AN: Have I said this already? I don't own Star Trek. (I think I have)

Chapter Five

Jim had taken to exercising at night, but he went to the gym the next morning because he had the sudden urge to do so. He was in his workout clothes by 04:30 and very excited.

"Get up! Get up!" he shook McCoy by the shoulder.

"God damn it, Jim," McCoy answered, muttering into the pillow, "There's a reason why I don't have you set as my alarm clock. The hell do you want?"

"Exercise with me."

"I'm going back to sleep."

"Bones, please?"

"Can't it wait?"

"No."

"Like, another sixteen hours?"

"It has to be now."

"Jim, no it don't." his southern accent was slipping through. Must have been the time of day, or lack thereof. At any rate, it was there more than usual. "You got ta be crazy if you think I'm goin' to…"

"Doctor," Jim said, "I'm just trying to follow your advice."

A beat of silence. McCoy shifted up in bed. "Fine," he muttered. "You got me."

"One mile," McCoy said.

"Two." Jim grinned.

McCoy looked at him for a while, disbelieving. Finally, he looked away and stepped on to the treadmill. "Two," he grumbled under his breath, along with a couple more colorful words of one letter longer. "Two miles. At two in the morning. How do I let you keep talking me into this?"

"Actually, its 04:35."

"Still," he persisted. "Too damn early."

The treadmill started and Jim started to sweat. It was nice to run, really—kind of invigorating. It had served him, certainly, as a perfect coping mechanism over the past three months.

While he ran, he thought about why he'd started in the first place. To get rid of headaches. This, strangely, hadn't seemed to be a problem in the past few days. He hadn't bothered to tell McCoy when they had gotten worse instead of better; there was no point to now. Incidentally, it seemed, the ending of his headaches marked the beginning of his dreams of Spock, another one of which he'd had the night before.

Jim's heartbeat picked up, thinking about the dream. He ran harder than usual for the next twenty minutes, then turned off the treadmill suddenly. He remembered the visions—now quite vivid, actually—of him darting through darkness, dampness, yelling…the bright light…

A couple minutes later, the doctor came to a stop. Jim realized he'd been staring for quite a while. Leonard pelted him with those blue eyes of his, drawing a hand through his sweat dampened hair. "What?" he asked.

"I…" Jim began, but he couldn't quite continue. What was he supposed to say? He didn't even know himself.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he insisted. "I know I'm not the most attractive after a run…"

Concerns dispelled, Jim smiled. "You are super attractive after a run."

A small smirk graced his lips. He seemed amused. "Thanks for the flattery, Jim."

"Not flattery!" Jim asserted. "Hey, uh, let's take a shower."

"Sure," McCoy huffed, knowing full well he hadn't misspoken. "That'll get me clean."

Business as usual on the bridge. Or not. When Jim walked in, Sulu and Checkov were crowded around Stinson at his screen.

"Is something on fire over here?" Jim asked, walking over. The three broke apart and peered up at him.

"Somzing's wrong, sir," Checkov said.

Jim squinted at the screen. "We're off," he observed.

"Yes," interjected Sulu, "But watch what happened when we try to get back on."

Stinson turned to the screen and typed in a couple of things, presumably coordinates to get them back on course. After a few seconds, the numbers began to turn around…

…And then stopped. They then began to regress, going back to the wrong coordinates.

"The hell…?" Jim turned to Checkov, his now first officer and knower of everything. "Explain."

But Pavel was at a loss. "I don't know, sir. Iz's like there's somezing zere zat does not vant us here."

"Like a planet," Sulu said excitedly. "An Area 51 of the galaxy. Or something."

Checkov's eyes lit up when he looked at the Asian. "Yes, Hikaru! I could not have zaid eet better myself." At this, Sulu smiled back, turning a slight shade of pink.

The Captain glanced between the two, but, with a shake of the head, dismissed asking. "How much effort will it take to keep us on course?"

"Which one?" asked Checkov.

"The right one."

"Uh…" the Russian sighed and turned at the screen. "We are gaining a couple of degrees towards eet every time vee reset zee course. So…" he did some quick typing for a couple of minutes, straightened up, then did some more. "Zere!" he said at last. "I've set zee computer to adjust every time zee course is deviated."

"Deviation…" Jim muttered. Then, louder, "Checkov, try to find out by the ship's computers why we're moving."

"Aye!" Checkov zipped back to his post.

"Stinson, scan for objects. I want to see this Area 51."

"Yes sir," Stinson replied, and swiveled back around.

"Sulu," Jim said. "What warp are we at?"

"Five, sir."

"Back it down a little. Say, three? Searches are better done slowly."

"Aye." He nodded and returned to his seat.

Checkov reported before lunch that the deviation was caused by some sort of radio wave that was "reinstructing the ship's computers."

"Maybe vee shouldn't go towards eet," Checkov suggested, almost nervously.

They probably shouldn't have. But.

"Oh no," Jim said. "We're finding out what's there."

Uhura whipped around, slick black hair swooshing. "Captain—" she began, but he cut her off.

"Checkov, a radio wave?"

"Yes, sir."

A glance to Uhura. "Try to contact it, Lieutenant."

"Sir," she said, "I don't think that's a good…"

"Ah, ah." Jim held up a hand. "Who's the Captain here?"

He raised his eyebrows. She sighed. "Fine. Whatever you say, Captain. "

Jim caught McCoy in the hallway right before lunch. He was planning on grabbing the food, eating quickly to get back to the Bridge. He didn't want to miss anything. This was some exciting shit.

"Bones," he said urgently, without breaking stride.

His blue eyes flitted up. "Cap—" he began.

Jim pushed the man to the wall, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. McCoy pulled him closer. Suddenly, for a brief, fiery moment, they were kissing.

"I love you," Jim said.

Their lips met again, shorter this time.

"Damn it," McCoy replied.

One more time, and Jim pulled away. "Gotta get food," he said.

"What's the rush?" asked McCoy.

"Off course. Area 51. Something like that." Jim left.