Winona’s sarcasm by the bucketful.”
She hadn’t known that Pike and apparently Phil had met Sam at one point. Huh. And by the bucketful?
“Anyway, we’ll see. You know I’ll keep you posted, probably long past anything you might be interested in. Tell me what you think of McCoy, if you’re bored. Pike out.”
The vid screen blanked, and she stared at it for a moment more before hitting ‘play’ again.
* * *
Later, Winona snagged a bottle of Sixty-Eight and, after a half hour or so of going back and forth in her mind, finally opened Pike’s dissertation.
George Samuel Kirk, Sr., was born and raised in the mostly-rural Iowa town of Riverside, and often used the ‘Iowa farmboy’ stereotype to great effect. Indeed, commanders, fellow cadets, and his wife Winona all recall the initial jolt of surprise they felt when he first changed from his good-natured country-bred persona to the pin-sharp, authoritative, model Starfleet officer he later came to embody.
She smiled. It was true, and for that matter, the reason she’d pretty much pinned him down and ripped his clothes off the first time.
Despite that, his interpersonal warmth and willingness to mentor younger officers and cadets never changed. . . .
Four hours later, she was completely drunk, tears running down her face, curled in on herself. It was so obvious, to her, and probably to no one else alive, that Chris Pike had known George, probably loved the man. No. Jim was right. George certainly wasn’t just a symbol to him.
In that moment, though, when the command of the ship transferred, Kirk slid seamlessly into the role. Survivor interviews show that he switched chairs with no hesitation and began barking out orders that, models tend to show, bought the ship between 0.96 and 2.38 more minutes than had Kirk used the textbook-recommended maneuvers. A complete listing of the models is available in Appendix B. . . .
She still had another hundred and fifty pages to go, but it could wait.
It took her two more sessions to finish, but she was glad she did.
* * *
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: George
I finally read your dissertation, twenty years late.
Well done.
--
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: George
Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.
* * *
Winona stood in front of Number One’s door, holding two pints of ice cream and two spoons--the good stuff, not replicated. She’d picked it up at their last stopover at a starbase and had been hoarding it for something like this. It took her a moment or two before she could work up the gumption to hit the annunciator, but she finally did.
One answered the door a moment later, still wearing her uniform, but holding a glass of red wine. Winona held up the ice cream, and One stepped aside and let her in. “Izzy’s?” One asked, naming the ice cream place on Starbase XIX.
“Only the best,” Winona said.
One chose the pint of Mexican Chocolate Fiesta, leaving Winona the Midnight Snack, which suited her just fine. “Not that I’m not appreciative,” One said, a few bites in, “but I do suspect you aren’t here merely to share this with me.”
Winona nodded. “I think,” she said, and stopped.
One waited and didn’t try to hurry her; Winona didn’t know if she appreciated that or hated it. She took another breath, and said, “If you’re still willing to convince me that Chris Pike is worth forgiving, I think I’m willing to hear it.”
“Okay.” One smiled, and folded her legs under her. “May I ask what prompted this?”
“I read his dissertation, finally,” Winona said. “It--filled in a few of the blanks.”
“And left others,” One said. “Ah.” She took another spoonful of ice cream and ate it slowly. “I don’t know where to start. He was my captain for almost ten years, my friend for nearly the entire time; more for a few years in the middle there.” She pinned Winona with a glare over the pint container. “Not that that’s particularly any of your business.”
Winona held her spoon and ice cream up in surrender. “I wasn’t asking about that.”
“I know,” One said, and sighed. “Maybe you should tell me what you remember of him.”
“Have you seen pictures of him when he was in his early twenties?” Winona said. “He was, well, blond, for one thing. Not blonde like me.” She pulled out the end of her ponytail and looked at it--same color it had always been. “Dark blond. He was still tripping over his own feet and his tongue and if I hadn’t known better, I would have been very surprised that he’d managed to make it as high as lieutenant at that point. Smart, obviously, and polite, but he still managed to say about eight stupid things before breakfast each day. Metaphorically speaking.”
“Hm,” One said. “I’ve never seen him like that before. Captain Pike always knows what to say, sometimes to the point of being exasperating. Well, except--never mind.”
Winona smiled. Most people lost any ability to talk at the same moment. “I’m given to understand that he was on the Kelvin with us for his three months back before that but I don’t remember him at all. Of course, I was in the awful, hormonal-mess, constant-nausea part of pregnancy at that time, so I’m not sure I remember George during that time, but still. I do remember George complaining about him sometimes.”
“What did George say?” One asked.
