Hey guys – here is the next chapter. Updates might be a bit sparse this week – I'm writing an exam on Thursday. I'll do my best, but don't think I've given up!
Also, this chappie has a little less K/S. Forgive me, but it's the same day. Something about keeping them in character prevents me from having them go at it like rabbits each chapter. Well, at least for Spock. *cough*
Some replies:
yumi2482: not my idea technically – it's actually canon. It's just not put to such…interesting uses….in the series. ;)
Hikaru: we'll see, we'll see – I have to be in an extremely writer-ish mood (clearly this is not now, haha) before I can write an M scene. I'm of the same opinion as you on it, really. I'm pretty sure I haven't written these characters enough to avoid making it sound like a cheap at-the-office porno. Oh good lord, bad images.
Kelgadis: if you ever do, be sure to leave it in a review for me! :)
Thanks to DizzyBaby, Chicapanzy, Mezzer 5.2, emuroo, mediwitch3 (pudding?), mildetryth, naruke3176, Rock and Sarcasm, Chimcha, Mars-Eclipse, Slashy Slashy goes the Canon (I lol'd at your name btw, haha), MattyLovesGames, wmonica, steph88NYC, Jord-El, Celestia, hpets, Exangeline, hey-yall-anime-me (no, it's not!), underneaththesheets, lovefan81, Dreaming-of-A-Nightmare, neenabluegirl, Basia Orci (I agree!), and Teldra for their reviews – especially those of you who are consistant reviewers. I LOVE you guys. This chapter is for you. :)
Life in the Neutral Zone
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Stardate 2258.117. At the request of the Federation, the starship Enterprise is dispatched to Earth Station 8, located at the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone. On the way there, the ship encounters hostile Reman rebels. Striking up a temporary peace agreement, Kirk and Spock left to pilot the Enterprise out of danger on their own, in return for their crewmates' safe passage to the space station. Two days into their journey, the Captain and his First Officer make some startling discoveries.
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When Jim awoke, tangled in the sheets on his bed, it took him a moment to remember how he had gotten there. When he remembered, his arm reached out instinctively for the man that should be beside him – but he was not there. A brief moment of unexpected panic shot through him and he sat up quicker than was probably necessary.
A moment later, relief washed over him as he caught sight of the cross-legged Vulcan sitting on his floor, hands placed together in front of him with his eyes closed. Jim stared at him, open-mouthed, for a second. Tilting his head and running his hand through his hair, Jim concluded that the man must be meditating. He noted with amusement and something like fondness that the man had only half redressed himself for the ritual – apparently Jim was allowed to see him shirtless.
That sorted out, Jim flopped back again onto his bed, trying not to make noise so that he didn't disturb the Vulcan. The fact that Spock hadn't left made him feel disgustingly giddy. He rolled his eyes, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had gotten in to him. He was acting like a teenage girl.
Folding his hands behind his head lazily, Jim watched the ceiling, his mind oddly blank. If he listened very carefully he could hear the controlled breathing of the mediating First Officer at the foot of his bead. The moment was extremely peaceful and it was a long time before Jim could bring himself to look at the clock.
It was nearly dinnertime. Damn. He really had to work at some point today.
Extremely reluctantly, Jim sat up again. Spock did not appear to have moved since he had last checked. As quietly as he could, he slipped out of bed and pulled on his own Starfleet issue pants. Casting his eyes around for his shirt, he saw with amusement and annoyance that it was hanging off a lamp above Spock's head. He entertained himself for a moment by imagining it falling onto the meditating Vulcan's head and breaking his concentration. Then again, Spock looked so deep in meditation that he might not have noticed at all.
Shaking his head, Jim went over to the desk and scribbled Spock a note telling him he had gone to engineering to recover the Reman transmission from the previous day. Electing not to disturb the Vulcan, Jim grabbed a new shirt out of his drawer and pulled it over his head as he exited the room, grinning.
He was still feeling giddy and fuzzy when he entered the damaged engineering bay. He had the somewhat disturbing feeling that his mind was overloading on everything that had happened in the last two days and that explained the crazy that had overtaken him. For god's sake, this was Spock, he reminded himself for the millionth time. Uhura he could maybe understand feeling giddy over. Hell, compared to Spock even Bones made more sense, considering he was a pretty good looking guy.
He fingers stopped, poised above the consol. He shook his head more violently than he had ever yet, wondering if he was developing some muscle tick as he did so. He absolutely had to stop thinking right then, before his thoughts got even more dangerous. Seriously if he started imagining sleeping with Bones –
"Guh!" he shuddered involuntarily, mentally slapping himself. He wondered if Spock was having this kind of trouble, but knew immediately that he wasn't. He'd probably spent all that time meditating carefully wrapping up the last few hours in several layers of logic and shipping it to the metaphorical island of irrational emotions in his brain.
