"Can ye hand me that wrench, lass?" came a voice from under some deck plating next to the -brand new and insanely beautiful- plasma manifold.

"Yes, sir," Jayme said as she put the tool in the guy's outstretched hand. Wearing the tell-tale red duty uniform of an ops officer, she knew the lieutenant commander was probably some kind of engineer. That also meant he probably had more work to do than he had hands to do it with.

"Thank ye," he said. Jayme was about to head off when he stuck his hand out again. "That screwdriver, right there."

She handed it to him, "What are you doing, sir?"

"These idiots crossed the replicator power converters with the plasma manifold system," he told her. "If I dinnae fix it…"

"There's a very good chance the plasma relay will explode as soon as someone engaged warp drive or replicated a sandwich," Jayme said.

"Aye, lass, and I happen to like my sandwiches. I swear, this bloody thing was put together by monkeys. Dumb monkeys."

"They can't be that bad, sir."

"Depends on the system yer looking at." His head popped up and he looked at her. "And I dinnae care about that 'sir' business. It's Montgomery Scott, but the only people who call me either of those are my maw and the brass, everyone else calls me Scotty, that includes cadets."

"You got it, Scotty. Jayme Kirk, my friends call me Jim," she smiled.

"You're the lass with the doolally da," he said. "He's the one who did the kamikaze into a Romulan ship, right?"

"Yea, George Kirk was my father," Jayme chuckled. "Nobody ever put it quite like that. Doolally da?"

"Scottish slang for crazy dad."

"Got it," she smiled. "You're not wrong."

"Now, granted he did what he had to do but it could've backfired on him. He got lucky and then, well, dead," Scotty said. "Sorry. Here I am running my mouth off about your…"

"No, it's okay. It's refreshing, actually. I was beginning to think that the whole fleet thought the sun shone out his ass the way some of these people talk about him."

"You'll get none of that with me, lassie," he told her.

"Good to know, Scotty. Do you need some help down there?"

"No… actually, I do. Your hands are smaller than mine," Scotty said, moving over to let her into the small space with him. "I can explain to you…"

"You're rerouting the systems back to where they were originally supposed to go. I think I can handle it," she told him, naming the necessary qualifications for why she was on this assignment. He was only mildly impressed. "What about you? What kind of engineer are you?"

"Ha. That's a long list, lass," Scotty smiled. "My top five are; warp systems, weapons systems, shielding, electrical systems and transporter components but I can handle just about anything technical or mechanical. I actually started in the Command School, like my da wanted. Stalemated the Kobayashi Maru test by using an engineer's trick to fool the computers. Transferred to engineering after that."

Jayme gave him a look, "And…?"

"Top of the class in both Relativistic Mechanics and Physiology. I'm actually having an argument with Admiral Archer over relativistic physics and how it pertains to subspace travel. Just because his grandfather was the captain of the NX-oh-one, he thinks he knows every bloody thing."

"What's the argument?" she asked as they worked almost in sync with each other.

"Well, Archer is of the opinion that the range of a transporter is limited to a few hundred kilometers," Scotty told her.

"No, you can beam something from one planet to the next within a system as long as there's a place for it to beam to," Jayme thought out loud.

"That's what I bloody said. I have yet to test it but if it works, and it should, we're talking about transwarp beaming. It'll change the Federation."

"Would you stop staring at me before the others start asking questions?" Jayme whispered in Vulcan.

They were on day four of this six-day evolution and it was going as well as any of them could've hoped. There were a bunch of problems but Pike had expected that. Jayme, Spock, Scotty and the others were working hard to ensure that the warp system was installed correctly, even if not completely on time. She was having lunch with Spock, Scotty and Pike when she noticed that Spock was staring at her.

"It is not intentional," he replied in his native tongue.

"Is that Vulcan?" Scotty asked. He and Jayme ended up being an effective little team, bouncing from one problem to the next while the others focused on installing engine parts. She -admittedly- didn't know everything about some of the systems but Scotty would just explain it to her as they went. He doesn't teach any classes but if he did, she'd sign up to take them.

"Affirmative, Mister Scott," Spock answered. There was something in his tone that Jayme just couldn't place.