“Oh, just that there was a baby cadet following him around and asking annoying questions. By the end, George thought Pike might actually be useful someday, so there’s that.”
“Someday,” One said.
“Oh, he was probably nicer than that,” Winona said. “George loved nothing more than being a mentor, and, for that matter, a father.” She blinked and looked away for a moment, and then took a decisive bite of her ice cream. “Anyway,” she said, “yeah. I really didn’t believe that Lieutenant Pike turned into Captain Pike until, well, I had proof.”
“Strange,” One said. “Very different from what know.” She dug out another perfectly hemispherical spoonful and ate it before saying, “Well, you know his service record.”
Winona nodded.
“You know he’s got my friendship and loyalty, as well as Phil’s and Cait’s, and practically everyone else who has ever served with him.”
She nodded again.
“I don’t know if I have anything else to say other than that.”
“Yeah,” Winona said. Because, really, what else was there to say?
“Now,” One said, “after this conversation, do you think we’re close enough friends to trade pints?”
She sounded so hopeful that Winona laughed, and handed over the Midnight Snack.
* * *
The Yorktown’s next stop on Earth was almost exactly a year after the last one. It got extended to a full six weeks, due to some much-needed upgrades to the warp core, and she was looking forward to seeing what the ship could do after that. Commander Barry had whisked the overseeing of the task out of Winona’s hands, claiming it was her one allowed interference a year, and Winona let it go gracefully. It just gave her more time off to go visit her grandkid--well, grandkid and a half: Aurelan was pregnant again and due in early March.
Her supposedly-yearly comms with Jim had turned into weekly comms, if she was in range, especially as the math got more complicated. He swore he was going to graduate at the end of the year, and the class schedules he’d chosen attested to that fact. More than once she asked him why he wasn’t going into engineering, with a head for equations the way he did, and the answer she finally believed was, “Math makes my brain quiet down.”
She’d only nodded in response.
Jim actually met her when the ship landed, but it was eight in the evening on a Wednesday, and convenient for his schedule. She had to go through debriefing, but met him for a beer afterward--and wasn’t it strange for her to go out drinking with her baby son? Nonetheless, he was almost twenty-five, and although his taste in beer was execrable (seriously, Budweiser Classic? Might as well be drinking cow piss), the ever-amusing Dr. McCoy joined them. At least he had decent taste in beverages; he and Winona got sidetracked into a discussion about various types of whiskeys that finally had Jim saying, “Hey, she’s my mom.”
Winona just laughed and paid off their tab.
A day or two later, she took the scenic route back from lunch. The weather was surprisingly decent; the sky was an almost-unreal shade of blue, and it was pleasantly cool. She hummed under her breath as she headed for her temp quarters, but stopped short when she came to a corner and who was waiting at the transit stop but Chris Pike.
“Captain Pike,” she said.
“It’s still Chris,” he said, voice carefully neutral, his face pleasantly blank.
“Then it’s still Winona,” she said.
He nodded.
Winona supposed she didn’t blame him for his caution; the last word she’d ever said to him was ‘bastard.’ Still. She didn’t have a ton of practice at this next part. Holding grudges, sure. Releasing them, not so much. “Ah,” she said, and inhaled through her nose.
He waited.
“You want to try this over again?” she said, after another thirty seconds or so.
“This conversation?” he asked.
“No,” she said. Damn, he was going to make it hard on her, wasn’t he? She probably deserved it. “More like the last two years’ worth of non-conversations.”
“Okay,” he said, and smiled.
And it was as simple as that.
Well, no, of course it wasn’t. They both tiptoed around each other for a couple weeks, only interacting in events that included the whole group, but one day, at lunch, Winona saw Chris eating alone, and she only hesitated for a few seconds before going up to his table and saying, “Can I join you?”
He looked up, smiled, and said, “Of course.”
After that, it was simple.
* * *
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: food?
Do you have plans for dinner this evening?
--
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
No. What did you have in mind?
--
TO: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
FROM: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
Food. Maybe beer. Possibly live music.
--
TO: pike.chr@starfleet.fed
FROM: kirk.winona@starfleet.fed
SUBJECT: RE: food?
I could stand all of that. Meet you outside Chawla Hall at 1900 and we’ll figure the rest out?
--
Three weeks of détente and they’d managed only two lunches together outside of the whole group. On one hand, half the point of not being mad at Chris anymore was for the comfort of Jim and their mutual friends and coworkers, so perhaps that wasn’t strange. But Winona had actually hesitated before accepting his dinner invitation. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat dinner with him; she still remembered the first portion of the disastrous Grumpy’s dinner as being, well, not disastrous. He was pleasant company; witty, well-read, up-to-date on politics and ‘Fleet gossip, and not difficult to look at.
