Title: Lucky in Love on the Starship Enterprise (4/5)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Joanna McCoy visits her father while the Enterprise is docked near Earth. Her mission: to improve his love life.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3
Or read at AO3

It seems I am a liar. I honestly thought I could finish this story today but the ending wouldn’t come as quickly as I saw it in my head. So, that said, I decided to remove a few scenes and save them for the last part – and yes it will be the final one! We are close now, but let’s savor what we have (or cry over it) before we get to the official ending. :) Thank you for your patience.

Part Four

Joanna vetoes the sleeping bags because of their self-confining nature. When their alternative, the sleeping mats, are unrolled, she takes immediate possession of them.

“This is the important part,” she says as she puts each mat into position, “so pay attention.”

Of the three others present, Captain Jim is the one who nods, moving to the front of the group to watch closely.

“Jo, what’re you doing?”

Joanna ignores her father. “Sleepovers mean we sleep together.” She pushes two mats toward each other until their edges are flush. “See?”

Her father’s eyebrows come down. “I’ve never heard of that rule.”

“Together,” Jim repeats earnestly.

Joanna nods appreciatively at the only one who gets it (not the one who looks disbelieving or the one who looks confused) and then pushes the next mat into place up against the other two. “If we aren’t touching elbows, we aren’t close enough.”

“Jo.”

Joanna still ignores her father. “Sometimes, someone may roll over on you or use you as a pillow. That’s okay.”

“That’s okay?” Jim repeats, as if this is an especially good bit of news for him.

“Yes, Captain Jim. Now…” She shoves the fourth mat against the previous three and beams. “…let’s go to sleep! Daddy, you’re in the middle.”

Her father crosses his arms. “No way. There’s a bedroom, Jo. With a bed. Two of us will sleep on the bed and two of us can use the floor mats.” He cuts a sideways glance at the Vulcan next to him. “Or go back to our quarters.”

Joanna puts her foot down, literally, in a stomp. “Daddy, middle, NOW. Captain Jim—” She points to the left side. “—that end.”

Captain Jim is quick to obey. He’s on the mat and asleep in three seconds, mouth hanging open as he snores.

“Mr. Spock,” Joanna says more gently, “you’re on the other side of Daddy.” She leads the Vulcan by his arm to his assigned section. “I will be on the end next to you.”

“Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” her father butts in, his eyebrows unable to decide if they want to be up or down. “I’m not sleeping next to Spock!”

Joanna purses her mouth. “How rude.” She pats Mr. Spock’s arm. “Don’t mind him. He’s so excited that he can barely contain himself.”

The doctor sputters. “Like hel—I mean, like heck!”

“We’re all very excited,” Joanna goes on to say. “This is a momentous occasion for us all.”

“Momentous,” echoes Jim halfway through a snore.

Leonard pivots on the ball of his foot and stalks away to the opposite side of the cabin. Then he stalks back. He stops and stares at Joanna.

Having pushed Spock into a sitting position where he is supposed to be, Joanna crosses her arms and meets her father’s gaze without shrinking.

“I knew this sleepover was a bad idea,” he claims.

Her voice is unusually solicitous for a child’s. “Is there something wrong, Daddy? Is your finger bothering you?”

He stills in the act of twisting Granny McCoy’s ring on his smallest finger and reluctantly lowers his hands to his sides. “Nothing’s wrong…” A twitching muscle in his jaw gives him away. “Except this is not a normal sleepover, Joanna. Why is that?”

She smiles. “It could hardly be normal, Dad. Y’all are three times my age.”

Captain Jim wakes up with a cough-snort. “What? No, JoJo! I’m not that ancient!”

The girl sticks her tongue out at Jim. He blows a raspberry back at her, going so far as to cross his eyes too.

Leonard throws up his hands with the exasperated accusation, “Children, all of you!”

“I have a question.”

The humans turn as one to the inquiring Vulcan.

Spock blinks placidly. “Would we not be more comfortable with pillows?”

“Yes, Mr. Spock, thank you!”

