59U.S.S. Enterprise: An Engineer's Adventure
Chapter 21 – Her Adventure
Penelope rolled over in her bed, unable to fall back asleep.
She'd woken up early, a most sincere tragedy to a person who loved sleep as much as oxygen. The Assistant Chief lazily moved into a sitting position, her bed warmed skin cooling in the open air. With a small shiver, Penelope wrapped herself in a small blanket and got up to take a shower.
In a rare moment of indulgence, she turned the heat up to lukewarm and dropped the blanket on the ground. Penelope shed her clothes off clumsily and stepped wearily under the water. It felt nice, and she turned her face to the spray with a small smile. She washed her hair languidly, enjoying the smell of the shampoo, and then she quickly ran a bar of soap over her skin.
And ... she forgot to bring a towel. When she exited the shower, Penelope left wet footprints on the floor as she padded over to the dresser. Once dried, the engineer pulled on her uniform. She glanced in the mirror while she put up her hair, and her green eyes stared back at her, saying: get them coffee before they melt.
Only too happy to be of assistance, Penelope left her room and entered the elevator at the end of the hall. It took her up two levels, but stopped along the way to allow three blueshirts to enter. They all greeted her morning before Penelope left them for the mess hall. The replicator was computing her coffee far too slowly, and Penelope fought the urge to bang on the machine with her fist. Coffee, like sleep, could not be deprived from the engineer without serious consequences.
When finally the replicator swung open to reveal her mug, Penelope grabbed the coffee and her meal card quickly and allowed the person behind her access to the machine. She sipped the hot liquid once, eyes darting around and landing on Scotty. He was alone at a table in the corner, which came as a surprise to her.
Penelope went over to where he sat, pulling into the seat across from him. Scotty looked miserable: his nose was red, his eyes were puffy, and he was far too pale.
"G'mornin', lass," Scotty sniffled.
"Sick?" Penelope guessed, and the other engineer nodded in response.
"Aye. I hate to ask, but would you mind beaming down with the captain today? I just don't feel up to it." Penelope almost immediately turned Scotty down, but she reconsidered at his pitiful expression. No matter how much she hated landing parties, Penelope really didn't want Scotty in a dangerous position when he could barely hold his head up.
"Can't someone else?" Penelope grumbled, drinking more of the coffee. Scotty sensed weakness, and she really couldn't tell if the ensuing coughing fit was real or faked.
"Captain wants somebody he knows can fix the shuttle in a dicey situation. He says if I can't go, he wants you there."
"No he doesn't," Penelope argued. "He wants revenge."
"Lass, how many times do I have ta tell ya? He doesn't blame you for the chair breaking," Scotty assured her, but Penelope shook her head.
"He does, Mr. Scott. I've seen it. I swear, I didn't even do it," Penelope muttered, eyes pleading with Scotty to believe her over Kirk. His chair had collapsed the other day as soon as he had sat down, and his finger immediately pointed at her. So she'd been on the Bridge earlier in the day? She hadn't touched his precious captain's chair, no matter what his paranoia told him.
"I know ya didn't, Wrenchy, and Jim knows that too."
Lies.
"Oh, no," Penelope whispered as she watched three people approach in the distance. The cerulean blue sky engulfed the forms of Yalmark and Spock as they limped forward carrying Kirk. He seemed to be bleeding, or someone had to be, judging by the amount of blood covering them all.
"Where's Chekov?" Penelope asked as they came within hearing distance. Chekov, the last member of the five man away team, was nowhere in sight. The simple contact with the natives appeared to have not gone over well, judging by the amount of wounds covering their bodies. The captain groaned but said nothing, and Penelope realized he was unconscious. Spock placed him down inside the shuttle, giving Yalmark instructions to commence with first aid before returning out to her.
"Lieutenant Chekov remains in the forest," Spock informed her without inflection, eyes fixed across the large clearing. Penelope's own gaze darted between the woods and the first officer expectantly.
"So, are you going to go get him?" Penelope asked.
The first officer stayed silent for a time. Then, he answered with a blank expression. "We must go now." Penelope gaped at him, unable to truly understand.
"But Chekov's still -"
"You have your orders, Lieutenant," Spock said harshly, but all Penelope could think was how Scotty would look when she told him they had to leave Chekov behind. The hero-worship he lathered on Scotty had grown ridiculous as their time on the ship continued. It didn't help that Scotty seemed to know everything about the Enterprise, and that Chekov absorbed information like a sponge.
Leave without him. How?
"Sir, I request permission to go and get Lieutenant Chekov," Penelope exclaimed.
"Request denied, Waters. We are going now," Spock said with finality, but Penelope still could not accept his orders.
"Why not? You go on ahead, and I'll beam up with Chekov later."
