DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN STAR TREK, NOR DO I OWN ANY OF THEIR CHARACTERS. I DO OWN IZZY, BUT THAT'S ABOUT IT.
Chapter 5
The bear did indeed roar, and Izzy grimaced. There was only one way she could see to take care of this, But she wanted to take care not to hurt the Doctor.
"Back up," she said, flicking her wrists. The bear returned to all fours, seemingly confused at the sudden light and smell of fire. Bones did as he was told, and Izzy loosed a small fireball at the ground in front of the bear. The bear reared up, but, instead of turning and running away, as she'd expected it to do, it charged. Izzy could not move, did not even have the time to think. But Bones did.
He pulled a phaser, set to stun, from his hip and shot at the bear before it could get to her. Izzy was breathing heavily as the bear slumped to the ground at her feet. She turned to Bones.
"I didn't even notice the phaser," she said quietly, her eyes wide. "I thought the fire would scare it away."
With a grimace, Bones put the phaser away. Slowly, he reached a hand over to her, and placed it on her shoulder. Within a moment, and without him even realizing what was happening, she was wrapped in his arms, crying on his shoulder. Not wanting to bother her, yet not wanting to be in that exact location when the bear awoke, he scooped her gamine frame up into his arms and carried her back down the path until they came to the sidewalk. About halfway through the quick journey, she looked up at him, her tears gone, her eyes puffy and full of shock and confusion.
Once they reached the sidewalk, he set her down on her feet. Izzy looked at him, a question in her eyes.
"The effects of a phaser set to stun wear off quicker for a bear," he explained, not having to ask her what her question was. "I figured we'd rather not want to be there when it awoke."
Izzy shrugged. "Makes sense," she said. "Sorry about the breakdown." It was Bones's turn to shrug.
"It wasn't the first," he said. "And I'm sure it won't be the last."
"Isn't that the truth," Izzy said, shaking her head. There was a beastly bellow not far down the path they had just came from, and Izzy looked towards the long grass before turning to Bones, her eyes full of glee. "It would seem the stun has worn off."
There was a crashing through the grass, getting closer and closer to them with each passing second.
"Race you back?" Bones asked her, catching on to her amusement.
"I don't know," Izzy said reluctantly, looking around before taking off like a shot in the completely wrong direction. Bones laughed as he ran after her.
A few hours later found them once again in the mess hall at a table with Scotty and Kirk. They were also joined by the half-Vulcan that was introduced to Izzy as Spock and a gorgeous woman that was introduced to Izzy as Uhura. They were just settling into their food when the conversation started really flowing.
"So, did you find a way to occupy your time?" Scotty asked, looking at Izzy. Izzy and Bones both shared a look and a quick laugh before she answered him.
"Let's just say that adventures here on Earth can be just as wrought with danger as anything we'd encounter in the black," Izzy said, grinning.
"What did you do?" Kirk asked, wondering what his best friend had been up to all day.
"Went for a walk and ran into a bear," Bones said.
"Bones stunned it and we ran away," Izzy said, giggling.
"And Izzy ran in the wrong direction, so naturally I had to spend a good hour chasing after her before she heard what I was trying to tell her," Bones said, chuckling.
"That sounds… interesting," Uhura said, not sure what to make of the young woman who seemed so immature, yet, as she was told, worked so well in the engine room.
"I'm sure it looked hilarious to outside eyes," Bones said."I'm picturing it in my head," Kirk said with a leer on his face as he took in Izzy's regulation uniform, "and it does."
Bones shook his head at his friend's man-whore ways, and, as Izzy continued to giggle, his mind went to that afternoon, when she was crying in his arms. She had felt so… so right there. Not because she was crying, but because she was there. Not even Jocelyn, his ex-wife, had felt that right. But he was well on his way to a wonderful friendship, if the afternoon was any indication, and he wasn't one to throw those away.
Izzy's mind, while she giggled away, was also on that afternoon. It was a memory that was good, one that would battle at all of the bad ones in her head. And there were a lot of bad ones. She hadn't told anyone present about the amnesia that she'd been suffering from since the Klingons had gotten her. Most of the memories dealing with her powers and her family had come back while she was recovering but that was about it. The amnesia was on a high clearance in her file, so if anyone at the table had read her file, the only one who would have even seen that the passage was there was Jim. And she wasn't sure if even he could read it. But there still weren't a great many memories in her head, and most of the ones that were there weren't the best.
Jim, seeing that Izzy and Bones were both far away, decided to try and pull them back down to Earth, so to speak. "What are you to being so quiet about?" he asked. The two parties in question looked at him.
"I wasn't aware I was being quiet," Izzy said.
"Aware or not," the one called Spock said, "you were, in fact, being quiet."
"Just thinking," Izzy and Bones said at the same time, which caused them to look at each other, until Izzy blushed and looked away.
"What about?" the one called Uhura asked.
"Everything," Izzy said. "And nothing, at the same time."
"This is illogical," Spock said. "How can one think of everything and nothing at once?"
"It's her way of saying that she doesn't want to tell us," Bones said. Take that, ya green hobgoblin, he thought.
"Got it in one," Izzy said with a thankful grin. Her mind, however, was now far from easy. He's known me for all of a week, she thought. How could he know that already?
A/N: Hope you liked it… Just let me know what you think! J
Live long and prosper.
