Firstly: to everyone who reviewed telling me to continue: you guys are all amazing. Secondly, Enjoy the continuation that you helped bring about!

"Leonard McCoy!" yelled the professor in advanced chemistry, rapping him on the head.

"What?" he said.

"So you weren't paying attention." said the professor. "Not that I'd expect any better from a conscript."

"I was."

"Prove it." the teacher walked up to their archaic whiteboard and erased everything he had written. This was much to Bones relief, since the professor's handwriting was uneven. It bothered him.

"Come up here." Bones did. A marker was pressed into his hand. He bit his lip. Someone had touched his hand. and now he was holding a marker that many, many people used everyday and had probably never been cleaned.

"Re-write everything I had on the board." instructed the Professor. Bones et about the task. Trying not to think about the uncountable number of germs on the object he was holding.

"Hurry up!" someone in the back of class yelled. Leonard whipped around to yell back at them, slamming both hands on the teacher's desk.

"Hey, You couldn'-" he stopped. A vial of god-knows-what that had been left sitting on the desk had been knocked over be Bones and was now all over his hands.

"Keep writing." said the professor.

"But I-" Bones held his hands away from everything. "-sir I need to go clean my hands off."

"It's not poisonous, you'll be fine. Keep writing, cadet."

"Sir-"

"You are about to be in a lot of trouble cadet!" Leonard relented and started writing again, but unable to take his mind off of the cold, slimy liquid coating his hands. He wrote out half of an equation, and then started throwing up.

Damn.

Spock walked down a crowded hallway quietly. He was often jostled and even forcefully shoved out of the way. It was, of course, because of his Vulcan heritage.

He supposed life would be easier aboard a starship where he would outrank roughly a third of the crew merely by being an officer. There would also be conscripted Vulcans. Although, sometimes Vulcans were worse than humans.

Someone smacked him in the back of the head. He turned around. Finnegan O'Hara.

Kirk had left several scars on the older boy when he had attacked him, and on of his eyes had been removed. He wore an eye patch now.

"Listen, Half-breed." he said. "I think Jim-boy is sommat attached to you, right?"

"He uses my abilities when it serves he purposes, and I consider myself allied to him." said Spock.

"Shame, ye seemed like such a smart person." Spock doubled over as Finnegan punched him in the stomach. He could have not reacted, but he hadn't been prepared for the blow. Finnegan pulled out a knife. But he didn't get to use it as someone used the handle of their knife to knock him out.

Finnegan fell to the floor, revealing Christine Chapel. Spock stood up straight.

"You owe me one." she said and quietly walked away, swaying her hips. Spock went after her.

It was a well-known and accepted fact in the Fleet that if you were female the easiest way to advance in rank was to use your sexuality. Christine had said in coarser language she would never do that. She instead, had worked herself inot a system of black mailing people, having everyone owe her favors. It worked.

"Christine, I want to repay my debt now." I can't afford to owe you anything later.

"Sucks to be you then, Vulcan. Currently, you have nothing I want."

"I have James' ear."

"Do you?" she replied.

"He mentioned that you owe him a favor."

"So? He'll never cash in. He hardly even notices me."

"I can make him forget it."

"How? Mind meld?"

"I will not perform a mind meld on him without his permission. I can however ask him to never, as you put it 'cash in'."

Christine stopped. "I suppose, that would be sufficient. Have a nice day, Spock!" she walked away again.

"Spock!" Yelled Kirk coming up behind him. "Where have you been? Why was Finnegan lying on the floor? Why were you talking to that bitch, again? And have you heard about Bones?" Spock explained about Finnegan and Christine, leaving out that he and Christine had settled his debt. And no, he had not heard about Leonard.

"He got himself sick in class over some stupid spilled experiment. He skipped a class over it! Skipped a class! It's as if he's asking to be kicked out." Kirk fumed. "And if he get shipped off to die on some starship, I don't have anyone in the medical field. Except Christine, but she'll walked away as soon as I use my favor."

Spock walked to his and Kirk's last class, listening to Kirk scheme the whole way there. After class, Kirk grabbed Spock by the wrist and dragged him back to their room. Bones was waiting there.

