Summary: Jim Kirk programmed the computer system for the starship, Enterprise. When one of the crewmen on the Enterprise's first mission to Mars is injured, Starfleet asks Jim to step in. Kirk/Spock AU, fusion with RocketMan.

A/N: Yay! I finished another chapter! XD I apologize for the pacing of my updates. I've been posting once a month instead of twice a month like I had planned, but considering the fact that I'm writing both this and Looking For Shooting Stars at the moment on top of school and dealing with my family, I think that's about as fast as I can go. Oh, and for those of you who do read LFSS as well, I would like you to know, I am working on it. School seems to have gotten a bit more time-consuming as of late (due to a difficult project for one of my classes), and fanfiction has had to go on the back burner. However, I got my project turned in, and the next update should be ready in the next week or so. :)

As for this chapter of RocketMan, well, I did my best with describing all of the trials Jim has to go through. If you aren't getting a clear picture of what some of the machines look like though, you might want to google them.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy. XD

RocketMan Part 3

Jim's head didn't hurt the next morning, but everything felt a bit muffled. He wasn't exactly hung over—he hadn't had enough to drink for that, thank god—but he still felt fuzzy. After fifteen minutes of staring up at his ceiling waiting for things to come into focus, Jim finally admitted defeat and decided that he should just get up before he made himself late.

He groaned as he sat up and looked at the clock. It was already seventeen past seven in the morning, and he had to be at Starfleet by eight. The walk itself would only take about five minutes, but even so, he didn't want to end up getting there late if he didn't have to.

And so, he hurried through his morning routine, showering, shaving, and dressing in record time. He walked into the kitchen, still running his fingers over his hair in an attempt to get it to lie somewhat flat. (It didn't work, of course.) Bones and Chekov were sitting at the table, and while the twenty-year-old was looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—Jim hated morning people—Bones was looking about as unenthusiastic about being awake as Jim felt.

"Heya, Bones," Jim said as he stole a piece of toast off of the man's plate and sat down across from him.

"Keep your damn hands to yourself," Bones grumbled in what Jim thought was supposed to be a menacing tone.

He didn't try to take the food back though, so Jim took a large bite off of one corner and looked at his other roommate. "Morning, Chekov."

"Hello, Jim," Chekov replied cheerily. "Zhere ees coffee ower zhere eef you want eet."

Jim gave him a grateful smile. "I really want to kiss you right now," he said as shoved the rest of Bones's toast into his mouth and stood up. He poured the coffee into a cup and took a sip. Fuck, that was heavenly.

"Why, Jim," Bones said. "That's practically pedophilia." Huh, so apparently he was upset that Jim had stolen his food.

Jim snorted. "Right," he responded dismissively. "I don't want to hear that from you."

Bones stiffened and scowled at him over Chekov's oblivious head. "I don't know what you mean." Then he changed the topic. "Don't you have to be at Starfleet soon? It's almost eight."

Jim looked at the clock. Eight forty-five. Oh what a dilemma. Get to Starfleet early, or stay here and fuck with Bones some more? Jim sighed. He supposed he should at least try to be somewhat responsible.

"Fine, fine. I'm going," he relented, raising the only slightly cooling coffee to his lips and swallowing the rest of it in a few large gulps. "Will I see you guys today?"

"We will be…" Chekov started.

Bones moved over to him quickly and wrapped an arm around the boy's head so that he could clap one hand over his mouth. "We can't say anything about the trials, Jim," Bones said, grimacing. "We're under orders."

"But you will be there?" Jim asked.

Bones just nodded, and Jim's shoulders relaxed a bit in relief. At least there would be a few people there who were rooting for him.

Jim picked up his wallet and keys off of the counter and pushed them into his pockets on his way to the door. He looked back at Chekov, who still had Bones hand covering his mouth, and unable to resist getting one last parting shot, he said, "Wow, Chekov. The last time I saw a guy hold his breath that long he was on his knees."

Bones let go of Chekov with a startled, "Jim!", and Jim walked all the way to Starfleet with a big, stupid grin on his face.

Chris met him at the front doors when Jim arrived at Starfleet. Jim had to admit that he was kind of surprised. He had expected that he would be taken to the test site, but he had anticipated being taken there by Nero or one of his flunkies if the guy couldn't be bothered. Getting Chris instead was definitely a plus in his books.

"Jim," he said, his voice relieved. "I'm glad you made it on time." He took a deep breath. "Nero is already looking for an excuse to kick you to the curb," he confided. "I've been trying to convince him to be objective about all of this, but that man's as stubborn as they come."

