Thanks to everyone who read and to PSW, FrankieHS, She-Elf23, FoundtoArrive, sunsethill, and LauraCynthia for reviewing.

Most of McCoy's background in this chapter is mashed together from what little he said in the AoS movies, some ToS cannon with timing tweaks (including him not talking about his father's death until Sybok forced the issue, although being unfamiliar with ST:V won't affect this story), and some slightly random headcannon since MemoryAlpha has basically no details. Ex. The the swimming part is entirely headcannon since the ship's Chief Medical Officer seemed like a really weird choice to be running around Nibiru creating distractions unless he had some other skill that made him a reasonable option while their ship was hiding under an ocean, and the gymnastics comment from DS9 doesn't work.

Also, I'm assuming there's a non death/non fight-to-the-death way to break a betrothal bond for Vulcans regardless of what happened with T'Pring on ToS, mostly because not having something like that just doesn't make sense. I mean, presumably Sarek wasn't involved in a fight to the death (with...someone?) because his original intended bondmate decided to pursue Kolinahr. So my personal headcannon is that T'Pring could have done something prior to the onset of Spock's Pon Farr, didn't, and thus made more of a mess for Spock and the ToS company than there needed to be.

Someone called something from offscreen, and Nyota glanced in that direction and then turned back to Spock with an expression indicating regret. "I've got to run, or I'll be late for the ensemble workshop. I should have a break in this timeslot again tomorrow, though, if you're available for another call?"

"That would be quite satisfactory."

She smiled. "Good. Have a pleasant day, and say hello to Jim for me. And make sure that he rests."

Spock wondered sometimes when the rest of the Enterprise's crew had decided that he had any specific control over their captain's behavior. "I will pass along your messages," he said rather than agreeing. "And I wish you both a productive workshop session and pleasing evening."

They cut the connection, and he got to his feet. Thus far he'd heard no indication that Jim was awake, but the conversation with his father yesterday had been a timely reminder about the article he had planned on submitting prior to the re-launch of the Enterprise. While all of the figures and diagrams were in place and he'd completed the substantial majority of his analysis, some of the verbiage was still unacceptably imprecise, and both the introduction and conclusion remained to be written.

He wasn't yet hungry but did request a cup of tea from the synthesizer, considering the chessboard as it worked. Jim had won their first game last night, although Spock credited some of that to his continued distraction over Ambassador Spock's actions. Despite meditation, he was still not certain that the situation had been handled appropriately, and he intended to raise that point with the ambassador the next time they spoke. However, he and Jim had been barely two dozen moves into their second game when Jim had begun to yawn, and while their shortened sleep cycle the previous night and the work they had done at the school had made an early night entirely logical, Jim had required convincing and thus Spock was currently up a knight, a rook, and two pawns. It was not impossible that Jim would regain the advantage and take the game, but it was exceedingly unlikely.

When his tea was available he took the cup and he settled in on the couch to work, and by the time movement above indicated that Jim had awakened he had both corrected the wording that had displeased him as well as reordered several sections to improve the readability.

"Morning," Jim greeted a few minutes later.

"Good morning." He tilted his head, considering Jim's attire. "You are intending to exercise?"

"Going to go for a run, at least. What are you working on?"

"A journal submission regarding the detection of gravitational plane waves. I intend to have it ready for submission prior to the re-launch of the Enterprise."

"Oh, yeah, that's the work you were doing with the Klylal particles, right? I remember you talking about that at breakfast back before…." He waved a hand vaguely. "Everything."

"'Before everything' is by definition incorrect, but your memory of the research in question is accurate."

Jim grinned. "Well, if you want to take a break you're welcome to come with me, otherwise I'll see you in an hour or so."

Spock tilted his head. "I believe that as of yesterday you have been ordered to stay inside and rest until Dr. McCoy arrives."

He took a step backwards, holding up his hands. "Bones was just in a bad mood. Don't even think about pinching me."

