Chapter Text
~o~
The Shipyard bar wasn't the nicest place she'd ever found herself in, but Nyota Uhura hadn't protested when her classmates had suggested it. And since Starfleet Academy cadets were usually short on funds and long on bravado, this was exactly the kind of place she usually found herself in.
As she stood at the bar, waiting for the bartender to come back and take her order, she wondered why she always let her friends talk her into places like this. She should have gone back to the barracks to study or even hopped the last shuttle back to San Francisco. She definitely shouldn't be standing at a stained and beat-up bar, dingy white paint and peeling posters on the wall and a jukebox—an honest-to-god old-fashioned jukebox—belching out the only decent thing about the whole place: classic rock, at volume.
Something had pushed her to show up, so she'd sucked it up and walked through the door.
The bartender finally ambled her way, leaning in close with a friendly, if harried, smile on his face. "What'll you have? The slusho mix, maybe? It's strong but pretty decent."
"Sounds good," she said. She could use a good drink. Maybe it would make her forget how much this place was putting her on edge.
"You know, he's not kidding about the slusho mix."
Nyota sighed. She glanced to her left to see a decent-looking guy, sandy hair practically glowing in the dim light. "I think I can handle it." She turned back to the bartender, who just smirked. "And a shot of Jack."
"Make that two," the guy said. "Put them on my tab."
"No thanks," she said. "I'm not in the habit of accepting drinks from strangers. Especially drunk strangers."
"Hey, I'm not drunk," he said. "Well, not completely, anyway. The name's Jim Kirk."
She stared at him for a long moment. Kirk. She knew that name, but as far as she knew, George Kirk's kid had dropped out of sight years ago. Whereas most—if not all—of the kids impacted by the destruction of the Kelvin had enlisted, it appeared that Jim Kirk had set up camp in a dive bar in Riverside, Iowa.
"This is the part where you tell me your name, so we're not strangers anymore," Kirk said.
It was so absurd that she just snorted. "I'm Uhura."
She blinked. That wasn't what she'd planned to say, and from the grin on his face, he knew it, too. She shook her head. That stupid smile of his was throwing her off, big time.
"Well, Uhura, it's nice to meet you," he said. "Now that we're friends, how about that drink?"
"I'm buying my own drink, Kirk," she said to prove she could. Somehow, that just made him smile bigger and made her gut clench in a way that told her he'd be trouble if she let this go too far. She pointed at him. "And don't get handsy. I'll break it if I have to."
He held up his hands in surrender. "Fair. I'll keep my hands to myself."
The bartender dropped off the two shots, smirked at Kirk, and disappeared again.
"To the stars," Kirk said, holding up his drink.
She tapped her shot against his, surprised by his toast. Tipping her head back, she downed it in one swallow, savoring the burn all the way down. She upended the glass and set it on the bar, giving him his due.
"So, what do you know about the stars?" she asked, curious to see if he'd own his identity.
"I was born under a very unlucky one," he muttered as he spun his glass down the bar to clatter against hers. "You, however, seem destined for them. You're obviously a cadet. What's your focus?"
"Guess the uniform gives it away," she said ruefully.
The short red skirt and black knee-high boots had been part of the uniform for the last ten years. She'd come to believe that some sexist asshat at Fleet HQ had decided he deserved eye candy for having to put up with women aboard ship. If she ever figured out who it was, she'd give him a piece of her mind, no matter what it cost her.
"While most of the cavemen would thank Admiral Forrest for gifting the Fleet with that, I suspect there's not a woman in the Fleet who actually likes the uniform," Kirk said.
The bartender set the slusho mix next to Nyota's elbow and a beer in front of Kirk. He reached for it and took a drink.
"So, what's your focus?" he said as he leaned against the bar. "Or don't you have that figured out yet?"
"I'm studying xenolinguistics," she said. She waited to see what he'd say. Frankly, she expected him to have no clue what that was.
