Hey all, sorry for the length between updates – I so busy!
Some replies for my lovely reviewers:
wmonica – does ten days of them together seem enough? ;)
Nelotizapu – is she? I looked at up but as far as I can tell, at this point in the alternate timeline she's still an Ensign. As for the Remans, I don't think they had a choice….I'd say you have good instincts though. :D
Shinigami061 – it DOES seem that way, doesn't it?
Thanks also to steph88NYC, WeeEEee, neenabluegirl, SnowsongIsAJaypawFan, hpets, Chimcha, Daeleniel Shawdowphyre, sugarbucket, Flying on a Broken Wing, SpirkTreker42 (great name btw!), Mars-Eclipse, Mandy, lovefan81, lucy walker texas ranger, Erudit, starfire angel, MattyLovesGames, stillframe shattered, XthirteenX, naruke3176, Jord-El, mildetryth, Hikaru, Secret Thought, Chicapanzy, papersoul and Dreaming-of-a-Nightmare for their reviews! This chapter is dedicated to you.
Life in the Neutral Zone
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Stardate 2258.114. At the request of the Federation, the starship Enterprise is dispatched to Earth Station 8, located at the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone. It is suspected that recent distress calls in the area are due to Romulan attacks, and the Enterprise is tasked with defending the colonies and space stations in the area. On the way there, the ship encounters hostile Reman rebels. Striking up a temporary peace agreement, Kirk and Spock are left to pilot the Enterprise out of danger on their own, in return for their crewmates' safe passage to the space station.
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Jim woke to find one of his arms entirely asleep. It was hardly a surprise, considering the awkward position he had evidently slept in on the couch. His muscles and joints creamed in protest as he lurched into a sitting position, his arm hanging limply beside him. Stilling for a moment, he listened for the sound of the Vulcan sleeping in his bed beside him. As far as he could tell, Spock was still slumbering deeply.
Quietly, so as not to wake him, Jim stood up and moved to the end of his bed, rotating his arm in circles as he went. As the blood flow slowly returned to his unfortunate limb, Jim stared down at Spock with the same tumult of confused emotions that he had been experienced all night. Unlike the Vulcan, his sleep had been anything but deep. The combined effects of the couch and the experience of being felt up by his drugged First Officer had conspired to keep him up most of the night.
What bothered him most was how and why. How had Spock gotten in contact with trellium-D in the first place, and why had he acted the way he had. Jim thought he'd needed to read up on the substance a bit more before he could even begin to guess which of the emotions Spock had shown were direct effects of the chemical and which ones were because of his emotional inhibition. Still, that didn't stop his usual curiosity from burning.
Absentmindedly, Jim raised a finger to his lips, remembering the pressure of the Vuclan's hot mouth on his. He knew he should probably feel more disturbed, or concerned, about Spock's advances on him but he didn't see the point in worrying just then. As he pressed his fingers to his mouth he felt a dull pain and pulled them back again. Despite himself he felt his mouth split into a grin as he realized his lips were bruised, reminded forcefully of some of his more feisty conquests back at the Academy. Shaking his head in amused disbelief, he reached over to grab a shirt from the drawer he had never got to close last night and then left the room silently.
Tugging his shirt over his head as he went, Jim headed to the nearest recreation room. His arms were still both incredibly stiff and, as Jim went to pull the banana he had requested out of the replicator, he realized that he had dark bruises across his wrists from where Spock had pinned him to the wall. An unbidden jolt of arousal shot through Jim at the memory, as unexpected as it had been at the time. He shook his head, wondering if they had both gone crazy.
His hunger satisfied, Jim decided to set about trying answer the first of his two burning questions by trying to retrace Spock's steps of the day before to find out when he might have ended up exposed to trellium-D. Halfway to the mess hall, where he had first seen the deranged Vulcan, Jim was surprised to discover a door lying across his path, ripped off its hinges by some superhuman strength.
More than a little awed at the power that his First Officer evidently possessed, Jim stepped over the door and into the forlorn looking doorway that led to a flight of stairs. Looking down the stairwell, Jim saw that the banister was warped into a sine wave. In his mind's eye he saw Spock running up the stairs, his hand slamming down on the banister as he leapt several at a time.
Walking slowly down, Jim ran his hands over the dent in increasing confusion. He had thought that Spock had been rough when his had thrown him against the wall, but if this banister was any indication, the fact that he was alive suggested the Vulcan had been holding back. Remembering that the tricorder had said that rage was a common side effect of trellium-D exposure, Jim realized for the first time that if the First Officer had really disliked him, he would probably be dead.
He followed the path of destruction – a bent door here or a smashed panel there – all the way down to the cargo bay on deck eight. Being careful to avoid the ominous looking black patches on the floor near the door, which was jammed open, Jim took a few steps into the bay. It was a disaster zone. Everywhere there was evidence of Spock's rage as he had charged through the room to hunt down his Captain. Shivering, Jim picked his way carefully over bent pipes, toppled stacks of chairs and ripped boxes of phasers. The last one made him cringe involuntarily; thinking what might have happened had Spock picked one of those up.
Now thoroughly shaken, Jim finally reached the end of the path, a battered looking storage vessel that was slowly leaking trellium-D from its side. Jim wavered over whether or not he should fix it for a moment before concluding that the last thing he needed to do was to walk back into his quarters covered in the stuff and risk running into Spock.
