#meme prattle

Honestly, realizing part would have to be epistolary (K/S + nerd4nerd + epistolary romance in SPAAAAACE) was a significant selling point for me to myself. It's one of my favorite tropes!

Also, this isn't a "and then nothing much really changed, this just goes on in the background" quasi-AU, though; it definitely has consequences. Like, Kirk still torches his maybe-not-exactly-best-friend-but-still-friend's career for missing a switch that could have been dangerous and obeys regulations requiring him to report, rather than sticking to the bro code and covering for Finney, and as a result Kirk is subtly ostracized to an extent that he still doesn't fully recognize.

McCoy just hoped Jim hadn't been injured or caught something while the rest of them, and Starfleet, all got their heads screwed on right. Himself not excluded.

Ideally Starfleet wanted a consult with McCoy as Jim's personal doctor to confirm his identity, nothing more—maybe a more complex psych eval or something of that kind, performed by the same professional who'd done Jim's other ones for years now.

But even if that was all, what could he—or anyone—do about this whole disaster now, with Jim's real body undoubtedly long gone? Probably on its way out of the quadrant at this point.

McCoy hit Received and left it at that. He heard nothing else for days, until the Enterprise's thankfully uneventful voyage to Vulcan was nearly over. He guessed they had only about an hour left when an urgent message buzzed right in his office, not on one of his secured PADDs, but his private terminal.

McCoy sighed. But it was what it was. He sealed off his office and immediately sat down to the terminal, seeing no point in prettying himself up for the brass the way Jim or even Spock, in his own way, might have.

"McCoy here," he said.

Grey static flickered on the screen, coalescing into the slightly fuzzy but entirely recognizable image of Admiral Jilani. McCoy hadn't seen him since they gave Jim the Enterprise.

"Dr. McCoy," Jilani said briskly. "The VSA has some questions we'd like you and Commander Scott to answer as honestly as possible. They've been treating a former patient of yours and would like a more expert third opinion, as well. You'll find all the consent forms, et cetera, have been properly filed."

Jilani's face, as usual, gave nothing away. McCoy leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.

"Am I allowed to know anything about this former patient before I see him?" he asked. "Unless there'd be some breach of privacy? If I've already treated—"

"She's a human woman," Jilani said smoothly, his dark eyes fixed on the screen so intensely that even the bits of static and fuzz seemed hardly to diminish it. "And a Starfleet officer in good standing, though on medical leave at the moment—hence our interest. I don't want to prejudice your judgment, doctor, so I'll just say that the provisional records they were willing to share list her as Joy K."

Joy? he thought blankly, but of course, it made sense that Jim would have had to use a pseudonym while lying low and trapped in a woman's body. He'd probably chosen whatever woman's name popped into his head the first time he had to lie, something with the J and short beat of Jim. Jane might have been better, but after everything Janice Lester had done, and frankly Jan Wallace in her way, he might well have been avoiding the Jan- names.

"I see," said McCoy, but only after the words left his mouth did he really see.

Wait. Joy K. Joy Kirk. Of-fucking-course. Jim would absolutely choose his fake girly name as a damn joke.

Nearly two years ago, Jim had insisted he was that godawful murder robot Nomad's mother because Nomad confused him for its creator— Roykirk. Roykirk had been a man, and Nomad didn't even know what a woman was, much less a mother—but Jim hadn't let little details like that get in the way of what he'd already decided had to be true. He would find it fucking hilarious to get as close to his supposed maternal name as he could, while stuck in a body with a goddamn uterus and Fallopian tubes.

It only hit him then that Jim must have menstruated during all this. He'd been gone multiple months, and Lester had only been thirty-four. Jesus.

"Your obligations will be clearer once you arrive," Jilani was saying. "We'd like to stay on good terms with the VSA in all this, however. Some ... ill-advised use of an unauthorized and unknown technology affected the patient's current condition, and the technology in question is currently being studied under their auspices, so good communication and collaboration is a priority unless you receive orders to the contrary. I trust we're understood in this?"

"Absolutely, sir," said McCoy.

Good terms his ass, if Jim's welfare was at stake. He was already thinking of potential surgical interventions. At the very least he could give him a hysterectomy.

