A/N: Thank you so much to realistjoker for beta-ing this for me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.

The Mystery of Jim's Pon Farr

"I've got Pon Farr," the young captain whispered.

McCoy leaned in a little closer. "Pardon me, Jim?"

"Pon Farr. I think I've got it."

For a long moment, Dr. Leonard McCoy looked down upon the clearly desperate man sitting on the biobed. Then he turned to the nurse who was busily sterilizing surgical instruments at the nearby sink.

"Miss Morgan, could we have a few moments, please?"

"Certainly, Doctor," the blonde woman replied with a most pleasant smile as she then proceeded to walk into the next room, her pale-blue skirt swishing quietly against her thighs.

"All right," the doctor said, as he turned back to his friend and patient. "Before we can go any further with this, there's just two things you should know. First of all, you can't 'get' Pon Farr. It's not a disease, it's a biological cycle."

Jim threw his hands up. "Disease, cycle...what's the difference? If you've got it, you've got it!"

"Second - and this is just a minor detail - you're from the wrong blasted species!"

Jim shook his head. "Don't you think I know that, Bones? That's why I'm so freaked out right now. And do you know what else? I think she gave it to me."

"She?"

"Yeah, T'Lan. Who the hell else?"

McCoy's face took on a look of disbelief. "You think T'Lan gave you Pon Farr?"

"Well, it's the only explanation that's fucking logical, isn't it? She had it. We had sex. Now I have it."

Putting a hand to his chin, the doctor just there stood in silence for a time, his eyes set in a contemplative stare.

"So what do you think?" Jim prodded.

McCoy looked at him. "What do I think?"

"Yeah."

"I think I need a drink."

As Jim groaned, McCoy walked over to the food synthesizer on the far side of the room. T'Lan, T'Lan, T'Lan. He'd always wondered why the names of Vulcan women started in Ts. Now he knew. The T stood for 'Trouble', and the Enterprise saw a lot of it when she came on-board.

She was supposed to be some kind of bigwig emissary, the Federation's top negotiator. Her mission? To mediate a peace treaty between two alien species that had a serious hate-on for each other. The Enterprise was to serve as the neutral site where the treaty could be hammered out.

It was clear from the very beginning that there was something different about her. She didn't act like Vulcans usually did. No. Vulcan women were usually cold fish. But she wasn't cold. She was hot. Literally hot. She kept complaining about the heat, just like she kept complaining about the lighting, and the smells, and the food. Oh, definitely the food. Because after a day or two of irritating everyone with her constant grumbling, she had a meltdown in the ship's mess hall over a bad bowl of plomeek soup.

Following that incident, it became pretty damn obvious just what was wrong with her: she had one hell of a seven year itch and she needed it scratched.

But then the question became just what the hell to do about it. With her life was on the line, and the fate of two warring civilizations at stake, it was clear that something had to be done, but the ship was light-years away from any unattached Vulcan males who could mate with her.

Of course, that was when Jim decided that a non-Vulcan male would have to do it, and - naturally- that male would have to be him. He didn't give any justification as to why it had to be him, other than to say it was part of the 'burden of command' or something. Nobody had ever heard such bullshit, but he was the one in charge, so the ball was in his court.

T'Lan agreed to Jim's offer; she was so far gone by that point, she didn't need much convincing. But unfortunately for them, their little "rendezvous" didn't quite work out as planned. Because just as they were getting down to business in her quarters, an Orion battle cruiser decided to decloak off the port bow.

Yep, the Orions. Nobody should've been too surprised when they showed up. After all, Orions were war profiteers, and wherever peace treaties were being signed, they were usually lurking around, trying to muck things up. The poor bastards should have known better than to take on the Flagship of the Federation, though. Because in the end, they got nothing for their chutzpah except a volley of photon torpedoes up the wazoo.

The morning after the battle, T'Lan was back to her usual, frigid self. Apparently, her little quickie with Jim was somehow enough to do the trick. With her health much improved, the peace negotiations were concluded in no time, and soon the Enterprise was dropping her off at the nearest starbase.