"Ah," he said, humor dancing in his eyes. "You're fascinated with languages, huh? Phonology, morphology. Structure and cadence. Verbal and non-verbal. How many languages do you speak?" For a moment, she was poleaxed. "What, did you think I was just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals?"
"Yes," she said. "Well, maybe not only."
He chuckled. "Touché." He turned and leaned his elbows on the bar. "I got accepted, you know."
"Accepted to what?"
"The Academy," he said. He stared down into his beer, refusing to meet her eyes. "Didn't go, but I could have."
"Why not?" she asked, mirroring his position. She took a sip of the slusho; it was just as strong as she'd been warned but pretty good for a dive bar in a backwater in Iowa.
He didn't answer for long minutes, so she just let the silence ride. There was a game of beer pong going on somewhere in the room; she could hear the cheers above the din of conversation and the beat of the music.
"How am I supposed to live up to him?" Kirk said quietly, barely audible over the noise in the room. "He died a hero. How am I supposed to follow that?"
Nyota didn't have an answer, and she suspected he didn't really expect her to have one. Maybe he'd never said that out loud to anyone before, much less a stranger in a bar.
She turned and leaned on her elbow, moving closer so she didn't have to yell. "Just because your name's Kirk doesn't mean you have to be him. The galaxy's already had their George Kirk. The only thing you have to be is you. And if being you means never joining Starfleet… well, they can't begrudge you being your own man, and your father wouldn't either."
"My father was a Sentinel," he said out of the blue. He turned to look at her. "Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't," she said, moving in closer. "It's not in the history books."
He shook his head. "The Federation ripped through Starfleet like an avenging angel when they found out about the lack of escape pods on their ships. Dad wasn't the only Sentinel they lost on that ship, but his singular act of heroism infuriated them because it shouldn't have come to that."
"Is this guy bothering you?"
Nyota's head whipped around. "Hendorff?"
"Is this guy bothering you?" he asked again, like some kind of broken record.
"We're fine," she said firmly. "Go back to the beer pong."
"Are you sure?"
Kirk turned around at that moment. "Listen, cupcake, the lady said she's fine." He patted Hendorff's cheek. "Don't worry your pretty little head. We're just talking."
Nyota could see that was the absolute wrong thing to say. Before she could even utter a warning, Hendorff's fist headed straight for Kirk's jaw. The fact that Kirk's head wasn't where it had been when the fist arrived surprised her and Hendorff, who'd doubled over at the gut punch delivered to his midsection.
Not that it did much good beyond pissing off her fellow cadet. Hendorff growled as he grabbed a fistful of Kirk's leather jacket and hauled him up, holding him in place while he jammed his left fist into Kirk's face. Two more cadets joined the fray, shoving Nyota out of the way as they grabbed Kirk's arms to hold him in place for the beating they all seemed to think he'd earned.
Impotent rage flashed through Nyota as she watched two more cadets join the fight. Somewhere inside her, a switch flipped. Her anger found its flashpoint, and she growled, long and low, though no one could hear it over the sounds of the fight, the cheering from the peanut gallery, and the low thump of the jukebox still pumping out its playlist.
Nyota waded into the fight, tossing the two late-joiners aside like rag dolls. They bounced off the bar and crumpled to the floor, but she barely paid them any attention. She focused on the smaller of the three remaining, hauling him around and punching him in the gut before delivering a knee to his forehead. He slumped at her feet, but she ignored that in favor of the last two standing.
The one not raining punches down on his victim suddenly backed away, hands held up as if to show he wasn't a threat. Nyota growled again, making him go pale and start to shake. Something deep inside her was pleased that he recognized the threat she represented, but she dismissed that thought almost immediately.
Hendorff still had Kirk pinned to a table, alternating between punching and taunting him. Nyota was just about to reach for him and forcibly haul him off Kirk when a sharp whistle cut through the air.
Everyone looked in the direction of the door where the sound had come from to see a tall, good-looking officer with fire in his eyes regarding the situation with barely disguised anger.
"Cadets hit the door and line up outside," he barked.