"Good. Starfleet out," said Jilani, and the terminal went black.

-

"I'm sorry," said Dr. Disii crisply. "As I mentioned before, the nearest starbase had received a clear authenticated message from Tarsus IV about a catastrophic accident in the labs killing the entire Starfleet science team on the colony, including your father. There seemed to be some problem with the electrical infrastructure that was already under repair, but all communications in or out went down almost immediately thereafter."

"That's not unusual," Sam said, his voice almost steady, though his quick breaths weren't. "My family's been out there for five years. The communication system is rudimentary at best, without amplification from starships or improvements to the facilities. Subspace calls from my parents or my sister go down all the time."

"We're aware," said Dr. Disii, with what Aurelan guessed was unusual patience for him. "We certainly didn't have any starships anywhere remotely nearby, though we sent what could be spared to investigate the catastrophe. However, just five days ago, someone on the colony—we don't know who—transmitted another message across all subspace bands. That choice limited the distance of reception, but did allow for it to be almost immediately picked up by any ship in the vicinity. Fortunately, a small merchant vessel was just near enough to receive the transmission, though they lacked the resources to unscramble it. We only just managed to wholly interpret it today."

Sam leaned forward, his eyes very bright and his hands curling. "Did it explain what happened?"

Aurelan risked adding, "And why was it scrambled?"

Disii inclined his head towards her. "The scrambling, at least, seems just a matter of poor equipment and a rushed transmission. And I'm afraid it doesn't exactly resolve the mystery of what happened in the laboratories, but Starfleet feels the families of those on Tarsus IV still have the right to know."

"To know what?" Sam demanded. Aurelan's mouth was dry, though she had no idea what to expect.

Disii's antennae wilted a bit as he met Sam's eyes across the table.

"There's been a famine, Dr. Kirk," he said. "According to the message we de-coded, it struck very quickly, very unexpectedly."

Aurelan caught a gasp behind her teeth, instead reaching out to lay her hand over Sam's. He was just staring at Disii, though his fingers curled around hers.

"Some kind of fungus got into the food," Disii went on, "the agriculture, everything as far as we can tell. Almost all functional equipment on the colony had been seized by Governor Kodos's administration, it seems to use to provide rations for as long as possible. Some rudimentary matter conversion, perhaps. The transmission was impossible to make out in some spots. But the fundamentals seemed clear enough. They were begging the Federation for relief."

Sam seemed to only hear half of it. "What do you mean, famine on a Federation colony? Fungus? I—I don't—I'm sorry, sir, I don't mean—it's just, my mother and sister are there. My mother's Ona Dunayevskaya, she's a Starfleet engineer, a lieutenant. She'd be helping lead anything they needed to do with the equipment to keep everyone alive as long as possible." His voice cracked like a boy's. "And my sister—she's just a kid."

"I'm very sorry," said Dr. Disii.

"Sir," Aurelan said, "we are going to send relief, aren't we? The Federation, that is?"

"Or how young," she added.

"She's eighteen or nineteen," said Corrigan, with a sympathetic look that had alert sirens all but going off in her head. He wasn't like Renaud, smoothly pleasant but inclined towards a touch of exaggeration and carelessness; though younger, he was stolid and steady. "She's set to graduate with my cohort, though, for some reason—that's how I know. I didn't even know you could do it in two and a half years."

"Must be a bright girl," Marina said flatly, her eyes fixed on the tram zooming into the station above their heads. Thank God. Corrigan's kindness somehow felt worse than the betrayal itself; in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to escape it as the highest speeds possible.

Even worse, though: when she stopped pretending not to see what was in front of her eyes, Marina didn't find it that difficult to imagine Ben straying. She would have thought he'd choose someone older, maybe, with more life experience and less burning drive. But the fact of the matter was that Marina didn't know what about this girl appealed to him, knew hardly anything about her at all.

She wasn't proud of what she did next. She was already deciding on how she'd track down this blonde cadet while still in the tram, her fingers clenched. Ben—Marina and Ben would have to talk it over, of course. But they'd been married for years, he'd always been faithful before. Probably. They had a life. They could figure it out like civilized adults. She just needed to have a little chat with Jessica Kirk.

