Archive of Our Own

“Sensors are picking up unusual power fluctuations from the fourth planet,” Spock said, barely glancing up from the display readout he was studying. The Enterprise eased further into the system, past a cluster of dwarf planets crowding the blazing sun at its center and making for the only M-Class planet they had picked up for light years. There was no guarantee it wouldn’t be hostile to human life, either due to the environment itself or whatever fauna resided there, but the hope that finally they would find some sort of reprieve was palpable on the bridge.

Even Jim, who continued to refuse counseling, seemed to relax his shoulders ever so slightly as the blue-green orb filled the view screen.

“Is it likely to pose a threat?” Jim asked, glancing at Spock, then back to the potential oasis before them.

“Unclear. I will continue monitoring.”

Bones looked down at his own display and toggled it from its usual monitoring of the vitals of the bridge crew – particularly Jim – to the system map Sulu had hastily labeled. The fourth planet was one of the dwarfs, one of the few with any atmosphere that might have been safe for them if it hadn’t been so close to the sun. What could be hiding there, Bones wondered, and would it leave them alone?

He hoped it would, at least long enough for the crew to have some Shore Leave. If the M-Class planet was suitable.

“Coming into orbit, Captain,” Sulu said, tapping at his console and easing them into a stable orbit before leaning back in his chair and breathing out a deep sigh.

They were all just so tired.

Bones had read about a new tech being experimented with for long, uninterrupted space journeys. Holographic technology that could simulate things in such detail they would almost seem real. He’d been skeptical at first, wondered how that could ever be a replacement for a proper trip planetside. Now, though, he wished the Enterprise had access, that they wouldn’t have to trust this unexplored rock with their sanity.

“Spock, McCoy, I want analyses of the atmosphere and any potential threats and hazards within the hour,” Jim said.

Spock’s “Aye, Captain,” was muffled as he bent to work. Bones just nodded and stood, heading for the turbolift to go down to Sickbay, already considering which analyses he had time to run and what would have to be sacrificed for speed.

Nobody talked about space madness these days. Starfleet had so many bases and outposts and allied planets now that it was becoming rarer and rarer for ships to be out too long without a chance at rest.

But as the flagship, the Enterprise pressed ever further into the unknown and the increased delay time when contacting Starfleet combined with fewer safe ports of call were taking a toll.

Bones checked the vitals of his sedated patients as he strode through Sickbay to his office where a PADD of notes from Doctor M’Benga waited on his desk. He sat, shifting the PADD aside to look at later, and brought up the data on their M-Class hope on his desk display.

It wasn’t ideal. The best options for beaming down were either in the middle of a desert on one continent or winter on the other. Spock’s notes made it clear that much of the terrain was otherwise water or mountains with elevation well outside of any of the crew’s tolerance, not to mention an active volcano that made a rain forest in the southern hemisphere a risky last resort.

Bones sighed and marked the northern continent as the best option. The fauna that sensors were picking up there was more manageable – and Bones assumed that any that wasn’t was likely hibernating or migratory and safely south. Maybe in that rain forest. Still, they wouldn’t know for sure until an away team beamed down and did a more thorough examination of what they found there.

Bones typed his recommendations up quickly and had the computer collate them with Spock’s to be sent to the Captain.

LANDING LOCATION:

• N. Hemisphere. Continent experiencing winter. Temperatures well within acceptable range.

AWAY TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Spock and myself are best suited to assess the situation planetside and determine if planet is suitable for Shore Leave.
• Recommend no more than two security personal to mitigate possibility of prematurely raising hopes OR causing jealousy.

OTHER NOTES

• While planet is not ideal, if it is found to be safe, I recommend allowing Shore Leave to proceed before crew morale is further impacted.

With that done, Bones sat back and picked up the PADD from M’Benga, settling in to read the most recent psychological assessments of the crew.