As one, they practically ran for the door, even Hendorff, who was looking a little green around the gills. Nyota darted forward and hauled Kirk off the table, dragging him with her as she put her back against the bar, daring everyone with her glare to try to get close.
~o~
Christopher Pike stared at the aftermath of the barfight, almost shaking with rage. He'd honestly believed that this group had earned a night out after they'd demonstrated exemplary behavior during their two-day visit to the shipyards to tour the new Enterprise.
He was disappointed but ultimately not surprised to have been so very wrong.
The bar was still about half full, but as he crossed the room to the far end of the bar to speak with the bartender, he gave the cadet a wide berth.
"Captain Christopher Pike, Starfleet Operations," he said to the bartender. "My apologies for this. Those responsible will be punished, I promise you."
The bartender waved his apology away. "Nothing this joint hasn't seen a time or ten. For a bar fight, this was pretty tame."
"Still, Fleet Ops will be paying for the damage," Chris said. "Submit a claim with a full estimate for the cost of repair, and we'll handle it."
"Thank you, sir," the bartender said.
Chris glanced to his right, taking in the diminutive cadet practically wrapped around a familiar-looking young man. He'd kept track of Jim Kirk for years and felt like he owed that much to his old friend. He hadn't approved of Jim's choices, but he wasn't the kid's parent, so he'd stayed out of it.
"Is she okay?" the bartender asked. "She kind of went… a little nuts when those other cadets started wailing on Jimmy."
Chris took a long, hard look, engaging all his senses as he took in the way she was sheltering him with her body. Something in the air spoke of a strong Sentinel, and even though Jim appeared to be unconscious, he was definitely getting Guide vibes from him.
"Well, fuck."
"Is everything okay?" the bartender asked.
Christ turned to him. "Listen—"
"Mike," the guy said. "My name's Mike Lincoln."
"Mike," Chris said. "I need you to lock up. Get everyone out of here and lock the doors. I'm going to call Fleet HQ and get a team out here to deal with this."
"You're not going to arrest all those cadets, are you?" Mike asked. "Most of them were just watching. I don't think they knew what to do, honestly."
"It's not for them," Chris said. "Though there'll be a lot more training in their future so they know what to do in a situation like this instead of standing around gawking like a bunch of tourists. I'm calling HQ for her. She's just come online as a Sentinel, and I'm pretty sure Jim's her Guide."
"Oh, fuck," Mike said, drawing a chuckle out of Chris. "Let me get this place cleared out for you."
Chris pulled out his communicator and contacted Fleet Sec, explaining the situation and requesting priority transport and an S&G doctor on standby while Mike shuffled the remaining crowd out of the bar. On his way back, he stopped to kill the jukebox; Chris heaved a sigh of relief as silence filled the room. When that was settled, he turned to watch the cadet, gauging whether she'd let him close or not.
"I heard what you said," she said to him, turning her head to look at him with penetrating brown eyes. "You can come closer. I don't—I don't think I'll attack you. You don't feel like a threat."
"I'm not a threat to you, Cadet," Chris said as he approached. He crouched an arm's length away from her, folding himself down to appear less threatening. "I understand you better than you think. No one's going to try to take him away from you; you have my word."
Her head tilted as she watched him. She must have found whatever it was she was looking for because she nodded once. Chris was quietly impressed. Whether she realized it or not, she was using her senses to test his truthfulness. That was something that even Sentinels, who'd been online for years, still struggled to do.
"How's he doing?"
The cadet—he thought her name was Uhura—ran her nose over Jim's temple, subtly scenting him, looking for any tell-tale signs that something was wrong.
"He seems okay," she said. "I can't tell if he's in pain at all, but I don't think anything's broken. I can smell his blood. It's… distracting."
"He's a Guide," Chris said by way of explanation. When she tilted her head this time, he got the distinct impression that it was a question instead of an assessment. "Guides have the ability to… compartmentalize their pain so it doesn't become a distraction for their Sentinel. Splitting the focus of a Sentinel during a stressful situation like a battle or a firefight could be deadly for the Sentinel. It's not good to do it long-term, but most Guides will do it for short periods of time on instinct to protect their Sentinel."