"There is an ion cloud covering that entire forest. If you go in there, the transporter cannot beam you out," Spock told her. "Even if you manage to find Lieutenant Chekov, and bring him out of the forest alive, it would be nearly impossible to leave the planet. Now I will not tell you again, Lieutenant. We are leaving. Chekov is already lost, and it would be illogical to stay and lose more people."
She'd probably be sent to the penal colony for the breach of contract. The first officer had enough pull to accomplish that, at least, but Penelope knew it would be worth it to save Scotty from a bit of pain.
The universe does not acknowledge good deeds. It is not concerned with the safety of the innocent or the health of the sick. It does not reward the brave.
Penelope knew that. She knew that, but at the same time, she knew that she had to go. Penelope wasn't Chekov's best friend, but she knew that he was loved by people that mattered to her, and that he liked math and engineering and learning new things. He liked hanging out with Sulu. He was considered a genius, and he was only twenty years old. Tommy was not that much younger than him.
Her mother's pale arm. Johnny's glassy eyes staring out into the distance. Illa's phaser pointed at her heart. She never wanted to feel that hopeless again. Never wanted to have that kind of despair.
She had nothing to lose but her life, after all.
"Commander Spock," Penelope addressed the first officer as he turned away to enter the shuttle. He twisted his body a few degrees in acknowledgment and stopped on the steps. "You said nearly impossible, right?" Spock blinked once.
"Don't wait for me," she told him, and with that, Penelope turned on her heel and ran into the golden colored forest. Her PADD came out, and the tracking device in Chekov blinked onto her screen. At the very least, the navigator still had a pulse. That comforted her as she raced into the woods.
If someone were to ask Penelope how she ended up on the alien planet with Chekov slung over her shoulder, she'd probably blame it on any number of things: a sick Chief Engineer, a vengeful Captain, an emotionless First Officer, a navigator's baby-faced expression, and so on and so forth.
The main point was that Penelope never wanted to go on the away mission in the first place, and if she got off the planet alive, someone was going to pay.
Her heart pumped painfully in her chest as the strain of carrying her human burden began to slow her legs. The exotically golden vegetation of the planet had some sort of sticky residue that hugged her skin and mixed with the sweat there also. With her left hand, Penelope pulled out her communicator and tried to access directions to the rendezvous point while still running as fast as she could.
Chekov groaned on her back, and Penelope's breaths turned into wheezes when the communicator shorted out. She paused for a split second, whipping her body around in a circle, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Yellow, gold, bronze, amber. The colors of the leafy plants shone spectacularly under the bright sun, and not a bit of it looked familiar to the Assistant Chief.
The pounding footsteps of the natives echoed loudly, so Penelope cursed quietly and simply chose to go in the opposite direction.
Bright, sunny hues replaced the normal shades of green Penelope might expect in a Terran forest, and the disorienting effect of it had her vision swimming. Chekov sounded like he was crying, and Penelope wasn't surprised. His very likely broken legs bumped against her front as she continued to race away from the aggressive population they'd come across.
"It's okay," Penelope whispered, though she couldn't tell if she'd spoken Standard or French. She tried adjusting his injured body into a more comfortable position over her shoulder, but the engineer doubted it had made any real difference. Chekov went limp a minute later, so Penelope assumed the navigator had finally passed out from the strain.
He was slowing her down too much, Penelope concluded as the pounding footfall of their pursuers became louder in her ears. Far enough away to be out of sight, but not enough for comfort. They would both probably be killed on sight. If she put Chekov down, maybe she would have a chance to outrun them.
No. She'd committed to his rescue when she'd gone back for him. Abandoning him now would be pointless either way, and unnecessarily cruel. If she was going to die, well, at least she could try and do it right. Body burning with exertion, Penelope began to fear very seriously for their chances of survival. If she could just take a quick break, catch her breath, then maybe they would stand a fighting chance.
One of them was blocking her path.
Skidding to a halt, the engineer locked eyes with the alien. Its height seemed to tower over Penelope by at least a foot, and it's skin shimmered a glittery rose-red. Its gaze appeared intelligent, and its irises burned the same gold as the forest. The nose flattened against its face, and its humanoid structure faced her menacingly.
It had no mouth.
They stood a few yards apart, Penelope and the unnamed person. Its hand extended out towards her, but the engineer did not understand if that meant friendship or hostility. Either way, the sounds of the glistening woods danced around her in a breezy gust of wind, and Penelope felt her heart slow.
Bright yellow grass extended all around, mixed with a reddish clay ground. The natives were still approaching, Penelope knew, but it suddenly became very important that she go to the tall stranger. She walked forward slowly, her limbs aching but her mind dull. The outstretched arm ended with a hand complete with three fingers, and the tips of them bulged into large, circular pads.
