Chapter Notes
The first section of this chapter reflects the effects of the attack on Uhura and Scott by the Nomad probe which occurred in TOS episode The Changeling. My full retelling of that incident in the AOS universe is contained in my story "Not Until We are Lost." Reading that story isn't necessary. Briefly recapping: a murderous probe wiped Uhura's mind, and when Scotty tried to stop it, the probe killed him. And, unlike the episode of the Original Series, it took considerably longer than an afternoon for the two of them to recover.
The third section of this chapter contains a content warning for rape/non-con. Episodes of the original series got close with the subject, but backed away or downplayed the consequences. Here in the AOS, I'm addressing it. The third section is tagged for rape/noncon, sadism, and torture. It isn't explicit but I didn't pull any punches.
Chapter 5: 2262 proves to be difficult for the Enterprise crew
Year Five: 2262
Captain's Log, Stardate 2262.101. Four weeks ago two of my senior officers were cut down on my bridge by the deadly Nomad probe. Since then it has been difficult to watch Lt. Cmdr. Scott and Lt. Uhura struggle. Scott was dead and utterly beyond help for twelve minutes. By some miracle the probe repaired his destroyed nervous system, but the autonomic signals from his brain to his body have been prone to wandering away ever since. Watching a man periodically forget how to breathe is terrifying. As for Uhura … we truly feared that she had suffered a fate worse than death. All that we are exists only in the delicate pattern of neural connections in that small, dark space inside our heads. It appeared that her mind had been wiped away; the blank nothingness behind her eyes was the worst thing I've ever seen. But today our chief engineer was back on duty, and Dr. McCoy thinks our head of communications will follow soon. In short, we got lucky.
If Uhura never heard a planetary distress call again in her life, it would be too soon. The sudden silence in her ear had been the instant death of four billion people. People who, only a few days before, had welcomed the Enterprise as honored guests.
A tiny probe—Nomad—had brutally ended them all, and nearly the Enterprise, pounding the ship to its utter limit with only two mighty blasts. The third had been building, but for some reason, the Captain's desperate hail had stopped what would have been the final killing blow. In exchange for their lives, the murderous probe had insisted on coming aboard and demanded the location of Earth. They'd intentionally broken the nav computer to prevent it, which put Sulu on manual control on the damaged helm. With the Captain and Spock below, trying desperately to reason with their "guest," and Scotty making repairs, that put Uhura on the conn with the lives of the crew under her careful watch.
She nodded a thank you to the crewman who handed her the midshift report, then skimmed it, singing softly to herself. She was not even remotely relaxed, but knew that the crew felt like if she was singing, the crisis must be past. She forced herself to focus on the report; mostly nominal except for a number of yellow-flagged engineering issues leftover from Nomad's attack.
"Mr. Sulu, how's the helm?" she asked the pilot.
"Sluggish," he answered, and she toggled a switch on the arm of the chair.
"Engineering," came the chief's voice.
"Mr. Scott, helm is still reporting sluggish."
"I just saw that in the report," he answered. "It's probably something in the power relay behind the deflector dish, but before I spend the next six hours sweating in a meter-high tube with three techs, I'm going tae check helm control ."
"Acknowledged," she said, and forced herself to hum again before she closed the line to engineering.
She glanced up at the chief engineer when he stepped onto the bridge. Uhura smiled tightly at him before he ducked under the console, then went back to the report, half listening as Scotty called up maneuvering instructions to Sulu to test the helm.
The turbolift doors hissed open again, and the music she'd been humming died on her lips. "Trouble," Uhura called urgently as the Nomad probe floated toward her, a mechanical arm extended. She shared a half-panicked glance with Sulu and Scotty, both of whom were on their feet.
Scotty circled behind her to the communications panel and hit a button. "Bridge to Captain," the second officer murmured. "The bloody thing is up here ."
"On my way, Scotty," Kirk said.
Uhura sat straight in the center chair, eyes locked on the intruder. She could feel Scotty step up behind her in support, moving carefully, and was grateful to feel him at her back. "What are you doing here?" she asked it firmly.
"What is the meaning of the communication?" it asked.
Uhura glanced at Sulu, both of them equally confused.
"I don't understand your inquiry," she told the probe.
"The soundwaves at mathematical intervals," the probe responded. "What is the meaning?"
"Music," Scotty said softly. "It must've heard yeh singing over the comms."
Uhura nodded and gripped the arms of the chair. "It is a form of symbolic communication," she answered calmly. "It most often conveys emotion and feeling. Done for the purpose of enjoyment and unity."
"Error. It is not logical. Unity cannot be achieved through individual distinctiveness," the machine said, and pointed one of its arms at her head.
There was. There was. There was something wrong. Distantly, she heard someone yelling: "let her go, yeh wee bastard!" Then deadly blue light. Commotion. "He's dead, Jim," despairing and incredulous. She was fading, someone was shouting in fury. "Why did you kill him? ... What did you do to her?"
Then nothing.
Then something. She had no language, no words. She did not know what those things were. But if she did, she would have noticed that there were hands, and a voice, and a gentle touch in her cheek. "Open your mouth, Nyota. You must eat." Later, warm softness moving across her body, the sound of water sloshing in a bowl. "Cleaner now. I will help you with your nightgown, you have said many times it is your favorite." And when the thing happened, the unpleasant thing, hands, again, wiping it away. "Done. Now we will put a clean diaper back on."
There was something. A word. Love. She wondered what that meant. "Sleep, Nyota." Spock. It was the same thing as love, she just knew it.
In the night there was a rush past her door, voices raised down the hall. She followed them, squinting against the light. A sharp shout: "Come on, Scotty. Goddamnit, stop doing this to us. Breathe. Come on, figure it out!" They were reaching for a man who was thrashing on a bed.
"O2 dropping, Doctor, he won't be conscious much longer."
"Give him a few seconds more. Circumventing his nervous system with life support doesn't do him any favors. His body has got to remember how to breathe on its own or he'll never get out of medbay. Come on, Scotty!"
She did not know what any of it meant, but there was a long, desperate silence, then choked, jagged gasps for air cut with hoarse whimpers of pain and fear. It was frightening, and she wept. The man rolled over—soaked in sweat, chest heaving, curling in on himself—and looked directly at her as he turned.
"Nyota," he gasped.
"Shit. Nurse, get her out of here."
The kind woman took her arm. "Back to bed, Nyota," she said with false cheer. The kind woman wrapped a warm, soft thing around her, and wiped the tears off her face. "Don't cry, Nyota. Scotty's okay now. Go to sleep."
She closed her eyes, and there was nothing for a time, and then she opened her eyes. Spock. Love. His mouth was on her cheek. She liked how it felt. She wondered how it would feel on other places, and the thought made her shiver..
"Good morning." The sounds from the people meant something, she was sure of it. There was a reason. A pattern. She was angry she couldn't understand it.
"She's agitated again. I could sedate her."
"Let me hold her, Leonard, it seems to calm her. She cannot hurt me."
Someone sang to her, and she drifted, humming along.
Spock. Spock. "Spock," she said, and he gripped her hand.
"Nyota?" his voice trembled with emotion. No, that couldn't be right. Not emotion. It must be the wrong word.
"Spock," she said again, and her voice was rusty. "What happened?"