Joanna takes the opportunity to escape to Captain Jim’s bedroom. She collects the two pillows from his bed with an exaggerated slowness.

As she had hoped, upon returning to the next room she finds that her father has been coaxed to his designated spot. He doesn’t look happy about it, but he’s there. She gathers the pillows off the couch too and passes all of them out.

“I don’t need one,” argues Captain Jim, “since you said I can use Bones as a pillow.”

“Just you try it, kid. I’ve got a knee and I know where to put it.”

“Aw, Bones, how cruel you are.”

Leonard glares a moment longer at Kirk before switching that glare to his other neighbor. “Keep to your side, Mr. Spock.”

“That should be a request I make of you, Dr. McCoy. I have been informed that you have restless limbs.”

“Who said that!”

Jim not-so-subtly rolls to his opposite side and pretends to be dead-set on going back to sleep. Joanna’s father grips his pillow in his hands like he is thinking of using it to smother somebody.

Quite satisfied, Joanna stretches out next to Mr. Spock and arranges her pillow just how she likes it. Someone had retrieved her blanket from earlier on in the evening and placed it on her mat. Spock waits until she is settled before he tucks it around her. She folds her hands across her chest as she has always imagined that a Vulcan would in repose and closes her eyes to think peaceful thoughts.

It is a few long minutes until the others (namely her father) follow suit.

Captain Jim commands, “Computer, lights ten percent.”

The silence is hushed enough to be tense at first but gradually it too settles into something more hospitable. Joanna begins a count in her head, waiting for the right moment to ensure the success of her plan.

~~~

The right moment doesn’t come before Joanna drifts off to sleep. She wakes up with an urge to use the bathroom and quietly picks her way across the dark cabin. The chronometer in the bedroom says she has been asleep for over three hours. To her relief, the bed remains unoccupied. When she returns to the outer room, she doesn’t lie back down and instead chooses to observe how the others have fared. Captain Jim still has his back to her father, but his breaths come at regular intervals.

Even with his eyes closed, her father wears a deep frown and maintains a strangle hold on his pillow. He looks far from comfortable. She has a moment of guilt, because at least he would be resting easier if she agreed to sleep next to him.

But that would defeat the purpose of her plan—well, as much of her plan as she can enact. It doesn’t look like she will be able to arrange any of their limbs around each other.

With that thought, she turns to Mr. Spock, who is still awake. The dim lighting overhead is just enough for Joanna to see him blink every so often.

No doubt sensing her attention, he turns his head just slightly in her direction. With a voice modulated to a fraction of its normal strength, he remarks, “You are not sufficiently rested.”

“I had to use the bathroom,” she whispers back.

“Understandable… but now you must resume your sleep.”

“I wanted to see if Daddy was snoring.”

“If this is his habit, it is fortunate that we have not yet had to endure it.”

“Maybe he hasn’t been sleeping long enough.”

“One hour, twelve minutes, and thirty-three seconds have passed since he fell asleep.”

Joanna is pleased that Mr. Spock is keeping track. She pretends to look him over. “Are you are comfortable?”

“I am not uncomfortable.”

“Okay.” The girl pauses. “Do you want to go back to your room?”

“I was under the impression that you wished for me to stay in this position.”

Joanna stays quiet for a few seconds, until something inside her says it is okay to be honest with Mr. Spock. However, she takes the time to phrase her explanation carefully.

“It is logical that you should be close to my father if you wish to remain close to me.”

The Vulcan’s gaze never wavers. “You are not near your father.”

Joanna continues on solemnly, “It is logical for you to be close to Captain Jim if you wish to remain close to me.”

Spock’s head turns in Jim’s direction despite that he is likely to know the exact distance that separates them. When his gaze returns to her, he says, “You offer a proposal, yet the exact nature of it eludes me.”

“Well maybe since you aren’t sleepy, Mr. Spock, you can meditate on what I might mean.” Joanna lays down again, switching from an enigma to a sleepy child with a single yawn.

“See you in the morning,” she concludes.

“Very well.”

This time her mind is completely at peace when she falls asleep.