Penelope's own arm extended as if she were in a trance. Their eyes still locked, green and gold, and when Penelope's inner three fingers of her left hand met those of the alien's, everything faded away. There was no sight, no sound, no feeling, no smell or taste. There was no sense of self. Only darkness, but not even that, because that might imply the possibility of light.
Nothing in every direction for all eternity.
Fear.
"Don't be afraid, Penelope. It was just a dream."
A soothing hand ran comfortingly through her tangled curls, and Penelope gasped from her most recent nightmare. Her head lay limply in her aunt's lap, and the bedside light had been turned on. The teenager fixed her tired eyes on the shining brightness, hoping to will away the vision her mind had produced.
A pale arm, a broken smile, a bloody bathtub with streaks running down the dirty side. Her mother's face blank, neck hanging haphazardly over the side, and the haunting sound of her voice still singing. It was all lies, besides the arm. Things Penelope hadn't seen, but in their absence, her mind had conjured up more than enough images to satisfy her dark curiosity.
They looked alike, her mother and her aunt. Only a few years apart, with her mother being the elder. Their faces followed the same pattern, same straight, dark hair and green eyes. Both with ivory pale skin, though her aunt had a light dusting of freckles on her nose.
Too similar, still. Too much the same.
Penelope curled into herself, ashamed at her night terrors and ashamed at her weakness. It had already been three months. Weren't things supposed to get better?
The gentle hand continued to stroke her head, and though Penelope wouldn't admit it, the gesture comforted her. She remembered when she was little, and her parents would let her climb into bed with them. Her father would pull open some article on his worn out receiver, looking smart and making the occasional complaint, and Penelope's mother would sing her a song as they snuggled under the blankets.
Where had he been all that time? Why didn't he want her now?
"Go back to sleep, love," her aunt said, her thumb brushing forward to smooth out the worry lines creasing her forehead.
"I didn't mean to wake you up," Penelope mumbled finally, not turning away from the light of the lamp.
"It's alright," she assured her. "Jared and I were still awake anyways."
"Did Olivia wake up?"
"No, don't worry. Everything's fine now," her aunt said calmly, and as Penelope let her wary eyes slide back shut, her aunt began to hum a very familiar tune. It lulled her to sleep in the room as big as their old apartment.
Soft, flowing melody more bright than the lamp or the sun.
Nothing. There was nothing, forever and ever.
Nothing but her own mind. She could focus in on that. Her name was …
She did not know. But she had been with Chekov, who was someone she knew. Yes. And they had been running away. Why? Why had they been doing that? But she'd done it for a reason. Penelope, that was her name, always had a reason, and she'd wanted to protect the young man. She had to get away from wherever she was and get Chekov and just run.
And then a burning sensation emanating from all places, all times.
Heat.
"Oh shit," the other cadet exclaimed. "I'm so sorry!"
Scalding hot coffee poured down over her recently washed uniform, the black liquid forming instant stains on the material. The scent of it turned her stomach. Penelope looked down in disgust and then up into the clumsy cadet's apologetic face. He ran over and grabbed a few napkins from the closest table before shoving them at her.
He continued to babble incessantly. "Really, oh my god. I can't believe I just did that. I'm normally super careful -"
"It's fine," Penelope said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. Even as she dabbed the napkins on her front, Penelope could tell it wouldn't make much of a difference. She couldn't make it all the way back home before class to change, and in the collision between them, Penelope had also managed to lose her cup of tea.
The first day of officer's training was not looking great so far.
"It's not fine," the cadet shook his head rapidly. "Can I do anything? Seriously, I'm so, so sorry."
"Really," Penelope bit out. "It's okay ..."
"Johnny," the cadet stuck his hand forward in a jerky fashion. Penelope raised her eyebrows at the offered appendage. She considered shrugging off the handshake, shaking off the ill-coordinated cadet, and simply making her way to class in a stained uniform.
Instead, she reached forward and grabbed his hand firmly.
"Waters," Penelope informed him stiffly.
His answering grin shone in the California heat, dark eyes glittering.
Shattered remains of her own mind lay in pieces around her. Where was she? Why did it hurt so much here? The pain, oh god, the pain. It whipped around her like a thousand hot pokers, lashing her entire being with flame. If she had a mouth, Penelope might call out in agony. But she was nowhere and couldn't exist but in her own thoughts.
Nothing but her.
Alone.
"It's the penal colony or Starfleet, Miss Waters. The choice is yours."
The judge's voice echoed throughout the mostly empty chamber of rotting wood that stunk with the dried sweat of the hopeless. Penelope clenched her eyes shut for a moment, considering the decision in front of her. Yes, the android had told her Frello V made more sense. Yes, Penelope could see the logic in it. Yes, she hated Starfleet.
But then again, so had her father.
And Penelope was worth more than a a five year stint on some abandoned planetoid.