"You were injured. Your brain was damaged."
Ah. That made sense. She wondered what a brain was, and closed her eyes. There was something, as she slept. Dreams. She did not like them, and woke.
Someone was sitting in a chair beside her bed, wearing soft white clothes like her, not the bright red and yellow and blue that she liked better. He was asleep. She wondered if he dreamed. "Do you dream?" she asked him.
He stirred, and spoke. "What was that you were saying, lass?" He seemed unwell. Pained, breathless. It worried her.
"Do you dream?" she asked again.
He frowned at her. "Sometimes. Did you have a dream, Nyota?" he asked gently.
"There was a thing. It hurt me."
"Sounds like a bad dream," he said softly, and took her hand. She wondered who he was. She liked his voice, and the kind look in his eyes.
"Read me the book?" she asked. "Starship Communication System Operations, Part 2. Spock was on Chapter 6."
He smiled at her, bemused. "Aye, lass. Whatever you want." He picked up a padd, and began to read. "Chapter 6. Subspace beacon skipping. At long ranges, degradation of the subspace signal can be overcome by directing the signal first through beacons already in place …"
"You can use gravity wells too," she interrupted.
"Aye. That's in Chapter 8 or 9."
"And boost it from the source. Redirect power from the reactor to the high-gain relay, really punch the signal hard. Don't tell Scotty, it makes him crazy."
"That's where the power drain has been coming from? Goddamnit, Nyota," he laughed.
"Don't tell him!" she repeated urgently.
"I willnae," he agreed. He sounded sad. She wondered why. Maybe it was because he was sick. He fell asleep reading to her, and she tugged and padd from his fingers and considered the mysterious squiggles on the page.
She drifted.
There was. There was. There was something wrong. "Spock!" she screamed terror. "Oh, Spock!"
"I am here," he said, cradling her in his arms.
"There is something wrong with my mind. What happened? What is …" she couldn't remember the word, and howled in frustration. "What is wrong with me?"
"You were attacked and suffered a brain injury," he explained, for the hundredth time.
Oh. That was right. Then, abruptly, there was meaning to his words, and she was terrified again. A brain injury?!
"How bad, Spock," she asked him desperately. "How bad? How long? Oh Spock, Spock!" she wailed, and she was up and running away from him. A grip on her shoulder stopped her, and there was darkness.
She slowly became aware of time, although she could not begin to guess how much had passed. She no longer drifted. Her thoughts became intentional, directional, purposeful. In the mornings, before Spock came, she liked to sit under the sun lamp in sickbay and remember her childhood. The feel of her language in her lips, and the sun in the sky. Her father's smile, her bibi's laughter. Racing her cousins down roads, running easily, forever.
Dr. McCoy had explained, several times, that the murderous Nomad probe had disrupted the neural memory inside her brain—the delicate order in which neurons fired from one to another to create the complex and mysterious patterns of consciousness. It had done a similar thing to Scotty, except rather than damaging his brain it had disrupted the nerves which carried the autonomic impulses from his brainstem to the systems in his body. Nearly destroyed, but not entirely. Faint paths had remained for them both, and as they pushed through over and over again, their struggles reset the halls of mind and body.
One day, as she strengthened and her understanding deepened, McCoy had slipped in his explanation. "We're damn lucky that there was anything left of your neuronal pathways at all. Another second or two and you would have been gone forever," McCoy had said. "It's a damn good thing that Scotty…" McCoy cut himself off, a strange look on his face, and wouldn't say anything more.
That Scotty what? she wondered to herself, but no one would answer, least of all the man himself. "Nothin', lass," he'd say with a shrug if she pressed him, and if he was feeling well enough he would read to her; if he wasn't they'd listen to music. She let it slide—for now.
She was slowly working through the communications department duty roster when Spock walked into the medbay with their dinner. "Have rations always been this awful," she asked him, "or am I just remembering incorrectly?"
"Synthesized food is nutritionally balanced and healthy," Spock answered. "But there are aspects of it that are … not entirely fulfilling."
"Right. It's awful," she laughed. They spoke of his day, spent investigating a quasar. She told him of hers, which included a visit from Chekov and Sulu, a rousing if off-tune song from the janitorial bowling team, and two hours of ridiculous stories from Scotty which had left her giggling helplessly.
"I'm not quite sure how much to believe him," she said, chuckling again as she recounted one of the tales.
"He is well known for embellishing facts if he believes it improves the story," Spock said dryly. "I believe you find it endearing."
"I do," she laughed. "He's doing a lot better, finally. McCoy says he's about ready to clear him for duty."
"He has been much missed," Spock said gravely. "As have you. Deeply missed."
She smiled at him. "Spock," she said hesitantly, and caught his hand as he cleaned up their supper. "Make love to me?"
He froze.
She reached out and traced his face. "I have wanted you since before I could remember anything else. I asked McCoy; he said it was safe. I want this; I want you. Be with me, Spock." He considered her for a moment, and she could see him deciding. Logic and hope and caution and love. At last Spock turned his head to kiss her palm, then stood to close the door to Nyota's private medbay room. McCoy glanced up from his charting as he did so, catching his eye with a steady, knowing look, then turned up the music playing in his office.
Spock guided her to the bed. He touched her face with the tips of his fingers, and kissed her. Lips and cheeks, eyelids and ears. The hollow of her throat. He untied the sash of her robe and opened it worshipfully. Hands, down her neck, her breasts, her belly. He took his time, reverently kissing her skin inch by inch until she was nude. "You are trembling," Spock said in concern.
"I had forgotten what this felt like," she gasped.
"If it is too much, I will stop," Spock said.
"Don't stop," she begged him.
He gently parted her knees with the backs of his hands, trailing his fingers down her inner thighs, following with his lips. She threw her head back, making small noises of pleasure, then gasped sharply. He paused, looking up at her to study her face, then dropped his head again and grasped her hips, tilting their angle, tongue and lips, gentle teeth, knowingly, purposefully precise in all the ways she'd forgotten about herself.
"Oh, Spock," she managed, tugging on his hair. "I remember. I remember."
"You like this as well," he murmured against her, one finger, then another, curling, moving, his rhythm drawing her closer to something she knew she wanted. Heat, growing, and she caught his hand, wanting him deeper but also … He understood, and touched her with his other hand, stroking there, oh god, just there. "You like other things as well; there are many ways in which we give and take pleasure from one another. I will show you those another night." Then his mouth was back, and her hips moved desperately against him, her body leading the way where her mind could not recall.
"Let go, Nyota," he whispered, and she did with a cry, sensation igniting across her body then arcing through her broken brain with brilliant, overwhelming force. This, too, was her.
"Spock!" she cried, clinging to him as he slid up her body to hold her through it. He looked down into her eyes, and she looked up into his. "There you are, my Spock."
"There you are, my Nyota," he said reverently.
She put her hands on either side of his face, then down his body, still fully clothed but rather obviously aroused. "I want to remember how your skin feels beside mine. The weight of you in my hand. The taste of you on my lips. How you feel when you break inside of me. Help me remember?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered softly, and he did.
Morning brought duty, as ever. But first they shared a languid shower and a tender breakfast, both of them aching sweetly after too long apart. She needed sleep, and he tucked her in for a morning nap with a gentle kiss.
