A/N: Thanks to everyone who has picked up on this story! It was a little slow in starting, but we will be back to business in the next chapter, I promise. I will be gone for the next week, so I can't promise any updates during that time, but I will try. Thanks again for the reviews!

Chapter 7- Back to Base

The three of us sat on a bench in the grand hall of the shuttle depot, waiting for the 0900 to San Francisco. I looked around the great hall and smiled. A part of me would always miss the city that pulsed with so much life, but for the most part I felt fine leaving it behind to see new worlds and the cities on them. Who knows? Maybe I would come to love one of them just as much.

"Thank you guys for coming along." I said to my companions. "I am sure you could have found better uses for your shore leave than to escort me around."

"You are wrey velocme." Pavel replied with his graceful smile. "I enjoyed the city. I vill tell my mother about it and send her the pictures I took. She vill never believe such a place exists! So many tall buildings and millions of people all in one place, it is wery different from our home in the willage."

"God knows you took enough of them." McCoy grumbled. "I could almost swear you were on some kind of goddamn charting mission the way you were documenting everything. It isn't like this place hasn't been here for centuries." He obviously hadn't had his morning coffee yet.

I looked back to Pavel and said, "I am glad you enjoyed it, even if Dr. Pessimist didn't."

He scowled at me. "I didn't say I didn't like it. It is a nice enough place, I guess. It's just…" he looked around at the white marble room that seemed like a mausoleum, "it's just not what I am used to."

"And what are you used to?" I inquired.

"Nature." He replied flatly. "Trees, hills, streams. Not miles of artificial monstrosities that block out the sun."

"Really?" Pavel asked with quiet excitement. "Me too! I grew up in woods where I hunt and fish and hike." It was as though he never expected to have anything in common with his superior officer other than a long running grudge match. McCoy gave him a small smile and a clap on the shoulder.

The trip back was quiet, but torturous for me. The two previous times I had been on shuttles, it had been dark and I couldn't really see or feel how fast we were actually going. In the daylight, the scenery was one constant blur that made my head swim. I kept my eyes closed as much as possible, prompting McCoy to laugh. "Why didn't you tell me you got motion sickness?" He snickered. "I could have got some medicine for you before we left Chicago."

I didn't open my eyes for fear of vomiting. "I didn't tell you because I had never before had motion sickness. Roller coasters never bothered me. Boats never made me sick. But none of those things went as fast as we seem to be going now."

"Vhat about airplanes?" Pavel asked innocently. "They vent pretty fast."

"I hated flying." I admitted. "I did it only when there was no other option because it was the rational thing to do. But I hated every minute of it. Every time it would shake in the slightest, I thought we were going to die in a crash." I was distracted by the sensation of cold metal against my neck. Before I could flinch, McCoy pulled the trigger on a hypospray gun and I winced at the stinging sensation. When I opened my eyes, he was tossing it back into his bag. "You carry one of those things with you all the time?!" I exclaimed rubbing my neck.

"Just when I travel." He answered dryly. "How do you think I am not crawling out of my skin right now? I don't trust these damn things anymore than you liked airplanes. I have to damn near sedate myself to keep from losing my fucking mind thinking about all of the things that could go wrong. That shot will calm your nerves, but it won't do anything for the nausea. Just do me a favor and remember who it was that tried to help you when it comes time to choose who to throw up on."

We made it to San Francisco sans any accidental protein spills, although it took a lot of deep breathing and swallowing to ensure that outcome. The three of us parted ways at our rooms and I waved goodbye to the two men. It had been an interesting trip, but it all in all it went better than I thought it would. I was still glad that Pavel went along, traveling alone with McCoy would have been a little too much for me. Not that I was in any way afraid of him, he didn't seem to be a predator or anything, but the casual, pessimistic, detached lenses with which he viewed the world was disconcerting. It made sense and certainly had a place when he was faced with medical emergencies, but it was like he was always on call and he had no idea how to turn it off and just enjoy the moment when he was off duty.

I stood facing the door to Uhura's room baffled. Usually the door opened if you walked up to it. Was hers broken? I looked around and saw a panel of flashing lights on the left side of the opening. When I approached, a red light would flash, but the door didn't budge. I knocked on it, but got no answer. Was she still sleeping? Did she go out? It was 10:00am and I was apparently locked out. I sat in the hall across from her door and decided to wait.