"Starfleet," Penelope declared, opening her eyelids and locking eyes with the judge. She hated his boredom, his billowing black robes, and his beady eyes. "I want to join Starfleet." Penelope smirked when the judge's expression varied to a few degrees shy of surprise. The android beside her said nothing, but she could almost feel it attempting to recalculate.
She'd almost chosen the penal colony.
Her choice, her moment, and she'd picked the rougher course.
She could hear voices, familiar but faraway. Penelope tried to listen, and on some level, she might even have been able to understand what they were saying. Chekov, was that what Chekov sounded like? Long vowels and Slavic tones.
"Waters, we're okay. The doctor has to look at me now, so you have to put me down, yes?"
Danger, adrenaline, sweat, and the burning in her lungs and in her legs. Running, she needed to keep running. Had she stopped? The golden planet and those yellow eyes bore into her very essence. They'd hurt Chekov, hurt the captain, too. And Yalmark and someone else. She had to go back to get the navigator because she didn't want to see Scotty cry.
Tears.
Flipping open the device, Penelope called out weakly. "Waters to Medical. Please respond." About twenty seconds passed in near agony. Her breaths became short and pained, and her eyes were flickering.
"This is Medical Officer Johnson. Is this an emergency, Waters?"
"I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding," she panted into the communicator, failing to keep her thoughts straight. Stay calm, keep...breathing...
"How bad? Please respond. What is the severity of your injury?"
Calm, calm, she needed to be calm, but she was starting to cry. Fuck, it hurt. The metal twisting in her belly still remained.
"Waters! Give me your location so that I can send medics to you." Keep breathing, eyes ahead, stay calm. Was that the right order? Keep breathing, straight ahead, eyes calm. Yes?
Breathe.
"Waters! Hello? Give me your location, now." The voice on the other end had become insistent. Why? She had to breathe and stay calm and focus, dammit, focus.
Breathe...breathe...
"This is an order, Waters. Respond."
But how could she respond when she was nothing. The pain from the injury morphed into the pain of not existing, which somehow hurt more than anything at all. Darkness, into darkness with no chance of escape. Remains of who she was before flew through her, and Penelope clung to them like lifeboats.
I thought I wasn't going to get to say goodbye.
The clear smell of the sea.
Laura's laugh and a quiet hello.
You're a good person, Penelope.
Blood on her shoes and the ache of bruised knuckles.
I was, and always will be, your friend.
Legs bent the wrong way, chest caved in.
This is home. We're a family. Right here.
Death is not the end. It's an adventure.
The voices surfaced again.
"Can ya hear me, lass?" the Scottish accent bounced around in the vacuum. "There's something wrong with her, Jim … Wrenchy, we're glad ya gave Chekov to the doctors, but ya need to stop banging yare head like that. Please."
"Bones, you might need to sedate her."
"I do not believe that would be advisable, Captain."
"Spock, she's going to keep hurting herself if we don't."
Penelope needed to focus, to somehow find a way to be again.
Impossible.
"We have received a distress call from Vulcan. With our primary fleet engaged in the Laurentian system, I hereby order all Cadets to report to Hangar One immediately. Dismissed." Flashes of orange-red and grey moving in all directions. Johnny's hand tightly holding hers as she sucked in a deep breath.
The sight of Vulcan collapsing.
A dying supergiant just outside, and "every time I patch him up, I wonder if it'll be the last time."
Chekov slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Did it hurt? Even for an instant?
"I believe I can be of assistance," the level voice said.
There was someone else there with her, Penelope realized. Another thing, and they existed. Penelope tried to push them out, afraid that they too would begin to feel the pain of not being and at the same time feeling nothing at all.
"You also exist, in both body and thought, though they have been separated rather viciously," the other person told her. "I will attempt to mend the damage. You must … I find this difficult to explain. You must relax your thoughts. They are too – disjointed."
Penelope did not understand, did not know how to do anything. She was nowhere and the burning would never cease. It could not because there was no time, and without that, there was no limit. No point of start and end, like love, her mother had said.
"Focus on one thing. Pick something, anything, and think only of that," the person instructed her. But what was she to pick? "It does not matter, only that you choose it and think of nothing else." Penelope flickered through the possibilities.
She thought of the way McCoy had looked in the blue light of the star last New Years.
If they had any opinion on her decision, they did not tell her. All she knew was that the more she honed in on his face, the more and more relief she found from the gradually decreasing pain. Penelope slowly became aware of the fact that she had toes, and then fingers, and then that she had lungs that could inhale and exhale.
That was rather neat.
Things fell into place like pieces of a puzzle, and soon after, Penelope could see again. She was in Sickbay, oddly enough, and the first officer's fingers were attached to her face in an odd pattern. Penelope couldn't feel the touch yet, but she could see it very clearly. Her gaze darted around, and Penelope observed with great amusement the crease between McCoy's eyebrows.
