A/N: Hi there. I hope I've fixed all the mistakes from the first two chapters. Thanks to those who pointed them out. And I hope that I haven't got as many in this one. This story is unbeted (?) so its just me reading it a dozen times to make sure I've not missed anything. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: I forgot to do this before, I DO NOT own Star Trek. Sam, however, is my creation.

I am not a Treky (I think is the term), and as such, I have used my limited knowledge of TOS and the latest movies to bring this about. Saying that, please forgive me for anything that is OOC.

The hallways were mostly empty nine days later as Spock made his way toward LtC Scott's office. At 0530, the only people awake were those on the bridge for Gamma shift, medical personal, those watching over the engines and a few restless crew.

He was carrying a tray of breakfast and to use the human emotion, hoping, that the Doctor and Chief Engineer would be welcoming of his inclusion into the little group. He intended to continue the conversation about informing the Captain. He knocked on the door to Scott's office, and heard the shushing of the man before it opened.

"Commanda Spock?! What canna do for you this morning?" He stood in the doorway, making it impossible to see inside.

"Scotty, let him in. I asked him to join us." Winchester said as she came into view behind the Scotsman, a bare hand touching him on the shoulder a moment before retreating. Scott allowed him in, with a slight glare, and he set his tray on the table before taking a seat beside her. Scott retook his seat, and Spock noticed that Porthos was curled between him and Keenser. Archer didn't want another trans warp-beaming incident, so the ship had a canine mascot until they next docked at a Starfleet base.

The lessons he had been giving her had been paying off. She was a quick study, he discovered and the Vulcan school he attended would have been pleased to have her as a student, if they allowed females into it. While they were limited in when they could meet each other, he had found that she was always up around 0430. She told him she had always woken with the sun. And in the summer months in Australia, that meant around 0400-0430.

She had made huge leaps in her studies, and from what he had given her to read, she had devoured almost all of it. As a lot of it was on subjects that were only for Vulcans to access, he had given her his PADD so as not to alert anyone about her. They had also met up for sparring practice. He had wanted to see what she knew and just what her limits were. So far, they had yet to find them.

He watched now as McCoy and Scott watched him warily, noting the same look of mischief in Winchester's eyes he had seen several days before. It occurred to him then that she had not informed the pair of the fact he now knew of her. She seemed to want to surprise them, although his time with one James T. Kirk had taught him that more than likely, she wanted to prank her fellow co-conspirators.

The meal started stiffly, with Scott and McCoy watching him when they thought he wasn't looking. Talk was limited to the mundane things such as how Scott's repairs of the damage from the meteor shower the month before were progressing, to Jim's latest allergic discovery; the new anti-biotic from Thais III had turned him an, interesting, shade of yellow. It still hadn't fully faded, a week later but at least that was the worse that had happened. Spock noticed that, while her actions and words were consistent with what the others were discussing, her forest green eyes were telling a different story. There was mirth in them, something he had seen often in Jim's sapphire blue ones, and it was waiting to burst out.

"Spock, care to spar with me? It's been a while since I've been able to use full my strength. Scotty and Leon are good partners, but, well, they can't handle my strength like you can." As she spoke, Winchester stood and tied her hair back, revealing her ears. Spock realised that she was allowing him in on the prank. He nodded and followed her to a cleared area, a former storage room behind Scott's office.

"Certainly, Lt. It has been a great many years since I have been able to spar with someone other than a human. It would be logical for us to practice together so that we are able to know what we are capable of should the situation arise that we encounter …" He didn't get to say anything further as a fist hit him on the jaw. He stepped back in surprise, looking at the Lt.

"Pretty sure the bad guys won't stop because of a few fancy words, Commander." She said as she lashed out again.

Spock reacted instinctively, hand darting in for a nerve pinch. It was blocked and knocked aside and a second later a back-leg-round-house kick struck his side. He raised his hands and took a couple of quick steps back, assessing her. So far, she was 2-0 in hits.

"That nerve pinch of yours is predictable to those who know you, or have studied Vulcans. You need to think of something new." She said as she struck out, changing her leading hand/foot mid-way through and catching him again with a flying front kick. He nodded at the tell and took a hand in the spar.

The next 45 seconds were fierce as she switched from Terra martial arts to Calithis hand slaps to Terra military hand-to-hand. She changed as soon as he picked up on what she was using and changed how he reacted to it. He was surprised at the skills she knew. Aside from the military hand-to-hand, the other styles had yet to come up in their lessons. They had so far been focused on helping her to control her touch telepathy. Which she seemed to have mastered.

