The worst part of this whole thing – well, okay, the worst part was Spock being unconscious and possibly comatose. But the second worst part… was definitely the flying monkeys that had clearly been inspired by the gritty reboot from 2186 and not the original movie, because those things were fucking terrifying. But the third worst thing, top five at least, was that Jim was pretty sure that they hadn't even done anything wrong. Not even the innocent 'how could we have even known that would be the thing to set everyone off,' kind of we didn't do anything wrong; they genuinely hadn't been doing anything. Jim had just been standing there looking around next to Spock, who had also just been standing around, scanning things with his tricorder.
They had been standing on some kind of sacred ground, hadn't they? They had totally been standing on sacred ground. God damn it. It was always fucking something. Did Jim just have really bad karma; had he been a mass murderer in a past life? On the other hand, the only former mass murderer Jim had ever met was now living in a cozy flat in London with his heterosexual life partner, so maybe it was less karma and more someone upstairs who had it in for Jim.
But Jim was getting ahead of himself, and a bit sidetracked. It had all started with a routine survey mission – and Jim should have known better right there, because it wouldn't be a 'routine' survey mission without something going horribly, horribly wrong – on an uninhabited planet – red flag number two, because it was always the uninhabited planets that were loaded to the gills with things that wanted to eat you, or, in this instance, shout at you in some weird Andorian dialect and transport you to a strange forest filled with flying monkeys. Jim had assembled an away team consisting of Spock, four other members of the science department and two from security – because Jim wasn't stupid, even if he hadn't seen the flying monkeys coming – and Jim himself. In private after the mission briefing, private except for Bones which was basically the same thing, Spock had questioned Jim's inclusion on the away party, given that Spock was more than capable of leading his team and the mission itself was likely to be boring for Jim. Jim had countered that he wanted to give some of the more junior officers a chance at the conn while they were in relatively safe space, and that people tended to take the responsibility more seriously when the captain was off the ship. McCoy had also chimed in Jim needed to get on planet for fresh air and to stretch his legs for a bit every so often or else he got stir crazy.
These answers seemed to satisfy Spock, saving Jim from having to mention the real reason he wanted to go, one that McCoy had probably figured that out anyway, because Jim was convinced he had some weird, Jim Kirk specific telepathy, was so he could pine after Spock while he was in full science geek mode. Platonically, of course, because Spock still had a girlfriend. A serious long-term girlfriend. And while there had maybe been some indications lately that things were cooling off between the two of them – hopeful and guilty were a weird combination of emotions to be feeling at the same time – there had been a lot of indications Jim's whole damn life that he was a wishful thinker when it came to love and romance. Plus, it was so hard to tell with Spock and Uhura, since the both of them tended to play things pretty close to the chest (when Spock wasn't in a draconic rage that was).
When they arrived on the planet, Jim ordered the four scientist to pair off to explore, and assigned a security guard to each pair. Meanwhile, Jim would accompany Spock, acting as his unofficial security while Spock did his science thing. Jim got the distinct feeling that the rest of the away team, especially the security officers and especially, especially Spock mentally re-categorized that as Spock being Jim's unofficial security while Jim worked out his cabin fever, but Jim didn't really care so long as no one was trying to split him and Spock up – not that they would – or trying to force Jim and Spock stay with the rest of the group. If they had had to keep hanging around other people, then Jim wouldn't have been able to pine after Spock properly, because another person might see and not understand that it was totally platonic and Jim definitely didn't fantasize about Spock coming to him and telling him that Jim dying in the warp core chamber made Spock realize how deeply in love with Jim he was and now he'd broken up with Uhura – who had been completely understanding and supportive about the whole thing – and he hoped that he and Jim could explore the galaxy together as space husbands. It was while Jim was staring at Spock and not-fantasizing about any of that – what Jim's denial lacked in believability, he would make up for with stubbornness – that the old Andorian woman suddenly appeared.
