Hindsight was a bitch.

Later, McCoy would find thousands of signs and warnings as he reviewed his memories of the time between the second quake and being stuck in that cell. How could he have been so naïve and foolish? But that was the thing about hindsight – you could find whatever you were looking for in the past. The trouble was seeing it there, in the present.


"What?" Shakeba asked, with a hint of irritation in her voice as McCoy stared at her. They were eating their breakfasts and packing their bags at the same time, preparing for the last of their trek to the Klingon camp.

"Your hair…what'd you do to it?"

She reached up behind her head where she'd wrapped her hair in a tight chignon and secured it with a hair stick.

"I put it up. I put it up every morning."

"Not like that."

She paused and looked at him.

"My hair tie broke," she admitted. "I borrowed a hair stick I found in one of the bedrooms."

"Borrowed?" McCoy replied with a quirk of his brow.

"I left a note," she responded with an earnestness that made him smile.

"Turn around again," he asked and she complied.

"Looks good….but that damn thing could be a weapon. I'll never understand how you women do the things you do to yourselves."

She rolled her eyes at him and continued packing. McCoy caught a gleam of gold on her wrist as she closed her backpack. He frowned. The thick bangle wrapped around her left wrist was something else he hadn't seen before.

"Where'd the bracelet come from?"

"What is this? An interrogation?"

"Another thing you 'borrowed'?"

Shakeba spun around to face McCoy.

"This is mine. I came here with it and, Kah- fates allowing, I'll leave here with it."

McCoy frowned.

"I don't remember seeing it on you when we removed your armor at the medical post."

"Do you realize how creepy that sounds? Could it be you were concentrating on making sure I was alive? Stable? Besides, in battle I tuck it under my sleeve. You probably wouldn't have seen it unless you undressed me. Tell me you didn't undress me while I was unconscious."

"If I did, it was only to check on your wounds. I'm a doctor, not a pervert."

"Well, you're not a pervert, but you're certainly more than just a doctor to me," Shakeba replied.

"For the record, I didn't undress you – just lifted your shirt up to heal the phaser burns."

McCoy refused to let himself get distracted by her beauty or the smile she was giving him. For whatever reason, he wanted to know where the bracelet had suddenly come from. She looked different this morning. The hair was part of it but it was more than that. She felt different too. It occurred to him that this might be her getting battle ready. Having been on the Enterprise long enough now, McCoy had grown familiar with the little tics of his closer friends as they prepared for away missions. Everyone had pre-mission habits: Jim liked to play 3D chess with Spock the night before a mission. Uhura liked to turn in a read a book. Scotty liked to tinker on the distillery – he wouldn't touch a drop of alcohol before a mission because he claimed there was nothing worse than being hungover when shit went awry, but he found it soothing to hear the hum of the engines as he played with the pot or the distillation column, making adjustments to brew the perfect batch of whisky. As for McCoy, his own preparation for a mission was to grumble, drink, and hide in his office, avoiding any human interaction…all in all, not much different from his daily routine otherwise.

And then there were the things people did when they were standing on the transporter platform, just before beaming down. Uhura would unknowingly play with her ponytail, flipping it over one shoulder then the other. Jim had a tendency to flex his pecs and McCoy was pretty damn certain the captain knew exactly what he was doing. Spock…well, he was a computer so he didn't count. Scotty would hum to himself and tap his feet. McCoy had been told he bounced on the balls of his feet but he wasn't aware of it. Everyone had routines and tics they used to prepare themselves for big events. So it wouldn't be a surprise to find out that Shakeba had her own rituals, conscious or otherwise, that she underwent to prepare for something like what they were about to do.

As McCoy gazed at Shakeba, he saw a hardness in her eyes that hadn't been there just a few days ago. There was a coldness to her and the severe hairstyle did nothing to soften or warm her. For the first time since they'd begun to be intimate with one another, McCoy found himself doubting how well he knew her. Just an hour ago they'd been tangled up in bed and now, he wondered what really went on behind those large, dark eyes.

"Where's the bracelet been this whole time?"

"In my pack. This really is feeling like an examination, you know."

"One more question."

"Fine. What?"

Shakeba folded her arms across her chest.

"Why are you wearing it now?"

"For luck."

McCoy gave her a skeptical look.

