0Title: Fortunes Aligned
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Jim’s attempt at baking a sweet holiday treat is foiled by the Enterprise kitchen. He must overcome all challenges in order to deliver the perfect message to his loved ones.
In Jim Kirk’s opinion, the easiest part of the recipe involves no actual baking. He finishes off the last letter of the short sentence with a flourish and admires the wisp of paper in his hand. Locating an identical one, both are set aside from the main collection. Satisfied that these “fortunes” are perfect, now Jim only needs to create amazingly crisp little cookies to house them. Nothing could be better than celebrating the start of a new year with an auspicious fortune inside a delicious cookie.
Among other things, he thinks to himself, smiling.
Having completed this first task to make fortune cookies, the renowned captain of the starship Enterprise clears his workspace on a long steel kitchen counter and gives his attention to the other steps of the recipe. In front of him are the necessary ingredients, kindly located and set out for him by the kitchen staff upon request. Also per request, the staff have vacated the premises for the time being, leaving this space normally reserved for cooking classes empty of any distractions and witnesses.
James Tiberius Kirk does not claim to be a master baker. In fact, he can barely claim to know how a functional kitchen works. Anything related to food preparation and/or culinary arts is simply not his forte. But thankfully an officer like Jim dependent upon the ship’s food dispensers doesn’t have to starve if they stop working for a day. The Enterprise employs some very skilled chefs and bakers to take care of that business.
And most of the time, Jim leaves them to their work and their private little domain, aside from visiting the kitchens once in a while if some savory scent draws him there. But Captain or not, his authority extends only so far. To enjoy an early tasting of the treats with that savory smell, approval has to come from the kitchen master, and ofttimes when the man sees Jim poking about, Jim is sent back on his way with empty hands.
But a captain’s authority is good for this, particularly as in the negotiations, Jim used the one ace up his sleeve to convince the kitchen master: approval of that requisition form for new fancy equipment the kitchen master wants but could not justify as an everyday expense. And so here Jim is, with the next few hours free in his schedule and a simple desire to produce fortune cookies that will certainly delight his team.
The first order of business appears to be whipping together some eggs and vanilla. Jim turns to the table mixer. “Mixer, on,” he commands.
When the device does nothing, he frowns at it. “Mixer, on!”
Inspection of said mixer reveals it, in fact, has no built-in robotics or voice command system, just a manual On/Off switch and a dial for speed adjustments. Perhaps the staff took it too seriously when their captain insisted he wanted these cookies to be made of a hundred percent Kirkian effort.
The vanilla goes into the bowl easily enough, but the recipe calls for egg whites and Jim takes a moment to ponder how a yolk can be separated from the white part of a raw egg. Experimenting with the fork fails, for it punctures the yolk. The yolk is also too slippery to grasp with fingers. A spoon is useless, and apparently one cannot saw a white from a yolk with a knife.
On his sixth attempt, Jim squats down until he is eye-level with the small bowl wherein he had dumped the contents of the egg and narrows his gaze. “Computer, how do I remove a yolk from an egg?”
“Working. Working. Would you like to buy yolk-less eggs? They come in quantities of a half-dozen and a dozen.”
“No, computer. How do I separate a yolk from an egg?”
“A yolk can be separated from a boiled egg by cutting the egg in half.”
“If the egg is raw?”
“A yolk can be separated from a raw egg by this selection of kitchenware.” A series of holographic images dance across the end of the table. “Would you like to make a purchase?”
“No,” Jim says, exasperated. “Computer, how do I manually obtain an egg white from an uncooked egg?”
Instead of answering him, a video starts to play: someone cracks open an egg over an empty bottle, and the egg white detaches from the yolk, dripping into the bottle while the wobbly yolk remains at the bottle’s opening.
“Huh,” says Jim, and he goes off to find a bottle that will be useful for the purpose. Playing in the kitchen requires more creativity than he anticipated.
Luckily, Jim Kirk is very creative.
A mixer set to full-blast is a bad idea. After Jim cleans egg residue from his hair and his workstation, he uses the mixer at a slower speed to prevent a windstorm of food bits. But ten minutes later, he is left staring at a soupy mixture in the mixer bowl that hardly qualifies as being described as foamy.