Realizing that it would be poor sport for the Captain to go crazy when there were only two crew members on board, Jim resolutely punched him his access code to the consol.
"Access Code: Captain James T. Kirk. Access granted," the computer blipped at him in a friendly sort of way, before pulling up the main access screen. Jim was impressed. Apparently before Spock had gone insane and got himself strung out on Vulcan mind juice he had managed to mostly repair the engineering computer system. Typical.
Well, he thought huffily as he flipped through the screens searching for the transmission and communication archives for the engineering deck, he had managed to fix the replicator system…mostly.
It took him several minutes more to find the archives. There were only a few records of communications on board in the last few days. Jim looked them over carefully to be sure, but in a few minutes he was sure that all of them were from either him or Spock to each other or to the computer. The last Reman transmission through the main computer had been the one in which they were ordered to surrender the crew.
Undaunted, Jim decided to check if he could find records of personal communication systems on board. Spock hadn't specified, but it was possible the Remans had managed to communicate with his own personal device.
Searching through the computer, he located a database of thousands of transmissions between crew members. He wondered if people knew that what they said in their communicators was automatically transcribed here as it was routed through the computer. He doubted it – he certainly hadn't until now.
Resolving to delete a few of the more incriminating records between himself and a particular sick bay nurse once he was done, he sifted though crew manifests until he hit upon Spock's record. Pulling it up, he was met with a puzzling discovery.
Spock's record was full of transmissions, as a First Officer's ought to be, until two days ago when the rest of the crew had left. After that, the number of transmissions reduced to absolutely zero. There were no communications of any kind from the device, from the Remans or otherwise. Bemused, Jim decided to try searching by date, pulling up all communications from the previous day.
The first record that came up he quickly identified as his own attempt at communicating with Spock. The record read "CPTN KIRK to CMDR SPOCK: TRANSMISSION FAILED (Device not activated)."
Raising his eyebrows, Jim recalled Spock saying his communicator was not working. Perhaps, he mused, it was not connecting to the computer correctly. He'd hardly be surprised, given the abuse it must have withstood during Spock's little rampage through the ship. He kept looking.
The next entry made him stop short. A sudden apprehension filled him as he read the troubling report. It read "CMO MCCOY (EXTERNAL) to UNASSIGNED: Transmission completed."
McCoy? Jim stared at the words incredulously. Bones would know better than to provoke the Remans, as he surely would by communicating with Jim.
Than again, he thought as his confusion increased, Bones hadn't communicated with him. He had called…..somebody else. The word UNASSIGNED blinked tantalizingly up at him, and Jim knew he'd had to hear the transmission to make sense of all this. He selected the entry and an audio recording began to play immediately.
"McCoy to Spock. Come in Mr. Spock," said a voice, unmistakably Bones. Jim's heart beat a little faster – he had not realized how much he missed his friend until that moment.
There was a sound of ruffling static as a communicator was pulled from a pocket. Jim waited with anticipation to hear who would answer, wondering if perhaps they had a stowaway, or worse.
"This is Commander Spock," said the voice, and it clearly was. Jim's brow furrowed and he stared harder at the UNASSIGNED still mocking his intellect silently on the screen.
"Dr. McCoy, do you think it wise to be conversing?" Spock continued, asking the same question Jim had. "Surely the Remans will not appreciate this seeming attempt at conspiracy."
Bones laughed, a little more harshly than Jim thought was normal. "Oh they'll be fine with it," he said sarcastically. "They're the ones who asked me to call you in the first place. Apparently they are having trouble getting a channel open with the main computer."
"That is highly irregular," Spock responded at once and there was a clearly audible tapping and beeping as he accessed the ships main system. "All the systems appear to be working satisfactorily Doctor."
"Yeah, I know," Bones agreed. "They just can't get it to go."
"Perhaps, Ensign Chekov –" Spock began, but Bones cut him off.
"They won't let him try. I think they are worried he'll sabotage their ships or something," Bones complained.
"Perhaps," Spock began again, but again he was interrupted.
"Spock," Bones said, and suddenly his voice was strained. "Please just take their transmission."
There was something slightly off about Spock's voice too as he replied, "Of course."
A moment later a very different voice replaced Bones. It was harsh and alien. "First Officer Spock," the Reman said.
"This is he," Spock sounded as professional as ever, but Jim could not help thinking his voice was strange.
"Excellent," the Reman said, seeming to genuinely mean it. That didn't bode well. "This is Captain Valik of the Reman Republic." Jim could not help rolling his eyes at the predictable name that they had chosen for themselves.
