Title: Take Us Out (6/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Leonard finds himself in a situation that quickly goes from bad to worse, and it turns out he is the only one who can fix it.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Or read at AO3

My mind to your mind.

Although it is a whisper, an echo mayhap, the Self stirs at the faint resonance, wishing to respond. Yet there is not enough strength to do so. She who is Self, once Nola, remains caught upon an edge, hardly living but not fully dead. What holds her there…

Love, the Self remembers. A thing as cruel as it can be kind.

My thoughts… to your thoughts.

The whispering continues, carrying with it an eddy of curiosity but also of urgency, and she sees it through the mind’s eye like a tiny light in the dark. Sometimes it seems to come closer; at other times it fades.

The Self is tired. The Self wants no more of this lingering. It has made the plea to be released. The one who could let her go has refused to listen. Even making this plea through others, when she could, he refused.

I loved him, thinks the Self, but now this must end. I must end. There is only one way.

She tries to reach again for the whisper. It is moving away, too quickly. The Self begs of it to stay, just to hear her one last time.

Wait!

Stillness.

Then she feels it listening.

~~~

It is too long in Jim’s opinion before Spock surfaces from the mind-meld. When the Vulcan finally does, the news he shares is not what Kirk had hoped to hear.

“I had difficulty in reaching her, Captain. At first I was not entirely certain she was there, that what I sensed was merely an essence set adrift or a lingering imprint upon the mind in which she lived for so long.” Spock seems disturbed.

“But you did manage to speak with her?” Jim questions.

“It is she who came to me,” the Vulcan replies, “and requested that I take her to her husband.”

He must have misheard Spock. “What?”

“Her katra,” Spock says softly, mysteriously, before his gaze focuses inward. “I must think on this, Jim.”

Jim does not know what a katra is to a Vulcan, or to a telepath in general. He trusts Spock, though, and because that is what matters, he agrees, “All right.” In the meantime he will try to think of some other way to improve their situation.

The privacy curtain to Jim’s left ripples and is drawn back to reveal Dr. Ryder. Her attention immediately goes to Jim. “A call just came in, Captain Kirk. I think you’ll want to take it.”

“Where?”

“My office.”

Kirk’s stride is fast enough to qualify as hurried. A tech flattens himself against a nearby wall to keep of Jim’s way. Rounding Ryder’s desk, he punches a blinking button to end the hold-status on the open channel. “Kirk here.”

“Damn it,” he hears the low mutter, “she tricked me. Sulu, c’mere!”

Jim starts upon hearing the voice. His temper rekindles. “McCoy!”

His CMO coughs a little. “Uh, Ji—I mean, Captain. Hi there?”

He clutches the edge of the desk and counts to three. “You and I are going to have a very long talk, mister.”

“Right now?”

“No. Report.”

“Mr. Sulu knocked him out.”

Suddenly Spock is very close to leaning over Jim’s shoulder. “That is indeed welcome news.”

Jim considers pointing out this unusual invasion of personal space to Spock but thinks better of it. He is not the only one who has been worried, even if the Vulcan is better at hiding that worry than he is.

A second voice chirps across the line, “I can’t take all the credit. It was Dr. McCoy who distracted then sedated Auron, Captain. He has been moved to a secure location.”

McCoy mumbles something about having possibly broken their backs in the process and how Betazoids shouldn’t be heavier than Vulcans when they have less bone density.

Jim meets Spock’s sideways glance, the doctor’s rambling turning to noise in the background. “How secure, Mr. Sulu?”

“Locked inside the stolen shuttle.”

“That is hardly secure,” Spock points out. Jim feels equally dismayed.

McCoy comes back at full force, Sulu no doubt wisely having turned the communicator over to the man in anticipation of a fit: “It’s not like this port has a brig designed for telepaths, Mr. Spock! It’s the best we have to work with!”

“Bones, calm down. We know that.”

“Next time you’re the one dragging around an unconscious Betazoid, you get to decide where to put him!”

“You didn’t give me the chance, Doctor!” Jim snaps back, thumping his fist on the top of the desk for emphasis.

A short silence ensues, followed by a stifled noise, like a sigh. “Never mind, Jim. We’re wasting breath. Put Dr. Ryder back on.”

Jim throws out a hand to halt the woman who moves toward the desk. “Not until you promise to let us out of here.”

“It’s not my Sickbay.”

Jim grits his teeth when he recognizes a hint of amusement. His “Bones” is a warning not to try his patience.

“All right, all right. Just let me talk to her.”

Dr. Ryder slips into Kirk’s place as he steps away from the desk. “Ryder here. What do you need, Dr. McCoy?”

“I don’t have enough with me to keep a regular human out for more than a few hours, and I don’t know how that compares for a Betazoid. Can you send someone over with that package from the Enterprise before the hour is up?”

“Are you asking me to lift quarantine?”

“I wish I didn’t have to. There may be a chance you can sneak one of your people out the door before my captain bolts through it like his pants are on fire but it’s a slim one.”

“I heard that!”

“As if you wouldn’t, Jim.”

Jim concedes the point and makes one of his own: “We’ll take the package to McCoy.”

He has nothing else to say to the unhappy silence that greets his statement. Bones should know well enough that Jim intends to win this particular battle.

Dr. Ryder studies Kirk’s determined expression briefly before saying, “If you truly need the equipment, Dr. McCoy, it seems my hands are tied. Just know this, no matter who walks out of my bay… nobody comes back in until it has been proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt the danger is past.”

Jim nods his understanding.

Oddly, McCoy only says, “Spock, I’m counting on you” and ends the call.

“What’s in the package?” Jim asks as Ryder turns to face him.

“A neural inhibitor, among a few other things. Our species may not be physically capable of dealing with telepaths, Captain Kirk, but our medicine is advanced enough to do it for us. Once the rogue is properly contained, I hope you plan to have him transported to your ship. If that’s the case, comm me afterward so I can bring Landres out of his coma.” Her eyes narrow at the two officers. “And be quick about it, will you? This station has already gone too long without its commanding officer.”

Another captain might have bucked at being given orders but Jim promises, “We will.”

That visibly eases some of the tension in the woman. She picks up a hard-shell case by the side of her desk and hands it off to Jim. Spock lifts a hand expectantly. Without thinking, Jim transfers the case to him. He and Spock move for the door.

“You have two minutes, starting… now,” Dr. Ryder tells them as she taps something into the console at her desk and followed by the command “Computer, initiate Quarantine Unlock Sequence.”

Jim doesn’t need to be told twice. “With me, Mr. Spock.”

He is facing the office door, impatiently watching it open much too slowly, when the red alert starts at the back of his neck. Jim looks around but recognizes too late the intent of his First Officer’s uplifted hand. It hadn’t occurred to him to be wary.

“I am sorry, Captain,” the Vulcan says just before pinching Jim at the juncture between shoulder and neck.

