I Want Crazy

As soon as Tom and Jim arrived at his apartment, they seemed to be only focused on one thing. Jim had pushed Tom against the wall and pushed her hands over her head to get her shirt off. She put a hand on the back of his head and pulled Jim forward to touch his lips to her neck. He knew exactly what he was doing; nipping and sucking all in the right places. Tom got his shirt up and over his head and pushed him against the opposite wall. Jim smirked as her lips went to his neck and chest, her hands traveling lower to his belt, that she quickly undid and pushed down his pants. Jim shivered and picked her up. Her legs were wrapped around his torso as he walked to his bedroom. The rest of their clothes were shed as they got lost in the sheets. The two laid entangled in Jim’s sheets, not saying anything, but still trying to catch their breaths.

Jim sat up a little bit and turned to look over at the clock on his nightstand. Tom shook her head, watching him. “Don’t worry.”

“About what?” Jim asked.

“I won’t be here when you wake up.”

“Wasn’t worried.” Jim admitted, honestly, his voice completely tired out. John quickly fell asleep while Tom laid awake, not touching him, but sticking to her side. She didn’t like cuddling or sharing a bed with another person so she kept her distance.

“Jim.” She said aloud, to make sure that he was definitely asleep. He didn’t answer. Tom sighed and moved out of the bed, gently, so as not to jostle it. Jim moved a little bit, but only to readjust himself so that he was reaching for the empty spot that she had just left. She dressed quickly and came back to his room. Tom stood in front of his alarm. “Alarm, set to six a.m.” she said to it.

“Alarm: six a.m.” the device repeated back to her.

