Big Bang 2010 - If Wishes Were Horses 18/18
Title: If Wishes Were Horses
Author: fringedweller
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Primarily Kirk/Rand, with background McCoy/Chapel and Pike/One and others, het and slash
Warnings: None
Length: 2768
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything recognisable in this fic and I’m not making any money from it.
Notes: Beta by seren_ccd
Summary: All her life Janice Rand had wanted one thing - to figure out just what she was supposed to do with herself. She drifted into Starfleet on a whim, and to her surprise, found a niche to fill. But being assigned to the Enterprise brings with it a challenge to her neat and ordered way of life, and Janice is unsure as to how much she's willing to let James T. Kirk affect her. But since when has love ever been easy? And will Janice let her heart stand in the way of her career?
Admiral Pike’s new first contact training programme took two years to complete, and during those two years Janice barely had time to breathe. Just about every hour of her day was accounted for, from formal lectures in communication skills to interactive xenobiology seminars, physical endurance training to holodeck simulations of first contact and yes, even the dreaded dance and movement lessons.
The first contingent was twenty in number, mostly officers ranging in rank from junior lieutenant up to captain. Janice was one of three enlisted crewmen, the other two previously working in security. One of the first barriers to overcome was that of deference to rank; Pike instilled a given-name only policy while they were studying together, and warned them that anybody did try to pull rank, they would immediately be pulled from the programme and dumped back into the regular service. Captain Valentine had the most to lose by this ruling, so she was the one that policed the others and enforced it. Janice, not in the position to pull rank on anybody, could only sit back and admire how easily Pike manoeuvred the group’s potential trouble-maker into being the person working hardest to ensure its smooth running.
During her time training, Janice learned four languages well enough to function without the aid of the universal translator. She became renowned in their group as an expert on historic first contacts, especially the famous Vulcan first contact with Zephram Cochrane. She debated philosophy and theory with visiting experts from all over the Federation, and even managed not to wobble too much when performing an arabesque. In two years of study, she managed to gain enough credits to qualify her for officer status, although finding time in her busy schedule for the mandatory field experience tests that all cadets had to finish was difficult.
She kept in regular video contact with her friends on the Enterprise, although the pace of her training made it impossible for her to make it to any of the vacation spots the others used their leave to visit. Janice stayed on Earth, and finally managed to get the second mural done for Maggie and Tara, who were both incredibly proud of Janice’s accomplishments.
Janice downloaded as many of the publically available mission reports as she could for the Enterprise, noting with some amusement that her replacement was having some trouble reigning in Kirk’s descriptive writing style. Nyota and Christine both alluded to Kirk in their messages, although neither were as painfully honest as Gaila was.
“It’s like he’s back at the Academy again,” Gaila told her. “He never has sex with any of the crew, but as soon as he gets sight of a suitable civilian, he makes his move straight away. His reputation is preceding him - on the last planet we visited, he was nearly mobbed as soon as he beamed down.”
Janice sighed. Although she had never out and out told her friends about her relationship with Jim, she knew that they had figured it out. Christine and Nyota danced around mentioning how Jim had adapted to the life of a handsome, single man in deference to her feelings, but Gaila had a different set of sensibilities. Janice always had to brace herself for Gaila’s messages.
“I don’t think it makes him happy, though,” Gaila said thoughtfully after detailing Jim’s latest round of conquests. “He smiles, but you can tell he’s missing something. He goes from one woman to another like he’s looking for something, but he never finds it.”
Janice knew how he felt. Although the number of men she slept with during her two years back on Earth was a small fraction of the number of women that Kirk was known to have entertained, she too had ended up feeling unsatisfied with her encounters. Through no fault of their own, none of the men matched up to the memory of Jim Kirk. It didn’t stop her from trying to find one who did, though.
The two years didn’t exactly fly past, but when the course finished, Janice was surprised by how much she would miss the group of people that she had become close to. They had become friendly, then friends, and the thought of separating herself from them was hard.
Pike had been in discussions for the best part of a year as to how his newly trained officers would be deployed within the fleet. He had fought long and hard for their unique status amongst other Starfleet officers in that when the captain of the vessel they were assigned to designated a situation as a first contact, then Pike’s team would take over all aspects of the mission. They would have no way of usurping the captain’s role onboard ship, but no longer would the captain be automatically responsible for all first contact missions.