No. Not at all. She shoved that particular observation as far down as it would go--which wasn’t very far--and leaned against a tree. The weather had taken a turn for the worse; it was barely above freezing and there was some sort of ‘wintry mix’ precipitation, but she had a reputation to protect, and had only acknowledged the cold and wet by wearing a sweater under her jacket.
Chris appeared a minute or two later, wearing a ridiculous knit cap, in addition to his heavy coat and what looked like a fisherman’s sweater. “Let’s get out of the cold,” he suggested, and they stepped into the lobby of Chawla Hall for a moment. He took off the hat, which left his hair in disarray, tufts sticking up and curls starting to form around the edges. She couldn’t help but smile.
He noticed, and shook his head, trying to flatten his hair down. “I’m sure it’s sticking up all over the place, but I walked halfway across campus to get here. The hat was necessary. What kind of food are you in the mood for?”
“I could eat pretty much anything,” she said.
“Yes, but what do you want?”
Winona consulted with her stomach, and said, “I really don’t care. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Anything warm,” he said.
“That leaves out ice cream for dinner, I guess,” she said.
He laughed. “True. What kind of pizza do you want?”
“Who says I want pizza?”
“You wouldn’t even pick a type of food. I picked the type. You get to pick the specifics.”
“That’s fair,” she said.
“Of course it is,” he said with a grin. “So, good pizza, or good bad pizza? Deep dish, New York-style, Andorian-Bolian fusion gourmet?”
They settled on Neapolitan and ended up at Punch, splitting a Milanese pizza, a Greek salad, and an order of extra focaccia. Chris dunked his focaccia--and the crust of his pizza, and one of Winona’s unfinished crusts--in what looked like half a bottle of balsamic vinegar, precariously balanced and constantly refreshed in a tiny puddle of olive oil.
“How on earth did you do that? I’m fairly certain the surface tension of olive oil shouldn’t hold that much vinegar.” She poked at it with a fingertip.
“Lots of practice. Don’t do that; it’ll--” He sighed, as the balsamic vinegar ran all over the plate.
“You were done eating,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.
A jazz trio was setting up in the corner, piano, bass, and drums; the instruments were all Terran and acoustic, but the pianist was Andorian. Zie started playing for a soundcheck a few minutes later, a tune very familiar to Winona.
“Ahh,” she said. “George loved this song. He tried to convince me it should be the first dance at our wedding but I put my foot down. At dancing in public, that is.”
“Hm,” Chris said, and she turned to look at him. He looked--frozen, as if he had no idea what to say, or maybe was afraid of what she was going to say next.
“We’re going to have to mention him at some point,” she said. “It’s been twenty-four years. I’m not walking wounded the way I was during the interview.” She shrugged. “I miss him sometimes, but not in a way that renders me catatonic or anything.”
“I miss him too, once in a while,” he said. “He was the first useful mentor I had.”
“Right,” she said, a frisson of anticipation coming over her. She almost never got to do this, almost never got to talk with someone who had known George and thought of him as a human being. “You--your dissertation. It was--you never made him out to be something he wasn’t.” She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“It’s obvious that you,” she said, and stopped. Loved him, but she couldn’t say that, so she made an indistinct gesture. “Anyway, yes.”
“It wasn’t George,” Chris said, barely audible over the music.
And, just like that, all the pieces fell together.
“I don’t remember you,” she said, a long moment later. “I know you were on the Kelvin for three months but I can’t picture you at all during that time. It’s not just because of pregnancy brain, is it.”
It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway. “No. One of the things I did for Pzilf--” the XO at the time “--was make up the duty roster, which meant I always knew where you would be and could put myself as far away as possible.”
“And I wasn’t eating in the commissary at the time because it made me nauseated,” she said.
“George would occasionally send me to deliver your meals,” he said. “I’d leave them on your desk when you stepped out.”
“All that trouble,” Winona said.
“Cut me some slack,” he said. “I was nineteen. You were ten years older, married to my supervisor, and pregnant. I would have done a lot more than rearrange the duty roster to avoid you.”
“All this time?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes, and no,” he said, and looked away. “More of an acknowledgment, I suppose, of what could be, were the situation entirely different.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her heart started pounding, the center of her palms aching. “Same here.” Because it was true, and made her want to jump out of her skin, although she didn’t know if it was with desire--because she definitely felt that--or fear--she felt that too--or what.
