It loomed in his mind as he fled through the forest. The possibility that he was about to be devoured by the reptilian creature that was chasing after him. It was useful for one thing though. It gave him constant motivation to run, no matter how tired he was getting. The fear of getting eaten will do that to you.
A ravenous 'dinosaur' was not the only thing that Scotty had to worry about, however. He also had the loss of communications with the Enterprise to contend with, on top of it all.
Splitting up away teams, causing the extinction of species and interfering with comms and transporters. That's all asteroids were good for. Scotty reflected.
With his eyes fixed on a potential escape route as he ran, Scotty didn't notice the fallen log in his path and tripped against it, sending him flying to the ground. The impact of falling flat on his torso making him groan.
Getting up, Scotty wiped his dirt covered hands on his shirt, making him wince. He could now add grazed hands to the list of injuries caused by the fall. But those precious seconds recovering had a price. One that his unrelenting pursuer was quick to remind him of, with an ear-piercing roar to remind him that it was getting close.
But he had not been the only one to hear the roar, Scotty realized as he heard a wailing sound coming from a nearby bush behind him. Approaching the bush, Scotty found the source of the sound; a baby, dressed in tattered green rags.
Picking up the baby in his arms, Scotty temporarily forgot about his troubles and exclaimed, "Aren't you a cute one?" His gentle voice comforted the baby and silenced its cries. With facial ridges on its bright orange skin and green garments, the baby reminded Scotty of a little pumpkin.
Now's not the time to be thinking about food! Scotty reproached himself.
"We best get a move on." He told the baby. If they didn't, they would both be food.
Scotty didn't know which sound he dreaded the most. The roar of the beast determined to kill him or the sound of the crying baby. He had slowed his pace from a fast run to a slow trot so as to not disturb the little pumpkin, but even the gentlest of paces could bring out a cry from the infant, no matter how hard he tried to keep it comfortable.
As Scotty's journey continued, the temperature in the dense forest he was traversing began to drop. With the baby's chest cradled against his, Scotty could feel the shivers coming from its tiny body. "We can't have you catching a cold!" He said to the baby and placed it on the ground, so he could remove his shirt to use as a blanket for the baby.
With his shirt covering his face as he removed it, Scotty was spared from the terrifying sight of having a flaming asteroid crashing down a few metres, from where he was standing.
"Holy shit!" Scotty cursed, once he had completely removed his shirt and witnessed the cause of the deafening sound he had just heard.
"Pardon my language." He excused himself to the baby, despite it understanding neither the profanity nor the apology.
The asteroid itself was about two metres tall and gave off a bright purple glow. It had left a crater of charred grass on the site of impact, which gave Scotty an idea.
Walking towards the asteroid, Scotty reached out to it with his arm and felt the warmth still radiating from it. Returning to the baby he had put aside, Scotty placed it inside his shirt and wrapped the sleeves around its body. With the baby in his arms once more, Scotty sat down close to the asteroid to warm the shivering bundle he was holding.
"Is that better, little one? It is, isn't it?" He cooed fondly and stroked the baby's head softly, which it seemed to appreciate judging from the happy gurgles it was making.
"I haven't done this in a long time, mind you, but you don't seem to be crying so I must be doing something right!" He confessed, recalling the times long ago when he had taken care of his younger sister.
But the tender moment between the two was cut short, with the foreboding sound of cracking trees. Their hunter had returned and was charging straight towards them!
"Time to make our exit!" Scotty rose and bolted away from the scene. As Scotty continued to run away, the dense vegetation of the forest began to thin out, until a clearing was visible up ahead.
The only obstacle in getting to it unfortunately, was a wide chasm separating the two tracts of land.
Heading towards it with as much speed as he could muster, Scotty could feel his trepidation being replaced with the warm feeling of relief, the closer he came to being out of the savage creature's reach.
That reach, in reality was much closer than Scotty thought. Believing that its prey was within killing distance, it attempted to bite into Scotty. Luckily, he had already reached the edge of the chasm and leaped towards safety. But the engineer's leap had not made enough distance and he narrowly missed landing on the other side.
Hanging on to the edge of the terrain with one arm and the baby in the other, Scotty carefully lifted up the crying baby and placed it on the ground. With both arms now free, Scotty pulled himself up, lay down on the ground and muttered, "We made it…"
Admitting defeat, the creature gave one last thundering last roar and turned back. So loud was the roar that Scotty nearly didn't hear the sound of a shuttle landing in the clearing.
"Scotty, are you alright?" Scotty heard a voice coming from the shuttle. It belonged to Scotty's colleague, Dr. McCoy.
"When you got separated from us, and we couldn't get a fix on you, we feared the worst…" McCoy fussed about Scotty's safety as he pulled him up to his feet.
"Aye! And you had good reason to. That scaly bastard over there was hunting me down like a bloody hound!" Scotty complained.
"I also found something along the way." He picked the baby up from the ground and placed it in McCoy's arms.
"You found a baby?" McCoy asked with disbelief. He had not expected something like this to happen.
"In the middle of the forest. Left out there like a piece of meat." Scotty said sadly.
"Oh. I'm going to need another shirt." He pointed out.
"We'll send one for you." McCoy replied.
"And a bottle of whiskey." He added.
"You can get that yourself." McCoy glowered, not humouring Scotty's request.
Back aboard the Enterprise, due to worsening weather conditions that prevented the safe return of the infant, Scotty sat next to the baby girl's incubator in the intensive care unit. Keeping an eye on her as she slept, as her personal guardian.
"Cheers, lassie." Scotty raised his glass in the direction of the incubator and drank a well-deserved glass of whiskey.
I watched 'Friday's Child' again. I loved seeing Bones speaking 'baby' and I thought, "Why don't I write Scotty looking after a baby?" So I wrote this. (Fic also inspired by a few events with Buck from Ice Age 5. You'll know which parts if you've seen the movie.)
Please make sure to leave a review, if you enjoyed my story and thanks for reading! Next chapter: Adoption.