[NVC Day 14, Early Morning] -- [And So the Sun Rises] -- [Open to All]

[kirktastic]

After a long night at the theater, meeting Spock and his brother, and everything afterwards, it had been difficult to sleep. Along with the tickets, Jim had received a message about the trial's start the next morning. He had refused to let it bother him all night, just wanting to enjoy some time with Bones despite everything they had been forced to go through recently.

That didn't make for good sleep, though. Sometime before dawn, Jim found himself wide awake, laying in bed, Bones curled up against his side dead asleep. It took some work to get himself out of Bones' arms, not wanting to disturbing the sleeping man, before he grabbed his discarded robe over the back of a chair and pulling it on. He brushed a kiss over Bones' hair, affectionate while no one could see it, and stepped outside.

The deck was level with the ground, so it was no trouble to walk out onto the deck and past it, out towards the beautiful area that surrounded their guest quarters. Jim had a working theory that because the Vulcans had been on a desert planet before, without the ability to use plant life because of the strain of water consumption, that now that they could they decided to use planets as much as possible. He wondered how logical it was, but decided that knowing Vulcans to a degree, they would find a way to make it logical and convince everyone else in the process. The thought made him smile, just slightly, as he found himself a low wall that faced the ocean and sat down.

It was both easier and harder to think while he watched the sun rise, watching the ripples of orange, red, and pink climb higher in the sky. So much hinged on this trial, one he would be going to each day of. He had choices to make about it, as such a major player in what had happened. He would have to explain his actions to the court and by addition, Starfleet.

Let me have done the right thing.

Comments

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

Scotty was just out for a wander around, and it was bloody hot outside already. He considered going back home and having a lie down, maybe read a couple of engineering journals. It was on this walk that he met the captain, deep in though.

"Hello, sir." He said, wiping some sweat off of his face.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim looked up when he heard the greeting, brows going up at the sight of his head engineer. "Scotty? What are you doing up so early?" Scotty seemed less an early riser and more the 'not awake until several cups of coffee' type to Jim. Work late into the night type and sleep it off in the morning type.

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Early? I was going to sleep, but you're here. What are you doing out here so late, anyhow?" Scotty said with a shrug.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

...Well, that confirmed what he thought about Scotty, didn't it?

It made Jim grin, relaxing a little. "Early, Scotty. Early. Most of us have slept already." He was teasing in a gentle way, laughing beneath his words. "Couldn't stay asleep so I decided to go for a walk, but got caught watching the sunrise."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Alas, a Chief Engineer's job is never done!" Scotty shot a grin for a second before sobering. "How can you stand it? It's so hot here. I'm sweating to death, and I've only been on this planet for maybe fifteen minutes." Scotty tugged at his shirt impatiently, trying to cool himself down.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Brows stayed up with that. "Have you been up on the Enterprise all this time?" He tried to picture the schedule in his head, but shrugged it off. "Somehow I thought the maintenance ended earlier than that. Is Keenser down here too? He alright with the temperature?"

"Gotten used to the heat by now, been down here for two weeks." He teased, smiling. "You should switch over to the fabrics the Vulcans offered us - way cooler than our uniforms." He tugged at his robe as an example. "There's even cooler versions of our uniforms, if you can deal with the Vulcan touches to them... should be in your closet. I even sent them Keenser's information ahead of time."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Thank you for sending them Keenser's information, but where else would I've been? I had an extra project to do, on top of the maintenance." Scotty shrugged, stopping his shirt flapping. "As for Keenser, the right sneaky bas has said nothing to me about anything, but he's been here. Somewhere."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"Oh?" That was a bit of a surprise, as Scotty and Keenser seemed inseparable. He wondered what Keenser was up to. "He'll be find, it's a safe place as long as he doesn't leave the city limits."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"We're not permanently glued together, Captain. We do a great deal of things separately." Scotty shrugged. "Also, I doubt Keenser had much in the way of plans of leaving the city. He's likely sitting in a hotel room drinking huge quantities of water out that obscene water bottle he has."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim held up his hands. "I didn't mean you weren't, I just figured you would know where he was, that's all." He didn't mean to offend Scotty in any way. "Well, he has quarters here along with us, so he'd most likely be in there. The Vulcans even agreed to outfit it with mist-sprays so it would be more like what Keenser's room is."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"He likely thought that it was so obvious that he didn't bother to tell me. Keenser's like that, even more so than is normal for a treefallan." Scotty was used to this sort of thing by now, so it didn't really bother him that much. "This distracting you from whatever it was that was on your mind?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"One species I don't know much about at all," Jim said thoughtfully. "Though I read that back at the Academy, they've found an interesting use for Treefallan sap in a medical sense."

He shrugged slightly. "Was, until you brought it back up." He eased the sting of it with, "but I don't think anything could really keep me from thinking about it right now."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"They're very solitary, to the point that Keenser's absolutely clingy by their standards. As for the medical thing? That's something Doctor McCoy would know about more than I do." Scotty wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "Oops, sorry. Something tells me that I should know what's got you down in the dumps, but I don't. I was just really glad to have eight hour days for once."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Huh. "Maybe that's why he's in Starfleet," Jim mused aloud. "The medical thing was interesting. Something about how the sap is so sticky, but so natural, they've found ways to use it to use it to cover burns when its going to take a long time for a regenerator to do its work. Evidently good at preventing infects, too."

Did Scotty really not know? Information must not be passing along. "Trial begins today."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Not that Starfleet wants him, I guess." Scotty muttered before talking louder. "The trial starts today? When?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim frowned at Scotty, then said quietly, "doesn't matter. I want him. He's a part of my crew." He leaned back. "Trial starts in just a few hours."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Guess I better find some sort of caffeine source, then." Scotty said smiling. "If I'm not going to snore in the middle of the big hullabaloo, that is." He reached out and patted Kirk on the back. "It'll be for the best, Captain. You'll see."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

That surprised Jim. "You're going?" He couldn't keep that surprise out of his voice. "...Most of the crew isn't unless they have to give witness."

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, why not?" Scotty shrugged, dropping his hand down. "It's always nice to see a friendly face or two in a sea of people you don't know, and I've only been awake 18 hours. I'll drag Keenser down, if I can."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim wondered what was worse - that he could remember exactly what it felt like to do 18 hour and longer days, or that he almost winced at the idea of it. He gave Scotty a grin, encouraging. "Thanks." He hoped that his voice conveyed how much he appreciated it.

[dilithiumwanted.livejournal.com]

"You're the captain. Heavens knows you deserve it." Scotty shrugged, and began to walk off whistling with his hands in his pockets.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

He watched Scotty leave, almost down right floored at the statement, wondering if Scotty even realized that.

Slowly he sat back on the wall, staring out at the ocean. Scotty had given him a lot to think about, and he tried to ignore that small warmth in his chest that might have been pride.




(OOC: <3)