Chris looked at her sharply.
“Not when you were nineteen,” she said. “When you did the interview.”
“It was a year after,” he said, but some of the lines in his forehead smoothed out. After George died, he meant. Five years after his training stint on the Kelvin.
“Yeah,” Winona said. “It--I--it was too soon.” Fuck, it had been, and she remembered the aching guilt as much as the completely-inappropriate desire. One of those, though, she still felt--and maybe it wasn't inappropriate anymore. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. “Are you skipping over the important part of that confession?”
“If it’s what you want,” he said, very carefully.
“It is most emphatically not what I want,” she said. She slugged down the last of her beer and stood, holding out one hand. “Let’s go.”
He stood and dusted off his hands before he took hers. “Where are we going?”
“Literally, or metaphorically?” She headed for the door; he followed, still holding her hand.
“Either.”
“Literally, your place, I suppose.” She looked at him briefly, to make sure he was still on board. “I’m in temp housing.”
He nodded.
“Metaphorically . . .” She shrugged, and let the door to Punch’s swing closed behind her. “The situation is entirely different now.”
He smiled, quick and bright. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That is,” she said, momentarily hesitant, “if it’s what you want.”
“It is,” he said, using her hand to pull her closer, “most emphatically what I want.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and stood on her toes. “Does that usually work for you?”
“No, not really,” he said, lips almost against hers, and then leaned down to kiss her.
He tasted like garlic and balsamic vinegar and the beer he’d had with dinner, and a few things she didn’t recognize, but after a few moments, she didn’t notice any of it--only noticed his mouth, and tongue, and his hands on her waist, warm and broad.
“Holy shit,” she said, long moments later, as she sank back onto her heels. “If you can kiss like that, I suppose it doesn’t matter how silly your lines are.”
“I’ve heard that before,” he said, equal parts smug and chagrined.
Winona laughed. “Come on; let’s go. It’s too cold to stand around kissing on street-corners.”
“I hadn’t even noticed,” he said, and she smiled.
It didn’t take that long to get back to Chris’s place, on the third floor of Glenn Hall. His apartment was small, military-neat--both of which she expected--and painted a strange shade of purplish-gray, which she did not. Not important, though. She toed off her shoes by the door, as did he, and then turned expectantly to look at him.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.
She gave a half-smile, and shook her head. “Nervous?” she asked.
“A little,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Not about--this.” She gestured between them. “More about what comes after.”
“Breakfast?” he said.
“And then what?”
He sighed. “I don’t know if this is going to sound pathetic or romantic, but after nearly thirty years, Winona, I’ll take whatever I can have.”
Romantic. Definitely romantic. Shut it, you, Winona told the sappy part of her brain. “So you’d be okay with this being just one night?”
He shrugged.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” she said, awareness blooming where it hadn’t been a mere moment before. “Fuck it. I have no idea how this is going to work, but we can figure that out later, right?”
“I think so,” he said, and they met halfway.
Jesus, she could kiss him all day and all night, if he kept this up. Well, not that she wanted to stop at first base, really, but damn.
“Bedroom’s through there,” he said, indicating a door behind him, and they half-walked, half-stumbled into the room.
Chris had his hands up her sweater before she could get to his, and just the feel of his hands against her skin was electric. She found his mouth again, and his hands settled against her ribs as he switched his attention to the kiss. His thumbs stroked just under the bottom edge of her bra, and as she pulled away, one shifted forward to brush between her breasts.
She grinned. "Back hook. You think I wear Starfleet-issued bras off duty?"
"Some women do," he said, and leaned in to nibble on her earlobe.
"Mmm," she said, and buried her nose behind his ear, breathing in garlic and basil and something faintly citrus-y, probably from his shower gel. As he found the hooks on the back of her bra, something floated up through the haze of desire threatening to take over, and she said, "Wait."
Immediately he stilled before straightening and pulling his hands away. She grabbed his hands before he got too far, and said, "No, not--I didn't mean stop touching me, or go stand in the corner. It's just--look, is there anything I need to know before we do this?"
"I'm clean," he said. "I can't get you pregnant, at least not right now, although I suspect that's less of a worry than disease."
"It would take rather a lot of medical assistance," Winona said, lips twisting. Those days were long since over.
"Also," Chris said, with a pause so short that she barely registered it, "don't grab the hair on the back of my head."
She nodded. "Okay."
"This is fine," he said, cupping one hand around the back of her head. "This is not." He wound his fingers into her hair and tugged gently--not enough that it hurt, but enough that she knew exactly what had happened. His next words confirmed. "Especially not if--when--I'm going down on you."