Spock compared his planet assessment with Dr. McCoy’s as the computer prepared them for the Captain and saw that they were in accord. He pressed a final button at the computer’s prompting, then turned his chair to face Jim.

“Planetary analysis ready, Captain,” he said. Yeoman Rand handed Jim a PADD and the Captain sat back and quickly read through the analyses and recommendations. He huffed out a breath as he finished, handing the PADD back to Rand.

He didn’t look at Spock when he spoke.

“I’m going down with you.”

“That is inadvisable, Captain. Until we are certain of the safety of the planet, you should remain aboard.” It was illogical to have this conversation in front of the crew, but if Jim insisted, Spock had little choice but to articulate the concerns inherent in allowing the Captain to beam down to an unknown planet before a proper survey had been completed.

It wasn’t the first time Jim had forced this conversation at an inappropriate moment, and it likely wouldn’t be the last, but Spock would continue to point out the logical flaws in Jim’s insistence that he should accompany all away teams.

Especially now.

Spock had no idea of Jim’s official medical and psychological assessment – as far as he was aware, Jim was avoiding both – but he could tell their long months in deep space were starting to affect Jim as much as anyone. He considered sending a discreet message to Dr. McCoy concerning the issue when Yeoman Rand handed Jim the PADD again, her soft voice carrying across the bridge as she spoke.

“Message from Doctor McCoy, Captain,” she said.

Jim was clearly reluctant to take the PADD, but he did so and read whatever appeared there, his brow furrowing in a scowl that led Spock to the conclusion that the Doctor had anticipated that Jim would insist on joining them for their preliminary exploration of the planet and had used his status as Chief Medical Officer to document a formal recommendation against such a course of action.

Excellent.

That would save Spock from being forced to engage in a useless and illogical argument with Jim when energies were better spent preparing for beaming down to the surface.

He stood. “Permission to begin landing party preparations, Captain,” he said. It was rare these days that even he maintained strict formalities, but given the current level of crew morale and particularly given the current level of Captain’s morale, he deemed it to be a reasonable precaution against further damaging the psychological well being of everyone on board.

Jim only gave him a curt nod, and he left the bridge, creating a mental list of next steps as he entered the turbolift.

His first stop was at Sick Bay where he found Doctor McCoy sitting at his desk. There were a few sedated crew members in Sick Bay proper, their monitors beeping steadily as they were forced to rest. The Doctor had a PADD on the desk in front of him, but his eyes were closed and his head was tilted back to rest on the back of his chair.

“Are you quite all right, Doctor?” Spock asked as he stood in the office doorway.

McCoy didn’t open his eyes, just gave a soft grunt. “I’m fine, Spock. It’s just been a long few days.”

Spock considered pedantry in response – it was likely expected. Days were only ever the same length, especially aboard Federation Starships which maintained a strict Earth schedule of 24-hour days. But given the concerns McCoy had shared with senior staff regarding the length of time the Enterprise had spent in deep space and its affect on the crew, Spock decided to refrain from the usual banter for now.

“Would you prefer to select a different member of your medical staff to accompany me for this mission?” he asked instead.

McCoy snorted and sat up, raising an eyebrow as he met Spock’s gaze. “Who else would I pick?” he asked. “We’re all running on fumes and I’m not making anyone do anything I wouldn’t be willing to do myself, so I may as well do it.” He blew out a breath and stood. “Besides, I’d much rather find another Science officer to accompany me.”

“I’m perfectly capable of participating in an away team, Doctor.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem. You’re just as susceptible to space madness as the rest of us, you just hide it better.”

Spock was taken aback by this. He had never considered that McCoy was as worried about his psychological well being as he was about everyone else’s, and while he would not show it nor voice it nor let it linger in his mind for too long, he found he was startled by the concern. “Vulcan meditative practices make that quite unlikely, Doctor,” he said after a moment.

