My Star Trek One-Shots

Christopher Pike - Temporal Drift PT 4

The first morning of training, La'an didn't let her sleep in. Daisy had never been a morning person—not in 2025, not even now—but La'an had knocked on her door at 0500 with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested sleep was optional and discipline was everything.

"You have five minutes to be in the corridor," La'an said coolly. "If you're late, we'll begin with pain."

Daisy blinked at her, groaned into her pillow, and somehow stumbled into a pair of boots and a sweatshirt before the countdown expired.

La'an was not gentle. She made Daisy run drills in the ship's training gym until she nearly threw up. Made her hold a phaser until her arm shook. Then made her do it again.

"This is Starfleet," La'an said sharply, as Daisy panted against the wall. "Even if you're not in a uniform yet, you will train like someone who could be."

"I was a bartender," Daisy muttered. "I'm not exactly built for battlefield tactics."

La'an arched a brow. "Then let's build you."

By the end of the first week, Daisy's knuckles were raw from stun baton practice and her knees ached from learning how to fall. She cursed under her breath more than once. But she showed up every day. Without fail. Earlier than she had to.

Because it meant something now.

It wasn't just about Pike. It was about proving she belonged. That her presence on the Enterprise wasn't a mistake or an indulgence or something he'd have to justify at every Admiralty check-in.

She wanted to earn her place. And La'an, for all her ice and iron, noticed.

"You've got grit," she said one day, tossing Daisy a water bottle. "Keep showing up like this, and I might even like you."

Daisy snorted. "Be still my heart."

Pike didn't hover. He didn't show up to her training or interfere. But he watched—quietly, carefully. And he noticed things, always. The way her stance started to straighten. The way she moved with new precision. The fact that she stopped flinching when someone called her by her full name, because she'd finally started owning it.

She wasn't just surviving here. She was becoming. And it undid him a little more every day.

Their nights changed too. The frantic, fevered urgency of their first weeks together mellowed into something steadier. Something more like a rhythm. They talked more. Sat close on the couch with mugs of coffee or wine and no pressure to fill the silence.

She teased him about how stiff his socks were folded. He teased her about the mess of wires she left under his console, tinkering with old speakers and retro interface mods.

But every night ended the same. In each other's arms. And every morning, she kissed his shoulder before slipping out quietly, so the world wouldn't see too much.

One night, after a long shift in the Warp Core and a brutal self-defense session with La'an, Daisy came back to Pike's quarters sore, sweaty, and irritable.

"I hate your head of security," she said, collapsing onto his bed.

"She grows on you," he replied.

"Like a fungus."

He chuckled, then sat beside her and gently rubbed her shoulder.

"You're doing well," he said softly. "I see it."

She looked up at him.

"Do you ever regret this?" she asked. "Not just me—us."

Pike met her eyes, serious now.