She nodded again. That was why she'd asked, after all, and she had no desire to invoke memories of torture.
"You?"
"Clean," she said. "Other than that, no knives, no wax." She kept her tone light.
"Duly noted," he said. "There's a pocketknife in the top drawer of my dresser, on the left side. I use it for hiking or camping, things like that. Do you want me to move it?"
She shook her head. "No, that's fine." It might not have been fine if she would have discovered it on her own, but now that she knew it was there, she could forget about it. "Can we get back to the part where you were about to prove that you can undo a bra single-handed?"
"Sounds good to me," he said, and tugged her sweater over her head.
She returned the favor, but took his undershirt with it. "Hello there," she said, and backed up a few inches so she could see him properly. Twirling one finger in the air, she looked at him expectantly, and he held his hands up and spun around slowly. "Nice," she said. "Very nice."
And by ‘nice,’ she meant ‘really, really hot.’ She hadn’t expected him to be young, and he wasn’t, from the gray in his chest hair to a few scars attesting to many years in active duty, but they certainly didn’t make him a damn bit less attractive.
"Thank you," he said. "Now you?"
Winona spun around herself, but lifted her hands with her index fingers pointed up and alternated raising and lowering them.
When she faced him again, he looked incredibly amused. "First, you're wearing too much clothing. Second, did you just do the Hokey Pokey?"
"That is what it's all about," she said solemnly.
Chris laughed, and slid his fingers under the hem of her camisole, raising it slowly. "What's next," he said, "the Chicken Dance?"
"If that's your thing," she said, and gasped as his nails scraped gently against her shoulderblades. "Ohhhh."
He pulled the camisole off over her head, and threw it aside. On the way back down, he did, as a matter of fact, undo her bra one-handed, and she caught it in one hand before it fell. Throwing it at the chair, she lifted her chin and watched him look at her.
She was well aware that she was pushing sixty, had had two children, and had generally eschewed cosmetic work, but from the look on his face, she might as well have been twenty-nine again.
"You're beautiful," he said, finally raising his eyes to her own.
Winona turned around again, this time making beaks out of her hands and opening and closing them, and Chris laughed. Grabbing her belt loops, he pulled her against him and started undoing the fly of her jeans, hands working in the nearly-nonexistent space between them. Once he'd pushed her jeans down off her hips, she wriggled a bit to get them to fall the rest of the way on their own, and started working on his pants.
He gasped as her knuckles brushed against his skin, just inside the hollow of his hip. She backed up just enough to finish quickly and finally, after they both stepped out of the pooled fabric, finally they were both fully naked.
It only took a moment for him to drag the sheets and blankets down to the foot of the bed and to order the lights down to thirty percent before he held out a hand and guided her to sit and then lie down on the bed. A moment later he joined her and skimmed a hand down her side, from her shoulder to mid-thigh, and she laughed and pulled him in for a kiss.
He slung a thigh between hers and, with a hand on her rear, encouraged her to wriggle closer, so that they were pressed together from lips to ankles, nearly. “Mmmph,” she said, and hooked her calf behind his knees.
“Good mmmph?” he asked, nibbling on her earlobe.
“Mmm, yes,” she said, and scratched her nails lightly down his back. He gasped again, and she pushed back just far enough that she could run her nails lightly over his shoulders.
“Oh, keep doing that,” he said, barely above a whisper.
She hmmed again and pushed his shoulder until he lay flat on his back, and she was straddling his hips. His knees were up, so she tucked her rear end against the creases between his hips and thighs--conveniently putting him just where she wanted him--and leaned over, scratching lightly through his chest hair. He tipped his chin up and arched slightly, and she said, “Gorgeous.”
“Glad you--think so,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.
Starting at his neck, she ran her nails over his skin--not hard enough to leave even a faint mark--down his shoulders, down his arms, over the soft skin of his forearms and across the centers of his palms, before going back up and then coming down his chest, following the line of hair so it wouldn’t tickle. She stopped when she ran into her own legs, and started back at his neck again, this time with flat palms.
Chris watched her for a while, and then, when she was spreading her fingers over his ribs, covered her hands with his and then tugged. “Come here,” he said. “What you’re doing is nice--very nice--but you’re too far away.”
“I’m too far away?” she said, squeezing her thighs against his hips.
“Well, okay,” he said, “your breasts are too far away.” He pushed his hips up against hers a little bit, and she laughed, leaning forward and walking her hands up to the pillow.