Over the next couple days, life pretty much went on as before. That was, of course, up until just a few moments ago, when Jim walked into sickbay, looking like a man who had only ten minutes left to live.

McCoy sighed as he began to examine the food synthesizer menu. It had already been a rough day. Lieutenant Zadro had decided to go into labor at 05:00 that morning. Delivering all those baby Bolians had been no small job; they had just kept popping out, one right after another. Two hours later, there were nine - yes nine - tiny, blue-skinned newborns filling the incubators in sickbay. He really did need a drink, if only to wash away the mewling cries that were still echoing in his skull.

More specifically, he needed whiskey. Unfortunately, the damn food synthesizers weren't programmed for alcohol. Of course, there was a bottle of Jack Daniel's sitting on a shelf in his quarters, and he was tempted to go back there for a quick swig. The only thing stopping him was that Starfleet took an inexplicably dim view of CMOs drinking while on-duty.

Hmmm...well if he couldn't have whiskey, at least he could have something that he could pretend was whiskey. He typed in a few keys, and pretty soon, a glass of cool, clear mineral water was materializing on the platform right in front of him. Gulping it down, he went to grab his favorite stool and dragged it over to where his friend was sitting.

"Let's take this one step at a time, Jim. Why do you think you've got Pon Farr?"

"Well...for the past couple days, I've been having these urges."

"Urges?"

"Yeah, you know...urges. Like this morning on the bridge, when Yeoman Ross handed me my coffee, I had this overwhelming urge to put my hand on her ass."

"Don't you always have that urge?"

Jim shrugged. "With most of my yeomen, yeah, but usually I'm able to brush it away with pretty much no problem. This time I had to like physically grab my wrist to stop myself."

"Okay, so you have urges. We all have them once in a while."

"Yeah," Jim replied. "But I'm getting these urges all the time, and the kicker is, I'm getting angry after these urges."

"Angry?"

Jim nodded. "Angry. Like when I tasted the coffee that Ross gave me. You know I always drink it with cream and sugar, right? Well, this time it seemed a little too creamy...a little too sugary...and then I started to get really pissed off."

"All right."

"And then I barked at her to get me a new cup, and then all of a sudden the entire bridge just stopped and stared at me, like I'd turned into some kind of monster. I mean, I was shocked. I'm not usually like that. I try to be a good captain. I try to treat my crew with the respect they deserve." Jim's face turned frantic as he grabbed the doctor's shoulders. "I am a good captain, aren't I, Bones?"

"You're a great captain, Jim," McCoy replied, trying to sound sympathetic as he dislodged his friend's panicked hands.

"That's what I thought," Jim shrugged. "Anyways, now I know that I was trying to rationalize my anger. I was trying to pretend it was the coffee. But that wasn't really the reason. No, the reason was that I wanted her, and I knew..."

"Her? You mean Ross?"

"Yeah. And I got angry because I knew I couldn't have her, because of my duty, because of my responsibilities! Just like I can't have any of the women on the ship." He held up a pair of clenched fists. "Don't you see, Bones? It's my ship, but they're not my women. They can never be my women! Never!"

"Okay, okay, just settle down."

Something was telling McCoy that it was time to get out his medical tricorder. Rising from his stool, he went over to his disheveled desk and rummaged through the stacks of books and papers, looking for the device. He finally found it half-hidden under a journal on Edosian physiology.

He returned to where his friend still sat on the biobed. "Uh...I know I'm going to regret asking this Jim," he said as he powered up the tricorder and the familiar buzzing sound emerged, "but are there any other urges you want to talk about?"

"Well, I was sitting with Uhura in the mess hall last night and-"

McCoy's eyes went wide. "Jim, I hope to God you didn't try anything on her."

Jim held his hands up in defense. "I didn't. Honest. A part of me wanted to. I admit it. But somehow I reigned it in. Nothing happened, I swear."

The doctor shoved a finger towards his friend. "I goddamn hope not. Because otherwise, you won't just be a great captain, you'll be a dead one."

