Bar close? How could it possibly be bar close? The sound of artificial lasers rang out through the crowded room, signaling that it was one in the morning and patrons needed to be on their way. Jim had spent hours, hours, talking about his time with Starfleet. And I truthfully had enjoyed every second of it. He was so animated, so passionate about all of his experiences.

It was making my reconsideration of joining the academy again swing towards a cautionary yes. I wanted it all. The adventure. The purpose. The camaraderie. Jim was a living testament to everything the experience could be for me. The risk of failing again paled in comparison to continuing on my current path of loneliness and constant resentment.

I walked a few steps behind Jim as we exited the bar with other merry patrons of the Fueling Hole, all of whom were now just a little too drunk to acknowledge the captain’s presence. There were a few whiskeys still sitting in my stomach as I caught up and started walking besides Jim. We had eventually caved and put in for an order of galactic nachos, but that had been hours ago.

Minus the churning of chips, cheese and whiskeys in my gut, I felt lighter. Optimistic even. Lighter than I had been at the river this afternoon. Lighter than when I came to the bar. Jim brought such an ease to conversation. He wasn’t measuring me up or trying to assess what exact purpose I would fulfill. He just wanted to talk. Enjoy my company. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around his seemingly selfless desire to spend time with me, of all people.

Jim suddenly slowed to a stop beside me. My heart picked up speed as it had earlier when I had first laid eyes on him in the bar. He still looked unnervingly handsome in his uniform, even in its disheveled state. I wanted to reach out and smooth some of the wrinkles on his chest, around his collar. Why, I didn’t quite know.

He had proven to me tonight that he was capable of being more than a womanizer in a fancy uniform. There were countless stories he shared of protecting his crew, and doing all that he could to be a leader that they could trust and support. He had been through several life changing predicaments over the years — it made my stagnant, aimless life seem quite hollow in comparison.

So when he stopped walking and a conflicted expression crossed his face for just a flicker of a moment, I was truly unsure of what was going to happen next, of what words might come out of his mouth.

“I know this will sound nothing but bad, but I’m going to say it anyway. Would you like to come back to my place? Please?”

Oh no. And here was the moment I had been dreading. The very moment I had pushed to the farthest corner of my mind, ever since he had approached me at the riverwalk. Of course all he wanted was to pursue his own pleasure — he just wanted to take me home. All those animated stories ... How had I let him convince me otherwise so easily? I was a conquest. The next name to add to his long, long list. Disappointment shot up in my chest when I fully expected a hot wave of anger. Odd.

“Jim, I really should just go — ’

“No, no, no, no, no, it’s not like that. I promise you, Aria. It’s not.” His hands were moving, palms facing outward towards me as he pleaded his case.

“It’s just, I would really rather not be alone, and I really just enjoy your company. I do. Please trust me. Please.”

I blinked up at him, my eyebrows drawn together, wondering when he had taken a step closer to me. All that damn whiskey … His blue eyes were searching my face rather frantically. What was he looking for? He was a notorious womanizer. How could I be so dumb and just fall into this trap? But after tonight, after just listening to him talk and having him listen to what I had to say, and with the whiskey still coursing through me …

“Alright, alright. I’ll go to your place. But not for long, Jim, Ok? I’m supposed to be getting my life together, not be out until all hours of the night like some freshman cadet.”

“I promise you, you will be home … before the sun comes up?” He stuck out his hand in the small space between us. I reached out and gave it a firm shake, his hand completely engulfing mine. Warm, calloused. I couldn’t tell who let the handshake linger on. He turned back towards the winding sidewalk, pausing to offer me the crook of his arm. I cocked my head in sheer confusion.

“Well? Shall we?” He offered me a smile that made it hard for me to tell him that I had no clue what exactly this gesture meant. Was he just being a gentleman? We were just going to talk, right? Enjoy each other’s company in a platonic way? Before the moment could drag on any longer, I cautiously slid my arm through his and we started walking again.

I could feel his body heat radiating through the sleeve of his uniform onto my elbow. The muscles of his arm flexed around my own as we strolled through the empty streets of Yorktown. Part of me wondered what his bare arms might look like underneath the rather stiff, starchy fabric. I shut that part of my mind off immediately as we approached his building in silence. Stupid, frothing loins.

