Rachel sighed deeply, as she stared intently at contents on the ring binder laid out on the table. She was trying to plan out some of her lessons for next week, but was failing miserably. She couldn't get her mind off of the people in the ship miles above the Earth, who she was now supposed to put up and feed no less. She still didn't know how many people were up there, yet alone know any of their names, but given the nature of her brother, she would expect nothing less. He didn't consider most of the excepted social niceties as something he should bother himself with, much to her annoyance, and to that of anyone around him. Stretching her arms above her head, she looked down at her beloved companion, and forever faithful friend, Archer.

"What are we gonna do with him Buddy?" She asked the ageing beagle, as he looked up at her with his deep soulful eyes. Rachel liked to believe that Archer understood and sympathised with her, Zac certainly didn't most of the time, so having someone there made things easier.

"Rachel?" The disembodied voice of her brother called from his 'work room'.

Sighing again, Rachel looked at Archer and rolled her eyes. "Speak of the devil, hey boy?"

Pushing her chair back, causing it screech against the stone tiled floor, Rachel stood and made her way towards the cellar. "What?" She queried, dreading the answer.

"Rach, can you come down here a sec? I need your opinion on something." Zac announced, as his pale and ghostly face appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Please, it's an emergency."

Rolling her eyes once again, Rachel allowed her feet to take her down the steps. She immediately made out the shape of her brother in the dimly lit room; he was silhouetted by his desk lamp.

"Wow, it must be an emergency if you're saying please." She quipped as she walked over to him, being forever wary of whatever may have been left on the floor for her to trip over.

"Screw you." Zac murmured as he continued to type furiously at his one of his computers.

"Oh that's nice!" Rachel challenged, a smirk playing on her lips. Despite his numerous and annoying flaws, Zac was still her brother and her best 'guy' friend. "So what's the big emergency?"

Without turning to look at her, or even pausing to talk to her, Zac started reeling off a list of instructions. He wanted her to set up at least three of the guest rooms in the vast farm house that they had managed to acquire, with two men to a room, it should be enough, at least in Zac's opinion. She was then expected to make sure there was enough food to feed the additional six people that would be staying in their home. Rachel knew that there was more Zac wanted to say, but she was forced to stop him.

"Excuse me, not one single thing you've just told me qualifies as an emergency, and at what point did I become your maid, set to wait upon you hand and foot?" Rachel demanded, arching a severely pissed off eyebrow. "I do have other things to be getting on with, like planning for my lectures next week."

"Rachel, if everything goes according to plan, we won't be here next week." Zac argued, finally turning to her and providing her with his full attention. "And I need to get everything ready for their arrival. I've just moved a Chinese drone plane out of the way so their ship can land undetected. Not only that, I've had to plant a bug in NASA's mainframe to disable the network for half an hour. Do you have any idea how long that takes?"

"Yes, it takes you about five minutes. So how about you get your ass upstairs and check out the food situation yourself, whilst I make up the guest rooms? Our relationship has always been one of equals Zac, don't try and change the dynamic now." Rachel reasoned, knowing full well that reason and explanation was the only way to get her brother to cooperate. "And you have no idea if we'll still be here next week, so shut up about it, I don't want to hear about it anymore."

And with that, she turned on her heels and left her brother staring after her, mouth slightly agape.

"What do you mean Jim?" Bones asked, an incredulous tone to his voice. "Are you saying that Rachel Cochrane is your Godmother?"

"I'm fairly certain that that is what I just said." Jim murmured, allowing his head to once again fall back against the bulkhead he was propped up against.

Bones was silent for a moment, allowing himself a small amount of time to process what he had just learned. "But, we've known each other for years. How the hell have you managed to keep that a secret all of this time? You're crap at keeping anything to yourself."

"It's not something I like to talk about Bones." Jim responded after forcing himself to swallow the bile that had crept up his throat.

"But why?" Bones pushed completely bewildered. "In all the time I've know you, you've never had a problem about others knowing your personal business. Back at the Academy, I knew who you had slept with, where you had slept with them and when it happened, and it wasn't even you that would tell me!"

