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thelordofdarkreunion · 3 years

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Family Business II

A follow-up to “Family Business.” More family, more Scoundrel shenanigans. If you want to see anything in particular or have any requests, feel free to tell me! As usual, no one except Drake belongs to me.

“I bring peace through superior firepower.” -Thomas Drake

After introductions were made, the various Scoundrels mingled throughout the room, speaking with the families of the only two among their number that really had them. Many of them knew that Kirk had a family, somewhere, and that his upbringing was quite good, especially compared to most of theirs, but he never spoke of them, and they never asked. Shepard stood near his mother, who was currently shooting ‘we’ll talk later’ looks in his direction. They were deep in discussion with Kirk, apparently speaking of the various intricacies and differences between the Starfleet and the Alliance Navy.

Vir was next to his parents, talking politely with Cooper and Quill. Solo and Cain stood in the middle of the room, holding drinks and generally mingling, but not speaking to anyone. Solo did this out of habit; he really had no desire to speak with anyone, and in most of the parties he went to, talking with others was a good way to die quickly. Old habits. Cain looked completely at ease, not wishing to speak with anyone. He found tensions flared quickly with the people of these new galaxies when they asked about the Imperium of Man. Best not to upset anyone.

To the surprise of every person present, a group of Vir’s nieces and nephews had immediately gravitated to the Chief. One of them grabbed him by the hand and outright insisted he come with her. Currently, the massive armored form of the Master Chief was sitting next to a gaggle of children as they played some sort of game. The more talkative were babbling to him as he simply sat, almost unmoving, watching curiously. The children thought he was great. Here was an adult that actually listened to them! It also helped that he was wearing a very cool set of armor. Children were odd like that, thought the Chief to himself. He didn’t have much experience with them, but he’d heard stories.

Thomas Drake found himself face to face with Thomas Vir.

“Thomas. A pleasure to meet you.” He stuck out his hand. Vir took it.

“And you as well, Thomas. A good name, Thomas.” Pale skin met black leather. Vir looked up, puzzled. He half-held a slip of paper to the light, slid to him during the handshake. Before anyone else could notice, Drake moved forward. In a completely unobtrusive and natural movement, he lowered Thomas Vir’s hand into the shadows.

“Don’t speak. Look natural. Talk to whomever you wish after this, but still, act natural. I know you can. In several minutes, excuse yourself. Go to the bathroom, and if there isn’t anyone there, look at the note. If there is, go in a stall, wait for them to leave, I care not. After this, quietly and unobtrusively tell them the contents of that note, and make sure they keep it a secret.” Drake flashed a grin. Vir looked worried. He’d been a part of things like this for far too long, and wanted to put it behind forever. “Relax, Thomas. It’s a party.” Drake made a move to pull away. Vir stepped forward to block him.

“Why me?” he hissed.

“Because I trust you to know what you’re doing. You and your father are the only ones with the skills to do this and do it correctly. There’s more to us than meets the eye, Thomas.” With a wink and swirl of his coat, Drake disappeared into the talking throng.

Twenty-ish Minutes Later

“So. You’ve been stationed aboard my son’s ship?” asked Martha Vir. Admiral Vir himself stood nearby, ready to quell any arguments about to start. He’d learned from almost bloody experience that the Imperials did not initially get along well with the citizens of the other galaxies, and vice-versa. He tried not to think of the beginnings of Imperial propaganda he’d seen springing up on his homeworld, and the people who might accept it… But he knew his parents wouldn’t. They were better than that. And, from experience, so was Cain. The Commissar stood across from Adam and Martha, resplendent in his dress uniform and far too much gold lace.

“I have indeed,” replied Cain. Gloved hands covered a glass of some sort of alcohol. He had no idea what it was, but if he wasn’t put in these new galaxies to sample all their drinks, then what was he here for, Throne-dammit? “It is a fine ship.” He pursed his lips, considering for a moment. “Very new, a bit small compared to most of the battleships I’ve been on, but a wonderful ship nevertheless.”

