Title: A Walk Among Roses
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk
Disclaimer: This is written for fun, not profit.
Summary: Jim meets a strange woman in his dreams.

Jimmy. Jimmy.

Roseheads bob in the wind, acknowledging the young boy sprinting by. He does not pause to return the greeting. The farm is still a ways to go and he is more worried about the scolding to come than a patch of rose bushes with tiny dying leaves. He shortcuts between two of those bushes and thorns prick at his bare arms in dismay, attempting to delay him, bu he pays little heed and keeps on running.

Decades later…

“Captain, look at this!”

Hearing no warning or distress in Lieutenant Sulu’s voice, Kirk reluctantly pulls his hand from the phaser clipped to his belt. He strides toward the crouched man.

When the Captain’s shadow falls over Sulu, he looks up, eyes happy. “Isn’t she a rare beauty?” he asks.

Jim contemplates the flowers of the plant for a moment. “A rose bush?”

“No, sir. Not quite a rose bush.” Sulu goes into exact detail as to why it isn’t what it looks like.

Jim listens attentively, understanding in general only half of the explanation, but he senses well enough Sulu is fascinated with this new discovery. He says, “If you don’t think removing it will harm the wildlife, then send it up with the other samples.”

“Yes, sir!” Sulu is beaming from ear-to-ear as he returns to the plant and inspects it further with gentle hands.

Sometimes it takes very little to make a person happy, Jim thinks. He wants his crew to have every opportunity at happiness they can, when they can, because he knows (as he is certain they know as well) there will be twice as many joy-stealing moments due to the perils of space exploration.

As Kirk turns away, Sulu croons to the not-quite rose bush, “I have a nice garden for you to live in. Would you like that, Rose?”

At least Rose is a better—and more apt—name than Gertrude. Jim shudders. Whenever he takes a stroll through the Enterprise’s botanical gardens, he has the unpleasant feeling Gertrude is watching him, waiting no doubt for the Captain to stick his fingers close to its pink hungry maw.

Sentient plants Jim does not understand, and he will gladly leave them to Sulu’s expertise.

On the eve the Enterprise enters a new solar system, Jim has a vivid dream. There is a young dark-haired woman perched at the foot of his bed. Her face is beautiful, her eyes kind, and full mouth a soft red. Jim asks her, “Who are you?” and she smiles sweetly. He cannot bring himself to feel alarm. He knows then that he is not truly awake so he relaxes back into his pillow and returns her smile with a small quirk of his own mouth.

She continues to watch him.

Jim’s limbs grow heavy, even in the dream, and he murmurs, “Will I see you again?”

Her voice is not a voice at all but a sigh of wind. “I am alone,” she sighs. “Won’t you visit me, Captain?”

His eyebrows knit together in a frown. When Jim opens his eyes (had he closed them? he cannot remember) he is alone in his quarters. He sits up. It is some minutes before Jim is convinced he is no longer dreaming.

Sulu’s focus wanders more than once during Bridge duty one day and Jim is forced to call him on it. The man flushes, hunches over his console, and worry pricks at Jim. He never has to remind Sulu to remain alert—not until today, that is. When alpha shift ends, he catches up to the man outside of the mess hall. Sulu is quick to apologize for being distracted, perhaps thinking that Jim is still lingering over the issue, but Jim places a hand on his shoulder. “Is something troubling you, Lieutenant?” he asks, not unkindly.

Sulu relaxes minutely then looks pensive. “It’s Rose, sir. She isn’t doing well. I-I fear I made a mistake in bringing her aboard.”

Jim needs a short minute to remember who Rose is. “Sulu…” he begins, uncertain of what might comfort a man who has a deep affection for each and every plant life under his care. To Sulu, those plants are practically his children. Jim cannot carelessly dismiss them. “You will find a way,” he encourages instead. “Mr. Spock commends your botany work as equal to your knowledge of astroscience.”

The man flushes again, this time with pleasure rather than shame. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Thank Mr. Spock,” Jim says in a genial manner.

“I will.”

Jim steps back, more at ease since there seems to be no potential problem with his best helmsman. As Sulu goes his own way, Kirk’s thoughts turn toward a scheduled appointment he has in Sickbay; on the heels of that thought is a sudden, urgent need to loiter in the Engineering. On his trek to the nearest turbolift a wall comm buzzes to life with Uhura’s melodious call of “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

He answers immediately. “Kirk here.”

But McCoy’s voice booms out of the speaker in the next instant. “Jim, where in tarnations are you!”
Caught, Jim can only reply “On my way to Sickbay, Bones.”

He doesn’t like it when Uhura and McCoy trick him. Still, thinks the Captain of the Enterprise as he directs the lift to the medical bay, at least someone on board gives the crew cause to practice their teamwork.

She is older in the second dream but no less beautiful. Her eyes are sad. “Captain,” she sighs again, “won’t you visit me?”

“Aren’t we visiting now?” he asks in return, bemused.

She looks away, sways like there is a breeze. She seems paper-thin, delicate. Ready to crumble.

Jim pushes himself into an upright position. When he reaches for the woman, she whispers, “Come visit me, Jimmy” and disappears.

He opens his eyes, finds himself sitting up in bed with an echo of his childhood name in his ears.