"I come to serve," Spock said in acknowledgement.
"Your service honors us, Vulcan brother," the Captain gave the polite reply. "We are calling to request the correct coordinates of the Earth Station to which you want your crew to be transported."
"I was under the impression," Spock said slowly, "that you already knew of its position. Did you not inform the Captain of its proximity to your space boundaries yesterday?"
"I think you had better give us them again Spock," the Reman said calmly.
'That is highly illogical," Spock said, but he did not seem to be disagreeing.
"I think," the Reman said extremely slowly, "that you should give them to us again Spock. Don't you agree?"
"I…of course," Spock replied equally slowly, and there was definitely something wrong with him now. Jim felt a coil of apprehension settle in his stomach like a deadly snake.
"Excellent," the Reman said again. Spock gave him the coordinates. "Wonderful, Mr. Spock, you have been very helpful. May I ask how the repairs are going?"
"The ship is heavily damaged," Spock said indifferently, almost dreamily. "We are repairing it at a rate that is slower than I would have desired."
"My, my, that is unfortunate," the Reman said, sounding as if Spock had just offered to hand over the Enterprise as a house warming gift. "I trust you are working on your warp drive?"
"I have thus far been unable to repair the nacelles," Spock said dully. "There appears to be a compound that is eroding the insulation that I have been unable to neutralize."
"A common Romulan trick," the Reman said in a commiserating tone. Jim recognized the lie – he had never even heard of such a chemical – but Spock appeared to take it at face value. Valik continued, "We have found trellium-D to be an effective solution."
Jim's eyebrows shot into his hair as Spock replied, "I do not think that would be practical in the Enterprise's case, as that type of insulation can have detrimental effects on the Vulcan nervous system."
"Oh no," the Reman said, blasé in the extreme. "You are confusing it with trellium-A."
"I do not believe –"
"Yes Spock," Valik said in that strange, slow voice again. It was almost melodious – his words certainly had a beat to them. "I believe you are."
There was a long pause and then Spock replied, "Yes, I must be."
Jim's jaw dropped. He could have sworn he heard a gasp on the Reman end of the transmission, but it was quickly muffled. Spock did not appear to notice.
"Indeed," Valik said convincingly. "You should go try that. Right now."
"Of course," Spock said dazedly. "I must go. Live long and prosper Captain Valik."
"Peace and long life, Vulcan brother," Valik replied in a voiced laced in sarcasm and the transmission ended.
Jim sat rooted to his chair, his eyebrows still raised and his mouth still open. What the devil had that been about, he wondered. Why had Spock listened to them?
Jim quickly transferred the communication record to his datapad and swiftly left engineering. He rose slowly in the turbolift, trying to make sense of what he had heard. Unease had settled over him like a fog as he felt his trust of the Remans evaporate. They had clearly wanted to Spock to get into the trellium-D.
"But why?" he asked aloud as the doors pinged open. Frustration made his walking quicker as he traced his steps back to his quarters.
Spock was sitting at Jim's desk, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tinkered with his broken communicator. As Jim entered, the Vulcan looked up and the tension in his face was replaced by thinly concealed amusement. "Hello Captain."
Jim was not prepared for the affect that simple, subtle look had on him and he stopped just inside the door. All though of Remans was momentarily driven from his mind as he involuntarily began to imagine what Spock would do if he asked for a round two. A moment later he recovered enough to smirk, "What that's it?"
Spock's mouth fell into a confused frown, though his eyebrows arched in an amused way that Jim realized indicated he was not upset. "I am unsure what you mean, Captain."
"It's Jim," he reminded the Vulcan sternly. "To be honest, I was kind of expecting some morning-after awkwardness here."
"It is not yet the evening," Spock pointed out. Jim could have sworn the look that Spock gave him was almost playful.
"You know what I mean," Jim said, trying not get sidetracked by the fact that his heart was doing cartwheels in his chest.
"I get the feeling that Vulcan don't do that," he waved his hand at his bed vaguely, "very often. Am I wrong?"
"Indeed not," Spock replied, a slight crease appearing between his eyes. "I will not deny that the experience was novel. I have spent much of the afternoon meditating on that very subject."
"And?" Jim asked, not sure he wanted to know. Slowly he became aware that his head was throbbing with a dull pain.
"I have concluded that I am not sure it was wise," he began, and Jim's brows pulled together. "However, I am not sure it was unwise either."
"Oh, well that's helpful," Jim said, perplexed.
"Indeed it was," Spock replied. When Jim looked skeptical, Spock clarified, "I have, in effect, concluded that to be intimate with you is neither inherently logical nor illogical. There are many possible arguments both in favor and against."