It was not an easy sell; captains were all the kings of their domains, and not one of them relished the idea of abdicating a measure of responsibility. But Pike was eloquent when defending his ideas before the top brass, and it was eventually decided that ten teams of two first contact specialists would be deployed onto ships with exploratory missions. When not actively engaged in first contact missions, they would be responsible for delivering first contact training to the crew of the ship. They would be outside the chain of command, and have no officer rank, instead being addressed as a Diplomatic Specialist.
It was important, Pike demanded, that the new teams not be thought of as part of the rank and file of the ship. They were highly trained for particular and individual missions, and to be deployed only for those. They were to obey orders just like any other member of the crew, but when it came to diplomatic missions, they had to be seen as divorced from the more militaristic side of Starfleet that had scared off many civilisations in the past.
It was a hard sell, but he managed it. After finishing her training, Janice was partnered up with a former lieutenant commander, her opposite in every physical respect - where she was pale skinned, petite and obviously female, Charles Nwosu was dark skinned, almost six and a half feet tall and exuded brute masculinity from ever pore. It was hoped that their very different physical features would help them show how the Federation valued all genders of humanoids to cultures who were perhaps not so enlightened. Janice had always liked Charles, who was intelligent and thoughtful. Of all the people she could have been posted with, she was glad that Pike had put them together.
She did, however, have some issue with the location of her posting.
“Are you sure, sir?” she asked him in the privacy of his office. Stacks of artifacts from alien cultures were cluttering up the room, and she was fighting the urge to organise them into the display cases that were still there after she had ordered them for him six years ago.
“I’m positive,” Pike said firmly. “He’s been one of the most vocal captains against the idea of the diplomatic specialists on board his ship, which is laughable when you look at his record.”
“I was hoping to be assigned to the Farragut,” Janice argued.
“No,” said Pike bluntly, softening his words with a smile. “You think I want you and Number One on board the same ship? My life would never be the same again.”
“But sir, are you sure that I’ll be able to cope with the E…” Janice began.
“Yes,” Pike said firmly. “I’ve made my decision, and it’s final. You and Specialist Nwosu have your orders. You’ll leave to catch up with them tomorrow.”
“Yes sir, Janice sighed.
This was not the posting that she wanted. She had been hoping for one of the smaller classes of starship, not one of the three constitution class giants. She had served on one of those already, and she wanted to move on. But fate, and Admiral Pike, apparently had other ideas.
Her new captain was waiting for Nwosu and herself when their transport ship caught up with them on the edges of explored Federation space. The ship was ready to start charting new territory, and had been delayed while waiting for the older, slower transport vessel to reach them. As soon as the captain had finished his terse greetings he had relayed an order to the bridge for a jump to warp, nodded at the two new crewmembers and left the transporter room.
“I thought he had a reputation as a friendly guy,” muttered Nwosu as he picked up both his and Janice’s bags from the transporter pad. They left the transporter room and started to move through the ship towards the quarters they had been assigned - single occupancy rooms, in the section reserved for senior officers. A nice perk of the job, Janice thought, anticipating the thought of a bath tub with pleasure.
“I think that he probably resents the idea that we’re here to do part of his job for him,” Janice said with resignation. “Pike did warn us that not all captains would be receptive to us at first.”
“Well then, we’d better do a damn good job and prove how good we are,” Nwosu said firmly, his jaw set.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Janice told him.
They parted way at Janice’s door, agreeing to meet later to look around the ship. Her new quarters were larger than her last, which was a good thing because as soon as she stepped into the room three women threw themselves at her and tackled her onto the floor in a hug.
“You’re back!” Gaila cried.
“I’ve missed you,” Nyota told her, squeezing her hard.
“It hasn’t been the same without you,” Christine added from somewhere near the bottom of the pile.
“I’ve missed you all too!” Janice told them. “I have presents for you all in my luggage, but until that gets brought up here, you’ll have to make do with these.”
“Real chocolate brownies?” demanded Christine. “From your friends’ café?”
“Put in stasis as soon as they were out of the oven,” Janice told her happily. “They should still be warm. You can tell me all the gossip while we eat.”
They sat on the floor and munched their way through an obscene amount of brownies before the shift change alert was sounded. All three women had to leave to go on duty, and Janice was left to clear up the mess of the brownies and unpack her personal luggage. She had just finished when her door signalled that she had a visitor.
She expected it to be Charles; instead, a very familiar pair of blue eyes faced her.
“Come in, captain,” Janice said, taking a step backwards.
“Thank you, specialist,” Kirk said, walking into the centre of the room. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“You’re a smart man,” Janice replied with a smile. “You’ll manage.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about having crew that I can’t command,” he told her. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, Janice, I’m just being honest.”