"It's prettier than I thought it would be," the Scot said. "When did you learn it, lass?"

"When I was a kid. My mom taught me when I was six or seven-ish. Got better the more I practiced," she smiled. Spock gave her that look again but didn't say anything. "Wanna learn something?"

"Aye, whatcha got?" Scotty asked. Jayme realized that Pike was now paying attention to them too.

"Um… try this. Nash-veh tor wuh rom mishek," Jayme told Scotty. He tried it a few times, each subsequent attempt better than the one before it.

"Nash-veh tor wuh rom mishek," the engineer said with a slight accent. "What's it mean?"

"I am a good engineer," she chuckled.

"Not bad, lass," Scotty smiled. "Wanna learn some Scottish Gaelic?"

"Okay, let's go," Jayme smiled.

"What should I give ye? Ah. Tha mi spaideil, àlainn agus cunnartach," he said. Spock definitely glared at him.

"The… Tha mi spedel?" she gave Scotty a look, he shook his head and repeated himself. Jayme said it in her head before trying again. "Tha mi spaideil, àlainn agus cunnartach."

"Ye got it. Yer accent could use some work but ye got it," Scotty smiled. "It means 'I am smart, beautiful and dangerous.' Which ye are."

"Well, thank you, Mister Scott," Jayme smiled at him and pretended not to notice the look Spock sent in Scotty's direction. "We better get back to work."

"You guys can stick around a little," Pike told her with a smile. He might not understand the languages they were speaking but he was getting a kick out of something.

"No offense, sir, but you're not as bonny as that silver lady," Scotty said.

"True story," Jayme smiled. "Besides, wouldn't want anyone to accuse you of favoritism, even though I'm your favorite."

"No, McCoy's my favorite," the captain told her.

"I'd be offended, sir, except Bones is my favorite too," she chuckled before cleaning up her stuff and following Scotty out of the room, Spock's eyes on them the whole time.

"So, how long have you and Lieutenant Commander Spock been together?" Scotty asked quietly as they walked through all the people and equipment.

"We're not," Jayme told him. "Sorry about him giving you the 'emotionless death glare of doom'. I haven't seen him do that one since we were teenagers." When Scotty gave her a look, she smiled. "Went to school together on Vulcan." She explained a little of her history and didn't go too deep into it but her new friend was quick on the uptake.

"Reunited but it's not as good as it should be."

"Pretty much. We're trying to… I honestly don't know what we're trying to do. We're both so different now and yet, we're not."

"Which is what happens when you grow up," Scotty said as he offered her a hand. She hopped up next to him on the rafters under the main warp core.

"Yep. All the times I wished we were in the same place and it's nothing like I hoped it would be. That, and he had a girlfriend. A Human girlfriend. Who apparently looks like me and is a scientist of some kind. So, I'm a little bit pissed off at him even though I don't actually have the right to be because he's not my property."

"But in a way, he is," he said.

Jayme didn't tell Scotty about the real reason for her mental link to Spock but being t'hy'la was, in fact, an ownership. The connection between bondmates was like two minds in the same space but the link between t'hy'la was more like a rope, threads wound together and, in effect, made stronger. Even with the distance and time, she did actually own Spock and he owns her.

"Yea, in a way, he is," she muttered.

"Yer both resisting what ye know is there," Scotty said with a smile. "Ye dinnae wanna get hurt again and he's at a loss of what to do. Now yer doing this dance but yer not listening to the same tune. What ye gotta do is change the music."

"That was very eloquent, Mister Scott."

"I have my moments, lass."

"Come on, we're here," Jayme said with a small smile as she pulled the car she borrowed from Pike up to a medium-sized farmhouse a few miles west of the shipyard. It was the last day in Riverside and Pike gave them all a few hours before the shuttle was heading back to San Fran. Fall classes started in two days and it was the only time off some of them, like Jayme, were going to get.

"Which is where, precisely?" Spock asked as they got out of the car.

"You don't wanna take a wild guess?"

"That would be illogical."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" she smiled. Spock raised an eyebrow. "That was sarcasm, Spock."