“Computer,” Kirk commands, “show me a video of foamy eggs.”
Another half-hour is wasted watching galaxy-wide hijinks involving eggs, most of them from a show called Prank That Official. Jim is impressed by the contents of the show and makes mental notes for use later on.
He eventually figures out what defines “foamy”, which requires some delicate adjusting of the mixer speed and plenty of patience.
Jim checks the wall chronometer during this waiting period. Thankfully he hasn’t run out of time yet.
To those who have dropped a bag of flour before, the result needs no explanation.
Jim stares in dismay at the floor, the counter, and himself. Idly, he wonders if dropped flour also qualifies as sifted flour.
It does not.
Much later, a tray of smoking cookies clatters loudly onto the kitchen counter beside two cooled trays of no longer smoking but still very burnt cookies. Another tray of abnormally shaped black blobs has been discarded at the very end of the counter. These once-cookies apparently met with the kind of disaster that made them one with the pan.
When the door across the room slides open, Jim waves aside a cloud of smoke still clinging to his person and calls out in parts relief and impatience, “Scotty!”
“Capt’n!” The Chief of Engineering hurries over, looking winded and disheveled. “Came as quick as I could!”
Jim points at the oven set into a wall. “This thing is malfunctioning.”
Scotty stops short of both his captain and the oven. He bends over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. “That’s your emergency?”
“I’m on a deadline,” comes the grim reply.
Scotty opens and closes his mouth before straightening up. “I ran all the way here! I thought something had caught fire or exploded!” His gaze skips briefly over to the evidence of Kirk’s baking failures but wisely he chooses to make no comment about them.
Jim taps a finger against the counter, repeating, “A deadline, Mr. Scott.”
Scotty comes forward, wiping sweat off his forehead before he removes a handheld scanner from his belt. He doesn’t look too happy but he knows better than to say anything except, “Since I’m here, I suppose I could take a quick look.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
Scotty’s muttering is too quiet to be understood.
Jim huffs out a sigh and moves out of the man’s way. After a moment, he busies himself with scraping the hardened cookies off the trays and disposing of them.
Following a cursory inspection of the oven, Scotty turns back to Jim with a dubious look. “It seems okay.” He looks even more dubiously at the trail of burnt cookie crumbles from the counter to the garbage disposal. “You must have set the temperature too high.”
Jim huffs. “Maybe if I was illiterate—and I’m not.”
“Leave them in too long?”
“I used a timer.”
The engineer opens and closes the oven door a few times. “Then I don’t know what to tell you, Jim. None of the scans indicate this oven is broken.”
Jim puffs up, seeming like he might make a snapping remark about that, only on second thought to suddenly lean sideways to snatch up the last remaining tray of uncooked cookie dough. He shoves the tray into a startled Scotty’s hands. Then picking up the nearest data padd, Jim flashes the recipe at the engineer. His “Be my guest” cannot be mistaken for anything other than the challenge it is.
Scotty looks from Kirk to the oven, shrugs, and slides the tray into the oven, setting the same temperature as called for by the recipe and then also the timer. Afterward, both men lean against the counter with arms crossed, the oven heating under their watchful gazes.
“Five minutes to bake, the recipe said. That doesn’t seem very long,” Scotty remarks.
“The dough has to be very thin to shape the cookies later.”
“Ah… But what if they’re ‘golden brown around the edges but pale in the center’ in less than five minutes?”
When Scotty looks to Jim, Jim says firmly, “We leave them in for exactly five minutes.”
Silence stretches between them until Jim is asked, “Why fortune cookies?”
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “They seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Yeah,” sighs his friend. “That’s usually the way of it.”
When the timer alerts them and Scotty somewhat eagerly leaps for the oven, Jim chokes back a laugh, still leaning against the counter. The laugh escapes as a snort once the engineer’s countenance notably deflates as he removes the tray from the oven and curses.
Scotty adopts an expression Jim is very familiar with, as he often sees it in the mirror when faced with the thought of a no-win scenario.
“We’re intelligent men,” insists Scotty to the burned cookies. “We can figure this out.”
Jim just shakes his head and reaches for more ingredients. Something tells him to double this next batch, as their problems might be far from over.