She had a mouth now, and a tongue, so Penelope used them. "You'll give yourself wrinkles," the engineer, because that was what she was, said quietly. The Assistant Chief Engineering Officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise fought a grin as the CMO's own mouth twisted unkindly.
Before the doctor could even begin to rant, Penelope was able to feel again.
And she hurt.
The engineer could hear her own pained screams bounce around the room, and her short fingernails dug into the skin of her palm as she balled her fists. The burning had returned, but now it reached her body as well as her mind. Her eyes clenched shut in pain.
"Spock, what's going on? I thought she was getting better," Penelope heard the captain say, raising his voice to be heard over her yelling. A strong hand pushed her back against the bed, and the fingers that had been forcibly removed from her face came back.
"I have never seen a mental attack quite this brutal, and I was never trained in the healing arts of Vulcan. Forgive me if I made some error," the first officer said quickly aloud, but also inside her mind as well. Blistering heat that should've been peeling back her skin prickled on all surfaces, and people were talking, but nothing existed but the pain anymore.
Kill her. Please, just kill her.
"Wrenchy, it's going to be okay." A hand gently took a hold of her own, and Penelope realized Scotty was there. Tears threatened to fall over from her tightly closed eyelids, but the engineer refused to let them go. She couldn't let Scotty see she was hurt. He'd worry.
Her mouth clamped close with a snap, and the high pitched screaming stopped.
"Is she okay now, Spock?" McCoy asked, and Penelope trembled with the need to express her turmoil.
"No," the first officer said, and once again, it seemed like Penelope registered his words twice. "The Lieutenant believes that it will distress Mr. Scott if she continues to verbally communicate her pain. She has ceased on his behalf."
Spock was everywhere, flitting from the forefront of her thoughts to the shattered pieces of memories buried somewhere at the back of her brain. Penelope wanted him to make it stop hurting. Could he please make it stop?
I am sorry. I do not know how.
Then kill her. It was not worth living if she had to endure this.
"Penelope, lass, it's okay," Scotty assured her, his grip spreading a comforting warmth on her rigid fist. "Don't worry about me. Whatever ya need to do, just go ahead." Penelope weakly opened her eyes, and through her blurred vision, she saw Scotty sitting beside her.
Family. Like love, with no beginning and no ending.
Images of other people, with tilted eyebrows and blank expressions were unleashed. Spock could no longer hold his own mind back as he tried to heal her.
A door opened extends in both directions.
Memories not her own, filling the broken places of her thought.
"This is your thirty-fifth attempt to illicit an emotional response from me," she said, only she was not herself. The angle was all wrong, the voice childlike. There were domes filling the ground and children walking calmly around her. She was being confronted by three boys, all of them dressed in some type of gray uniform.
"You're neither human nor Vulcan and therefore have no place in this universe."
"Look, he has human eyes. They look sad, don't they?" Penelope could feel the stirrings of shame in her body, more intense than normal. Rejection stinging cruelly, though she'd done nothing but be born to incur their disapproval. Her vision darted around the faces of her peers.
"Perhaps an emotional response requires physical stimuli." With that, the first boy to speak came forward and shoved her backwards roughly. She stumbled, her mouth opening and arms moving in order to steady herself.
"He's a traitor, you know? Your father. For marrying her, that human whore."
Rage of the kind Penelope had only felt a few times in her life bubbled up from her abdomen and forced her to call out. Her body rushed forward of its own accord, and when she got her hands on the boy, she pushed him into the nearest dome. He fell with a clanging sound, but she wasn't done. She needed to …
"Excuse me, Commander," a voice called from her right, drawing Penelope's eyes up to the figure of Uhura. Her gaze was steady and confident, but it held none of its normal kindness. "May we speak more privately?" Penelope nodded in agreement, the movement stiff and jerky. From the crowded hallway, she followed the orange red uniform of the cadet into the projector room, where immediately Uhura's expression turned to fury.
"You cannot keep ignoring this," Uhura insisted, and Penelope took a step backwards. Her hands clasped beneath her back nervously, but she was committed to the decision she had made and would stand by it no matter how much it pained her.
"This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion, Cadet," she said, though her voice sounded remarkably different than the one she was used too. And she was significantly taller, as well. Strange.
Looking down at Uhura, Penelope noticed her eyes turn hard. "Cadet? Really? We're back to that now?" She was upset, Penelope observed, and that in turn made her feel … completely horrible. But it was better this way. "My name is Nyota, Spock."
"I am aware."
"Then why don't you use it? You are grieving, Spock, but that doesn't mean you get to push everyone else away. Why can't you see that?"
Because she would not allow herself to feel. It was dangerous, and though it seemed like she was ripping apart of herself away, Penelope could no longer allow their relationship to continue.