Now someone, especially someone with a grumpy attitude and a slight trace of a southern accent, might be tempted to claim that the woman hadn't just appeared, Jim had simply not noticed her coming because he was too distracted by all the fantasies he wasn't having. But that was absolutely not true; Jim would never let the sad state of his romantic life get in the way of him doing his job properly, and that woman had just popped into existence out of fucking nowhere. And as if that weren't weird enough, it wasn't just any Andorian woman who had randomly appeared on a supposedly uninhabited planet, she was also an Aenar, and to Jim's understanding that particular subculture left their home planet rarely to never.
Neither Jim nor Spock were given much time to process this sudden turn of events, because as soon as she showed up, she started screaming at them in rapid fire Andorian which, of course, the Universal Translators were automatically set not to translate. Starfleet's stance on the matter was that the Federation all but required its member citizens to learn to speak Standard, so if anyone wanted to communicate that was the language they'd use, and if they were using their native tongue they desired privacy. Normally it wouldn't be a huge deal, since Jim was conversationally fluent in the official languages of a number of different member races of the Federation, including Andorian, but whatever version of the language she was speaking, it definitely was not the official one.
"Do you," Jim stated to ask Spock, hoping that his experience as a language teacher might afford him a better understanding of what the woman was saying, but Jim was cut off by the woman shrieking even louder than she had before and pointing an accusatory antenna – he thought it was accusatory, anyway – at Jim. Apparently she didn't like to be interrupted.
Not being able to apply to Spock for help at the moment, Jim did the best he could to make out what she was saying himself, but he could only pick out about one word in every ten. And even that one word Jim wasn't entirely sure he was understanding correctly; surely not even Andorians talked about the snow that often, especially when there was none to be found at the moment. He also thought he picked up the word 'trespass' a couple of times, as well as 'elder' and a whole bunch of repetitions and variations on the word 'respect.'
Good Lord, it wasn't sacred ground at all; somehow, against all probability, Spock and Jim had managed to wander into the area that some crazy hermit Aenar considered her 'property' and were now being told to get off her lawn. Jim was never, ever going to live this one down. This might even be worse than the whole shit storm with the tribbles had been, and that whole day had been one blow to his ego after another.
Finally the woman ended her tirade with the Andorian word that could mean either 'amen' or 'abra kadabra,' depending on the context, of which Jim had none. Before Jim could even begin to try to respond to her, or more likely, have Spock try to communicate with her telepathically, he found himself suddenly transported to an Earth-like forest. In fact, the only reason Jim didn't simply assume the Enterprise had for some reason, perhaps sensing their… distress was a bit of a strong word for it, mild annoyance, maybe, beamed them to a different spot on the planet's surface was that this particular planet didn't have any plant life larger than bushes and shrubs, definitely no trees.
But Jim wasn't given any time to consider this either, because as soon as they appeared in… wherever it was that they had appeared, Spock fell to the ground completely limp.
"Spock!" Jim cried, kneeling down next to the collapsed Vulcan. After making sure that Spock was breathing, Jim placed his hand against Spock's heart. A little fast, but if Jim was remembering his 'damn hobgoblin physiology' from Bones correctly, fast for humans was normal for Vulcans, so Jim dismissed that as a likely cause of Spock's sudden faint. Next Jim began feeling Spock's head, looking for contusions or any other signs he might have been hit – not that Jim had an idea what Spock's head could have been hit by, but given that the theme for this whole damn mission seemed to be 'Jim doesn't have a clue what's going on,' it seemed prudent to check. (It also seemed prudent to tuck away the revelation that, yes, Spock's hair was as silky as it looked, away for later, after Spock had recovered.) Jim was just debating the merits of scanning Spock with his tricorder, given that it wasn't a medical tricorder, and all of Jim's medical knowledge came from what he had absorbed by being friends with McCoy, when the flying monkeys attacked.
Jim let out a high-pitched, but assuredly very manly, shriek (in his defense, Winona Kirk had a very weird understanding of the scare them straight concept, and Jim had seen the 2186 version of The Wizard of Oz when he was 5). Jim reached for his phaser, but he was slowed down by the fact that he was still holding Spock, and the monkeys swooped in closer. Just before they managed to grab them or attack them or whatever it is that flying monkeys do to people, there was a loud crack, like the sound of a gun firing, and the monkeys scattered.