Walking past him and through the front door of his building, which he held open for me in a nice yet annoyingly confusing gesture, I got a pleasant whiff of clean soap and his own musk. I quickly pushed the aroma to the back of my mind along with the urge to see his bare arms — the two thoughts occurring just a few seconds apart. Maybe he was just that good. Or maybe I was just that lonely mixed with a buzz, mixed with an incredible drought of any kind sexual activity. But I was not that person. I was not that woman. Not tonight, not ever.

Our elevator ride to the 23rd floor was silent. It was painfully obvious that our own thoughts were consuming our minds. Finally the elevator mercifully dinged, and I followed him to the right as we walked past numerous doors. He was on the end. Apartment 2311. He punched in a code and pressed his fingerprint to the keypad and held the door open for me once more.

I lowered my face away from him as I walked past, but somehow that damn scent of his infiltrated my senses again. Although this time I was prepared to hold my breath slightly — this was already a precarious situation. I needed to help myself fight off my own libido however I could.

The apartment had an incredibly open floor plan and was immaculately simplistic. It honestly didn’t even look lived in. Even with all the lights off, I could tell that it could be used as a model to show potential renters. I suppose it made sense, seeing as he did spend most of his time in space. Suddenly, as I took in every intimate detail of the room, I was overcome with the urge to leave. Before this turned into what I feared. I was in James T. Kirk’s apartment. Every part of that sentence pointed to sex. This was not going to end innocently. I was already setting myself up to fail. Just as I turned to head back towards the door, Jim stepped inside, blocking me from easily reaching the keypad.

“Aria. There’s something else I want to tell you.” His voice was so small in the open, empty space of his apartment. It was then I realized my ears were ringing slightly from the noise of the bar. Here, he seemed so far away from his persona as the incredibly successful captain of the Enterprise. Here, he was just a man, speaking directly to me in a hushed, small voice in the blanketed dark of his apartment. I couldn’t tell what exactly was the whiskey, and what were my true feelings. There wasn’t time to sort it out now. I lifted my face up to meet his gaze, his lips just one swift movement away.

“It’s, it’s something I haven’t told anyone. Something I have had a hard time even admitting to myself. Before this last mission… I applied for a promotion. I wanted out of being captain. It was crushing me. Being in deep space… it’s annihilating. And not having someone to share it with … I mean I have a crew that I would do anything for, sure, but I don’t love love them. Not a love like having a family or a person to share everything with. What I’m saying is, I’m not a perfect person. I’m not even a great man, not even close. I’m just a man. And having all this responsibility and a name to live up to … I’ve wanted to run and hide. Sometimes I still feel that way — weak. But tonight, with you … I felt grounded. Even in space.”

I stared up at him in complete shock. The smell of whiskey lingered in the air after he finished speaking. Where were the words? What could I possibly say to this man to let him know I felt that way too? With an intentional slowness, I reached out and took one of his hands in mine. Lightly holding it between my own that seemed small in comparison.

His calluses were rough. They were working hands. I fought back the urge to withdraw from the intimacy. I just wanted him to know that what he revealed to me mattered. That I knew how hard it was for him to tell me his truths. I kept my eyes locked on my hands that encased his own while trying to ignore the thundering of my heart against my ribs.

“My parents never named me. They never wanted me. I was left alone to wander Earth as soon as I could walk. People would try taking me in, but I could never stay in one place. I trusted no one. I never wanted to be with anyone because they needed to earn my presence if I really mattered to them. I’m skilled in combat because that’s the only way I know how to survive. Alone, fighting. I could barely read when I got into the academy the first time. It was terrifying. I was humiliated. Often. Except in combat. That’s where I was myself. No one could touch me. To be told I don’t have a speciality… to be told my one saving grace is not enough to succeed in this world … I know how you feel, Jim. I’ve lived that feeling a thousand different times.”

By the time I finished speaking there were tears brimming over my eyes — more tears. I was so sick of tears. I had let myself become exposed, become vulnerable. He stood completely still in front of me, not moving in the slightest. I looked up to see his face through my blur of tears. Tears of his own had welled in his eyes as he looked down at me. An exhausted woman baring her soul to a man she hardly knew. But a man who listened, who expressed, who felt, who seemed to genuinely care. I felt so impossibly close to him. My entire world was spinning haphazardly, making me want to stomp a foot down to get it to stop, to right itself. To rebalance.