~~~

With growing unease, Sulu stares down at the Betazoid tied to one of the bucket-seats of the shuttlecraft. Less than a minute ago, Auron’s left hand had twitched against the armrest. “I hope the Captain and Mr. Spock arrive soon.”

Behind him, Dr. McCoy is rummaging noisily through a container. The man pulls something out, peruses it in the dim lighting for a brief moment before dropping the object aside. He tells Sulu, tone almost absent-minded, “Oh, Captain Kirk won’t be coming.”

Sulu twists at the waist to regard the doctor. “What?”

“If I know how our resident Vulcan thinks—and I do, I really do, god help me—Jim is taking a short nap on one of Ryder’s biobeds right about now.”

“Oh,” Sulu says. Then, “Oooh. So that’s what you meant.”

“Damn right. You see, Mr. Sulu,” the man explains, still sifting through the container, “Spock knows how I think too.”

Sulu can’t help the quirk of his mouth at that. “So you’re admitting that you and Mr. Spock think alike?”

Leonard pauses in his search to look up, the confusion in his face slowly turning to amusement. “Come to think of it, a lot of times we do. Only, I guess we’re more comfortable if we pretend that we don’t. But don’t ever tell Spock I said that. It would ruin the mystery.”

“Of what?”

“A friendship that shouldn’t exist but somehow does.” With a soft smile, Leonard turns back to the container.