"That's what I am, right?" she asked, a world of fear and worry in her voice. "I'm a Sentinel."
"Yes, you are," Chris said. Of course, they'd have to do the testing, but Chris was pretty sure he was looking at a burgeoning Alpha Sentinel. "So am I. Cadet…"
"Nyota Uhura, sir," she said.
"Cadet Uhura," Chris said. "I'm Captain Christopher Pike. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, but I'm glad I was here to help."
"How do you know Kirk?" she asked.
"I knew his father," Chris said. "We were at the Academy together and kept in touch after we graduated. When they found out they were having a baby, he asked me to be Jim's godfather."
Chris had been heartbroken to hear that the Kelvin had been destroyed. Wynona had been a wreck by the time she'd reached Earth. Losing her Sentinel in such a traumatic way, just as she was bringing their son into the world, had broken her in a way that wasn't fixable. She'd gone dormant and had left Earth—and the son that reminded her so forcefully of her lost husband and Sentinel—as soon as she'd been able.
Jim had grown up with his maternal uncle, who hadn't wanted kids and resented his sister for dumping hers on him. Still, Frank had done the best he could, and Chris had been there as much as his duties had allowed. He'd lost track of the kid sometime after high school when Jim had had enough of his uncle and an absent mother.
It appeared that sometime between Jim's high school graduation and today, he'd come online as a Guide. Not a surprise considering he was the child of a bonded Sentinel-Guide pair, but given that there were still gaps in their understanding of Sentinel-Guide genetics due to the Eugenics Wars, no one was exactly sure just how common such a thing was.
They only knew that onlinings were happening more and more frequently these days, and that made certain people very nervous since Sentinels and Guides usually came online in waves only when something terrible was coming.
"Why did this happen?" Nyota asked. She couldn't know that was the direction his thoughts were going, but it was a natural question to ask.
"I don't know, Cadet," he said honestly. "But I promise you, we're going to find out."
There was a bang on the bar's front door at the same time his communicator beeped in his hand. He flipped it open without looking at it. "Pike here."
"Sir, this is Commander Carter. I have the Security team and a doctor with me. Would you have someone open the door?"
Chris turned to the barkeep, who'd stayed close. He nodded his head and crossed the room to unlock the door.
Commander Carter and a willowy woman in a Starfleet uniform, carrying a medical case, crossed the room. The doctor crouched down beside him, and he tossed her a quick smile. "Nice to see you again, Doctor McCoy."
"Nice to be seen, Captain," she said. "We really have to stop meeting like this."
The cadet growled, drawing Chris' attention away from flirting with his Guide. He saw Commander Carter standing on the other side of the cadet, looming over them in an overtly threatening posture.
"You'll want to back up, Commander," Chris said.
"I need to take the cadet into custody, sir," Carter said.
Uhura started scrambling away from him, dragging Jim with her.
Chris stood up. "Stop."
He put just enough command into his voice that it stopped the cadet from moving but also stopped Carter's advance.
"You, get out," Chris ordered.
"But, sir—"
"Out," Chris said. "The cadet won't be arrested. She was defending her Guide and, per Federation law, cannot be held responsible for her actions."
"Sir—"
"Stop arguing with me," Chris said. "Go outside and deal with the cadets, and make sure you take these three with you,” he said, indicating the three still-unconscious cadets. “I'll arrange for Medical transport for the cadet and her Guide."
"No need," the Doctor said. "I've already called for one."
"Good," Chris said. "We'll wait for Security to clear out the cadets here and outside before we move Cadet Uhura and Jim Kirk. She shouldn't have to put up with the sight of them for any longer than she has to."
"Agreed," McCoy said.
Chris stared at the Commander until he huffed and stalked off in a temper. Chris didn't care much if he was angry; he had no business bringing his own prejudices to the job, and Chris would report that to the head of Fleet Security just as soon as they got back to San Francisco.
