Chapter Text
Jaime Kirk should be dead, a dozen times over.
It’s not that she has a death wish. She doesn’t, not really. She’s just…not all that attached to life. She came into the world in the midst of destruction, and she’s sure as hell letting that set the tone for the rest of her life. So she drives cars off of cliffs and gets in bar fights. It’s not enough, but it helps.
She is twenty-two years old, and she is suffocating in this town.
Jaime doesn’t have a drinking problem, per se, but whenever interesting things happen, they happen at the Shipyard Bar, so she spends a lot of time there. Tonight is no exception.
There’s a group of Starfleet folk – not that uncommon, but this crowd is boisterous and rowdy, mostly guys. Jaime’s on her fourth drink of the night when one of them gets the bartender to send a drink her way, then approaches her.
“Hey,” he says, drawing out the word as he looks her up and down.
She nods, neutral, and takes a sip of the drink. He’s so far from her type that it’s not even funny, but she’s hoping he’ll leave her alone if she’s aloof enough.
“Got a name?” His voice wavers enough to indicate he’s a little drunk.
“Kirk. Excuse me.” She turns back to the bar and pulls out her PADD, trying to look otherwise occupied. The guy grabs her shoulder and turns her toward him again, though, forcefully. She pushes his hand away.
“Got a first name, Kirk?”
“Nope.”
“Playing hard to get, huh?”
“Not interested in being gotten.”
He frowns. “I’m Starfleet.”
“I’m not interested.”
“I paid for that drink.”
Jaime takes a deep breath. “I’m not interested,” she repeats.
“Baby, don’t be that way.” He looks like he’s not going to take no for an answer, so she stands and takes a step for the door.
When he grabs her by the waist, it’s pure instinct to turn and smash the base of her hand into the bottom of his nose. She wipes the blood off of her hand onto her jeans and is ready to walk away when the guy swings a fist at her head. She catches his hand, cringes at the impact, and then twists his arm until he cries out. There’s a crowd forming by now, mostly the other Starfleet guys, so she decides to end the fight. She swiftly breaks the guy’s arm and pushes him to the ground.
“I’m not interested, cupcake. Good effort, though.”
She’s not prepared for one of the other guys to grab her from behind, though, and his fist connects squarely with her jaw. She’s had worse, but it still hurts like a bitch, especially when he grabs her by the collar and throws her down on a table, hits her again and again in the face. The only girl in the Starfleet group is shouting for them to stop, but nobody listens.
“So much for not hitting girls.” Smirking hurts, and blood gets in her mouth when she speaks, but she’s not backing down. She’s about to kick him in the nuts, because he’s positioned perfectly, but someone whistles from the doorway.
“Outside. All of you. Now,” a man Jaime recognizes as Christopher Pike says. The cadets all clear out, silent. “You all right, kid?”
She hates it when people talk to her about her dad. She hates it when people talk about her potential.
But she’s tired of Riverside. She’s tired of barfights and boys who can’t keep up with her.
And Jaime doesn’t back down from a challenge.
The next morning, she throws her keys at some guy. “Four years?” She smirks at Pike. “I’ll do it in three.”
Leonard McCoy is hot as hell, in that rugged, potentially homeless kind of way. He also smells like whiskey and salt water, and somehow, right then, she falls in love with him a little bit.
She ends up rooming with the one girl who had been at the bar, Nyota Uhura.
“While I respect your ability to take care of yourself,” Uhura announces on their first day together, “I’m not looking for trouble here. I don’t care what you do, just don’t get me involved in it.”
Halfway through the first week, she sneaks over to where Leonard – Bones, now – lives, and sets up a cot in his room. He gets back from class as she’s tacking up a poster.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She flops down on her bed and beams up at him. “You have a room to yourself, and I have a roommate who hates me. As my best friend, you have to let me move in.”
“Kid – ” Bones starts, but Jaime cuts him off.
“Please?”
He rolls his eyes, but he lets her stay.
“For the love of god, Jaime, put on some pants.”
