[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]

"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.