When he turned his attention back to Uhura and Jim, he found his Guide checking Jim over. "How is he?" Chris asked.
"Well, I've seen worse," she said. "He's clearly been beaten up, but he's not in as bad of shape as I'd have expected, considering he took on five cadets by himself."
"He managed to avoid taking very many hits until Hendorff had him pinned to the table," Uhura said quietly. "Somewhere in all of that, I just… flipped out and—" Her eyes tracked around the room as if she was seeing what had happened. Her eyes dampened with unshed tears, not for the violence she'd caused, but for the loss of who she thought she was. "I just lost it."
"More like you flipped on and found something," McCoy said. "He'll be all right, Cadet. We won't separate you for any reason going forward. That'll help with the hypervigilance."
"Okay," Uhura said.
Jim moaned as he appeared to reach for consciousness. "Wha happened?"
"You're okay, Jim," Chris said. He bent down and looked at Jim over McCoy's shoulder. "We're going to take care of you."
"Pike?" Jim asked. His eyes were barely open, but they appeared to be focused, so he'd take it.
"Yeah, Jim, it's me," Chris said. "We're going to get you fixed up. Just hang in there."
That appeared to appease the man, so he relaxed back into his Sentinel. Chris thought he probably didn't know who was holding him up, but he also appeared not to care. They were a good match by all outward appearances, but only time would tell.
"Okay, I think we can move them now," McCoy said as she stood up. "He's not seriously injured, so he should be able to walk out under his own power. Just make sure there's not an audience out there when he does."
"You have a car waiting?" Chris asked.
"Yeah," she said. "Unless that useless asshat took it with him."
"You can borrow mine," Mike piped up from behind the bar. He was holding a beer, and Chris figured he'd earned it. "I have to clean this place up anyway, so I won't be needing it for a while."
"Thanks," Chris said. "I'll see what the status is outside while you make sure these two are good to go."
"We'll be ready when you are," McCoy said.
Chris nodded as he turned and headed for the door. This was so not how he'd expected his day to go.
~o~
Jim was pretty sure he had the mother of all hangovers. He didn't remember drinking that much, but his head was pounding, so he figured it must be a hangover. He tried to move, to sit up and see where he was, but his ribs twinged painfully; instead, he dropped back down and tried to breathe through the pain.
So, he'd gotten his ass kicked. Not a surprise, really. He always did have a knack for that sort of thing.
"Stay still," a firm voice said. "You're a mess, and I'd hate for something worse to happen before I can fix it."
"What's worse than this?" he asked reflexively. He opened his eyes to find a woman with soft brown hair and warm eyes looking at him. The blue on her uniform gave her away as Medical, probably a doctor.
The woman chuckled. "You have a couple of fractured ribs, but that seems to be the worst of it. We thought it was best to get you out of the bar before we tried healing you. That place was stressing the cadet out."
"Cadet?" he asked.
"Your Sentinel," the woman replied.
"I don't think I have one of those," he said, shaking his head. He immediately regretted that, as it made his head swim.
"Apparently, you do," the doctor said, waving her hand at the other side of the bio-bed he'd woken up on.
He turned to find Uhura standing a few feet away, staring at him with an inscrutable stare. "I can't believe those assholes beat me up for talking to you."
Uhura huffed as she moved closer and sat down next to him. "Hendorff's always been all brawn, no brains. I'm just glad he didn't do permanent damage."
"I dunno," Jim said. "I'm feeling pretty damaged."
"You'll survive," the doctor said. She settled a device over his torso, poking at it until she appeared satisfied. "A couple of minutes under this thing, and your bones will be right as rain."
Uhura took his hand and squeezed harder than he was expecting. He looked at her; she smiled at him but was weak and somewhat forced. He immediately wanted to soothe her, which was odd since he didn't know how he'd accomplish such a thing.
"Now, I'm going to give you a painkiller because as soon as I let go of the psionic blocker I've got on you, you're gonna feel all those cracks in your ribs," the doctor said.