"I'm dead already, Bones. I'm dead inside. And that's what I was telling Uhura last night. I'm dead without her."

"You're dead without Ross?"

"No, T'Lan."

"Oh, so we're back to T'Lan, now."

"Yeah."

"Well, that's just super."

McCoy rubbed a hand over a now aching forehead. He needed that whiskey. Badly. But suddenly, an alarm-like beeping could be heard coming from the tricorder as strange readings began to light up its small, dark screen.

"Hey, you know what, Jim? There is something wrong with you. Adrenaline, testosterone, even your globulin levels - they're all off the scale."

"I told you, didn't I? It's Pon Farr. She had it. Now I have it. It's a disease, and she's infected me with it...infected my heart..."

"Oh, spare me," McCoy replied with a shake of his head as he looked more closely at the readings. Yep, something was definitely screwy.

"Look," the doctor said as he sat down upon the stool again. "You think this happened when the two of you were 'doing the deed', right? Jim, I need to know everything that happened that night."

"Everything?"

"Almost everything. Try to leave out all the sick details, all right? I just had lunch and I don't wanna lose it."

With a weary sigh, Jim took a helpless look around sickbay and then began to tell his tale. "Has a computer ever tried to seduce you, Bones? Because that's what it was like at first. I think she was trying to maintain control. But eventually we got our clothes off. And as soon as we did? She was no computer, Bones. She was an animal - a wild one. And to survive, I had to become as wild as she was. But it was hard, because she was so strong and so fast, and it was like she was all over me, tossing me this way and that way. You know, I'm usually the one doing that with women. But this time? It was like I was the woman."

McCoy threw his hand up. "Okay. Full stop. You're already starting to freak me out. Now just get to the damn point, all right?"

Jim nodded. "All right. Well, we were going at it, you know? And then she said that she had this burning for me, and that she was going to do something that would join us together, like forever or something. And then she grabbed my head in this spider grip, and she began to chant this weird shit into my ear. Well, I didn't understand a word of it. But it didn't matter, because then I felt her enter my mind and it was starting to turn me on even more. But suddenly I heard the ship's alarm blaring, and you know how conditioned I am to that thing. Like Pavlov's frickin' dog. So, I tore myself from her grasp, threw on my clothes, and got my ass to the bridge - which was a good thing, too, because it was just a split second before the Orions tried to blow us all to Kingdom Come."

The young captain bowed his head. "Just imagine it, Bones. A Vulcan's mate for life. Imagine what could have been."

"I am trying to imagine it, Jim. And to tell you the truth? It's just not working out." The doctor stood up and hurriedly walked over to the communications console on his desk. "I'm going to get Spock down here."

Jim's face looked up in alarm. "What? Why do we have to bring him into this?"

McCoy rounded on him. "Cause I'm a doctor, dammit, not some pointy-eared high priest. I'm getting the feeling that there's some telepathic mumbo jumbo going on here, and I didn't exactly take that in medical school." He pushed a bright red button on the console. "McCoy to Spock."

"Spock here." The Vulcan's deep voice seemed to emanate ominously throughout the room.

"Could you come to sickbay, Commander? I need to consult with you on something."

"I am currently engaged in a Level One diagnostic on the main systems. Is it of immediate importance?"

McCoy shrugged. "I guess you could say that. Jim's got...issues."

There was a long pause.

"I will be there momentarily."

Jim held up his hands. "Gee, thanks, Bones. The whole bridge could hear that. Now why don't you go advertise it to the entire ship?"

McCoy waved at him dismissively. "Oh, calm down. I had to get him here somehow, didn't I?"

A few more moments passed, as they both waited for the Vulcan to arrive.

"You won't tell him that I had urges about Uhura, will you?"

"No." McCoy rolled his eyes.

It was not much longer before Spock's tall, imposing form came striding into the room. McCoy couldn't quite place it, but there was something off about him. In fact, if he didn't know any better, he'd say that the Vulcan looked almost...angry!

