A/N: No deep thoughts or mind-bending revelations here, folks. Just the crew bonding over the little things. This chapter takes place almost immediately after the previous one. This one also might make you feel a little hungry. You have been warned.
I knew Star Trek long before I knew Uhura had a first name. Therefore, she has always been "just Uhura" to me.
Disclaimer: Star Trek and all related are property of whoever owns it now (it's definitely not me).
Favorite Things
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things.
"My Favorite Things"
Rodgers And Hammerstein
"Does anyone else feel like they've been run over with something really, really big?" Jim asked with a groan. He had just shifted in the wrong direction and an ache had come alive in his lower back.
"Like the Enterprise?" Scotty suggested. His lady could definitely pack a wallop. No one said all of it was packed in her phasers or torpedoes. Not that he would let anyone treat his lady like a battering ram. God help the first poor schulb who might consider it a good idea.
"That sounds big enough."
"To be run over by the Enterprise would be imposs--"
"Jesus Christ, Spock. It's just an expression." McCoy interrupted, dragging a hand over his face. There was a day's worth of stubble on his chin. "Let's not get into a discussion about semantics here. We're all shit-faced without actually being shit-faced."
"Twice the hangover, none of the fun." Scotty agreed.
The cargo transport shuttle rumbled along in the black, carrying the last of the weary Enterprise crew back to Planet Earth. The cargo shuttle was slower and older than the conventional passenger shuttles, resulting in a trip that would be about ten minutes longer ("Eleven point one six minutes longer." Spock had said).
"You know what I'm going to do when we get dirt-side?" Uhura said, picking idly at a ragged nail. "I'm going to take a bubble bath. A really long one with lots of bubbles and I'm not getting out until I'm all wrinkly."
Jim smiled blissfully, probably imagining Uhura naked in the bathtub. Fortunately for him and his potential future children, Uhura interpreted the smile as meant for a completely different thought. The burst of adrenaline from the thought of finally going home was enough to keep her awake right now, but if she attempted complicated thought processes, her brain was likely to short out.
They were all in similar states, really.
"And then I'm going to have a chocolate sundae. Real chocolate ice cream made with milk that came from an actual cow." She glanced apologetically at Spock, sitting beside her. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm feeling a little pro-Earth at the moment."
"That is logical. The planet came -- alarmingly close to being destroyed." Spock agreed.
"Only planet I know that can make a good scotch or a decent sandwich." Scotty said.
"Wodka. And Russia." Chekov said brightly. "Ze only planet zat has Russia."
"Fencing." Sulu added. He adopted a scowl that looked a little mournful. "I've done my research. Half the Federation planets don't know what it is and the other half thinks it's a waste of time."
"Peaches. Good old Georgia peaches. Big as baseballs and when they weren't ripe, you could use them as baseballs." McCoy said, unconsciously licking his lips at the memory of those sweet, juicy peaches. His childhood memories were always inundated by the smell of peaches.
Jim shoved him in a brotherly fashion. "You sound nostalgic, old man."
McCoy shoved him right back. "Alright then, Captain. What's your favorite thing?"
"Pizza." Jim answered without hesitation, to Scotty's wistful look, for the Scotsman had been deprived of good food (like pizza) for the past six months. "You can go anywhere in the universe, but you won't find pizza like you do on Earth."
"You are all discussing food." Spock observed, with a barely-there confusion. His brow knitting together was much more an indicator of his confusion that his voice was. "Would it not make more sense to be grateful that your homeworld is still here?"
"We are grateful, it's just... This is how humans respond to trauma and trouble." Uhura explained patiently. "We can't focus on the big picture right away because we're afraid it will overwhelm us if we do. So we think about the little things instead. Like food."
"Vhen my grandmother passed avay, at ze funeral all I could think about vas how much I vas going to miss her varenyky. No one made zem like her." Chekov admitted. "Zen again-- I vas nine, so..." He shrugged.
"It's the little things you miss the most." Jim said, almost sagely. He tried not to think about things like plastic glow-in-the-dark stars, fruit trees in the backyard and omelets without peppers.
"There's this great pizza place not far from the campus." he announced in a more jubilant tone. "When they open for lunch, I'm going to eat an entire deep-dish pizza."
"Like hell you will." McCoy snarled warningly. Past experience had shown him that Jim Kirk didn't have the most elastic of stomachs and the idiot was not going to be vomiting up half-digested pizza at any point in the near or distant future if the doctor could help it.
"Three kinds of cheese." Jim went on, plainly having not heard a word. "Pepperoni. Bacon. Ham. Salami. Sausage-- I'm a carnivore, Spock. Put your eyebrow down."
"Mmm, they open for lunch?" Scotty asked. Maybe it was just because of what they were talking about, but a slice of pizza sounded like it would hit the spot right now.
"Do you eat cheese? Because I hear they've got a pretty good spinach calzone." Jim informed the Vulcan. He grinned. "And ice cream. Uhura, you're on to something. Let's all go get ice cream once we're off the shuttle."
"Keptin, is fiwe in ze morning." Chekov pointed out through a large yawn. "Vhere are you going to find ice cream at fiwe in ze morning?"
"Kid, you're looking at the only man who can find poison ivy in the middle of the Academy campus." McCoy said pointedly, drawing a frown out of Jim. Of course, he'd had a much more drastic reaction to the poison ivy leaves that it was four and a half hypo's later before they saw any reduction in the swelling. "If anyone knows a store that's open at five in the morning, it's Jim Kirk."
"Yeah..." Jim covered a yawn of his own behind a hand. Blast Chekov, didn't he know that yawns were contagious? "And it's called Wal-Mart."
"Didn't Wal-Mart crash and burn about a year before World War three?" Sulu wondered. His old high school sociology class had briefly covered the once-infamous consumer giant and the impact the chain store had had on the American culture. And its equally infamous website that depicted the various frightening people who had frequented the store in its heyday.
"Rumor has it they're making a come-back."
The new Wal-Mart -- the first one to return to San Francisco after its two hundred and ten year absence -- was the one-stop shop for a poor Academy cadet. And the frightening people who only came out at night were making the store their own one-stop shop.
Jim wondered if the archived website would go live again. That would make for a great bit of twenty-first century nostalgia.
Spock was beginning to look like he had an insect crawling up his nose. He was the one who could endure another week and a half of no sleep before displaying any negative side-effects. He was in a far better position -- cognitively speaking -- than his crew mates for handling complex thought processes. And yet he was the only one having trouble following the conversation.
"I have lived on Earth for approximately 9.513 years." he said. "I had believed that such a length of time would grant me a better understanding of human nature, but it would appear that that is not the case."
"Don't worry about it Spock." Jim probably would have slapped a hand on the Vulcan's shoulder if they weren't sitting on opposite sides of the transport. "I'm twenty-five years old, been around humans my entire life and I still think we don't make sense."
"It's a universal trait." Uhura said, yawning right in the middle of her sentence. "Half the galaxy thinks we're nuts."
"Even we think we're nuts." McCoy closed his eyes, intending to put at least a small dent in his sleep debt. "Someone other than Jim wake me up when we dock."
Jim made a face at the doctor, but abandoned retaliation attempts in favor of a conversation thread that would keep his brain going until he could find a bed.
"So Spock, what's your favorite thing about Earth?"
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