What happens when Spock and McCoy have themselves a little Freaky Friday experience? Especially when said experience happens during a delegate transport mission and in order to keep everyone calm they need to act like nothing's up. Can they switch back before they're found out or will this throw any success of the upcoming negotiations into the fire? Heavily based off of the 2003 movie Freaky Friday. -No Slash- Enjoy.
McCoy irritably tugged at the collar of his dress uniform - which, as always, was too damn tight around his neck. Star Fleet must get some serious kicks out of watching this ship squirm, because they were once again playing taxi to a bunch of ambassadors. There was going to be negotiations with the Creoleans on their joining the Federation, and of course that meant everyone had to be there... Well at least they were going to that nice planet, Argelius II, he and Kirk could finally go to that nice place they skipped out on last time.
But that didn't change the fact that every single time they've been stuck with a ship full of ambassadors, delegates, or some other VIP something went wrong. Last time so many different ambassadors were on this ship, one got killed, Spock's father nearly died of a heart attack, and they almost got killed by a terrorist. Another time, they were transporting the Elaan of Elas to Troyius and she turned out to be just as lovable as that tack you didn't notice on your chair. And don't even make me bring up the two black-and-white aliens from Cheron.
Then there was what he was told prior to the ambassadors arriving. Creole was a strange planet with a culture submerged in superstitions and "magic" as Jim put it. To be more accurate, they were almost like the Romanies of Old Earth except the fact that they were firmly settled where they were. It was thanks to their obscure ways that plenty other races don't trust them so easily, and also why they waited as long as they did before choosing to request joining the Federation. To add to that, McCoy - in the 2 hours these ambassadors have been aboard - already overheard a enough negative rumors exchanged between delegates to write a full book about it.
In short, McCoy had every reason to dread this mission. All the more reasons to assume something would go wrong. It was only a matter of time.
Now, as he stood there in the rec room, crowded by the ambassadors, he wanted nothing more than to leave. What was with him today? He usually fine with a good party. Hell, it was usually Spock who had the problem! Why was he so uneasy? Maybe he was over thinking the inevitable screw up that'd send him swearing his mouth off high and low while he tried to do what he could to fix it.
Relax. Enjoy the peace while it lasts. He told- no, nagged himself. He glanced over to Kirk, who was in one of his animated moods, as he conversed with Scotty and Spock. Well more like just Scotty. Spock seemed perfectly content to just stand in and occasionally comment.
He stiffly walked out of the rec room, the many voices starting to give him a headache, and leaned against the wall out in the corridor. With a heavy puffing sigh, he pushed his hair back and looked up to the ceiling lights, blinking quickly and tracking the floaters behind his eyelids.
"Is everything alright, Doctor?"
He almost grunted in irritation, and looked to Spock who must have followed him out. "Lovely. Absolutely wonderful."
The Vulcan didn't seem fazed by his sarcasm. In fact, he knew Spock had him figured out on terms of sarcasm, but like always he played innocent. He raised an eyebrow and just slightly cocked his head to the side. "I still fail to see why you humans feel the need to strike out as you do when asked such a simple question."
McCoy pushed away from the wall and met his stare. "Look, I'm not in the mood."
"Clearly," Spock agreed. "Though why is what I am wondering."
"It's this whole mission," McCoy explained, "something's gonna go wrong and I'm just a bit stressed about that."
"It is illogical to allow a possibility to become a stressor." He stated.
"So what? You saying I shouldn't be ready for it when whatever the hell happens happens?" He did accept the fact he was a few notches louder than he meant to be, and worked to lower his voice.
The damage, however, was already done. One of the Creoleans, an elderly woman, happened to overhear him and turned back to the rec room, where she sat down in one of the chairs and begun to fish through her satchel. Another Creolean, the representative and her daughter, spotted her and approached.
"Mémé, what are you doing?" She questioned. Her rounded ears flicked as she picked up the arguing outside the door. "Oh no. Mémé, please let it be. We should not interfere with these problems."
"I simply want to help them." The representative's mother returned with a smile.
"No. No. I will not let you justify these rumors." She looked over her delicate shoulder as her name was called by one of the more friendly ambassadors, and she left her mother. In doing so, she basically hoped her mother would respect her word enough to back off.
Which mother dearest didn't.
She retreated out to the hall, where the minor dispute had escalated to an argument - in other words, McCoy was near yelling and Spock would throw cold responses in return. In fact, as she stepped out the sliding door, she saw the Doctor practically rear up and say, "Listen you green-blooded hobgoblin, it's not my fault you like to contradict yourself-!"
