Vivian sat cross legged on the ground in front of the window and concentrated on breathing slow and evenly. In her own mind, she lowered a wall and reached forward.

Uhura returned to the bridge in the morning, surprised to find the Commander already in the Captain's chair.

"Commander, were you here all night?"

He scrolled quickly on his device, his eyes moving faster than the text could scroll.

"Hm? No, Lieutenant, I returned to my quarters to sleep...briefly."

"Did the report give you anything new?" She rubbed her forehead, still not quite awake.

"Little is known of the Talosians. Surface scans reveal insufficient architectural structures to mark a settlement. I first considered that our equipment had malfunctioned, but it is, in fact, in working order. Either, they have created a manner of alluding our scanners, they built their society underground, or they live elsewhere entirely and this is an outpost of some sort. A Starship only made contact once...under the command of Captain Christopher Pike."

"Who is now deceased..."

"I put in a request for his Captain's log during the year the visit was documented."

"Should I try to make contact with the Talosians again?"

"Not yet."

"You're not worried?"

"I happen to know that our fellow crewmembers are alive and well."

Her face contorted, "What? How?"

"Dr. Vida shared that with me...As Vulcans...we share-"

"A mental connection," Uhura nodded, "I get it...and I'm happy that...that's a thing..."

He raised an eyebrow, "Thank you...Nyota..."

Dr. McCoy rolled over on the creaking bed, wrapping his arm over a soft shape and cuddling up. "Mornin' Viv..." His eyes shot open when he kissed a pillow. "Vivian?"

She wasn't in the room.

"Vivian?!" He leapt to his feet and into his clothes. Still hopping into his shoes, he flung open his door and moved to next door. "Jim! Jim wake up!"

Kirk bounded to the door and opened it sleepily, "What do you want? Are we still here? Why are we still here? I thought it was a dream." He ran his hand through his hair and tried to blink himself awake.

"Vivian's gone!" Leonard practically jumped down the rickety staircase, "Vivian?"

"Yes?" A woman's voice answered from around the corner.

When he rounded the corner he found his "wife" in different clothing than the day before. Now, she had a cream colored blouse with the sleeves rolled up, a long navy skirt, and an apron. She carried a tray full of plates and distributed them amongst tables of cowboys.

"Take a seat, I'll be over there in a minute."

Kirk landed behind his friend, still disoriented. They moved to a corner table, and, sure enough, Vivian made her way over to them.

"You gentlemen enjoy your lazy morning?" She teased with a twang in her voice. Her lover couldn't tell if she had added it in, or if she normally just suppressed it.

Two plates landed in front of the men, piled high with eggs, biscuits, and sausage. The smell steamed up towards their faces.

"Somebody's gotta earn our keep...and I make the best biscuits west of the Mississippi."

The men departed off to their jobs, and found Vivian's predictions to be true. Kirk helped the sheriff wrangle a group of outlaws. McCoy treated a wild animal attack victim and a child with a fever. The process repeated another day, but the timing felt strange somehow. They all attempted to blind in, while simultaneously asking enough questions to find a way out. They all seemed to notice the same thing; the townspeople were two-dimensional. Dr. Vida said they reminded her of paper dolls.

The second morning, Vivian heard her name called while she was washing dishes in a barrel. She opened her mouth to respond, but realized it came from her head. The voice was familiar. Excusing herself, she wiped her hands on her apron and jogged up the creaking stairs to her room.

With a deep breath, she lowered herself into a cross legged position and closed her eyes. Again, in her mind she lowered a barrier.

"Spock?" She squeezed her eyes tighter and concentrated her energy.

The voice was underwater, fragmented like an ineffective radio signals. "Are?...hurt?...Where?"

"We...fine..." The focus brought tension to her head. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead, "San Antonio...late 19th...S...ant...o...19." Her eyes shot up and she exhaled loudly to catch her breath. Any static sound she was getting was gone.

Whilst waiting for the Starfleet records, Spock took a shot in the dark. He sat cross-legged on the rug in his quarters with incense lit for meditation. His mind reached out for its match. When he found it, his eyes shot open with new information, prompting him to return to the bridge.

"Mr. Scott, has a transporter malfunction ever resulted in a time jump?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"I was just in telepathic contact with Dr. Vida...who is with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, and says they're alright. She seems to think they're in San Antonio, Texas in the late 19th century."

