PROLOGUE

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfettered by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth

But stagnates in the weeks of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Lord Tennyson In Memoriam XXVII

Chapter One: She Was a Phantom of Delight

She was a Phantom of Delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;

Like twilight's, too, her hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From Maytime and the cheerful dawn;

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt to startle, and waylay…

She Was a Phantom of Delight

By William Wordsworth

An excerpt

"Bones!" Kirk shouted from across the corridor. His face was positively beaming: his smile went from ear to ear, and his eyes were points of mirthful light. He strode over to the doctor, and in his stride there was, if it is possible, even more spring in his step. "Bones, hello there you old stick in the mud!"

"Jim." Bones responded dumbly. "I guess you must have had a wonderful shore leave?" McCoy wasn't, as the Captain inferred, trying to be a stick in the mud, but he had had an awful shore leave. They had spent 2 months on a planet—the Enterprise waiting to serve as chauffeur for some diplomatic and geological teams they had brought to the planet earlier. Pegasus IV was in a remote part of the galaxy, and far off starships' beaten track, not to mention the Enterprise crew was over-due for shore leave, so it was determined that the crew would take their sabbatical here, to save sending another ship into the area in such a short time.

Now, McCoy obviously didn't know anyone on the planet, and it held no particular interest for him, and Kirk had been occupied with something the entire time, so over-all, a pretty boring, lonely two months ensued. McCoy didn't jump into new things the way the Captain did. He didn't make many new acquaintances, as it seemed the rest of the crew had, nor was he familiar with many of the Enterprise crew members. The same could be said of Spock, of course, but, McCoy thought, that didn't matter for him—he had accompanied the geological team and kept himself occupied that way, not needing a sabbatical.

"Wonderful shore leave? Bones, I've met her! And I don't mean a 'she'. I mean I've met HER."