Always by my side

Ten

Jim POV

Bones had just finished cleaning up my scratches from the unfortunate encounter with the Teenaxi, when Sulu called me on my communicator to tell me that we were almost at Yorktown. I let out a sigh, taking one last look at my communicator, checking whether Sarah had answered my message- she hadn't.

Over the two and a half years of the mission, she had gotten harder and harder to get in contact with. I still had no idea what had happened, our good-bye had been super weird and now she was practically ghosting me.

I've never been ghosted before.. Usually, I was the one not answering a girl's text. Well, I guess there's a first for everything.

Bones and I made our way to the bridge, where the Lieutenants were already looking at Yorktown in awe.

"That looks like a damn snow-globe in space, just waiting to break"

"That's the spirit, Bones"

Typical.

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We were leaving the shuttle, entering Yorktown together, but on our way out, everyone took their own paths.

Uhura and Spock were talking about something, it didn't look very good.

Chekov was nerding out with another Lieutenant he had cast an eye on.

Scotty was nowhere to be seen, he had probably left with Keenser.

Sulu went straight to Lee and their daughter Zoe, which made me grin, because I had to think about the moment Sarah and he had explained his sexual orientation to me and the others. I was surprised at first, but then I realized that it made a whole lot of sense and was even a little sad about him having the feeling that he couldn't tell me. Even though he assured me, that it wasn't fear holding him back but the feeling of the information not being important enough to be brought up if it didn't come up in a natural way.

I allowed myself to look for Sarah. My beautiful, funny, radiating Sarah, with her curly blond hair, her stunning saphire eyes and her contagious smile.

But she wasn't here. I felt my chest hurt a little, right at the spot my heart was and felt like crying. What happened to us? Why was she not replying to my text, not visiting me, and why the hell was I so beat up about it? I mean... Sure, she's my best friend and she means a lot to me, but my chest felt like someone was stabbing me- and that was not normal.

Commodore Paris interrupted my thoughts, telling me to come with her immediatly.

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"Attention, Crew of the Enterprise. Our mission is straightforward: rescue a crew stranded on a planet in uncharted space. Our trajectory will take us through an unstable nebula, one which will enable all communications with Starfleet. We're gonna be on our own. The Enterprise has something, no other ship in the feet has, you. And as we've come to understand, there is no such thing as the unknown, only the temporarily hidden. Kirk out"

I couldn't help but think how helpfull Sarahs combat and weapon skills would be on a mission like this- granted, we had security officers, but any excuse would do. Maybe I should have requested her on the mission... But now, the nebula before us, it was too late.