"Did you stay the night, Spock?" McCoy asked, wandering by with a dermal regenerator for a clumsy crewman's hand.
"I did," Spock said simply.
"Good," the Doctor answered firmly. On other days he might have teased his friend, but not in his medbay, and not with the woman with the most frightening brain injury he'd ever seen on the other side of the door.
Spock checked in with the Captain on the bridge, then made his morning rounds through the departments. In the last weeks, when he had not been with Nyota, Spock had spent many shifts in Engineering, assisting the badly overwhelmed deputy chiefs. Through those weeks, the Chief Engineer's office had remained dark, more than illustrative of the mood aboard a ship shaken by the attack on two of its most beloved officers. If Nyota Uhura was the ship's voice and Jim Kirk the other half of the Enterprise's wild soul, Montgomery Scott was her beating heart.
This morning, at last, the light was on and the door was open.
"May I enter?" Spock asked. Scott glanced up from his desk, and gestured at his guest chair.
"I'll be with yeh in a minute, Mr. Spock. Let me finish this report first."
The chief engineer signed off on the report, then leaned back with a sigh. "My lieutenants are fine engineers," Scott said, sipping at tea that he'd let go cold, "but they havenae a clue what it takes tae keep a starship running. Four weeks and I'm overrun by paperwork. Starfleet Engineering is getting salty about the number of reports we've missed. Maintenance logs are weeks behind, tae say nothing of actual maintenance." He swiped wearily through the files on his padd. "Quarterly personnel assessments, usage and emissions reports, bimonthly safety briefings, radiation charting, hull stability, duty rosters, crew rotations, requests for departmental transfers, minor maintenance requests. Apparently environmental control and the torpedo techs are in a feud about somethin', although I'll be damned if I can figure out what. I'm starting to wonder if I shoulda just stayed dead," he said dryly, and shook his head. "What can I do for yeh, Mr. Spock?"
"I wish to speak to you on a matter of a personal nature," Spock said.
Scott blinked, taken aback. "I'm listening, Mr. Spock?"
Spock steepled his fingers. "Nyota has asked to see the security footage from the bridge on the day you both were attacked."
Scott blew out a breath, then took another with some difficulty, lungs catching on his still-healing nervous system. "That willnae be pleasant tae watch," Scott said.
"No," Spock agreed. "She has a reasonably clear grasp on what happened to her, although it will be difficult for her to see. As yet, however, although she knows you were injured, she is unaware of the precise … scope."
The chief engineer stood restlessly, and drifted to one of the walls of his office, a virtual blackboard on which he had dozens of complex warp equations scrawled, not all of which Spock recognized, and several of which appeared to be radical breakthroughs.
"You died for her," Spock continued. "And had you not intervened when you did, her mind would have been lost forever. But the price was your life."
"Aye. Well, that wasnae the plan. I had to get the murderous beastie tae let her go. Tae the extent I thought of it at all…" Scott shrugged. "I was just reacting, Mr. Spock. I think, though, from the Captain on down, it's well established that any one of us would die for each other."
"Yes," Spock agreed. "I am aware, however, Mr. Scott, that you love her."
"Mr. Spock …" Scott protested wearily.
"Vulcans do not consider love an emotion," Spock interrupted. "Nor do we speak of it as contained within the body—the heart—as humans do. Rather, we have sixteen different words for the influence it has on the soul. Each way equally profound, but turning the soul in different directions. What humans would call 'eros' is but one manifestation."
Scott sat tiredly, and Spock was reminded that the engineer was only recently on his feet, not even truly cleared yet for the lightest of duty. "In that case, aye, I love her," Scott admitted.
"Your relationship has always puzzled me," Spock admitted. "Yet she loves you as well. She will be exceeding upset to learn of your death."
"Aye, well, I got better," Scott grumbled.
"An entirely fortuitous turn of events, as you were utterly beyond our help."
Scott scrubbed his face with both hands. "What are you here asking of me, Mr. Spock?" Scott asked.
"Would you like to be there, when she watches the footage?"
The engineer grimaced. "Not particularly, Mr. Spock. If she needs tae have a shout at me she can do it later. I havenae seen it myself," he admitted quietly. "The footage, I havenae watched it. I cannae. Forgive me, Mr. Spock. I cannae."
Spock inclined his head in understanding and stood. "None of that is what I came here to say. I meant to thank you, but that does not encompass the depth of it. Rather, I am grateful," Spock paused, searching for the words. "Grateful for the love you share with her."
"So am I, Mr. Spock," Scott said earnestly. Spock nodded once, firmly, and left, the door sliding shut behind him.
Scotty tilted his head, resting it on the back of his chair with a groan. "Fantastic talk, Mr. Spock," he said to the ceiling. "But next time you want tae have a heart tae heart, please give me some warning. I cannae do this sort of thing stone sober." He sighed, then sat forward and looked at his paperwork. "Right. Nae," he said to himself, and went to go stare into the warp core instead.
Captain's Log, Stardate 2262.169. Someone onboard this ship has programmed the synthesizer to make chocolate ice cream. Real, honest-to-god chocolate ice cream. Dr. McCoy is on a rampage because it is all anyone has been eating for days, and we are all up two kilos each. The truth is, we've all been struggling this year, deep into the mission. We're homesick and tired, and far from done. It may only be temporary, but ice cream has lifted spirits considerably. So I am grateful to our 'mysterious' benefactor. (This being the Enterprise, however, I know exactly who the culprit is, and to keep McCoy off his back, I'll be blackmailing him into writing root beer. And chicken pot pie.)
"Try this," Scotty said in irritation, sitting down across at the table and handing her a spoon. "And tell me what's wrong with it."
Nyota blinked at him in surprise, then at the bowl he'd put in front of her.
"That's … chocolate ice cream," she said in awe.
"Nae. It is almost chocolate ice cream. When I get a moment, I've been workin' on the synthesizer formula. And I'm close, but not quite there."
"Montgomery Scott, working on programming chocolate ice cream, and not scotch or bourbon? I'm a little surprised. Proud of you, but surprised."
"I think I'd rather die than be the man who invented synthetic scotch," Scotty groaned. "Chocolate ice cream in an acceptable legacy."
Nyota took a cautious bite, then sighed in pleasure and took another, much larger one. "Oh, that is good. How did you know I needed ice cream?" He settled back, apparently content to watch her enjoy the dessert. It was nice to sit with him; it had been a while. Every department and section head was working wild shifts to cover an increasing number of sick call-ins from the weary crew. Which, unfortunately, was having the effect of grinding the senior officers into dust.
"Does Spock seem weird to you?" she asked him after a few moments of companionable silence.
"More so than usual or …?"
"There is just something off," she sighed. "I don't know if it's me, or him. Or if it's just in my head, because that's been happening too, since Nomad. McCoy has me on an antidepressant, and I'm having to relearn how I feel things."
He gave a half shrug. "New meds always take a while tae settle. But trust yourself. It seems tae me like Spock may be holding a little harder tae the logic, which is his way of showing irritation, although he's always like that with me. From where I'm sittin' it's the Captain who really seems off," Scotty sighed. "And the goddamned Chief Engineer, if I'm being completely honest. I dinnae ken, Nyota, we've been out here a long time."