"I am aware that you have a proclivity for sarcasm, it is one of the many things about you that has only increased in the years we have been apart," he told her. Jayme couldn't help smile because she was sure he was messing with her, if only a little.

"Smartass," Jayme chuckled as she entered the code to the digital lock on the door. "This is the house my great, great, great, great grandfather built. It was passed down from one Kirk to another for generations... ending with me. I own the four acres that it sits on. Amanda had someone taking care of it for me. Still does." She had considered doing some work on the place but she doesn't really have the time. "Not bad for a little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. You can even see the lights from the shipyard at night."

"Is there a purpose to our visit?"

"I don't know. I guess I just wanted you to see it. I mean, I grew up in your home and this was supposed to be mine. I never actually thought I'd get the chance to show you, so I'm showing you," she smiled as his eyes took in everything about her family's home. "Changing the music."

"I do not understand," Spock raised an eyebrow.

"Something Scotty said," Jayme muttered. He gave her a look. "Stop looking at me like that. Scotty's cool."

"He was flirting with you," he pointed out.

"And I was flirting back. So what? It's not like I have a reason not to," she shrugged. Spock opened his mouth to say something before he changed his mind and didn't say anything. "Stariben ish-veh kashek, Spochkh."

"That would be unwise."

"Your father likes to say that what is necessary is never unwise," Jayme said as she hopped up onto the kitchen counter. "I'll help you out. You wanna be mad at me but you can't. One, being mad is an emotional response, which is something you try not to have. Two, you think you deserve it. I spent years waiting for you to get your head outta your ass -don't argue the logistics or logic of that with me, it's an expression- and the second you do, you picked someone else. Now, I can only speculate as to why you two broke up but that doesn't make the jealously or hurt I feel go away. What's more, you know that what I do is nowhere near what you did. So, if I wanna flirt with Scotty or Bones or Gaila or Pike or Mitchell or anybody else, you can't actually bring yourself to be mad about it because at least I didn't have sex with them. Which is a bit hypocritical, just so you know."

"I am aware."

"Are you, though? A sixteen year old can get married but I'm a twenty-two-and-a-half-year-old virgin because, like an idiot, I was waiting for you. I'm still waiting for you. I seem to have spent almost half my life waiting for you."

"Do you wish you had not?"

"Sometimes. Would've been a lot easier," she sighed. "I guess the big question is; what now? Even if we take… whatever this is somewhere…"

"When," Spock whispered, cupping her face in his hand. Talk about a loaded word. She was trying her damnedest not to turn into a puddle of goo and slid off counter. He really doesn't get how much she missed him or how insanely hot he's become in the last few years. All tall and lean and… Spock. He raised an eyebrow. Though his fingers were on her neck and nowhere near her psi points, it felt like he was reading her mind. "When we engage in a relationship."

"That would mean you've finally decided to stop running from me."

"It was illogical to attempt to do so," he told her.

There was a sadness behind his eyes that she wished like hell she could make go away. Jayme reached up and touched the side of his face with her fingertips. Spock, in a very un-Spock-like gesture, took her hand in his and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. Thanks to the feel of his lips against her skin, as brief as it was, Jayme effectively lost control of her ability to speak. Didn't help that he moved his fingers along hers in the el'ru'esta.

"I could've told you that. This is gonna be interesting."

"You are correct. An interpersonal relationship between us will be further complicated by our positions as cadet and instructor," Spock reminded her, stepping even closer.

"You're not my instructor and you don't have any control over my grades. At least, not as far as either of us knows. That's the reg."

"I am aware. However, I would be remiss if I did not warn you that the appearance of impropriety…"

"Will be there no matter what we do."

"Indeed," Spock whispered.

"Does that mean we're gonna try?" She couldn't help but sound a little hopeful.

"That is precisely what it means."

Vulcan - English
Nash-veh tor wuh rom mishek - I am a good engineer.
Stariben ish-veh kashek, Spochkh - Speak your mind, Spock.
el'ru'esta - Hand embrace; crossing hands at the wrist and touch palms; used as an embrace for t'hy'la or family

Scottish Gaelic - English
Tha mi spaideil, àlainn agus cunnartach - I am smart, beautiful and dangerous.