“Small? It’s one of the biggest ships in the galaxy!” teased Martha Vir. “Tell me. What’s the largest in yours?”

“I am by no means a naval expert, so I wouldn’t really know,” offered Cain apologetically.

“Nonsense! Give me your best guess,” insisted the Vir matriarch.

“From what I have heard amongst the naval officers and Astartes personnel I’ve had the pleasure of serving alongside, I believe the largest would be the Gloriana-class battleships assigned to some of the Space Marine chapter fleets,” said Cain.

“How big are they?” asked Admiral Vir, his personal and professional curiosity piqued.

“Gloriana-class battleships are extremely rare… and are usually about twenty kilometers long.” The silence was deafening.

In another corner of the room, Thomas Vir spoke with his father. He had discreetly gone around the room and passed on Drake’s message. It had been simple, two lines of pencil scrawled on a tiny piece of paper.

Do not speak of Eris. Do not speak of Adam and Sunny.

Thomas was an intelligent man. He realized the tensions between these new galaxies, but only now did he understand their full extent. If Drake had sought to warn them already, even against members of his own group… well. That wasn’t good. The bigger question was: how did he know, and what was he going to do?

“What do we do, Dad?” asked Thomas Vir. His father considered for a moment, frowning.

“I’ve talked to all of these people your brother works with. Especially that one.” He pointed to Cooper, currently speaking with Quill in underhanded tones. “He’s fine. Special forces. Seems like a good enough person. But the one who gave you the message…” he trailed off. He sighed and closed his eyes as he remembered. “I met a man like that once. During the war.” Thomas kept quiet. His father rarely talked about his time serving in World War III. “We saw him around occasionally. He said he was a clerk. He wasn’t. It was too obvious. He never had the skills or temperament of one. But no one ever asked, because there was something about him… some core of sheer violence behind his eyes that everyone knew they probably wouldn’t be around long if they questioned him too much. Some sort of special forces. Or a spy. We never really knew. But him,” Vir’s father nodded over to Drake. “He’s like that. He’s dangerous.”

“What about everyone else?” asked Thomas, not wanting this opportunity to go to waste.

“The other two that scare me are him,” he pointed to Cain and the golden Aquilia on his cap, “For obvious reasons, and him,” he pointed to the massive armored bulk of the Master Chief, “For also obvious reasons.”

“So why are we letting them play with the kids?” muttered Thomas. Indeed, both the Master Chief and Thomas Drake were over in the open space to the side of the ballroom entertaining the children. Thomas Vir and his father watched with slight trepidation, and, in the other corner, Han Solo, with amusement.

“And then James said he’d go with me and then we did and it was awesome! And there was a big hill and we played king of the hill and I won but I still rolled down the hill because that was fun and have you ever done that?” asked one of Admiral Vir’s nephews, continuing his story. Master Chief regarded him with solemn eyes behind his golden visor.

“I have,” he said shortly. Although, not in the particular way the child was thinking. There was a lot more gunfire and explosions involved.

“Great! So then after that we went near the river and we-” The Chief tuned him out for a moment. It wasn’t to say that the children were boring, but he was just so miserable at this party. He had no idea what to say to the adults, and the children had already grabbed him to make him sit with them. There was some sort of paper decoration on the top of his head, put there by one of the children. He didn’t move to take it off. It would fall off, eventually, when he stood up. He had run through every conceivable situation he could think of that resulted in the room being attacked, and gone through each combat simulation in his head. Twice. He had gone through what might happen if one of the wait-staff was hostile. Or one of the family members. Or the children. He looked down at the small boy, still babbling to him about things he did last week and how the starship ride to this planet was so cool. So, probably not the children. He couldn’t help it though. He was built for combat, built for death. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing here.

“Why do you wear gloves?” asked one of the children to Drake. Another, her cousin, older and much wiser, tried to sush her.

“You can’t just ask people why they wear what they wear!” she said to her cousin. Drake laughed. You could fool adults, you could fool super soldiers, you could fool demi-gods, but you couldn’t fool children. Somehow, they always knew. He knelt down to the youth and removed his gloves by the fingers; first the right, followed by the left. In the corner, Solo watched with fascination. Come to think of it, he’d never seen Drake without his ever-present black gloves. He’d never thought about it until now, but it was rather strange. Even when eating, Drake never took them off. Why?