Jim shrugged. "I'm just happy I'm being given the opportunity to try." He wasn't sure he felt that way inside, but telling Admiral Nero to fuck off again would probably not be in his best interest.

Chris led him further into the compound, turning to Jim as they passed through the first set of doors. "I can't tell you what the tests are going to be, Jim," Chris said. "Nero told everyone that we weren't allowed to tell you." The older man looked like he wanted to say something about that, but instead he took a deep breath and calmed himself down. "I can tell you that none of these tests are things that you will have any problem with. In fact, considering the things you used to get up to as a child, you might even enjoy them." Chris smiled crookedly at him before ushering him into a room off the main hall. "First things first though, we have to introduce you to someone."

There were several people in the room that Jim recognized, the most notable of which was Commander Spock who had his back to the door as he talked to…

Holy fucking hell. "Uhura?" Jim blurted out.

Chris looked at him. "You know her?"

The shock was beginning to wear off, so Jim just shrugged. "Not really," he replied. "I met her at the bar last night. She was out with Spock."

Chris nodded. "Spock's the one who recommended her. After you rejected his offer, Nero was eager to find another option as soon as possible. Though both Spock and I advised him to give you time to think about it, Nero insisted on finding someone else."

Jim eyed Spock as he spoke with Uhura. The Vulcan had wanted him for this mission. Why else would he request that Nero (the asshole Admiral) give Jim time? Why else would he give him what passed for an inspirational speech when they had bumped into each other in the guy's lab? Regardless of the fact that Spock had recommended Uhura, Jim was sure that Spock wanted him to go on this mission.

Because he had been watching, Jim knew the minute the Vulcan decided to turn and acknowledge them. "Mr. Kirk," Spock greeted. "Captain Pike, I do not believe you are acquainted with Lieutenant Uhura. She was one of my brightest students at the Academy. Nyota, this is Captain Pike."

Uhura extended a hand. "It is nice to meet you, sir."

Chris shook it firmly while Jim just grinned at her. "Couldn't stay away from me, could you?" He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Uhura rolled her eyes, but didn't get a chance to respond as Admiral Nero strode into the room, Bones and Chekov following at his heels. "We're all here, I see," Nero observed. "Pike, I want you to take Mr. Kirk to his first test. Commander Spock, please escort Lieutenant Uhura to hers. The first test must be completed within an hour, and then they will switch."

Both Chris and Spock responded in the affirmative, and Nero was gone again before Jim could blink.

The first thing Jim saw when he entered the room was a giant set of rings situated around a seat, a circuit board firmly attached to the front. "Sweet swirling onion rings," Jim said softly, barely able to contain his glee. The first test involved a god damned gyroscope. He had seen something like this on TV once, but he had never thought that he would ever get to try one out. Chris had been totally right. This was fucking awesome.

"Okay, Jim, I need you to get in the chair…" Chris looked up to find that Jim had already climbed in. Jim was nearly beside himself with sheer delight. He couldn't wait until this thing got moving. "Ah, good, now complete the circuits as fast as you can on my mark." He pulled a stopwatch from his pocket. "Three, two, one, go!"

Jim muttered to himself as he worked. This particular circuit board wasn't complex. It was made up of a bunch of black and red cables with matching input/output jacks for each one. The tricky part was that there were multiple wires that all looked the same, and he had to figure out which one went in which hole. Jim felt that he had an advantage though, because while most programmers were better with the software than the hardware, he had considered it his job to know all aspects of his technology, inside and out. In fact, the most of the circuits he was currently completing had been built from designs he had included when he sent them the final version of the Enterprise's operating system.

"Done!"

Chris hit the button on the stopwatch and stared at him in amazement. "Jim, this is the fastest time I've ever seen."

Jim shrugged. "Yeah, well, I designed most of these circuits. This is the first time I've seen them in 3D, but they're still of my creation."

Chris grinned at him. "Well, either way, you did great. Let's see if you do so well when it's moving." He walked over to Jim and disconnected all of the circuits.

Jim smirked back at Chris. "Are you going to start doubting me now?"

Chris didn't answer, instead going to the panel that controlled the gyroscopes movements and flipping the switch.

Putting the circuits together while being jerked in a million different directions was not anywhere near as easy as doing it when he had been upright. Jim wanted to win though. He wanted to be the best and go up into space with Spock and Bones and Chekov. He wanted to earn that honor, and that meant that he had to buckle down and fucking do it. The first wire was the most difficult to grab, but once he had it in his hand, once he had felt for the nodule that indicated just which circuit it was supposed to complete, once he had slotted it into the correct jack, he felt a renewed sense of purpose, and everything got so much easier.

