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I knew then that Spock had lost his mind.

"You're insane!" I barked out as I stared down at him. "I'm not Vulcan. How the hell could *I* have made the bond split into three?" Seeing him lower his head submissively, I forced myself to look away and gather my thoughts before I did something stupid.

But as I tried to calm down, one of those thoughts pushed at me, demanding to be heard. "What makes you think Bones thinks of me that way?"

Spock's eyes were sad when he cautiously raised his head. "You cannot see it."

"See what?!" I circled around my bondmate as his insistence made my anger flare again.

Spock sighed. It was a hopeless sound. "His love for you."

"If Bones loves me, it's as a friend. That's it!" Part of me was curious as to where he got the idea it was something more. But another part of me, deep inside, was afraid to ask.

Now, although Spock claimed the bond was weak because it was incomplete, it worked pretty damned well. He chose that moment to drop the shield that had been between us while we argued. In the next, I was suddenly bombarded by his emotions. Regret, pain and shame all began to fill my head.

Strangely enough, that started to calm me down. Spock hadn't been ashamed of anything, that I knew of, since the day he nearly killed me. So either he was lying, or he felt guilty for saying something he perceived as the truth because that truth had hurt me.

Contrary to popular myth, Vulcans do lie. But it's not something they do casually.

Since I didn't see any reason for him to deceive me, I decided to go with the second explanation.

"You really believe that?" I asked more quietly, needing to, but not really wanting to confirm my suspicions. I wanted to protect my wounded pride, but I couldn't ignore his anguish.

In my anger, I had hurt him too. I could see it in the way he was hunched over, as if to protect himself from physical blows. Now I felt ashamed.

Spock nodded toward the ground. His words were stilted, as if he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. "I was most content to have you as my one and only bondmate. But then Y'Eros occurred. It was most unexpected. Therefore, I sought the reason for it. That is when I discovered Dr. McCoy's deep affection for you."

"Y'Eros?" I asked, slumping against the tree I had used as a leash for my anger. All that yelling had exhausted me. "What the hell is that?"

"It is the accepted Standard translation of a Vulcan word unpronounceable by humans to indicate the three-way bond." Spock peeked up at me from his crouched position. There was still pain in his eyes, but I could see hope there too.

I sighed and took the last of my anger out on the Earth and Vulcan linguists. "Why the hell does it even have a Standard translation? Isn't it a Vulcan phenomenon?"

My bondmate shook his head. "You are not the first human to encounter a three-way bond in an intimate situation."

"You're kidding." I felt my jaw drop open.

"I am not. It is the relationship between T'Pol, Admiral Tucker and Admiral Archer." He said this quietly, looking in the direction of his father's dwelling. Something seemed to distract him momentarily, but I had his full attention when I started speaking, so I thought nothing of it.

"But T'Pol's not psychic. Everyone knows that."

"Other than the bond, she is not," Spock confirmed a moment later, after he realized I was finally willing to listen to rational explanations. "But it is not unusual for Vulcans who are not psychically strong to still be able to bond."

Not knowing much about Vulcan psy abilities, I accepted his statement as truth. However, the word he had thrown at me still bothered me. "I don't know which linguists made up that word, but even I can tell you it isn't Standard."

Spock inclined his head. "It is Admiral Tucker's doing. 'Y' represents the three bond connections. Eros is the Greek word for romantic love."

"Creative." I said, not sure what I actually thought of the idea. This was supposed to describe the relationship between the three of us? It couldn't. There was just no way.

But by this time, I was calm enough to see the sincerity on Spock's face. He really believed what he said. So I sat forward, showing my willingness to listen.

Of course, that didn't mean I believed what he did.

I shook my head. "But that still doesn't explain why you're blaming me for this. Bones is my best friend, but I've never thought of him that way. Are you sure you didn't create that branch? Maybe you saw him look at us in a way you didn't understand. You could have come to a wrong conclusion about the way he was feeling. It's difficult to understand emotions when you spend your life suppressing them."

Spock sighed as he examined my face. "That may be true, but Vulcans emphasize observational skills as well as emotional control. I have seen the doctor's expressions when the three of us have been alone together. They are of yearning. He wants something he believes he cannot have."