~~~

“JoJo.”

Joanna is warm. She has no desire to respond to the call of her name.

But the voice is insistent.

“JoJo-Bear.”

The girl pulls her blanket over her head.

“Fascinating.”

“Any luck with Bones?”

“He seems to be in the same state.”

Joanna hears the slur of her father’s voice, muffled by a pillow as he complains, “Go away.“

“Yeah,” she echoes grumpily, “go away!”

There is a heartbeat of silence, then, “Wait, Spock, they didn’t mean that literally!”

Joanna flings back her covers and sits up. Leonard has done the same.

Mr. Spock is standing by their mats, unperturbed, his hands held behind his back. He is not, it seems, intent on leaving the room at all. Captain Jim is a big, fat liar.

Both McCoys glare at him.

Jim lifts Joanna’s padd. “Say ‘Jim is the best!‘” He snaps a picture of their surprised faces.

It takes a moment for what he has done to dawn on them but when it does, Joanna’s father surges off his mat with a snarl. His pillow catches Jim upside the head.

“Save my evidence of Bones’ bed head!” Jim cries as the padd falls out of his hands.

Spock, nimble as always, catches the device in midair and cradles it behind his back where it is out of danger from the scuffle. He then proceeds to take a long step sideways as Leonard tries to beat Jim to death with a pillow in each hand.

Joanna gets comfy-cozy under her blanket again and closes her eyes.

The sound of Captain Jim and her father locked in battle lulls her back to sleep. She is hardly aware of Mr. Spock adding her father’s blanket to hers so that she might return to slumber faster.

~~~

Breakfast is a lonely affair with Leonard desperately wanting his own bathroom and a fresh set of clothes and Joanna refusing to leave the captain’s quarters. Jim argues on her behalf, saying that she can stay with him forever. She is appreciative of his dramatic flair.

Her father is forced to leave her behind. Mr. Spock accompanies him into the corridor.

Joanna, having polished off a pair of waffles while lounging on Captain Jim’s bed, props up her chin on her fists and takes stock of her surroundings. Captain Jim owns very few trinkets, as her father has a habit of calling objects of sentiment, but the man does have an impressive set of old paperback books. She climbs off the bed and pulls one from the shelf. It’s called A Tale of Two Cities. She has never read it.

Jim comes out of his bathroom, washed and freshly dressed. He drapes the towel he has been using to dry his hair over her head.

“Ew,” she says in disgust, “Captain Germs,” shaking the offending thing off.

Jim takes the paperback from her and turns it over in his hand. A moment later, he offers it back with “You would like it.”

Joanna tucks the book under her arm for safe-keeping.

They look at each other for a long minute.

Then Captain Jim says, “Can I ask you a question?”

Joanna nods.

He squats down slightly to her eye level. “Joanna, who do you want me to be closest to? Bones or Spock?”

She is a little surprised by the directness of the question. She starts to tell him both, silly out of an attempt to act playful but doesn’t when she recognizes that his inquiry is a serious one.

It is more appropriate, then, to ask back, “Who do you want to be closest to?”

Jim’s gaze skips away, skirts his shelf of books and other areas of the room. For once he looks uncertain, as if he has had this debate with himself often.

“…Both?” the man answers slowly.

It’s like having a veil lifted from a scene so that one can finally see what is taking place.

“Your symptoms…” Joanna says, “I couldn’t tell if you had any. You hid them really well, Captain Jim.”

“Yeah. You could say I’ve been sick for a long time.”

Nothing more is said because nothing more needs to be said. Jim straightens, adopts his usual goofy air and ruffles her hair. Then he tucks his hands behind his back like a proper starship commander and wanders away to the next room.

Joanna decides then and there that Captain Jim must be helped. He is lonelier than her father.

~~~

Joanna returns to her father’s quarters with a question on her mind. She finds him sitting in a chair by his bedside with a small personal padd in his hands. Taking a look over his shoulder, she sees a picture from just the night before, one that she took when Captain Jim, Mr. Spock and her father were all staring at each other like they were in silent communication about something. Oddly enough, more than the silly photos, that is her favorite one.