"I am not considering such an action at present." Spock looked at his PADD again and decided that he had both accomplished an appropriate amount for the morning and was also at a point where pausing and resuming later would not have a significant impact upon his productivity. And as the majority of yesterday's physical activity had involved his upper body, it would be agreeable to have the opportunity to stretch his legs on more than just the treadmill in the barn. He set the PADD aside. "It will take me approximately 2.7 minutes to change."

That got a nod, and by the time Spock returned Jim was on his last bite of nutrient bar and tightening a diagonal running belt across his back. "You want me to grab a hydro pack for you, too?"

"Assuming that it will not cause you difficulty, it would be appreciated." He could also carry one himself, but it would not be as convenient given his lack of a similar pack.

"It's no trouble."

"You will ensure that this run does not exceed the limits that the doctor has specified with regards to your health?" Spock asked as they headed for the front door. "Particularly as you are already violating his most recent stricture?" Something he was not objecting to only because he believed the captain's interpretation of the doctor's mood yesterday to be entirely accurate.

Jim groaned. "Once again: locked room. It'll be fine, we'll take the entrance to the quarry as the halfway point and take a break there before turning back. Normally I'd do a couple laps around it or at least cut past it to the river, but even I'll admit that might be pushing it right now. Acceptable?"

As Spock was unfamiliar with the territory he could not state whether the distance the captain indicated was acceptable or not, but his internal sense of distance was nearly as good as that of time, and he could always insist that they turn back earlier if it seemed that they were going further than appropriate. "Provisionally so," he agreed. "Also, while I expect the answer to be unsatisfactory, may I ask how many rail bridges are on the trail you intend to follow?"

That got a laugh. "The bridge count is one, but it'll be a real one this time unless we decide to walk back. I mean, not that we couldn't go running out on the open fields, I've done it more than once, but between the risk of gopher holes and the fact that there's no way all the mud pits have dried up, we'll be safer on the road."

The reference to mud pits would have been enough to convince Spock, but the first part of the statement was curious. "A gopher is a type of small rodent, correct?" he asked as they headed outside. "I was unaware that they posed a hazard."

"They're reasonably small rodents, I guess, but it's not them directly that are the problem, it's their burrows. When they run shallow, like just under the surface, your foot'll punch right through if you step on one. Walking it's usually more annoying than anything else—not that you can't turn an ankle, but it takes more work—but if you hit one running you're pretty much guaranteed to end up face-first in the dirt and having pulled something.

"I find neither of those things desirable."

"Me either, especially since you know Bones would never let us hear the end of it." He waved at the paved surface ahead of them. "The road's a lot safer."

While Spock used the track in the Enterprise's gym on a regular basis and was aware that Jim did the same, it took several minutes for them to find a pace that both were comfortable with. Spock was reasonably certain that he had the greater endurance, but it seemed that Jim's preferred speed was nearly seven-tenths of a kilometer faster on a per-hour basis, and eventually they settled at a point roughly halfway between the two. Spock was aware that he would not be able to maintain that pace for his usual distance, but the maximum the doctor had specified was acceptably less.

The road they were on was clearly intended to be used by old-style ground-based vehicles as much as standard flighted personal craft, but despite the fact that their run took them past two more properties similar to Jim's in the first three kilometers, no vehicles of any sort passed them. "The others who were working at the school yesterday, do they not live in this area also?" he asked. "I had assumed so, but I see no evidence of such." He could not take the walks that he and Jim had made as an indication of anything given that even those that hadn't been made at night had been across private fields, and he had no reason to believe that anyone else who lived in this area was as casual about their use as Jim.

"In the area in a general sense, yeah, but not so much right around here. There are a couple housing clusters north of the transit point we used yesterday, that's where most of that crowd came from, but really the majority of people on this side of the Rift live over on the opposite side of the school. And on this side of town they're all on the other side of the Rift." He grinned. "It's kind of a weird breakdown, but it's mostly got to do with who commutes to the shipyard for work and who stays local, and my place isn't really convenient for either." He jerked a thumb over this shoulder. "That was my aunt and uncle's house we just passed, and the Thompsons' old place was the one before that, but it's been...I don't know, ten years since anyone's lived in either? Maybe a little longer than that now. The houses are on the town records as available for habitation, but I kind of doubt it'll ever happen."