“Close enough?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, and brushed the outside of her breasts with his fingertips, gently.
Winona closed her eyes and bit her lip and managed to keep back the moan, even as he cupped her breasts in broad, warm palms. When he lifted his head and flicked his tongue against her nipple, though, then she did moan, and leaned over so he could have better access.
And access he did--tongue hot and just the slightest bit rough, lips soft in contrast, and just the slightest graze of teeth. He couldn’t have done better if she’d ordered off the à la carte menu, she thought, and laughed.
He raised his eyebrows at her, and she smiled and rolled off, landing next to him. “Your turn,” she said.
“I can work with that,” he said, and sat up to kneel between her legs.
He started the same way she did, with fingernails, but as she was too ticklish that didn’t last long. “Stop,” she said, laughing and squirming.
He did, smiling, and switching to open hands, and enough pressure to keep it all pleasure. Still, though, it was a tease, as were his lips below her ear, and his erection against her. Once he’d traced the shape of her body with his hands and lips, though, he leaned down, kissed her until she forgot everything but the feel of his mouth on hers, and then scooted down the bed.
“This okay?” he asked, and kissed the inside of her thigh.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, ohhhh.” She clenched her fists in the sheets and held on for dear life.
He had her begging in--she had no way of telling how long, actually; it felt like immediately and also maybe four hours later. But she was sobbing out his name before too long. “Oh, God, Chris, please.”
The bastard, of course, just chuckled and doubled down, tongue circling at exactly the same speed. A moment later, one finger slid inside her, carefully, just the tip, and she gasped. “Oh, God, yes, please, don’t stop, more, fuck!”
The words were falling out of her mouth without really any thought or effort on her part, and finally--she swore he’d been down there forever--finally he gave up on trying to draw it out any longer. Or something, because all of a sudden he was doing exactly what she needed and it was building to that final climb and then everything exploded into a thousand points of light and she shook helplessly.
“Oh, my God,” she said weakly a few minutes later. “Damn.”
“I presume you enjoyed yourself?” he said, head pillowed on her hip, and she shivered just at the sound of his voice.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think you might have to try again.”
He looked up at her, raised an eyebrow, and then ducked his head again.
The second orgasm came even faster, as they often did, and Winona tapped him on the shoulder when she was coherent again and said, “I honestly didn’t mean that as a challenge, but I am not going to say no any time you want to do that.”
He smiled, and crawled up the bed to kiss her. “Convenient, as I like how you taste.”
“Maybe I’d like how you taste.”
Chris closed his eyes and made a quiet, desperate noise, but said, “Actually, as much as I’d love to let you find out, I’d rather--”
“Yes, that sounds good, too,” she said, and kissed his ear.
“Condoms, lube, anything else?” he asked.
She wormed a hand down between them to check, and said, “Nah, not necessary. None of it. Unless you want.”
“I’m fine without if you are,” he said, and rubbed himself against her.
She responded by wrapping her legs around his waist, and wasn’t she damn proud that she could still do that. A moment later he was working his way inside her with short, slow strokes, and she was kissing him with everything she had.
“Oh, my God,” she said, once he was all the way inside her. He paused and looked at her, and the strain was evident in his face. “No, don’t stop,” she said, and heaved a couple of breaths. “Please.”
“Well, since you--begged so--nicely,” he said, gasping, and starting moving again, long and deep, letting her feel all of him.
Winona arched under him, eyes shut, hands roaming between his shoulders, his face, and anywhere else she could reach. A couple moments later, though, he slowed down and stroked her cheek. “Damnit, I--should have asked--before,” he said. “Can you--come like this?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’ve come twice already and that’s enough; trust me.” She could, but it wasn’t worth it right now.
“I do,” he said, smiling at her, incongruously sweet, compared to the movement of his body within hers. He leaned down to kiss her shoulder and resumed his previous pace.
She could feel when he was getting close; he started trembling and his rhythm lost its edge of control. “Close,” he warned her, a few moments later, gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Don’t hold back,” she said, because God it felt good, every stroke inside her. She tightened around him, and he groaned. Resting his forehead on the pillow, he snapped his hips against hers, just short of causing pain, and breathed out her name as he came.
She held on through his orgasm and the aftershocks, rubbing his back lightly, and a minute or so later, he withdrew gently and rolled off her to lay on his back, gasping. “You okay?” he asked.
“Hell, yes,” she said, and he laughed. “You?” she asked.
Chris turned to face her, and ran a hand down her side. “Yes,” he said, deep and obviously heartfelt. He put a hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her, lips and tongue strangely gentle.