I blinked in surprise. If what he said was true, why hadn't I seen it? I would definitely need to brush up on my own observation skills, as it seemed like I was missing things left and right. But right now, I concentrated on trying to figure out why Spock saw what he did. "When did this start?"

"The day I revealed my inner self to you."

I thought back, finding the day in my memory.

That was the night all three of us reflected on Spock's imperfections. It was the most fun we had in weeks.

We had met with Starfleet Command in San Francisco earlier that day. A week before, we had used some unconventional techniques to keep Klingons from exploiting a Terran colony on Jrain. Command found our methods reckless.

I didn't feel bad about any of it. Those idiots thought that, just because we nearly lost our home planet, we'd become lax about taking care of those further from home.

What can I say? They were wrong. And we were there to prove it to them.

Strangely enough, it was Spock who came up with the idea that got them off the planet.

I would have never thought that the colonists could chase off those arrogant pricks by offering them the little furballs brought by a merchant who had come to trade with them.

But Spock had seen the Klingons' reactions to the furballs. They cringed and backed away as if they had been attacked.

So we went to talk to the merchant. With a little negotiation, Cyrano Jones was willing to throw in some tribbles for free when the colonists bought up his supply of exotic foods.

The colonists had lost their transport ship during a crash landing when they had arrived, twenty years before. They had also lost most of the seedlings they had brought to plant. Therefore, their diet consisted of only a few staples they had been able to salvage. So their food was rather boring, even to them. Jones took care of that and helped us take care of the Klingon problem in one easy move.

But when we got back home, we quickly found out that our solution did not meet with the approval of the higher-ups.

Apparently, tribbles were banned in most of Federation space. The damned things multiply at about fifty times the rate of rabbits, and they don't even need two of them to do it.

So to keep the colony from being overrun, Starfleet had to send another ship with the tribbles' natural predator to Jrain.

Of course, we were reprimanded for not doing our research before handing the furballs to the colonists. And for once, the angry eyes of the admirals were focused on my first officer instead of me.

Now, Spock's usually a stickler for research. But he had known that time was of the essence. The Klingons had threatened to kill the colonists' children if their demands for obedience weren't met.

This group had looked stupid enough to actually do it, even though in all likelihood, it would have caused a riot. Hell, they had been stupid enough to run at the first sign of trouble.

So Spock skipped the research and simply had the colonists walk among the Klingons with the tribbles in their arms. It didn't take long for the Klingons to beg to be released from the room we had trapped them in. Of course, we made them swear to release the children and leave the planet as quickly as possible. If they didn't comply, we were going to fill their ship with the things.

Although he wouldn't admit it in public, Admiral Pike was secretly pleased by our solution (once the drefs were sent to Jrain), because it kept the Klingons away from the colony's jevonite mines for awhile. At least until they figured out how to control their repulsion to cute things.

So in the end, we got a slap on the wrist and were sent on our way.

That night, I took Bones and Spock to my favorite bar in the city to celebrate Spock's first official reprimand (I never recorded his first transgression, the one where he nearly killed me. The guy had been in mourning. And I had deliberately provoked him. I never figured out which one of us should get the stain on his record, so I let it go.)

Once we sat at a table, Bones and I started recounting our misdeeds, including the one that got me onto the Enterprise in the first place. (Bones was given the 'evil eyebrow' during that story.) Then we made a fuss about how even Spock's misdeeds were logical, as he saved a whole colony by screwing up.

My first officer, however, came back with a rebuttal neither of us expected.

"I may have another reprimand on my record rather soon." He said quietly as he sipped his tea.

"Oh? For what?" Bones looked at our friend curiously.

"Harrassment." Spock gazed across the room to avoid looking at us.

"Huh? Who are you going to harrass, and why, for Pete's sake?" The doctor's expression turned to one of shock. I, on the other hand, had used something similar as a pick-up line a few times. So, I thought Spock might be experimenting with humor. Then I realized his expression was completely wrong for telling a joke. He looked worried and oddly, somewhat nervous.

His expression made me think of a teenage boy trying to get his first crush to go out with him.

