caitri | Fic: For Future Reference, PG

Title: For Future Reference
Author: caitri
Rating: PG (language)
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 1018
Summary: Comment Fic for KARLY-Bear Birthday Weekend. Self-insertion fic.
Warnings: n/a
Disclaimer: I know this may come as a shock, but I am not, amazing as it may seem, Gene Roddenberry, J.J. Abrams, Paramount or Bad Robot. Just so you know.

When I wake up in Sickbay, my first thought it Why do they have so many lights in here? and my second thought is Why am I in Sickbay?

Apparently this is out loud, too, because there is Doctor McCoy, looking at me with something like sympathy, and he’s saying, “There was an accident. It was our fault, and we couldn’t leave you. And now you can’t go back.” And there’s Captain Kirk, Jim with his ‘Captain’s face’ on, simultaneously apologetic and not apologetic and all, sayin, “It was the only way. We couldn’t let you die.”

“Well at least I’m not fucking Edith Keeler,” is what I say in response. And even as I’m thinking, Holy fuck! I’m looking down at myself, wondering where my clothes are: I had been in my familiar green cargo pants and my cherished ‘My Feminist-Marxist Dialectic Brings All the Boys to the Yard’ tee, but they are gone. On the other hand, I’m wearing black sweatpants and a black Starfleet shirt, and I really pathetically hope I get to keep these.

“I fail to see what sexual relations with, I presume, your partner have anything to do with this situation,” says Spock, because of course he’s there too, and I really am feeling something like sick and elated and more than slightly freaked now. Also possibly slightly turned on, because McCoy and Kirk are totally sharing personal space and Kirk is peering at something on McCoy’s PADD and he has his arm around him, and Oh my God! they are so cute together, so comfortable and oblivious to how most co-workers don’t cuddle up like that during the regular work day.

Focus! I remind myself. “Edith Keeler’s from the 1930s,” I say in response to Spock’s earlier comment. “Just be careful with cordarzine, ‘kay?” I tell McCoy. I turn to Kirk. “Are you two married? Because you totally should be, if not.”

McCoy shakes his head at me. “She’s delusional,” he murmurs as he presses a hypo to my neck. He does it gently and it doesn’t hurt a bit, not like when he uses it on Jim. I’m simultaneously relieved and disappointed. “That should do it,” he says to Kirk.

“I’m not delusional,” I say, “I just have a frightening knowledge of TOS. Anyhow,” and I turn back to Kirk, “by ‘not going back’ do you mean sending me back home? Because first of all I saw ‘Return to Tomorrow’ and you can totally beam me back when you start to slingshot around the sun, and second of all, I have to be at the AAUP conference next week for that presentation with Wyoma, because if I’m not? She will kill me and no bending of the laws of physics or alternate universes will stop that. So.”

All three men stare at me. “Also,” I add with more cheer, “can I see a PADD? Because I want to know if it looks as much like an iPad as I think it does.”

“We could beam her back,” Spock says, turning back to Kirk and ignoring me. “It would be a logical solution to the problem.”

I start humming “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” while they talk. Nurse Chapel quietly hands me a PADD to play with, laughing at or with me while the boys ignore me. “I like your hair,” I tell her. “The white uniform is way cuter than the blue one, too, just so you know.”

“Um, thanks,” she says, taking the PADD back with a polite smile of confusion. (BTW, the PADD? Looks just as much like an iPad as I thought it did. My covetousness of Apple products ups a notch.)

“Alright, Spock, see to it,” Kirk says, and Spock makes that little ‘acknowledgement’ nod and heads off, presumably to the bridge. Kirk and McCoy come back to me, McCoy looking serious, Kirk cheerful.

~

“What’s up, boys?” I ask.

Both of them ignore that. “We think we can beam you back safely before we head back home. We do need to preserve the timeline as much as we can,” Jim says. “The only thing is that we’d have to return you just after the accident, or else there’s a time loop.”

“And if we do that,” McCoy says, “you’ll end up remembering all of this.” And he gestures expansively at the Sickbay, implying everything: the ship, the people, the lensflare. “That could be dangerous.”

“Dude,” I say with a small smile, “I’m a Science Fiction curator. I talk about you guys constantly anyway. By the way,” I ask Kirk, “are you a fan of letterpress printing?”

“Sure,” says Kirk in surprise. “I collect stuff from Arion Press in San Francisco. Why?”

“No reason,” I say innocently. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from chortling in glee.

Kirk and McCoy share a look, and I can’t help but let out a little squee, because God they’re cute together. They stare at me like I’m unhinged, which, you know, I kind of am, at this point. “Can I keep the new clothes?” I add shamelessly.

“No,” says Kirk.

I pout at them. Kirk shakes his head, so I turn it on McCoy.

McCoy rolls his eyes. “I have an eight year old,” he grumbles. “That look doesn’t work with me either.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I say. “I should probably have a complex about it by now. Anyhow,” I continue, “I’ve got some questions for you guys.”

They look all puzzled, and I grin to myself.

Twelve hours later, I’m safely back in my conference hotel room and the boys are warping back to the twenty-third century. Everything’s getting fuzzy—Spock decided I was too much of a risk so they doped me with something, and McCoy was getting annoyed with me so he was not gentle when he hypo’d me that time (and I kinda liked it, and Oh God do I have issues now), and I pull out my trusty writing notebook, and start scribbling until I lose consci—

~

I wake up in the middle of the night, kinda sore and my mouth feeling like it’s stuffed with cottonballs. My face is stuck to my notebook, which apparently I’d been sleeping on, and which I was also drooling on. (Ew.)

In a barely comprehensible scrawl I’ve written the following:

GAILA LIVES
JIM WAS ON TARSUS
NEVER KNEW CAROL
MITCHELL DIED ON FARRAGUT
SPOCK BONDED TO UHURA
BEAGLE CAME BACK

“Huh,” I say blankly. I must’ve come up with a story earlier in the night and tried plotting it out. This stuff sounds good, too.

I’m awake now, and I pull out my laptop, and start typing…