"There are?" Jim said incredulously.
"Indeed," the Vulcan said calmly, his eyes returning to communicator in his hands. "It is certainly logical that gaining a deeper understanding of you will help our partnership of command."
Jim's mouth twitched. "A deeper understanding?" he said, his eyebrows quirked. Spock simply stared at him.
"Never mind," he said, rolling his eyes. His head was really starting to hurt. "What about Uhura?"
Spock hesitated only briefly before admitting, "Ensign Uhura has indicated that she is disinclined to continue our personal relationship."
Jim whistled and tried to look something other than gleeful. "That suck," he said, somewhat lamely.
"Spock looked at him a bit despairingly for a moment before nodding and agreeing, "It was a most unfortunate misunderstanding."
Jim really wanted to, but he decided that prying would be a bad choice at that point. "About us though," he continued instead, "I just thought that Vulcan's were kind of…prudes."
Spock raised his eyebrow in plain amusement now. "Indeed, if I were to court you in a purely Vulcan manner then intimate relations would be out of the question. I will have to request you be discrete about the explicitly personal nature of our relationship, Jim. However, it would be illogical for me to be unreceptive of Human courting behavior, given I am as Human as I am Vulcan."
"How logical of you," Jim said, his mind reeling from the number of euphemisms the Vulcan had just thought up to avoid actually saying 'sex'.
"I am pleased you see it that way," the Vulcan said with apparent sincerity. "Is there something you require?"
"Hmm?" Jim had been staring at Spock's mouth as it talked and had kind of lost track of the conversation.
"You are holding a datapad," Spock prompted helpfully, and Jim remembered why he had hurried up here. Stupid befuddling Vulcan. He shoved the pad at Spock, some of his urgency returning.
"I recovered the transmission you got down in engineering," he informed the First Officer. "It was very strange, to say the least."
Together they listened to the tape play over Jim's computer. Spock's eyes slowly widened as the conversation continued. When it finished, Spock turned to him in thinly disguised alarm.
"So, any theories?" Jim said, rubbing his temples as his head pounded.
"No," Spock said, surprising him. "The Reman's knowledge of trellium-D may have been a legitimate error – it is not found in Romulan space. However, my compliance with their suggestion is most suspicious."
"Not to mention your lack of memory of the whole damn conversation," Jim managed.
"Captain, are you alright?" Spock asked, noticing Jim's discomfort.
"Yeah, I've just got a raging headache is all."
Spock considered him for a second. "Might I suggest that you get some sleep, Captain?"
"Jim," Jim interrupted.
"Jim," Spock agreed. "You have had a very physically involved two days with a regrettable lack of sleep, which may be the source of your malaise."
"Physically involved?" Jim wiggled his eyebrows. Even with a raging headache he couldn't pass up that opportunity. Spock, however, ignored him. Jim tried not to whine as he pointed out, "Oh come on Spock, you can't just expect me to go to sleep when the Remans are up to god knows what. I'm fine."
"You are not," Spock said, rising from the desk and reaching for Jim's hand. Jim stared at him as he pressed their fingers together. The familiar warmth spread up his arm and the pain in his head lessened a bit. Deciding Spock wasn't likely to run away if he did, Jim leant forward and rested their foreheads together.
"Yes, I am," he said stubbornly. Then, because he really couldn't resist it, he tilted his head and pressed his lips to the Vulcan's gently. Spock's lips twitched into the smallest of smiles and pressed back softly. Jim thought his already painful head might just explode from the rush of emotion that that caused.
"I understand that such standards of personal care are not typical for you," Spock replied, pulling back. Jim, his eyes still closed, was pretty sure he'd been insulted. "However, I do not require the same amount of restorative rest as a Human, so I will continue to try to discern the motives of Captain Valik and his Republic with regards to our ship. Does this set your mind at ease?"
"A bit," Jim admitted, opening his eyes and pulling away reluctantly. He released their hands slowly and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling off his shirt.
He was pleased to see the Vulcan looking a shade greener than usual as his eyes traveled briefly over Jim's exposed chest. He said, "Very well. I will wake you if something suitably urgent should occur."
"Yeah," Jim crawled under the covers, too tired to change his pants. Stupid convincing, sexy Vulcan. "Yeah, you do that."
He heard Spock rise from the desk. The cool pillow was unbelievably soothing for his aching mind. His eyes closed again gratefully as the Vulcan collected the pieces of his communicator from Jim's desk and placed them carefully in a cloth bag. Jim felt the tension behind his eyes begin to ease as his brows unfurled and very soon, before Spock had finished cleaning up and left, he was asleep.