“Oh believe me, I know,” Janice told him. “I read your statement to the Admiralty. You made your position very clear. You should congratulate your yeoman, by the way, they’ve finally managed to rein in your problem with hyperbole.”
“I’ll tell him,” Kirk said. “He’ll be thrilled. You’re something of a legend on this ship, you know, or so I’ve been told. I honestly think Tra’Pel was more excited to be taking over your job than to be my yeoman.”
“Smooth talker,” Janice said, rolling her eyes. It was enough to break the tension; Kirk’s laugh prompted hers, and before she knew it, she was back in a pair of very familiar arms.
“I missed you,” he said eventually.
“You didn’t write,” she said into his chest.
“Neither did you,” he shot back. He sighed deeply. “And besides, what was there to say? I love you? I want you back where I can see you every day? You knew all that already.”
“It would have been nice,” she said wistfully, before changing tone to say “Although I think that the ladies you’ve been cutting a swathe through would have been disappointed if you were romancing them and writing love letters to me.”
“Ah,” he said awkwardly.
“Oh shut up,” she said fondly. “You’re a free man, you can do what you want. I know that I did.”
The look she shot him was challenging; he had to know that she hadn’t sat around pining either. By the expression on his face he wasn’t happy with the idea, but he’d just have to suck it up.
“What if I didn’t want to be a free man?” Kirk said slowly.
Janice fought against the strength of his grip enough so she could look him in the eye.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, a strange feeling starting up in her stomach, part excitement, part nervousness, part nausea. She was positive it wasn’t the fault of the brownies.
“Janice, I had to let you go before because we couldn’t be together openly. I’ve tried to move on, but none of the women I’ve met could replace you in my heart. Now, you’re back and you’re not part of the command structure of the ship. Pike has made sure that you and I can be together.”
“I’m not sure that’s the reason he had in mind when he thought up the job,” Janice said slowly, her mind still trying to catch up with the events of the last five minutes.
Kirk chuckled.
“I couldn’t care less what he was thinking. Ever since he sent me a comm telling me that you’d be posted to the Enterprise, all I could think about was whether you’d take me back.”
“Jim, I don’t know….” Janice began before Kirk’s grip tightened around her and he captured his lips with his own. Her body immediately responded to the kiss, tiny bolts of lightning zipping up and down her body to pool low in her stomach.
“Tell me we wouldn’t be good together,” he goaded. “Tell me we wouldn’t be great.”
“Hrngh,” said Janice eloquently, and shook her head to clear it of the lustful fog that had descended. “Are you sure?” she managed eventually. “It’s been two years since we were together. And that wasn’t exactly a normal relationship.”
“I’m not sure we could ever manage normal,” he told her, laughing. “But we could try for ‘not secret’ this time around.”
“You mean, no more dark and dirty Jefferies tubes?” Janice teased.
Kirk grimaced at the thought.
“I was an ass,” he told her. “I have no idea why I ever thought you would like that. I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven,” Janice said, pulling him down for another spine-tingling kiss. “But I’m not sure I like the idea of arriving on board and then announcing to the whole ship that we’re suddenly sleeping together.”
“I don’t want to wait, Janice,” he warned her. “I’ve waited long enough for you.”
“I don’t want to wait either,” she sighed. “But I’d like a chance to establish myself as a professional before I establish myself as your girlfriend.”
“Well, unless you want to sneak around for a few months, I don’t see what we can do,” Kirk argued, before fixing her with a big grin.
“I know that grin,” Janice said immediately. “That grin spells trouble, and paperwork, and often a formal apology. Spit it out, what are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that perhaps we need to have a slight reorganisation of rooming,” Kirk told her, grin still fixed in place. “And that maybe I should get down into a Jefferies tube and give it a good clean.”
“Seriously?” boggled Janice. “You want us to sneak around?”
“Just at first,” Kirk assured her. “We can start to be seen together in public soon, and then let everyone think it went from there.”
Janice’s lips twitched with amusement.
“You’d better clean that tube really well,” she warned.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, before kissing her again.
“Well then, in the name of diplomacy, I suppose I’d better agree with my captain’s plan,” Janice said, her fingers nimbly beginning to strip Kirk of his clothes.
“You were always good at initiating first contact, as I recall,” he said, between kisses and layers of clothes.
Janice groaned. “Just get on the damned bed, you ridiculous man.”