The two children recoiled, the younger with a slight shriek at the sight of Drake’s ruined left hand. The third and fourth fingers, along with the flesh beneath, were horrifically burned. The right side of the hand, fore- and index finger along with the thumb, were normal, unmarred flesh, though a shrapnel scar ran down the edge of the thumb. The smaller child stared at the hand in horrified fascination, as one might look at a particularly dangerous animal in a zoo.

“Don’t stare,” said her cousin. Despite her warning, she, too, was sneaking peeks at the burns. Drake chuckled at them again.

“It’s alright,” he said. He took his right hand, scarred, but not horribly burned as his left was, and traced the edge of the burn marks. “I look at it, sometimes. It’s interesting. Like a science experiment. Here,” he beckoned the two closer. “It’s really interesting, actually. Look at the contrast between the burned side and the regular side.”

“What is… contrast?” asked the younger one, her mouth still trying to frame the unfamiliar word. Drake smiled again.

“Contrast means difference. You’re learning about burns, you’re learning about words. You must be smart. I can tell that.” The two children watched in fascination as Drake told them about burns, what they did to the skin, and how to treat them.

In the corners, Solo and the Virs watched the two men, one a super soldier with an admitted zero amount of social skills, one a very dangerous gun for hire, play with small children, and did it well. Interesting.

Ten Minutes Later

It was with a not insignificant amount of hassle that everyone was seated. The children were at a smaller side table, talking amongst themselves, while the adults were seated at a massive long wooden table. It reminded most of them of some sort of medieval feast table. It was almost impossible to talk to the people on the other end, but, in the end, it somehow worked.

Vir and Shepard were next to their respective parents. Quill still looked as if he had no idea what was going on, and Solo was next to him, having no one else to talk to. Cooper had assimilated into the party wonderfully, and was next to the Virs. Cain was on one end, looking slightly uncomfortable with the knowledge that everyone else was uncomfortable near him. Poor Cain. Drake had his gloves back on, and was looking over everything like a hawk about to strike. The Chief was near the entrance door, having politely declined to eat anything. This consisted of a much kinder “no” from him. Oh, well.

It was after the first course was served that it happened. Everyone was talking, the idle dinner chit-chat so common amongst human parties. The waiters had moved out of the way, their job temporarily done. The double doors that led to the ballroom opened, ever-so quietly. An unmistakable human figure, dressed in an all-black jumpsuit and mask, stepped forward, pistol outstretched, pointed at the table. Before anyone saw him, it would already be too late.

His arm was twisted, knocked aside with such force he was left temporarily breathless. The gun dropped out of nerveless fingers, and the assassin screamed as the Master Chief broke the radius and ulna with a crush of his massive hand. The black-clad killer only had a slight second for shock and utter horror to register beneath the mask as the Chief’s gauntleted hand punched him so hard it left a dent in the wall where his body impacted.

A second assassin, wielding a much more powerful compact submachine gun, stepped into the space her fellow had vacated, weapon already raised and ready to fire. Master Chief was out of position. For all his speed, for all his lethal reactions, the Chief would be too low, and he knew it. Shots would be fired before he got there.

Gunfire rang out, the individual cracks! of pistol fire. Drake and Cooper stood, hands forward, clutching guns they had summoned from the recesses of their coats. The assassin’s head exploded, brains scattering in a ruined mess. Children screamed. The killer’s dead body slumped backward, into the hallway. The Chief grabbed her weapons and shut the door behind him.

The Scoundrels were all standing now, as was Hannah Shepard and Vir’s father. Drake slid out of position, pushing his chair back in, and opened his coat.