Less than three minutes later, Jim once more yelled, "Done," and then, after Chris had stopped the machine, when Jim's head had stopped spinning, he was able to make out the huge smile on the older man's face that meant he had done well.

Uhura walked toward him confidently, her hips swaying with each step as she moved away from the ridiculously awesome machine Jim would give anything to be riding at that moment. Jim didn't spare another glance for Uhura as he moved toward it.

The machine was huge and consisted of a long arm attached to a central column. On the opposite end of the arm, there was a seat. But what did it do? Jim analyzed it for a moment before it finally hit him.

God damn. It was a fucking g-force machine. Jim had heard that Starfleet used it to prepare their officers for the extreme gravitational pull experienced during launch, but he had never in his wildest dreams believed that he would get to go through it too. He knew that a typical launch was only about three Gs, but he wondered if they would let him go even faster. Would they let him get up to five Gs? Six? Hell, seven?

Jim was practically salivating as he looked at the machine, but before he could climb aboard, a hand smacked down on his shoulder, bringing him out of his 'human centrifuge' induced trance.

"Feeling sick, Kirk?" Uhura asked, a hint of amusement in her eyes. Jim just looked at her like she was crazy. Was she mistaking his expression of dazed wonderment for his 'I'm about to puke' face? "You're not going to get very far if you can't handle a few curves."

"Oh, I can handle curves," Jim responded teasingly. "The interesting thing is that, based on your satisfied expression, you can too." He grinned at her lecherously.

Uhura's lips twitched, but instead of smiling (like she so obviously wanted to), she merely flipped her hair back over her shoulder and walked away from him. Jim couldn't resist watching her leave—she really did have a great ass—and after a quick look around to see if anyone had noticed, he realized that he wasn't the only one who had been staring.

Chris cleared his throat behind Jim, startling him. Jim hadn't even realized the guy had come back from the control room. "Let's get you strapped in, Jim," he said, putting one hand on Jim's shoulder and leading him forward. "They're going to start you off nice and easy, and then, depending on your reactions, they'll increase the speed until you tell them to stop." Jim sat down in the seat and buckled up the harness. "I'll be in the control room." He indicated the glass window behind which Nero, Spock, and a few other people were standing and watching them. Jim noticed that Bones and Chekov were also there and waved at them enthusiastically before looking back at Chris, who smiled at him encouragingly. "Good luck, Jim."

Jim didn't even have time to respond before Chris was gone, and his seat was lifting away from the ground as the arm moved up the central column. He jerked a bit when it finally locked into position.

And then, it started spinning. Very, very slowly.

Jim was disappointed. Where was the speed Jim had been waiting for? It was obviously time for him to do something about it.

"You know," Jim said loudly, hoping they could hear him. "My elderly next door neighbor can move faster than this."

They must have heard him because a moment later, his seat was moving around the room at twice the speed. It still wasn't enough though. He wanted to go fast.

Jim yawned, stretching his arms up over his head. "What do you know?" he mused aloud. "We've finally matched the carousel they always have at the local fair. You know the one, don't you? The one that's been in operation for the last twenty years?"

Once again, the machine's momentum increased. He must be at three Gs now. He wanted to be at four. "Faster!"

He felt a definite jump in the speed, and he let out a whoop. Now it was getting fun. He could feel his face contorting as the gravitational effect of the centrifugal force pulled at his skin, but he didn't care. This was making his fucking day.

Even if I don't get to go up into space, Jim thought. Even if Uhura beats me, just getting to do this is a hell of a consolation prize.

And if that is all it would ever be, well, he was going to take advantage of it. He screamed once more for them to go faster.

Jim was preoccupied with flattening his hair back down when Chris hurried into the room, a huge grin splitting his face in two. "Jim, you beat the record."

Jim just looked at him, nonplussed. "What record?"

"The record for most Gs. Spock's record," Chris clarified. "You broke it."

"I broke Spock's record?" Jim wasn't sure whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"You were going seven Gs, Jim," the older man said excitedly. "Spock's record was for six. That combined with your ridiculously good times on the circuit board mean Nero is definitely going to have to take you into serious consideration for the mission."

Jim's eyes widened. "How did, uh…" He trailed off. Did he really want to know? Yes, he decided. He really did want to know. "How did Spock take the whole 'me beating his record' thing?"