He managed to land a flying side kick on her that sent her across the room. He lowered his leg and raced to make sure she wasn't hurt too badly. He was about to reach her but was blocked by an angry Georgian doctor and an irate Sottish engineer.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" McCoy snapped as he knelt down beside her.

"You could have killer her!" Scott yelled at the same time.

"I apologise, Dr McCoy. It has been some time since I have been able to spar at my full strength against a fellow Vulcan." Spock then caught sight of the older man's face, just as Winchester looked up and saw it and Scott's. Laughter roared out from the female.

"You… you should see your faces. Hahahahaha!" She managed to choke out between fits of laughter from her knees, before tipping sideways and landing back on the ground again, holding her sides. Spock had seen Jim do a similar motion when he had laughed as hard as she had, so knew it was 'good pain', as Jim had said at the time.

McCoy and Scott had identical looks of shock on their faces at not only his words 'fellow Vulcan', but no doubt at the fact that she knew that he knew. His lips quirked a little as he realised that the prank had been pulled with great success.

When her laughter had subsided enough several minutes later, they helped her back into her chair. The laughing fit had seemingly drained her. It wasn't until she had been seated that she hissed and clutched her ribs again.

"Ahhh, ohhh, ok, that hurt." She looked across the table at him as he retook his own seat. "Could have pulled that last kick a bit, Commander. Think you cracked one." Which set the doctor off. He was cussing up a storm as he pulled a tricorder from a bag that had accompanied him.

"Damn it, Sam. You thinking you've cracked a rib and not noticing it until now means that it's busted. Damn Vulcans and their insane pain thresholds." He glared at Spock. "What were you thinking of accomplishing with that kick?"

For once, Spock didn't have an answer, but it seemed that Winchester did.

"I'm thinking that we went a little too far with the prank. Sorry Leon, Scotty." She hissed as McCoy hit her with a hypo for the pain. "The Commander has known about me since I handed Porthos to you Scotty." That earned him another set of looks, only this time wary.

"What are ya gonna do, Commanda?" Scott asked, while McCoy squeezed her hand.

"He's letting me tell the Captain in my own time, guys." She said as she sat back and finished her breakfast.

"That was not what we agreed upon, Lt." He started, only to have her interrupt.

"I don't recall actually agreeing to anything like that, Commander. If you remember correctly, I never actually gave you an answer to that question."

The four of them looked at each other a moment, before Winchester sighed. "So, he's guessed that you (gesturing toward McCoy) figured me out during the crew physicals in that first month, but Spock doesn't know how Scotty and Keenser know."

Spock saw a sheepish grin break out on her face, chuckles from Scott and a growl, "Damn Vulcans" from the doctor. He settled himself into his chair. They still had another couple of hours until Alpha shift started, and he was guessing that this was a story worth hearing.

Start Flashback

It was a couple of months into the trip and Scotty was fixing a coolant line for the life support system when a voice called out to him. It was so sudden, unexpected and close, that he dropped the spanner he was using to tighten the coupling. Keenser had to jump back suddenly to avoid being hit by the falling object. He glared at the taller man.

"Scotty?!" The voice was female, and Scotty was wondering who was looking for him at, he looked at his chronograph, 0130 in the bloody morning. Granted he was up then too, but that was beside the point. He had had a brainwave about what was wrong with the coolant line and needed to check it before it left his mind.

"Bloody hell. Sorry, wee man." He said as he stood and poked his head into the corridor where the voice had come from. "In here, lassie." He waited until the woman had looked toward him to wave her in. It was then that he recognised her. She was the new Alpha shift navigator.

"Sam? What are you doing down here at this hour of the morning?" He asked as she entered the conduit room. It was roughly 12 foot by 12 foot, full of converging lines of everything from air to zero-point energy.

"I couldn't sleep and someone mentioned that taking a walk around the nae-cells would help. I heard you cursing before." She added at the question he had been about to ask as to how she had known he was there. "Hello Keenser." She smiled at him and Scotty saw his eyes crinkle in return.

"Ah." That would have been when he was undoing the coupling. Some idiot had cross-threaded it then proceeded to tighten it as hard as they could when it wouldn't seal, thus destroying both the seal and coupling. He was going to have a look as to who it was that replaced the washers last time and write their ass up. "What can I do for you, lassie?" He continued, wiping his hands on a rag hanging from the back of his pants.

"I was hoping for a tour, but seeing as you're working, I'll wander around until I feel drowsy."

