lucy mcclane. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
familyresemblance) wrote2016-08-23 03:10 pm
familyresemblance) wrote2016-08-23 03:10 pm
something something starfleet au
Starfleet Academy is a pipe dream.
Lucy McClane is a good student in school but she’s too wild; she’s born to be, fire from her mother and wrath from her father. She’s sharp and bright and witty but too quick to a fight; her blood runs hot on a good day, boils on worse ones. Her name is famous because of her father’s actions both heroic and otherwise. This means that everyone has an opinion about her family and everyone thinks they have the right to say it.
It’s stupid things, kid things that she should be able to ignore but a man she idolizes being torn down as nothing but a worthless alcoholic that gets kicked around Starfleet wears on her and it’s often that she snaps. She spends a lot of her time in high school sat on hard chairs outside the principal’s office with torn knuckles and a bloody face. She gets a reputation of her own and by the time she graduates, her younger brother is dealing with the slate of reputation she’s left behind.
He transfers schools, and she gets jaded.
When she tells her mother she wants to join Starfleet Holly laughs and Lucy feels like her feet have been pulled from under her in a vast black ocean.
Starfleet Academy is a trial.
She enrolls as Lucy Gennero to try and stave off some of the mentalities she left behind but it doesn’t work when John is often there, off-and-on working and off-and-on getting reprimanded for something or other. He seeks her out when he’s there, checking up on her and drawing attention in a way only he possibly can.
He hates that she’s doing this, hates that she’s going to go into the great unknown even though that makes him a hypocrite because she’s just following in his footsteps. They argue a lot and she does her best to distance from him, doubly so after he yanks her current boyfriend away from her by the collar and scares him so badly that he won’t even talk to her anymore.
She blocks John from communicating from her and throws herself deeper into her studies out of spite. She’s a good student here too but so many of her Instructors have dealt with her father in person that they have preconceived notions about her and she has to work that much harder even though they claim to not be playing favorites.
She’s too wild here too, getting into fights for the same reasons as before. She manages to hold off for a long time, but after her argument with John the first time someone makes a joke about air ducts she reels back and punches him in the face. By the time anyone intervenes she’s sitting on his chest and his face is bruised and bloody and he has a broken nose.
She doesn’t get expelled but it takes a lot and after that she has to keep herself more in check. From then on, she makes sure she’s not the one to throw the first punch. Then she’s just acting in self defense. Or she just doesn’t get caught. No one’s surprised she gets in fights, though. Most people just chalk it up as McClane genes. She hates that too but she goes by John’s name again anyway.
Starfleet Academy is a memory.
Lucy’s graduation from Starfleet is uneventful but she spends nearly half an hour sobbing afterward, huddled alone before she’ll face her parents for congratulations. It’s such a relief to be done, to be ready to go. She knows it’s not going to be easy because things never go easy for them. John Junior has joined the Academy recently and he knows exactly what she went through but neither of them mention it to their parents, sharing secret glances over dinner that Holly and John - on good terms now but never getting back together - don’t quite understand.
Lucy’s first assignment is on the USS Valiant but it only lasts one mission before she’s shuffled off to the USS Sharpe. Then it’s the USS Campbell and the USS Seeker and--it keeps going and going. One mission, maybe two, then weeks in limbo before she gets reassigned. She trains hard in her downtime, keeps herself in peak shape and does good work on every mission she’s on, even in the face of danger or tragedy.
One of her COs tells her to her face that she’s a liability and she can’t do anything but take it to heart because so many transfers has to be on her and not because of favoritism. She’s doing something wrong. She resigns herself to this kind of hell, doing her best but never being good enough.
One day after weeks of waiting she’s told that she’s been assigned to Captain James T. Kirk. Her breath catches not because she’s in awe but because he does things differently and something in the back of her mind is trying to finally hope. She still holds her bitterness close to her chest, crackling beneath her rib cage in a way that’s so sharp it’s painful.
She doesn’t expect him to keep her on because no one else has before.
But then he does. He appreciates her work and calls her intuitive and he wants her on his crew. Lucy’s still embarrassed by her show of emotion during her meeting with her new Captain (even the thought of having a Captain longer than a few missions makes her feel lightheaded) but she holes up in her quarters when she has downtime, quiet and still and alone.
It’s the first time she’s cried since she graduated from Starfleet Academy but it’s years worth of pain and frustration pouring forth and she feels empty after it but it’s a good empty, an empty that’s waiting to be filled again with fulfilling work she’s been waiting to do for years.