Jim looked at his savior, and then blinked a couple of times in surprise. "Mom?"
"Do I look like your mom?" The question was asked with a tone that suggested the answer was obvious, and Jim was being rather stupid, but…
"Yeah, actually. I mean, you're obviously much younger than she is, but the two of you definitely look like you could be related," Jim told her.
"Huh," the woman said, looking somewhat amused. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time." She holstered her gun, and it struck Jim, as it hadn't before because he was too distracted by the flying monkeys that had been trying to kill them, that it was an oddly old-fashioned kind of weapon. Maybe the flying monkeys were immune to phaser fire – and there went any chance of Jim not having nightmares tonight. Her putting away the weapon also drew Jim's attention to the badge that was clipped to her belt, which was also oddly old-fashioned looking. "Emma Swan. I'm the sheriff here in Storybrooke."
Oh. Now things were falling into place, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing either, more like a 'here we go again' thing. "You'll forgive me if this sounds a little crazy, but I was just attacked by flying monkeys. Emma Swan as in the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?"
"That's me. I guess word gets around," Emma said.
"I guess so." In retrospect, Jim probably should have given crazy Aunt Swan's stories of their fairy tale heritage some credence before now, especially since Jim had had Gandalf over for tea not that long before they started their five year mission. By which Jim meant he'd come home one day to find Mycroft already in his apartment drinking the tea Jim had bought for when Spock visited as if it were his due, and then proceeded to get lectured for a full three and a half hours on the care and keeping of dragons. But in Jim's defense, he had been seven years old before he realized that 'crazy' wasn't actually his great aunt's first name, and it was pretty hard to take someone seriously after something like that.
"Hey, is your friend alright?" Emma asked, crossing over and crouching down next to Jim, who was still sitting on the ground with Spock half draped across his lap.
"I don't know," Jim replied, hating the uncertainty. "His pulse and his breathing are okay, and I can't find any injuries on him. He just collapsed out of nowhere and now he won't wake up."
Emma looked rather alarmed at that. "We need to get him to the hospital, fast. He might have had a stroke."
"No hospitals," Jim said quickly. He was already going to be in deep enough trouble for breaking the Temporal Prime Directive – Starfleet's new big thing after what went down with Nero, and nobody at Headquarters seemed to care that Jim was never trying to travel through time (well, except on that one occasion, but Jim had managed to re-introduce an extinct species to Earth's oceans and saved the Earth from a potential future attack by an alien whale probe thing, so really they should be thanking him for that one). He really didn't need to make it worse on himself by taking an alien to a pre-warp Earth hospital and break the regular Prime Directive as well.
"What, because of those?" Emma said, gesturing to Spock's pointed ears, and Jim could have kicked himself. Sure, he didn't have anything that wouldn't have been fairly conspicuous to cover Spock's ears with, nor had he had the time to cover them since Emma had shown up, but he still should have tried to do something. "I promise you that no one at the hospital is going to be weirded out because your friend is an elf."
"He's not an elf," Jim said immediately. Bones got to call Spock a hobgoblin and whatever else, but that's because Bones was Spock's friend – not that either of the two of them would ever admit it – which meant his comments were taken in the good natured teasing spirit they were intended in; Emma hadn't earned that right. Of course, immediately after he said that, Jim realized that she probably actually thought Spock was an elf and he should have gone on letting her think that, since now he was going to have to come up with an alternate explanation for Spock's pointed ears. Caught his head in a mechanical rice picker? No, that was dumb.
"He's part dragon," Jim finally settled on, as it had the virtue of being true, if completely unrelated to the shape of Spock's ears. Then, despite the seriousness of the conversation, nearly laughed at the completely befuddled look on Emma's face. "The dragon had been magic'd into human form at the time," he offered, which was again true, but completely unrelated to the genetic experiments that had created Spock's great, great, great, great, great grandmother.