“Orders like that I can agree with,” he told her, before tumbling her backwards onto her bed, and into their future.
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Author: fringedweller
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Primarily Kirk/Rand, with background McCoy/Chapel and Pike/One and others, het and slash
Warnings: None
Length: 2768
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything recognisable in this fic and I’m not making any money from it.
Notes: Beta by seren_ccd
Summary: All her life Janice Rand had wanted one thing - to figure out just what she was supposed to do with herself. She drifted into Starfleet on a whim, and to her surprise, found a niche to fill. But being assigned to the Enterprise brings with it a challenge to her neat and ordered way of life, and Janice is unsure as to how much she's willing to let James T. Kirk affect her. But since when has love ever been easy? And will Janice let her heart stand in the way of her career?
Admiral Pike’s new first contact training programme took two years to complete, and during those two years Janice barely had time to breathe. Just about every hour of her day was accounted for, from formal lectures in communication skills to interactive xenobiology seminars, physical endurance training to holodeck simulations of first contact and yes, even the dreaded dance and movement lessons.
The first contingent was twenty in number, mostly officers ranging in rank from junior lieutenant up to captain. Janice was one of three enlisted crewmen, the other two previously working in security. One of the first barriers to overcome was that of deference to rank; Pike instilled a given-name only policy while they were studying together, and warned them that anybody did try to pull rank, they would immediately be pulled from the programme and dumped back into the regular service. Captain Valentine had the most to lose by this ruling, so she was the one that policed the others and enforced it. Janice, not in the position to pull rank on anybody, could only sit back and admire how easily Pike manoeuvred the group’s potential trouble-maker into being the person working hardest to ensure its smooth running.
During her time training, Janice learned four languages well enough to function without the aid of the universal translator. She became renowned in their group as an expert on historic first contacts, especially the famous Vulcan first contact with Zephram Cochrane. She debated philosophy and theory with visiting experts from all over the Federation, and even managed not to wobble too much when performing an arabesque. In two years of study, she managed to gain enough credits to qualify her for officer status, although finding time in her busy schedule for the mandatory field experience tests that all cadets had to finish was difficult.
She kept in regular video contact with her friends on the Enterprise, although the pace of her training made it impossible for her to make it to any of the vacation spots the others used their leave to visit. Janice stayed on Earth, and finally managed to get the second mural done for Maggie and Tara, who were both incredibly proud of Janice’s accomplishments.
Janice downloaded as many of the publically available mission reports as she could for the Enterprise, noting with some amusement that her replacement was having some trouble reigning in Kirk’s descriptive writing style. Nyota and Christine both alluded to Kirk in their messages, although neither were as painfully honest as Gaila was.
“It’s like he’s back at the Academy again,” Gaila told her. “He never has sex with any of the crew, but as soon as he gets sight of a suitable civilian, he makes his move straight away. His reputation is preceding him - on the last planet we visited, he was nearly mobbed as soon as he beamed down.”
Janice sighed. Although she had never out and out told her friends about her relationship with Jim, she knew that they had figured it out. Christine and Nyota danced around mentioning how Jim had adapted to the life of a handsome, single man in deference to her feelings, but Gaila had a different set of sensibilities. Janice always had to brace herself for Gaila’s messages.
“I don’t think it makes him happy, though,” Gaila said thoughtfully after detailing Jim’s latest round of conquests. “He smiles, but you can tell he’s missing something. He goes from one woman to another like he’s looking for something, but he never finds it.”
Janice knew how he felt. Although the number of men she slept with during her two years back on Earth was a small fraction of the number of women that Kirk was known to have entertained, she too had ended up feeling unsatisfied with her encounters. Through no fault of their own, none of the men matched up to the memory of Jim Kirk. It didn’t stop her from trying to find one who did, though.
The two years didn’t exactly fly past, but when the course finished, Janice was surprised by how much she would miss the group of people that she had become close to. They had become friendly, then friends, and the thought of separating herself from them was hard.
Pike had been in discussions for the best part of a year as to how his newly trained officers would be deployed within the fleet. He had fought long and hard for their unique status amongst other Starfleet officers in that when the captain of the vessel they were assigned to designated a situation as a first contact, then Pike’s team would take over all aspects of the mission. They would have no way of usurping the captain’s role onboard ship, but no longer would the captain be automatically responsible for all first contact missions.