Something about his timeline seemed questionable, but before Spock could consider the matter further they reached the bridge that Jim had spoken of. As noted it was an actual bridge, one that would accommodate ground-based vehicles as much as the paved paths did, and as such it had appropriately heavy guardrails on either side. By his estimate this would have been the crossing they'd have used if they'd followed his directions from the bar to Jim's house, but despite his renewed concerns about distance, Jim turned off onto another road at the first intersection they came to.

This road was larger and there were more signs of habitation along it: another pair of houses in visibly better repair, and three personal vehicles that passed them as they ran.

Jim turned again half a kilometer after the second house, this time onto a packed dirt road barely half as wide as the paved one that ran in front of his house. Despite Spock's concerns given the earlier reference to mud and rodents it seemed relatively solid under their feet, although it and the land around it began to slope gradually upward almost immediately, and plants taller, albeit weedier, than the majority of the groundcover he'd seen thus far were breaking through the rough surface.

Additional even taller plants became visible in the distance, and while they were rapidly approaching the halfway point of the doctor's limit, before he had to say so the road opened abruptly out into a rough patch of gravel that dropped off on the far side into an oddly circular lake. By Spock's estimate the surface of said lake was at least two meters below that of the packed gravel, blocked in all around with additional walls of rock, and while Spock could not say so definitively, the path seemed to run the full distance around with the largest plant life on the opposite side. He tilted his head as he looked out at the blue surface. "While it is not my area of expertise, this appears deeper than a lake at this location should be, geologically speaking."

"That's because it used to be a limestone quarry." Jim rolled his shoulders, stretching his arms above his head before dropping them again and stepping closer to the edge. "Closed I don't even know how long ago now, but that's still the only way anyone refers to it. If you dive deep enough you can still see some of the old machinery at the bottom."

"I see." They were at their destination, then, and the distance had indeed been acceptable.

Jim pulled the two hydration packs out of his belt, holding one out, but his posture made Spock suspicious enough that he did not step closer.

"What?" Jim asked.

"You appear to be plotting, and I do not desire to be the target."

"Would I do something like that?"

"Provided that there is no potential for actual harm, certainly. I am aware of who attempted to enter my name in the poker tournament Lieutenant. Sulu organized last month."

"Well, you have the best poker face on the ship, how could you not have been planning to enter?" Jim protested.

"Quite easily given that participation was voluntary." Fortunately Lieutenant Sulu had recognized that while Spock was typically willing to 'complete the table' if he wasn't otherwise occupied when a game started in the officer's lounge, it wasn't an activity that he actively sought, and thus it was only appropriate to directly confirm his interest before assembling the brackets.

Jim shook his head and then tossed the second pack over. "Oh, fine. I wouldn't actually try to push you in, anyway. Especially not from here; you'd have me in the dirt long before we got to the edge."

"You are correct, and yet that changes nothing of my opinion."

"Wait, you can swim, right?" Jim asked, looking back again as Spock tore the pack open. "Or is the temperature the problem?" He frowned as he scanned the lake. "It doesn't look that cold."

The light breeze off the water, even with the surface so depressed, indicated that Jim's opinion and his own likely diverged on the matter, and Spock raised an eyebrow. "Your assertion is both less than specific and less than reassuring for several reasons, most notably the difference between our resting body temperatures and the fact that temperature as a whole is rarely distinguishable by visual examination. However I did complete all required survival training at Starfleet Academy. Including the water course."

"Wow, that is officially the most expressive non-expression for 'and hated every minute of it' that I have ever seen."

"Illogical."

"Uh-huh. Why? It can't just be temperature-based since I know they offered thermal suits, and somehow I don't see you being afraid of lake monsters."