"Oh, that makes so much more sense," Emma said, looking relieved to no longer have to be contemplating the logistics of human-dragon interspecies mating. "I'm not going to tell you that a half-dragon isn't the weirdest patient they've ever had at Storybrooke General, because he probably would be, but I promise that it won't keep them from doing their job. Now, we really need to get him medical attention, because whatever is wrong with him is probably pretty serious if he still hasn't woken up."
Jim shook his head. "I'm not trying to bad-mouth your doctors, but I really think it would be better to wait until I can get him home; even our personal doctor has trouble with his unique physiology." Then, seeing the very familiar stubborn set to Emma's features, Jim added, "Besides I think if it were actually something serious, then my friend would have gone into a healing trance by now."
"A healing trance? That's not a dragon thing I've ever heard of," Emma said doubtfully.
"And how many dragons have you met?" Jim asked, hoping the answer wasn't 'a lot.'
"Just the one and we didn't really chat," Emma admitted. "Plus, I'm not even sure she was a real dragon, technically." Jim gave a look as though that explained her severe knowledge gap in dragon lore, and Emma seemed to buy it, because she moved on to the next topic. "So if you're trying to get back home, I'm assuming you didn't get dumped here by the curse like everyone else. Well, because of that and the fact your friend is still sporting his pointy ears."
Jim, who normally considered himself a rational and scientific-minded man, if not quite as rational as certain members of his acquaintance might like, could only think in response to that, 'huh, a curse; well, that's new at least.' "I don't know about the curse, but it might have been a curse. There was this old lady who got pissed off at us out of nowhere and started yelling in a language I couldn't understand, and then suddenly we were here."
"Sounds like a curse," Emma said. "Which means we theoretically should be able to break it and send you both back to… where did you say you were from again?"
Jim briefly debated claiming to be from Middle Earth, in the hopes she might know how to get in touch with Gandalf to get his help in getting them home. But he discarded that idea, because Mycroft had never given Jim any indication that he had met Jim before, and Jim couldn't risk doing anything in the past unless it was completely unavoidable, or it was something that Jim was absolutely sure he was already have been going to do. Or something. Time travel was confusing.
"Somewhere else," Jim finally said, not willing to lie or tell the truth. Emma looked torn between wanting to respect the finality in his tone, and needing to know more about who they were before she helped them anymore. Jim watched her for a minute, and when he saw her tipping toward questioning them further, he spoke again. "Look, I swear I'm not here to hurt anyone and I'm not… I don't know, Loki in disguise trying to trick you or anything. I just want to get my friend home and make sure he's okay."
Emma gave him a long intent look and then visibly softened. "Okay, I believe you. Besides, you look more like a Thor than a Loki," Emma said.
Jim grinned at her. "Well, I was born during a lightning storm."
Emma huffed out a laugh. "Alright then Thor, let's see about getting you back to Valhalla. Unfortunately, while I've apparently got a lot of magic in me, I don't really know anything about using it. The two people in town who might actually know enough about curses to help you are Regina and Gold, but Gold is kind of a non-option at the moment, so that just leaves Regina."
"Do you think she can get us home?" Jim asked.
Emma frowned, looking a mixture of thoughtful and sympathetic. "I honestly don't know. She's a lot nicer than she used to be, so I think if she knows how, she will. I'm just not sure that she will know off-hand. And if she doesn't, I can't make any guarantees as to how much time she'll put in to figuring it out quickly; she's kind of got a lot on her plate at the moment."
Jim looked down at Spock. Despite his reassurances to Emma, he was gravely worried about his friend. It was nice to think that the lack of a healing trance indicated it wasn't anything serious – necessary to think it even, because Jim somewhat suspected that it was the only thing keeping him from a full-blown panic at the moment – but it was also possible that there was something wrong in his brain preventing him from going into the trance at all. Jim repositioned his hold on Spock so that his hand was pressed up against Spock's side, where he could feel the thrum of Spock's heartbeat, just as steady as it had been earlier, and tried to let that offer some comfort. "Okay, if you think asking Regina for help is our best bet, then that's what we'll do."