"Given how well things went the last time you were wore that thing, you really think it's gonna bring you the right kind of luck?"

He grabbed his bag and started out the door without giving her a chance to answer.

"Asshole," she muttered as she sprinted to catch up.


"You sure you're not writing the next great novel there?"

Shakeba looked up at him sharply.

"Do you want to take notes on our surroundings, instead? Want to give being useful a try?"

He held his hands up to signify defeat.

"Just sayin', those notes must be quite detailed, is all."

"Just saying, hmmm? You sure do 'just say' a lot."


"What was that?"

"What?"

"You didn't hear that?"

"Stop messing around."

McCoy looked over at Keebs angrily. "I'll have you know, I'm not messin' around. There's something out there."

Keebs rolled her eyes.

"Shocking to think we might share this woodsy space with other creatures."

"Didn't sound like a creature to me," McCoy sniffed.

"Oh? What do you think is out there, Doctor?"

"I don't know. We're close to camp – maybe we should consider there might be Klingons around."

"If there are Klingons out here, how are we still alive with all the damn noise you're making?" Keebs whispered savagely.


"We've got to be close, right?"

"You're kidding me, yes?"

"What? I wanna know how close we are."

"How you aren't dead ten times over already is beyond me."


"Okay, but seriously. You heard that, right?"

McCoy looked up to realize Keebs had stopped moving just in time to keep from running into her.

He heard another breaking twig.

"There it is again," he whispered. "Ya had to have heard that."

Keebs turned to face him. Her expression was…bemused? Sardonic? What was going on with her?

"Oh Doctor," she finally said softly. "You shouldn't have let yourself get in this situation."

"What situation? What'd I do?" McCoy asked, bewildered, before realizing he was hearing a lot of twigs breaking around them.

Slowly, Keebs dropped her bag from her shoulder, looking around at the forest surrounding them. She raised her hands in the air as a sign of peace to whom or whatever was slowly coming closer to them. McCoy was flabbergasted.

"Lower your weapon," she advised him as the sounds grew closer. He had no idea if they were expecting Klingons or wild animals. If Klingons, he wondered how they were so good at concealing themselves and moving so quietly, given their size and aggressiveness.

With her bag, containing a disruptor, on the ground, she slowly, with very broad gestures, reached for her knife. McCoy unclipped his phaser too, holding it up and away from him to show whoever their company was that he meant no harm.

"All I have is this phaser," he called out. "I'm putting it on the ground."

As he dropped his phaser down, Keebs finished unholstering her knife and held it in front of her, as though to also drop it on the ground…before standing up straight and pointing the knife at McCoy.

"He is unarmed," she called out. "I have my d'k'tahg on him. You can come out."

"What's goin' on?" McCoy asked angrily. "What're you sayin'? Why're you pointin' that thing at me?"

From the brush arose at least ten Klingons in full armor. Two approached Shakeba and another two came up to McCoy.

The Klingons handled them roughly, though McCoy realized they were conversing with Shakeba.

"I told you he was unarmed."

"Why would we trust you?" one of the men patting her down sneered.

"Because, thus far, I have done everything I told you I would do," she replied.

"You have much left to fulfill on your end of the agreement," the other man told her, with considerably less attitude and gruffness.

"As do you," she shot back.

Meanwhile, McCoy was restrained by two Klingons, each one grabbing ahold of one of his arms.

"Did you know about this? What's going on here?" he called out to Shakeba.

They faced one another briefly while the Klingons grabbed their weapons and bags, including her PADD. She needed that PADD to blow up the drill. McCoy looked from her to her bag in desperation. The Klingons who had been holding his arms let him go but he knew better than to attempt an escape.

"Tell me this is a part of your plan. Tell me you have an idea of how to get out of this," he begged the woman avoiding his eyes. Finally she looked up at him.

"You were a fool to believe me," she said to him with a cold smile on her face. "Your mistake will cost you dearly."

McCoy was dumbfounded. He'd spent so much time accusing her of loyalty to the Klingons and now that she was proving him right, he didn't know how to react.

"Enough blathering," one of the Klingons yelled, poking both of them with his sword.

"Now we will find out if our trust in you has been misplaced," another Klingon said to Shakeba, grabbing her arm to push her forward.

