Chapter 71 - Loose Ends
"There was a man with fox red hair
And bright green were his eyes.
He claims he's not an Irishman -
Blarney! We know how much he lies!"
Allen put a hand over his face. "Please, Ms. Uhura, I swear I'll spend the next month brushing up on my Klingon."
"Good. We're all just lucky I made the connection."
McCoy plied the dermal regenerator with just a little more pressure than strictly necessary. "About time someone tormented you with a song."
"One would think your doctoring would be torment enough." Spock observed.
McCoy pressed a finger to the top of Spock's hand. "What am I thinking?"
He glanced at the finger distastefully. "I cannot imagine why I would wish to know."
"Does that mean your shields are back to normal or that your touch telepathy is still iffy?"
"I am aware that you are thinking." His tone that suggested the question of whether it was rational thought remained open.
"But you can't completely block it, can you?" McCoy lifted his finger with a small smirk. "At least it's coming back. Hopefully the same applies to Selina." He put the regenerator down. "Done. Now don't move that shoulder until I say. Skin and muscle are good as new, but tendon takes awhile to firm up proper. This'll help you remember." He fitted a sling after helping Allen slide the arm into his sickbay robe. "Where is Selina anyway? She was supposed to report to here after she checked in with the Ambassador."
"You expect Grey to willingly enter sickbay as a patient?" Allen scoffed. "We are talking about the woman who decked me for trying to take her to the infirmary."
"Dammit, she was affected more than Spock." The doctor tapped his console. "Computer, contact Selina Chandri."
"Ms. Chandri has set privacy."
McCoy picked up his med kit and headed for the door. "I'm going to make a house call. Both of you will be here when I get back and if anyone" He glared pointedly at Allen, "messes with my computer I'll put a hole in your other shoulder."
Allen watched the doctor leave and cocked an eyebrow. "Not big on the Hippocratic oath, is he?"
"His interpretation can be somewhat ...elastic." Spock remarked. "Now, if you will excuse me, I should consult with Mr. Giotto regarding the disposition of our latest prisoner."
"Dr. McCoy said that you're supposed to stay here." Nyota reminded him.
"On the contrary, he said that I should be here when he returned. As he is unlikely to locate Ms. Chandri quickly or easily gain her cooperation if he does, I shall be."
Allen laughed and swung a leg off the bed.
"No. You stay." Nyota warned. "Your record on returning in a timely manner isn't so good and I have a few questions for you."
He settled back with a resigned look. "Like?"
"How did you know it was the same Klingon emitter?"
He started to shrug, looked at the sling and thought better of it. "SI has things to block telepathy - and all of them set Grey's teeth on edge - but they employ a lot of telepaths, so none of those devices would hurt anyone like that. Even I felt it a little and I'm almost psi-null. The only thing I've ever seen have that effect was Klingon and they tend to keep everything interchangeable, so I took a shot that it was the same."
Nyota frowned. "Two Klingon devices seem like too much of a coincidence."
"When I cleaned out Maldi's accounts, a big chunk of those funds had come from a suspected Klingon agent. It's probably the main reason I wasn't court martialed." He gave her a wry smile. "No one wanted to admit to the Oversight Committee that a transfer of Federation tactical plans had only been stopped because of a rogue hacker. Although they did keep that as the official story, and played up EriktheRed's reputation for stealing from crooks."
He grinned. "The best part was that since Bubba was supposedly undercover, he only got the official story and LT basically told him that if he hadn't gotten rid of me, he'd have had someone capable of noticing a hacker moving in on his kill. Of course, LT also told me that if I ever freelanced again, there'd be hell to pay – which there may yet be."
"He can't blame you for Maldi hunting you down."
"I, uh, didn't exactly stop." He bit his lip and looked a little off to the side. "I didn't need to drop Erik's calling card to crack the casino, but the set up for the shell company that arranged for the bomb looked a lot like Maldi's signature and if he could buy that kind of influence again, someone had to get him into the light. I knew he'd come looking for Erik. I just didn't know that he already knew that I was Erik."
She put a hand on his arm. "You couldn't have known that Bubnova was working for him."
