Okay, so here's the deal: I got 140 hits on my original chapter 9, but not a single review. So, I completely re-wrote the chapter and made it really long. Please let me know what you think.

~me

Chapter 9

"Captain's log, star date 2259.175," Jim began. "We have re-entered Earth's atmosphere as planned, although there seems to be a problem with the air itself. We are running diagnostics and scans and will report more once we have some answers. Until then, we are not landing, we will stay in orbit. Kirk out."

Jim was pissed and confused. They had been called back to Star Fleet HQ and were not given a reason. It had only been two weeks since they had left. Jim didn't want to go back.

"Captain, Doctor McCoy wishes to speak with us," Spock said, appearing at Jim's side.

"Sure," Jim replied.

Jim stood from his chair and followed Spock off of the bridge.

The walk to the sickbay was a long one and was very silent as Jim couldn't think of anything to say to his Vulcan best friend.

In the sickbay, Bones had set up experiments to figure out the atmospheric issue. The biggest question, though, was why hadn't they hadn't they been briefed about this new development?

Jim glanced around. He was a naturally curious person and couldn't resist touching the viles of colorful liquids and gauges registering various temperatures and pressures.

"Nice set up, Bones," Jim said semi-sarcastically as he tapped a vile.

"Don't touch that," Bones said sharply as he pulled it from Jim's hand. "It could be explosive. We haven't tested it for everything yet."

"Do we have any results yet?" Spock asked as he observed a yellow liquid slowly dripping from one tube to another. He found it fascinating that a human was capable of such experimentation. Until Doctor McCoy, he had only seen such work on Vulcan.

"Other than looking odd, nothing seems out of the ordinary," Bones replied.

"Well, that's not very helpful, is it?" Jim said, frustrated at the doctor's response.

"He leaned back on the table behind him and knocked into another set of tubes, viles and gauges,"

The broken container of atmosphere ascended, dissipating as it went.

The three men watched as it disappeared.

"I wish you hadn't done that," Bones said.

"Eh, it'll be fine," Jim said.

"What if it isn't?" Spock asked.

"You worry too much, Spock," Jim replied. "They probably just did their own experiments on Earth and released it out here."

"Or everyone on Earth is dead, Jim," Bones said.

"Cut it out. There is no need to be this dramatic. Keep doing your test and I'll talk to Star Fleet later," Jim said, yawning as he began to walk out of the sickbay.

The atmosphere that had silently and invisibly joined that of the Enterprise was very busy, spreading through the ship's ventilation system. Slowly it advanced through the different rooms, having little effect in most places but seriously affecting some.

Here and there around the ship, people were falling into a deep sleep wherever they were as they breathed it in. Among those affected were James Kirk and Amanda Williams.

Jim had tried to fight the sleep as he sat in his chair on the bridge. But after the seventh yawn, he closed his eyes and rested his head on his arm.

Amanda had gone to lunch with Uhura and Spock and she sighed deeply and sleepily after sitting down. She yawned and put her head down next to her tray on the table and slept.

Spock and Uhura looked at each other. What would they do? Uhura tried waking her, but to no avail. Finding this exceptionally strange, Spock stood and picked up Amanda. They would take her to McCoy.

Scotty had gone to talk to Jim, but when Jim didn't respond, the crew on the bridge panicked. Was he dead?

No, Sulu decided as stood at the other side Jim's captain's chair, he was still breathing. But they needed to get him to Doctor McCoy.

Somehow, despite Jim being taller and heavier than either one of them, Sulu and Scotty had managed to get Jim to the sickbay.

Bones was handling the sudden influx of patients pretty well. He had his doctors and medical students working on the other patients while he first attended to Amanda and then Jim once Sulu and Scotty had gotten him down to the medical bay.

Bones, very methodically, went back and forth scanning the perpetually sleeping figures. But he was having one hell of a time trying to figure out of a diagnosis. To everyone, including him, it just looked like they were sleeping. But the good doctor did find something interesting and walked over to talk it over with his fellow doctors.

Spock and Uhura had returned to the bridge. With Jim in his coma-like sleep, someone had to captain the ship. But after a while, Spock thought it would be logical to go check on Jim and Amanda.

"Doctor, has there been any change?" Spock asked. "Or any diagnoses?"

"Unfortunately, no. But I found an interesting piece of information. They appear to be sleeping; Jim even snores every once in a while, but their brains are functioning as if they are completely coherent," the doctor replied.

Spock and McCoy turned to focus on Jim and Amanda and shrugged at one another.

After what seemed like forever, Amanda peeked one eye open. She was in a bed and next to a warm body. The warm body began to move and looked at her after turning around. It was Jim and he was shirtless. But this was not a familiar room. It wasn't either of their rooms and it wasn't even one of the rooms on the Enterprise.

"Where are we?" Amanda asked as she looked around.

"I have no idea," Jim said. "But maybe we should take advantage of being alone for once."

"Are we alone?" Amanda asked.

Jim's lips were already at her throat, pressing kisses at her pulse points and trailing down to her collarbone.

"Jim, we should figure out where we are first."

He ignored her and slipped the strap of her nightgown down her shoulder. She instinctively leaned toward him, finding what he was doing very pleasurable. But that is when they were interrupted.

"Mommy! Daddy! I can't sleep," a small female voice shouted, as the owner ran into the room.

A small girl, probably five, jumped on the bed and sat between Jim and Amanda.

"Mommy, I can't sleep. Brenden is being mean."

"Brenden?" Amanda replied.

"Why do I have a brother, daddy?" she asked. "He's annoying."

"Well…" Jim said.