“How’d you get that?” she wants to know.

“Spock… I mean, Mr. Spock just sent over the album.”

“Oh. He has my padd.”

“Looks like it.”

Joanna drops her chin to his shoulder and hugs him from behind. “…Dad?”

He clicks off the padd. “Is something on your mind?”

“Why’d you take back Granny McCoy’s ring?”

“Your mother didn’t think it was appropriate for her to keep it.”

“If you find somebody like Mama found Mr. Treadway, would you give it to that person?”

He pulls her around to face him. “No, Joanna.” He removes the ring and holds it out. “This is yours when you want it.”

That’s not the answer she wants from him. She closes his palm around the ring. “I think you should keep it… just in case.”

He snorts. “Listen, sweetheart, I don’t plan to marry again.”

She really doesn’t want to hear that. “But—”

“No ‘buts’. I know what I’m talking about. You’re still too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

Her disappointment sparks her temper. “You can’t say that! That’s not fair!”

“Jo…”

“No.” She pulls away from him. “Why do you want to be so miserable? You can’t just give up because—”

“Jo.“

“—you got divorced! What about Captain Jim and Mr. Sp—” She clams up too late.

Watching the shift in her father’s expression, she sees the moment he makes the connection.

The disbelief in his eyes is horrible.

Joanna can’t say anything, not even if she wanted to, for her father blurts out, “Jo, you think—no but how could you believe—My god!”

He starts to rise from his chair, simultaneously reaching for her. “Joanna, Jim and Spock are my friends. There’s a huge difference between—”

Her eyes burn. She can’t let him finish. “You’re wrong!”

“—friends and lovers. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

That apologetic tone is too much. “You’re wrong,” she repeats. “It’s you who doesn’t know anything! You love them!” she throws back at him.

With that final accusation, the girl flees.

~~~

“Mr. Scott?”

Mr. Scott’s automatic response is a fearful one. “You’re back?”

But when the man in question turns around and takes a good look at his visitor’s face, he knows something is wrong.

Joanna McCoy, looking like she is valiantly battling the urge to cry, says in a tiny voice, “Mr. Scott, I think I made an awful mistake.”

“Lass, what’s the matter?” Scotty crosses his workroom in three strides. “Are you hurt? What happened? Where’s your dad?”

As if the simple question is a conjuring trick, the wall comm unit comes alive with the doctor’s voice: “McCoy here. Scotty, is Joanna with you?“

The child backs up to the entrance upon hearing that, and the engineer has to think fast.

He lies, “No, sir, she’s not.”

Joanna hugs herself but thankfully stays where she is. Unfortunately, she looks so distraught that Scotty’s bad feeling increases tenfold.

“Scotty?“

“Have to talk to ye later, Doctor.” Scotty ends the call. “Lass, what can I do?”

The girl shakes her head. “I made a mistake,” she says again, “and now Captain Jim’s going to get hurt because of it. Possibly Mr. Spock too.”

Oh, not good. Not good at all. He opens his arms. “Why don’t you tell Uncle Scotty about it so he can fix it?”

“You can’t fix people, Mr. Scott.” A tear slides down her face. “How was I wrong?”

“Joanna,” he pleads, “you’ve got to stop talking in riddles and tell me what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she cries. “That’s what’s wrong!”

The girl leaves at a faster pace than he can keep up with.

“Oh crap,” he tells an empty corridor.

He looks down at the watch on his wrist. It’s nearly time. Hitting the nearest comm unit with the side of his fist, he doesn’t look forward to explaining to Dr. McCoy that he lied. But no child should be alone when so upset, and especially no child should be alone when a scheduled power outage prevents that child from being found.

~~~

Joanna likes the Jefferies Tubes because the structure is so diverse and confusing. It reminds her of an ant farm, tunnels of varying sizes running the gamut of the engineering decks, each made with purpose to reach all the nooks and crannies of the Enterprise.