Winona stopped him after a couple minutes, very reluctantly. “I’m leaking,” she said, “and there’s enough of a wet spot already.”
He smiled. “Go clean up.”
“Do you want me to bring you tissues or something?” she asked as she stood.
“No; I’ve got some.”
He was waiting, sitting in the middle of the bed, when she got back, sheet pooled in his lap, pillows fluffed and squared up at the top. “You’re staying, right?” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I am way too old to fuck and run,” she said.
He smiled, and scooted down to lay on the bed, holding the sheet up for her. She slid in and lay on her side, watching him, her nose only a few inches from his. “Hi,” she said.
“Come here,” he said, and they rearranged themselves so Winona was flat on her back, Chris against her side, his head on her shoulder and one arm across her midsection. She played with the fine hairs on the back of his neck for a moment before asking, “This okay?”
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “Don’t stop.”
She smiled, and brought her other hand up to cover his.
“So, more than one night?” he said, only the barest thread of diffidence in his voice.
“At least two,” she said, and felt the rumble of his laughter against her side.
“You’re on Earth for, what, another three weeks?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I’ll be back in May for Jim’s graduation.”
“And I’ll be setting off in the Enterprise shortly after that. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s try the next three weeks and then see where we are, then, okay?”
“That sounds fair,” she said, and yawned.
“Of course it is,” he said, and yawned as well, his jaw cracking against her shoulder. “Ow. And on that note.”
“Go to sleep,” she said, chuckling.
He raised his face for a kiss, and she granted it before closing her eyes, a smile still on her face.
* * *
The next morning she woke up slowly, enjoying the long, drawn-out moment. They’d apparently shifted position at some point in the night, because she was curled up on her left side, Chris behind her, one hand cupping her breast, his face pressed to the back of her neck. She could feel him, semi-hard, against her rear, and resisted the impulse to squirm against him. He was still asleep, snoring gently in her ear. It was rather endearing, actually; compared to George, who sounded like he’d swallowed a diesel combustion engine, it was positively adorable. She’d shared beds with a few other snorers over the years, but no one had compared to George Kirk. She hoped for Dr. McCoy’s sake that Jim had not inherited that. He hadn’t snored when he was young, but things could change.
A few minutes later, Chris stirred, the snores subsiding into normal breathing. “Mmm, computer, what time is it?” he said, or something close enough that the computer answered anyway.
“It is 0635,” it said. “You have a meeting at 0800.”
“Plenty of time,” he said, and kissed Winona’s shoulder.
“To go back to sleep?” she asked.
“If you want,” he said, but something in his tone made her think that he knew full well that she didn’t want any more sleep.
“Or,” she said, and pushed her rear back against him.
“Let’s go with that one,” he said, and kissed her shoulder again, tongue against her skin. His thumb brushed over her nipple, and she shivered.
The position put him in the perfect place to whisper a stream of endearments, from the sweet to dirty, directly in her ear. Between that and his hand on her breasts and his hips moving slowly against her, she was panting and whimpering in an embarrassingly-short period of time. “Chris,” she said, pleading; she canted her hips to the side, and he chuckled.
She would have been embarrassed that he’d managed to take her apart so thoroughly after just one night together, but it just wasn’t worth it. “Please?” she said.
He sucked in a fast breath, and trailed his fingers down the length of her body, to stroke her hip, the inside of her thigh, and--finally--her cunt, stroking along her labia, and then between.
“Mmmf,” she said, and turned her head as far as she could for a kiss; it was messy, and a little off-center, but she didn’t care--he had his fingers on her clit and her nerves were sparking and oh it was good.
After a few minutes, though, she realized that as good as it was, it wasn’t particularly fast, and time was of the essence. “This is where lube may be helpful,” she said, and he stopped.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
“No, no--it’ll just speed things up a lot,” she said.
“Ah,” he said. “It’s on your side.”
She scooted over a few inches, opened the drawer, and picked through a pile of condoms and multiple types of lube until she found the kind she wanted. Moving back into his arms, she grabbed his hand and squirted a dollop of lube onto his fingers.
He held it carefully for a moment, obviously waiting for it to warm up to skin temperature, but she laughed. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t mind the cold.”
“Hm,” he said, but spread it carefully on and around her clit.
She gasped. “What,” she said. “Have you never--ohhh--ice cubes?”
“No,” he said, sounding amused. “But you seem to be enjoying this.”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh yes.” It was getting almost impossible to stay still, so she hooked one leg back over his for something to strain against.
