1 YEAR LATER

FREE FALL

Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start.

"Y'know I'm all for livin' a little dangerously, but a death wish I do not have," Leonard was adamant that he would not be strapping into the base jumping packs, and he watched helplessly as Anaya snapped on the harness and secured it across her chest.

"Come on Mac, you know you're going to have to take the test for this in a few months anyway, consider it practice," Anaya said. She took a hair tie, and pulled her long, red locks up into a ponytail before wrapping it around and in on itself, fastening it with a clip. Hair secure, she turned to look into the eyes of the worried doctor. "It'll be fine," she reassured him, turned to look at Jim as he pulled on a boot after changing.

"Yeah well, I don't like it," Leonard said, there was a sulking displeasure to his voice which matched the vulnerability in his eyes. Anaya flashed him a sympathetic look, but refused to budge on her decision. To her it was just another day at the office, her security job taking her through daily rigorous routines that would send Leonard's blood pressure through the roof if he knew the whole story. But he didn't, his time was spent in the medical bay, learning the complexities of medical care aboard a starship.

Leonard found himself strangely out of his league when it came to the risk taking that Anaya and Jim seemed to live for, yet they had proven to be fierce and loyal friends in the last twelve months, and where one was, the other two were never far away. This could especially be said about Anaya and Leonard. They'd danced around each other for months now, enjoying the witty banter and the quiet thrill that coursed through them when they were in each other's company. But stubbornly, the pair had kept everything at friendship level, building on their networks within Starfleet.

"We ready?" Jim asked, he looked over at Leonard and narrowed his eyes at the more cautious doctor. "I thought you were only afraid of flying?"

"Dying while flying," Leonard corrected him. He moved to look down over the cliff they were currently standing on, the only thing any of them could see was a bank of clouds fifty metres below them. "This qualifies."

"You know there's a test for this?" Jim asked. Leonard turned to glare stonily at the carefree cadet. Jim returned the stare with a look of arrogance. He was right, and he knew it, Leonard didn't like it one little bit, had been trying to come up with a solution to get out of the physical test. He wasn't even sure why a medical officer might need to be able to free fall to their death.

"I'm workin' on it. I think I might find myself coming down with a case of Andorian shingles," Leonard murmured, and then stepped back a few feet when he realised how close to the edge he was standing. Anaya patted him reassuringly on the arm, her face patient and non judgmental.

"We'll be fine," she said, leaning up to kiss his prickly cheek, enjoying the press of his skin to her lips. "That shave does not meet regs, by the way," she grinned before moving to the edge of the cliff, nodded to Jim who could barely contain his excitement.

"Yeah but you love it!" Leonard called out, earned himself a wink.

"Okay Bones, we'll see you at the bottom then," Jim said and Leonard scowled unhappily at them, a frown permanently etched into his brow.

"As your attending physician, I go on the record as saying this is completely unnecessary and risky," he called out as the two jumpers exchanged looks of glee.

"Noted!" Anaya said. She took a moment to blow him a kiss, and then high-fived Jim. They jumped, Jim with an exhilarated whoop, Anaya with a short happy laugh.

They hit the cloud bank in seconds flat, blinded for a moment before coming out the other side and into the darkened crevice. "Whooooo!" Jim called out over the radio and she turned to look at him, expressed her approval with a thumbs up, as they barreled down the side of the sheer drop.

It was one of the longer jumps around, hundreds of people came to do it every year. The reviews Jim had tossed to his friends were that it was like finding god, floating down a tunnel of lush green walls, and landing in a mossy field near a beautiful pristine lake.

"Down the rabbit hole we go," Anaya breathed as they spiralled down and around, the wind ripping around their wingsuits.

"Let's go find the Mad Hatter," Jim replied, glanced at the altitude monitoring system attached to his wrist.

"1000 metres!" He called out and Anaya straightened out, pushing her trajectory toward the centre of the drop.

"Engaging wings," she reported. "700 metres." As the AMS hit the mark, she spread out the wings of her suit, felt the lift instantly as she slowed down and started to glide.

"500 metres!" Jim called out. She looked over at him, gliding 20 metres away from her with the biggest grin on his face. "This is awesome!"

"Mac, you should have come, this is amazing," Anaya breathed into the comm, taking in the sights around them as they circled down in a spiral. The varying shades of greens, mixed in with the blue of the lake below was breathtaking. Leonard was monitoring their descent from the transport, his keen mind on their heart rates as the AMS fed their physiological data back to the computer. "Look at how blue that lake is Jim."

"Probably full of blue-green algae," Leonard replied, "let's see how awestruck you are when you're stuck in the bathroom vomiting with diarrhea, your skin covered in puss-filled red rashes."