Scotty had liked her the moment he had seen her. They had gotten into a rather heated, but good natured, argument about the differences between turbo injectors and whether they gave better results in bigger engines, within the first couple of days aboard. Jim and McCoy had gotten between them, when they thought they were going to come to blows. They were going to throw PADDs at each other to prove their points, but in hindsight, Scotty could see that could have still ended up with one or both of them in the medbay.

As the weeks went on, he had seen that McCoy had his eyes on the brunette, emerald eyed lass; and knowing how hard it had been on the other man to allow another woman to get close to him since his divorce, he had stepped back. And he was glad he had. While Checkov had attentively listened to anything he taught him in awe, Winchester had argued, theorised and generally made him rethink every topic they discussed. Which would never have been as good if they were involved.

And he was pretty sure that McCoy had mellowed a little because of her influence in his life. Jim hadn't complained of the doctor hovering anywhere near as much since the Krall incident.

"Well, as good an idea that is, how about helping me replace a few washers and couplings? Some idiot has screwed a few of them up, causing leaks in the lines. And all of them are from here."

"So," she said as she picked up a shifter and headed toward the line he pointed her at, "someone's going to be in trouble come Alpha?"

"You got that right, lassie." He said, sending Keenser off to redirect the fluids while they worked. He saw her look after the wee man as he toddled off, and wondered what her thoughts were. She got on well with the Royaln, something that didn't happen often. While he did know Standard extremely well, his vocal cords and tongue weren't able to replicate the necessary sounds and positions for all but a handful of words. She was one of only a handful of people that understood his minimal facial features, Jim being one of them.

They worked for several minutes before Keenser returned, handing the woman a socket wrench when she asked.

"Thank you." She said, her hand moving from her chin to a point a few inches away forward.

The Royaln tapped his leg and copied the gesture. "What is that, lass?" He asked to the silent question.

"Scotty?"

"That gesture you did?" He mimicked it.

"Oh, it's sign language. It means thank you. I thought you and Keenser knew it?"

"No, what gave you that idea?" Her hands constantly in a flurry of movement every time she spoke to him now made a lot more sense.

Her head tilted in confusion. "How does he talk to you if he can't speak Standard?"

He and Keenser looked at each other a moment. "We've been mates a long time, I know what he's sayin' by how he stands, what his eyes do."

She looked at them a moment before crouching down to the smaller man. "Would you like me to teach you to sign? That way you can actually correct him when he blames you for something you didn't do." She smiled as she said that, and Scotty could honestly say that no one had ever shown as much care for the Royaln aside from himself and Jim as she had right then.

Keenser nodded fast enough that he unbalanced himself slightly, causing him to reach out and steady his friend. "I'll take that as a yes, lassie." He said.

While he got back to the replacements, Sam started with the sign, only to run into a speed-bump.

"Well, this is a might awkward. With humans having four fingers and a thumb, all five are used in sign, but you only have three digits." At his friend's small whine of despair, she hurried on. "Don't worry, that just means I get to get creative with this. Soo," She clapped her hands together, then rubbed them. "Let's get to it." She then looked at her hands and formed the traditional Vulcan greeting gesture with both. "Now, I have three digits." She smiled and Scotty could hear the hum of his friend's purr that only came out when he was extremely happy.

She spoke to them both, explaining as she modified the finger alphabet so that he could do the letters. She had him finger spell everything she asked for and Scotty was pleased when he started to ask her questions with the finger spelling. She taught him a few of the more common ones, water, food, and the like and three hours passed quickly.

They were down to the last few that Scotty could find that needed to be fixed when Sam was reaching to undo a stubborn one when it gave way suddenly, causing her to stumble into a mass of lines. Her foot stepped on one, and the cross-threaded and over-tightened coupling stripped and pulled apart. While nothing was going through it, the line had been clipped into place on one side of the coupling, the other side had been stretched for some reason and snapped back; slicing Sam's arm.

"Arrrr! F**K!" She screamed as she turned away from them, holding her arm against her as she slid to the ground.

"Sam!" Scotty cried out as he raced over from the other side of the room. He tried to turn her to get a look at her arm, but she resisted him; she was stronger than she looked. "Sam, let me see, lass."

"Nah, it's good, Scotty." She hissed as she tried to stand.

He managed to turn her then, and froze at the sight of the green blood on her arm.

"Just excess coolant, Scotty, nothing …"

He got over the shock quickly as he slapped a relatively clean rag over the wound. "I know what coolant looks like, Lassie, and it danne look like them eyes of yours." He tugger her to him, and helped to support her weight as he left for the medbay; only to be pulled up a moment later.