As Tom turned to walk out of his apartment, she thought about Jim. “He had better show up.” she said to herself.

~~~~~

The morning quickly came and Tom instantly regretted not taking some sort of sleeping supplement. She was up all night, tossing and turning, nervous at what the next few year had lying ahead for her. Tom knew that she was going to be working ten times harder than the other cadets. Many of them, already had degrees in their field. Tom was probably going to be working on hers while also taking her classes at the Academy. When her alarm went off at six in the morning, she sighed, having already been awake for an hour.

Tom wasn’t sure what she was supposed to wear since she didn’t have a uniform yet. Instead of worrying about it, she chose to put her hair up in a ponytail and wear her normal t-shirt and jeans. She packed a duffel bag with the same thing and a few cute things in case she ever went out. She carried the duffel downstairs and placed it in front of the door. Her sisters and parents were all sitting around the small table in the kitchen like they always had every morning when they lived under the same roof. She smiled when she saw her family; Yasmin dressed in her cadet uniform, hat in her lap; Neoma with her youngest daughter in her arms; and Emmeline, looking like she had just rolled out of bed. Her mother was beautiful as always, looking as if she was going out to eat a very expensive dinner at a fancy restaurant. She loved to dress like this, and Tom loved that about her mom. Her father had actually but on a button down shirt on for the occasion as opposed to his ratty t-shirts he usually wore. He took the morning off at his garage to drive his daughters down to the shipyard.

“How was your night?” Tom’s mother asked.

“It was fun.” Tom replied.

“Did you meet anybody interesting?” Emmeline asked, slyly, smirking at Tom. Tom rolled her eyes, but nodded anyway. Her sister oohed. “What’s his name?”

“Jim.”

“Just Jim?” Tom nodded to her sister, trying to drop the subject. Her parents would freak out if they had found out that Tom had been in a fight last night. The rest of breakfast was spent in silence, not bringing up last night again. Cadence would occasionally look at her youngest daughter, thinking of all the places that she could go if she pushed herself harder. Her husband knew that their daughter was going places no matter how hard she worked. Tom was special. The only one of his daughters to be grounded and not worry about how they looked or the latest fashion trends.

The family gathered around the front door, Tom throwing her duffle bag strap over her shoulder. She hugged the sisters that she was leaving behind, leaving her mother for last. Her mother had tears in her eyes and Tom smiled.

“I’ll do good, Mom. I promise.” Tom said.

“You always do, honey.” Cadence pulled her daughter into a hug. “You’ll do great. I’ll miss you.”

“Miss you, too, Mom.” Tom said her last goodbyes and climbed into the middle of her dad’s truck, letting Yasmin take the window spot. The drive felt so long, but she knew they really didn’t live that far from the shipyard. She sighed when her father stopped the car in the middle of the shipyard, people walking around the vehicle on both sides, going different ways. Yasmin pointed to the ship to the right.

“You’ll be there, Tom. Will you be okay?” Tom nodded to her sister as Yasmin pushed the door open, placing her hat on her head and walking towards her own ship. This left Tom and her father to sit in the truck quietly. Neither of them liked the mushy stuff very much, but they both felt like a part of them was going to be missing after Tom left. She had never gone so long without seeing her father.

Tom sighed, and played with the fraying strings on her duffel. “I’m gonna miss you, Daddy.” She said, not looking up. Thomas put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and pulled her into a sideways hug. He kissed her temple.

“Me, too, Bud.” He said. “We’ll talk though. All the time.”

Tom nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m settled.” Thomas took his arm back and nodded.

“Sounds like plan.” Tom pushed herself out of the truck, wrapped her duffle strap around her body, and started walking to the ship that her sister had pointed out. Halfway there, she looked back to the truck, still sitting there, idling with the engine running. Thomas waved to his daughter, watching her walk the rest of the way. Tom ran into Captain Pike standing in front of the ship.

“Captain Pike.” She said, with a salute.

“At ease, Cadet.” Pike responded. Pike held out his hand for Tom to shake it. “Good luck, Cadet Parker. I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pike nodded and gestured his arm towards the ship behind him, letting Tom walk up the steps and onto it. She walked down an aisle, seeing a few guys from the bar. “Hey, ‘Cupcake.’” She said to him with a smirk as she kept walking. She found three empty seats down the next aisle and took the one on the end. Tom had yet to see Jim. Not that she was actually looking for him, but she’d hoped she’d have one friend. She sighed, kicking her bag under her seat and strapping herself in.

“Hey!” she heard from across the way. Tom looked up to see the girl from last night.

“Hi, you’re Uhura aren’t you?”

“You’re the girl who helped intervene last night.” Tom nodded.

“My name is Tom.” She said, with a smile.

“Sorry about the guys. I hope you didn’t get hurt. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t get hurt. But they did a number on Kirk’s face. He didn’t look too pretty afterwards.”

“No, I suppose not.” Uhura thought for a moment. “Well, good luck.”

Tom nodded. “You, too.” She said, leaning back in the seat. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, trying to calm her nerves. She got her breath into a steady rhythm when she heard the same silky voice from last night talking next to her ear.

“Thanks for the wakeup call, Tommy.” He said. Chills ran down Tom’s spine. She ignored them, thinking nothing of it.

“It’s Tom.” She corrected, opening her eyes to look at Jim. “I didn’t want you to be late.”

“I’m gonna call you Tommy.” Jim insisted. “How were you so sure that I would come, anyway?”

“I figured you wouldn’t give up your chances at having a friend like me.” she said with a smirk.

“Guess you figured right.” Tom nodded and looked up to Uhura, who was looking at the two of them. Jim pulled the first strap of his belt of his shoulder and looked up to see Uhura, glancing away from the two of them.

“Never did get that first name.” Jim said, cockily.

Tom shook her head. “I’m pretty sure you’ll never get it, Jimmy.” She said, with a sneer, choosing her own nickname for him.

“Jim.” He said, simply.

Tom laughed. “You call me Tommy, I call you Jimmy.” Jim rolled her eyes, just letting her go on with it.

“You need a doctor!” a female voice said from behind them. Tom and Jim strained their necks to get a good look at where the voice came from.

“I told you people, I don’t need a doctor. Dammit, I am a doctor.” Tom saw a scruffy looking man with longish dark brown hair being pulled from the small bathroom by an academy officer.

“You need to get back to your seat.” The officer said, simply.

“I had one!” the man yelled back. “In the bathroom, with no windows.” Tom laughed at this comment.

