It had been a month since the Enterprise had concluded their trade agreements with the Corinthians. Many of the crew had been suspicious of them due to their terrifying appearance, but over time, the crew had come to enjoy their calming and inquisitives presences within their minds. They had left Corinth 5 to continue exploring and had found themselves in a sector of space that was unknown to them. Much to Kirsash's chagrin, however, it was a section of space that was all too familiar, but she made no mention of it to the rest of the crew for fear that they would want to contact... other species.

Many of the crew found that this area of space was very calm, which was a nice break from the incredibly busy weeks they had gone through prior, but now meant that they were bored and started to find interest in rumors. It was a well known fact that rumors would be kept in check during stressful times, but since the crew had nothing else to do, they had found entertainment in learning the new stories of each other.

This explained why Scotty was walking with a murderous look in his eyes toward the medbay. The crew were smart enough to get out of his way and those who had not heard the latest rumors were left confused by his actions. Scotty burst into the medbay and found the source of his anger, making a beeline for McCoy.

"Whae in God's name am Ah supposedly datin' you?" He shouted right into McCoy's face.

McCoy looked taken aback by the breach of personal space, but Scotty's words started to sink in and confusion took its place. "Say what now?"

Scotty sighed impatiently, "Ah have just been congratulated by multiple people on mae new "relationship" with you. How the hell did this happen?"

"How the hell should I know?!" McCoy shouted back. They glared at each other for a few minutes and then, with realization hitting them like a bolt of lightning, both simultaneously turned to glare at Veron, who had been perched on one of the tables silently watching the entire yelling match. She was off her shift and had decided to pass the time in the medbay.

Upon receiving the two murderous glares from the older men, Veron simply raised her arms and shrugged her shoulders, shaking her head in the classic I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about gesture. She innocently said, "Don't look at me; I didn't do anything."

"Like hell you dinae!" Scotty shouted.

"Not on purpose anyway," she added.

"What do you mean 'not on purpose'?" McCoy seethed.

"Ah know wha' it is!" Scotty raged. "It's because you call us 'Mom' and 'Dad' all the time!"

"Oh, is that all? Well, good luck then, Mom." Veron said as she walked out of the medbay. Scotty called her to try to make her stay, but she ignored him and kept walking down the hall.

"You dinae stop her!" Scotty rounded on McCoy since he no longer had Veron to yell at.

McCoy raised one eyebrow, giving a very good impression of Spock. "She wouldn't have stayed even if I tried. She's stubborn as an ox and far stronger than one. It would be like trying to stop a tsunami with a child's bucket."

Scotty felt himself getting frustrated with all his metaphors and had a desperate need to throttle someone, preferably the doctor. "Wha' are we gunna do?"

A cool humorless voice added from the entrance of the medbay, "My suggestion, if the rumors are baseless, is to act as if everything is normal and announce that this "rumor" is pure fable." Scotty turned immediately to find Spock standing at the entrance to the medical bay, with his hands behind his back as usual. McCoy just groaned at the sight of him.

"Thanks Spock, but I think I'd rather ask your girlfriend for advice." McCoy quipped back. He didn't want that pointy-eared bastard to become part of an even bigger mess and had hoped that mentioning the communications specialist would have made him stop talking. It didn't.

"Ms. Uhura is on the bridge at the moment, so is unable to come and give you advice. In any case, the advice that I have given you comes directly from her. As a Communications officer, I am sure she is best suited to dealing with situations such as these. For her part, she has been dispelling the rumor as much as she can." Spock explained in such a monotone voice that unless you knew the Vulcan well, would have sounded like he was bored; but McCoy knew better and saw that he was actually rather enjoying all of this.

'Damn pointy-eared bastard.' McCoy thought. He hated when Spock was being smug. McCoy could swear that Spock was almost smiling when he gave his next two cents.

"It wouldn't hurt if you found yourself a partner other than Scotty if you wish to disprove this rumor." With that said, Spock made a slight bow and left the medbay. Scotty was right behind him, yelling that he was perfectly able to find a partner if he wanted to and that he was absolutely not dating McCoy. McCoy could hear him all the way down the hall until he entered the lift.

McCoy couldn't help but think a little more deeply about what Spock had said. It's true that he had been alone for some time; not by his own volition, but he had been so caught up with work, it simply hadn't been on his mind. It didn't mean that he hadn't found any of the crew attractive. Carol Marcus, who had been of great help during the fiasco with Khan, had seemed at least mildly interested. And there was always... but he couldn't think of it seriously. She was much too young for him and probably not interested.

Maybe this situation was the incentive he needed to talk to a certain younger blond woman.

Veron wandered around the halls, for lack of anything else to do. She had already tried to go bother Kirsash, but her room had been locked. Veron knew better now than to wake the Felixian after the last eight times she had tried, which had finally ended with Kirsash almost ripping her optical lenses apart. She wanted it to be the afternoon already so that she could finally get her upgrades; she had been waiting for a ridiculously long month and a half.

Just as she was thinking about this, she turned the corner and ran into Kirk. Although she was a good nine inches shorter than him, Kirk still found himself on the floor from the impact.

"Oh, hi Captain. I didn't see you."

"Obviously," he grumbled, picking himself up off the floor. "Have you seen Scotty? He was supposed to give me a report on the status of the warp core."

"Mom? He went to go see Dad."

Kirk stood there for a few moments trying to understand what Veron had said as she passed him and began to wander the corridors once more to pass the time. Kirk turned suddenly and asked her retreating figure, "Excuse me, what?"

"Mom went to see Dad. Mom and Dad. Scotty and McCoy. Duh!" She emphasised slowly, as if speaking to a child. Once that was explained, Veron left a very confused Captain in the middle of the hallway.

He took a few steps forward until the realization seemed to smack him upside the head with a baseball bat. Grinning wickedly, he increased his pace and set forth for the weapons bay, needing to have a little talk with their chief engineer.