"Care to translate for me?" McCoy muttered to Shakeba as he too was prodded forward.

"No," she replied flippantly and he grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him, and pulling her close to him.

"I've never hurt a woman before –"

"And you're not going to start now," Shakeba interrupted with a smirk as Klingons came between them and pushed him away from her.

"No touch!" one of them yelled at McCoy. "Just walk!"

"Okay, okay!" he replied, his hands up over his head.

Shakeba raised her eyebrow at him and it was a good thing the Klingons had taken their bags from them or he would have absolutely chucked his bag at her head.

The short walk to camp felt like an eternity to McCoy, who remained sulkily silent for the rest of the journey. He wished he had a universal translator on him so he could understand the words exchanged between Shakeba and their captors. He wanted to cling to some hope that she hadn't betrayed him – that they were in this together. But when they reached the outskirts of the camp, he was quickly led into a cell while she was left outside of it.

"You will wait here," one Klingon cautioned her before walking into camp.

She nodded in response.

Some of their entourage disappeared into the camp but two guards remained outside the door of his cell and another three guards surrounded her as she stood in front of his cell, her eyes on him, her expression unreadable. Unreadable until another Klingon returned with the one who had last spoken.

McCoy watched as Shakeba stood straighter when the new Klingon approached. She smiled as if greeting a long, lost friend and he wondered if this was the brother she had told them about – the one she supposedly disliked.

"I didn't expect to see you alive, tiny one."

This new Klingon was important, if his armor, and the deference being shown to him by the other Klingons, and Shakeba herself, were any indication.

"Given how the raid went, you won't be surprised to hear that I was not eager to see you again," she replied, smile still on her face.

McCoy wondered if she was really as happy to see the Klingon as she was acting. Frankly, he wondered a lot of things about the woman he thought he'd gotten a handle on over the past few days.

"Ah yes, unfortunate that Drel'ak and Hus fell," the Klingon answered with his own cruel smile. "Sometimes, these things happen."

McCoy had never wanted to understand a conversation more in his life. What the devil were they saying? Were they talking about him? They probably were. Goddamn it.

"I hope my gift," she nodded to McCoy's cell, "is sufficient to convince you of my good intentions."

McCoy knew it! He knew they were talking about him!

The Klingon looked at the cell, and McCoy, with distaste.

"What is so special about this one? He doesn't even appear to be a commander," the Klingon sniffed as he looked at the braids on McCoy's uniform shirt.

Disdain didn't need translation and McCoy grabbed the bars of his cell, ready to show the Klingon just what he was made of, a growl rumbling in his chest.

"He's the CMO of the Enterprise," Shakeba replied. "But, more importantly, he is the captain's best friend. Starfleet may not negotiate but Jim Kirk will do anything for his crew and friends."

The Klingon gave McCoy a last, disparaging glance before turning to look at Shakeba. "You better hope you're right, tiny one," he said as he gazed hungrily at Shakeba.

"I know I am," she replied, sliding up closer to him and resting her hand on his crossed forearms. "The least I could do was bring you a valuable bargaining chip."

McCoy had a moment of confusion. Did Klingon family members look at one another like that? Did they touch each other like that? It was… troubling, to say the least. He knew he wasn't well-versed on Klingon society but he was pretty sure he would remember any references to incest before now – and Shakeba hadn't mentioned – oh shit. Was this – was this the Klingon she'd been partnered with? The one who was friends with her brother? But why was she smiling at him? What in the fresh hell was going on here?

Even as Shakeba touched the Klingon willingly, McCoy wanted to break his arms for the way he was looking at her. He couldn't stop thinking of what she'd told him about what the Klingon had done to her in bed. For fuck's sake, she'd played him. He was reacting exactly the way she wanted him to. It had all been lies. McCoy hated himself and hated her for manipulating his emotions so quickly – so expertly.

"You must be tired from the journey. Come, let's get you cleaned up," Ovic stated, wrapping his arm around her and pushing her in front of him, away from the cell and towards the camp.

"Make sure your translators work before you let him comm his captain," Ovic ordered the remaining guards. They nodded.

"And if the comm doesn't give you any useful information, you know what you need to do."

"Yes sir."

McCoy watched Shakeba and the Klingon walk away till he could no longer see them.

Whatever was happening was bad. It was very, very bad.