Starfleet Academy was, technically, open to the public. Plenty of people who weren't themselves affiliated with the Academy strolled through its parks, even requested the use of its research laboratories, library databases, and other facilities. There was no reason she couldn't go walking around if she wanted, chat with some cadets in their free time.

The next day, an hour after Ben left to teach his first class, Marina made her way to the Academy, a simple but clear plan in mind. She'd looked up Kirk's records, of course—in the middle of the previous night, while Ben was deeply asleep.

Full name: Kirk, Jessica Theodora Service rank: cadet (midshipman), year 2 Age: 18 | DOB: 03/22/2233 Place of birth: Riverside, Arizona, United States of America, North America, Earth Place of residence: Science Base Alpha, Juturna III Species: Human Height: 166 cm Weight: 61 kg Hair color: Blonde Eye color: Hazel Complexion: Light Conditions or allergies: none Next of kin: Dr. George S. Kirk (service rank: lieutenant), brother (2223-)

Track: Science Credit hours: 70 completed or in progress Achievement class: first, with honors (in progress) Specialization: Psychology (clinical) Practically nineteen, with a March birthday, Marina had thought for a moment, then crushed the desperate reach for what it was. Ben was turning thirty-five, what did it matter if he'd been swept off his feet by a girl closer to eighteen or nineteen? The little photograph of her face was too small and grainy to tell Marina much; it looked generically pretty, she supposed, which might be sufficient if he was so unhappy that—

But Kirk's age, reinforced by what even in the dull quality of the photograph looked like a soft, dainty, girlish face (nothing like Marina's had ever been) wasn't the worst thing. In her heart of hearts, Marina had held out hope that there might be some genuine difficulty Ben would be particularly equipped to help his protégée with. Kirk was science track; in some particularly technical field Ben could be just the person to help her get access to specialized equipment, figure out some elaborate engineering issues, get approved for all those extra credits she was obviously taking, get special admission to fourth- and fifth-year programming courses.

Psychology.

Marina's fingers, already clenched around the PADD, had felt cold. Clinical psychology, even worse. Ben didn't know anything about the social sciences, had hardly even cared to listen to Marina herself talking about her xenosociology research. It wasn't—it couldn't be—

She'd cleared the PADD's history and barely slept more than an hour or two. Her hazy plans to track down Kirk herself and confront her settled throughout the night.

The next day, at the Academy, Marina showed up at the information desk and rattled off the lie she'd made up: a student of her husband's had left a book in his classroom late in the previous semester, and he kept forgetting to return it to her, as busy as he often was. But Marina, during her pregnancy, had developed a habit of visiting the Academy to eat lunch in the park, so he'd asked her to deliver it to Miss Kirk directly.

"It seemed to be a bit of a ... sentimental possession," Marina said awkwardly, "so he didn't want me to just leave it around. I promised I'd put it into her hands myself." She gave a nervous laugh. "I only realized when I got here that I wasn't sure how to find her, since she's moved beyond his class now."

The man at the desk, a thus-far courteous Andorian, hummed under his breath.

"Who is your husband, ma'am?" he said, not sounding terribly suspicious. She guessed that pregnant human women didn't ordinarily show up to present much reason for it.

"Benjamin Finney," said Marina.

He tapped the sloping keyboard under his fingers, peering at a large grey terminal that blocked about a quarter of his face from ehr vision. "And the cadet?—Pardon, would you like a chair?"

"No, no," she said, with a light, strained laugh. "Not unless you expect this to take a long time, of course. Her name is Jessica Kirk. She's a second-year now, a midshipman."

Marina had wagered that Starfleet's principle of keeping records as open and public as possible would do the rest of the work for her. But you never know, really, just how far they'd live up to something like that versus every other consideration.

He squinted at the screen. "All right. Yes, it looks like she passed his course last semester, and she's still here. Damn, no idea how she got that schedule approved, that's insane! Uh, sorry, ma'am. Anyway, she should have just left Commander Zellen's course in advanced comparative literature, that's"—he tapped a few more buttons—"in the Dairon Center for the Arts, just the next building over. You're lucky, she's got an hour between that and theatre arts. I doubt you'll be able to catch up with her, but Zellen might know where she goes after his class, or who you might ask. I can give you his office number, but I'm afraid that's the best I can do."