"Yea, and in all the time you've known me Bones. When was the last time I had an actual girlfriend? Or had a close friendship with anyone other than you or Spock?" Jim snapped as he turned to glare at his best friend. And upon seeing the realisation in Bones's eyes continued, "Exactly, the only two people who I've managed to form strong and close ties to in my adult life are just as screwed up in the head as I am!"

Bones flinched as Jim yelled at him. The whole cabin was silent now, as the rest of the rough hardy band of men tuned into the formerly private conversation.

The tension was becoming unbearable for everyone present, when Jim rose to his feet and turned to leave the small confined cabin. As he left, with his back to the room, Jim called over his shoulder, "You have the Conn, Mr Spock." Before storming away to another area of the small shuttle craft.

At Jim's retreat, Bones could have sworn he had seen a tear slide down the side of Jim's face. When he thought about it, Bones realised that despite being Jim's closest friend, he actually knew very little about his past history. Sure he knew about the shit Jim got himself into when he was a kid, some of the stories were actually really amusing, others were kind of hard to believe. But Bones had never heard a story from Jim's past where he wasn't getting himself into trouble, either with the law or with his stepfather. It was at that moment that Bones really started to worry about his Captain and Friend's early life and the overall effect it was having on him even now.

For the umpteenth time that evening, Zac Cochrane literally, not practically, skipped as he made his way around the house. The sun had just kissed the horizon, which meant that he could contact the small craft and coach it into coming down and landing. And for Rachel, seeing her brother behave in such a fashion was both amusing and horrifying at the same time.

After she had managed to coax him out of the converted wine cellar, and into helping her, they had discussed at length about how the next hour and a half would go. Despite stating that he would contact the ship about the dimensions of the ship so he could find a suitable landing site, Zac had managed to 'borrow' a range of different satellites into picking up images of the small vessel, before promptly wiping their memory banks and setting them on their merry way. So the need to contact the ship again had been rendered unnecessary. In the mean time, Zac had located a landing site that would be big enough for the ship, which was on their property, and not so far away that working on modifying the craft would become a camping trip for him. Not that he'd be completely opposed to the idea should it be deemed necessary.

Grabbing his microphone, Zac skidded to a halt in front of his computer. Typing in the relevant information needed to transmit and receive from the waiting ship, he was forced to wait for the contraption to connect and pick up a signal.

"This is Cochrane, contacting the waiting vessel in orbit around Earth's moon, please respond." Zac spoke, desperate to hear the response. So desperate in fact, he was bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"This is Commander Spock, what is your message?"

Zac couldn't help but frown at that. "Not to be rude Commander, but where is your Captain? I was hoping to discuss the logistics of the landing procedure for the site I have located."

"My Captain has been attending to another matter, and is indisposed at this moment in time. Please continue with your intended discussion." Spock relayed, giving no hint as to what his Captain was doing that was more important that getting that ship safely to Earth.

"Very well." Zac answered, not wanting to over think the situation. From there he and Spock covered everything from the best speed at which to attempt breaching Earth's atmosphere, to the measures that Zac had gone to in order to ensure that they were not detected, at one point Zac had let slip that he had gone as far as to interrupt the nearby rail system, just to make sure that a passenger on a passing train wouldn't see the lights of the shuttle as it came close to the landing site. Zac also transmitted the projected flight plan, and the final co-ordinates of the patch of woods that he had chosen.

"Is there anything else you feel requires discussing Mr Cochrane? Or are we clear to begin our descent to the Planet?" Spock asked, remaining polite, despite Zac's fretting nature about the matter at hand, as it was illogical to by anything but.

"Oh yea, my sister will be at the site waiting for you with transport back to our home. It is a considerable distance. I will remain here, and will be available for contact should you run into any trouble. I look forward to meeting you and the rest of your company Commander. Cochrane out."

And the writing process continues...

I don't know why, but I've had a major problem with writers block for a while now, and it's really starting to piss me off. I think it's because I've stopped using the trains, they appear to by my source of inspiration, weird isn't it?

Either way, thanks to everyone for the continued support.

Xoxo