He gingerly pulled his hand free from mine and walked across the room. For a few moments, he searched for something on a large, long shelf. He pulled a thin, square-shaped item from a spot above his head and removed a shiny black circle from it. He set it onto a strange apparatus I’d never seen before, and placed a long arm onto it that moved across the circle as the device spun it. The music it started to play was ancient. From a time long-since past. It filled each corner of the massive room’s vaulted ceiling.

Jim walked into the center of the nearly empty space, shrugging out of his formal long-sleeve captain’s jacket and setting it on the back of a couch as he strode past, leaving him in nothing but a white undershirt. Well, so much for shutting down my libido. My heart slammed forward into my chest again. This was not who I was. I was never alone with Starfleet captains in their immaculate apartments. More thudding, this time against my temples. Jim extended his now bare arm towards me.

“Dance with me?”

“Jim, I should — ”

“Aria, please. Just a dance.”

With a deep, uneven breath, I started walking towards him. I slid my own jacket off in the process, placing it gently on top of his. The air of his dark apartment was cool on my skin. Suddenly, I was hyper aware of everything. The hot burn in my cheeks. The outfit I wore. The whiskey that lingered heavily on my breath. The careless ponytail I threw my hair into this morning, which was no doubt all sorts of disheveled by now. The man who was waiting for me in the center of the room. My stomach churned sharply as everything swirled around in my skull.

I wavered slightly as I stopped in front of him. Partially due to my sudden raw anxiety, partially due to the whiskey that still coated my usually precise, measured movement. He reached out and wrapped his arm around my waist, steadying me. My body trembled at the warmth of his arm against my lower back. It felt like he could see right through me. Unfamiliar panic started to rise up in my gut. Every inch of me wanted to flee from this situation. Every fiber of my being screamed to not let this happen. But the risk thrilled my loneliness, intrigued it.

It took a ridiculous amount of focus to keep my hands steady as I placed one on his broad shoulder, the other firmly in the grasp of his hand. Our faces were incredibly close. If I swayed too far forward, the tips of our noses would have touched. He led us easily through the swells of the music — it was obvious he had listened to this song countless times before.

The smallest space existed between our bodies. It would take only a fraction of a movement to press into him, to feel the solidness of his chest. To feel more of his body heat. I wanted to do it. I wanted to take the step. But that would lead us down the wrong path, right towards the fear that this was all an elaborate scheme to get me into his bed.

I wouldn’t get another second to debate whether I should press into him or not. Because while I was in my own mind, trying to decide where exactly I factored into this unimaginable situation, Jim wrapped his arms around me. My breath caught in my throat as he moved his face along my cheek, his stubble grazing my skin all the way down my neck until his lips rested on my shoulder. I took a quivering breath as I felt him exhale deeply into the fabric of my shirt.

The old-fashioned music swelled, and I found myself moving my arms up and around Jim’s shoulders. It was a natural impulse, a knee jerk reaction. I could feel a tremor travel through his body as I lightly rested my hands on the back of his neck. The crescendo of stringed instruments and brass only fed the intense warmth that was rising up behind my heart. It filled my ears fully, drowning out my brain and any rational, logical thoughts.

His hands moved slowly and intentionally up and down my back, soothing me in a way I didn’t know I needed to be. I had never held a man in my arms. In an attempt to offer him similar comfort, I gently caressed the back of his neck with my thumb and felt him give me a gentle squeeze in response to my touch. The heat barreling through me was starting to become overwhelming. The music was finishing its climax, beginning the descent into its ending, into its resolution. My heart rate was unstoppable. It didn’t matter how badly I willed it to remain calm and even — it responded solely to the man who held me.

Everything seemed to become much smaller as we slowly swayed in the stray slices of city light coming through the massive glass windows. We were reduced down to a simple existence; two people reveling in quiet intimacy as the alcohol and buzz of the bar fell away.

The song was rolling into its final triumphant moments as I somehow managed to pull away from the force that was Jim Kirk. His stubbled trailed along my neck and cheek for a second time as I took a step backwards and attempted to master myself again. My hands naturally slid into both of his and slowly fell away as I finally managed to put a few feet of distance between us.

Relentless pressure pulsed in my temples. I swallowed against my churning stomach which mostly contained whiskey. Words were nowhere to be found. Searching my mind yielded nothing. My heart kept on booming. With no other options, my head swiveled up towards Jim, the room swirling around us in my peripheral vision. Mistake.