She nodded slowly and took another bite. "Do you know what this reminds me of?" Nyota said, gesturing at the ice cream. "It reminds me of … when I was a little girl, we'd go visit my bibi. She lived in a village, she didn't like Nairobi. And every afternoon she'd hand us some actual coins and my cousins and I would run down the road to this ancient shop. Soda in a glass bottle, hard candy, and ice cream at the bottom of a freezer. You could never quite tell what flavor the ice cream was. Wonderful but a little mysterious? Like my bibi, come to think of it," she said taking another bite, and suddenly she was in tears. "God, Scotty. That just came back. That memory, just now."
The look he gave her was a little fractured, but he managed to smile at her.
"Your grandmother raised you, didn't she?" Nyota asked him hesitantly. The details of her own life were firming, but she was still struggling with those of her friends.
"Aye," he said. "You're remembering that right. The kindest thing my mother ever did was drop my sister and me at my grandmother's and never come back." Scott grabbed a spoon and took a bite from Nyota's bowl. He seemed to consider something, unsure whether to speak more, then forged on. "I didnae understand my mother until I was sixteen years old. Just a lad at the University of Edinburgh, working on my first doctorate. And that poor damned kid." Scott tapped the side of his head. "The maths just wouldnae shut up. Ever. He couldnae eat, he couldnae sleep. Sober, drunk, stoned, it didnae matter. Until a professor, who shoulda known better, and who wasnae being kind, gave that boy his first line of hypercaine, and he found a way tae quiet the voices in his head for a few hours." Scott shook his head, and Nyota watched him quietly. She was still struggling to remember things, but she knew from the look in his eyes that this was something he'd never told her before.
Scotty continued. "I understood my mother then. Understood why she couldnae bear tae live in her own mind. I hid it from my granny for a year. But I was home one weekend, and I was getting sloppy and desperate. She walked intae the room and looked at my eyes, pupils blown wide open, and she'd seen it before in her only daughter. At that moment I understood why my mother stayed away; I didnae know someone else's tears could hurt so much." Scott toyed with his spoon. "Granny marched me out the door and took me for ice cream, of all the damned things. She told me that my mother had been dead for two years; an overdose on some shitty station. She told me I'd never be quite what I was before, or what I coulda been, but that I'd be okay. And then she took me tae hospital. It was too late for my mother. But my grandmother's tears saved me."
"And the maths?" Nyota asked quietly. "Did they ever quiet down?"
"Aye, well, you can ask yourself why the Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise is up in the middle of the night, programming chocolate ice cream intae a synthesizer, and there's your answer. It's too sweet," he said, abruptly changing the subject. "The ice cream. Too sweet, aye?"
"I don't know, Scotty, it tastes pretty good to me," Nyota said, not just because he was acting a little fragile, but because it really was delicious.
"Nae, it's missing somethin'. That little bit of bitter underneath the chocolate. Humans evolved bitter taste receptors to detect poison, y'know. And then humans, being human, immediately went 'aye, but how poisonous are we talking? Because we'd still like to eat that.'" He was starting to ramble, which was concerning, especially in combination with outlandish midnight programming experiments. It meant he was having trouble staying in his head, and weeks of exhausting, obsessive modifications to the Enterprise were coming. "Maybe that's the problem," Scotty continued. "The computer doesnae believe me that I'm programmin' in something edible. It thinks humans are insane, and illogical, and dangerous, and it's right."
"Is that ice cream? " Pavel Chekov interrupted, practically drooling on the table.
"Almost," Scotty grumped.
"Completely," Nyota disagreed. "Scotty just got done programming it. Get a spoon."
"Synthesized ice cream that tastes real?" Chekov squeaked, and took a slow, reverent bite. "This is the best day of my life."
Scotty smiled faintly. "I have a question for you, Pavel. Do the maths ever quiet down for you?"
Chekov licked his spoon. "The maths?" he asked, puzzled, then pointed at his head and moved his fingers in a circle to indicate a never-ending cycle. "The tick tick tick, all the time, the maths?"
"Aye," Scott said.
"Nyet. Why would I want them to?"
Scotty gave a half laugh. "Why indeed? And the ice cream is good tae you. Not missing anything?"
"Perfect," Chekov said happily. "I am getting my own bowl or twelve."
"And there you have it, summarized," Scott said wearily. "There's just something wrong with some of us, always trying tae toss something bitter intae something sweet."
"Scotty…" Nyota said. Her vague concern twisted into worry for something she'd seen in him before, although she couldn't quite recall what.
"Ignore me," he said, then stood up and headed for the door. "I'm jus' being an arse. Good night, lass."
"I'm … no, Scotty," she called out to him, suddenly remembering why the alarms were going off in her head, but he was already gone. Not good.
"Is he all right?" Chekov said, a bowl of ice cream in each hand, and there was a surge of excited chatter though the mess hall as the discovery swept through. "He's made the whole crew happy today. Except McCoy, who will probably kill him."
"Scotty scares me sometimes," she admitted.
"Scotty scares me all the time," Chekov agreed. "Any particular reason why today?"
"Yes," she said simply. "Enjoy your ice cream, Pavel. I'm going to head up to the medbay and talk to Leonard."
"About the ice cream?" Chekov asked in confusion.
"No," Nyota said gently to the cheerfully clueless boy. "Not about the ice cream. Good night, Pavel."
Acting Captain's Log, Stardate 2262.175. Jesus fuck. Acting Captain's log, supplemental. It has been suggested tae me that the last log entry wasnae professional. How about this: some days we are bored out of our skulls. Some days we are surrounded by incandescent beauty. And other days we run straight intae monsterous fuckin' demons. Guess which today was? Supplemental again. I'm apparently not supposed tae fucking swear in the fucking official log. Who fucking knew? You know what? I cannae do this fucking shit today.
Acting Captain's Log, Stardate 2262.176, Lieutenant Hiraku Sulu in command. Per the last log entry, we are not doing well. The Captain and First Officer, along with Lt. Uhura, are in medbay with injuries. The Second Officer has been relieved, also on medical grounds. I don't have the heart to say anything more today.
The engineering staff had a procedure, if you needed to get the attention of someone wearing ear protection. Firm hand on the shoulder or anatomical equivalent so the person didn't startle. Wait until they secured their equipment, then communicate the issue using sign language. Everyone knew, however, that the Chief jumped, every time, so Keenser grabbed his hand first and turned off the plasma torch. Emergency. Bridge. Keenser signed.
Scotty untangled himself from the narrow space, which was roaring with sound even through the earplugs, and pushed through the labyrinthine innards of the ship. Once back on the main engineering deck he pulled off the ear protection, tossed his tools onto a workbench, and wiped the sweat off his face.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Keenser shrugged. "They said they need you on the Bridge immediately."
Scott sighed, and headed off to the lift at a jog. The lift door opened into a Bridge in complete panicked chaos. Scott glanced around, taken aback. The Captain would never allow this. But the Captain was not there. And neither was Spock. "What the hell? Report!" he snapped.
"Mr. Scott, thank god," Sulu said. "We were afraid that you had been taken too."
"Taken? Too? Where's the Captain!? Pretend I've been up tae my neck all day in the guts of the solid waste recycler, because I have been, and start at the beginning."