Do the Tubes make the engineers feel like little ants? She used to wonder that.

At present, she wants to be one, an ant that is, small enough to disappear off the radar. A while ago, when she stole away into one of the main entry shafts, the emergency lights of the ship came on, giving her pause. Eventually she decided it was one of the re-fit outages Mr. Scott keeps her father apprised of and that nothing so routine should stop her flight. Now she notices that the ship itself is eerily quiet compared to what it normally sounds like, and that makes her shiver.

She definitely feels secluded, which is what she wanted but, on the other hand, now she also feels a little unsafe.

To combat this latter feeling, she climbs and crawls her way to the one of the smallest shafts she can find, perching there like it is a lookout. Once assured that no one is about or following her, she takes the time to inspect her knees, which ache badly. Lifting a pants leg reveals a kneecap to be red and sore to the touch. Now it makes sense why Mr. Scott harps on about wearing protective gear while on repair duty.

She rubs her throbbing knee and tries to think of a solution to the real problem at hand.

How could her father so easily dismiss her suspicions? Was he wrong, or was she?

He felt deeply for Captain Jim and Mr. Spock, but he claimed it wasn’t love. He treated them like family but not like brothers.

Mr. Scott said about lovesickness… Wanting to share the happy things and comfort through the bad.

His answer made no sense when they did that for each other! She was certain of it.

But, despite all the evidence, if she was truly wrong, then she had made herself look like a fool in front of her father. She had made herself seem desperate. Would he ever let her come back to the Enterprise if he thought she only wanted to meddle in his love life?

The thought of not coming back makes her want to cry more than anything. She wipes a few tears off her cheeks and hugs her knees.

Eventually she will have to go back.