"Bubnova shouldn't have known. Like I said, he was undercover and I only used Erik after he'd had me thrown off the case for crossing him about 'sacrificing pawns'." His mouth twisted sideways. "I know that he did try to check afterward, but it was covered up pretty thoroughly and, well, Erik's been causing trouble for a lot longer than I've been at Langley." He winked. "Besides, half the department knows I'm Fafhrd."
"It was him calling me Erik that seemed wrong. I'm not quite a 100% yet, so it took a minute to..." he stopped, "…well, to realize that it wasn't right. Even if he'd found out, the way he used the name... um, I mean, if he'd just been trying to irritate me, he would have stuck with Cerveny."
Nyota almost did a double take. "Cerveny?"
"I was assigned as an emergency replacement, and since I'm not SI, they gave me this random letter-number id. Bubba was not thrilled, about any of it, and asked what he was supposed to call me. I told him 'anything but Red', so of course he thought he'd be clever and picked Cerveny." Allen rolled his eyes. "Clearly he'd be a jerk even if he wasn't a traitor."
She studied him. If he was playing innocent, it was a really good act. Selina had said that he didn't remember and she didn't want to remind him. Had someone double-crossed him and used the name Rick Cerveny as a warning to keep quiet? Considering the trouble Allen had gotten into going after Maldi, she could see why it might be better that he not recall anyone else he might feel compelled to hunt down. And if Selina learned who it was, it wasn't too surprising that that person had decided to thoroughly disappear. She wouldn't want to be in his shoes if Selina caught up to him now that he didn't have anything to hold over Allen... which suggested a change of subject.
"I have a different question." She smiled slyly. "Can I start thinking of you as a brother?"
His eyebrows darted up in surprise. She grinned at him and waited.
"Well…" He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "We are both Starfleet and we did fight together today, so 'brother in arms' would be appropriate."
"That is not what I meant." She gave him a mock scowl. "And before you try another evasion, dealing with Kirk has given me an excellent bullshit detector, and I know the lyrics to 'Fafhrd the Barbarian is Hungover'."
"You're already starting to sound like my sister." he accused with a smile. "But thinking of Spock as a brother would make my relationship with Grey even more complicated than it already is."
"Complicated? Please, you're talking to someone who's dating a Vulcan." She crossed her arms. "And I don't see why you're being so coy. You two looked pretty cozy together."
"Ms. Uhura,-"
"Nyota."
"Ms. Nyota, I've spent a long time letting on like nothing ever happened between us because it's just easier that way. I don't know where this is going, but history isn't exactly on my side here. So if I've been," he cleared his throat, "bumped off the wagon – for which I probably owe you whatever thanks you care to name – it seems like the best idea would be to just take things one day at a time."
"But you love her." She shook a finger at him. "And don't you dare say 'as a friend' - that ship has sailed."
Allen shook his head, laughing to himself. "Okay, but don't short-change friendship. As friends I'm pretty sure we'd lay down our lives for each other. The last time I tried being a boyfriend it only took a few weeks before she was about ready to kill me."
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Kirk rounded the curve of the hall and immediately changed direction.
"Jim!" Bones called. "Have you found her yet?"
Too late. "No, and I even checked the women's locker room."
"You what?"
"It seemed like a logical place to hide." Jim held his hands up. "Hey, I knocked first - not that it stopped Margolis from throwing her water at me."
"She has a kreilli's temper." A Trubese woman came up behind Jim, running her claws lightly through his hair. "This one was very polite."
Bones pulled Jim aside. "Excuse us. We're looking for Ms. Chandri. She was supposed to have reported to sickbay."
"So like a male to worry." She patted the doctor's arm consolingly as she passed, her tail switching in amusement. "I am sure she will arrive when it is convenient."
Jim watched her glide down the hall and allowed himself a little grin. Under the traditional dress, that tail was attached to nice tail end.
Bones snapped a finger in front of his face. "You are unbelievable."
"What? She's nice." Jim smiled. "And really helpful - did you know the women's locker has vibrating chairs under the hair dryers?"
Bones glanced heavenward. "I'm surprised you came back out."
"Seriously, Bones, there's like 30 women in there hiding from the Southern Inquisition. How about you stop terrorizing my crew and just let Selina drop by sickbay when she's ready?"