"And I was starting to think the sunshine had gone away," Anaya smirked.

"I'm a doctor, if you saw what I had to see on a daily basis…"

"Yeah, yeah, we'd be as old and cynical as you, Bones," Jim cut in, the humour in his voice.

"Well we can't all just rush into fights, guns blazin' … some of us…" Leonard's retort was cut short by Jim.

"Coming up to the pull out point, preparing to engage chute," he said, and Anaya nodded, although he hadn't looked at her. "Now!" Came his call and she pulled on the ripcord, waiting for the chute to catch. The material ejected from the pack and caught for a second, followed by a ripping noise as it tore from the suit. Anaya cursed, tumbled over herself and felt the breath catch in her throat.

"Lee!" Jim saw her distress, was unable to do anything more than watch as his chute pulled him up and away from her. Leonard looked up when both of their heart rates shot up without warning. "Emergency chute!" Jim ordered, and she snapped back into her right mind, grabbed the red cord and yanked. For a moment in time she hung suspended, and then the horrifying sound of material tearing sent Anaya spiralling into another freefall.

"Jim!" Anaya's breath caught as she saw the ground coming up on them, Leonard felt himself pale when he heard the panic in Anaya's voice.

"God dammit… what's goin' on?" Leonard asked.

"Glide!" Jim said over the comms. Anaya threw her arms out without question. "I'm coming for you!" He added when he saw her descent start to lessen. It took her a moment to realise what he was saying, and before she could refuse he had ejected his chute and was in freefall once more.

"Jim, no!"

It was too late, he shot toward her like a bullet. She gasped as he got closer, but they both knew physics, it would take a miracle for him to reach her in time. Leonard watched their positions from the AMS in the transport and bit his lip.

"Guys, ground is coming up real fast on y'all," he said. Anaya looked down at the lake, the cavern had never seemed so large, she would hit the ground before she could traverse across for a water landing. Jim wouldn't get to her on time, she had to look for an alternative. Green flashed past her as she spiraled around with the wing suit still out.

Trees. On the side of the cliff she saw them and aimed toward them.

"Lee! They won't hold you!" Jim called out, his voice was pitched higher, she could practically feel his panic.

"Neither will your chute!" She yelled back. With the trajectory she was on, she might be able to pull up using the wings at the last minute, and use the trees to break her fall. Jim cursed at her through the comms and she took a long, deep breath, focused on the small window of opportunity. She glanced at her wrist. "300 metres," she muttered, it was now or never.

Jim yelled at her one more time as she hit the wall climbers. Their branches whipped across her face, and she screamed as her momentum carried her through the first group. She slowed, bounced off the cliff wall and heard the telltale snap of her arm as she rebounded out toward the next copse of green.

Like falling through a series of wind sails in a 21st century comedy, she plummeted closer to the ground, desperately reached for a handgrip but didn't find one. Finally the fabric of her suit caught on a branch, and just like that she stopped. Pain rippled up through her useless arm, and she hung suspended a few hundred metres from the ground. With a gasp, Anaya struggled to suck in another breath, realised she was about to hyperventilate before being swallowed by darkness.

Leonard saw Anaya's free fall come to a sudden halt on the screen, Jim reaching her altitude a moment later and then start to slow. "Jim! Are you there? Lee?"

"She's okay," Jim's voice crackled over the radio. "The trees caught her. I'm landing now, I'm approximately two hundred metres below her."

"Lee, answer me!" Leonard snapped. Silence.

"She's out," Jim's voice. "Get down here."

"On my way," Leonard replied. He eased the transport into gear and flew it over the edge, circling down the ravine. He thumbed the controls, levitated the transport down to a mossy bed. "It'll be fun, Bones. Don't worry sunshine, nothing's gonna happen. There's a test you know?" He muttered under his breath as he jumped out of the transport, grabbed his med kit along with a hover pack. "Over my dead body am I going to do this. I'd rather suffer six weeks of the Kamaraazite flu..."

"Bones!" Jim called out, racing toward him.

"Dammit Jim, if she's…" Leonard couldn't voice it. He swallowed back his fears, strapped into the hover pack and shared an agonised look with his friend.

"She's not," Jim insisted. "She's just unconscious."

"I'm getting her down," he announced.

"Be careful," Jim replied with a nod.

"I'm the only careful one here, I think I got it Jim," Leonard grumbled and Jim's pained look showed just how distressed he was at the situation. Leonard pushed the guilt out of his mind, turned his thoughts to the woman dangling precariously from the trees above him.

He activated the hover pack, felt his feet lift off the ground with a lurch to his stomach. Leonard fought the urge to vomit as he started to rise through the air, deftly maneuvering the pack until he was floating alongside Lee. "Dammit Lee," he said. "Please be okay."

