Sorry for the wait! Enjoy.

The car rumbled up the drive and parked next to the house. Kirk jumped out, followed by Bones and his younger brother.

"Hey Mom! Spock! We're ba-a-a-ack!" he yelled, running in through the kitchen door. "And look who we brought."

"Hi, Mom." Chris gave his mother a hug. "Hi, Spock. Good to see you."

"Hello, Christopher, James, Leonard." Bones looked over at what Spock was doing.

"You stayed behind to peel potatoes?"

"On Vulcan, a guest will prepare the morning and evening meals for their hosts." said Spock. "Although that is not the case for Humans, I think that I should still assist Mrs. Kirk if I can."

"And your doing a wonderful job." she said. "But why don't you four go do something? Dinner's not for another hour."

"Okay, we'll be on the property somewhere." said Kirk. "You wanna come, Chris?"

"No thanks, I should go unpack." James nodded. "C'mon, you two! Let's go!"

"I don't want to." said Bones, looking down. "It's not safe."

"That's what you say about transporters." said Kirk. "All your doing is walking out where the loft is falling down, and jumping through one of the holes onto the hay."

"James, if your mother is the only one who had been living here year-round the past year, why do you have a hay barn?" asked Spock.

"Haven't I explained this? We rent the fields, and the barn, and all that stuff. But no one cares if I come in here. And I'll prove it's safe."

Jim stood up and walked out to the other side of the loft until he was standing on a single board, since all the boards around in had collapsed. It wobbled and creaked, but held. Jim, without fanfare or a word stepped off the board.

FWUMP!

"I'M OKAY!" Jim yelled back up. "NOW ONE OF YOU TRY!" Spock stood up and did the same. Jim gave him a hand up.

"It's fun for humans." he explained. "Just enough of a fall to make your stomach drop sometimes." Spock nodded.

"I'm still not sure." Bones shouted down, walking slowly out. "I think I weigh more than you two do."

"Unlikely." Spock shouted back up.

"Bones, it's a thrill, it's fun." Bones bit his kip and reached the point where the other two had jumped. And slipped.

His foot caught on the edge of the board as he fell, and caused him to fall head first into the pile of straw.

"Oh god." said Jim. "Bones, Bones! Are you okay?" Bones pulled himself into a sitting position.

"Why do I ever listen to you? 'It's safe, it's fun'. It's never safe-you're just lucky. and it's never fun-you're just stupid!" he glared for a moment and then started laughing.

"Bones, Leonard? Bones, I think you hit your head, your acting funny." said Jim.

"No, I'm fine." he stood up. "You ever have on of those time when you actually hear yourself? Like, realize what your saying?"

"I am always aware of what I am saying." said Spock.

"Once in a while." said Kirk.

"Well, that was me, just now. And I sound like my grandfather." Jim smiled at his friends.

"We still have a little while until dinner, what should we do?"

"Go inside." said Spock.

"Hey yeah, I could show you the attic. We've got some-"

"No, James, look." Spock pointed at the sky, There were storm clouds rolling in. large, dark clouds. And then the two humans noticed what Spock already had. The stillness of the air.

"It just flashed, there's lightning coming too." said Jim.

"I should go, I need t get back the base so I can transport home. I'm supposed to go home tonight." said Bones.

"The base in a ten minute drive away, toward that storm, and they won't run the transporter in a thunderstorm. It's an old transporter and bad things could happen." They heard thunder rumbled in the distance.

They ran inside, the wind had begun when they got in.

"Oh good, you're here!" said Winona, I was starting to worry. Chris just went out to get Archer and Shelby." Shelby was a golden lab that Winona had gotten over the summer.

The door slammed again. Chris was come in, holding both dogs by their collars. "I got 'em." he said.

"Mrs. Kirk, I think I might need to stay here tonight." said Leonard. "Jim said the storm'll stop the transporter."

"Yes, and even if it wouldn't I wouldn't want anyone taking the car anywhere right now." she said. McCoy nodded.

Winona clasped her hands together. "If you four could help me set the table, we can have dinner."

The evening was quiet. The had dinner, played a board gamed called monopoly. (Spock was quite good at the game, but in the end McCoy won. 'I guess you have to understand money' he had said.) And the whole time, there was thunder and lightning and rain pounding on the roof.

"Are storms like this common in this region?" asked Spock.

"There's always a storm of two in the summertime." said Christopher. "It's not so bad, I like the rain actually."

"I find it disconcerting." said Spock, "there are often lightening storms on Vulcan, but rain on this scale is rare. I've only ever experienced a storm such as this on Vulcan once." the thunder crashed again.

"Uugh. I hate it." said McCoy. "when I was a kid, someone told me lightning was attracted to animals and people."

"And you believed them?" said Jim.

"Yeah, and thunder and lightning still bug me." more lightning lit up the sky. "It's is ridiculous, how long can this last?"

"All night." said Jim. "Soooo, what should we do to pass the time? It's only eight."

"Tell ghost stories?" suggested Chris.

"And you wonder why I act like you're ten." Chris shoved his brother.

"We could watch a movie?" suggested Bones. "There's still plenty of movies Spock needs to see."

"I do not 'need' to see any of your archaic movies. In particular that one you keep trying to get me to see. What was it's title?"

"You remember practically everything but you can't recall a movie title?"

"It's is unimportant."

"Unimportant indeed! If you'd stop being such a smug-" the bickering continued.

"Are they always like this?" asked Chris.

"Yep." said Jim. "And I wouldn't trade them for anything."