“Gentlemen,” his voice broke the eerie silence of the ballroom as everyone tried to react to what had happened. “Meet your dates for tonight.” Inside his coat lay a veritable armory. Pistols and full magazines hung from holsters and hooks. Dozens. Dear lord. Cain, Solo, and Quill were already on him, picking guns that looked closest to what they normally wielded. Drake slid the other weapons on the table, which were soon joined by those of the assassins. He grabbed most of the sharp steak knives off the table, and tucked them in his belt or gave them to his fellows.

“Drake?” asked Vir tentatively. “How is it possible to carry that many guns and still move normally?” Drake grinned as he pulled what looked like a sawed-off plasma rifle from his pants and assembled it.

“Cybernetics in the coat. And beneath.” He tossed a weapon to each of his comrades, and one each to Hannah Shepard and Vir’s father.

“You two know what you’re doing with these, I think,” he said. “Right. So, uh, yeah. I am going to take all the unstable maniacs, no offense intended as I am one, and we are going to kill everyone who dares interrupt this glorious dinner, while all of you who need catching up go catch up with your families,” Drake gave an elaborate bow to the still shocked table. “Please ignore any explosions, music, gunshots, and unpleasant gurgling noises.” He made a move to leave, followed by Quill, Solo, Cooper, and the Chief. Hannah Shepard held up a hand.

“Wait! I wouldn’t want you to get yourselves killed on our behalf,” she said. Drake only gave a lopsided grin in response.

“Haven’t you heard? Legends never die.” With a cackle of maniacal laughter and swirl of greatcoats, they were gone.

And there we have it. I hope you enjoyed the story. More to come soon! If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, concerns, or requests, feel free to tell me!

#magnificent scoundrels #story #writing #my writing #crossover #mass effect #halo #empyrean iris

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 3 years

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Star Trek Episode 1.24: This Side of Paradise

AKA Yet Another Creepy Utopia Planet

Our episode begins with the Enterprise heading in to orbit around an Earthy-looking planet named Omicron Ceti 3. Omicon Ceti is a real star, by the way—also known as Mira or Mira A, it’s a red giant and part of a binary star system with its sister Mira B. It’s not a real likely place to go looking for such a nice homey sort of planet, though, because Mira is a pulsating variable star, which means its size and brightness is constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to evolve life when your sun keeps flickering like a neon sign in a noir movie all the time.

Uhura reports to Kirk that she’s been transmitting a contact signal every five minutes just as he ordered, but she’s only getting dead air in response. Kirk tells her to keep it up until they get into orbit, then moves on to talk to Spock. “There were one hundred fifty men, women and children in that colony,” he says. “What are the chances of survivors?”

Looks like the chances are, uh...not great. And by ‘not great’ I mean ‘nonexistent’. Spock explains that ‘Bertold rays’ are a recent enough discovery that there’s still a lot not known about them, but one thing that is for sure known is that exposure to these rays causes living animal tissue to disintegrate. Nasty. Evidently this planet is heavily exposed to these rays, because a group of colonists-- “Sandoval’s group”-- came here only three years ago and Spock says there’s no possibility they could have survived. Well why the heck would anyone build a colony in such a place? All Spock can say is “They knew there was a risk.”

Kirk questions whether they can risk sending a landing party down under such conditions, but Spock says the disintegration doesn’t start immediately, so they’ll be alright if they don’t stick around too long. The helmsman reports that they’ve successfully established orbit, and he’s found a settlement—or at least, something that was a settlement at one point. Kirk tells Spock to equip a landing party of five to accompany him down there, including a biologist and McCoy. That’s gonna be a fun mission briefing. “Yes, we're beaming down to a planet bombarded with deadly radiation, but no need to worry, crew, your tissues will probably only disintegrate a little bit."

Sometime later, the landing party—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, a blueshirt and a goldshirt—materialize into a meadow near a dirt path and a picket fence. They’ve thoughtfully arranged themselves into a nice alternating pattern.

[ID: A shot of a sunny meadow with a dirt road, a few trees and a white picket fence in the background. Newly beamed down are six Enterprise crewmembers standing in two rows: in the front are Kirk and Spock, in the back are McCoy, a goldshirt, a blueshirt, and Sulu.]