“Quickly place the fortune on the cookie, close to the middle and fold the cookie in half. Place the folded edge across the rim of a measuring cup and pull the pointed edges down, one on the inside of the cup and one on the outside,” Jim reads for the umpteenth time. “Someone please tell me this was translated from a language originally not English.” He turns to the person on his right. “Do you understand this?”
Chekov shakes his head, mouth pressed thin in concentration until the cookie shell in his hand snaps in half. He throws his hands up in defeat. “I read it many times, Keptin, but it does not work!”
Jim turns to his left. Sulu pushes aside several measuring cups and broken cookie bits to plant an elbow on the counter, drop his chin into it, and roll his gaze lazily toward his superior officer. His look plainly says he is over this confusing exercise. “Time to call in the reinforcements, sir.”
Sulu and Chekov were the reinforcements, thinks a dismayed Kirk. He closes his eyes and massages his temples.
When he opens his eyes again, he states, “No, we do not give up. Mr. Chekov, hand me another cookie.”
Chekov looks sad instead. “They’re cold now, Keptin.”
“Then somebody give me good news!” shouts Kirk in frustration.
Scotty pulls his head and shoulders out of a wall panel level with the floor and sits up. “I finished the re-wiring!”
“Thank you, Mr. Scott.” Jim squares his shoulder. “Gentlemen, as I said, we don’t give up. We must never give up!”
“Is he declaring war against a kitchen?” Sulu asks Chekov, who shrugs in response.
Jim waves Scotty over. “All right, mister, tell us about those oven modifications.”
Cheerfully, Scotty does.
The pursuit of baking is something the kitchen master naturally believes in, and therefore how could he have turned down his captain’s humble request? For, of course, the price of some special accouterments to assist his staff with making meals that will be the envy of any ship’s kitchen crew within the four quadrants. They should have some pride, after all, being Starfleet’s flagship.
But a man can only allow someone else in his domain, unguarded, for a short period of time before he becomes uncomfortable. By the three-hour mark, the kitchen master is simply unable to concentrate on his tasks for the day. He decides then that he will just check in briefly with Kirk. If all is well, he will graciously take his leave and return to his office to finish next week’s menu and start on that special food order placed by Science. No harm, no foul.
Entering the workspace temporarily on loan to Captain Kirk, the kitchen master checks his stride at the threshold. Instinctively he plants a hand against the doorjamb to keep himself upright.
A young lieutenant sails by in a leap of unadulterated joy. When he lands, he spins around and cries happily at the kitchen master, “SUCCESS!!!”
A cheer goes up from the others in the room—and there are quite a few. A man the kitchen master thinks is Engineering’s department leader waves a long twist of metal in the air exuberantly. The kitchen master’s knees weaken further when he recognizes that metal and the pile it came from, which at first glance looks to be a dumping ground for spare appliance parts.
But how can they be spares when there is an ugly gaping hole in the wall where the ovens should be?
He moans, slumping back against the wall beside the door. His ovens, dismantled.
A woman with coiffed blonde hair brushes flour from her uniform. “Sir,” she asks the man standing at the center of the melee, “was this all the assistance you required?”
Kirk turns to her with a wide, satisfied grin. “Yes, thank you, Yeoman. Your help was much appreciated.” In his cupped hands lies one golden, perfectly curved little fortune cookie, a very precious specimen, for it is the only one of its kind.
The captain’s yeoman smiles, says, “Anytime,” and heads for the doorway, pausing to consider the kitchen master with sympathy. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she murmurs for his hearing only and makes her exit.
Not as bad—not as BAD— How can she say that when she clearly isn’t blind? The kitchen master steels his spine and marches with a stiff-legged gait toward Kirk.
Noticing the approach, Kirk, still grinning, lifts the fortune cookie above his head like it’s a tiny crown of victory. “To our good fortune in the new year!” he cries above a smattering of hoorays.
To the kitchen master, the captain says more subdued but still glowing with happiness, “Our moment of triumph is all thanks to Mr. Ong’s generosity. Everyone, applause for Mr. Ong!”
The applause goes on for so long that Kitchen Master Ong feels the need to take a small bow.