"They called you a traitor," Penelope explained through the sting of her lower lip. Her father, but not her father, looked down at her tranquilly. Shouldn't he be upset like she was? No, because unlike her, he was fully Vulcan. She would never be able to attain the same control.
It was not fair.
"Emotions run deep within our race," her father said, eyes focusing away from her. "In many ways more deeply than in humans. Logic offers serenity humans seldom experience." The wind chimes of the atrium rang in her ears, but not even the pretty sound could calm her from her racing thoughts.
Human. Vulcan. Neither and both. Not fair.
"The control of feelings, so that they do not control you," her father insisted firmly.
"You suggest that I be completely Vulcan," Penelope wondered. "And yet you married a human."
"As ambassador to Earth, it is my duty to observe and understand human behavior. Marrying your mother was," her father exhaled deeply, "logical." His head shook slightly, but then he continued. "Spock, you are fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose. This is something only you can decide."
The memories came faster then, in short bursts of light that saved her from herself.
Scotty shook his head at her, his face turning down to face the ground. She looked over at the radiation chamber and strode towards it, eyes not believing what she knew to be true. Her breath came out in shuddering pants. She saw Jim on the ground, head hidden from view.
"Open it," she ordered Scotty, and even as she asked she knew it couldn't be done.
The engineer's eyes filled with tears as he answered. "The decontamination process is not complete. You'd flood the whole compartment. The door's locked, sir." His voice filled with emotion, but she couldn't even really focus on anything but the injustice of it all. They had won. So why did it feel like she had lost so much?
She knelt down, bending her knees so as to become more level with Jim. He panted, lifting his arm up to close the inner core door. His blue eyes blinked blearily up at her. "How's our ship?" he breathed.
"Out of danger."
"Under penalty of court martial, I order you to explain to me how you were able to board this ship while moving at warp," she bit out in irritation. Kirk and the other officer stood in front of her, the cheating Cadet's body language screaming wordless defiance.
"Don't answer him," Kirk told the other man. Not so wordless. Penelope kept her gaze locked onto the intruder.
"You will answer me."
With a disarming smile, the officer said, "I'd rather not take sides." And before she could even respond, Kirk stepped forward into her personal space. She balled her fists at the action.
"What is it with you Spock, hmm?" Kirk baited, and her eyes flickered over to land on him. "Your planet was just destroyed, your mother murdered, and you're not even upset..."
She knew exactly the game Kirk was trying to play, but she was no longer the boy from Vulcan, bullied into emotional responses. She was a Starfleet Commander, acting Captain, and this human could not bring her down to his level.
"If you are presuming that these experiences in any way impede my ability to command this ship, you are mistaken."
"And yet you were the one that said fear was necessary for command. I mean, did you see his ship, did you see what he did?"
"You saved the crew."
"You used what he wanted against him," Jim sighed in return. His eyes continued to blink slowly as he fought the end, and his blue gaze narrowed in approval. "That's a nice move."
Her vision swam with unshed tears, her ability to control her own emotions slipping away from her like grains of sand. "It is what you would have done," she assured him.
"And this … this is what you would've done," Jim said, eyes moving up to stare into hers.
It was not fair.
"It was only logical."
"Yes of course I did," she whispered in response. She would not let Kirk do this. She would not.
"So are you afraid or aren't you?" the Cadet questioned, his voice hard and his eyes boring into hers.
"I will not allow you to lecture me about the merits of emotion."
Kirk's infuriatingly still expression answered her. "Then why don't you stop me?"
"Step away from me, Mister -"
Jim's eyes gleamed with forming tears, and Penelope was not able to even give him the reassurance of her touch. His breath became ragged, and hers followed a similar pattern. Logic. What had logic ever done for her that humanity hadn't always overridden?
"I'm scared, Spock." Each word from Jim's mouth sounded like it caused him a great deal of pain, and it made her want to tell him not to speak. She was selfish, though, and needed to hear his voice. If Jim wanted to talk to her, then she would listen to every phrase as though she would soon never hear again.
"Help me not be."
"What is it like not to feel anger or heartbreak? Or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?"
"Back away from me," she bit out, and her entire body worked to suppress the urge to tear Kirk's throat out. How dare he presume to understand a single thought in her brain? What could his simplistic, egotistical, dishonest mind hope to accomplish in these accusations?
"You feel nothing!" Kirk spat.
"How do you choose not to feel?" Jim's eyes searched the ground, looking both inwardly and outwardly for the serenity she had failed to attain her entire life.
She shook her head, unable to give him the answer he needed. Watery eyes devoured the image of her friend, lying there helpless. She wanted to fight for him, give her life for him, but they were separated, and there was nothing to be done. Jim believed in no-win scenarios, but she believed in the laws of science.
They told her Jim was going to die.