“You think that, but you’re also half-human. Even if your Vulcan brain can handle it, that’s no guarantee the human side isn’t slowly wearing down.” McCoy was quiet for a moment, then blew out a long breath and flicked his eyes away. “Besides,” he added, voice much quieter now, “Vulcans were emotional once, too, weren’t they?”

The way he said it, Spock could tell he didn’t expect an answer. He knew as much about Vulcan’s history as had been shared with the Federation, but he also clearly assumed there was more to it than that. And while he was right and his decision to bring the topic up did force Spock to pause for thought, he wasn’t going to share anything specific. Instead, he only straightened his posture and moved the conversation along to the next topic.

“Do you recommend enviro-suits for this mission, Doctor?” he asked. McCoy rounded his desk and the two of them strode together out of Sick Bay and into the corridor. It was quiet, unsettlingly so for the time. More and more crew were being removed from duty and ordered to rest and relax as much as possible, but Spock knew as well as McCoy that it was a stop-gap measure and the only thing that was really going to help was getting some time off-ship, preferably planetside.

Which was what brought them here.

“Atmosphere reads breathable with no indications of toxins or anything else to be worried about,” McCoy said as they stepped into the turbolift and directed it to the transporter room. “I do suggest we take oxygen packs just in case, but a full suit is probably overkill. I already let Scotty know to have four prepped for us.”

Sure enough, they stepped through the doors to the transporter room, they found not only their two security personal – Lieutenants Wilder and Ford – waiting for them but also four oxygen packs ready on the pad.

“Are you ready, lads?” Scotty asked as the four of them geared up and took their places on the transporter pad.

Spock noted that Doctor McCoy seemed less concerned about making the trip than he usually was. He had been traveling in space for years now, and Spock found it fascinating that he continued to be unnerved by transporters. It was illogical, Spock mused as Scotty began entering coordinates and preparing to initiate the transportation process, for Doctor McCoy to remain in his position while distrusting one of the most important pieces of technology available aboard a Starship. Certainly, the Doctor had explained his opinion in great detail to Spock and Jim – often after consuming an inadvisable amount of alcohol – and Spock understood how the Doctor’s internal logic had been developed on the subject, however he still found it perplexingly human of Doctor McCoy to persist in both traveling in space and disliking transportation technology.

As the familiar sensation of the transporter began to envelope him, Spock considered that perhaps he should conduct a research project on the contradictions of the human mind. Doctor McCoy, he mused, would be an excellent observational subject.

Jim did not like remaining behind.

He understood the importance of his survival, understood why his two best friends and all of his senior staff insisted that he went on too many away missions, but he also needed to be in control of the situations most likely to affect his crew. And away missions quite often affected his crew greatly. And this particular away mission was likely going to affect them more than any had in a long time. Not to mention potentially establishing a Federation safe haven on the very edges of explored territory, giving reprieve to future ships and crews who had spent too long in the black.

So it wasn’t that Jim didn’t trust Spock or Bones, it wasn’t that he thought they needed him in anyway, it was only that he was the Captain and this was crucial and he should have been with them to see it through.

“Away team to Enterprise,” Lieutenant Wilder’s voice came through the ship’s speakers, sudden and tinny.

“Report,” Jim said immediately.

“Captain, it’s Lieutenant Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy,” Wilder said, and Jim couldn’t be sure the crack in his voice was the communicator’s connection or a spike of anxiety. Or both. “They’re gone, Sir.”

Jim sat up, leaning forward in his chair. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“They didn’t make it down with us. We were all in the Transporter room, but only Lieutenant Ford and I made it to the surface.”

“Understood. Make a survey of the area to the best of your abilities and be prepared to return to the Enterprise within the hour, regardless of what you find.”

“Understood, Sir.”

Jim cut the Comm and then switched to an internal channel, his entire body tense as he spoke in clipped tones. “Scotty, where are my second in command and my ship’s doctor?”

“I don’t know, Captain,” came Scotty’s lilting voice. “According to all my readings, they should be standing right next to Wilder and Ford.”