"Dammit Jim, we don't know what that device did to her. She could be unconscious or in trouble or -"
"Or having a drink and enjoying some peace and quiet." Jim widened his eyes. "She usually has to work to not hear everyone's thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, she wants to relax all by herself while she can."
Bones did a very Spock-like one-eyebrow thing.
"Right." Jim straightened his shirt. "I'll keep looking."
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Spock lifted an eyebrow when the Captain joined him in the lift.
"I know. My hair's a little …poofy." He ran his hand through it self-consciously. "Don't ask."
The second eyebrow joined the first, but Spock refrained from asking, having privately calculated that there was a high probability that the story involved scenarios he did not wish to be appraised of.
"Aren't you supposed to be in sickbay?" Kirk asked.
"As I am sufficiently recovered. My presence in sickbay is not required until the doctor returns."
Kirk ran that through his own private Spock translator. "So as long as you get back before Bones realizes you left, what he doesn't know won't hurt him?"
There was a pause as Spock parsed the human idioms. "In essence, yes."
Jim grinned. They were beginning to understand each other. "Just be careful. He's tearing the ship apart looking for your non-sister."
"It would seem that she does not wish to be found." Spock tilted his head fractionally. "Certainly, she was none of the places that I had expected to find her."
"So you've been looking for her too?" Vulcans don't worry. Yeah, right.
"I thought it advisable to ascertain if she required more assistance than she might choose to request. However, I judge it most likely that she has simply retreated to a private place to meditate, as I would have done had I not been ordered to sickbay." He gave Kirk as close to an accusing look as a Vulcan could.
"Yeah, sorry about that – you just seemed a little uncomfortable and you don't have the best record on getting assistance when you need it either."
A slanted eyebrow implied something about the pot calling the kettle black.
"Right." Jim chuckled. "Where are you headed? I'll try to keep Bones off your tail."
There was another short pause for idiom translation. "I am going to the genetics lab to encode a DNA sample for transmission to SI headquarters, as we suspect that our prisoner is an imposter."
"An imposter?"
"Upon review of the earliest records from Mr. Maldi's safe, Mr. Giotto noted a record showing two men who were captured and killed when one attempted to rescue the other during interrogation. The would-be rescuer appears on the record for only 0.56 minutes, but enhancement of still frames revealed an uncanny resemblance to our prisoner. It is a matter of record that the second man, John Reynolds, was listed as dead following a shuttle accident on stardate 2256.19."
Jim gave a low whistle. "Do you think Allen suspected?"
"I have not yet informed him of the findings." Spock's eyebrows drew down slightly. "However, as he was transferred to Langley 3 months, 15 days prior to that stardate, I believe it unlikely that he ever encountered the actual Anton Bubnova."
Kirk ground his teeth. What idiot had assigned the new guy to someone who'd lost his last support op under suspicious circumstances? Since Bubnova was supposed to be undercover, infrequent contact with anyone who actually knew him or might catch a procedural slip had let an imposter get away with replacing him for over two and half years.
"Let me know what you find out." His next conversation with Stone was going to be interesting. But at least he had an excuse for avoiding it at the moment. "So, do you have any idea of where else Selina might be hiding?"
"I do not. Undoubtedly it is somewhere that she believes the doctor will not look."
Jim sighed. "You know, for someone with a thing for doctors, your non-sister's got a pretty serious aversion to sickbay."
Spock gave him an exceptionally, almost pointedly, blank look.
Okay, so before Pike had given him 'The Talk' he had seduced a few nurses to avoid having to go to sickbay for treatment. And his best friend was a doctor. Pot. Kettle. Black. He laughed to himself. Considering that he seemed to have more than a few things in common with Selina, maybe old Spock was right. Maybe, eventually, he and this Spock were destined to be as close as brothers.
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AN: I hope that this ties up most of the loose ends wrt the case. Let me know if I've missed something. (Cerveny is a tale for another day).
Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing this monster. While I have a little more planned to straighten Faf out and resolve the romantic issues, the main part of the story ends here. I've been writing this as therapy in a stressful year but I swear: I will never, ever write anything this long and involved again!