"Why don't you run to bed and I'll be there in a minute. Just ignore Brenden," Amanda replied.

"Okay. Night, daddy," she said as she hugged Jim and ran quietly at the room.

"How long have we been asleep?" Jim asked.

"Better question: how many kids do we have?"

"Shit," Jim said. "Where are we and what happened?"

"I don't know. But let's go figure out if we're still us."

Both of them climbed out of bed and headed to dressers in the room. Amanda sighed. "I'm still me."

"And I'm still me," Jim said. "But I am not a Star Fleet captain."

"What are you?"

"According to my ID badge, I'm working on the farm still. What do you do?"

"I'm a teacher," she replied. "But elementary school, not Star Fleet."

"Mom!" a male's voice called. "Anne won't quit singing!"

"That must be Brenden," Jim said. "Why are they both still up? It's eleven o'clock at night."

"I guess we're those kind of parents," Amanda sighed. She hunted around the room and found a robe to cover her very short and see-through nightgown and Jim found a t-shirt to wear with his pajama pants.

"Promise me that when we get back to our real lives or wake up or whatever, that this robe won't be there," Jim said as they walked down the hall.

They opened doors in the upstairs hallway as they walked. They found the kids' bathroom, a linen closet and both of the kids' bedrooms.

They checked on Brenden first.

"Hey buddy," Jim said.

Amanda was startled at the close resemblance Brenden had with Jim. He had Jim's blond hair and shared both of his parents' blue eyes.

His room was a deep blue, decorated with stars and planets.

"Hi, dad. I know it's late, but could you tell me one of your stories about Star Fleet academy?"

Jim looked at Amanda and she shrugged.

"Did he ever tell you the one about the Kobayashi Maru?" Amanda suggested.

"No!" Brenden said. "I didn't know you took the Kobayashi Maru!"

Jim smiled at Amanda and sat on the edge of Brenden's bed to begin the story.

Amanda kissed both of them on the forehead and went to check on Anne.

Anne's room was a cartoonish shade of pink. She had stuffed animals everywhere. Or so Amanda thought. She pushed a couple aside and one particularly fluffy one purred as she touched it. Pushing another, it also purred.

"Anne, where did you get a Tribble?" Amanda asked.

"One of my friends at school brought it for me. It was free," she giggled as the furry ball snuggled with the girl.

"We have to quit feeding them. You are not allowed to have a Tribble or the apparent six dozen that are living in your room."

"I can't just stop feeding them, mommy. They get hungry."

"Honey, the more you feed them, the more Tribbles you get. That's the trouble with Tribbles," Amanda explained. Looking around the room, she sighed. "Go sleep in our room. Your dad and I need to deal with these things."

"Can I keep one?"

"No," Amanda said firmly. "We'll get you a real pet though."

This made the small girl smile and giggle with excitement.

She kissed her daughter and Anne ran out of the room and into her parents' room.

Jim appeared a moment later, peeking around the door frame.

"What the --? Tribbles?" he said.

"About a hundred of them," she replied. "It appears as though our daughter keeps them as pets."

"They wouldn't be my first choice, but…"

"But what? She cannot keep them," Amanda said. "Tribbles eat to reproduce. They'll eat us out of house and home!"

"And because they are asexual, they will just keep reproducing, I know," Jim said.

She was gesturing wildly as they talked. Jim grabbed the left one to inspect it as something shiny caught his attention. He then looked at his own left hand.

"No shit. You actually married me," he said. "I must be dreaming."

"Are you more surprised about the dream or the fact that I married you?"

"I don't know."

"I don't think we are dreaming. This doesn't feel like a dream," she said. "And that's why you aren't a Star Fleet captain. Because of me."

"Maybe here I'm not so amazing," he smiled.

"Captain, that notion is highly illogical," she said in a tone close to Spock's.

Jim shuddered slightly. "Don't do that. It's creepy."

"Okay, I'll stop. Let's go explore the house," Amanda said.

Shutting the door on the Tribbles, they followed the hall to the stairs and began looking for light switches to illuminate the dark first floor.

Back on the Enterprisei, Bones and Spock had been up all night trying to figure out a diagnosis. Twelve hours into their sleep-comas, Bones offered a suggestion.

"Perhaps, whatever was in those tubes that Jim so unceremoniously shattered caused this reaction," Bones explained.

"The question is, doctor, why didn't it affect everyone?"

"It seems to have effected more humans than non, but not myself or my medical staff. It didn't affect you either, but of the non-human staff it caused a reaction in, several races were close to Vulcan, in terms of immune systems."

"So, perhaps, they should all be wearing oxygen masks," a medical student, who had overheard their conversation, said.

"Yes. Put everyone on oxygen masks," Bones said before pushing his comm. Button. "Scotty, can you push some extra oxygen through the air ducts and clean them out?"

"Absolutely, doc," Scotty replied via comm.

Within minutes, the sleeping crew members began to wake up. Yawning and stretching, they emerged from their, apparently, refreshing slumber.

Amanda was the last to open her eyes. Doctor McCoy had observed everyone else and finding her still asleep he moved to her side. A pleasurable hum came from deep in her throat; obviously the dream she was in the middle of was too good to wake up from. And, Doctor McCoy wasn't going to complain about the sound. When a woman was making the sound she was, there were few causes. And it had been a while since he'd heard a woman make it.

Shortly thereafter, Amanda's eyes fluttered open and recognition of where she was registered in her brain. Her heart had been racing, she noted, and her palms were clammy. But was what she was just experiencing really a dream?

A/N: Please review! Thanks a million!