Many people walked past me, but none seemed to take particular notice of the strange woman sitting alone in the hallway. At 11:17, Jim came stumbling down the hallway with his arm around a woman. I tried not to stare, but she was entirely green. Not tinted green like Spock's skin, but a vibrant emerald green that I simply could not look away from. Her hair was long, curly, and very red. The juxtaposition between the green skin and red hair was shocking and I had to force myself to look away. Kingons suddenly seemed normal in comparison.

"Doc!" Jim shouted with a crooked smile and floppy wave. He had obviously been drinking and from the condition of his face, fighting. He turned to his companion and told her, "She's gonna keep a leash on Bones, that's her job now. You 'member Bones, right?" She nodded her head yes with an amused look in her eyes. "Yeah, I 'spose you wouldn't forget waking up in his bed thinking it was me when we were roomies. Heh! Damn was he pissed!" He looked back to me and added with a defensive wave, "But that was an accident. He didn't know you then. S'not cheating."

I just gave him a bewildered look and shook my head. McCoy's social dalliances were really none of my business and I really didn't want to know. Still, the green woman may have been a very nice person, but I would have been pissed too. I didn't know that McCoy and Jim were once roommates. Now McCoy's ranting about the Captain made more sense and I could just imagine what that situation must have been like. Jim bringing a different woman back every weekend to their tiny shared quarters and McCoy either having to leave or face away from them with a pillow wrapped around his head trying to block out the noise…

The two disappeared down the hall and I was once again left alone wondering where Uhura was. I wondered what she had decided to do about her relationship with Spock. She seemed so torn. She did seem to have very deep and genuine feelings about him, and I knew that Spock was capable of feeling the same even if he didn't show it. But how could he possibly expect her to endure love that appeared to be unrequited? The setup may have worked well for him, but in the end she was no Vulcan and needed more than perhaps he was able to give.

I certainly did not wish any pain for Spock. He was not the bad guy in all of this, he was simply acting according to his nature. He was not malicious in his withholding of affection, he did not do it as a means of manipulation or control; it was just not a custom of his culture to be so open and to expect him to suddenly feel fine with human standards of conduct was ridiculous. Perhaps with time he could better assimilate, but it wasn't going to happen overnight. If the relationship were to end, he would bear it stoically and go about his duties as though nothing had changed even though he would be screaming on the inside because that was what was expected of him. It saddened me to think of him suffering in silence, but I knew that was exactly what would happen.

What gave me pause was wondering if I had the ability to help him. His mind simply didn't work like everyone else's and I wasn't sure that current theories of human psychology would apply. This was all assuming he would ask for help or somehow tip me off in the first place. While I was becoming more attuned to the subtle nonverbal communication he often employed, he could lock himself up like Fort Knox when he wanted to. If Jim was notorious for denying physical injury, it seemed like Spock would be equally resistant to having his mental stability called into question. At least McCoy had irrefutable proof of injury to force Jim into compliance with his treatment, if Spock insisted he was fine I was left with very few options. The only thing I could do would be declare him unfit for duty, but that was a very serious and heavy trump card that I prayed I would not have to drop on anyone.

"Dr. Collins, what are you doing out here?" I looked up to see Sulu smiling down at me.

"I guess I am locked out." I laughed. I felt so stupid in that moment. Even though I was a reasonably smart person, I wasn't doing so well off the ship in terms of navigation and successfully interacting with technology.

Sulu looked at Uhura's closed door thoughtfully. "You know, I haven't seen her since we all went out." He apparently gave it little thought as he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe she went somewhere for her leave. I was just going down to Chekov's quarters to play cards. Do you want to hang out with us?" He absentmindedly shuffled a deck in his hands as he spoke.

"Sure," I answered getting up, "if Pavel can stand being around me a little while longer."

Pavel was glad to add another seat to the small table he had set up in the middle of his room. "Do you play poker?" Sulu asked shuffling the cards.

"Not really. I get the concept, but I forget what beats what." I admitted.

"We aren't playing for money anyway." He shrugged. "So now would be a good time to learn. I warn you though," he said with a nod towards Pavel, "that one is a math genius and he knows how to count cards. Don't let his innocent look fool you and never play him for money that you can't afford to lose. He will scalp you and not think twice about it." He began to deal the cards with a chuckle.

Pavel turned pink and said to Sulu, "I vould never take advantage of a lady, just the Captain, or Scotty if he gets too drunk and makes fun of me for being young or my accent vhen I make announcements. I vill never understand how he can say my accent is bad vhen his is just as hard to understand."

"Yeah, he doesn't seem to know when to shut up if he has had too much to drink. But you forgot McCoy." Sulu reminded.

Pavel looked at his cards with a sly grin but didn't say a word.