Sulu took a deep breath. "We received a distress call this morning, about half a light year away. We arrived, settled into standard orbit. Class M planet. The Captain asked Lieutenant Uhura to open a hailing frequency, and the moment she did, the Captain and Mr. Spock disappeared from the bridge."
The second officer sat down slowly in the center seat, glaring at the planet on the screen as if it would yield answers. "Transporter?" he asked.
"Nyet, sir," Chekov supplied. "It did not appear to be. No dematerialization sequence. Just here and then gone."
"Are our shields up?" Scott asked.
"They are now. They weren't at the time," Chekov said.
"Mr. Sulu, I need a count of the ship's full complement, and I need it now," Scott ordered. "Take the ship tae action stations, that will be the quickest way."
Sulu had barely acknowledged when Scott turned to the communications station. "Lieutenant Uhura, I need the bridge fully manned, and then I need tae know more about this distress call. I assume neither one of them happened tae have a communicator in his pocket?"
"No, sir," she said, fighting hard through her own panic. He gave her a lingering look, and she simply nodded at him, straightening in her chair.
Scott spun forward again. "Mr. Chekov! You are now the acting science officer. We need a report about anywhere they might be." Chekov jumped up and headed for Spock's station.
"I have the count, sir," Sulu reported. "No one else is missing."
The chaos was gone, replaced by tension as the officers worked. Scotty clenched his jaw, suddenly the only one without a task, other than trying very, very hard not to snap at his people for answers. "Where are you, Captain?" he whispered.
"Where are we, Spock?" Kirk asked, walking around the perimeter of what was clearly a cell, a prison, although there seemed to be no door or window.
"I can only surmise that we are on the surface of the planet somewhere. That we have been taken from the Enterprise."
"Just us, or the rest of the crew too, I wonder?"
"Unknown, sir."
"Yeah," Kirk said, but before they could begin testing their cell for a way out, they found themselves transported again into a vast hall.
"It appears to be Late Classical Greek," Spock observed. "From ancient Earth."
"Well spotted!" said a booming voice. "I wondered when humankind would reach for the stars! How delightful! And how very, very unfortunate for you." A man stepped out, wrapped in robes and a crown, a two-pronged staff in his hands. "I am Hades. God of the underworld. And I'm very much afraid that you've arrived in Hell."
"It's been hours! Where the hell are they?!" McCoy yelled, storming into the bridge.
"If I knew that, Doctor, I'd have them aboard," Scott snapped sharply. "D'yeh have something tae add, or are yeh just here tae have a shout? Because I could stick yeh into a spacesuit and yeh could scream intae space. It would have the same effect, but spare me the headache."
McCoy deflated. "Sorry, Scotty. I'm just … just …"
"Aye," Scott answered knowingly.
Across the Bridge, Uhura sat upright. "We're being hailed!"
"The Captain? Mr. Spock?"
"No," Uhura answered, disappointed. "It seems to be whatever put out the distress call."
"Put them through, Ms. Uhura," Scott ordered.
"I take it that this is the Enterprise?" a voice said, and it raised everyone's hackles. "A ship of exploration and science and peace? Despite your battle shielding and energy weapons and missiles, of course."
Scott exchanged a glance with McCoy. "This is the Enterprise. Lieutenant Commander Scott in command. Tae whom am I speaking?"
"I am Hades. God of the underworld, your master of old."
"O...kay," McCoy murmured quietly, and the bridge crew all gave each other incredulous looks.
Scott frowned. "Well, Mr. … Hades. We arrived here in good faith in response tae a distress call, but now two of our crewmen are missing. Any assistance you could give us in locating them would be appreciated."
"I'm afraid the distress call was my fault. And a trap, I'm embarrassed to say. I do think I may have your people. Let's check, shall we?"
The viewscreen abruptly snapped on. "That wasn't me, Mr. Scott," Uhura said. "He's overriding us."
"There, see, that's better. Now we can talk face to face." A being stepped in front of the screen, nearly human looking in every respect, but just slightly off in a way that was hard to identify. "Are these your missing crew?" he asked, and snapped his fingers. Kirk and Spock stepped stiffly in front of the screen, dressed in togas and laurel crowns. Kirk made eye contact with Scott, blinking heavily.
"They are most amusing," Hades continued with over-cheerful delight. "Look, they can dance!" The man, if that's what he was, waved his hands, and Kirk and Spock began spinning, bodies clearly not under their control. "Run into things!" The bridge crew winced as the Captain and first officer smashed full force into a wall. "Ah, and this one. I like this one very much." Another gesture, and Spock reached for Kirk's throat. Spock was fighting it as hard as he could, but was completely helpless to stop himself. His fingers wrapped around his Captain's windpipe and slowly squeezed. Kirk, for his part, could only gasp.
"Stop it," Scott cried in fury, on his feet, along with the bridge crew. "What do you want?"
"Your agony," the creature said, smiling toothily. "Your fear. And for you to drop your shields so that I may have all of you."
"Ah, well," Scott said grimly, his eyes flicking to Kirk and Spock. "You didnae even make that hard. No. Never."
On the screen, Spock abruptly released Kirk. They looked incredulously at each other and sprinted for the door, kicking at it in frustration when they found it locked. On the bridge, Scott suddenly jerked upright with a strangled breath and lurched to his feet, lunging involuntarily toward the navigation station.
"Stop me, stop me," he managed through clenched teeth, and the bridge crew jumped into action. Chekov wrapped his arms around Scott, struggling against him, and Sulu jumped up to help, forcing an arm not under Scotty's command down and away from shield control. McCoy slammed two buttons on the science station and whipped out his medical tricorder. Uhura ran to the helm and pushed the ship to maximum orbit, then pulled out a phaser and pointed it at the acting Captain.
"I'll stun you if I have to," she said quietly, and Scott nodded tightly, fighting against Sulu, Chekov, and his own body. He abruptly went to his knees, himself again.
"I'm okay," he said breathlessly, raising his hands. He reached for his head and grimaced, then shook it and glared up at the face smirking at him from the screen, Sulu and Chekov half-holding and half-restraining him. Across the room and on the screen, Spock had involuntarily grabbed Kirk again, the expressions of the two men resigned.
"A small demonstration of my powers. Did you get away, Lieutenant Commander Scott, or did I just let you go?" the creature oiled malevolently. It closed its eyes in ecstasy. "You hate me. You fear me. I can taste it, in the very chemistry of your mind. An appetizer for the main meal." It opened its eyes, and chortled. "Oh ho! How interesting, Lieutenant Commander Scott. This is not something I saw in your ancestors, who had no choice but to go mad. Your neurotransmitters are partially artificial. And I have just completely destabilized them, haven't I? How delicious!" It laughed nastily. "I can make your friends do far worse things than kill each other. Is that really what you want? Lower your shields."
"No," Scott growled.
"The orgies of Dionysus were extraordinary," Hades mused menacingly. "So much feeling! The participants even enjoyed it. Usually. Although if not, well, that is a flavor I always savored."
"Oh, God," McCoy murmured at Scotty's side. "Beam them out!"
"I cannae drop our bloody shielding," Scott snapped, paling as it became clear what was going to happen next, Spock forced to his knees in front of the Captain. The two of them looked at each other, clearly fearful, but not of each other.