The goldshirt, incidentally, is DeSalle, who we last saw back in The Squire of Gothos. The character was originally written for this story as Lt. Timothy Fletcher, but was changed to DeSalle after the production crew realized they’d cast an actor who had already appeared in the series. Yes, really. AGAIN. The blueshirt is Kelowitz, who showed up briefly in The Galileo Seven and Arena, and likewise started out as another character but was renamed after being cast. I don’t know how this situation managed to happen so often on TOS, but apparently it did. At least they both seem to have managed to hold onto more or less the same positions that they had the last time we saw them, a rare feat for any minor TOS crewmember.

The group walks forward towards some nearby farm buildings arranged around a dirt yard, with a horse-drawn cart sitting out in front of one of them. But there’s no horse to be seen, and no people either. They wander through the yard and over toward what looks like a paddock, but without any animals in it. Everything seems quite thoroughly deserted.

Kirk leans on the paddock fence and glumly muses, “Another dream that failed. There’s nothing sadder. It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth. They came all that way...and died.” Hold on, it took them a year? What, do they not give colony ships warp drives? Did they have to hitchhike here?

“Hardly that, sir,” someone says, and suddenly we see three men in green jumpsuits standing at the edge of the yard, looking very relaxed and also very not dead.

As the landing party all turn around to stare in shock the man in front strides forward and says, “Welcome to Omicron Ceti 3. I’m Elias Sandoval.” McCoy looks like he’s getting ready to spray the dude with holy water.

After the titles, we get a brief captain’s log to sum things up, just in case everyone forgot what happened during the commercial break:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3417.3. We thought our mission to Omicron Ceti 3 would be an unhappy one. We had expected to find no survivors of the agricultural colony there. Apparently, our information was incorrect.”

The colonists start happily shaking hands with the landing party—but happily as in “oh, it’s so nice to meet you” not “oh thank god you came to rescue us we’re all on the brink of death”. Sandoval says they haven’t seen anyone outside the colony since they left Earth four years ago, although they’ve been expecting someone to come by for a while. Apparently their subspace radio didn’t work right and they don’t have anyone who could “master its intricacies”. Now, I’m no expert on establishing colonies on alien planets, but ‘person who can work our only communication device’ does rather seem like a position you would want to make sure was filled before you left.

Kirk has to explain that they haven’t come to visit because of the dead radio. He does not explain why they did decide to come when they did. Spock’s comment about the colonists knowing there was a risk indicates that whether or not Bertold rays specifically were known about before the colonists left, they at least had reason to believe there was something dangerous about the planet. So why’d the Federation let them go and then wait another three years before sending anyone to check up on them? Eh, probably just another failing of twenty-third century space bureaucracy.

Sandoval’s not bothered about it, though. He tells Kirk that it doesn’t make much difference—the important thing is the party is here now and the colonists are happy to see them. Then he invites them on a tour of the settlement and casually strolls off, leaving the landing party to stand there and try to process what the hell they just witnessed.

“Pure speculation, just an educated guess...I’d say that man is alive,” McCoy says. Thanks Bones.

Spock says that his scans show that the planet is getting ray’d just as their reports indicated, so that’s not the issue. Under this intensity, the landing party could safely hang out here for a week if necessary, as per the usual Star Trek rule that you can be exposed to a deadly thing and be just fine up until the exact moment it kills you, but there’s a mighty big difference between a week and three years. Or as Kirk succinctly puts it, “These people shouldn’t be alive.”

“Is it possible they’re not?” Sulu asks. Great out of the box thinking there Sulu, love it.

Kirk takes a moment to consider that, which is fair—compared to the kind of weird shit they’ve encountered so far, the walking dead wouldn’t even stand out that much. But McCoy points out that when they shook hands with Sandoval, “His flesh was warm. He’s alive. There’s no doubt about that.” Spock fires back with a reminder that, “There’s no miracle connected with [Bertold rays], doctor, you know that. No cures, no serums, no antidotes. If a man is exposed long enough, he dies.” Okay dude, calm down, all McCoy said was “he’s alive” not “my god! Bertold rays have been fake all along! wake up sheeple!"

