0Title: A Plan in Motion (1/3)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Unbeknownst to the men of the Enterprise, the women are plotting.
Or read at AO3
“There’s a word for what they are.”
“Idiots?”
Seated at a table in a corner of the Officers’ Mess, two female officers smile at each other knowingly.
A third woman joins them. “Did I miss something?” she wants to know.
“Nothing which can be repeated without sounding like mutiny,” Nyota tells Christine. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you later. Did McCoy hold you up again?”
Christine rolls her eyes. “For all that he is a genius and damn good doctor, he can be a child. And who said I have to be his mother?”
“At least you literally don’t have to follow him around reminding him to eat,” Janice offers. “I feel like ‘yeoman’ is a fancy term for caretaker.” She sighs. “I just don’t see why I have to be the one stuck with the job.”
Nyota stirs her coffee. “Normally yeoman to the Captain would be considered an honor, except in your case—”
“Kirk,” the women say in unison.
An ensign casts a curious glance in their direction. Nyota stares him down until he retreats to the opposite side of the cafeteria. Then she turns back to her companions to resume their conversation.
“I tried to visit Spock before alpha shift. He wasn’t in his quarters again.”
Christine’s eyebrows furrow with concern. “Something must really be bothering him.”
“But I thought Vulcans didn’t need as much sleep as humans,” Janice says.
Nyota says, “While that’s true, they still take regular rest periods.”
“A Vulcan’s body can fall into a state that mimics sleep,” Christine adds, ” but the mind remains active. It’s a unique form of meditation preferred by their race.” After a pause, she explains somewhat sheepishly, “Geoff and I have lunch together sometimes. He’s very avid about Vulcans.”
Janice plants an elbow on the table and leans forward, clearly curious. “Has he figured out that you like him yet?”
“I don’t!” Christine replies, blushing, at the same time Nyota remarks, “I doubt it. Men are so oblivious. Case in point, why we’re here.”
“True,” concedes the other woman.
Lowering her voice, Nyota motions for Christine and Janice to listen closely. “Speaking of… how is the project coming along? Anything new to report?”
Janice shakes her head. “I made certain the Captain had extra free time but he used it up jogging around the ship. At one point I considered tripping him just so there would be a reason to send him to Sickbay.”
Nyota looks to Christine.
“McCoy’s a little less oblivious than Kirk, I think,” Christine offers. “Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like he plans to do anything about it. I caught him moping in his office but he lied and said he was aggravated about something else. I honestly don’t know what I can do at this point except to tell him to come clean about his feelings.”
Drumming her fingers on the tabletop, Nyota shakes her head. “That would probably push him to isolate the others completely once he realizes he isn’t hiding it as well as he thinks. I say that because I tried to bring up the subject with Spock. That was a disaster.”
“Ugh,” says Christine, “what’s wrong with them? Why are they so stubborn?“
“Again,” Nyota inputs, “they’re men. Short of locking the idiots together in a utility closet, this dance will probably continue until the end of the five-year mission. I’d hate to think of what happens to them after that.”
“It’s too depressing of a thought,” agrees Janice.
Christine looks fierce. “I’d have to resign before I killed them out of sheer exasperation.”
Her companions nod.
Then Nyota sighs through her nose, adopting a grim expression. “Ladies, I now deem this project at critical status. Forget the next stage. It’s time for emergency protocol.”
“Yesss,” hisses the nurse. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Janice straightens in her seat and reports dutifully, “I already bought the supplies at the last starbase. And there’s a group of supporters down in Engineering who would be very willing to help the cause.”
Nyota’s lips begin to curve. “Excellent. Let it never be said this crew doesn’t have the Captain’s best interest at heart—even if it means breaking a regulation or two.”
“Or three.”
“Or ten,” says the yeoman. She sticks her hand out. “To the Captain.”
Christine adds her hand to Janice’s. “To the Doctor.”
Nyota’s hand joins them. “And the First.”
“Battle stations!” they cry together, tossing their hands into the air afterward.
Jim brushes past Leonard on his way out of the bathroom, pulling a small towel off his shoulder.
“Don’t drop that on the floor,” he hears in warning from Leonard.
Jim cuts his eyes sideways, considering for a second or two doing exactly that; but in the end, common sense wins out over his mischievous streak, so he tosses the towel onto the rumpled bed instead. Then he turns in a half-circle to consider the rest of the cabin, wondering where his socks have gone.
Leonard exits the bathroom a moment later, saying, “Just use a pair of mine. Spock probably dumped yours in with the laundry.”
Jim goes to Leonard’s dresser. “What’s his problem anyway?”
“You mean besides the fact he doesn’t like it when you wear your socks twice in a row?”
“Geez,” Jim shakes his head, “he’s such a mom.” Behind him, he hears Leonard muffle a laugh.
“Get your facts straight, kid. He’s a wife, not a mom,” says Leonard. “I would know. I’ve been married.”
Jim turns to face the man, his eyes bright with amusement. “Are you saying we’re like a married couple?”
“In all but paperwork.” With a wink, Leonard moves toward the desk situated on the other side of the cabin.