"Gentlemen," Spock said brusquely, as he came to a halt in front of them. "What appears to be the problem?"

"I've got Pon Farr," Jim said.

"Indeed." An eyebrow flickered, but the Vulcan did not seem overly impressed.

McCoy looked at his tricorder again. "I have to admit that the symptoms are similar, Spock, and so are his biorhythms. But unlike with your Pon Farr, he's acting more pathetic than aggressive."

"Hey!" Jim shouted.

Spock shook his head. "I assure you it is not Pon Farr, Doctor. And in truth, I had suspected that something was wrong with him, given his strange behavior on the bridge." The Vulcan narrowed his eyes. "And also given his behavior with Nyota last night."

"I didn't do anything! I swear!"

"Indeed," the Vulcan replied, in a voice as cold as the grave. "You did nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing except glance frequently at her mammary glands for the entire conversation, stare blatantly at her posterior when she went to retrieve a cup of coffee. And what else did she mention? Ah yes, lay your hands upon her when you bade her farewell for the evening."

"I was just giving her a good night hug!"

"Of course," Spock replied, his voice rising, his fists almost trembling. "A hug. One that consisted of you stroking her neck with your fingers, one that she had to manually extricate herself from when you failed to relinquish your grip on her."

Looking on with growing concern, McCoy decided it was time to diffuse the situation. Quickly.

"Uh, Spock? I really don't think Jim's to blame at all. I don't know exactly what the hell's wrong with him, but I'm working on the theory that if he's not in Pon Farr, then T'Lan did something to him while she was in Pon Farr."

As if suddenly remembering himself, the Vulcan relaxed his posture, and his face returned to its usual state of detached calm. "An astute hypothesis, for I suspect that must indeed be the case. However, I will require a more complete explanation before I can be certain."

McCoy pointed to the man on the biobed. "Jim, tell him everything you were telling me. And this time, just remember to leave out the sick stuff, all right?"

Once more, the captain relayed his tale. And after he was done, two sets of human eyes nervously watched the Vulcan as he stood in pensive silence, one hand stroking his chin in contemplation, the other held against his chest.

"Well? Do you know what happened?" McCoy asked after some time had passed.

"Yes," Spock replied, "as I have read of similar cases. For obvious reasons, I am well-versed in all research concerning telepathic complications that can arise within Vulcan/non-Vulcan partnerships."

"Vulcan/non-Vulcan?" Jim asked eagerly. "Do you have any videos?"

Spock gritted his teeth and continued. "Based on that research, I can conclude with a high degree of certainty that he is suffering from the detrimental effects of a failed telepathic mating bond."

"A bond?" McCoy asked. "You mean...like what you have with Uhura?"

"Correct. You see, when Vulcans undergo the burning, they often experience a semi-instinctual urge to telepathically bond with their partner. Most Vulcans are able to resist that urge if they so wish, but apparently T'Lan is not one of them. After all..." he motioned to the captain, "...I highly doubt that a woman of her standing and reputation would willingly lower herself to bond with a man such as him."

"Oh, you're just jealous!" Jim shouted.

"Am I?" Spock replied. "Am I, indeed?" McCoy could see that the Vulcan was working his mouth, trying to repress a smile. The green-blooded sonuvabitch was damn well enjoying this!

"Yeah, I saw the way you were looking at her," Jim shot back. "You wanted her. I could tell! Well you'll never have her! She's mine!"

"Jim, cool it!" McCoy turned to the Vulcan. "So you think that this 'failed telepathic bond' did something to him?"

Spock nodded. "When T'Lan was in the midst of forming the bond, the ship's alarm rang, and he broke off too soon, therefore severing the link before it could be fully forged. However, prior to that happening, she managed to transfer a portion of her heightened state of arousal to him. With a Vulcan mind, this would not have been an issue; the arousal would have dissipated along with the failed bond. However, with a more vulnerable human mind it had the effect of inducing symptoms that were similar to, though less severe than, those found within Pon Farr."

McCoy inclined his head in concern. "And uh...are the symptoms permanent?"