And that, the kitchen master decides much later, is Captain Kirk’s secret weapon: a disarming charm that sweetens even the bitterest of tempers and unites would-be enemies. Ong is left standing oddly confused among the remnants of his destroyed classroom, looking on at a group of the foolishly happy amateur bakers crooning over their one fortune cookie as they would a newborn babe.
“We need five more,” says Kirk after a while, turning around to face Ong.
“Sir?” Ong sighs. “Very well. I will bring fresh ingredients.”
Life is indeed strange on the Enterprise, the man thinks as he returns to the main corridor. Where else would a decorated starship captain be nearly brought to tears by a cookie?
The fortune cookie recipe tried to conquer Jim Kirk but, supported by some of his best officers, Jim feels he won the battle. Now he merely needs to take on this last hurdle to win the war.
In the long free-standing mirror, he critically eyes his appearance, adjusts the collar and cuffs of his dress uniform, and tries to tuck away that unruly lock of hair that likes to live on his forehead. Well, he’s as ready as he will ever be.
With the basket of fortune cookies over his arm, he heads from his personal quarters to the ballroom hosting the ship-wide party to ring in the new year. Not all crewmembers will attend tonight, but the two officers Jim’s future hinges upon most certainly will be. They promised him that much. And though neither man seemed to understand why Jim wanted to attend the party separately, they accepted that request too. Their trust in him is as phenomenal as his belief in them is insurmountable—which is why he made these fortune cookies.
But that order of business will come at the right time. Before then, Jim needs to find the first recipients of his baking adventure.
They seem to know this, already waiting together for his arrival.
Or, more precisely, the arrival of the basket in his possession.
Uhura grins at the sight of it. “So you tried your hand at baking, farmboy.”
Jim laughs, knowing beyond a doubt she already must have squeezed the details from the people who were in attendance of this momentous occasion. He says good-naturedly, “I did alright.”
Scotty downs the contents of his champagne glass in a single swallow. “Ong called my department, wanting to know when we plan to repair the classroom to his satisfaction.”
Sulu snorts, and others laugh.
Chekov says to Scotty, “Did you explain that Engineering works on engines?”
Scotty sighs. “Apparently if we break it, we fix it.”
Jim nods. “You know I’ll help where I can.”
Scotty tsks. “You’re the reason it’s broken, Captain. ”
They laugh again.
Uhura imparts, “Mr. Ong has given orders to keep all unauthorized individuals away from the kitchens for the time being, captains included. I doubt you will even be allowed to touch a wooden spoon.”
Jim doesn’t know why the kitchen master is so upset. When one considers his usual messes, it was a small mess, comparatively speaking.
He has the cookies in the basket arranged in a particular order because there is only one fortune cookie for each person. Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty hadn’t understood his orders not to look at the messages to go into the cookies but had been diligent in following the orders as always. It was Rand’s quiet inspections of the messages that Jim decidedly ignored (she was their saving grace, after all), and he secretly thinks she approved of them.
Jim hands out four cookies to Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty. Uhura raises an eyebrow at the two cookies left in the basket but doesn’t call attention to them.
Jim clears his throat, temporarily placing the basket at his feet. “Since we started working together, I know each year hasn’t come easier,” he says. “The longer we stay in space, the harder the challenges, the more pressing the work, the more dangerous each mission. And there is no denying having had our share of losses because of that. Just know that this crew couldn’t have come this far without each of you. I wouldn’t have. Thank you for choosing to work under my command. My new year’s resolution to you is to be my best so that I won’t stand in the way you being your best.” He blinks until his teary-eyedness goes away and gestures grandly at their cookies. “Now, on to your fortunes!”
Uhura kisses his cheek before she opens hers.
“Ah-ha!” cries Chekov, having immediately obliterated his cookie. “‘Everyone agrees. You are ze best!'” His smile is blinding. “Zat’s me!”
Jim pats his back. “Yes, you are.” Then he watches Sulu considering the paper from his fortune cookie for some seconds.
Suddenly Sulu tucks it out of sight without a word, giving Jim a measured stare while doing so. The hope and expectation in Sulu’s eyes are not lost on Kirk.
The fortune Jim had written was, “A dream you have will come true.”