He apparently understood, as he stretched out the arm under her head to grasp her hand. She squeezed it, hard, but he just squeezed back and sped up his motions.
Oh, fuck, he was good at this. She could feel herself getting close already, and normally it took a little longer than that. “Don’t stop,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so desperate.
“Of course I won’t stop,” he said, lips next to her ear, his voice low and dark in a way that--oh--shot through her like a Risan cocktail.
She jerked, once, but that wasn’t it; so close, though. So close. Just a little bit more--if only he’d--or maybe--
“Winona,” he breathed in her ear, and damned if it didn’t do it for her.
She cried out as stars burst on her field of vision. When she came back to herself, his fingers were still between her legs, but not moving, and his face was buried in her shoulder. “Mmm,” she said. “Damn.”
“I assume that’s a good thing.”
“Like you could have missed that orgasm,” she said, grinning.
Chris made a small noise, somewhere between a ‘hm’ and an ‘ahh,’ that was clearly self-pleased, but didn’t actually say anything.
She shook her head, pulled his hand off of her carefully, and grabbed the lube again. “Here,” she said, portioning more out. “That’s for you. And--” Another pile, this time on her own fingers. “--this is for me, and then I figure you know what to do.”
She couldn’t see his face, but the smirk was self-evident. Reaching down between her legs, she prepared herself, and then wiped her hand off on the sheet. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Mmm, good,” he said. She re-angled her hips, and he reached around to guide himself, and then they were sliding together and oh, the day she’d discovered lube was a wonderful day.
Also, for that matter, the day she decided she didn’t hate Chris Pike, because if he was always like this in bed, she was coming back for more. A lot.
But his hand was just short of bruising on her hip, and his breath was hot against the back of her neck, and inside her--ohh, she liked this position. Maybe not for orgasm purposes, but it was still a lot of fun and he was hitting all the right places.
At least for her. “This working for you?” she asked, even though she couldn’t have explained exactly why.
“It’s a little close to the last time,” he admitted. “It’s probably going to take a while longer.”
“Not a problem for me,” she said. She’d picked a lube that wouldn’t absorb too quickly. “Do you want to switch positions to something where you have more leverage?”
“Do you mind?”
“No, of course not,” she said.
He withdrew carefully and said, “Missionary again?”
She nodded, and rolled onto her back; he settled between her legs, and threaded his arms under hers, leaning in for a kiss. “Mm,” he said, smiling. “Now you have to deal with my morning breath.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but I get to watch you.”
His smile widened for a moment, but then subsided into a more neutral expression as he re-settled himself and sank into her again.
And, oh, this was nice, too--she could watch his face, as she hadn’t really thought to last night. He closed his eyes after a minute or so, and she put her hands on his shoulders so she could feel the muscles working. She loved this part, she really did; loved watching her partners chase orgasms for their own sake, as much as she liked having her own. But watching Chris, from mere inches away, all shields down, not paying attention to what he said or what he did, was--
--revealing.
Especially when he opened his eyes and smiled at her. “You feel so wonderful,” he said.
“So do you,” she said, and returned the smile.
His smile grew wider, and he leaned down for another kiss. She returned it, lips and tongue and teeth clashing until he pulled back, panting, and buried his face in her shoulder. “Can’t--concentrate,” he said, muffled, and she grinned. “Do you--need anything?”
“No no no,” she said. “We’ll work on it later. Let go.”
He groaned, and did.
When he collapsed on top of her, she wrapped her arms around him and just held on for a long moment. Her mind ran around in circles for a few minutes, but it all came back to one inescapable fact: there was something more than just sheer physical attraction between them. And damned if she knew what was going to happen, but she also couldn’t walk out without letting him know--something.
“We’ll work on it later?” he asked, before she could say anything.
“I already told you you’re getting at least one more night,” she said.
He gave a brief chuckle, as if more was beyond him just yet.
“In all seriousness,” she said into his shoulder, “I can’t imagine feeling like I do, making love like we just did, twice, and then saying, no, that’s it.” Her heart sped up in her chest and her hands started shaking, but she’d gotten it out.
His arms tightened around her.
“Although I don’t know,” she said, and bit her lip. “If I can live up to twenty-eight years of whatever you’ve built up in your mind.” Whoa. It was a good question, but she didn’t know she was going to ask it until she did.
“You’ve already far surpassed it,” he said, lifting his head a couple inches to look at her. “Far.”
“Flatterer,” she said, but smiled; there was nothing but affection in her tone.
“It’s only the truth,” he said, and rested his head back on her shoulder.
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