Sulu is glad to finally hear the acknowledgement. It means he and the rest of his shipmates are not crazy to believe the CMO and the First Officer consider themselves friends the way that they have become friends with the Captain.

He looks at Auron again, thinking that the Betazoid had never really stood a chance from the moment he absconded with McCoy. It was inevitable that Kirk and Spock would have wanted the man back.

~~~

The shielding is gone, crumpled like flimsy paper at the betrayal of a trusted friend. Jim wakes up with a rip-roaring migraine and spots of light dancing in front of his eyes. He needs only a second to recognize where he is and how he got there. He tears off the sheet covering his body and flings himself out of the tiny bed.

A hand catches his arm to support him when his knees threaten to buckle, its owner saying, “Steady there, Captain. Give your brain time to fully reboot.”

Jim jerks away from the touch with a barely disguised snarl. “How long?”

“Calm down.”

He turns to loom over Dr. Ryder. “How long?“

She meets his fierce stare, hardly cowed. “I said calm down.” She relents. “About twenty minutes.”

Jim has no intention of being calm. He grips the woman by her upper arms, hard enough to warn her his temper is dancing on a knife’s edge but not to bruise. “I am leaving this Sickbay,” he says, emphasizing each word. “If I have to tear out the controls and rewire them myself to override your protocol, then that’s what I will do. You won’t keep me here, do you understand?“

“I understand that you can be fool. You’re a captain. You may not fear to tread the dangerous paths in this universe but others fear it for you, and with good reason.”

“I don’t need or want a lecture from you, Doctor.”

“This isn’t a lecture. It’s a fact. Your crew will always need you alive more than they need you dead. Now let me go.”

Jim does. “I’m not staying,” he reiterates, because despite that part of him knows she is right, he simply can’t.

She shakes her head in disappointment. “I know. I knew it from the moment you said your name. Even the backwoods of this galaxy has heard of you, James T. Kirk.” She heads toward the medical bay entrance, Jim at her heels. “What do you want me to say when your First Officer inquires about your escape?”

He watches her activate a wall panel to reveal a keypad. “Just tell him I charmed you. He won’t pursue the matter.”

Dr. Ryder studies Jim from head to toe, and she doesn’t bother to hide an unexpected but frank appreciation of what she sees. “I believe I would have been amendable to a little charm, Mr. Kirk.”

Jim gives her the look she wants, as well as a promise of “Next time.”

Then, when the Sickbay entrance unlocks and opens, he strides through, stopping on the outside only because Ryder calls his name. He looks back.

“The woman,” she tells him, “I don’t know if it means anything but we’ve had to switch her to full life-support. Dr. McCoy will want to know.”

Somehow, Jim thinks he should know why that is—why now, when she had been hanging on to life for so long—but he does not. In lieu of answering, Jim simply nods in understanding and breaks into a run. As regretful as it is about Nola’s condition, he has so much more to worry about.

~~~

After much searching, Leonard finds what he is looking for. He comes to his feet with a triumphant cry of “Got it! I knew it had to be hidden around here somewhere!”

Sulu holds out his hand in a silent command.

Leonard hands him Yarrows’ missing phaser. In return, which Leonard is not expecting, he is given Sulu’s sword.

The doctor looks down at it, bemused. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Use it if you have to.”

Leonard’s fingers spasm around the sword hilt. “I don’t stab people, Mr. Sulu.”

Sulu gives him a strange smile, as if the man is silently laughing at him. “Just think of it as a very large hypospray.”

What’s that supposed to mean? thinks Leonard, but he keeps his silence. Rationally, he knows he shouldn’t shrug off a chance to arm himself. Auron is going to wake up, and when he does…

The zing of apprehension the doctor feels is forgotten the instant he recognizes the sound of a hatch seal decompressing. Leonard starts for the opposite side of the shuttle, a grin spreading from ear-to-ear. Light filters in through from the outer cargo bay when the hatch finally opens.

The person who greets him is not grinning. Then again, it offends Spock’s delicate Vulcan sensibilities to act as a human would.

Leonard really doesn’t care. “Spock!” he cries, jubilant, for Spock surely is a sight for sore eyes.