“Find them, Mr. Scott.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Jim sat heavily back in his chair, pressing his hands to his thighs as he went over everything he knew and everything he didn’t know. His best friends were somewhere out there in an unknown system on an unknown planet, alone, and until he knew more, there was little he could do about it.

“Yeoman?” he said after a moment. Rand stepped up beside him and waited. “Are the more in depth analyses of the planet ready?”

“Some of them, Sir. Anything that can be assessed using only sensor data.”

He held out his hand and she set the PADD in it, already open to the first of many – but still far too few – reports.

It wasn’t what he would have preferred to be doing, but it was the only option he had at the moment, so he read.

Mariana stood in the darkness, relishing in it. She had spent her life in the halo of a sun, bright and hot and seen forever. Darkness was new it was different it was amazing. She shifted, feeling a body for the first time. She had created it to be bipedal, like her guests, and she wondered how they could stand such limited existences. Still, it would have been rude to greet them in her true form. Rude and fatal. For them. And she didn’t want to hurt them. She hadn’t had visitors in eons, and none such as these before.

As they had approached her dollhouse, she’d peeked at them and the knowledge they carried through space and created a place for them.

And then they had come to her.

Bones sat by the fire, pipe in one hand and a mint julep in the other, watching the flames lick up into the chimney. He could hear Spock moving around in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on supper, and he waited quietly to be called to eat.

He didn’t know what day it was or what time it was beyond that it was supper time and that bothered him, but only long enough for him to notice it at all before fading back into the background. Here, in the quiet, gazing into the fire, he could almost hold onto that feeling of not-quite-rightness, and he tried to keep focused on it as he worked to remember where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing.

Because he certainly wasn’t supposed to be here, living in quiet domesticity with Spock.

Except wasn’t he? Wasn’t this their life? This was the life they’d built together on this little farm in the middle of nowhere, just the two of them and acres of quiet. Wasn’t it?

Except it wasn’t and he knew that it wasn’t but he could never hang onto that knowledge and it was so frustrating.

“Dinner is ready, Doctor,” Spock said, appearing quietly in the doorway.

Bones stood with a groan and stretched, setting his pipe by the ashtray on the mantle and turning to follow Spock, who was already starting back towards the dining room where a table much too big for just the two of them was set with a modest meal: a pot of Spock’s specialty vegetarian chili, some fresh made bread, and mashed potatoes.

Bones took his seat across from Spock, watching as the other man spooned potatoes and chili into his bowl.

“Why don’t you call me Leonard?” Bones asked as he accepted the proffered ladle and began to serve himself. “We are married, after all.”

Spock raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “If that is what you would prefer, Leonard.” He paused for a fraction of a second before saying the name and that was enough time for the wrongness to catch up to Bones again and he suppressed a shudder at how his own first name sounded coming from Spock.

It didn’t make sense, he thought as they quietly ate. They were married. Had been married so long he was having trouble remembering the exact number of years. Why should Spock saying his name feel so unnatural?

“Doctor,” Spock said after a few minutes of silence, setting his spoon aside and steepling his fingers before him as he gazed at Bones, who didn’t correct him on the address this time. “Are you feeling quite well?”

Bones nodded, then shook his head, then shrugged. “I think so? I just feel like I’m missing something, like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is.”

Spock gave a slow nod, then flicked his gaze to the window, looking out at the red reach of the setting sun. “I have been feeling the same way,” he said. “I believe that we were in the middle of something important, but every time I start to focus on it the thought is gone.”

Bones frowned. “Do you have any theories?”

“It’s been difficult to formulate them in any great depth, but I have considered a few possibilities. The most obvious, of course, is that something is exerting control over our minds.”

“But why?”

“That I have not been able to consider in detail.”

Even as they spoke, Bones could feel the topic sliding away. The more he tried to focus on it, the more difficult it became until they both returned to their meal in silence, no sound but the clink of spoon against bowl and the quiet sip of drinks.