Now, I hadn't forgotten my best friend's proclamation that Spock was interested in me, but I still hadn't seen that hungry look he had claimed was there every time my back was turned.

So I decided to test McCoy's theory.

"It's only harrassment if the other person isn't willing. And I'm *very* willing." I gave Spock my best smoldering look.

To my shock, Spock expression changed swiftly, then changed back just as fast. But within that second, I saw it.

Spock's eyes focused on me, trapping my gaze like a web. In them, I saw hunger. Intense hunger.

I almost reached across the table and dragged him to me for a kiss. His expression was that intense.

Instead, I decided to make my interest known in a way that wouldn't startle him. I nodded to him, in acknowledgement of his feelings and an affirmation of what I said a minute before. I might have been joking then, but I wasn't now.

Spock nodded back.

I let out the breath I had been holding. With that simple move, he just told me that we'd be meeting a little later for chess...and something more.

I really hadn't been paying attention to Bones during our exchange, but I must have turned to him at some point, because as I came back to the present, the memory of his sad look made me want to go find him and demand to know what was wrong.

And as I thought about it, I realized it wasn't the last time I saw that look. He had that expression a lot when he saw Spock and me together during the evenings.

So Spock's conclusion wasn't completely off-base. But couldn't that look be the result of simple jealousy?

The man was divorced. He had gotten used to having a wife and kid. What if seeing us together just made him remember what he lost?

"He's just lonely, love." Now I could see why Spock was making such a fuss. Bones had confused him. He had reacted to our friend's pain, but he hadn't been able to figure out what caused it. So he had come up with a wild theory.

I couldn't fault him for that.

In fact, I loved him for the compassion he showed others. However, he couldn't help McCoy with that crazy idea running around his head.

But before I could correct it, Spock held me against the tree and covered my mouth. 'Silence, Jim,' he said into the bond. 'I will show you proof.'

While we had been screaming at each other, Spock had slowly backed me into a copse of trees so we could not be seem by anyone near Sarek's house. But we could see anyone in front of the house by looking between the leaves.

As Spock directed my gaze in that direction, I saw Bones walking towards the dwelling, looking rather despondent.

Again, I felt the need to go to him, to soothe whatever ache caused his sorrow.

But before I could do more than realize how frightening that thought was, Spock continued.

'To my knowledge, this is the third time Leonard has gone off alone to keep a vigil for us. The first time was after we argued about joining our cabins. When I left to go back to my experiments, I found him outside your door, complaining about out penchant to argue about 'inconsequential things'. Oddly, he did not see me. However, after some reflection, I came to the conclusion that his lack of observation was due to his preoccupation.

'Because I found his words unexpectedly accurate about our situation, after our fight about the bonding ceremony, I deliberately looked for him. I did not expect him to be within the vicinity, but I quickly discovered I had erred in my prediction. I found him in the recreation room next to the conference room in which we had held the conversation. Again, he was muttering about the topic of our argument.'

I stared at my bondmate in disbelief. 'How could he even have known we were fighting?! We don't do it in public. It would be bad for command. And how did he get here? I know Sarek made sure everyone stayed away from the front of the house once we started yelling.' I had heard him shoo everyone to a neighboring building on some weak pretense.

Staring at my best friend, I ended up answering my own question. 'Bones must have snuck away from him to find us.'

'He knows our approximate location. I believe he stays nearby in an attempt to protect you in some way,' Spock insisted. 'He will not leave, except for a patient, until our disagreement has ended.'

To test this idea, I said to Spock, only through the bond, but quite sincerely, 'Then I forgive you.'

And with that, Bones let out a rush of air, as if he had been holding his breath. After a minute to let the stress leave his body, he stood up and stretched with a small smile on his face.

I stood up to go to him, but Spock held me back. 'He does not know that I am aware of his vigil.'

I watched silently as Bones went into Sarek's house. Then I asked, in an angry tone, "How does he know what's happening between us?"

"Jim..." Spock whispered placatingly. "He has had a link with you since before we met."

I stared at Spock. That wasn't possible. Neither of us were psychic!

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end part 2