Chris shrugged. "Not sure, Jim. It's hard to tell with Vulcans. They don't really give away all that much in their facial expressions. He did raise his eyebrow, but I'm not sure if that means he's upset about it or merely curious." He shook his head and helped Jim out of his seat. "That doesn't matter right now. We have to get you to the next test. This one is going to be a face to face competition." He led Jim out of the room and over to a door a bit further down the hall. He opened it and ushered Jim inside. "You and Lieutenant Uhura are going to be competing to see which one of you can hold their breath the longest."

Jim looked around the room and saw that Uhura was standing next to Spock and Nero against the wall opposite the door. He ignored Nero and Spock—looking at the Vulcan was a sure way to end up with sweaty palms—and winked at Uhura. "I see you survived the swirling onion rings of doom."

Uhura snorted. "And apparently you can handle curves. Congratulations, you are a real boy."

"You're blockin' the door, Jim," a voice said behind him.

Jim turned and smiled as Bones and Chekov pushed past him.

"Hello, Jim," Chekov said cheerily. "You did wery, wery good on zhe last test."

"Thanks, Chekov," Jim replied. "So, Bones, you and Chekov here to give me advice on holding my breath?" he asked teasingly, waggling his eyebrows a bit to make sure Bones understood what he was implying. "Because I'll have you know…"

"Jim, if you're going where I think you're going with that, I don't think you want to be finishing that thought," Chris interrupted quickly. Jim saw Chris's eyes flick to Nero and got the message.

"Right, well, what I meant was…" Chris glared at him. "You know what, never mind."

Bones clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing it tightly to let him know that he also knew what Jim had been planning on saying, and he was going to get him back for it later. "Let's get you hooked up to the vasculatory sensor," he said, pushing Jim along roughly. "We wanna make sure that your heart rate is within the expected levels, just in case. It also does a total survey of your circulatory, pulmonary and vascular systems so that we can make sure your body is handlin' the lack of oxygen."

"Ow!" Jim cried as Bones yanked up his shirt and slapped the sensors onto his chest. "That hurt, Bones!"

"Don't be a baby," Bones replied, smacking another pad down on his arm.

Jim huffed and decided to ignore the other man. He wouldn't give Bones the satisfaction of reacting. He raised his head and his eyes met Spock's. Fuck, he had been trying to avoid thinking about the fact that the Vulcan was in the room. Unfortunately for him, Spock was not only in the room, he was also looking straight at Jim with the oddest glint in his eyes. Jim couldn't place it because there wasn't a facial expression to go along with it, but he tried to analyze it anyway. What did it mean? Did Spock hate him for beating his record? Was it approval or curiosity or—dare he even hope—jealousy? Was Spock upset that someone else was touching him?

No, that couldn't be it. Spock hadn't spoken to him at all today, and he sure as hell hadn't shown any indication that he even liked Jim, let alone the feelings he would have to have in order to be jealous. Jim shook his head. He needed to stop giving himself false hope.

Across from him, Uhura was being hooked up to an identical sensor by Chekov, who was happily babbling away to her in Russian, which she was apparently fluent in judging by the way she was responding in kind. Damn, sexy, smart, and multilingual? If she was gunning for Spock—from his observations of her last night, Jim was sure that she was—he didn't stand a chance.

"Okay, Jim," Bones said, interrupting his depressing thoughts. "All you need to do is keep the ping pong ball in the air." He pointed to a clear plastic tube in the middle of the table they were standing in front of. Jim looked closer. Sure enough, there was a ping pong ball at the bottom of the tube. "Take a deep breath and then put your lips around the breathing tube when give you the signal. As long as you don't let go, the ball will stay in the air. Once it drops, we'll mark your time."

Here goes nothing. And when Bones nodded his head, Jim bent down to take the breathing tube into his mouth.

The last test was the longest, and the most boring. Jim didn't think he would be able to say that after the stupid breathing test—all they had learned was that both he and Uhura could only hold their breath for the average amount of time for their gender—but the isolation chamber definitely took the cake on that one. He had been in here five minutes and already he was going out of his mind from lack of stimulation.

Fuck, he wished he had thought to bring his pocket chess set. He didn't even need an opponent; he could play against himself if he had to. He just needed the board.

Or did he? Jim had played chess without the equipment on several occasions, sometimes when he was bored, others when he was trying to calm himself down. It wasn't very hard. All he had to do was remember where he had placed each piece, and Jim had a very good memory. Even so, it helped to say the moves out loud, and hell, this was an isolation chamber. It wasn't like anyone was going to be able to hear him.