Beside the leaking vat lay an abandoned calking gun from engineering, half filled with the black liquid, but try as he might, Jim could see no reason why Spock would have made the mistake of using the trellium-D in the first place. He would be very surprised if the First Officer did not know its effects. Since Spock was not exactly a risk taker, Jim mused, he must have used the material by mistake.
Frustrated to have found no answer to his question, Jim checked his watch. It was nearly noon; surely Spock would be awake by then. Pulling out his communicator, Jim said, "Kirk to Spock, where are you?"
His voice was raspy from all the yelling he had done last night and its lack of use this morning. He gave Spock a few moments to reply before repeating his transmission. This time, he received a blast of static as a response. Worried, Jim turned and hurriedly picked his way across the room again, thinking that Spock might have somehow gone AWOL again.
It was not until he was in the turbolift that he took a moment to calm down and realized he was being silly. The Vulcan was probably just still sleeping and here Jim was running around like a worried mother. Like Bones. Jim smiled.
He walked at a more sedate pace to his quarters and was surprised and relieved to find Spock both awake and still there. He was sitting on the couch that Jim had spent the night on, his fingers pressed to his temples. For a moment, Jim thought he might be meditating. However, a closer look at his First Officer's face revealed a surprisingly dramatic expression of pain. Jim stepped forward in alarm.
"Spock!" he asked, "What's wrong!"
Spock took a moment to reply and when he did, it was through clenched teeth. "I would prefer if you spoke less loudly Captain," he requested, a hint of a moan in his voice, "as it would appear that I am suffering the after effects of a neurochemical imbalance induced by a foreign substance, which has caused me to have an elevated sensitivity to light and sound inputs."
Jim took a second to puzzle that out and then, despite himself, he broke into a devilish grin. "You're hung-over?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. I must admit to being surprised," said Spock, not sounding surprised at all, "Since I had thought that Vulcan's did not experience effects such as these, having such command over our own body processes as we do."
Jim shrugged, still smiling. Walking over to the door again, he dimmed the lights of the room slightly. "Maybe it's your human half you've got to think for this then?"
Spock opened his eyes, looking surprised. Jim hurriedly arranged his features to a more appropriate expression of concern. Spock arched and eyebrow at him and said slowly, "A logical deduction I had failed to consider, Captain."
Jim shrugged again, saying, "Always happy to help Spock." Then, realizing for the first time that Spock was in full Starfleet uniform, he asked, "Where did you get those clothes?"
Spock flushed slightly. "When I awoke this morning and discovered my state of undress, I thought it prudent to visit my quarters and procure replacement clothing before your return."
Jim chuckled, and then asked, "Why did you bother to come back here then?"
"It would appear that my communicator was damaged yesterday," Spock answered. "Given that I could not contact you, I thought it prudent to remain here in case you came looking for me."
Shaking his head at his First Officer, the only soul he knew who would still follow his logic in the face of a raging hang-over, Jim said, "I'm not surprised your communicator is broken, given all destruction that went on yesterday. It's a good thing we have nine days left in this blasted area of space, because we are going to need it to fix the ship now."
He had meant it teasingly, but Spock looked at him in alarm. "Captain, please tell me what damages I caused, other than injuring you."
"How did you –"
Spock gestured at his bruised wrists and then his face, which Jim realized must look worse for wear from its recent acquaintance with the mess hall wall. "You may be injured often Captain, but I can assure you that I can tell when you have more than your baseline of bruising," he said, and Jim could have sworn there was a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
"So you don't remembering anything then?"
"I have only very vague recollections of the day's events after I met with you in engineering."
Jim whistled softly and said, "So you don't even remember the trellium-D at all?"
Spock's head whipped up to look at him again, his eyes very wide. Jim thought he could almost feel an aura of panic around the man. After a moment, the First Officer regained his composure and asked evenly, "I was exposed?"
Jim ran his hands through his hair and sat down on the couch opposite Spock. "You definitely were – I discovered what's left of the cargo bay covered in it this morning."
Spock blanched and Jim saw his jaw clench in an apparent bid for control. "I am relieved then," he said, "That I did not injure you any more than I did. Trellium-D is a powerful substance that strips a Vulcan of his or her logic completely. Vulcan emotions are usually much stronger than human ones and when unleashed they can be formidable. It also tends to cause rage in those exposed to it, and after our disagreement in engineering…"
Spock trailed off, evidently coming to the same conclusion that Jim had less than an hour earlier. Taking pity on the man who looked, for him anyway, suddenly anguished, Jim sent him a disarming smile and said, with an attempt at bravado, "You must secretly really like me eh Spock?"
Spock flushed uncharacteristically at this and simply said "Indeed."
Jim chuckled, thinking what an understatement that was. Once his First Officer was feeling better, he thought he might have some fun revealing what had gone on to him. An involuntary trill of excitement went though him at the thought, making him shake his head again.
"Don't worry Spock," he said, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder, "I think there's a lot of crazy going around right now."
Hopping to his feet, Jim turned to the Vulcan, who was staring at his feet. "Feeling up to some lunch Spock?" he asked.
Slowly, Spock looked up to him and nodded, rising slowly from the couch. Jim strode to the doors, which opened immediately, flooding the room with light. Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw his Vulcan counterpart stifle a wince. Grinning, he led the way to the mess hall.