The Vulcan steps into the main cabin of the shuttlecraft and, after a pause, pointedly arches one eyebrow. “Dr. McCoy, I would say your welcome seems most heartwarming… were it not for the weapon in your hand.”

Leonard’s face grows hot without his consent. “This old thing?” he jokes, swinging the sword around. When Sulu has to dodge to the side in order to avoid being impaled, Leonard stops swinging the sword and apologizes somewhat sheepishly, “Sorry ’bout that.”

Spock sets a case down at his feet and removes a short-bladed dagger from his belt. He offers it to Leonard with the suggestion “Perhaps we should trade.”

Leonard looks from the dagger to the sword and back again, pursuing his mouth at the insult. “Are you insinuating I can’t handle what I have?”

“I have some training for the heft of such weapons, Doctor. In my studies as a youth—”

“Well, excuse me for not learning how to use a broadsword! I didn’t know it was a requirement to go on an exploration of deep space!”

Before a disagreement can fully blossom on both sides, Sulu steps up and trades out the weapons on their behalf. Dagger now in hand, Leonard hmphs and puts his back partially to Sulu and Spock. He sticks the infernal thing into the loop sewn into the waist of his pants which is normally can be used to attach a medkit.

Sulu offers Spock his sword belt then indicates the white metal case. “The supplies?”

“Affirmative.”

“Give that here!” Leonard demands. He doesn’t wait for Spock to act, instead skirting the Vulcan to pick up the box-like case for himself. It’s lighter than he expected.

Spock shifts his stance just enough to draw Leonard’s attention. “I have a grievance I must address with you, Dr. McCoy.”

“It can wait.”

Much too solemnly, Spock agrees, “It must wait.”

Leonard’s look turns knowing. “Don’t worry, hobgoblin, I get it. Once we’re away from this godforsaken outpost, you can kick up a fuss. Until then, I need you.”

Spock inclines his head ever-so-slightly. “And how may I assist?”

Leonard clears a spot on the floor and sits down, leaning over to open the case in front of him and examine its contents. “Can you check him, Spock? Tell me how much time we have left before he’s awake and aware. I don’t care if it’s a guess.”

“Yes,” murmurs the Vulcan. “We must connect to him.”

It seems strange to Leonard that Spock used the plural ‘we’ in that context but he shrugs the detail off in the next moment, spying exactly what he has been waiting for as he opens a compartment within the medical case.

The Vulcan kneels before the Betazoid bound to one of the passenger seats and arranges his fingers along the psy-points of Auron’s cheek, nose, and temple. While Leonard watches from the corner of his eye, Sulu slips wordlessly into a position where he cannot be easily seen in case the Betazoid wakes up.

All seems calm and going according to plan until Spock jerks his hand away from Auron’s face as if he had just stuck it in hot water. His eyes squeeze shut, and his posture turns to ice.

Leonard has a moment to fear the Vulcan isn’t breathing. “Spock?” He starts to get up.

“Careful,” Sulu murmurs from nearby.

To show how careful he plans to be, Leonard loads a hypospray with a vial with the same of neural inhibitor he had once injected into Jim and goes to Spock. His hand hovers just above the Vulcan’s shoulder. Spock may no longer be touching Auron but it is obvious something is happening which Leonard cannot see. Afraid he might distract Spock but also afraid he might have lost Spock too, he whispers the Vulcan’s name.

When Spock’s eyes open, they are focused on nothing in particular. “Doctor…” The normally cool voice is a stilted rasp. “…do not…danger…you must run.”

Run? Yeah right.

Leonard turns to Auron, aiming his hypospray for the curve of the Betazoid’s left bicep—

—and has his wrist captured fast by his Vulcan friend. He drops the hypospray in surprise.

“Spock, what’re you—?”

The doctor cuts off his own exclamation with a pained gasp. Spock’s long, graceful fingers tighten viciously around his wrist, causing the fine bones to grind together. Leonard tries to pry himself loose with his free hand before something breaks.

“Sulu!” he cries. “Sulu, stun him!”

“You’re in the way!”