Before he could think or react, she'd jabbed his neck with a hypospray. He yelped in pain and tried to reach for the offended skin, but since the bone knitter was effectively holding him in place, he couldn't move.
"Oh, don't be a baby," the doctor said. "It was barely a pinch."
"What happened to your bedside manner?" Jim asked, glaring at her. "Aren't doctors supposed to be kind and compassionate?"
A laugh from the foot of the bed caught his attention. He turned his head to see an older man—the same one from the bar—headed in their direction.
"Captain Pike," Jim said by way of greeting.
"Hey, Jim," Pike said. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, but it's good to see you again."
"So, what's with the broken bedside manner?" he asked, waving his hand at the doctor, who was staring at the machine he was strapped to with rapt attention.
"You know, I don't usually get complaints," the doctor muttered.
"This is my Guide, Doctor Eleanor McCoy," Pike said. He turned to Doctor McCoy. "FleetSec has some questions for these two. I've put them off for now, but the sooner we get them into an iso room, the better."
"I'm almost finished," McCoy said. "The fractures weren't that bad, and he doesn't appear to have a concussion, so it should be fine to release them to the iso room when I'm finished."
"If I'm fine, why do I need an iso room?" Jim asked.
McCoy finished with the bone knitter and pulled it off the bed. "Because your Sentinel isn't going to tolerate an audience very much longer. I figure we have about ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops, before she drags you out of here like a cavewoman."
He looked at Uhura, who looked outwardly calm, but somehow, he knew there was a storm brewing inside that they needed to get ahead of. He shook his head, not sure where that had come from.
"And before you try to play dumb, Jim, I know you've come online as a Guide," Pike said.
Jim wanted to protest, but he just deflated onto the bed. "Okay, yeah, that happened about two years ago. But it's spotty at best. I can use it to play poker if I focus, but I always pay for it later. How'd you know?"
"As a Sentinel, my… instincts tell me who's a Guide and who's not," Pike said. "I can't explain it any better than that. As a Guide, you can easily identify Sentinels and other Guides. It's not something you can learn; it's just something you… know."
"Great," Jim muttered. He looked at Uhura, who still had a death grip on his hand. "Do you know what he's talking about?"
"No," she said with a shake of her head. "I was always taught that the Sentinels and Guides were wiped out during the Eugenics Wars. Khan and his brethren targeted them because they were the only ones capable of stopping the Augments from taking over."
"All true," Pike said. "Though some family lines were able to protect their genetic legacy, either by suppressing their genes or moving around to avoid discovery. There was an Underground Railroad of a sort for Sentinel and Guide families during the war."
"Most researchers believe that there weren't enough people with the genetic legacy of the Sentinel and Guide left to perpetuate the species, and that's why they eventually died out," McCoy said.
"Which doesn't explain me and Cadet Uhura," Jim said. "Or you two, for that matter."
"Over the last two hundred years, there have been fifteen recorded Sentinel/Guide pairs on Earth," McCoy said. She pressed another hypo to his neck, but it didn't hurt this time. "That isn't a lot, considering how many were on Earth before the Eugenics Wars."
"What're we talking about?" Jim asked. "Hundreds? Thousands?"
"By that point?" Pike said. "Try millions of Sentinels and Guides."
Jim stared at Pike, utterly dumbfounded. He glanced at Uhura, but she was in a similar state. "Are you being serious right now?"
"As a heart attack," McCoy said. "The Psionic Plane was clearly preparing for the rise of the Augments by bringing more and more Sentinel/Guide pairs online. But as a result of being targeted by the Augments, there weren't enough of either to perpetuate the genetic legacy."
"They were cut off from each other," Uhura said, speculation clear in her tone. "They couldn’t intermarry if they were forced to hide. And if an equally large number were suppressing or outright changing their DNA, the trait would go dormant or maybe even disappear altogether. So why didn't it?"