While Spock obviously did not 'hate' water, it was true that he would not choose to immerse himself if other options were available. Unfortunately in this instance Jim seemed inclined to wait for an answer, and after eighteen seconds he determined that he would be required to either provide one or find an effective change of subject. Nothing currently presented itself. "It would be illogical to fear that which are nothing but figments of typically-human imagination," he relented, "but as I'm sure you are aware, Vulcan was a desert planet. Regardless of temperature, the fact that I am capable of keeping myself afloat in a large body of water does not make the need to do so in any way desirable." New Vulcan had a somewhat higher percentage of surface water in comparison so it was possible the next generation of Vulcans would have differing preferences, but he did not see his own changing.

"All right, fine." Jim finished his own hydration pack and tucked the crumpled wrapper back into his belt before holding up his hands. "I promise, if Bones does drag us down here—he swims most mornings as long as it's warm enough, although I don't always come with him—we won't try and pull you in with us."

"Your assurance is appreciated." He drained his hydration pack as well and then tilted his head. "Is it acceptable for him to swim here alone? My understanding is that swimming without a companion is always considered inadvisable for those not naturally equipped with gills, and while I am aware that the doctor holds several shipboard records for water-based competitions, I am unfamiliar enough with the skills in question to accurately extrapolate what that might mean in terms of safety."

Jim rocked a hand. "It's borderline, which is why I usually tag along even if I'm not planning on doing any laps myself, but he's also got a seriously fancy rebreather setup and is always tied into the local security network so even if he did get into trouble he'd have help pretty quick. Mind he still pitches a fit when he hears about me swimming alone, but that's Bones for you."

"If either of you wishes to swim, I have no objection to accompanying you," Spock decided. "However, I will remain out of the water unless my assistance is required."

"Noted."

"The doctor was some form of competitive swimmer prior to joining Starfleet, correct?" Spock asked after a moment. That had been the impression that he had received when Dr. McCoy—typically as much a spectator as himself in physical competitions aboard ship, albeit a far more vocal one with regards to predictions of probable injuries—had put his name on the sign-up list, but while his placement in those competitions had led to the captain selecting him as his backup for the mission on Nibiru, Spock recalled no specific details as to how he had garnered his experience.

"Yeah, he pretty much grew up racing and then kept at it through his first couple years of undergrad too. He quit after he got married, but it's still his preferred form of exercise. Heck, the coach of the Academy team used to let him practice with them when he had the time, although there was no way for him to actually join given the rest of his schedule."

"I was not aware of that."

"Most people aren't." He paused. "Although I guess as long as we're talking about Bones, do you still want to hear about the whole marriage-divorce-etcetera mess?"

Spock had not expected the question, but they were clearly as alone here as they would be at the house, and since some amount of rest would be appropriate before resuming their run, there was no reason not to return to the subject. "If you have determined what is permissible to share without violating the doctor's confidences, I would. However, if you have not or have determined that it is preferable that I ask him directly, that response is also acceptable."

"Well, I pretty much just asked him—messaged, anyway—and his response was a less than polite version of 'Tell him what makes sense, I'm just glad he asked you and not me,' so going through it before he gets here is probably for the best." Jim shrugged and moved to sit on the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake, letting his legs dangle.

Spock hesitated for a moment, but since Jim was now aware of his preference with regards to large bodies of water it seemed safe enough to take a seat. In retrospect Jim's actions with regards to the doctor made perfect sense; Spock had asked Jim rather than Dr. McCoy for precisely the reasons he'd stated yesterday, but as their conversation had then turned to other topics, requesting confirmation from the subject in question in the additional time available had been entirely logical. Of course, given the very different relationship between himself and the doctor, it was almost certainly for the best that the captain had been the one to ask.

"So general framework, he and Jocelyn—his ex—met in undergrad at the end of his second year and her first," Jim said, picking up a handful of the gravel between them and digging through it absently. "I don't know too many details, but from what little he has said it was pretty much a textbook whirlwind romance."

"Definition required: whirlwind romance."