Hoping Sulu knows he means the supposedly unconscious Auron and not Spock, Leonard grits his teeth, loops an arm through Spock’s and plants a boot against the bottom platform of the passenger seat, shoving himself and the Vulcan backward with all his might. They hit the floor on their backs and roll sideways.

Unfortunately, whatever is fighting for control of Spock is terribly angry. Spock’s opposite hand shoots out to grab Leonard around the neck, and it hurts. Leonard drags in a desperate breath, eyes watering as he hears the whine of Sulu’s phaser. To his utter surprise, the shot goes wild over Auron’s head, and the wall of the shuttle absorbs the blast of energy.

Leonard puts his knee into Spock’s solar plexus and manages to free himself enough from Spock’s attempt to pin him down to twist around so he can make eye contact with Sulu, thinking How in the blazes could Sulu of all people miss?

What he sees is not Sulu holding the phaser. It’s Jim, with Sulu laid out cold at the captain’s feet.

Leonard has to swallow sudden despair.

“Hello, Doctor,” Jim says, and he’s smiling.

Spock lets Leonard’s throat go as if on command when Leonard suddenly goes limp and says thickly, “No, no.” Leonard wants more than anything not to believe what he has already guessed to have happened.

“You… you son of a bitch—get out of him!“

“Imagine my surprise when the good captain shows up, too distracted by his own pain to even recognize that I had just infiltrated his mind.”

Leonard’s heart clenches in his chest but it’s Spock who gasps like a drowning man coming up for air. The Vulcan drops fully onto his side, fingers splayed against the sides of his head.

For a moment, Leonard wavers with indecision. In the end, he turns away from Spock and struggles to his feet, his abused wrist held stable against his chest. “Let them go!”

Kirk’s thumb changes the setting on the phaser. “I don’t think so, Dr. McCoy. First, I am going to kill you. You betrayed me.”

Leonard can’t breathe.

“Then I will kill that Vulcan. Do you know what he did?” Kirk’s voice trembles for a second. “He defiled my wife!“

Slowly, Leonard slides his un-injured hand toward his side.

“Once I have ripped him apart from the inside-out, then, oh then,” Auron says, twisting Jim’s mouth into a sneer, “I am going to make fine use of this captain you hold so dear.”

Leonard doesn’t bother to think about what he does next. He simply does it because he must.

Kirk—Auron—screams when the dagger sinks into the flesh of the still-seated Betazoid’s outer thigh. Jim’s eyes roll back in his head, and he falls into a slump next to Sulu. Auron has lifted his head, mouth open wide in a cry of pain he didn’t voice himself. His entire body spasms, jerking against the metal binding him to the seat.

Leonard pulls the dagger out of Auron’s thigh and raises it, shiny with blood, to tuck just under the bastard’s chin. “You won’t do anything,” he says, his arm shaking just like his voice. “You won’t dare.”

Auron half-laughs, half-sobs in front of him. “I never thought—you would kill me, truly?” He sounds so surprised.

Leonard drops to one knee and lowers the dagger. “No,” he confesses. “I couldn’t.”

He leans down far enough to retrieve his fallen hypospray. “But it ends here. I’m going to recommend in my report that you be neutralized for the rest of your life.” Having delivered that final judgment, he injects the entire dose of the hypospray into the Betazoid’s arm.

For a surreal length of time, it seems, Auron’s unforgiving gaze stays locked with Leonard’s. In the moment before Auron’s body shudders and those eyes glaze over from the effect of the drug, Leonard hears a whisper in his head. It is not Auron, and it thanks him.