Slivers of light from the sleepless, ultra-modern city were falling randomly across his face. Defying all the damned odds, one slice of light fell directly over his red-tinged blue eyes. His gaze was soft, tired even. Taking a small step towards me, eliminating the little distance that allowed me to think somewhat coherently, he started reaching for my hands again. My stomach turned over sharply. Flight. It cooed in the back of my mind quietly, a distant war cry that grabbed my attention immediately. Suddenly my limbs were in motion.

All the training I received in the academy, all the trial and error learning I had to do on my own as a child, it all coalesced now, in this purely emotional situation. Know when you become prey. Do not let your pride choose fight over flight. The words kept echoing in the back of my mind while I snatched my coat off of the couch, off of his jacket, and headed for the door. I mumbled “I’m sorry, I have to go” under my breath as I nearly jogged to get to the keypad. Or maybe those words had only been in my mind. He was moving after me, trying to slow me down.

“Aria, wait. I didn’t mean to make you feel — just hear me out. I didn’t — ”

The rest of his sentence was lost behind his closed apartment door. Elevator would take too long. He would intercept me. Stairs were my only chance at getting out of the building quickly. I slammed open the door to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. The quick movement and sudden demand to have my legs work quickly sent cracking throbs of pain shooting through my skull. I needed to throw up, sleep, and try to forget this whole mess of an evening.

There were only two more flights of stairs between me and the never quite fresh and always a bit stale recycled air of Yorktown. No other footsteps echoed in the stairwell. No one called after me. I flung myself into the exit door and quickly turned to heave my guts into one of the tall planters of flowers stationed by the building. After taking a few seconds to empty my stomach, I immediately started jogging down the street as I wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand.

As I jogged past drunk cadets and evening patrols that eyed me warily as I breezed past, I realized I had no clue where I was going. My feet just kept moving. The familiar rhythm of my stride helped to push the churning nausea in my gut out of my mind. The only thing keeping me from collapsing onto the sidewalk was the fear of stopping.

Stopping meant processing. Processing would lead to nothing but emotional hell. There was already that small, cruel voice in the back of my mind that kept getting louder with each set of footfalls, “Keep moving, girl, and you might not die.” I swallowed rapidly against the bile shooting up my throat.

I rounded a corner, nearly clipping a couple walking hand-in-hand who shot me an annoyed glare, and slowed to a stop as I took in the building where my feet had subconsciously led me. The academy. It was a behemoth laid out before me, a flawless combination of modern and classic architecture. The sight of it alone was enough to silence the voice of the past that cooed in my ears and refocus my energy onto my own thoughts. I stood in the middle of the large paved path and stared up at the immaculate building as it glowed silently in the quiet of the night.

My breathing gradually began to return to normal as I stared up at the glass and concrete wonder. I half expected it to start talking to me, to acknowledge that I was there and that it understood why my feet had brought me here, of all places. But I already knew why. It just took me a few minutes to find the reason underneath the near crippling throbbing that seared through my sweaty temples every few seconds. I was here because I was going to reenlist. It was either that, or inevitably become a lonely, alcoholic nobody that blamed the past for their lack of happiness and success. And that was a pathetic excuse for a life that I had been entertaining for shamefully too long.

With a deep, stuttering breath, I casually walked over to one of the benches that lined the large fountain in the academy’s plaza and took a seat. Glancing down at the watch on my wrist, the time read 1:46 AM. I felt no urge to go back to my apartment and sleep. An almost electric clarity had settled over my mind, and it somehow managed to drown out my throbbing headache and vanquish the doubt that longed to creep up and smother my decision.

Slowly and methodically, I reached up and removed the binder from my hair. I smoothed over my scalp with my hands a few times and then pulled my hair into a high and tight ponytail. Settling into position, I crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap. I focused intensely on the clarity in my mind. My gaze was locked onto the academy as I attempted to meditate for the first time in years. Meditating was a tool that my combat instructor had taught me when my rage and emotions began to cloud my judgment, making my fighting sloppy.

I relished in the familiar feelings that slowly started to enter my body. Calmness, determination. In a few short hours I would be on a path again. Back on my way to becoming more than I was and more than my past would want me to be. All thanks to a cocky, womanizing captain, who sent me fleeing from his arms and back towards the woman I knew I could become.