Two months later...
"Natasha!" Jim calls my name.
"Yeah?" I turn around, allowing Jim to catch up to me.
"You ready?"
"For what?"
"Oh, come on! You know what! Space! Exploration! We'll be on the Enterprise for five years! Isn't that amazing?"
"Sure." I say with no enthusiasm.
"You've got to be more excited than that!" Jim says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
"Yeah, I am. But I can contain myself more than you can."
"Because you're 'the responsible one'." Jim says into my hair.
"And you're the 'immature flirt'." I say, looking at him in the eye, smirking at him to let him know I'm just kidding around with him.
"That's what I'm best at." He says, returning the smirk.
"Pardon me, but I do not understand." Spock walks up next to me.
I jump at his sudden appearance. "Christ, Spock, maybe you could make some noise when you move?"
"I did, didn't you hear my footsteps? They were rather loud."
"Spock, there's more than 500 people here." I gesture to the rest of the large building.
"True, but-"
"I don't need a scientific explanation." I say. "What do you not understand?"
"The humor of your kind."
"Okay, now he's not making sense." I say to Jim.
"You think he's on the brink of insanity?" Jim asks.
"Possibly."
"You're voices are not as quiet as you think." Spock says. "I can easily hear you."
"I know, I meant for you to hear me." Jim says.
Spock mumbles something about not understanding our humor.
"It's something called sarcasm, maybe you've heard of it?" Jim says to Spock.
"Yes, I've heard of it-"
"Then you would understand." I wink at Spock, telling him I'm just joking with him.
"When do we leave for the Enterprise?" I ask Spock.
"Precisely tomorrow at noon, Captain Adams." He answers.
"Five years...in space." I say. "That's...a long time..."
"It's going to be fun!" Jim says.
"Bones will hate it."
"Because he's Bones, and he's a doctor, of course he's going to hate it." Jim replies. "He hated the first time we went into space."
I see Carol Marcus, stepping out of an elevator.
"Carol!" I call, waving her over.
She notices me, smiles, and walks over to me.
"It's been ages!" She says, hugging me.
"Only a few months." I say. "But it's still a long time. How are you?"
"Alright, the funeral was...odd, but then again, when you have nothing left of your father you don't expect it to be normal." She says her smile now gone. "Or when he was the Admiral of Starfleet."
