Breaking Bones

Chapter 1: Starfleet Academy

"Four years? I'm gonna do it in three."

Part of James T. Kirk was frustrated that he had so easily caved into Captain Pike's dare and was now boarding a shuttle headed for Starfleet Academy, but the other part of him embraced his massive ego and was ready to prove Pike, and everyone else, wrong regarding the doubts they held for him. That ego only grew when he passed the assholes who had marked up his beautiful face in the bar the night before, but not without him leaving a few beauty marks behind on them as well. 

"At ease, gentlemen." Kirk took a seat just past the security brutes and recognized a familiar face in the row parallel to him. He spoke with his usual cocky confidence as a smile graced the cadet's face. "Never did get that name."

"And you never will." 'Oh I'll get that name eventually. Challenge accepted.'

"Are you people deaf? I don't need a doctor. I am a doctor, dammit!"

"You need to find a seat--" 

"I had a seat in the bathroom, with no windows. I suffer from aviophobia, in case you don't understand big words, that means fear of dying in something that flies." 

"Sir, for your own safety, sit down or I will make you sit down." The tense conversation having moved directly in front of Kirk, the young cadet's eyes paced eagerly between the distraught man and irritated flight officer. While the two continued in an intense stare down for a moment, it was the man who finally relented and took a reluctant seat next to Kirk. With an incredibly fake smile in the man's direction, the flight officer resumed her post at the front of the transport ship. 

"I might throw up on you." 

"I think these things are pretty safe." The man beside Kirk let out a sarcastic chuff at the poor attempt at comfort. 

"Don't pander me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds, or a solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And you wait until you're sitting pretty with a case of the Andorian shingles, see if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence." Despite the fact that the man next to him clearly had a flare for the dramatics, Kirk couldn't help but be drawn to him and his seeming distaste for life in general. 

"I hate to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space." 

"Yeah, well my ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I've got left is my bones." As 'Bones' as James would now call him lifted a flask to his lips, Kirk smiled and held out his hand for the man to shake. 

"Jim Kirk." Bones looked at the hand indifferently, but shook it nonetheless. 

"McCoy. Leonard McCoy." 

"Are you really going to throw up?" 

"Maybe." Just then, the transport throttled slightly as it lifted off the ground, preparing for takeoff towards Starfleet Academy. Jim chuckled at the sudden tenseness of his neighbor but became less humored as Bones paled and looked like he truly would throw up on Jim any minute already. 

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1 1/2 years later 

 Anatalia raced towards through the crowded halls as she was running late to class yet again. In her defense, she'd recently had a schedule change, so it was her first day in the course and she hadn't had time yet to familiarize herself with the route across campus to the classroom. Anatalia Tonks had long dreamed of one day attending Starfleet Academy and eventually becoming a top notch admiral for the organization, exactly like her mother did. Living up to her mother's example was no easy feat, but Anatalia was determined and hard working, and was really good at not letting people judge or intimidate her. Although she'd only been at the academy for six months, she was already top of all of her classes and had even been moved up into some more advanced courses, hence her current state of distress and panic mid semester. As Anatalia approached the door to her lecture hall, she took a moment to compose herself before quietly opening the door, hoping to not disrupt the class that had already been in session for fifteen minutes. She thought she had gotten away with it as she made her way to an empty seat and began setting her bookbag down next to her, but she would have no such luck today.