Afterward the Betazoid is but a dim pinpoint of light in his own dark eyes, and Leonard sags against the seat, near to weeping. It is almost a full minute before he is able to compose himself and crawl over to Spock. The Vulcan is already trying to sit up, having come back to his senses. Leonard helps him, though he is unable to look at the confusion on Spock’s face for any lengthy period of time, and explains, “It’s over.”

~~~

Jim and Sulu do not wake up until after the emergency transport to the Enterprise. By then, Leonard has given over their primary care to his medical staff, having been assured by a pale-faced Spock that there should be no lasting damage to Jim’s mind because it was only that Jim was weaker than Auron at the time from an energy-drain that he could not break Auron’s control. (Spock never does explain the particulars surrounding that energy-drain, or exactly what happened in his personal struggle with the Betazoid.) Once satisfied everyone is on the road to recovery, Leonard retreats to be alone. He puts himself on report for the violence of his actions. Somehow, and to his disapproval, that detail never makes it to Starfleet Command. Instead they call him a hero. Leonard honestly feels like the farthest thing from it.

He finds out during a de-briefing with Dr. Ryder that Nola died not long after her husband’s capture. It is her fate, Leonard will come to terms with later, for which he feels most responsible. In the end, he never managed to save her. Spock may say otherwise, that Nola went where she wanted to be, but the reservation in his eyes agrees with Leonard.

None of them can know for certain, from start to finish, if they always did the right thing.

~~~

Spock is more of a forgiving soul than most. Or perhaps it is just the Vulcan’s lingering sense of guilt which prevents him from bringing up that ‘grievance’ with Leonard. Whatever the reason, their peculiar relationship recovers fairly soon in the wake of their misadventure. Leonard is just glad to have Spock acting like himself rather than a violent stranger, so he considers their mutual agreement to not talk about it until we can believe it never happened as a win.

Predictably, Jim is a tougher sell on the method of letting things go. Because Leonard aches to have everything back to normal so he can feel normal again, he comes to the conclusion he’ll just have to butt heads with the stubborn man. It’s the only way.

It is Nurse Chapel who, upon reaching her daily tolerance for Leonard’s restless meandering from one end of Sickbay to the other, makes the suggestion that Kirk could use a check-up from his personal physician in the form of a house call, especially given that Kirk never goes back to the med bay once he is declared fit to return to duty. Recognizing a good idea and a dismissal, Leonard digs out an unopened bottle from his small collection of medicinal brandies, signs himself off-shift, and goes in search of the wayward man.

Now he stands outside of the captain’s quarters pondering what Jim’s reaction will be when he asks to come inside. With a soft sigh, he figures he has no choice but to find out, because even if Jim isn’t feeling charitable, come hell or high water Leonard will always be a friend to him. It’s a failing of his, he supposes, to be that doggedly loyal.

Pressing a button, Leonard waits until he hears a familiar “Kirk here” to say, “Care for some company, Jim?”

There is a bit of a silence afterward; then Jim replies, “Come in.”

That silence tells Leonard he ought to be on his best behavior. He stops just within the threshold of the outer cabin to wait. Jim rounds the partition that separates the sleeping area from the work and social portion of the room and comes to a halt. His narrowed gaze barely lingers on Leonard’s face before dropping down to the bottle of brandy cradled in Leonard’s hands. Without a word, Jim strides to a tall built-in cabinet and retrieves a pair of shot glasses.

He puts them down on a nearby table, not patient enough to wait for Leonard to uncork the bottle before he asks, “Do you think you can bribe your way back into my good graces?”

“No bribe here, just a drink,” Leonard replies. “One I need.”

He pours himself a glass and, following a moment’s hesitation, sets the bottle down for Kirk to pour his own. Then Leonard pulls out a chair and sits down, drawing his shot glass close to the edge of the table.

Jim continues to stand, arms crossed and expression hinting at reproach.

“What do you want?” Leonard asks the man at last, suddenly without a desire for the amber liquid he thought he had wanted. “An apology?”

“That would be a start.”

Leonard looks up to meet his friend’s gaze. “Well you’re not getting one.”

Something like surprise comes into Jim’s eyes, there and gone with the next blink.

“I won’t apologize,” explains the doctor, “for pulling you out of the line of fire. I won’t ever apologize for that, and I can promise you I will do it again if I get the chance.”

Jim closes his eyes. When they open again, they are filled with resignation. With a sigh, Jim jerks out a chair for himself and drops into it. “I might have known you would say that.”

“You should know,” agrees Leonard. “I’m a doctor—your doctor, in fact. If I don’t try to keep you alive however possible, I am not doing my job.”

Jim shakes his head slightly. “Bones…”

Leonard leans forward, intent. “What? You don’t like it that I’m not letting you get away with being mad anymore? Well, you can’t stay mad, Jim! You’re gonna hurt us both.”