"You have to get McCoy to meet us there." She said, urgency and pleading in her voice.

"I think the night shift will be able to patch you up just fine, Sam."

"Scotty," She said, still not budging, "Aside from you and Keenser, only he knows about me." She looked at him and Scotty realised that she was being serious.

"Not even Jim or Spock!?"

"No, I'll explain later. Right now, I'm not feeling so good." And she proceeded to slide closer to the ground.

Getting the idea, Scotty paged the older man's room.

"This had better be real damn important." Came the growl of the Georgian doctor.

"It's Scotty, Winchester's been hurt."

"How badly?" The voice sounded like its maker had sat up.

"She's bleeding."

Silence reigned for several seconds, during which, Scotty could hear the snap of blankets as they were flung off and a curse as the man looked for clothes. "Get her to the medbay on level 7." The connection was cut and Scotty then took a firmer grasp around the waist of the woman as he shuffled her toward a turbo lift. Keenser had stayed behind to clean up the blood so others wouldn't see.

He entered the room, just as McCoy had come in form the other direction. He pointed to a biobed as he snapped on a pair of gloves.

"What happened?" He asked as he peeled off the rag.

"Was helping Scotty fix something, when I stumbled and a coolant hose snapped." She gasped as McCoy cleaned the wound to get a good look at it.

Scotty took up the tale. "Thing had been stretched, snapped back, and well…" he gestured to the damage, green blood still dripping from the open wound. He flinched as the doctor injected an analgesic to numb the area. He watched as McCoy carefully applied a dermal generator to the area. He could see the worry in his eyes for her, and he knew then, that McCoy saw her as more than a friend. He wondered when he would tell her how he felt, or if he would admit it at all.

"Let's just say, that come Alpha, you might have another visitor." Sam said as she leant back against the bed, allowing the taciturn doctor to cover her in a blanket.

"Humm." The two men watched as she drifted off to sleep, McCoy rubbing the back of her hand. A few moments after she eyes had closed, then had turned to the engineer "You going to tell anyone, Scotty?"

"I figure she has her reasons for not lettin' anyone know, as do you."

End Flashback

"She told me that she had been raised as human, and that anything she knew of Vulcan and its people was from what she had been able to read and what her father had been able to tell her." Scotty said to Spock as they started to gather things together to head out and to their stations for the start of their shifts. "I noticed her not wearing her gloves this morning and she said that she had forgotten them." Spock saw that the engineer didn't quite believe that.

"I have been teaching her how to erect mental walls when touching inanimate items." He looked at the woman as she leant against the doctor, wondering how they were going to write this up. He remembered reading the report of the incident. "Although, I think we will have to see just what fighting skills you have, as some of the ones you employed against me, I have not come across before."

"You got it."

"Not anytime soon, you're not. She's got at least one broken rib, Spock." The doctor growled, and he understood the protective nature of the man, he felt the same with Nyota. "She's going to the medbay right now. She's not going to be on the bridge for a few hours."

"'She's' right here you know. I'm ok Leon, I promise. And I'm sorry." She trailed her fingers down his face, and Spock saw some of the worry at her injury and anger at him leave him.

He knew, that while she had made massive leaps with no longer picking up anything from objects unless she wanted to, she was still struggling with people, just as he did. She was conveying her feelings to him through her fingertips. While it was not anywhere near a full meld, they were at a level of communication that surprised him.

"Ok, but I'm still taking you the medical." He said, his voice husky as he looked into her eyes, placing a hand on her cheek a moment before drawing it away as she nodded.

"It'll be interesting to see how you spin this one, Leonard." Scott said as they stood.

"Keenser was trying to undo something and the socket wrench flew out of his hand." McCoy replied back quickly. Spock got the sense he was joking, which was confirmed by the small Roylan making a growl before launching a flurry of hand gestures at the three. Whatever was signed, caused Scott and Winchester to chuckle; until Winchester's ribs protested.

"Right, time to go." McCoy headed off, throwing back over his shoulder, "Tell Jim Sam'll be in later, Commander. I've got something I'll need your help with later, so I'll comm you when I need you."

Spock nodded as he headed back to the mess room to deposit his plate. He pondered over everything he had learnt, wondering just when Kirk wound be finding out about having not just another Vulcan aboard, but a half-Vulcan that had been raised as a human. He was already writing a thesis on the differences between them in his head. Perhaps he would ask her to part-take in it later.

A/N: There we go, I hope you enjoyed this. I am part way through writing another story including Sam. I have the outlines for four stories in total.