That desire Sulu has to be with his husband and daughter more often should come to fruition in the new year when the official announcement is made regarding the selection of the first handful of families approved to live in the new multi-person units being installed across the Fleet’s ships. In fact, Jim is pretty much betting on it.
Chekov waves his fortune around, beaming as he crunches on the last bits of his cookie. Jim notes that Chekov makes a point of telling each person passing by their little group (and many crewmen are now doing so simply to find out what’s going on) of his fortune and also, “Did you know fortune cookies were invented in Russia?”
Uhura passes her fortune on to Sulu. She quotes, “‘You will be called in to fulfill a position of high honor and responsibility,'” then smiles sweetly past Sulu to Jim. “Meaning I’ll be promoted to your position?”
Jim coughs and puts his back to her, sensing a trap waiting in how he answers. But turning around brings him face to face with Scotty, who shoves his fortune under the captain’s nose. Somehow Scotty has managed to extract the paper from the cookie while leaving the cookie intact. (And that cookie is handed off to Chekov, who seems happy to have an extra one to snack on.)
“‘Meeting adversity well is the source of your strength.'” Scotty huffs. “Jim, oh Jim… the captain of understatements!”
Jim grins and claps the man on the shoulder. “You know this ship couldn’t fly without you, Scotty.”
“Then write that in my next performance evaluation.”
“I always do.” Jim winks as he slides past to pick up the basket. When he spots the owners of the last two fortune cookies, he grips the basket’s handle a bit harder and heads their way. He’s not quite certain but he thinks he hears “Good luck” from someone at his back.
Jim comes abreast of the pair of the officers. “Gentlemen, good evening. You both look dashing tonight.”
McCoy gives Jim the side-eye, tugging at the collar of his dress uniform. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Captain. Now, what’s so important that we had to meet up in front of this eyesore of a potted plant instead of the buffet?”
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy briefly observe the plant together. Somebody from the decorating committee was overly enthusiastic with the holiday cheer, especially the glitter.
Jim pokes one of the balloons tied to the plant’s stem in McCoy’s direction, causing the man to back up with a sound curse, before he signals a waiter over with a silly smile.
McCoy stops cursing him and accepts a glass of champagne. Spock declines a glass.
“I have a gift for you,” Jim tells them, holding up the basket.
“Spock and I heard about the fortune cookies.” McCoy casts a speculative look at the group of people Jim had just left behind. “So far, no adverse reactions.”
“They aren’t poisoned, Bones.”
“If Chekov doesn’t turn green by the end of the night, then I’ll believe it.”
Jim pretends to pout. “You don’t want your cookie?”
McCoy looks at him for a long minute, then sticks out a hand. “Give it here. Infant.”
Jim gives him one. “A lot of love went into making these, Bones,” he says a bit nervously.
As McCoy raises an eyebrow and cracks the cookie in half deftly with one thumb, Jim closes his eyes and swallows hard. That wasn’t a joke about love, not even remotely.
It’s McCoy’s soft “Huh” has Jim looking at the man again—or, to be more precise, at the broken fortune cookie missing a fortune. Jim sucks in a shocked breath, snaps up the pieces from McCoy’s hand, and shakes them vigorously as if a piece of paper might fall out of one side.
McCoy turns to Spock. “Always knew I was an unlucky bastard. This just proves it.”
“No!” Jim denies with enough vehemence to make McCoy rock on his heels and Spock’s eyebrows climb to his hairline. “You have a fortune, you do! I gave you one. I specifically gave—” He stops there, looks to Spock and then down at the remaining cookie in the basket.
Jim grabs McCoy by the arm and pushes him at Spock. “There’s been a miscalculation.” He hands Spock the last fortune cookie. “Open that one together.”
“Jim,” McCoy protests.
“Open it,” Jim says through gritted teeth.
Spock and McCoy exchange a glance before Spock offers one end of the cookie to its designated co-owner. They snap the fortune cookie in half together, revealing two slips of paper inside.
Jim sways on his feet in relief. One final mistake, but a good one. A great one, in fact.
“You’re luckier than this fortune cookie,” McCoy says to his captain.
“Indeed,” seconds Spock, who sets aside his champagne glass to remove one of the fortunes.