"I do not know," she struggled to keep a steady tone. "Right now I am failing."
"It must not even compute for you," Kirk exclaimed, his face close to hers. "You never loved her!"
"There's no need to be anxious," her mother assured her, cool hands reaching to cradle her cheeks. Penelope sighed inwardly, half-irritated and half-pleased at her attention. The touch receded as she smiled. "You'll do fine."
"I am hardly anxious, Mother," she said as her mother fussed with the front of her uniform. "And fine has variable definitions. Fine is unacceptable." The truth was that she was more nervous than she had ever felt, the uncomfortable sensation causing a tightness to spread on her skin.
"Okay," her mother whispered, smoothing down another spot at her collar. She grabbed the older woman's hands, and then gentled her grasp as her mother's face twisted for a moment.
"May I ask a personal query?"
"Anything," her mother said, the smile there again, only for her. Penelope breathed in and out once, twice, and then continued.
"Should I choose to complete the Vulcan discipline of kolinhar, and purge all emotion?" she asked. The question sounded harsher out loud than it had in thought. She scrambled to resolve the situation. "I trust ... you will not feel it reflects judgment upon you." Her mother's smile turned inward and then in easy affection once again.
"Oh, Spock. As always, no matter what you choose to be, you will have a proud mother."
Jim tried to speak, his words stringing together in exertion. "I want you to know why I couldn't let you die."
She screamed in fury and punched Kirk in the face. She knew it would hurt him there, a previous injury still present on his cheek. The Cadet tumbled backwards into one of the security team, and as the officer tried to steady Kirk, she grabbed his shirt lapel and swung him around into a computer dock.
Kirk tried to put up a fight, but he was weaker than her in all respects. He would pay for what he had done, for what he had said. A particularly brutal punch had Kirk stumbling in his defense, and she finally got him backed onto the helm controls.
Her fingers curled around his neck, and her breathing became ragged.
He would feel what he had made her feel.
Pain.
"Why I went back for you …"
"Oh, I didn't say anything," Nyota told her matter of factly. Then, after a moment's pause, she continued. "Actually, I'd be happy to speak if you're willing to listen to me." As much as she could admit to loving her, Penelope firmly believed that Nyota truly did have the worst timing.
"Guys," the captain warned, turning his head back, but Penelope could feel the stirrings of unresolved anger flutter in her breast.
"Lieutenant, I would prefer to discuss this in private."
"You would prefer not to discuss this at all, that's what you-"
"Our current concern-"
"Are you guys really going to do this right now?" Jim asked in irritation.
The feel of heat seeping through her protective suit, the rage of the volcano soon to overtake her completely. Feel nothing. Nothing at all.
Must not give in.
Anger, an all encompassing burning that started in her toes and ended in the hand around Kirk's throat. Nothing else mattered but proving to Kirk that she did feel, and felt more deeply than he could ever possibly understand. Stuck between two worlds always, never belonging anywhere, but her mother had never doubted her. Now one of the worlds was gone, and the other was in deep peril.
And now she was dead, just as Penelope was finally going to be the one to protect instead of being the one protected.
"Spock!" her father called, and though she continued to choke the cadet, her mind turned to the way her father had never been able to win an argument with her mother. Vulcan logic never could defeat human passion.
But right now, it needed to.
She released Kirk's throat, and as he coughed, she turned and faced Nyota.
Disappointment.
"Because you are my friend," she finished when Jim could not.
A tear finally escaped and flooded down her cheek. She did not know the last time she had cried, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the way Jim's gaze met hers with an understanding that transcended logic.
Friends.
Jim couldn't keep holding up, and his eyes blinked more rapidly, his breathing increasingly pained. Her friend's hand placed itself clumsily on the glass, a gesture to seek comfort.
"Spock, I'm telling you. This is why he called. I can feel it," the captain said as they walked along. Her Starfleet uniform hugged her comfortingly, and her boots hit the ground with a dulled clacking sound.
"Your feeling aside," Penelope informed the captain. "I consider it highly unlikely that we will be selected for the new program." Their ship's crew remained too young and too inexperienced to take on a mission so risky. Not to mention the fact that they had violated the Prime Directive recently.
"Well, why else would Pike want to see us?" the captain inquired. "Forget about seniority. They gave us the newest ship in the fleet. I mean, who else are they going to send out?" She inwardly shook her head.
"I can think of numerous possibilities," Penelope said in exasperation, but Kirk ignored her comment, spinning around to walk backwards and make a presumptuously victorious gesture.
"A five year mission Spock," Jim exclaimed, slapping her on the chest twice. "That's deep space." She was aware. "That's uncharted territory, think how incredible that's going to be." Penelope knew it would be pointless to remind the captain that they had not yet received the mission.
Humans could be so strange.
