Leonard "Bones" McCoy

McCoy doesn't know what to make of any of it. He's standing with Kirk and Spock in a boardroom in the police station in the middle of this speck of a town. Their previously confiscated phasers have been placed on the table in the middle of the room and he's just been told he's a fictional character made flesh.

He's used to fantastical situations but this...creeps him out. Like those damn transporters have finally managed to scramble his molecules enough to actually make people believe he doesn't exist despite the evidence of their own eyes.

Spock says, "These 'Troubles' are illogical and I cannot see how something that has no discernable form or purpose can create three biological entities from nothing. It is much more likely we have inadvertently entered a wormhole of some kind and are now in a parallel dimension."

The blonde detective, Audrey, stares at them, her remarkable grey-blue eyes wide, clear, and broadcasting 'horseshit' with every word that comes out of Spock's mouth.

"That may very well be," she says, her voice dry, "but the Troubles are very real and more powerful than you seem willing to admit, and we can prove that to you, given time. For a...well, Vulcan of science, you seem to have made conclusions based on facts not in evidence."

Kirk barks a laugh and slaps a hand on Spock's shoulder. "She has you, there, Spock!"

Audrey exchanges a glance with her partner, Nathan: tall, lanky, all cheekbones and arms and legs. McCoy has noticed he says little but sees much, although there's a warmth in his eyes when he looks at Audrey that he may not realize others see as well.

"I told you we shouldn't have told them," Nathan mutters.

Audrey shakes her head. "I think everyone needs to know the truth, otherwise we may never find her."

McCoy scowls. "Who is the missing girl?"

Audrey considers him thoughtfully and for a moment, she reminds him of Christine, back on the Enterprise. He wonders if Chapel's worried about him then pushes his thoughts away. Ridiculous, he grumbles to himself. He's too old to be mooning about like a lovesick teenager.

One who, according to the two cops in front of them, doesn't actually exist.

The thought sends a spurt of fear through him.

Audrey opens her mouth and he holds up a hand.

"Hold that thought," he growls and touches the communicator on his chest, the one thing that wasn't confiscated when they were placed in separate rooms. "McCoy to Enterprise."

Silence.

He scowls. "McCoy to Enterprise."

Silence.

He exchanges a glance with Kirk and Spock and they each try hailing the ship in their turn.

Nothing.

Nathan's watching them, his head cocked to one side. "Do your phasers work?"

Kirk's eyebrow goes up. "Do you have a target I can use?"

Nathan shrugs. "Sure. Me." His smile is fleeting. "Just make sure it's set on stun."

"Nathan," Audrey says, her voice sharp. She turns to McCoy and the others. "Nathan's Trouble is that he can't feel anything. He can't get it through his head that that doesn't make him immune to injury just because he can't feel it."

Nathan's eyes widen as Audrey levels her glare on him. "Hey, it's faster than taking them to the shooting range."

McCoy rolls his eyes. "You're as reckless as Kirk," he mutters and Nathan looks both surprised and amused.

"I'm far from reckless," he says, "I'm just practical. If you have a better suggestion, one that won't damage my station or my officers, that would be great."

Kirk looks offended. "You almost seem like you don't respect my aim."

Audrey rolls her eyes and puts her coffee cup down on the table with a thud. "Fine. Shoot that."

Kirk picks up a phaser from the table, takes aim, and presses the button.

Nothing.

McCoy feels the first cold tendrils of dread curl in his stomach.

Still, just because they can't contact the ship and their weapons don't work doesn't mean they're not being monitored by the Enterprise. It doesn't mean they don't actually exist!

He hopes.

Still Kirk's face is almost comical as he looks at the phaser in his hand, tries it again, then is reduced to that age-old human approach to fixing something that refuses to work: he hits it with the palm of his hand.

"Captain," Spock says with a thread of amusement even in his voice, "I am afraid that will not solve the problem."

Kirk glares and opens his mouth but McCoy gives him a warning look before he steps forward and says, "Well, it looks like we're here for the time being and even if we were called here by this...uh...Trouble, we are here. Now, back to my question: who is the girl?"

Nathan says, "Fenley Slavick. Twenty. Last seen getting into a white car yesterday afternoon and has not been seen since."

Kirk's smile is mocking. "Only one missing person?"

Audrey's smile is fleeting and cold. "For now. She is, however, the fourth abduction in as many months. We just found the second girl who went missing three days ago.

"What was left of her," Nathan mutters.

Audrey grimaces. "Gloria put her time of death at twenty-four to forty-eight hours before we found the body. Whoever took her...'liked' her enough to keep her alive for three months."

"And the 'ways' he 'liked' her were all too evident," Nathan adds, his voice bleak.

Kirk's face is serious now. "What do you want us to do?"

Audrey and Nathan exchange a glance that is filled with helplessness then Audrey says, "Tell us everything that you know about Fenley."

Now it's McCoy's turn to look at his companions. He spreads his hands in a confused shrug. "We don't know anything. At all."

Nathan sighs and gestures for everyone to sit down at the table, with Audrey beside him across from the Enterprise crew.

He says, "Tell us about this distress signal. Tell us how you got to Haven."

Kirk frowns. "There's not much to tell. The distress signal didn't have any words. Uhura was able to hone in on its general location and I gathered an away team to beam down and investigate." He gestures at Spock and McCoy and shrugs. "Here we are."

Nathan raises an eyebrow. "No words?"

"No," McCoy says, "only emotions. It was visceral. Terrified. Hopeless and helpless and panicking. Desperate."

Audrey says, "That explains how you knew the situation was an emergency. You also said she was being held in a log cabin?"

The three men look startled.

Kirk says, "That was...a guess?" He turns to the others with a frown.

McCoy's brow is furrowed as he tries to remember what happened on the bridge when they were listening to the distress signal. "There was nothing said, just an impression of being in a room with rough-hewn wood on the walls."

Spock nods. "It was an impression, and a conclusion based on facts not in evidence."

Audrey's lips curve into a smile but before she can say anything more they're interrupted by a knock at the door and a police officer poking her head around it.

"Nathan? Audrey? There are some people out here, saying they have information about our missing person."

Nathan and Audrey move as one, surging to their feet.

"Witnesses?" Nathan says.

The officer shakes her head. "FBI and the NYPD."

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