But not just yet.

~~~

The reflection of light off the shaft walls is what catches Joanna’s attention first. The light is followed by the steady clomp of boots on metal, and soon enough that sound is followed by a person.

The person is calling her name—or rather, one of her nicknames.

Joanna only needs a second to decide what she wants to do. She pokes her head into the sub-level shaft and says, “Up here, Captain!”

The light shines in her eyes, blinding her, until Captain Jim lowers his flashlight and lifts his grave face to hers.

“Hey, JoJo,” he says softly.

She cannot tell if he is angry.

“How’d you find me?” she asks. Her tears have long since dried on her cheeks but her nose has a lingering stuffiness and her voice is full of a child’s misery.

The man turns away and sets down his flashlight. He fiddles with a communicator for a moment, then puts it aside too. He leans back against the side of the outer shaft directly in her line of sight and crosses his arms. His expression remains neutral.

“I liked small places as a kid. High up, too. There was an oak tree on my grandfather’s farm I always tried to climb to the very top. It was the best place to go so no one could reach me.” He pauses. “Oaks are big trees, do you know that?”

She nods her head yes.

“Strong too, but they get old. Rot, sometimes. Gramps warned me that I was too big to climb it but I didn’t care. I was… angry. I’d come back from somewhere, and I hated to be around people and just truly despised everything. So I climbed the tree.”

She scrubs the side of her nose with her sleeve. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” He smiles a little. “The next day I climbed the tree again. During the night Gramps had put a small bale of hay under the branch I’d been sitting on so I moved to a different spot. He came out, didn’t say anything… just got into his tractor and brought another hay bale over to my new spot while I watched. Every day we did this same thing. I sat on a limb over a patch of clear ground, and he covered the patch with hay. We went all the way around the tree.”

“But how could you get in the tree if it was surrounded by hay?”

Jim laughs. “I had to do a lot of extra climbing, but we Kirks are very stubborn when we set our minds to something.”

Her father would say: “I can believe that.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Joanna slides forward a little. “When did you stop climbing the tree?”

Jim rubs at an elbow. “When I finally fell out of it.” He winks at her. “But I landed in that hay.”

“Was your grandpa mad?”

“Nope. He just picked me up, brushed me off and said, ‘Now you know.'”

“What does that mean?”

“I couldn’t figure it out then either.” He uncrosses his arms to run the knuckles of one hand over his cheek. “By the time I graduated high school, I thought it meant that you can’t expect to stay safe forever, but that’s wrong, Joanna. Too simplistic. He meant that it’s pointless to hide since someone or something—even an old oak tree—would force me to face the world again. Because he layered the ground with hay in anticipation of that, I wasn’t injured. That was his way of showing me that facing the world isn’t so bad when you have someone to help you not get hurt again.”

Captain Jim’s gaze lowers for a moment, perhaps to shade some emotion he doesn’t want her to see.

Joanna isn’t near enough to hug him and regrets that. She offers instead, “He must have been a nice man.”

“He cared. That’s what mattered to me.”

They return to watching each other for a short while before Joanna slides another inch towards the opening.

“Captain Jim?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry I messed it up for you.”

“What did you mess up?”

She picks at the fabric of her overalls.

Jim repeats, “What did you mess up, JoJo?”

“Your chance to be close to my dad and Mr. Spock.”

“I’m closer to them than I am to anyone else.”

She admits, “But I wanted you to be closer.”

“Who says we won’t be?” challenges Jim.

Joanna’s frown becomes deeper. “Daddy does.”

But Jim smiles in a way which means he knows something funny that she doesn’t. “I’ll admit,” he says, “that your dad is a tough nut—the kind that gets very grumpy when you try to crack its shell.”

That makes her smile a little bit.

“But do you know why?” Jim continues. “Because he’s all soft inside. He doesn’t like people to see that. What he doesn’t understand is that we all know it anyway.”

“So… you’re saying that my dad is a sweetmeat?”

Jim grins. “Something like that. Though maybe a little more sour than sweet.”

Joanna wrinkles her nose. “Your metaphors are weird, Captain Jim.”

“I’m not as good at them as Bones is.”

“Obviously.”

She sounds so much like Spock that they both laugh.

Joanna scoots to the opening to swing her legs over the edge. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

She chews on her bottom lip. It’s a question she has heard in school, sometimes hears in the news. It strikes her now. “Is all hope lost?”

“Never,” Captain Jim answers readily. “If I’ve learned nothing else as a captain, at least I know that much.”

“Is he mad?”

“Your dad is worried. Well…” Jim picks up his communicator and flips it open. “…frantic might be a better word. With the ship’s main computer offline, we couldn’t locate you right away. Even Spock tried explaining to him that the odds of something dangerous happening to you on a nearly empty starship are minimal. Last I heard he was imagining you accidentally opening an airlock.”

Joanna snorts, turning over on her belly to slip out of the small shaft she had hidden away in. “That’s just dumb. He’s the one who said the Enterprise is practically baby-proof. Plus, I know better.”

Jim comes forward to help steady her as she drops to her feet. “I know you do, JoJo, but let’s call up your dad and set his mind at ease.”

She sighs, knowing this part was inevitable, and nods.

Jim switches his comm to an active channel. “Kirk here.”

“Captain.” Just the one word, even coming from Spock, sounds very irate. “Why did you close the channel?“

“I found Joanna.”

Spock’s line of questioning changes instantly but his clipped “Where?” is overshadowed by “Joanna! Joanna, thank god—“

Joanna takes the communicator from Captain Jim. Following a deep breath, she says cheekily, “Captain McCoy here.”

That has the desired effect. Her father’s worry takes a backseat to his temper.

“JOANNA ELEANOR MCCOY!“

The girl hastily hands the comm back to her superior.

Jim doesn’t do anything with it other than lower the volume. He loops an arm around her shoulders, and they start back together.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Lucky in Love on the Starship Enterprise (5/5) – from March 26, 2015
• Lucky in Love on the Starship Enterprise (3/4) – from March 16, 2015
• Lucky in Love on the Starship Enterprise (2/4) – from March 11, 2015
• I Have To Share This Comment – from February 26, 2015
• Lucky in Love on the Starship Enterprise (1/2) – from February 25, 2015

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