It was not an easy sell; captains were all the kings of their domains, and not one of them relished the idea of abdicating a measure of responsibility. But Pike was eloquent when defending his ideas before the top brass, and it was eventually decided that ten teams of two first contact specialists would be deployed onto ships with exploratory missions. When not actively engaged in first contact missions, they would be responsible for delivering first contact training to the crew of the ship. They would be outside the chain of command, and have no officer rank, instead being addressed as a Diplomatic Specialist.
It was important, Pike demanded, that the new teams not be thought of as part of the rank and file of the ship. They were highly trained for particular and individual missions, and to be deployed only for those. They were to obey orders just like any other member of the crew, but when it came to diplomatic missions, they had to be seen as divorced from the more militaristic side of Starfleet that had scared off many civilisations in the past.
It was a hard sell, but he managed it. After finishing her training, Janice was partnered up with a former lieutenant commander, her opposite in every physical respect - where she was pale skinned, petite and obviously female, Charles Nwosu was dark skinned, almost six and a half feet tall and exuded brute masculinity from ever pore. It was hoped that their very different physical features would help them show how the Federation valued all genders of humanoids to cultures who were perhaps not so enlightened. Janice had always liked Charles, who was intelligent and thoughtful. Of all the people she could have been posted with, she was glad that Pike had put them together.
She did, however, have some issue with the location of her posting.
“Are you sure, sir?” she asked him in the privacy of his office. Stacks of artifacts from alien cultures were cluttering up the room, and she was fighting the urge to organise them into the display cases that were still there after she had ordered them for him six years ago.
“I’m positive,” Pike said firmly. “He’s been one of the most vocal captains against the idea of the diplomatic specialists on board his ship, which is laughable when you look at his record.”
“I was hoping to be assigned to the Farragut,” Janice argued.
“No,” said Pike bluntly, softening his words with a smile. “You think I want you and Number One on board the same ship? My life would never be the same again.”
“But sir, are you sure that I’ll be able to cope with the E…” Janice began.
“Yes,” Pike said firmly. “I’ve made my decision, and it’s final. You and Specialist Nwosu have your orders. You’ll leave to catch up with them tomorrow.”
“Yes sir, Janice sighed.
This was not the posting that she wanted. She had been hoping for one of the smaller classes of starship, not one of the three constitution class giants. She had served on one of those already, and she wanted to move on. But fate, and Admiral Pike, apparently had other ideas.
Her new captain was waiting for Nwosu and herself when their transport ship caught up with them on the edges of explored Federation space. The ship was ready to start charting new territory, and had been delayed while waiting for the older, slower transport vessel to reach them. As soon as the captain had finished his terse greetings he had relayed an order to the bridge for a jump to warp, nodded at the two new crewmembers and left the transporter room.
“I thought he had a reputation as a friendly guy,” muttered Nwosu as he picked up both his and Janice’s bags from the transporter pad. They left the transporter room and started to move through the ship towards the quarters they had been assigned - single occupancy rooms, in the section reserved for senior officers. A nice perk of the job, Janice thought, anticipating the thought of a bath tub with pleasure.
“I think that he probably resents the idea that we’re here to do part of his job for him,” Janice said with resignation. “Pike did warn us that not all captains would be receptive to us at first.”
“Well then, we’d better do a damn good job and prove how good we are,” Nwosu said firmly, his jaw set.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Janice told him.
They parted way at Janice’s door, agreeing to meet later to look around the ship. Her new quarters were larger than her last, which was a good thing because as soon as she stepped into the room three women threw themselves at her and tackled her onto the floor in a hug.
“You’re back!” Gaila cried.
“I’ve missed you,” Nyota told her, squeezing her hard.
“It hasn’t been the same without you,” Christine added from somewhere near the bottom of the pile.
“I’ve missed you all too!” Janice told them. “I have presents for you all in my luggage, but until that gets brought up here, you’ll have to make do with these.”
“Real chocolate brownies?” demanded Christine. “From your friends’ café?”
“Put in stasis as soon as they were out of the oven,” Janice told her happily. “They should still be warm. You can tell me all the gossip while we eat.”
They sat on the floor and munched their way through an obscene amount of brownies before the shift change alert was sounded. All three women had to leave to go on duty, and Janice was left to clear up the mess of the brownies and unpack her personal luggage. She had just finished when her door signalled that she had a visitor.
She expected it to be Charles; instead, a very familiar pair of blue eyes faced her.
“Come in, captain,” Janice said, taking a step backwards.
“Thank you, specialist,” Kirk said, walking into the centre of the room. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“You’re a smart man,” Janice replied with a smile. “You’ll manage.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about having crew that I can’t command,” he told her. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, Janice, I’m just being honest.”