“You need to get back to your seat, now!” the woman said, raising her voice.

“Uh-oh.” Tom said, unstrapping herself from her seat and moving next to the arguing people.

“I suffer from aviophobia.” The man said. “It means fear of dying in something that flies.” He stressed.

“Sir, for your own safety, sit down or else I’ll make you sit down.”

This is when Tom decided to intervene. “Hey, we really don’t need to resort to violence and to be honest I don’t want to have to put myself in the middle of a fight again.” She said to the officer. Then she turned to the man. “Why don’t we just sit down, and try to take a few deep breaths? Meditate or something? Always works for me.” The man looked from Tom to the officer.

The man sighed. “Fine.” He said.

“Thank you.” the officer said to Tom. Tom nodded, and moved back to her seat as the man took the seat on the other side of Jim.

Jim leaned over to her. “You just have a habit of trying to break up fights.”

“I hate tension. Wastes so much time.” She said.

“I’m finding something I like about you every minute.” Jim said. Tom smirked.

“I may throw up on you.” The new man said to Jim. “Thanks, by the way, for getting her off my ass.”

“No problem.” Tom said.

“Personally, I think these things are pretty safe.” Jim said.

“Don’t pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. A solar flare might crop up and cook us in our seats. And wait ‘til you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you’re still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Tom said sarcastically. “Look, we’ll be fine. Chances of all that happening on one quick ride are pretty low.”

“And I hate to break it to you, but Starfleet operates in space.” Jim informed.

“Yeah, well, got nowhere else to go. The ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce.” The man took a tiny flask out of his pocket and opened the cap. “All I’ve got left is my bones.” He took a long swig of it.

“Jim Kirk.” Jim said, he gestured his head towards Tom. “That’s Tommy Parker.”

“Just Tom.” She corrected, sending a glare in Jim direction. The man offered them his flask. Tom grabbed it before Jim had a chance to react. She took a swig and handed it to Jim.

“McCoy.” The man said. “Leonard McCoy.”

“So,” Tom started. “Are you always that cranky? I mean, you seem like you could be kinda charming if it weren’t for the whole ‘wife leaving you’ thing.”

Jim turned his head to the side to look at her in disbelief. “You’re just gonna hit on him while I’m right here?”

“It’s not like we’re a thing or whatever.” Tom pointed out. “It was just one night.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“No,” Tom agreed. “But we should look at it like that.”

“Well, damn.” McCoy said. “I certainly missed the first part of this movie.” Tom leaned over Jim to get a look at their new friend.

“Don’t worry about it, Leo.” She said. “It wasn’t anything that was that important.”

Jim gawked at her. “Not important?” Tom turned to Jim and raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure that last night was the best night of your life.”

“If it was, I wouldn’t tell you. I can only imagine what it would do to your already heightened ego.” She laughed along with McCoy.

“Now, wait a minute.” Jim said, sternly.

Tom groaned. “Can we argue about this some other time. I hardly got any sleep last night. I’d like to get some on this ride.” Jim and McCoy honored her wishes and left her alone through the ride. It wasn’t as long as she had hoped, but she did get a little sleep. Once the vessel was stopped, she removed her harness and grabbed her bag, wrapping the strap around her torso. She stood in front of Jim and McCoy. “Well, boys. This is where we part. For now, I hope.” She added with a wink. The men nodded. She turned to see Uhura walking out of the vessel. “Hey, Uhura! Wait up!” Tom called. Tom scurried her way past all the of red uniform clad cadets and caught up to Uhura. “D’ya think I could follow you? I have no idea where I’m supposed to go.” Uhura nodded in response. “Thanks.” Tom said with a smile. She led me quietly, at first, to the dorms, where I would be getting my room assignment.

“Can I ask you a question?” Uhura brought forth.

Tom shrugged, but nodded. “Why not?”

“What’s going on with you and Kirk?”

Tom chuckled. “Honestly, I just met him last night. Don’t know much about him, other than the fact that he’s kinda a jackass.” Uhura laughed. “But I guess I should apologize for last night. It was kind of my fault. He and I had this bet…” Tom trailed off. “It was stupid.”

“It’s okay.” Uhura admitted. “Neither of us should have encouraged him.”

“Yeah, I gotta work on that.” Tom joked. The rest of the walk was spent in silence as she led Tom to the dorms. Uhura showed her where to go to get her assignment. “Thanks. Maybe once things settle down we can get together again. Have a girl’s night. It’ll be a way to annoy the hell outta Kirk.”

Uhura nodded with a smirk. “That’d be great. See you.” she said walking away from Tom. Tom turned to the lady sitting at the desk to receive her room assignment. She found her room and, noticing it was empty, quickly chose the bed that was closest to the door. Tom took a seat on her new bed, and looked around the room. She was here. She made it. She laid back on her bed, sighed and closed her eyes. Just as she drifted off to sleep, the door to her room slid open. She bolted upright to look at the intruder. It was short, dark-skinned girl with long curly hair. The girl saw Tom, and squealed. Tom’s eyes widened at the gesture. The new girl dropped her bags at the door and hurried over to a surprised Tom. The girl hugged Tom tightly, almost cutting off her air supply.

“Uh, hi?” Tom said, her voice strained.

The girl gasped and pulled away. “Oh, my goodness!” she said, in a thick southern accent. “I couldn’t be any ruder. Excuse me, but I’m your new roommate. My name is Daisy Mae Viola. Or Just Daisy Mae.” Daisy Mae held her hand out to Tom, which Tom shook.

“Reagan Parker. Call me Tom.”

“Interesting!” she said, still excited. “Well, I’m from Dallas. Texas, that is. My focus is in Medical. I’m gonna be a doctor someday.”

“That’s rather ambitious.” Tom said, in a half-sarcastic tone. “I’m in engineering. Mechanical stuff, mostly. I might try to branch out at my time here. Take a few extra classes.”

“Oh, awesome! Medical takes up enough of my time. You know, late hours studying and stuff like that. It’s gonna be a long road ahead of me, but I’m so excited to be here, you know?” Tom nodded, but wasn’t able to get a word in. “Do you wanna go out? Get a drink? I heard of this awesome bar, just off campus. They told me that all the Cadets go there. It should be fun. We can meet some of the other girls, maybe even a few guys.” She said suggestively, and then kept on talking.

Tom put her hands on Daisy Mae’s shoulders to slow her down. “Okay, first, breathe.” Tom ordered Daisy Mae, taking her own advice, the both of them taking a deep breath. “Second, with me, you’re gonna have to slow down or you’re gonna drive me crazy. Third, I’d love to get a drink.”

Tom waited for a reaction from her roommate as they just stared at each other. “You are so nice. No one’s ever been that honest with me.”

Tom shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I don’t bullshit.”