Breathe Again

Author's Note: I did my best with the Scottish dialect/terms and such in this one, definitions are at the bottom. I had alot of fun though and tried to keep true to the scene in the movie with a mixture of anxiety and humor. Enjoy!

As the tell-tale bright white light of the transporter coiled around him like a snake and he wiggled his fingers in goodbye to Keenser, Scotty marveled at himself. It was working! Well at least, it appeared to be working. And if it did… he'd be a bloody genius, wouldn't he? Show that bampot* Archer that it was possible, prized beagle disappearing or not.

Montgomery Scott, the mastermind behind transwarp beaming. He liked the sound of it.

Of course, it'd been Mister 'I'm-from-the-bloody-future' that had perfected his equation, but the Vulcan said it was future Scotty that had made it so technically he was still the brilliant mind behind it. And if the Vulcan was just full of mince*, well, nobody had to know now did they? Kirk was the only one who knew the truth that was coming with him and it appeared he'd be far too busy saving Earth and all of that to care. So he was free to say what he wished.

Scotty closed his eyes as the light went in front of them, face pinching slightly at how bright it was. Spending the past six damn months stuck in a tiny Starfleet base darker than a jakey's* arsehole had apparently made his eyes sensitive. 'Well baws*…' he grimaced silently to himself.

In a matter of seconds he was no longer standing on the transporter platform in a shuttle on the pure baltic* planet of Delta Vega. But he did not appear on the gorgeous Enterprise, which he'd really been quite eager to look at, as he'd been expecting.

Instead, he was suddenly surrounded by pressure and he was painfully aware of the fact that he couldn't breathe. His eyelids snapped open in alarm but he found nothing but blackness.

A stream of not particularly pleasant terms running through his mind, Scotty began to instinctively flail his arms and legs. Water. He was in water. 'Well shit!' he cried in his thoughts, panic rising in his throat like bile as his heart slammed against his ribs. So much for the equation working! 'Ne'er listen ta bloody Vulcans from the bloody future!'

Muffled and sounding very far away, he thought he could hear someone yelling something. He wanted to yell right back but he was trying very hard to keep air inside his lungs. He considered waving his limbs about some more in the hopes that they'd hit something but before he could try, a circular opening appeared out of nowhere towards the bottom of whatever the hell he was in and he was sucked out of it with the water around him.

He couldn't see momentarily from both the rushing water and going from the pitch dark to blinding white light. Then the water slowed to a halt, swirling lazily about his spinning head. From what he could tell, he was in some sort of glass pipe. Which, you know, was bloody fantastic.

A hazy figure came into view, clearing up slightly as they got closer. He was blurry, but Scotty still managed to recognize that it was Kirk. A few bubbles escaped from Scotty's lips, wanting so badly to scream at the kid to get him the hell out of there. A large black hole opened up in the vicinity of the fuzzy Kirk's head, Scotty assumed it was his mouth, and moved. But whatever Kirk was saying, all Scotty could hear was warbled sound.

Just as suddenly as it had stopped, the water slammed forward again. Nausea started up to join his pounding heart, screeching lungs, and dizziness as the pipe made sharp turns that went left, right, up and down.

People always said that one's life would pass before their eyes before they die. For Scotty it wasn't his whole life, just one memory. A memory where he'd once again been faced with a watery death.

Back when he was a young lad living amongst the rolling green hills of Scotland, he was visiting the famous Loch Ness where the myth of the Loch Ness Monster, who had turned out to be an alien, was still bringing in tourists from all over. Around ten or so years of age, he was a budding young engineer. Well, he'd take things apart, his Maw would yell at him, and he'd have to put it all back together again and hope it worked or else. But he continued to do it because it fascinated him.

He was on a dock on the Loch, admiring the hoverboats that were skimming mere inches above the water. There were even some antique boats that had to actually go in the water! It was one of these he was eyeing, wondering if anyone would notice if he tried taking it apart, when he saw her. Not a vessel… but a lass.

Now, Scotty had just surpassed the age of thinking girls were icky and would give him some sort of disease and was now starting to notice that they were actually quite eye-catching creatures. This one in particular appeared to be a few years older than him, not that he was complaining. Long, curling ginger hair framed her slender face and pooled down off her shoulders. She was smiling, a beautiful smile with perfect white teeth that lit up her entire face, including her lively hazel eyes. Freckles peppered her pronounced cheeks and slender, pointed nose that just seemed to ad to her sunny disposition.

Admittedly, her face was not the only thing he was looking at. His seeing girls in an all new light came with an appreciation of bosoms and other such curves. That is, unless it was his aunt's particularly large bosoms he was being suffocated with, those were definitely not enjoyable.

But this lass was… perfect. At least, it seemed that way to Scotty's boggled young mind. He could feel that his mouth was open in a small 'o' of shock at the stunning creature, but he couldn't seem to close it. Or move at all for that matter. He just couldn't look away.

And this was the cause for all the rest of the trouble. As it is with most boyfriends, hers was not particularly happy with some lanky lad with hair hanging in his eyes ogling his girl. The lad was younger, sure, but still registered as a threat. So the boyfriend found a solution. Tossing said lad into the Loch.

Completely unaware of the fact that Scotty was unable to swim.

Much like his older self, young Scotty found himself head over heels under the murky Loch water. He had no idea which way was up, down, or otherwise as he tumbled about. Perhaps if he had not been internally panicking at the realization he was going to drown, he would have rationalized that the direction he was sinking was down. But young lads are not well known for their rationalization skills, especially when they're underwater minutes away from drowning.

The Scotty being shot along a pipe of some sort felt just as he had when he was being dragged down into the muddy depths of the Loch Ness. Terror constricting around his convulsing heart and already screaming lungs, desperation to keep what little air left in him there though bubbles continued to escape from his lips no matter how hard he tried to keep them pressed together. Younger Scotty had gotten trapped when plants at the bottom of the Loch got their greedy fingers around him, older Scotty was trapped by glass. But there was one thing that was different.

This time, there was someone trying to save him.

True, younger Scotty was rescued. When a fisherman heard yelling he ran over and immediately dove in upon hearing someone was drowning. The lad had been fearfully close to dying and was quickly rushed to a hospital to be treated. Quite the price for goggling a lass.

But this time, someone had his back. Just when it felt like his lungs were going to explode from the pressure, he was suddenly falling. In a small waterfall of limbs and liquid, he landed on the floor with a wet smack. Though his backside hurt from the landing, his lungs were soothed as he gulped down air. He could finally breathe again.

If he ever saw that bloody Vulcan again, he'd sock him. From the future or not. 'Damn logical arse…'

* bampot – an idiot

* mince – rubbish/nonsense

* jakey – a homeless/unkempt person

* baws – basically like 'bollocks'

* pure baltic – insanely cold