Marina smiled, carefully restraining the curve of her mouth enough to keep her teeth mostly concealed.

"You've been very helpful," she said, honestly enough.

His expression didn't much change, but the blue-green stalks rising out of his silvery hair twitched. "Thank you. I am pleased to have performed my duty efficiently."

Making her way to Commander Zellen's office devoured another valuable ten minutes, but proved worth it. He was a human man, a greying, elderly instructor from Germany.

"Kirk?" he said, with a quick glance at Marina's slightly curved stomach. This time she did accept the offered chair. "Yes, yes, she's a student of mine. Very bright, very well-read—especially for a girl of that age. Many have their minds on other things in the first few years." He barked a short laugh from behind his much more cheerful desk, a reddish-brown wood carved in the style of some relic of the past. Or perhaps, like its owner, it was an actual relic of the past; either way, it included only a few traces of metal about its elaborately covered drawers and legs. "A pity she's set on space work rather than the space of the mind, if you understand."

One morning in the thick of all this, he glanced away from the mirror in the upstairs bathroom they shared, where he was styling his hair at six in the morning. That was well before Jess usually woke up—so he nearly jumped out of his skin when he caught something in the corner of his eye and spin around to see her standing in the doorway, her arms wrapped around a ludicrously thick, old-fashioned book, and her eyes huge.

Sam choked down the expletives that sprang to mind, which both Kirk and the aunts had taken up lecturing him about (Jess could keep a secret but didn't always choose to). Instead, the sound that sputtered out of his mouth was more of a squeak. A manful squeak.

"Jess, what are you doing there?" he demanded. "I'm in the bathroom!"

She looked aggrieved as only a younger sibling could be—he felt sure of it. Their great-grandfather had probably stared up at Aunt Joy the same way a hundred years ago in Bukovina.

"The door was open!" she insisted.

You'd think the fact that his own eyes were the same shape and color as hers would give him some defense against her blinking at him like a tragically abandoned kitten. It did not.

Sam sighed. "It's six o'clock in the morning. What do you need? Do you have a headache?"

"No," she said unconvincingly. "And it's six oh four."

He turned back to the mirror and returned to combing pomade through his hair, since it always took a good vat of it to tame his hair enough to last the whole day, and it might take him a good ten minutes to extract anything useful from her. Might as well get started.

"Right," he said. "And?"

In the corner of his eye, Jess fidgeted.

"Jess." Sam leaned forwards, tongue between his teeth as he combed his hair into a neat side part. "Is it about that book? Do you need help with the vocab or something?"

"No-o," said Jess.

"What even is it?" Sam asked. "I've never seen you read something in paperback when you could do it on your PADD."

"I can't read it on my PADD," she said.

He tilted his head to the side, trying to decide if the left part he'd tried would be more flattering than the right. Sophie Deneuve's last boyfriend had always straightened his hair from the left—but then, she'd broken up with him twice, the only reason Sam might have a chance with her, so maybe—

"Where'd you even get something that old?" he asked Jess.

"Aunt Joy," she said, more brightly. "It was the dictionary she got when they first moved here, the one she gave to Grandma Jessie to help her learn French. Aunt Joy said she'd have given it to Mom after Grandma died, but Mom doesn't really care about that kind of thing, and besides, she picked up English and French so fast she never needed it. So Aunt Joy says it should be mine now."

"And what am I?" said Sam lightly. "Burned chicken?"

"She said your brother won't be interested, either. He's just like Ona," Jess repeated, her voice shifting to Aunt Joy's creaky, disapproving tones with so little warning that he grimaced.

"Wow. Thanks," said Sam. He'd only paid about three-quarters attention to the conversation, but after settling on the left part and twirling the ends of his hair over the right side of his face, he re-played the whole thing in his head.

Frowning, he set down the comb and looked down at her. Jess hadn't moved from her spot in the doorway, though she was tapping her toes.