[Office Hours] -- [Open to All]

[kirktastic]

Completely wrung out from the night before, and still a little sore, Jim could not have been happier to be cleared for duty. It felt good to walk up to the bridge in his uniform, greet the alpha crew, tease Pasha at her duties, and go into his office.

Unfortunately, the amount of paperwork made it... less than happy, but at least he could get started on the mess. Inside the handsome and daring space captain was still a book worm, the child who loved the library and the man who collected actual paper books, and it was that book worm that had him start sorting things out first into folders and piles to get done. His fingers flew over the console, throwing files into each folder to sort it out. He reached over and tapped the comm, calling for Rand as well to help out.

It felt good to be the Captain again, and now he wanted to play catch up with his crew.

Comments

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

Rand tried her hardest not to look smug. She thought - or hoped - that she managed to substitute 'eager to help' for 'I knew I would swiftly become INDISPENSIBLE.'

"That's what I'm here for, sir," she volunteered, brightly. "What would you like me to do? I can start anywhere."

She ran a critical eye over the young captain. He looked a little peaky.

"Would you like me to go fetch you a coffee or anything?"

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim waved a hand to shake off the idea of coffee. "No, I'm good. Right now..." He thumbed through various folders, then just waved her over. "Started throwing things in folders so at least it wasn't just one huge mess but we could figure out where things go. I'm more than half way through." Requisitions, complaints, assignment changes, urgent news, top secret... the folders went on.

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

Janice scrutinized the folders. He'd established a discernible system; she could certainly attend to this.

"Okay," she said, picking up the 'Requisitions' folder and peering at it. "I can finish this up for you, if you need to get onto something more important? I have no doubt - " she reached out, slipping something into the folder where it belonged " - that the Captain of a flagship shouldn't have to do his own filing." She shook her head.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim let her use the console across from his so she could access everything. "I'm just working my way through everything," complete with a shrug, "a captain shouldn't be too good for anything, even this. I'm already going through the most important stuff."

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

She eyed him uncertainly. "Well," she conceded, "if you're sure. I suppose it'll get done faster that way, anyway."

Janice was fast at this kind of stuff, fast and accurate. She had no doubt that the captain was probably faster - everybody knew he was some kind of genius - but that just made it worse, didn't it, that he'd be wasting his time doing this? Except. What he'd said, a captain shouldn't be too good for anything. The part of her that was given to hero-worship swelled a little bit at that, even while she plotted how to blitz through this organization job with enough speed and skill that he'd be amazed. (Amazed.)

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim pulled up a complaint and frowned at it, closing his eyes as he picked the man in his mind. "Richardson..." Science, shorter man with a goatee. Something about... wait, this should have gone to Spock anyway. Jim sent it quickly in Spock's direction in amusement. "I'm not worried about speed, other than making sure it gets done reasonably. Just want it done right the first time."

It was one of the little ways he hoped to make his crew happier. If things were given, shifted, moved, whatever was needed within reason then it would make five years of being together on this ship easier.

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

Janice nodded, her eyes wide, signalling her enthusiastic agreement. Captain Kirk was so wise about this stuff, which wasn't fair, given how young and hot he still was. But then, that was why he was a Captain, and Janice wasn't.

"Absolutely," she said. "There's nothing worse than realizing you've done a whole load of things wrong, months after the fact. I'm all for accuracy." She nodded her head, as if to underline her point.

She dashed off a brief response to a pretty straightforward query about beds, forwarding it on to Maintenance. The captain was wearing an expression of quiet concentration. It was kind of compelling. She forced herself to look away from it, and went on with her work with aggressive focus for ten minutes or so.

"How are you feeling, anyway?" she asked, when she couldn't stand it any longer.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

She certainly was perky, which made him laugh inside as he worked to hide the smile. "If you mean my excursion into the vast wasteland of 2010, I'm fine. It was amazing, but I'm glad I live today instead of then. I think the strangest thing of all was the complete lack of any aliens. No Vulcans, no Andorians, no... anything. Just humans of every kind."

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

"Huh." That was weird, to Janice, who hadn't even grown up on Earth. "That's - that is strange. I mean, I know, mentally, that of course that would be the case at that point in time, but I can't really imagine it." She laughed shortly. "Where I grew up, humans were pretty much the minority."

She stared at the screen for a moment, before carefully moving something from one folder to another, and clearing her throat.

"I'm glad you live now, too," she said firmly, as an afterthought.

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

Jim's eyes lifted, glancing across to her, not really sure how to respond to that statement. He decided to play it off easily. "A lot of people say that. Don't know if Earth would still be here if I wasn't." Which made him look down to the symbol on the back of his hand, and he flexed it as a phantom pang of pain rang along the nerves.

"Iowa's got nothing but humans, but after I left it I got used to seeing everyone from other planets. Plus, Earth's cleaner now. I was getting all my minerals in one breath in 2010."

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

Janice didn't have too great an allegiance to Earth, when all was said and done, but it was certainly good to know that it was still there. And good, too, to be in this room with this young man, and know that he was capable of piloting this ridiculous, amazing thing that carried them all through space.

"I was born in Texas," she told him, "but we weren't there long. I don't even remember it." She shrugged. "Is it pretty? Iowa? Do you ever go back there?" Janice had nobody to visit on Earth, and had never spent any amount of time there except during her Academy days. "Only place I've ever really seen is San Fran."

[kirktastic.livejournal.com]

"It's boring as hell, Iowa. Flat and farmlands as far as you can see. Trust me, at least San Fran's worth being at." So maybe Jim was a little bitter about the place he grew up in, but he did meet Pike and Bones there, so it wasn't completely trashed in his memory.

He frowned, trying to remember back. "Did you tell me where you grew up?"

[janice-rand-sir.livejournal.com]

She quirked her mouth wryly. "Eh. Probably not. I don't, usually."

Not that it was a secret, but - "My family travelled around a lot, but we kind of - ran out of money, I guess. I was pretty young. Don't remember, really." She shrugged, idly dropping things into folders. "We ended up on Saweoure. The place where they like to enslave everyone?"

She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it wasn't really working. "My kid brothers and I busted out, eventually. Got to the refugee colony on Faience on a cargo shuttle. Parents were dead by then, so I was made their legal guardian. Then, after a few years, I joined Starfleet."

She poked the console. She always told this story in one tone of voice, carefully not dwelling on any of the details. It sounded awful, she knew - hell, it was pretty awful, objectively - but she didn't feel damaged, or anything. That wasn't her. This was just - her life. It was hard to speculate about what things would have been like if they'd been different. The 'don't pity me' tone maybe (she hoped) made it a little bit better for people when they inevitably had no clue what to say.