"That makes no sense, sir."

"Precisely...The logical conclusion then, would be that someone or something is creating an illusion of some kind."

"Vivian!" This voice came from a physical person.

She'd returned to her kitchen work when her "husband" found her.

"Hey, there's a gentleman come up, says his neighbor's havin' a baby and could use our help. He's got a wagon. They don't live too far outta town."

She agreed, climbing into the wagon, and took a mental note of how his accent seemed to intensify. She wondered if...in a way...he was enjoying himself.

They bounced about on a quilt in the back of the wooden contraption and rode until town was a speck on the horizon. By the time they arrived at the small cabin, they could hear a woman cry out from the back room. This made sense to Vivian, who fully anticipated a Hollywood drama version of childbirth. She expected to run in to find a nondescript, paper-doll woman in active labor, catch a clean baby, and ride off into the sunset.

Instead, she found a woman kneeling against the bedframe. McCoy had stopped to speak with the young farmer, pacing anxiously about out back.

"Ma'am? Hi, I'm doc-er- My name is Vivian. I'm a midwife...My...husband is the new doctor in town." She gently knocked on the doorframe.

"You're here! Oh good! I'm Vina." The woman was blonde and petite. Her face was flushed and full of sweat.

"Nice to meet you ma'am." Vivian put down the bag and washed her hands in the basin. "How far along are you-er-would you say?"

"Thirty-nine weeks."

Vivian considered it odd that she answered so quickly and precisely, "If you don't mind, hop back up on the bed real fast so I can take a look. Ok?"

Her patient complied. The doctor was shocked to find her patient to be anatomically correct down to the last detail. She was warm, her muscles were tense, and her limited dilation suggested early labor.

"Looks like you're coming along nicely." She reassured as she cleaned her hands again and moved to feel the patient's belly. Again, she was shocked by the accuracy, and then surprised again to find the baby wasn't head-down. With a metal cone from her bag, she listened and found strong heartbeats for both mother and baby. An idea came to her. "Are you having a boy or girl?"

"A girl," The mother beamed.

Vivian smiled back, "Lovely...if you'll excuse me for just a moment. I'm going to break up the boys pow-wow and get Dr. McCoy to come say hello."

Dr. McCoy meanwhile was outback with the husband, David.

"First baby, huh?"

"Yes sir, I'm pretty nervous."

"Aw, don't be. This is old hat for Vivian."

"I'm grateful they found you."

Leonard's smile fell, "They? Who's they?"

"Leonard!" Vivian called from the house. "Could you come here for a moment please?"

"Excuse me." His eyes stayed on David for a minute before reverting to the dry grass as he approached her. "Viv, somethin's not right," He whispered, "That man said he was glad 'they' found us. Who the hell is he talkin' about?"

"I don't know, but, Leonard, these people...They aren't like the other townspeople. The wife, Vina says she's thirty nine weeks and having a girl...They wouldn't have been able to ascertain such information with the equipment that existed in this era."

"So you're back to thinking its all an illusion?"

"Some of it, but, that's a real human woman in there, having a real human baby. The details are too precise to have been faked like everything else...and the baby's sideways. If this 'scene' played out like the others, there would be a quick fix and a happy ending...I don't have the tools for a c-section Leo, and the risk of infection-"

"This is all fake, except this family is real?"

"I know it sounds crazy but yes, and I need your help if either of them have any chance of surviving."

"You can do that maneuver where you turn the baby, right?"

"I CAN, but its terribly painful...How would we treat her if she went into shock?"

"Maybe we could distill some ether?"

"But this is fake, remember?"

"But we've been eating real food and drinking real water."

"We know we've been nourished and aren't starving, but we don't actually know what we've been eating."

They heard moaning from inside and returned to the patient.

"Hey there, Mrs. Vina, I'm Leonard McCoy, the new doctor in town. How are we doin'?" He layered on the charm thick.

Together, they performed the rotation maneuver. Vivian mind melded with the patient to take on enough of her pain to keep her conscious. Leonard watched the way she interacted with her patient, rubbing her back and helping her change positions. She dabbed her face with a cool rag and helped braid her hair out of the way. For a minute, he wasn't worried about being kidnapped and trapped by some alien. Watching Vivian in her arena was incredible from a biomedical perspective and heart-warming from a human perspective. His feelings for her continued to bubble up.