Jim has to fight off the grin on his face. It turns out to be a lost cause.
“Bones,” he murmurs, sidling up to Leonard’s back and catching the man around the waist. “What would you say if we did get married?”
“I’d say, ‘What does Spock think?'” He paused. “Or maybe ‘Who the hell talked me into this?‘”
“Bones.”
Leonard twists his head around to look at Jim. “You know, we’d shock a lot of people if we did that. No one even knows we’re—”
“Taking care of each other’s laundry?” Jim supplies. “Professing our undying love over candlelight dinners and taking long, romantic walks around the ship while disguising them as business?” His eyes twinkle. “Having sex?”
“Together,” says his partner. “And there was only one candlelight dinner, which will never, ever happen again because you’re a complete disaster around fire.”
“Poor Spock’s hair,” Jim says piously.
Leonard’s teeth sink into his bottom lip.
They catch each other’s eyes and burst out laughing.
The door to Leonard’s quarters slides open, silhouetting for a brief second a tall, familiar figure in the doorway. Spock enters, takes one look at Jim and Leonard—who laugh even harder—and immediately pivots on the ball of his foot to retreat again.
“WAIT!” they cry in unison.
He pauses on the threshold.
“Miss you,” Leonard says.
Spock apparently decides to come into the room after all. He tells them, “Would it benefit me to know why you both are so amused?”
“Were your ears burning?” Jim counters.
Spock gives him a long stare. “Negative.”
“Never mind,” intervenes Leonard. “We were getting ready to find breakfast.”
“Breakfast will be served at the same place it has been served for the past six hundred and—”
Jim coughs loudly and clears his throat.
Spock does not complete his sentence. Instead, he makes a polite offer. “Shall I escort you to the Officers’ Mess?”
“Pretty sure that’s why you came here, hobgoblin.” Leonard runs a hand through his hair, then frowns as if he cannot decide whether that action fixed his cowlick or not.
It didn’t but neither Jim nor Spock would tell him that.
Smiling, Jim hurriedly dons the socks in his hand and searches for his boots.
“Pants, Jim,” Leonard reminds him.
Spock adds, “Also, underwear might be appropriate.”
“I could start a new fashion.” Jim strikes a pose. “What do you think?”
Spock hardly blinks. “That I would be forced to terminate this relationship.”
“Hm,” considers Leonard, cocking his head. “I’m gonna have to go with… Ditto. Seriously, put on your pants, Jim. I’m starvin’.” He heads for the door.
“What’s happening here? Wasn’t I the one who seduced you both?” Jim asks the Vulcan, who dutifully offers him the pants he isn’t wearing.
“I told you, married!” sing-songs Leonard as he walks out.
“Marriage?” Spock questions.
Jim finishes dressing himself and slings an arm around Spock’s shoulders. “I’ll tell you over oatmeal. Just know ahead of time I’m going to need your full support, Spock.”
“You shall have it, Jim.”
“Excellent,” replies Spock’s partner. “C’mon, let’s catch up to Bones before he frightens someone with his early morning bedside manner.”
“Is it any different than his usual bedside manner?”
“Nope,” Jim says cheerfully, and together they leave the cabin, Jim’s arm slipping away from Spock’s shoulders.
“How can they not know?” whispers a petite officer in red to her blonde companion.
From her crouched position, Janice narrows her eyes, tracking the progress of the Captain and First Officer along the corridor. “I don’t know,” she replies. “See how Kirk glows in the presence of the Vulcan?”
The woman observes this phenomenon and nods.
Janice flips open a communicator and activates an encrypted channel. “Captain’s Woman to Enterprise Queen.”
“Enterprise Queen here. What is your position, Captain’s Woman?”
“I have Subjects 1 and 2 in sight. Location of Subject 3 unknown.”
“Understood. Proceed as planned. The Widow-Maker is en route to intercept Subject 3.”
Satisfied, Janice closes the communicator.
“Doctor!” calls a voice. “Doctor McCoy!”
Leonard had slowed his pace over the last few minutes with the intention of letting Jim and Spock catch up to him. But he never expected to have his Head Nurse find him instead and drag him toward the area where people are waiting for the turbolift.
“I’m, uh, on my way to breakfast, Christine,” he tells her. “What’s this about?”
“Oh, pssh,” the woman says. “You don’t want to bother with that. It’s oatmeal today. You don’t like oatmeal.”
But Jim does, Leonard thinks, and shifts uncomfortably on his feet.
Christine’s fingers dig into the man’s arm. “Besides, I need you with me.”
“Now?”
“Right now.“
“I’m sorry but—”
Leonard hasn’t the chance to finish the refusal. The turbolift dings, having arrived, but oddly none of the waiting bodies move toward it. Christine smiles sweetly at Leonard and, to his surprise, steps aside. The group of people move, then, en masse, swarming around Leonard and forcing him to scuttle backwards into the turbolift. The door shuts before he can think to fight his way out.
And that is how Leonard McCoy misses breakfast and ends up in Engineering.
Related Posts:
- A Plan in Motion (3/3) – from March 15, 2014
- A Plan in Motion (2/3) – from March 11, 2014