"Uh, like everything is real intense and moving fast right from the start, even though the people in question don't actually know each other all that well?" He flung a few bits of gravel outwards into the water. "I mean, I'm basically the last person in the universe who has any business lecturing anyone else about taking it slow, but I'm also not looking for anything serious, and I sure as hell don't hide that. Them, they were sharing an apartment within a month, he proposed on New Year's Eve, and by the beginning of the next summer they were married."

"As I am unclear on the parameters of a typical human courtship, can you further elaborate on the impropriety?" He and Nyota had talked several times about the specifics of their situation, but it was by definition unique.

Jim tossed a few more pieces of gravel away. "It's not that it's improper, exactly, it's just…. Okay, how does dating work for Vulcans? Or at least whatever the dating equivalent is when telepathy gets involved?"

"There is no equivalent, and thus I can offer no comparison."

He frowned. "Well, there's got to be something, otherwise how do you decide who you're going to marry?"

Spock hesitated. The Vulcan system of partnering was so foreign as to be irrelevant in comparison with even what little he had learned of human customs in his time with Nyota, but with Jim it was frequently easier to answer a question rather than attempt to redirect. "You will recall that when I spoke of Sybok I said that his mother and my father had been betrothed as children?"

"Yeah, sure." His eyes widened. "Wait, that's how it works for everyone?"

"Yes."

"But that's not—that can't be right for you, can it? I mean, unless you skipped something about the whole penpal situation, you and Uhura aren't betrothed."

"I did not, and we are not. As a child, however, I was betrothed to a Vulcan girl determined to be an acceptable match by both my parents and her own."

"Huh. So what happened? I mean, if it's okay to ask."

"The question is inoffensive in this instance, although nothing of the sort should be asked of a more casual acquaintance. As stated I was betrothed, but when I chose to enlist in Starfleet, T'Pring requested formal dissolution of the bond."

Jim blinked. "Seriously? Why? 'You can't get married if you join Starfleet' seems like a really weird requirement or limitation or whatever to put on people."

Also an impossible one given Vulcan biology, and Spock shook his head slightly. "The request was specific to our situation. As T'Pring had no desire to leave Vulcan, she cited my choice to do so as proof that we were an illogical pairing." He paused. "Also, while I cannot speak conclusively on the private affairs of any other, it is likely that the other Vulcans who enlisted had discussed the situation with their bondmates or prospective bondmates prior to doing so and had come to an acceptable resolution. I at no point initiated such a conversation." In truth he had given T'Pring no thought whatsoever when he'd been considering his options.

"Oh." Jim winced slightly. "So you two already weren't exactly the world's best match, then."

"'Best' is subjective, but in abstract your assessment is exceedingly accurate, and as such I offered no objection to her request."

"Right." Jim blew out a breath and let the remains of his handful of gravel fall into the water. "Okay, so definitely scratching any possible comparison with Vulcan not-dating. But it's not…like I said, what they did wasn't really improper. They were both consenting adults, and by that measure they could have moved in together the day they met or gotten married that night if they'd wanted to. It was just fast in comparison to how a relationship that serious would usually progress." He smiled. "I'm going to say that being penpals with someone for a year before you figure out that you're living on the same damn campus is going a little far in the other direction, but in roughly the same amount of time that you and Uhura spent talking before considering a relationship at all, they'd met, moved in together, gotten engaged, and were within a couple weeks of getting married."

Spock blinked. Aligning the timelines in that matter did clarify the situation somewhat. Even now while he desired Nyota's presence in his future and was aware that her preferences were the same, they also remained in agreement that they had not yet reached the point of full formal commitment.

"And to be clear, it's not that whirlwind romances can't work. You'd be better off talking to someone who's actually been there about some of this, but from what I understand it's just a lot more effort because you're suddenly, well, married, and yet there's still all this stuff to work out that you never talked about and maybe didn't even know about each other." Another quick grin. "Hell, another point of comparison, I've known you for as long as they'd known each other by then, and I just found out that all I have to do to piss you off is shove you in a cold pond."

"Obviously I would not subscribe to any such emotion, but I will still state that for you to attempt to carry out an act of that nature would be an exceedingly poor choice."