"Hey, ladies. Jim Kirk," the captain said in a different tone of voice, turning back around to stare as they walked.
At least the captain had never looked at Nyota like that.
She raised her hand in solidarity, fingers spreading on the glass to mirror the farewell of her Vulcan heritage. Jim's fingers mimicked the action, and the tears continued to flow.
Live long and prosper.
The dampness on her cheeks could not sufficiently express the inner turmoil she felt, the dueling emotions of sorrow and fury.
It was not fair.
And as her friend's fingers slid down the glass, his eyes turned a milky blue.
Jim died as he lived, smiling.
It should be her there. Her, not him.
He should not have died at all.
Rage.
"You asked me once," her father began, "why I married your mother." She waited patiently for what he had to say, even as his eyes searched her face. Penelope did not know what he was looking for, but he seemed to find it anyways.
"I married her because I loved her."
Penelope and Spock were alone in a room she was now somehow familiar with. It was his room as a child, and she observed with amusement the large teddy bear in the corner. A very ferocious looking teddy bear.
Spock seated himself on the neatly made bed, the covers a simple grey color.
"I have given you refuge in my mind," he stated, and she knew him now like she had never known any other person in the universe. She had been him, had been one with him, in all the darkest moments and all the times he had failed. "It was to protect you as I attempted to heal the damage within your own subconscious."
"I am okay now?" Penelope asked, and she realized suddenly that they weren't speaking with their mouths. It jolted her slightly, but she shrugged it off with the next comment from Spock.
"I cannot say for sure. I have certainly tried to the best of my abilities," he admitted, and he sounded weary. Her worry reached him wordlessly. "I am fatigued by the effort. If you relapse again, I do not know …"
"You don't think you could bring me back," Penelope completed.
Spock nodded and sighed. "I find that I feel ... guilty."
"You're only human," Penelope told him, going forward to sit beside him. "It's no one's fault."
"I have seen your memories," Spock told her, and if she had not seen his own, she might have felt violated. Instead, it seemed only fair now. "I wish to apologize, if this is the last chance we will have to speak."
"Apologize?" Penelope wondered in confusion.
"I once accused you of being a spy, basing my conclusion on facts that were incomplete, and thus no longer facts. I felt that I had been mistaken in allowing you to serve on our ship, and I berated myself for the error of trusting your intentions."
"I don't always do a good job of explaining myself," Penelope allowed fairly, placing a hand on Spock's forearm.
"I was wrong. And I have seen you, in all respects, and so I say with sincerity that I am sorry for misjudging you."
Penelope shrugged. "It's forgotten."
Spock struggled for a moment, so Penelope waited patiently with her hand remaining on him. "I fear … that if you die, the crew will not handle the loss well. I worry for them now. I worry for what will happen in your absence."
"You must fight," Spock implored, eyes searching hers.
"When have I not," Penelope smiled.
Spock only nodded. "I must return you to your own mind."
"How?" Penelope questioned, and Spock removed her hand and stood up.
"Think of yourself. Who you are, the person you have been and continue to be. We must not continue to meld, so you need to separate yourself completely from me."
"I don't think I judged you well, either," Penelope admitted after some thought, standing up as well. "You see things in ways I never could. If these are my final words, Spock, then I'm glad it was you who got to hear them."
Spock locked eyes with her again, pausing in his movements. His hand extended up, fingers spreading in a now familiar gesture.
"Live long and prosper, Penelope Waters."
With a smile tugging at her lips, she raised her hand in reciprocation. "Live long and prosper, Spock."
"And if this is it for me, tell everyone I said goodbye. Tell them that this was an adventure, and that I was privileged to be there alongside them, for however long I was able."
She could feel herself being sucked back into her own head. Penelope thought of who she was, the people she had been. She was an engineer, a Starfleet officer, a criminal. A daughter, a cousin, a friend, a niece, a lover, a fighter, a hero, a coward. She was so many things all at once, and that was okay.
She was important, and she was expendable.
She was Penelope. She was Waters. She was Wrenchy. She was the Assistant Chief.
She was human, and she was a monster. She only drank coffee because Johnny had gotten her hooked on it, and she hated mustard with a passion.
She lived. If she had to die, she'd go down fighting.
"And tell Scotty," Penelope said at the last moment, fading from Spock. "Tell him I said that ... that it was my honor to have gone there in his place."
"I will," Spock assured her, his hand still held up in farewell.
Death is not the end. It's an adventure.
Her adventure.
"Goodbye."
A/N: So ... it ended up being twenty one chapters in its entirety.
As always, thanks so much for reading, for the reviews that you all have given, and for everybody who stuck around for an OC-centric story. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways.
Obviously, many parts of this chapter came from Star Trek and Into Darkness.
The sequel will be called U.S.S. Enterprise: A Doctor's Call, so look out for it soon.