The Doctor was sleeping, a peaceful form lying still and breathing deeply on the far side of the bed from where Spock sat, slowly rocking in a chair. He was turning over the events he could remember in his mind, comparing them – much to his chagrin – to how he felt about them. Because the fact of the matter was, he knew that he and the Doctor were husbands, could remember the wedding and the years building a life together, but he didn’t feel anything connected to those memories. He felt no more affection towards Doctor McCoy than he ever had – which was more than he’d ever admitted, even to himself, before now, but not that of a lover.

Or, he supposed, not that of a human lover.

He could remember his parents, how his father had expressed affection for his mother. He remembered that he was not fully human and considered that this must be why it was marginally easier for him to hold onto their reality than it was for the Doctor. Some difference in the way their brains worked, whether chemical or physical, made it possible for Spock to remember the truth for longer.

And the truth was.

The truth was…

He felt a headache pulsing against his temples and let his eyes fall closed, pressing his fingers to his forehead as the darkness behind his lids eased the pain.

The truth was, they were trapped somewhere somehow by something and whatever it was was adapting to his mind.

They had to escape soon.

Why, Mariana wondered, why do they resist me so? Aren’t we having fun?

“We’ve still had no sign of them, Captain,” Scotty said, leaning against the back of the chair at the bridge’s engineering station. “We’ve tweaked the sensors every which way, but there’s not hide nor hair of anyone save Wilder and Ford.”

Jim frowned. “Have you picked up on anything, Mr. Scott?”

“Aye, just this. That energy reading Mr. Spock was picking up from the fourth planet? It’s directional, and you’ll never guess where it’s pointed.”

“Our M-Class salvation?”

Scotty nodded. “Don’t get your hopes up yet, sir, but we’ve started trying to probe back along the energy itself, see if there’s something there that might give us a clue.”

“Very good, Mr. Scott. Keep me apprised.”

“Aye, Captain.”

It wasn’t their first kiss (it was their first kiss), so Bones couldn’t figure out why it felt so awkward and uncomfortable (it wasn’t supposed to happen like this). A kiss in the morning as Spock was leaving for town to buy some supplies, a regular every day occurrence (it was supposed to be different). Now that Spock was gone and Bones was alone, though, he found himself dwelling on the unsettling feeling crawling over his skin. He tried to keep busy – read up on patient notes for the people he was meant to pay visits to later in the week – but he couldn’t focus on anything except the feel of Spock’s lips on his, the taste of him. How rigid he stood.

And how none of it had felt natural.

They were husbands, damn it. Kissing was supposed to be the most natural thing in the world.

Except nothing about that had felt natural.

He’d acted on impulse as Spock had bid him goodbye, leaning in as he passed to press a quick peck to Spock’s lips. Spock had stood frozen for its brief duration and Bones himself had felt…

Well, frankly, he’d felt foolish. Like an anxious teenage boy in an old Earth drama, going in for a first kiss with a girl who wasn’t interested.

Except we’re married, he reminded himself, shaking his thoughts away and forcing himself to reread the patient notes still open on the desk in front of him.

But it was no use, all he could think of was Spock and the kiss and this niggling in the back of his mind dwelling on the fact that he had been wanting to kiss Spock lately, but he’d been working on a plan so what just happened didn’t happen except now it had and he needed to figure out how to keep Spock from ever mentioning it again.

If this gets back to Jim…

Jim! With a start, Bones stood, sending his chair clattering to the floor. His entire body felt hot and cold all at once as he struggled to hold onto that thought, the thought of Jim. His best damn friend in the universe and he’d gone and forgot about him?

It was difficult, the name, the person, all those memories, it was all already slipping away from him. He grabbed a pen from the cup on his desk, turned to a blank page in his patient notebook, and managed to scribble Remember Jim before an excruciating headache welled up behind his eyes and sent him stumbling to the bedroom to collapse and sleep.