"Drop your shields," Hades said, and forced Spock to pull the tunic up over Kirk's bare hips.
Kirk managed to speak. "Don't you dare drop those shields, Scotty, no matter what happens."
"Ah, I see, you want this then, Captain?" the creature mocked. "How shall I have him touch you first? I am willing to entertain your suggestion. No? Like this, then?" Spock's face was forced into his Captain's groin, and on the bridge, every fist curled in rage. "Like this? Perhaps your crew likes to watch, and that is why they refuse to help you."
"Stop!" Uhura cried suddenly. "We won't drop our shields but I'll come down in a shuttle. A good-faith tribute while we organize ourselves to come down to the planet. Just, stop. Don't make them do this."
"An acceptable proposal," Hades smirked, and Kirk and Spock drew apart. Neither was relieved, but each fighting their own despair at Uhura's words. "You have thirty minutes to send her down. Or they brutalize each other, in every way possible, on your screens right before your very eyes." The screen went blank.
Scott stumbled to the central chair, the bridge pindrop silent as they struggled to process what they'd just seen. In one corner, a young Ensign was hyperventilating. Scott breathed shakily, reaching for his head again, then snapped back to professionalism. "Mr. Chekov, lock down shield control. Authorization of two officers required tae lower shields." Scott smashed a button on his chair. "Security, put a two-man armed guard on the shield generators. If someone tries to disable them, even if it's me, shoot them."
McCoy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, swallowing down his horror. "Jim was blinking in code," he said urgently. "Giving us orders. What was he saying?"
"He was ordering us tae leave," Scott said heavily. "Tae abandon them. Orders I'm suddenly considering following," he said, lifting his head to glare at Uhura. "I am nae sending you down there."
"Yes, you are. Or I will relieve you of command myself," Uhura said, lifting her chin.
Scott stood up, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Excuse me, Lieutenant?"
Uhura stepped into the temporary commanding officer and put a finger in his chest, and he looked down at her, flabbergasted. "Doctor McCoy, scan Mr. Scott. You know as well as I do that he's been losing a fight with his mental health since Nomad."
"Bloody hell, Nyota!" Scott hissed incredulously.
She looked at him with flicker of guilt. "The meds you've been on for twenty years haven't been working like they should, you've been cycling between mania and depression, trying to hide it," Uhura revealed, getting in his face, knowing perfectly well it was a betrayal. "And our 'friend' down there just blew you up completely, didn't it?" she pressed. "How close are you to outright psychosis?"
"Shit," McCoy boggled angrily, looking at his tricorder. "Yeah. That goddamned bastard just completely stripped every medication out of you in two seconds flat."
"I'm going down there, Scotty," Uhura said firmly. "I'm not going to let you stop me. You can be part of this or I'll stand on regulations for a commanding officer in a medical crisis and put your ass in sickbay."
Scott flipped a padd across the room in frustrated rage, and the engineering officer had to duck to avoid it.
"Sickbay might be happening regardless," McCoy murmured, exchanging a panicked glance with Sulu.
Scotty held up his hands placatingly, but was breathing hard. "You expect me tae send you down there?!" Scotty whispered, his voice was raw with grief. "That son of a bitch is a sadist. You and I and everyone on this bridge knows damn well what he's not going tae stop. He'll figure out your relationship with Spock in two seconds, and use Spock and the Captain's bodies against yeh tae …" He broke off and collapsed into the center chair. "Please dinnae ask this of me."
"I'm not asking. I'm telling," she said calmly, although her heart was hammering in her chest.
Scott dropped his face into his hands. "I'm nae sending you down without any defenses. We have thirty minutes; what do we know that we didn't know before?" He looked up urgently at the bridge crew.
Uhura took a breath. "I saw that it let go of Spock and Kirk when it took you," Uhura said. "Maybe the range overextended it? And it may have a maximum distance. It let go of you when we got out to maximum orbit. It claimed it had released you, but that may be a bluff."
"It was talking about fear and anger as a meal," Sulu said. "Maybe it consumes or is powered by emotions, at the biochemical level?"
"I think Sulu's right," McCoy said. "I got a good scan when it grabbed you, on the ship's sensors and the tricorder, and just now. It's ravaged your neurotransmitters. Also," McCoy said, scanning the others in the room, then himself. "That's all of us, to a lesser degree. It was taking the most from the person it was controlling, but was also taking something from us as we were experiencing what it was doing. Feeding from us."
"I'm seeing something in the data," Chekov said. "It looked like telekinesis, but it wasn't. It wasn't manipulating your body. It was influencing brainwawes. Not a puppet master pulling the strings, but remote control."
"A signal..." Scott started, comprehension immediately dawning.
"...which we might be able to disrupt," Chekov continued. "It may be technological; it may be biological; it may be a hybrid. Doctor, if you could …?"
"Yeah," McCoy said, and bent over the data with Chekov at the science station.
"Look, Scotty," Uhura said, softly apologetic. "I …"
"Shut up, Lieutenant," he said levely, barely sparing her a glance. "What do we have, gentlemen?"
"There is a technological component," Chekov said, certain. "I think there is a biological component, some form of disruption wawe and feeding mechanism, but it is undoubtedly being enhanced by technology. If we could damage that technology …"
"Where is it coming from?" Scott asked.
Chekov shrugged. "Nearby, but I could not say what."
"He claimed to be Hades," McCoy said. "That's an Earth name. Greek god of the underworld. Coincidence?"
"Anything from the myth that might help us?" Scott said. "I'm nae saying he's literally Hades, by the way, lest any of yeh think I'm losing touch with reality."
"I mean, he could be, Scotty," McCoy shrugged. "Those myths came from somewhere. A powerful visiting alien species isn't entirely out of the question."
"Hades," Chekov said, skimming the library entry. "God of the dead, king of the underworld. Son of the Titan Cronus. Kidnapper and rapist of Persephone. Owns a three headed dog." Chekov snapped his fingers. "Wields a bident. Two pronged spear thing. Maybe our answer?"
"Fantastic," Scott groaned. "Lieutenant Uhura, when yeh go down there and yeh aren't being …" he cut himself off, but the unspoken word hung in the air, along with the vision of the Captain and Spock that was clinging darkly. "Please, wander around and try tae find a pitchfork. I'm sure it will be both easy tae find and tae break," he continued bitterly. "Is there any way of blocking the signal? Come on people!" At their helpless shrugs Scott slammed his fist into the arm of the chair, just barely in control, and it had McCoy and Sulu looking at him in concern. "Pitchfork theory it is then. Ms. Uhura, go put on a shuttle suit and then meet me in the shuttle bay. I have one or two things that would blow a hole straight through tae hell. We'll have tae hope that will do the trick."
Uhura nodded and headed for the lift.
"Sulu, you have the bridge. I'll be back in ten minutes. Doctor, walk with me please." The door slid shut and Scott leaned back against the wall of the turbolift. "Do yeh have anything that would help with the feeling that the entire Enterprise has been pounded intae my head through my eye sockets?" he asked softly.
McCoy shook his head. "Those medications have to be carefully titrated. Your brain chemistry is shot to hell, and you've got to feel like absolute shit, but I can't just throw some meds at you and expect it to help. Do you think you can maintain command?"