"Negative. They should wear off soon...along with his incessant complaining."

"Thank God," the doctor breathed, wiping a hand across his forehead. "Jim, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to ground you from duty for a while."

"Awww, for how long?"

McCoy looked questioningly at the Vulcan.

"Based on similar cases, I estimate a recovery time of 2.5 more days."

"Okay, let's say three days to be safe. And I think it might be best if you just stayed in your quarters until then."

Jim gave a defeated sigh. "Yeah well, I don't feel like working right now, anyway." His shoulders slumping, the captain slid off the biobed and began to shuffle slowly across the room.

He was halfway to the door when he stopped and wearily turned around. For a long moment, he just stood there, as if the weight of the universe was upon him. "You know, I don't care what you two say. No matter how different we were, no matter how little we knew each other, T'Lan and I had something that was really special. And I just know in my heart that she was the one for me...the only one. And from this moment on, I will be a man who has no beach to walk on, a man who will never taste the sweetness of another's lips without regret, a man who will never look upon the body of a woman and think of anyone other than a dark-eyed, alien goddess who was mere seconds away from capturing my soul..." a haunted look came upon him, "...forever."

But just as he was about to take another step towards the door, he paused, and once more turned to face his friends. "Hey, you know what?" he said, his brows furrowing in sudden realization. "Yeoman Ross has dark eyes, too." He shrugged. "And bigger jugs."

And then he left.

Spock shook his head. "I will issue instructions to all the yeomen that they remain away from the captain's quarters for the time being." The Vulcan appeared to consider things a bit further. "And I believe it may be prudent to seal his door."

McCoy sighed. "Yeah, might be for the best." Suddenly, a thought came to him. "Hey, there's one thing I've been wondering about. Pon Farr is serious business, right? She could have died. But the day after the attack, she looked just fine to me. But how? I mean, Vulcans usually need quite a bit of…you know what…for the Pon Farr to wear off, don't they? I doubt her little romp with Jim was enough to do the trick."

"The emissary is indeed perfectly fine," the Vulcan replied. "Though you are correct in that there was some initial cause for concern. You see, after the battle was over, Nyota found her sitting in our quarters."

"Really?"

Spock nodded. "In her delirious state of mind, she believed that Jim had...rejected her. Therefore, she went to the only man on the ship...the only Vulcan...who she thought could help her."

The doctor froze. "Wait a minute. You mean 'help her' help her?"

"Affirmative. She knew that I already had a mate, but she was desperate, and it was taking every shred of control to stop herself from going about the ship and claiming a man by force. In fact, Nyota was very moved by her tears, as, I must confess, was I. The sight of a Vulcan weeping can be most disconcerting."

"Yeah, I bet. So...did you decide to...you know..."

One eyebrow rising, the Vulcan's head briefly tilted forward. "Yes, for time was running short, and her life was at stake. At first, I was exceedingly reluctant. After all, Nyota is my life. I have always been faithful to her and I always shall be." A look of fondness broke upon his face. "But my ashayam has a selfless heart, and she herself arrived at a most logical solution: we both would help her."

The doctor found himself clearing his throat. "Uh...both...?"

"Yes. Nyota, and I, both assisted her."

McCoy felt his mouth go dry. "You mean, you assisted her together? In that all three of you were..."

Not just one, but two, eyebrows rose. "Yes. Together. All three of us. For many hours. I must confess that it was a fascinating experience, perhaps even more fascinating than I had always thought it would be."

"Oh, I just bet it was."

Spock gave a curt nod. "Now, if you will please excuse me, Doctor, there is a Level One diagnostic that requires my attention."

As the Vulcan walked out of the room, Nurse Morgan walked back in, the hem of her short skirt moving oh-so-nicely against her snow-white thighs. Looking back at the retreating form of her commander, she bit her lip and gave McCoy an uncertain little glance.

"Were there any drugs or treatments that you needed me to prepare, Doctor?"

Treatments? Yeah, he needed treatments.

He was beginning to feel a little Pon Farrish.

The End