He looked back up at Emma, to find her considering him carefully. "I don't know anything about the customs of where you're both from – hell, I don't even know where you're both from is – so I'm sorry if this offends you, but… have you thought about trying True Love's Kiss?"
Jim froze, then forced himself to relax. "My friend has a girlfriend back home." And then, maybe because Emma really did look just like his mom, or maybe because Jim was so tired of lying and just wanted somebody to know – Bones knew too, of course, but Jim pretended like he didn't and Bones, being a good friend, let him – or probably a little of both, Jim said. "You aren't wrong about me, but he has a girlfriend back home."
"Oh," Emma said, and she gave him a sad sort of smile. "Well, if it makes you feel better, my last three boyfriends were: killed by having his heart crushed by my son's adoptive mother and my sort of step-grandmother, killed as part of a dark ritual to bring his dead father back to life, and secretly a flying monkey the whole time."
"I think you might actually have worse luck than me." Hell, maybe she was the one that he had inherited his luck from. "Though there was this one time… No, the flying monkey thing is worse."
"Yeah, come to think of it did I hear you screaming like a little girl when those monkeys attacked you?" Emma asked, teasing.
"I was being attacked by flying monkeys," Jim objected. "That's a primal fear."
Emma raised her eyebrows at him, looking amused. "I'm pretty sure primal fears are things like spiders and snakes and heights. You know, things that cavemen might have evolved to fear because they actually exist in real life."
"Well, those were flying monkeys, and this is real life, so I fail to see your point," Jim countered, and Emma shook her head at him.
"Whatever you say, kid."
"We're the same age!" Jim objected. Technically, Emma was his great, five or ten times over, grandmother, but she didn't know that.
"You're the one who called me 'Mom,'" Emma replied, which was so close to what Jim had been thinking, he couldn't really argue with it. He settled for giving her a dirty look, but Emma just smiled back at him. "Not really helping your case there any, kid."
"You were going to take us to see your friend," Jim prompted, trying to not let his tone get too belligerent. Joking was fine, but he couldn't afford to push it too far and piss Emma off. Spock was counting on him.
Emma winced a little. "'Friend' might be a bit of a strong word for it. And we weren't talking about that, we were talking about True Love's Kiss."
"I already told you–"
"I know you did," Emma said, cutting him off. "And I get it, and that sucks. But despite what the clichés might have you believe there's more to love than just romantic love: I broke a sleeping curse on my son once by giving him a kiss on the forehead. So maybe your friend isn't in love with you, but that doesn't mean the emotion isn't there in some form; the kiss could still work."
Jim had to choke back a harsh laugh at the talk of Vulcans and emotions, but Emma wasn't wrong. Controlling your emotions wasn't the same thing as not having them, and Jim was the last person who would buy into the bullshit 'Vulcans can't feel' rumor. Trying to beat Khan to death with his bare hands after Jim's apparent death because of Khan's part in the proceedings was hardly the logical response to the loss of a proficient commanding officer, and that wasn't even to mention the fact that Spock's dragon side had apparently designated Jim as his treasure. Like Emma said, the emotion probably was there in some form, it was just.
"Spock doesn't like to be touched." Jim offered, and Emma gave a skeptical look at the way Jim was cradling Spock in his lap. "That's different; I'm not just going to leave him on the ground. Besides, it's skin-to-skin contact that he avoids." Under normal circumstances a little bit of skin contact wouldn't be problem, as Spock was very good at shielding from unwanted telepathic contact, but with Spock being unconscious due to unknown causes, Jim had no idea if his shields were still in place. If they weren't, then if Jim kissed Spock, even a relatively innocuous kiss to the forehead, it would result in Jim blasting Spock with telepathic and emotional impressions that Spock hadn't consented to and couldn't presently protect himself from. That was the real violation here, much more so than a couple centimeters of skin pressing together.
"Okay, maybe physical contact is taboo among dragons or whatever, but do you really think he'd rather maybe die than get a kiss on the forehead from his friend?" Emma asked.