"Pawn to E4."

When they opened up the chamber twenty-four hours later, Jim was in the middle of recreating the final match of the Chess World Championships. The first person he saw was Uhura, and that was only because she stormed up to him, enraged.

"Holy shit, what happened to you?" he asked in surprise. Her hair was all over the place. There were bags underneath her eyes and her clothes were, for lack of a better word, frumpy. What the fuck had happened?

"What have you been doing in here?" she demanded. "You've been talking to yourself all night."

Jim's eyes widened. "You could hear me?"

"Yes, I could hear you," she huffed, putting her hands on her hips.

"Oops."

Uhura just looked at him for a moment, completely incensed, and then she moved as if she was going to throttle him. Before she could touch him, a man grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back through the door. "C'mon, lass. It's a wee past yer bedtime."

Uhura looked at the man in confusion. "Who…?"

Jim didn't hear anymore because suddenly, Spock was in front of him. "Rook to E2," he said softly.

Jim gaped at him. "What are you doing?"

Spock tilted his head and raised one eyebrow. "I believe that you are in the middle of a game. As Vulcans possess senses superior to those of humans, I have been able to hear you as you played. I wish to complete this game with you. Is this agreeable?"

"Yes!" Jim practically shouted. Fuck, he needed to calm himself down, but it was so hard to do when Spock was staring at him with such focus. "Um, pawn to B3."

"Bishop to D4. You are in check, Jim." Jim would swear there was amusement buried deep in Spock's eyes.

Jim quickly immersed himself in the game. He couldn't allow Spock to beat him. He needed to get his head on straight and think all of his moves through.

"King to E7."

Thirty minutes later, when Jim managed to pin down Spock's king, he didn't think he had ever felt more proud. He had just beaten a Vulcan at chess. He was fucking awesome.

And then, later still, when he finally sank down into his pillows and blankets, Jim couldn't help dreaming about the tiny curl at the corners of Spock's lips as the Vulcan gazed at him with surprised pleasure.

It only took Nero a day to decide who he wanted on the mission and then one more to set up the press conference that was obviously a necessity. Jim knew he wasn't going to be the one going on the mission. The decision had been made too quickly, and he knew he hadn't been the one Nero wanted from the start. He told himself not to feel too bad about the missed opportunity. Going into space was overrated anyway, and it's not like Spock would magically return his feelings if he ended up going. They would just end up spending most of their time awkwardly dancing around the issue of Jim's unrequited… whatever it was for Spock.

Oh, who was he kidding? Jim was crushed that he wasn't going to be able to go. He had at least wanted the chance to go up into space. One time was all he was asking for.

The only thing he could do now was try to hold on to his dignity and keep his feelings about the matter to himself. It didn't matter that he would never be with Spock. It didn't matter that he was going to have to move back in with his mother. It didn't matter that Bones and Chekov probably wouldn't be able to stay in contact after they left for Mars. It didn't matter that he would have to go back to his fucked up life and his boring job, and…

Fuck, it bothered him. It bothered him a lot. He didn't know how to handle it.

Even now, as he sat at a god damn press conference, waiting to be publicly humiliated as Nero announced Cupcake's replacement, he was still trying to get a grip on everything. Why couldn't Nero have just not been an asshole for once and told him that he wasn't the one in private? Why did it have to be broadcast on public television?

Nero was at the podium giving a god-awful, horrendously long speech. When would it end? Jim needed to focus on something. He needed to look like he was actually interested. He needed…

His gaze snagged on Spock's ear, which was just barely visible to Jim from his position on the opposite side of Nero. Jim had always fantasized about those ears. They were just so pointy, so exotic. He wanted to touch them. He wanted to kiss them. He wanted to… do other unmentionable and horrifically sappy things to those ears.

Nero's speech seemed to be winding down, and Jim snapped himself out of his pathetic daydreams, hoping nobody had noticed. He needed to listen so that when the moment came, he could graciously concede defeat and shake Uhura's hand.

"We are all pleased to announce that the newest member of the Mars mission is…" He paused for dramatic effect.

Oh, come on. Nero wasn't just going to leave them hanging like that was he?

"James T. Kirk!" Nero concluded.

Jim's head shot up, his eyes wide. What the fuck!?

A/N: So, as always, I would love to hear from you guys. Please let me know what you think. XD

Oh, and did you guys catch Scotty's cameo appearance? I really couldn't resist. ;)