"Uh-huh." Neither Jim's grin nor the fist that knocked against Spock's arm lightly was in any way reassuring, but his amusement disappeared again when he resumed speaking. "Regardless, with them things kept going fast, and a year later Joanna was born. This is speculation on my part, but I don't think that was exactly planned since Jocelyn still had a year of undergrad left and Bones was going to med school in the fall, but even with medical science being what it is, it happens. So Bones went ahead and started, but Jocelyn took some time off, and from what he said things got rough pretty much immediately. No idea about Vulcan medical school, but on Earth it's pretty notorious for how much time it eats up, and you know what Bones gets like when he's focused on something. With a couple of specialties on top of regular classes and residency coming right afterwards, he wasn't all that present for literal years—and that's coming straight from him, for the record—and then right when things should have started to ease up his dad got sick. He's never said much directly about it, but I gather the situation was pretty brutal, and since you won't hear him mention anything about his mom or any of the rest of his family after that, I have a feeling there was even more ugliness happening behind the scenes."

"While training for Vulcan healers is also known to be both physically and mentally taxing, and those who choose that path typically forgo other commitments until such education is complete, I require additional clarification regarding both 'brutal' and 'ugliness,'" Spock said after a moment.

"Um, for the first, maybe drawn out? Painful, and I don't just mean physically. There's a reason that surgeons aren't supposed to operate on their own family members, and I suspect that's supposed to extend to hospice-level care too, especially when it drags on for months on end. I know that's when he started drinking, or at least drinking a lot more than he should have, and that didn't help with being there for Jocelyn and Joanna either. And for the second…." He blew out a breath. "I don't talk to my family because I only know where one of them is, and the once a year I comm and every second or third year she answers is already more than enough for either of us. But that's not Bones; if he hasn't talked to his mom or his cousins or anyone else in years you know something bad had to have happened, even if I've got no clue what it might have been."

That was a logical conclusion, although Jim's offhand admission about his own family was curious enough to warrant further examination.

"So his dad finally passed away, and then barely a month later Jocelyn filed for divorce," Jim continued. "I guess by that point it had just been too much, which as much as I hate admitting it I can almost see, but the timing was obviously awful, and the crap she pulled with Joanna was even worse. She insisted on primary custody, which he didn't fight since she'd always been the one who'd stayed at home with her, but then she kept right on pushing to try to block him from visitation rights, too. And when the courts refused to grant her that, she did her best to make things as hard on him as possible. She wouldn't pick Joanna up or drop her off at his apartment even though he was supposed to show up at their house on demand, wouldn't make any alterations for his schedule even though she expected him to accommodate any and every change she requested, and then on top of that she was constantly dragging him back to court with complaints. Where he lived, even though she was the one who'd made him move out, what he fed Joanna when she was with him, how much help he did or didn't give her with her schoolwork—and we're talking barely elementary school here—if you can think of anything even vaguely worth complaining about she probably brought it up. All of the court dates made it difficult for him at the hospital just schedule-wise, and then when she started making accusations about his drinking, too...it never came to anything, but after a while it got to be too much, and eventually when Starfleet came knocking, he gave in and said yes." He shook his head and then scooped up another handful of gravel and threw it out into the water with significantly more force than he'd used previously. "Enough clarification on 'messy' and-or 'bad'?"

"Quite sufficient. And also quite unacceptable." While he might find Dr. McCoy frequently unnecessarily emotional, he had never had cause to doubt the care that the man showed his patients, and the likelihood that he would show his daughter any less was beyond improbable.

"Not gonna get an argument from me." Jim sighed. "Hopefully he and Joanna will get a decent amount of time to talk today, though, especially since she's getting old enough that her preferences have to be taken into account even if Jocelyn's still saying she's too young to be put on a shuttle alone."

For lack of any other response Spock nodded, and after a moment Jim dusted off his hands and then pushed himself back to his feet.

"You ready to head back? I think I'm starting to get hungry."

"Breakfast would be appropriate at this juncture."

"Want to race?"