It was clear she still didn't get it, and probably wouldn't unless Jim explained about the telepathy, but he wouldn't do that because he wasn't sure of his ability to convince her that dragons were telepathic on top of everything else. On the other hand, Emma had a reasonable point. If this were a way for them to get back home, well, then, Jim would just do his best to keep his thoughts and emotions under tight wraps and make the whole thing as quick as possible.
Jim nodded, then took a few seconds to focus his thoughts entirely on the necessity of what he was about to do, locking down his extremely mixed feelings regarding the matter. He leaned in and brushed a quick kiss right between Spock's eyebrows. Nothing happened.
"Well, I'm so glad we tried that," he said, bitter.
"You looked like someone was holding a gun to your head," Emma remarked dryly.
"I'm stuck who knows how far away from home with my best friend who's practically in a coma, and you're telling me the only way I can get us back and get him help is if I completely violate his trust and kiss a taken man without his permission and while he's unconscious. I felt like I had a gun to my head," Jim retorted.
Emma sighed. "I know I said I don't know much about magic, but one thing I do know is it all comes down to intentions. No matter what you feel for him, it's never going to be True Love's Kiss if all you're thinking about is how badly his girlfriend is going to kick your ass when you get home. You need to really feel how much you love him for it to work."
"So basically, you're telling me it's not enough to completely break his trust, I also have to break my heart into a million tiny pieces too," Jim said.
Emma at least had the good grace to appear apologetic and a bit ashamed at that. "Look, I'll take you to Regina right now if you want, but I can tell you that she's not likely to have an easy fix for this ready to go. And if she finds out you haven't given True Love's Kiss a decent shot yet, she'll probably refuse to help until you do. She nicer than she used to be, but I still wouldn't call her warm and understanding."
"Which means the logical thing to do would be to try True Love's Kiss now," Jim said, trying to convince himself more than anything. Spock would understand, wouldn't he, that Jim didn't really have any better options available. Not that Jim had any plans to ever tell him about it, but if it did come up, or he remembered somehow…
"I'll do it," Jim said softly, but he didn't look up at Emma when he said it, his gaze focused wholly on Spock. Jim allowed his free hand to trace lightly over Spock's well-known and well-loved features – the stern-set lips, the up-swept eyebrows, one delicate pointed ear, that absolutely ridiculous bowl cut – and let lose all the feelings he'd been holding back deep inside him. Not just for Uhura sake, though she was a friend and Jim didn't want to do anything to hurt her, but for Spock's sake too. Because Spock was, God, Spock was just so perfect, and he deserved so much better than some fuck-up who had somehow fallen into the right crowd, the former juvenile delinquent who had gotten lucky a couple of times and had everyone call him a hero for it. And maybe Jim held back a little bit because he was scared. Scared that Spock knew he was way too good for Jim, and if Jim ever gave him any indication of what he was feeling then Spock would pull away and Jim would lose even the friendship he had with Spock now.
And nothing was worth risking that, because Spock… well, he was smart, of course, smart enough to completely blow Jim out of the water, but it almost annoyed Jim when people brought it up, because Spock's intelligence was so obvious, and they were totally missing everything else that was there. Spock wasn't just smart, he was also funny with a sharp biting wit that Jim couldn't get enough of, and one of the kindest and most compassionate beings Jim had ever met, and so unbelievably brave. And not just the loud, rushing headlong into danger bravery that Jim was good at, but the other sort of bravery that was quieter and, in Jim's opinion, more impressive for that. And he was loyal, so very loyal and the best friend a person could have. From the moment Spock had walked on his ship requesting to be Jim's First Officer, Jim had never been afraid to fall, because he had known that Spock would always catch him.
Of course, one could argue that a willingness to fall for Spock was exactly Jim's problem. But even if it was a problem, Jim had no desire to ever fix it. Just by his mere presence, Spock made Jim better, not just better than he was, but better than Jim ever thought he could be. And when the two of them worked together, it was the greatest feeling in the world.