“…have refined a set of parameters for Requistions’ quarterly inventory audit…”

Kirk is only half listening to Mr. Spock, not that this is due to any fault of the Vulcan’s. He makes a left at a corridor junction, and Spock walks alongside him in perfect sync, allowing the Captain to set both the pace and direction.

Jim pinches the bridge of his nose.

Pausing in a concise yet still lengthy verbal report, the First Officer inquires “Captain?”

“It’s nothing,” he begins to say, “…or maybe not… Have you ever had a dream that felt so real, you were certain you weren’t dreaming even though it was a dream,” he finishes somewhat shyly, fearing he has phrased a question badly for a too-logical mind.

Spock surprises him. “I have read the significance of a dream is generally based on an underlying desire or inner turmoil. Can you pinpoint what it was about the dream which seemed real to you?”

“A woman,” he answers without thinking.

Spock lifts an eyebrow.

Jim chuckles. “Nothing of the romantic sort, Spock. She is a stranger, no one I have ever met—” He rarely forgets a face. “—but when she looks at me, I feel that she knows who I am.” In fact, she called him by a nickname only his closest family have ever used, and even then only used until he began insisting on the more grown-up sounding name of Jim. So long ago.

“If this person is a manifestation of your subconscious, Jim, it is only logical that she would know you well—perhaps better than you may know yourself.”

He understands that but… “And if she weren’t a manifesitation of my subconscious?”

“Indeed,” answers the Vulcan, “that is the more interesting of possibilities. The question would then be: what is she?”

A shiver wants to start at the base of his spine. Kirk suppresses it, turns to Mr. Spock with a renewed interest in the report, and asks, “What are those parameters you were speaking of?”

Spock tells him.

He thinks no more of an uncannily realistic dream—and a too-real woman.

Her hair has greyed at the temples, and the hollows under her cheekbones are more pronounced. “Please, Jimmy,” she half-begs, sighing long and low, “come visit me. I am so lonely.”

“Tell me who you are and I will,” he urges.

She answers in a single word but the word is so soft and soundless that it disappears as a phantom might when he wakes up.

Kirk hears a conversation between Sulu and a woman in science blues as he approaches the pair. Sulu is saying, “Could you put her in stasis until I find time to drop by?”

“Of course,” the woman replies with sympathy in her face. “Bring her by the lab, Hikaru.”

Upon noticing the worried pinch at the corners of Sulu’s eyes, Jim cannot prevent himself from interrupting to ask, “Can I help?”

“Rose is doing poorly,” Jim is told. The woman then blushes, undoubtedly realizing Captain Kirk might not know who Rose is. “We are hoping we can save Mr. Sulu’s plant,” she clarifies.

He is hard-pressed to recall what Rose looks like other than his initial impression that it was a common rose bush. “Which garden is she in?” he asks curiously.

“Deck four, the Western exhibit. I put her with the Earth varieties since the soil is a close match to her planet’s.” Sulu crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Maybe it’s an iron deficiency…”

Jim nods absently. He often prefers the Observation deck and the comfort of starlight when he needs a moment of peace so it has been a long time since he has taken a stroll through that particular garden, but it is his favorite.

Sulu and the scientist return to their conversation and Jim resumes his heading to the gymnasium.

En route to Starbase 6, they encounter the space amoeba. The ship spends several days recovering from the energy-drain of the entity and Jim, in particular, finds himself sleeping longer than usual. Bones says it is an expected after-effect of the repeat of stimulants administered into his body. By the doctor’s orders, he is to sleep as much as he wants, barring any unforeseen ship emergencies, and to relax. Jim is not very adept at relaxing, but he tries.

This is how he winds up in garden, tapping one of the resident ship botantists on the shoulder and hoping he doesn’t sound dumb as a brick when he asks her (as charmingly as he can manage), “Could you show me where Rose is please?”

She tilts her head not unlike the Enterprise’s First Officer and wants to know, “Rose, Captain?”

He clears his throat, embarrassed. “The… bush Mr. Sulu brought from the Zeta-eph system?” he asks hopefully.

“Oh! Rose. I’m sorry, sir,” she says with regret, “but we lost several plant species during the attack. Rose was in the conservatory, but she wasn’t adjusting to the climate as well as we had hoped. She was too weak…”

“I see,” he says. Poor Rose. The energy-drain had taken what little lifeforce she had left. He had counted his ship lucky to survive the attack without casualities. Except he hadn’t considered this kind of casuality at all. Jim thanks her and proceeds to venture forth into the gardens, this time with an eye for all the bare spots of earth. He reaches the center of the gardens, a blooming circle, and walks among the roses.

Some are as bright as ever, lovely shades of reds, oranges, pinks, and purples; some, dark-tinted and crumbling. Can those be saved? he wonders.

Such a shame about Sulu’s Rose, he thinks again. He hadn’t had the chance to look at her closely, to admire her as a rose should be admired, before she perished. He is surprised at this tinge of guilt. Thus Jim resolves to return and enjoy the gardens again, soon. Maybe he will propose the idea of picnic here. Bones is always complaining about the drab coloring of Sickbay.

The dream woman never returns and, in time, Jim forgets that she ever called to him.

Won’t you visit me?

Poor Rose, indeed.

-Fini

I never said my brain was like everybody else’s. This is strange, I know. >.>

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