"We'll see," Scott sighed. "Leonard … What about the Captain. Spock. And now, god help me, Nyota?"
"Let's get them back first," McCoy said shakily as they stepped off the lift into main engineering; he'd been trying hard not to think about it. "Then we can concentrate on repairing mind, body, and soul. Jesus fucking wept, Scotty. What kind of devil have we run into?"
"The original, I suspect," Scott sighed, rifling through a drawer in his office. "We've got tae come up with a way tae disrupt that signal. Biological or technological. Go back tae the bridge. You and Chekov have got tae figure this out. And I have tae go do the very last thing I want tae do," he said, and headed for the shuttle bay.
Nyota was afraid. She knew she would be, and she was breathing through it, but she was afraid. She had no illusions about what she was facing. Brilliant idea, Nyota, she thought to herself.
Scotty stepped into the bay, a box in his hands. "Keep everything yeh can on your body," he said without preamble. "I have a feeling the moment you get outside the Enterprise's shield he's going tae take you. Phaser, communicator, tricorder," he said, holding them out. "And a straight-up plasma grenade. Probably will get confiscated but worth a try."
He held up two wires. "These are each one half of an explosive. Inert on their own. Twist them together and yeh have ninety seconds to get as far as yeh can. It will take down a building." He threaded one wire through the necklace she always wore, a gift from Spock, and the other into her hair.
"Your hands are shaking," she said softly.
"Yeh think?" he sighed. He pulled out a disk and two more strands of explosives, a makeshift bracelet and anklet. "The disk is an EMP bomb. It will short out any electrical system within 50 meters. Including your communicator and the shuttle, by the way." Then he very, very carefully pulled out a ring, embedded with a small, clear sphere. She slipped it onto finger and lifted a questioning eyebrow.
"Twelve atoms of antimatter, held suspended in a vacuum by a magnetic field," he explained.
She sucked in a breath. "That's terrifying. When exactly did you make this?" she asked him.
"After the ice cream. I told yeh, I cannae sleep for the noise in my head."
"Dessert to bombs. That's a swing," she murmured, aiming for levity but missing.
"Aye, well, you werenae wrong tae call me out on being a wee bit unstable," he answered. "Twist the band, half clockwise, half anticlockwise. Ten seconds and anything within fifteen meters is gone. That's all I've got." He cupped her face with his hands, and looked urgently into her eyes. "I'm nae dropping the shields, and I'm nae sending another soul down there. We'll do what we can, but you're on your own. If I have tae turn my back on this world, I'll raze it intae oblivion before I go. Tae end your suffering and get my revenge."
She gave him a crooked smile. "How long do I have?" she asked.
"As long as I can bear," he said, and stepped away. "Good luck, Lieutenant."
She nodded tightly and headed for the shuttle. As Scotty had predicted, Hades plucked her from it the moment she was clear of the Enterprise's shields, a nauseating teleportation nothing like a transporter that left her inner ear spinning. No time to get her bearings; Hades, or whomever he was, was there.
"You remind me of Persephone," Hades said, taking her hand and kissing it. "Who also came with no choice."
"Yeah, well," she said tightly. "My name is Nyota Uhura. And I'd like to see my crew."
"Would you?" he said, mocking. "Eager, are we?" He gestured, and a naked Kirk and Spock were forced into the room from another chamber. Her heart rate picked up, for in the other room she'd caught a glimpse of a two-pronged staff, exactly as Chekov had predicted.
"Nyota," Spock said in despair, as his hands were made to remove her clothing, a terrible mockery of other more tender times between them, while the Captain gripped her firmly, then threw her into a low bed.
Hades turned back to the screen; to the Enterprise. "I appreciate your lovely tribute, Lieutenant Commander. Now, let us continue our conversation. Drop your shields so that you all may come to worship me."
Uhura spared the screen a glance. Scotty had cleared the bridge, and was sitting, alone, his head bowed in his hands. No further games from this terrible creature, she sensed. This was about to be brutal.
"What do we know?" Kirk murmured, his eyes firmly averted as he was forced to kiss her. She was trembling, but his voice was steel, steady as if he was standing on the bridge. And she was not afraid.
"He's feeding off of our brain chemicals. Dopamine, serotonin; consuming them. He's eating us alive. That's what this is really about. And his control—it's not telekinesis," she whispered back, firmly dissociating herself from all that was happening to her body. It was not Kirk and Spock, and so it was not her. "There is a signal, boosted by technology. Best we can tell? The bident. That spear I saw in the other room."
"How do we destroy it?" Spock murmured. Her hand was wrapped around him; almost comforting in its familiarity. She tried to ignore what Kirk was being forced to do behind him, and the look on Spock's face.
She could hear Scotty's raw voice, raging, threatening Hades, and the creature goading him on, pulling him into this horror as much as they were.
"Scotty sent me with some weapons," she said, wincing in pain at a sudden dry penetration, and then another. Not them, not me, she reminded herself, even as they all pounded into each other. She could feel, as much as what was happening to her brutalized body, the thing in her head, draining all four participants to this ugly ordeal.
"My ring," she continued. "Antimatter bomb. Twist the band; ten seconds to get as far away as possible."
"Scotty's nuts," Kirk murmured, and slid the ring off her finger, palming it.
"You're not wrong. Literally, sir," she said, her lips smeared into his groin, her fingers elsewhere, and his. "Hades has completely dismantled his mental stability; I'm not sure how long he can hold on before he does something rash."
"I'm going to apologize to you both for this right now," Kirk said, and raised his voice. "Hades," he called, voice pitched to petulance. "I didn't think you would be so boring. I know Spock and Nyota shall we say, very well, and they need more. Toys make this more fun. And a little bloodplay? Well. I saw just the thing, in the other room. Big, thick, pointed. Two prongs, which is intriguing. Powerful. Let me go collect it?"
Hades laughed, and let Kirk go. Spock managed to shift them, placing his own body between the door and Nyota, and it was Spock who was holding her, and she holding him, not Hades.
And twenty seconds later, the world exploded.
Captain's Log, Stardate 2262.275. I was reminded today that it has been one hundred days since our encounter with the creature that called itself Hades. McCoy asked me this morning how we are doing, mind, body, and soul. Body? Healed. Mind? Steady, I think, with the exception of Lt. Cmdr. Scott, who is still fighting the ill effects of stolen neurochemicals. Soul? Well, soul. Mine is restless. Scotty doesn't believe in them. And Spock and Uhura, whose souls have been intertwined in all the time I've known them both, seem to have become unraveled.
It was nearly 0100 when Uhura leaned on the bell outside Scotty's quarters. The chief engineer was bleary and shirtless when he opened the door; he'd been asleep. He took one look at her tear-stained face and stepped back and gestured her inside. The moment the door closed she leaned into him and wept.
She'd woken, a hundred days before, ears ringing in the aftermath of an antimatter blast, to the senior members of the crew wrapping blankets around their ravaged bodies. McCoy, Chekov, Sulu, bundling them into their arms, and Scotty beaming them home with precision, straight into sickbay.
The bident had been the source of power—and possibly the life source—of the demon Hades, who seemed to have been banished back to hell, if not destroyed outright. Later, they would discuss whether he was the source of the myth, whether he had taken the myth as inspiration and styled himself a god, or whether he was some other creature that had simply pulled it from their minds when they arrived. Not that it particularly mattered, the damage was the same.