And dream of space.

Spock did not go to town to get supplies, mostly because he hypothesized didn’t need to. On the days when he had, he remembered little of the trip and still had all of the food and necessities he’d set out to get. He had started to consider that perhaps there was no town. It would make sense, if this was, as he theorized, a construct. It would cost a significant amount of energy just to keep up their house and the control of their memories, particularly with the constant need to re-cloud his own. It would likely be a waste to construct an entire town and all of the people who would have to populate it as well.

No, much easier to send Spock out, tool about in his head a little, then send him back after a sufficient amount of time with precisely what he’d gone for and the memory of visiting.

But this time, he would remember what actually happened. He’d gone to the barn and sat meditating. He’d been focusing on meditation since he concluded that something was being done to their minds, creating a pocket within his own mind that would remain untouched regardless of outside influence. It was a difficult task and he found maintaining it now was made more difficult by his own foolish weakness, namely his inability to stop thinking about the Doctor’s kiss.

It was the first romantic human kiss Spock had ever experienced – nothing like the ones his mother had insisted on pressing to his temple or forehead when he was a child – and he found it perplexing. Not only the kiss itself, this ritual of pressing lips together had always seemed rather strange to him, but the fact that he was dwelling on it.

Spock was Vulcan, he had mastery of his mind and his emotions, he did not dwell.

It was, he concluded, most likely a side effect of whatever was controlling their minds. He did not like not having control over his mind and he focused more fully on his meditation, settling himself into that corner of his mind that whatever had created this place could not touch.

When he emerged, he would remember not going to town. He would remember not purchasing supplies. He would remember, most likely, that very little time had actually passed since (the Doctor kissed him) he left. And he would be able to examine new data and come that much closer to understanding where they were and how they could escape.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about lips touching his.

“Captain, we think we’ve found something,” Lieutenant Uhura said, turning from the Comms station where she and Scotty had been comparing readings.

Jim stood and walked up to join them, looking at Uhura’s display as she pointed out precisely what she was talking about.

“It isn’t just an energy reading, it’s a signal. Something or someone is sending information from the fourth planet to to the one we beamed down on.”

“How is that possible? According to sensor readings, there are no known forms of life that could survive on the fourth planet.”

“What is it Mr. Spock likes to say, Sir?” Scotty asked, a wry grin tugging at his lips. “This must be life as we don’t know it?”

Jim wanted to glare at him, but he had a point. “Can you find the frequency and send them a message of our own?”

“Already tracing it Captain.” Uhura turned back to her station, immediately refocusing on her work.

Mariana heard the knock on her door, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t need any more guests, she had the perfect number and they were proving most diverting. The knock came again and she slammed her own fist against the door as hard as she could, intent on scaring these interlopers away.

Uhura let out a sharp gasp and pulled her earpiece from her ear.

“What is it?” Jim asked, pacing back towards her.

“I don’t think they want to talk,” she said.

“Reopen the channel, let me speak to them.”

Bones dreamt of Jim’s voice.

“I don’t know who you are, but you have taken two of my crew and I demand you return them at once. They are Federation officers and holding them against their will is an act of aggression against Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets.”

Jim’s voice broke into Spock’s isolated corner, strong and confident.

“We know you are located on the fourth planet in this system and we know you are using some sort of communication device to interact with the M-Class planet my crew was exploring. If we interrupted your business, we apologize, but you must return my people.”

Mariana screamed.

“Captain, the fourth planet’s got seismic activity popping up all over it,” Scotty said. “I don’t know if it can hold together very long at this rate.”

Bones’s head ached as he woke with a start. Spock was shaking his shoulder and pulling at him, forcing him up and out of bed with one hand. The other clutched Bones’s notebook, opened to the page where he’d written Remember Jim. He definitely remembered Jim now as he followed Spock through the house. It shook around them, dust falling from the ceiling, and it was clear the structure wouldn’t last very long. They stumbled together down the stairs and out the door just as the entire building fell into a ruined heap on the grassy hill.