Starfleet Academy is finally, finally worth it.
Lucy McClane is a good student in school but she’s too wild; she’s born to be, fire from her mother and wrath from her father. She’s sharp and bright and witty but too quick to a fight; her blood runs hot on a good day, boils on worse ones. Her name is famous because of her father’s actions both heroic and otherwise. This means that everyone has an opinion about her family and everyone thinks they have the right to say it.
It’s stupid things, kid things that she should be able to ignore but a man she idolizes being torn down as nothing but a worthless alcoholic that gets kicked around Starfleet wears on her and it’s often that she snaps. She spends a lot of her time in high school sat on hard chairs outside the principal’s office with torn knuckles and a bloody face. She gets a reputation of her own and by the time she graduates, her younger brother is dealing with the slate of reputation she’s left behind.
He transfers schools, and she gets jaded.
When she tells her mother she wants to join Starfleet Holly laughs and Lucy feels like her feet have been pulled from under her in a vast black ocean.
Starfleet Academy is a trial.
She enrolls as Lucy Gennero to try and stave off some of the mentalities she left behind but it doesn’t work when John is often there, off-and-on working and off-and-on getting reprimanded for something or other. He seeks her out when he’s there, checking up on her and drawing attention in a way only he possibly can.
He hates that she’s doing this, hates that she’s going to go into the great unknown even though that makes him a hypocrite because she’s just following in his footsteps. They argue a lot and she does her best to distance from him, doubly so after he yanks her current boyfriend away from her by the collar and scares him so badly that he won’t even talk to her anymore.
She blocks John from communicating from her and throws herself deeper into her studies out of spite. She’s a good student here too but so many of her Instructors have dealt with her father in person that they have preconceived notions about her and she has to work that much harder even though they claim to not be playing favorites.
She’s too wild here too, getting into fights for the same reasons as before. She manages to hold off for a long time, but after her argument with John the first time someone makes a joke about air ducts she reels back and punches him in the face. By the time anyone intervenes she’s sitting on his chest and his face is bruised and bloody and he has a broken nose.
She doesn’t get expelled but it takes a lot and after that she has to keep herself more in check. From then on, she makes sure she’s not the one to throw the first punch. Then she’s just acting in self defense. Or she just doesn’t get caught. No one’s surprised she gets in fights, though. Most people just chalk it up as McClane genes. She hates that too but she goes by John’s name again anyway.
Starfleet Academy is a memory.
Lucy’s graduation from Starfleet is uneventful but she spends nearly half an hour sobbing afterward, huddled alone before she’ll face her parents for congratulations. It’s such a relief to be done, to be ready to go. She knows it’s not going to be easy because things never go easy for them. John Junior has joined the Academy recently and he knows exactly what she went through but neither of them mention it to their parents, sharing secret glances over dinner that Holly and John - on good terms now but never getting back together - don’t quite understand.
Lucy’s first assignment is on the USS Valiant but it only lasts one mission before she’s shuffled off to the USS Sharpe. Then it’s the USS Campbell and the USS Seeker and--it keeps going and going. One mission, maybe two, then weeks in limbo before she gets reassigned. She trains hard in her downtime, keeps herself in peak shape and does good work on every mission she’s on, even in the face of danger or tragedy.
One of her COs tells her to her face that she’s a liability and she can’t do anything but take it to heart because so many transfers has to be on her and not because of favoritism. She’s doing something wrong. She resigns herself to this kind of hell, doing her best but never being good enough.
One day after weeks of waiting she’s told that she’s been assigned to Captain James T. Kirk. Her breath catches not because she’s in awe but because he does things differently and something in the back of her mind is trying to finally hope. She still holds her bitterness close to her chest, crackling beneath her rib cage in a way that’s so sharp it’s painful.
She doesn’t expect him to keep her on because no one else has before.
But then he does. He appreciates her work and calls her intuitive and he wants her on his crew. Lucy’s still embarrassed by her show of emotion during her meeting with her new Captain (even the thought of having a Captain longer than a few missions makes her feel lightheaded) but she holes up in her quarters when she has downtime, quiet and still and alone.
It’s the first time she’s cried since she graduated from Starfleet Academy but it’s years worth of pain and frustration pouring forth and she feels empty after it but it’s a good empty, an empty that’s waiting to be filled again with fulfilling work she’s been waiting to do for years.
Starfleet Academy is finally, finally worth it.