She wasn't the only one being noticed, however, She admired his cool demeanor, empathy for the patient, dashing Southern charm, and strong, healing hands.

It took a few hours, but when it was finally time, Vivian moved the flesh with her hand, helping guide the small head. Dr. McCoy caught the child- a little girl just like her mother said. The baby's cries pitched over the mother's cries. The two doctors look at each other with a mixture of wonder and relief, and laughed. Dr. Vida stayed in place for the afterbirth. Dr. McCoy took the baby to the dresser to wipe her off and listen to her lungs.

"Cute little bugger, aren't ya? Hey, Mrs. Vina, what's your daughter's name?"

"I...hadn't thought about it. You're Dr. Vida right? Vida sounds nice. It's a lot like Vina too." The woman panted, reaching out for the infant.

He wrapped the baby in a blanket and passed her to her mother, "Congratulations, ma'am. Lemme go get the proud papa." The new father returned to find the midwife sitting next to his wife, giving instructions while the new baby nursed.

Before they headed back to town, Vivian got a chance to hold baby Vida. She'd held hundreds of babies in her career, but something felt different.

"Hi beautiful," She cooed, swaying in her stance. She felt an ache in her chest and had to blink away the tears that attempted to well up in her eyes. I'm a Vulcan. Get it together. Indeed a Vulcan, she was a Vulcan set to be partnered in about a year...More than likely, she would be holding her own little one in a little less than two years. For a moment, the idea of a family didn't seem so bad.

Leonard stood behind her and leaned over her shoulder to get a peak. He knew, as an obstetrician, she had to be good with babies. He didn't imagine, however, to see her in the light of motherhood. His arms wrapped around her waist as he kissed the top of her head. The action shocked her back to the present. They gave the baby back to the parents and set back in out the wagon, under the moonlight.

They reminisced briefly about the day, on a shallow level, then got quiet for a while.

"Hey...V...all this...husband wife talk..." His tone was somewhat dreamy, somewhat out of character, but also earnest.

"Don't." She gave a tense sigh.

"What?"

"Dr. McCoy, the idea of marriage does not intrigue me...and that's not a judgement of you."

"Not the marrying kind huh?" He laughed it off, hiding a bruised ego and disappointment. "I mean I got burned pretty bad in my divorce...so that's why I'm a skeptic...Have you been married before?"

"No."

He sighed, "I guess that's a relief- less baggage and all-"

"My koon-ut occurs in approximately one year." She spat out.

"Your what?" He almost dropped the reigns, "Isn't that Vulcan for WEDDING?"

"I have a sa-kugalsu."

"You lost me on that one, hun. Are you telling me you're engaged?"

"I believe that is the closest human equivalent, yes...There is a Vulcan man...I was arranged to...in a way...and he's expecting me to return in a year for a mating ceremony."

"Okay but there's the option to challenge, right? Or am I crazy? You could get out of it, couldn't you? I mean...if you didn't want to- do you...WANT to marry this guy?"

"If you're offering to challenge, Leonard, that is an unwise idea. You would likely die and the other outcome would remain the same...And no...I don't WANT...well...I...I didn't choose this...but I understand what is required of me as a Vulcan-"

"You know forced marriage is a human rights violation, right? What kind of pompous asshole would try to force himself on you like that?"

"My species is dying out, Leo..." She reached up, baffled at the moisture in her own eyes, and attempted to dry them before he noticed.

"Yeah but if you're just getting married-you've got to be fucking kidding me- you've got to pop out little Vulcans too?"

"The timing is not ideal, I understand...but I do believe the situation to be...what you might call a 'necessary evil'. I have a duty to my planet."

"And when were you planning on telling me this? Were you just gonna hang out in my bed until the wedding day?"

She was quiet, "I wanted to ensure I had exhausted all trains of logic before I mentioned something so definitive...But now, who knows?...We're trapped by the Talosians underground." When she said it, she experienced a rush of adrenaline.

"What'd you just say?"

"I mind melded with the patient! She's real! And she knows we're captives. She's a captive too..."

Without the reports he requested, that Vulcan fiancee became increasingly concerned for the wellbeing of his mate. With certain mental barriers down, he felt discomfort coming from her.

"Mr. Scott, please gather a landing party. Let's send some security officers down, unannounced, to look for evidence of subterranean structures."