Jim crosses his arms over his chest, thinking that he shouldn’t be this nervous.
McCoy and Spock take a moment to read their fortunes and then compare them. Not that they would find a difference in those fortunes because Jim had written the same sentence on each paper.
Some seconds later while Kirk’s heart thumps hard in his chest, McCoy drawls to Spock, “I’m not sure this is entirely accurate.”
“A possibility indicating a choice,” summarizes Spock, “without the specifics of the decision to be made. Most interesting… and appropriately Jim.”
Jim releases a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. “Are you making fun of me right now?” he half-demands.
McCoy holds up his fortune, but it’s Spock who reads it a dry tone: “‘Love can last a lifetime, if you are willing.'”
Jim hesitates. “It’s true.” He steps closer to both of them, lowering his voice. “Do you know what my fortune would be? ‘The greatest risk is not trying.'”
McCoy leans forward, his voice equally soft. “Jim?”
“Bones?”
“Cryptic fortunes aside, if you have something to say, then say it.”
Jim’s throat works, then. “I want us to be official. Our relationship, that is.” His gaze moves from McCoy’s to Spock’s, uncertain. “Will you consider it?”
Spock offers Kirk his fortune. “A decision which has already been made by Leonard and myself.” As Jim pulls back sharply without taking the fortune, Spock adds, “Perhaps it would have been prudent to tell you that in advance of tonight’s festivities.”
Jim feels himself paling. “So this is your way of letting me down gently?”
McCoy latches on Kirk’s shoulder, anchoring him in place. “Listen to the rest of what Spock has to say before you go jumping to conclusions.”
“Our only excuse is that we wished to surprise you,” Spock goes on, “with a similar proposal.” The Vulcan turns slightly at the waist and nods to someone else in the ballroom.
“A proposal,” Jim repeats as the cheer goes up at the other end of the room and grows like a wave in their direction. He goes up on the toes of his boots to see what’s coming but too many people are in the way.
All of a sudden, the word proposal makes too much sense, sending Jim crashing back to his heels. He stares at McCoy and Spock as if he hasn’t seen them before. “A proposal?”
McCoy whispers into Spock’s ear something about engagements just before Spock steps aside to allow a rolling cart pass between them. The cart, manned by none other than the kitchen master himself, has the largest, most elaborately decorated cake Jim Kirk has ever seen.
McCoy laughs at Kirk’s stunned expression. When he sobers up somewhat, he says, “It’s not a fortune cookie, but the intent is the same. Happy New Year’s, Jim.”
Several echoes of “Surprise!” and “Congratulations!” go up from the crowd now gathering around them. Someone bumps into the potted plant, sending up a cloud of glitter.
“Jim,” Spock asks solemnly, “will you accept Dr. McCoy and me as your partners?”
“Yes!” Jim bursts out, unable to contain the swell of happiness growing inside him.
McCoy takes his hand, chiding softly, “Jim, I know what you’re thinking right now. We’re not getting engaged.”
Not yet, thinks Kirk, as he says, “Uh-huh.” He laughs in delight. He knows what the next fortune cookies for his partners will say.
Spock takes the handle of the serving utensil handed to him. Whatever the meaning of this cake and the proposal that comes along with it, the bystanders are ready to eat. A waiter appears with a stack of party plates.
Jim slides in close to McCoy, wrapping an arm around his partner’s waist. “You’re the best, Bones.”
“Thank Spock. He was diligent in convincing me celebrating with cake would make you happiest.”
“You’re amazing, Spock,” Jim tells the Vulcan, who brings a huge slice of cake to Jim before handing over the duty of cake-server to someone else.
“Thank you, Jim.”
McCoy takes the fork from Jim and feeds Jim the first bite of cake. Jim takes a moment to savor the sweetness of the treat, and then gazes upon the two men who delight him far more than cake ever could.
“I have a new proposal,” he declares. “Which one of you is talented in the kitchen?”
For some reason, McCoy just starts laughing and Spock takes the responsibility of feeding Kirk more cake.
No matter if they don’t answer. Jim will have his way.
Now… if only he could convince Mr. Ong to lend him that kitchen space again.
-Fini
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