So I'm sure everyone has noticed that the female Starfleet uniforms are short-sleeved in the reboot whereas they were originally long-sleeved. As such, the rank cuffs are not present on the female uniforms, even though there is plenty of room even on the short sleeve to add a stripe of silver (as opposed to the original golden braids). The single bold stripe of silver that denotes a Lieutenant is most notably absent from Lt. Uhura's uniform. So this is my solution to that problem.

Though not completely unheard of, it was fairly unusual for Kirk to be absent from the bridge for a substantial length of time during his shift. Every so often, Kirk would perform routine department checkups, but these typically began on the bridge and then spiraled out from there. Other times, Kirk would hand the bridge over to meander down to Sickbay, only for McCoy to call up and announce that the Captain was off duty for at least the rest of shift. This circumstance was exceedingly rare, but typically occurred after away missions when Kirk attempted to hide various injuries (he was surprisingly getting better at admitting when he needed medical attention, as he had shifted to his blasé retreats to Sickbay from collapsing on the bridge).

But Kirk had not started department rounds today, nor had McCoy called up and declared Kirk unfit for duty, so the question remained: where was he?

Uhura had almost worked up the motivation to ask Spock if he knew when the turbolift doors opened and Kirk himself strode onto the bridge.

"Keptin on ze bridge!" Chekov called from his station.

Kirk nodded quickly in acknowledgement (he had long since ordered the bridge to stop standing at attention every time he walked on the bridge—it was horribly inefficient) before immediately striding over to her station.

Uhura cocked an eyebrow in question as he arrived next to her, a plastic bag dangling from his wrist.

"Would you prefer to stand or sit, Lieutenant?" he asked, digging his arm into the bag to fish for something.

"Sir?" she asked, completely caught off guard at his question.

"Sit or stand?" he repeated.

"Sit, I guess," she replied, still unaware of what was going on. "Why?"

Kirk seemed to have found what he was looking for as he let out a brief aha! and withdrew his arm from the bag. In his hand was a silver metallic sharpie and what looked like a stencil. "Okay, sit still," he said, uncapping the sharpie, but Uhura shifted away before he could get close.

"What are you doing?" she asked again.

Kirk rolled his eyes and held up his wrist in front of her face. "See these?" he asked, indicating the silver stripes on his shirt cuff. Three silver stripes, one thin stripe encased by two bold stripes, denoting his rank as captain.

Uhura sent him a deadpan look. "Yes, Captain," she emphasized.

"And see what's on your sleeve?"

She didn't have to look at her sleeve to know there were no stripes there, but she finally started to see where Kirk was going with this. She had held the rank of Lieutenant ever since her field promotion during the Battle of Vulcan and the following events, but because she wore the women's standard issue uniform, the bold silver stripe that was supposed to show this was absent from her sleeve. The same was true for all officers who chose to wear the uniform.

Looking at the sharpie and stencil, and noting that there were more in the bag hanging from his wrist, Uhura had a pretty good idea where he'd been all shift.

"You're giving me a Lieutenant stripe," she said, a grin forming on her face.

Kirk returned the grin full force. "You received the rank of Lieutenant because you deserved it, and you deserve to show off that rank. I keep harassing Starfleet about it, but nothing's changed, and apparently the change can't be programmed into the replicators, so I'm taking things into my own hands." He looked down at the metallic sharpie and stencil in his hand and shrugged. "I promise it'll look official when I'm done, I tested it before I went around painting ranks on people."

Uhura had long despised the lack of consideration for respect and rank in regards to the women's uniforms, and she knew for a fact she wasn't the only one. The claim was that the rank stripes didn't fit on the sleeves, but that was a crap excuse and everyone knew it. But there could have been other solutions as well, such as pins on the collar or something similar. That Kirk had decided to take the injustice and fix it on his own terms warmed her heart. Because while the sharpie looked childish and potentially insulting, Uhura knew Kirk's intentions were genuine. He had always treated each member of his crew with respect, and on more than one occasion complained on the behalf of his female officers who were deserving of a stripe or two.

Uhura took a moment to imagine what it would be like after shift ended, when she walked into the Officer's Mess and looked around and saw her fellow female officers wearing their stripes proudly, regardless of how they had been applied.

"I've got a stencil here for you to keep as well as a couple more sharpies," Kirk continued, "so you can apply them to the rest of your uniforms, but I figured it's more professional if I apply the first one. Well," he shrugged, scratching the back of his neck, "as professional as a sharpie can be."

Settling into her seat and angling herself so Kirk had access to her right sleeve, she sent him a grin. "Alright then, let's do this."

So this is the second fic I've written with sharpies as a focus, I don't know what I'm doing with my life xD

The job search is still going on, so LC,DG is still on the back burner until I have a salary more than $12/hr.

Thanks for reading!

Sadie out.