Immediately the injury to her arm was obvious. It hung at an odd angle, broken. He grimaced, but it looked like it was a clean break, if that was the extent of her injuries, she was going to get off easy. He examined her head, looked for any evidence that she'd hit it when she'd impacted with the cliff face. There was no blood, or swelling, he let out a breath and noted that it was promising.

"Can you move her?" Jim's voice sounded over the comms.

"Maybe," he answered, continued his examination. He was concerned with the speed she'd hit the trees. The wingsuit had slowed her descent a little, but he knew from medical school that it didn't take much to damage human spines. "I'm not sure we have a choice." His eyes lifted to the branches that held Lee suspended and contemplated: they didn't look like they'd hold her until help arrived.

Leonard cursed lightly under his breath. "I'm not risking it, call it in Jim. If we have to move her before medical gets here, I will, but I want a back brace here if possible."

Four hours later, Leonard was loitering in the medical bay where Anaya was resting, lightly sedated after her arm had been set, and they'd scanned her for any spinal or cranial injuries, finding none. He still didn't want to leave her alone, and the rest of the team had kept a wide birth since his impatient snap at the last person to try and suggest he take a break. He was taking her pulse by hand, any excuse to touch her, when Anaya woke to a splitting headache, and then an overwhelming urge to vomit. She rolled, coughed, and Leonard moved swiftly to grab the nearby trash can, as she emptied the contents of her stomach into it.

"Well, that's one way to announce you're awake..." drawled Leonard. He reached down, rubbed her back as she gasped for air. His tone was light, teasing, but Anaya heard the underlying relief that was buried in those simple actions.

"Good to see you too, Mac," she smiled, sitting back with a groan. In silence he stared into her watery eyes, reached down to hand her a glass of water and a cloth. She sat back, took a long drink and then extended a hand out to him, felt the way her heart raced with such a simple gesture. Her eyes were plain. No more. He met her halfway, fingers laced through hers and squeezed softly. I'm here, his eyes replied. Without words they communicated the longing, fear and care they'd been hinting at for almost a year.

"Well, I hate to say I told you so…" he said finally, the silence broken by his soft words.

"Did I not promise you..." Anaya said, pulling him closer with their linked hands. "It'll be fine… is this not fine?"

"No, Anaya," Leonard said as he stood over her. "This is definitely not fine." Anaya's eyes widened at the use of her first name, and a twinkle sparkled in his eyes and told her he'd finally, after all this time, looked at her records. Of course, how could he not after she'd just landed herself in the medical bay? Absently, she wondered why it was she'd been so stubbornly holding out on telling him, but it had become something of a game to them. Him trying to guess, and she repetitively shaking her head. "Seriously? I look like a Kate?" But now she heard him say it, with his accent, it was as if her name had been created for the sole purpose of him to speak. Anaya wished she had told it to him sooner.

"I could've lost you down there. You could have died." The anguish in his eyes flowed over her like rich molasses.

"I know, Mac," Anaya said softly. "I was scared too." She breathed in deeply as his free hand brushed along her cheek, much as it had on the top of the cavern. This time it was with a lot more unspoken feeling.

"Dammit woman, you will be the death of me," he muttered, plunged his fingers into the hair at the base of her neck, holding her head still as he closed the distance between them. He paused, lips hovering mere inches from her mouth and sighed. "This is a mistake." She nodded, eyes wide and full of need, fear and hunger.

"Tell me something I don't know, sunshine," she replied, yet her eyes begged him to kiss her. He frowned, then relented.

"I always did have a weakness for redheads," he muttered. When his lips pressed to hers, Anaya thought she might stop breathing. She pressed back into his touch, reached up to touch his face and gasped in pain. Scorching hot fire ran the length of her arm, and she recalled the audible snap accompanied by the white-hot surge of pain as she hit the cliff face… she flinched, lips broke from the kiss with a whimper. Leonard looked down at with a frown, his lips pressed tightly together as he sympathised with her agony.

"That arm is going to be out of commission for a while," Leonard said, gently trailing his fingers along the cast. "Fortunately I have an excellent bedside manner." He smiled, kissed her again, and when she responded with another moan, he tilted her head back, seeking a deeper entrance to her mouth, tongue searching for and finding hers as they circled together, joined at last.

AN: To my Supernatural fans who are also following this, there will be an update soonish - because I do entire episodes in those chapters, they are considerably longer and more involved. I'm about 2/3 of the way through I Believe The Children Are Our Future and hope to have it up inside of a week, all going well.

Please read and review! It's always great to get feedback and encouragement.