[1] Ad Victoriam ➳ Star Trek (2009) ✔️

|02| Challenge Accepted

Chapter 2 x

~~~~~~~~~~

"He's looking at you again."

Victoria glanced over at her friend, Nyota Uhura, as the woman leaned in to whisper that to her. She rolled her eyes, looking over to see a young local sitting at a table, looking over at her before he looked away. She'd noticed him glancing over at the two of them...and every other girl in the bar...all night. He was handsome, she could admit that, with his sandy blonde hair and his blue eyes, she could see his eyes even from across the dimly lit bar, even with dozens of Cadets and locals walking past him and crowding around them all, she could see it. He seemed...kind, not kind in a doormat way though but more of the sort where he was genuinely good at heart. Like he was a decent man, something hard to come by these days, and that he had a strong will. He seemed the sort who, even when in the worst situation, was unable to genuinely hate or insult someone else. Despite what she assumed was his 'tough guy/rebel' countenance, she could tell he was probably a big softy when you got to know him.

"James Kirk has been looking at everyone," she rolled her eyes, turning back to the chips and dip sitting in the middle of their small 2-person table.

Uhura shook her head, "How do you manage to know who everyone is?" she gave her a suspicious look, "Have you been hacking again?"

She scoffed, "No, I learned my lesson," she held up a hand, recalling her most recent brush with the authority system that had nearly kept her from being accepted into the Fleet's program.

She'd just wanted to see who her competition was! That was all, she'd wanted to know who the other Cadets were, what she'd have to deal with if she did accept the Fleet's offer for a Cadet position. She'd...honestly been tempted not to accept, not to join the Fleet. It had been something she'd wanted to do ever since she was a child, since her father would tell her about all his own adventures with her mother in the Fleet. She'd wanted to go out there and see the stars and have adventures too...

But then she grew up.

She saw the strain it put on her parents. They had both started off on the same foot, both eager to join the Fleet, to see everything it had to offer, and both had loved it. But...her mother had claimed to love HER more. Her mother had wanted to leave the Fleet once she'd been born, a starship being no place to raise a child, but her father had just been made the Commander of a ship and he couldn't leave, he couldn't give up that opportunity. It had been the beginning of the end for her parents, the odd part was that...they didn't fight, not openly at least. Her mother just...progressively got more bitter in her remarks to her father, more accusing, more haughty. Almost all her remarks were centered around the Fleet and her father's dedication to it. She understood he loved it, he ought to, his entire family for generations all had ties to the Fleet, whether as crew members or captains or engineers or even as teachers at the Fleet's Academy...every single member of his family had dedicated their life to the Fleet, and he was no exception.

Neither was she it seemed.

Her mother had had enough only a few years ago, had sworn she'd leave and had really done it. She could still remember that day, when her mother had come into her room to see her preparing for one of the entrance exams for the Fleet, even though she wouldn't be eligible to join for a year or two more, and had sat with her. She could remember her mother's offer to leave with her, to escape the Fleet when she had the chance.

She'd said no.

And she honestly wasn't sure if her father appreciated her decision to stay with him or not.

Her own relationship with her mother had changed after that as well. Her mother hardly ever spoke to her save once or twice a year to wish her a happy birthday or a fond holiday, and her father...he'd thrown himself into the Fleet with a passion. And THAT was the reason she'd said no to her mother. She knew what her father was like, he had a one-track mind most of the time, and it had been divided in three before, between her, her mother, and the Fleet. When her mother had left it was just divided in two. She knew that when her mother left her father would focus more on the Fleet and she knew if SHE left as well...there would be nothing stopping him from fully committing in every way he could.