Except it wasn’t grassy anymore, Bones saw. It was icy and cold, frozen all around them. He shivered, struggling to sit up. He’d been half-buried in snow. Spock was next to him, also stirring and pushing himself up out of the mound that had tried to claim them. Bones grabbed his tri-corder and scanned first Spock, then himself.

“There’s no sign of frostbite or hypothermia,” he said, putting the tri-corder away. “But we’re going to have to get back to the Enterprise soon or—”

“I just wanted to play.”

The little girl who came out of the snow was barely there, more hallucination than person. She was wearing a sun dress and no shoes, but didn’t seem bothered by the snow.

“What was that?” Bones asked, standing slowly and reaching out to her. “Play with what?”

She giggled. “You, silly. You were going to be my dolls. Just for a little while. But the sky-voice said I have to give you back.”

Behind him, Bones could hear Spock trying to contact the ship. He heard the blips and crackles of the communicator, heard Spock’s requests that they be beamed up, but there was no response.

“Well, we’re people, not dolls,” Bones said, trying to keep his voice light. “You have to ask before you play with us and, uh, you can’t keep us forever. Especially buried in the snow like that, it could hurt us.”

The girl frowned, looking down at her feet, which didn’t seem to make any indents in the snow beneath her. “What’s snow?” she asked.

“The white stuff we’re standing on. It’s very cold and our bodies can’t handle that for a long time.”

The girl looked back up at him. “I don’t have snow,” she said. “I’m hot all over, that’s why I had to build my dollhouse here. My dolls don’t like heat any more than you like...snow.”

Bones furrowed his brow. “Who are you?” he asked.

“She,” Spock said, giving a strange emphasis to the word, “is the fourth planet.” He came up beside Bones. “Let us go back to our ship and we may be able to negotiate some dolls for your house.” He held up a hand when the girl – the planet – grinned at him. “Temporarily, of course.”

The communicator beeped.

“Are you not going to avail yourself of the Shore Leave opportunity, Doctor?” Spock said. He had come to Sickbay for reasons he was not yet ready to admit to himself and now stood in the door to Doctor McCoy’s office, watching him work on his own report of what had happened to them on the planet’s surface.

The fourth planet – who called herself Mariana – had carefully constructed the perfect little play rooms for every member of the crew. It wasn’t entirely real, but it was also completely real, which was fascinating psychologically and was rapidly solving their issues with Space Madness.

But neither Doctor McCoy nor Spock had gone back down.

“I think I had enough Shore Leave for the next ten years, Spock,” the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair and looking up to meet Spock’s gaze. “I read your report,” he said after a stretch of silence.

Spock didn’t answer, only raised an eyebrow and waited.

Doctor McCoy sighed and stood up, draping his hands behind his back as he rounded the desk and came to face Spock. “You left a few things out,” he said. “That’s not like you.”

“They did not seem pertinent to the mission.”

McCoy nodded slowly, considering. “Why did she make us married?” he asked, voice soft, eyes fixed just below Spock’s gaze. “What did she see in our minds that made her think that was the reality we wanted?”

“What makes you think—”

“I read your report,” McCoy repeated, flicking his eyes up to meet Spock’s now, his expression fierce. “She was in our heads, Spock.” He stepped closer, their bodies so close Spock could feel the heat of him. “She knew…some things.”

“She may have,” Spock said. He could feel his heart speeding up and willed it slow, but then the Doctor reached out and held up two fingers and waited and Spock’s damn half-human heart wouldn’t calm itself and besides.

She had seen some things, hadn’t she?

Spock brought up his own hand, meeting McCoy’s two fingers with his own.

“This isn’t how I meant for this to start,” McCoy said softly.

“But this is where we are.”