"Good afternoon, gents." said Bones. James hit him.

"What the hell, Jim?!"

"Don't ever puke in class again." said Jim. "Now," he said, smiling. "I have something I want your help with."

"What?" Bones asked, rubbing his cheek with a sleeve-covered hand

"Chekov is becoming a problem. I want you to get him sick, very sick. No dying though, he has to survive."

"What is he even doing?"

"He is making his own little band of people. I don't like it. He's mine, I own him."

"Agonize him."

"Tried that."

"I can't get the meds to do what you want, then I'm done here. And I can't work as a crewman, that's filthy work. I'd kill myself first."

Kirk, interestingly enough, didn't get angry. Instead he turned to Spock.

"Spock. I like your beard."

"Thank you."

"I want you to perform a mind meld on Chekov, just this once, leave something scarring in his mind, something that will stave off rebellion for a while longer." He held up a hand. "And before you refuse. I decided something this morning. Kirk pulled something out of his pocket. His agonizer. "not hurting you is getting boring." Spock didn't believe him, but didn't want to take the risk.

"Jim, I've read about this stuff, he'll probably just make Chekov go insane." McCoy said.

"Leonard, I want to know who asked you, I tell you, no one! Go read a book, or gut some unlucky cadet in the infirmary or something. And if you happen to change your mind about this, feel free to tell me." McCoy sat down at his desk and opened a book, grumbling. Kirk turned back to Spock. "So?"

"I... I will do it. If you no longer hold Christine Chapel in your debt."

"What?"

"We agreed, my debt to her would be paid by paying hers for her." James stared blankly. And then smiled.

"Spock, I do believe you are learning to think properly. Not in your silly, 'logic is god' way. I want it done by tomorrow night. I have a paper to study." Kirk got his PADD and sat on his bed, working. Spock sat at his desk. He would not admit it, but his stomach clenched up when he though about what he had just agreed to do. A message appeared on his computer screen, from Leonard.

Jim told you just this once. He told me that when he had me steal pain medicine. Then I helped him get pain medication again, someone committed suicide that night. Medicine overdose. And it doesn't stop. I get him parts to repair his dermal regenerator. Do a poor job cleaning someone's wound so it'll get infected. Anything I have access to, he makes me use to his advantage.

Spock replied. Why are you telling me these facts? I already know them.

Spock, I mean there is no 'just this once'. You do this, and you'll do it again.

I cannot afford not to.

Why not? Leonard typed back.

He will not hurt me no matter what he says. But Christine will. And this is my way out of her debt. And what's more, James may not physically harm me, he will find some other way to, or some indirect way to cause me physical harm. I have no options.

Nothing for a few minutes, then,

Then, I'm sorry.

Pavel Chekov heard the door buzz, he wasn't expecting anyone. And Sulu wasn't here. He answered it.

"Vhat are you doing here, Spock?" he asked, as that was who was standing there. Spock stepped in.

"Are you forming a group around yourself?" he demanded.

"So vhat if I am?"

"If you are , I urge you to reconsider, James is starting to wonder about your loyalty." Pavel laughed.

"I am done being ruled owver by him. So can run back to your master, and tell him I'm not his slave anymore." Spock grabbed the young Russian by the wrists and forced him to sit on the edge of one of the room's beds.

Chekov tried to kick him, but Spock kneeled on his feet. Spock now held both of Chekov's wrist in one hand, an easy thing to do, the boy had small wrists.

Chekov was screaming at him in a mix of Russian and English. Spock ignored both. he rested his fingertips on the left side of Chekov's face.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts." chanted Spock. Chekov fell silent.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts." Spock repeated. Watching Pavel's eyes slowly grow more and more terrified, a fear not of the images and ideas Spock was trying to filter into his head, but just of what Spock was doing, after all, most humans children learned about how Vulcan's twisted minds at a young age. And how they destroyed people by doing it. Lies, at least normally.

Pavel started thrashing around. Spock kept going.

Are minds are one. And they were.

I think this chapter was a little less dark than the others, or is that just me?

Feedback (good or bad) and ideas are always welcome!