“Oh believe me, I know,” Janice told him. “I read your statement to the Admiralty. You made your position very clear. You should congratulate your yeoman, by the way, they’ve finally managed to rein in your problem with hyperbole.”
“I’ll tell him,” Kirk said. “He’ll be thrilled. You’re something of a legend on this ship, you know, or so I’ve been told. I honestly think Tra’Pel was more excited to be taking over your job than to be my yeoman.”
“Smooth talker,” Janice said, rolling her eyes. It was enough to break the tension; Kirk’s laugh prompted hers, and before she knew it, she was back in a pair of very familiar arms.
“I missed you,” he said eventually.
“You didn’t write,” she said into his chest.
“Neither did you,” he shot back. He sighed deeply. “And besides, what was there to say? I love you? I want you back where I can see you every day? You knew all that already.”
“It would have been nice,” she said wistfully, before changing tone to say “Although I think that the ladies you’ve been cutting a swathe through would have been disappointed if you were romancing them and writing love letters to me.”
“Ah,” he said awkwardly.
“Oh shut up,” she said fondly. “You’re a free man, you can do what you want. I know that I did.”
The look she shot him was challenging; he had to know that she hadn’t sat around pining either. By the expression on his face he wasn’t happy with the idea, but he’d just have to suck it up.
“What if I didn’t want to be a free man?” Kirk said slowly.
Janice fought against the strength of his grip enough so she could look him in the eye.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, a strange feeling starting up in her stomach, part excitement, part nervousness, part nausea. She was positive it wasn’t the fault of the brownies.
“Janice, I had to let you go before because we couldn’t be together openly. I’ve tried to move on, but none of the women I’ve met could replace you in my heart. Now, you’re back and you’re not part of the command structure of the ship. Pike has made sure that you and I can be together.”
“I’m not sure that’s the reason he had in mind when he thought up the job,” Janice said slowly, her mind still trying to catch up with the events of the last five minutes.
Kirk chuckled.
“I couldn’t care less what he was thinking. Ever since he sent me a comm telling me that you’d be posted to the Enterprise, all I could think about was whether you’d take me back.”
“Jim, I don’t know….” Janice began before Kirk’s grip tightened around her and he captured his lips with his own. Her body immediately responded to the kiss, tiny bolts of lightning zipping up and down her body to pool low in her stomach.
“Tell me we wouldn’t be good together,” he goaded. “Tell me we wouldn’t be great.”
“Hrngh,” said Janice eloquently, and shook her head to clear it of the lustful fog that had descended. “Are you sure?” she managed eventually. “It’s been two years since we were together. And that wasn’t exactly a normal relationship.”
“I’m not sure we could ever manage normal,” he told her, laughing. “But we could try for ‘not secret’ this time around.”
“You mean, no more dark and dirty Jefferies tubes?” Janice teased.
Kirk grimaced at the thought.
“I was an ass,” he told her. “I have no idea why I ever thought you would like that. I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven,” Janice said, pulling him down for another spine-tingling kiss. “But I’m not sure I like the idea of arriving on board and then announcing to the whole ship that we’re suddenly sleeping together.”
“I don’t want to wait, Janice,” he warned her. “I’ve waited long enough for you.”
“I don’t want to wait either,” she sighed. “But I’d like a chance to establish myself as a professional before I establish myself as your girlfriend.”
“Well, unless you want to sneak around for a few months, I don’t see what we can do,” Kirk argued, before fixing her with a big grin.
“I know that grin,” Janice said immediately. “That grin spells trouble, and paperwork, and often a formal apology. Spit it out, what are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that perhaps we need to have a slight reorganisation of rooming,” Kirk told her, grin still fixed in place. “And that maybe I should get down into a Jefferies tube and give it a good clean.”
“Seriously?” boggled Janice. “You want us to sneak around?”
“Just at first,” Kirk assured her. “We can start to be seen together in public soon, and then let everyone think it went from there.”
Janice’s lips twitched with amusement.
“You’d better clean that tube really well,” she warned.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, before kissing her again.
“Well then, in the name of diplomacy, I suppose I’d better agree with my captain’s plan,” Janice said, her fingers nimbly beginning to strip Kirk of his clothes.
“You were always good at initiating first contact, as I recall,” he said, between kisses and layers of clothes.
Janice groaned. “Just get on the damned bed, you ridiculous man.”
“Orders like that I can agree with,” he told her, before tumbling her backwards onto her bed, and into their future.
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