"I hardly see a contradiction," Spock defended in that same tone. But it was clear in the way he stood, how stiff he had become, he was getting annoyed. Maybe even a bit ticked off too. Not that his face gave any of that away, of course.
The mousy elder approached with two flat, rectangular treats and held these out to them. "Cookie?"
This interruption was enough to distract them for a moment, and while they blinked in surprise at her, the idea that they shouldn't argue in front of her came to both their minds. Spock simply stated, "This is a very inconvenient time, ma'am."
Of course, she persistently held out the sticks, her rusty orange eyes staring up at them hopefully. After another minute of hesitation, she begun to rave in Creolean; her words clearly unknown to either man.
Quickly, to shut her up, McCoy took one of the cookies and Spock did the same a second after. She stopped her rambling, smiled, and walked away.
"What the hell was that all about?" McCoy wondered.
"Obviously you had not done your research, Doctor," Spock inquired.
To that, he sneered and stormed down the hall. Sick Bay wasn't too far away, nor was his office. He went into the latter of the two and locked the door behind him, fuming. Stupid Vulcan.
He realized that in his fist the cookie was snapped in two, and he noticed that it was hollow. Inside was a small strip of Creolean silk-paper. The words had been written in Creolean, with a common translation just below it.
Spock watched McCoy stomp off and then looked down to the cookie in his hands. Because he, unlike McCoy, had done his research prior to the mission, he knew that Creoleans had something very much like the fortune cookie from Old 20th Century Earth. He had no particular interest in the treat, and intended to give it to Kirk, who he knew had a sweet tooth. But still curious, nevertheless, he cracked the cookie in half and pulled the slip out to read it.
"Your journey soon begins, reflected in another's eyes -
When what you see is what you lack, only selfless love will change you back."
McCoy stared at the fortune with confusion. "What the fu-?" Before he could get that word out, he was thrown down by the ship suddenly shaking from an impact. His books fell off their shelf, and objects on his desk rattled off to the floor. Had they just taken a hit?! He got up right away and rushed out the door to go see if everyone was alright.
Spock had only just slipped the fortune in his pocket when he was knocked to the wall by an unexpected impact - not that an impact was usually expected. He only just regained his footing when McCoy came rushing back down the hall.
"What the hell was that?" McCoy questioned.
"I am uncertain," Spock replied, "perhaps the ship is under attack. We need to find the Captain."
With those words, they rushed into the rec room where they found everything was... completely unchanged. Like nothing happened. The ambassadors seemed totally oblivious to any danger. Even the Captain. In fact, he seemed to still be engaged in that same conversation they left him in.
Still Spock approached him and Scotty, McCoy just behind him, and said, "Captain, did you feel that?"
Kirk looked at him, confused and oblivious as ever, and asked, "Felt what, Mr. Spock?"
"That impact," McCoy specified, "we were hit!"
Both the Captain and the Chief Engineer exchanged mutually baffled expressions and Kirk disagreed. "No we weren't. Are you two trying to pull my leg, because you could try something else. I'd feel it if we were hit by anything."
"Sir, I do not see why I would 'pull your leg'," Spock said.
"Never mind it, Spock," Kirk waved off.
Scotty stepped away to the communications panel to check in with engineering just to be sure, and McCoy shook his head. He walked away, pulling Spock along. "What's going on here? How could we only feel that?"
Spock raised his brows as he pondered this a moment. "Two answers could be that we have gone mad, or everyone else has. But the that seems highly unlikely."
"In other words, you don't know." McCoy concluded.
"It is worth some investigation, I think," Spock replied. "I think I will go to my quarters to meditate on it." With those, words, he went off in the direction of his quarters and McCoy went to his own.
There you have it. Like I said, heavily based off of Freaky Friday, so yes, I totally copied the fortune cookie. I'll get to switching them up next chapter, but until then, tell me what you think.
I'd also like to add that I started writing this one in favor of the first one I wrote and posted (now deleted). The reason I stopped with that one was because with where it was going, it was going to get weird and I didn't want that. So I tried numerous other concepts until I settled for this one.
Episodes Referenced
-Wolf in the Fold: Scotty gets accused of murder, and Kirk just wants to go to "a place where the women are so..."
-Journey to Babel: I think I explained it good enough.
-Elaan of Troyius: Enterprise has to play limo to a bitchy princess bride.
-Let that be you battlefield: Oreo cookie people, and the best destruct sequence ever conceived. Plus disorienting red alert light zooming shots.