"That's what we're hoping to find out," McCoy said, holding up the vial of Jim's blood. "I've got samples from both of you; hopefully, your DNA can tell us something about where your specific genes came from."
"Well, my dad was a Sentinel, and Mom was his Guide," Jim said. "I'd have to assume I got it from them."
"Likely," McCoy said. "The Cadet, however, doesn't have any genetic markers in her family history. Unless you know of some familial oral history that I'm not aware of."
Uhura shook her head. "No. I can reach out to my uncle, but I'm pretty sure there's been no one going back as far as we have records."
"Which is pretty far, considering Africa did a better job of preserving all that than North America did," McCoy said. "Okay. I had to ask."
"Can I ask something?"
"Certainly, Cadet," Pike said. "This is all happening to you, so you should feel free to ask questions until you have the answers you need."
Uhura nodded. "I just… why are my senses not… extra? I've always heard that Sentinels have these extra senses, but it doesn’t feel like I can see better or hear better or anything like that."
"It'll come," McCoy said. "I can't speak to how it happened historically, but we've found with more recent onlinings that the senses come online gradually over a period of days in response to constant exposure to your Guide. It seems to be some kind of moderating mechanism that keeps you from being overwhelmed by the experience.
"We don't have a lot of historical texts to go by because someone made a concerted effort to hide everything about Sentinels and Guides, including their history, so much of the research has been lost to us. But what we do know comes from journals and other personal correspondence and paints a pretty vivid picture."
"Once upon a time, most Sentinels came online all at once," Pike said, he leaned a hip against the bio-bed, putting him well within McCoy's space. Jim reflexively squeezed Uhura's hand and got a gentle squeeze in return. "It was just about as traumatic as you think it would be. And since we believe that not all Sentinels came online in their Guide's presence, it could be pretty horrific."
"Small favors, then," Jim muttered.
"Still, we should get you into an iso suite," McCoy said. "Cadet Uhura will feel safer, and you'll be able to help her when her senses start to manifest."
"I have no idea how to do that," Jim confessed, feeling panic well up inside him. "I'm not—maybe this isn't a good idea. I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm just—"
"Stop." Jim looked up to find Uhura standing beside him, her face just inches from his. "Stop panicking. You are enough. You can do this. I promise you can do this. Do you read me?"
"I read you," Jim said, swallowing hard. "Thanks."
She just nodded as she leaned back, looking mildly embarrassed. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize, Cadet," McCoy said. "You're not forcing him to do anything he doesn't want to do. If he didn't want to, he'd have severed the nascent bond you have, and I can tell you it's still there. Tentative but strong. You'll be fine."
"What about…" She looked at him and shrugged. "What about Starfleet?"
"I—" Jim looked at Pike. "I was accepted to the Academy, sir. I never accepted the offer. I was—"
"I understand more than you think, Jim," Pike said, holding up a hand to forestall anything else he might have said. "I checked on our way here from Riverside. Starfleet never rescinded the offer, so if you want to, you can join the Cadet at the Academy." When Jim opened his mouth to answer, Pike laid a hand on his arm. "Don't answer now. Think about it and talk it over with your Sentinel. You should definitely make this decision together, but there's no rush."
Jim just nodded. He had no idea what he wanted to do, but the idea of not doing it with Uhura was… unpleasant. He turned to her, flashing an uncertain smile and getting a very similar one in return. He felt the ghost of something, but it vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Maybe it was that bond that McCoy mentioned. He didn't know, and right at that moment, he didn't really want to. He was about at his limit as it was.
"I feel like I could sleep for a year," Jim said.
"Then let's get you two into an iso suite," McCoy said. "There's a replicator and a nice, soft bed, so you can stay as long as you like."
"Thanks, Bones," Jim said as he sat up and hopped down off the bed.
McCoy groaned. "That's not even original, kid."
Jim just shrugged as he followed her out of the main area of Medical and down a hall. "I think it fits."
"You would," McCoy muttered.
Pike just chuckled, clearly amused, so Jim took it for a win.
~o~