Jim cupped Spock's cheek and wished that this moment was his by right, that Spock wanted what Jim had already freely given him. For a moment, Jim thought to quash that urge down, but then he decided to leave it be. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but that bone-deep ache was a real part of the love he felt for Spock, and it was just as true as all the happier aspects.
It was with all these feelings rolling in his gut and singing in his veins that Jim finally leaned forward and pressed a gentle, chaste kiss on Spock's lips.
The kiss seemed to go on forever, but Jim was certain it was only seconds later that he was pulling away to find himself no longer in a forest on Earth, but back exactly where he'd been when the crazy Aenar lady had first shown up. He didn't notice that straight away, however, being too focused on Spock blinking back to consciousness – God how Jim loved those eyes.
"Jim?" Spock queried, looking absolutely perplexed by his standards, and Jim felt a soft smile steal its way across his face.
"Hey Sleeping Beauty, welcome back to the land of the living."
Spock opened his mouth, possibly to ask about the love and affection that Jim just had to be leaking telepathically all over the place, but Jim didn't even care at that moment because it had been True Love's Kiss after all, and –
"Enterprise to Captain Kirk and Commander Spock, please respond." The tinny voice from the communicator, Uhura's voice, cut across the night air and brought Jim screaming back to reality.
"Captain Kirk here," Jim said into his communicator as both he and Spock got up from the ground. "The Commander and I are both fine, though Mr. Spock has only recently woken up from a bout of unconsciousness, so please alert sickbay to expect his presence shortly. Two to beam up."
The worst part of the whole thing, Jim later decided, didn't come until after all the action was said and done. When he and Spock first beamed up from the planet, there was a huge commotion in the transporter room. Jim thought it was all a little excessive, until it came out that he and Spock had been missing from the planet's surface for just over 30 hours, which seemed like some pretty crappy magical time travel if you asked Jim. After a round of reassurance, Jim sent a protesting Spock off with McCoy to sickbay, Uhura off with Spock's tricorder, with which Spock had had the good sense to record whatever it had been that the Aenar woman had screamed at them, and ordered all his officers to convene in the conference room in two hours for a debriefing. Once there, Scotty gave Jim an overview of what the Enterprise had been up to in his absence – looking for him and Spock mostly – and Jim gave his senior staff an abbreviated version of what had happened to the two of them, reframing the ending so it sounded as though it was Emma's actions that sent them home again rather than Jim's actions at her advice. Spock didn't have much to add to the story after Jim was done, other than that during his period of unconsciousness he had dreamed, a rare occurrence for a Vulcan, even a half human one, of dragons. Theories abound as to what had happened, but the only thing they were sure of by the end of the meeting was Uhura's assertion that the language was an older Aenarian dialect, and the gist of what Uhura had been able to translate so far had been, aside from a lot of cursing of the more mundane variety, something about sending Jim and Spock back to the time of their ancestors so that they might learn respect for them. Jim made the necessary orders to continue the investigation into what the hell had happened to them, including having some of the people from the social sciences look into Andorian and Aenar fairy tales, just in case, and his staff all went back to their duties, McCoy first extracting a promise from Jim that he'd come down to sickbay before his shift the next morning for a physical. Uhura hung back, gesturing for Spock to leave when it looked like he was going to wait for her, until she and Jim were the only two in the room.
"Is there something I can do for you?" Jim asked, certain for a second that Uhura has somehow figured out that Jim wasn't telling quite the whole story, and was going to demand satisfaction for Jim kissing her boyfriend.
Uhura, however, smiled at him, and then gave him an actual hug. Jim was, frankly, shocked and more than a bit pleased, since even now he was still not always certain that Uhura even liked him. Then she pulled back, and still smiling, said, "Thank you for bringing him back to me."
It was amazing how such an innocuous little comment could feel like a punch in the gut.
Jim, from long years of practice at putting on a false, self-confident front – not that all his confidence was faked, but it wasn't all real either – managed to smile back at her. "Hey, don't say I never gave you anything."
AN: Next story is "It's Not Easy Being Green-Blooded" (Story ID: 12251094)