Jaime glances down. “I’m wearing boxers!”
Bones shoots her a look. “Whose boxers?”
“Don’t know his name.”
“You’ll be the death of me,” he grumbles.
Jaime gets a reputation within the first few weeks. It’s not as bad as the one she had in Riverside, but everyone at the Academy already seems to know who she is, thanks to her parentage, and they all seem to think she’s a slut and a troublemaker.
She holds her head high when she walks through the halls, and gradually her test scores get her reputation to shift to something else.
Genius, they’re calling her now.
She doesn’t object.
Jaime throws her bag on the floor and collapses onto her bed. “Bones, it’s 2256. Why is sexism still so fucking rampant?”
“What now?”
“There are twenty-six girls on the command track in my year. Twenty-six, Bones. Out of two hundred.” She runs a hand through her hair.
Bones hums in agreement. “You’ll show ‘em, kid,” he says calmly, mostly ignoring her in favor of his book, instead of being appropriately outraged.
“You’re damn right I will.”
And she does.
“Let me get this straight,” Bones says slowly. “You’re taking the Kobiyashi Maru again?”
“I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.” Jaime shrugs and grins up at the sky. It’s gorgeous out, her Starfleet uniform too warm for the day. So she pulls off her top, leaving on just the tank top underneath and her red skirt.
Bones scowls. “Dammit, Jaime, keep your clothes on. And stop saying that.”
“Just repping the Kirk legacy.” She laughs, because it’s one of those days where nothing’s going to get her down. Someone drapes an arm over her shoulder, so she glances up. It’s her sometimes-boyfriend, Will, so she just leans into him and keeps talking. “Come on, Bones, you definitely want to be there.”
“Jaime, I’m a doctor. I have other things to do.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that nobody’s ever passed? Anyway, be there, be square, et cetera. I’ve gotta go study.” She grabs Will by the hand and tugs him toward the dorms.
“Study, my ass,” Bones calls as she walks away.
Jaime lounges in the captain’s chair as Uhura announces that they’ve received a distress signal from the Kobiyashi Maru. She bites into her apple and kicks the test’s ass. She feels like a queen.
“Cadet Kirk, evidence has been submitted to this council, suggesting that you violated the ethical code of conduct pursuant to Regulation One-Seven point three of the Starfleet code. Is there anything you care to say before we begin, young lady?”
Jaime chafes under the phrase young lady, but lets it slide in favor of more important matters. “Yeah, actually. I believe I have the right to face my accuser directly.”
And fuck, he’s really hot, totally rocking his black uniform. Jaime hates him on principle, even before he opens his mouth and starts talking about her father.
“I don’t think you like the fact that I beat your test,” she counters. She’s been taught that Vulcans don’t usually show emotion, but something between fury and disdain crosses Spock’s face for just a moment. Good, she thinks. She’s glad the dislike is mutual.
“Who was that pointy-eared bastard?” Jaime asks Bones after they’ve been dismissed, thanks to a distress call from Vulcan. (Which also means she’s totally going to see some action, get on a real ship.)
“I don’t know, but I like him,” Bones replies.
“Booones,” Jaime whines, resting her head on his shoulder.
He pushes her off. “Nope. I know that voice. I am not helping you get on a ship.”
“Please?”
“You suck so bad,” she groans as he tugs her onto a shuttle. “I hate you.”
“Shut up, kid, you’re getting on the ship, thanks to me.”
“I can’t see out of my left eye, Bones.”
“Come on.” He gets her settled in a seat and buckles her in.
“I might throw up on you,” she mumbles.
“What appeared to be a lightning storm in space,” the kid on the screen is saying when Jaime wakes up in the sickbay. She swears, loudly, and starts running.
“We’re warping into a trap, sir. The Romulans are waiting for us, I promise you that.”
“The cadet’s logic is sound,” Spock says, and Jaime’s jaw drops for a moment. But her logic is sounds, and she’s ultimately right.
The shit that goes down after that isn’t pretty.