The physical healing hadn't taken long. The bruising, the tearing, the concussion and radiation from the bomb, the disrupted neurotransmitters devoured from their brains. The rest was harder; for the second time that year, Nyota had to gather the tattered pieces of her soul.
She'd sat with Spock and Kirk in therapy that they all firmly believed in, and talked. They'd forgiven each other, which was easy to do, since there was nothing to forgive. They'd been gentle with each other, tender, and rebuilt themselves side-by-side. Christine Chapel had also worked with Spock and Nyota in relationship therapy, and guided them to what Nyota had thought was an even greater intimacy—until tonight, that is.
It had been harder with Scotty, whose trauma was different. Not a hand laid on his body, but his bipolar brain ravaged, more susceptible in the worst way to the monster's hunger. He'd first fallen into a severe—if mercifully short—suicidal depression, fueled by guilt and rage, and he'd been completely unreachable. That had been followed by a still-ongoing manic episode that had his entire department reeling, in search of 0.001% speed improvements and non-existent power drains. He'd talked too fast, too fierce, too much for her still-tender psyche. Not his fault, but she just couldn't bear him like that, and so had yet to truly speak to her friend.
She knew better than to call the stable version of Scotty the 'real' one. He was himself, all of himself, regardless of the state of his health, no less than complete in any iteration. But she very much hoped that the steady version, who had been reappearing more in recent days, was here tonight. He wrapped his arms around her, and it seems he was.
"Ah, lass," he murmured. "Tell me."
"I'm sorry, Scotty," she said tearily. "But I need a drink and a friend."
"Gimme a minute," he said, and she sat down on his couch while he disappeared into the bedroom. His quarters were a mirror of Spock's, with a small sitting room and desk in the front, bedroom and bathroom in the back. She was struck, as always, at how spartan his space was. A few bottles of alcohol, carefully stowed. Tea and a kettle. A battered Starfleet Academy fleece on the back of a chair. A family photo—Scotty, his grandmother, his sister, and his nephew, grinning at the camera somewhere on Earth. She knew there was a jacket and a few civilian shirts in his closet, and a handmade quilt on his bed. He'd been in space longer than any of them, and could pack everything he owed in a single duffle in five minutes. "Never keep anything important on a Starship," he'd told her once.
He pulled on a shirt and sat down beside her; she put her head in his lap to hide her tears.
He looked down at her, and stroked her hair. "Ah, Nyota," he whispered. "I've got whiskey, some of McCoy's bourbon, and some spirits of dubious safety that I've collected out here." He paused. "Or, lass, I have tea."
"As much as I'd like to drink all your whiskey, I'm on duty at 0800. Tea?"
He nodded and stood up to start the kettle, then settled back beside her, her head on his shoulder while the tea steeped. "Tell me, Nyota. Whatever it is that has you cryin' on my shoulder in the middle of the night."
"Spock," she said. "He thinks he is about to enter a rare fertility cycle, and has talked the Captain into heading back to Federation space so he can mate with a stranger on New Vulcan," Nyota said.
Scotty blew out a breath and rubbed his face with both hands. "I knew," he said softly, and stood to collect their tea. He handed her a cup with her right amounts of milk and sugar, then made one for himself and sat down again. "Did he actually put it that way?"
"More or less," she said. "At first I thought he was just afraid."
"Of?" Scott asked.
"Hurting me. It's biologically coercive sex with the threat of madness and violence." Scotty swallowed hard and took her hand. "I know what you're thinking," she continued. "Not an unwarranted fear. But we had found our way back to each other in the last few months. I'd light some candles and get him through it. Interspecies partners navigate these sorts of things. But he still insists, and I've realized what it is. The thing I keep coming back to isn't that he wants children, or thinks he should want them. But that he doesn't want them to be mine."
Scotty blinked at her. "You didnae want kids, I thought?"
"I didn't. I don't! I thought."
"Ah," Scott said.
"I know I'm sounding entirely ridiculous and emotional," she said, spitting out the last word.
"I didnae say that, lass," he said gently, knowing full well that her anger wasn't directed at him. "You are allowed tae consider the possibility of a life other than this one, yeh know. A life without ships and Starfleet. Tae plan a life where maybe these days in space are a footnote you look back on, from the long years spent doing something else. You are allowed tae have hoped that that life might've been with him."
"Yeah," she said, in tears again. "I feel so guilty for being angry. I have no right to be angry about this. There are so few Vulcans left, and they cycle into fertility so infrequently. And a three-quarters Vulcan is better for the species than a one-quarter Vulcan. Or no child at all. Because … I don't, Scotty. I don't want children, and he feels obligated to have them, and there are only a few chances for that in his entire life. I have no right to be angry."
Scotty put his tea down carefully. "What the hell d'yeh mean yeh dinnae have a right tae be angry? Yeh have every right tae feel how yeh feel." She didn't believe him, he could tell. He rubbed the back of his neck. "What are you going tae do?" he asked gently
"I think the question is what Spock is going to do," Nyota said. She pulled up her feet and curled into her best friend's side, and he pulled her under his arm. "I know myself Scotty. I'm hurt and angry, I'm being petulant and unfair. But I can jump to the end of this. I love him, and I don't want to lose him, and I also understand. I'd give him a pass, to help save his species, and then ask him to come back to me."
"It sounds logical tae me," Scott admitted.
Nyota reached up and touched her necklace. "Spock can't do it. I know him too, and he can't tear his heart in half like that. Too much emotion, too much guilt. He's going to break up with me, Scotty." Nyota took a cleansing breath. "That's what he was trying to do tonight. And between his 'I hope you understand the depth of my affection and respect for you' and his 'our years together have been deeply enriching,' he couldn't quite get it out. But he'll take another run at it tomorrow, and we'll be done."
Scott pulled her closer, and put his chin on her head. "Yeh dinnae know that. You love him fiercely, in that human way that looks at the odds, and then tells the odds tae fuck off." She laughed brokenly.
"And he loves yeh passionately. Aye, I said passionately," Scotty continued, before she could disagree. "I dinnae pretend to know his mind or his heart, but I do know that, for all his logic, he feels to the depths of his soul. And maybe the path isnae clear, and maybe yeh have tae walk apart for a while, but I wouldnae ever bet against the two of yeh."
"Never bet against Enterprise crew," Nyota murmured, suddenly exhausted.
"Damn straight," he said, standing. "I know that you've moved all your stuff tae his quarters. You can sleep here. I'm headed down tae Engineering anyway."
"I'm not tossing you out of your own bed," she protested, catching his hand. "I know you've barely been sleeping, and I'm not going to take that from you."
"I cannae sleep anymore tonight," he admitted, and she blinked sadly at him. He looked at his feet. "I know you keep hoping I am back tae myself. I know this version of me is an exhausting bastard. But I'm nae there. I'm starting tae wonder if I'll ever get back. McCoy things I might not."
"Never bet against Enterprise crew," she said again. "Including you."
He smiled at her, and for the first time in a long while, she recognized her old friend in his eyes.
She wondered what he saw, when he looked into hers. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
"Try tae sleep, Nyota. Dream well, if yeh can."