Now Jim does look resigned, as well as a little put-out. “Three days, Bones—it’s only been three days. Couldn’t you have given me until the end of a full week?”

Pursing his mouth, Leonard sits back and scoops up his glass. “No,” he says succinctly and swallows a mouthful of brandy.

Jim picks up the bottle, pours himself a generous amount into the empty glass by his elbow, then reaches out and tops off Leonard’s drink. “You used to respect my temper. What’s changed? Am I getting too old?”

Leonard smiles behind the hand holding his shot glass. “You’re getting smarter, that’s what.” Feeling more content than he has in days, he offers, “It’s not so bad, really. You can still be mad at Spock.”

The corners of Jim’s mouth lift slightly. “I already forgave him. He came by yesterday.”

“What?” The drink in Leonard’s hand hits the tabletop with a thunk. Indignant, he starts, “Now wait just a… You forgave Spock before you forgave me?“

Jim smirks at him and takes a sip of brandy.

Leonard goes on for a full minute about how outrageous it is for a Vulcan who nerve-pinched his superior and is not a better friend to Jim than Leonard is gets to suffer one day less. He winds down only when he realizes Jim hasn’t said anything and settles for glaring at his captain in a way that has been known to give unsuspecting ensigns heart-palpitations.

Jim lifts his shot glass in a toast. “To our friendship,” he declares.

Leonard transfers his glare to the shot glass and grudgingly lifts his own, echoing, “To friendship.”

They both toss back the remainder of their drinks.

Leonard sniffs and stares at the fuzzy spot on the wall, musing aloud, “That simple, huh?”

Jim nods, short and decisive as always. “Yup. More brandy?”

