Yikes. Sorry I've been neglecting this story. Other things have come up. The multi chapter story I'm writing for bleach has kind of taken my attention away for the moment and I have a prompt that I'm filling. So bare with me. As I said this is my story to break writer's block. Whatever. Here's your drabble.

I DO NOT OWN STAR TREK.

19. Eyes

Whoever said eyes are the windows to the soul needed to be put to death. Even if they were dead. Jim decided.

Rewind: A few hours earlier

It had started out as a normal day, he had woken up and as he got ready for his shift he noticed the day. It was the day before the anniversary of his father's death. He had froze. He wondered how he could've missed the passing of time.

A wave of nausea swept over him. He doubted that his crew would put that much thought into the date, after all most people don't remember important dates until the day of. Unless it was a big holiday, or it had been broadcasted everyday leading up to that date.

He shook his head. He would deal with this development on his own time. He couldn't be late for his shift, he had to make it seem like there was nothing wrong. Tugging the gold tunic over his head, he paused as he looked into the mirror. Before his mother had left him, she had told him that he looked like his father, all he needed was a blue shirt.

Jim laughed silently. It felt nice to do be different from his father in one way. He straightened out his uniform and made his way to the bridge. He made a mental note to avoid sick-bay for the next two days, or more specifically Bones for the next two days. They had gone through three years of this, Bones knew what to expect, and at the moment Kirk didn't need the doctor fussing over him.

The turbo-lift slowed as it neared the bridge. Jim put on his unburdened façade, and walked onto the bridge.

"Captain on ze bridge." Chekov chirped.

A few heads turned towards his direction and Jim gave them all a blinding smile. He saw Uhura roll her eyes and turn back to her station. The captain approached his chair and sat down. They weren't expected to be doing anything of great importance today, or tomorrow for that instance. They were charting star clusters.

The hours trickled by without incident and Jim was pleased with this. He only had to be on shift for another three hours and then he'd be able to be alone until they day after tomorrow.

It would've been fine expect for that blasted PADD alert going off. It was a ship wide message, and Jim was expecting it to be something of little importance like work being done in a hallway.

He opened up the message and all but threw the PADD across the room. The message read

Important date reminder. Tomorrow is Captain James T. Kirk's birthday.

Jim actually found himself thanking protocol for once. None of the bridge crew could have their PADD's with them unless it was needed to perform their job. As the Captain, Jim needed his PADD incase he got an important message, or classified orders that needed to be responded to right away.

If any of the crew thought the captain's sudden bouncing of the leg was odd, they didn't say anything. They were used to the oddities of the captain, well they were used to them as much as one could be.

Who knew three hours could feel like forever. When it was finally time to change shifts, Jim carefully stood up and headed towards the turbo lift. He didn't want to arouse anyone's suspensions. He let a few people get onto the life before him before he got on himself.

The walk to his quarters was a blur. He almost broke the key pad with how hard he pushed in his code. Once he was in he locked the door so tight that there was only one person on the entire ship that could enter his room, and that one person wouldn't abuse his power like that.

"Lights, three percent." Jim spoke into the room, the lights dimming to his request. There was just enough light that he could make out the silhouettes of the furniture.

The young captain headed into his bathroom to have a shower, with actual water. Thankful that he was a captain. There was nothing better than a hot shower to help one get their thoughts together. He sighed when he felt the hot water hit his body. Most of his worries washing away within seconds of him entering the shower.

He just couldn't shake the sick feeling he had about tomorrow. He couldn't decide if it was anger at himself for not realizing, or if it was anxiety because he was in space for the first time on the anniversary of that event.

It could've been a mix of both. Not wanting to seem like he was abusing his water privileges he climbed out of his shower five minutes later and got dressed in a pair of old sweat pants and a band tee-shirt.

He climbed into his bed and snuggled into his pillow fully intent on catching a few minutes of rest, he wasn't going to get any once the clock flipped over.

He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep but he was so rudely awakened by someone banging on his door, loudly. Jim decided that he would ignore it. He glanced at the clock, it was 8:00pm CST on earth. That narrowed down the choices to who that could be.

To narrow his choices further he thought back to if he was supposed to have met someone for one reason or another. Nothing came to mind. He felt a light bulb go off in his head, head had skipped

lunch and slept through dinner which narrowed it down further. There were very few people on this ship that actually care if he ate every meal or not. There were only three that would actually approach him about it, even if it was only one day he missed a meal. Those three would be Spock, Uhura, and Bones.

He got his answer when the doors slid open, alerting him that his code had been over-ridden. But the silhouetted figure of a man with crossed arms, and an undoubtedly stern face would've given the perpetrator away anyhow.

Jim grumbled something and turned on his side. Not wanting to face the doctor's contained wrath at him missing meals. He had sat through this talk many times. He wasn't up to it at the moment and tomorrow would be a touchy day for him anyhow.

"Jim." Bones tried after seeing his friend turn away from him. As expected there was no response.

There was a chair situated near Jim's bed and Bones walked over to it. It was the one thing that Jim had in his room that personalized it. The doctor had yet to ask him about it, seeing as it wasn't a particularly comfortable chair and Jim didn't seem to take any special care of it. Bones shrugged, maybe it was just a chair and the captain had found something he liked about it.

After he spent five minutes looking around the room and seeing that Jim wasn't going to even acknowledge his presence.

Jim was looking at the wall behind Bones' head but was somewhere else.

"Jim." Bones tried again, this time his tone more forceful.

That did the trick as Jim looked at Bones. There was nothing said between the two of them for a few more minutes. Jim showing his displeasure that Bones was in his room uninvited.

"What's up?" Bones finally began.

"There is no up in space." Jim replied shortly.

"Right. How do you feel? You skipped lunch and dinner."

"I feel fine physically. Emotionally I'm annoyed that your in my room. There was a reason that I locked the door with my code."

Bones rolled his eyes. This obviously wasn't the best time, he had broke into Jim's room. But he had wanted to make sure that the captain was alright, so who could blame him.

Bones looked over to the calendar by Jim's bed. He saw that Jim was attempting to keep track of the time on earth, when he saw what the date was. He hadn't had time to check his own earth calendar this morning. There was an accident in engineering that had taken precedence over anything else as a few crew members had been critically injured.

Tomorrow was Jim's birthday and the anniversary of the Kelvin's destruction. How had he missed it? There was something obviously different about this year that he had missed.

"Oh." Bones said.

Jim nodded. "Yeah."

They sat in more silence. Jim was waiting for Bones to ask, he had done this dance with the doctor many times as he was pretty sure that he was able to fool the doctor by now.

"How are you holding up?" Bones finally asked.

"Fine. It won't be any different from any other year." Jim waved off his friends concern.

Bones would've almost been fooled by Jim's tone if he hadn't been watching the blonde's eyes.

"No your not." Bones said.

Jim cursed. He should've know that Bones would've been able to see the turmoil he was in through his eyes.

Whoever said eyes are the windows to the soul needed to be put to death. Even if they were dead. Jim decided.

He sighed and began to reluctantly explain why he was in so much turmoil this year when he was normally fine.

This word was a toughy! Again you guys must love to make me think! Thanks though! Leave any words below. Later! ~IF