Chapter Text
Jim slams the glass down on the dirty wood of the bar, slick with the half-cleaned spills of years past and everything that he’s spilled himself already tonight. It’s hard enough to simultaneously drink and bitch expressively under the best of circumstances, but Jim gesticulates wildly even when he’s not pissed and right now he’s pissed.
“They’ve cancelled it, Bones. Not even postponed, just cancelled. No five-year mission, no exploration, just treaty renegotiation from here until the cows come home. I have a whole science team on board! Historians and geologists and botanists and--” He takes a drink. "Why are they wasting us on this?"
Bones shifts in his seat, sighing pointedly. “Have you talked to Pike about any of this?”
Jim stares at him, irritation plain on his face. “Of course I have, Bones, where do you think I just came from? I told him a hundred times-- that we just fought a war, that everyone is tired and grieving and scared and desperate for some reassurance that we can be a force for good in this galaxy. But no, they’ve cancelled all exploratory missions in order to focus on the military and Pike can’t even give me a straight answer why.” Jim raises the drink to his mouth, downs the last of the bitter scotch left in his glass. He's too angry to feel buzzed, but he can feel his control slipping, knows his face is even easier to read than it is normally.
Bones turns to him, crankiness dissolving into concern as he sees the worry, the fear marked into the furrowed creases. “You think they’re preparing for war?”
“We,” Jim corrects him. “We’re preparing for war.”
--
But for once in his life James Kirk does what he’s told. And when the Enterprise is repaired and sent out again, it is as a diplomatic vessel, to prevent and repair conflicts and, if necessary, to begin them. This is not to say that Jim is passively accepting. He doesn’t trust Starfleet, but he can be persistent. Perhaps he struggles with patience (his professors at the Academy would certainly agree with that statement), but James Kirk can play the long game. Pike is afraid of something, the admiralty is afraid of something, and Jim is going to figure out what that something is whether or not that takes him five years of diplomatic missions.
--
The Enterprise’s first mission is to New Vulcan, a show of good faith and friendship more than anything. They bring supplies, provide transport to a group of engineering volunteers from across Federation space to help rebuild some hollow facsimile of everything that was lost.
His First Officer barely speaks to him beyond the bare minimum required for a working relationship during this excursion, and Jim is reminded of how close Spock came to resigning his commission. He wonders, now, if Spock regrets the decision to stay, now that the grandeur of galaxy-saving missions seems to have slipped out of their reach, now that their fragile friendship seems to have gone that route as well.
If Jim believes the elder Spock, it’s supposed to be galaxy-changing in its own right. Well, his father is supposed to be alive as well, and everyone who’s seen a ‘Fleet textbook knows how that worked out for George Kirk. And why would this timeline be any sweeter to his son?
Spock has been, if possible, even more closed-off these past months than Jim had ever seen him or imagined possible. Perhaps he had only imagined the fledgling warmth of friendship that seemed to exist after taking down Nero.
Desperate situations create bonds that would never otherwise exist, though-- Jim is well aware of that. Often they didn’t last long into peacetime. Jim hasn’t had the opportunity himself to test that out. He buried too many children with the hands of a child to know what it would be like to simply exist with any of them, to know whether their friendships would be borne out while the world wasn't trying to kill them. Sometimes when you make friends in desperate situations, they don’t make it out with you.
But Spock did make it out, they both did. And maybe Spock is simply grieving-- God knows he has plenty to grieve about-- but maybe they are only meant, in this universe, to be colleagues.
That's fine, Jim tells himself. They don’t need to be friends to work well together.
--
The Enterprise's second mission is to the edge of the Romulan neutral zone, to bring supplies to a Federation outpost. The supplies are coded as Level 2-- they’re necessary to maintain standard life on the outpost but not critical to sustain the mission or the life of its crew. Urgency is even lower at Level 1. Some other ship could easily have come to replenish stores a month later with very little disruption to outpost life.
He messages Pike the morning they start out.
No offense, sir, but what the hell is the Enterprise doing on this mission?
His PADD lights up minutes later with Pike’s terse reply.
Just do your job, Jim.
So he tells Chekov to set a course and Sulu to follow it, and they're off.
And that afternoon, with the ship set to arrive at 1600 the following day, Jim calls Uhura, Spock and Bones into his ready room.
“There’s more to this delivery than we’ve been told.”
Uhura nods tersely, Bones rolls his eyes and Spock barely lifts one eyebrow. It’s clear that they have already come to this conclusion themselves.
“I don’t have any more information about why we’re really here than you do, and ‘Fleet command is being even more reticent than normal.” Jim looks at his officers in turn. “I want you three to do everything you can to figure out what everyone at Outpost Two is afraid of and why they would want us here now. And keep it under wraps. I need the rest of the ship to understand this as a standard errand run until something happens to make it otherwise. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain.” The response comes from all three. Not quite in unison, but close enough.
“And don’t spook anyone at the outpost, too, if you can avoid it.” He pauses for a moment to see if they have any comments to make.
None are forthcoming.
“Dismissed.”
--
Jim’s direction not to spook the outpost staff proves almost laughably useless as soon as they arrive. It’s hidden under decorum and an easy civility borne of training, but everyone aboard the ship is already visibly terrified.
Captain Watson has him count and recount the deliveries. They are a dozen bolts short of the ordered fabric for uniform repairs. They must make a note of that, surely. Or better yet, recount. Perhaps they were simply misplaced. Constitution-class starships are so large, after all.
(They find two, but it seems the other ten bolts didn’t make it with them. It’s a fairly standard error.)
Two days later and no dramatic event has occurred. Neither Spock, Uhura nor Bones are able to report anything more concrete than a deep-rooted anxiety. Of attack, it would seem, likely from their Romulan neighbors, but neither answers nor missiles seem to be readily forthcoming.
As the Enterprise bids Outpost Two farewell, the captain presses Jim’s hand.
“Captain Kirk.” There’s real warmth behind it. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, Captain.” Jim studies the other man’s face. “We’re here to help, but tell me, what are you afraid of?”
Watson smiles and shakes his head. “We wish you a safe journey home.”
So the Enterprise leaves.