Offering his empty glass to be filled, Leonard decides to accept this olive branch of Kirk’s for what it is. But even so, a mild itch of suspicion settles between his shoulder blades and stays with him long after the evening is over.

~~~

M-class planet, Maltoa, three months later

The Enterprise engages in a lazy orbit above a lovely blue-green-and-violet planet. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to the surface to meet with a friendly tribe of people to discuss a recent pest problem. Said people take an immediate liking to Jim, for he is clearly a man of authority, and give him many gifts and blessings. Jim makes no secret of enjoying their attention.

On the other hand, Leonard is bored to tears within two days of being planet-side, so naturally he leaves Jim amidst a sea of admirers to tag along with Spock on a scientific outing through the local flora. Even more naturally during that outing, Leonard tries to relieve his boredom by provoking the Vulcan into one of their favorite arguments. That day, Spock does not require much provoking. (It could be he is as bored as Leonard.)

Later, the Commander will say it is entirely Leonard’s fault that they end up walking headfirst into a trap which should have been as obvious to them as the noses on their faces. Well, Spock doesn’t put it quite that way but Leonard gets the gist of the accusation. And he will refute it, of course, loudly and publicly to the amusement of the occupants in a mess hall.

But back to the planet.

To both officers’ relief, Leonard and Spock’s third companion (however distracted he may have seemed by his worshippers) finds them in record time. Leonard expresses how happy he is to see Jim by demanding, “Get us outta here!”

Jim looks at the trap, then looks at his friends in the trap and smiles. The Maltoan party which had followed Jim through the jungle in the hunt for Jim’s errant servants start to smile too, though more dumbly and with more complacence. Until that day, Leonard has never considered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of the sort of Kirkian smile currently aimed at him.

Someone sidles up to Jim with a deep bow and that afternoon’s latest gift. “Ah, yes,” says the starship captain, accepting the proffered headdress from the Maltoan with thanks. He settles the feathery affair on his head and looks, for all intents and purposes, like King of the World.

Which he might be, according to a current side-conversation between two natives that Spock’s universal translator is decrypting at a snail’s pace.

“Jim,” Leonard says sharply, giving a futile tug at the wooden bars of his cage, “tell these fluffle-heads to let us out of here!”

“No worries, Bones,” Jim remarks absently, making a slow study of the jungle around them.

“Captain, Dr. McCoy and I wish to be released.”

“Hm,” says Jim, still smiling. He compliments the natives on their craftsmanship.

Leonard begins to realize Jim may be up to no good. “You’re going to let us out, aren’t you?”

“All in good time,” his friend assures him.

Spock looks like he needs half of a second longer than normal to compute that statement. “Excuse me? Sir, I must protest any delay—”

Jim turns away before Spock finishes speaking, looking very interested in what his newest buddy with bone-rings in his nose and paint on his chest has to say. Spock’s eyebrows form an angry v-shape, which is a rare thing, and that makes Leonard slightly nervous to be within arm’s reach of him.

“I have a plan!” Jim declares suddenly, waving his hand at the Maltoans as if issuing an imperial command.

A heavy-muscled native makes his way to an old-fashioned pulley contraption half-hidden among the leafy growth around a tree and tugs at the vines like they are ropes. The cage creaks and groans under the combined weight of Leonard and Spock but miraculously rises an inch off the ground.

Jim cranes his neck back slightly to look up as the native pulls on the vines and the cage imprisoning his two officers ascends into the air. “Good news, Spock, Bones. The Chief assures me that the creatures raiding their village are in fact very short and unable to climb trees. You’re in a perfect position to be our lookout!”

“What?” Leonard cries, rocking the cage. “Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind!”

“Doctor,” Spock interrupts quickly, “please desist before you aggravate the delicate balance of the vines and the limb above us. While I have no desire to remain here, I also do not wish to meet the ground abruptly.”

“Oh, can it, Spock!” Leonard snaps back. He notices the people below them are moving away into the jungle. “Jim! Jim, you blasted devil, where are you going!” When his bastard of a captain keeps on walking, Leonard gives up with a huff and sits down. “I can’t believe this.”

Spock takes a moment to observe their surroundings through their new aerial view before he settles down beside Leonard with a decidedly despondent “Nor I.”

Leonard frowns and crosses his arms. “I think I know what this is.”

“Please enlighten me.”

“It’s an old saying, Spock,” he explains, keeping his eye on a distant flash of Starfleet gold among the expanse of green. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.“

Spock looks at him for a long moment, then turns his gaze aside. “I see.”

A bird with colorful plumage lands on top of their cage. Leonard eyes it distrustfully, wondering if he can poke it with a finger and come away unscathed, until sudden inspiration strikes.

“Spock,” he says, growing so excited he can barely get the words out, “I know we had bad reception on the ground, but do you think you can communicate with the Enterprise from up here?”

“I could try,” concedes the Vulcan, drawing out his communicator.

“Tell Scotty to beam us out—no, no—tell Scotty to move us to Jim’s tent. I want to see his face when he arrives back at the village only to find us playing chess and drinking all his wine.”

“You do not play chess.”

Leonard flaps that remark away. “Irrelevant. Now hurry up!”

Spock flips open his communicator, much less hurried than Leonard would like him to be. As Spock is scanning the available frequencies for a clear channel, the undergrowth around the bottom of the tree from which they are hanging rustles. Leonard leans forward for a better look.

“I believe I have it, Doctor. Spock to Enterprise…”

Something pops out of the brush. It warbles, peers up at Leonard and grins, displaying a wide array of sharp teeth. Leonard recognizes it as one of the ‘pests’ they had come to help the villagers deal with.

“Come in, Enter—Doctor?” asks Spock, looking down at the place where Leonard’s fingers have suddenly twisted themselves into the sleeve of Spock’s Science blue tunic.

“Uh, Spock, didn’t Jim say they couldn’t climb?”

“They?”

Leonard points to the thing, joined by a circle of three warbling mates, which has attached itself to the trunk of the tree and is, without a doubt, climbing up to get them.

With a quick flick of his finger, Spock changes the frequency on his communicator. “Commander Spock to Captain Kirk.”

“Hey there, Spock,” Jim answers, sounding entirely too smug. “How’s it hanging?”

“Captain,” the Vulcan replies in his serenest voice yet, “the natives were incorrect. It does climb trees.”

Leonard leans over Spock’s arm to add, “You’d better be coming back right now, Jim.”

The response they receive is a string of Klingon curses and the promise “On my way. Kirk out.”

The End

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