As Kirk points out, this whole debate is pretty pointless anyway for the moment—they’re arguing in a vacuum, and they’ll need more answers if they want to get anywhere. So they go to follow Sandoval, who leads them towards a nearby farm house, while a few colonists do various farm chores nearby. Sandoval explains that the colonists split into three groups, with forty-five people at this settlement and two more settlements elsewhere on the planet. Apparently they thought that arrangement would give each group a better chance for growth, since if some disaster struck one group the other two would probably still be alright.

“Omicron is an ideal agricultural planet,” he says. “We determined not to suffer the fate of the expeditions that went before us.” It’s rather vague what expeditions he’s referring to here, since at no other point in the episode are any previous attempts at settling Omicron Ceti 3 mentioned. But given that Sandoval specifically mentions the possibility of disease afflicting one group as a reason to split up, and Spock earlier said that Bertold rays were a recent discovery—and that the colonists knew coming to Omicron Ceti 3 was risky-- it seems possible that previous groups tried to settle the planet and, without knowing about the Bertold rays, mistook their effects for some kind of disease native to the planet. Of course that doesn’t explain why this group of colonists decided it would be a good idea to try to settle here again anyway, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that not everyone sees the possibility of dying to a terrible disease as a compelling reason to change their plans in any way.

As they stand in the farmhouse talking about this, a woman steps forward from another room in the house. She’s in soft focus, just in case we might forget she’s a woman, and instead of the green jumpsuit all the male colonists are wearing, she’s wearing green overalls over a lavender shirt, a combination that somehow manages to be an even worse fashion disaster than the jumpsuits themselves. She starts to say something to Sandoval, then stops in surprise as she sees the landing party. But for once the romance-o-vision isn’t for Kirk—it’s Spock that the camera zooms in on as the woman stares at him.

“Layla, come meet our guests,” Sandoval says cheerfully, oblivious to the wistfully romantic background music. He introduces her as Layla Colomi, their botanist. Layla says that she and Spock have met before, but “It’s been a long time.” Kirk gives Spock a bit of a side-eye for that, but Spock offers no details.

Well, all romantic tension aside, they do still have a mission to attend to here, as Kirk reminds Sandoval. Sandoval tells them to go ahead with any examinations or tests they want. “I think you’ll find our settlement an interesting one. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here, no vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” Oh yeah, that bodes well. Remember the last place we saw complete harmony and peace? At least that explains why everyone on this farm is using equipment straight out of Stardew Valley, which is presumably not the most advanced agricultural technology available by the twenty-third century. I’m not sure why Sandoval’s idea of a simpler lifestyle excludes vehicles, though. They’re not exactly the most recent thing on the timeline of human technological advancements.

Sandoval tells the landing party to make themselves at home, and they all head off. All except for Spock, who lingers just a few seconds more to give Layla a completely neutral look before walking away as well.

Everyone goes off to conduct their respective investigations. Sulu and Kelowitz wander through a yard over towards another farm building. Kelowitz isn’t sure what exactly they should be looking for, though. “Whatever doesn’t look right—whatever that is,” Sulu replies, climbing up to sit on a railing on the building’s porch. “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” I hope you enjoyed that line, because “didn’t grow up on a farm” is about all the backstory TOS is going to give us for Sulu until the movies.

[ID: Three screenshots showing Sulu pulling himself up to sit on the railing of an old-fashioned farmhouse as he says, "When it comes to farms, I wouldn't know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me." Growing up from the ground nearby are two large plants with thick brownish-purple stems and large pink flowers on top.]

Hey Sulu, what's that about two feet from you? Oh well, I'm sure it's not important.

Kelowitz opens up a nearby barn and notes that there’s no cows there—in fact, the barn isn’t even built for cows, just for storage, and indeed it only looks big enough to be useful for holding cow, singular. Having a storage barn isn’t itself that weird, although the fact that there is nothing currently stored in the storage barn is a bit strange. But also, as Sulu points out, come to think of it, they haven’t seen any animals here, native or imported. No cows, no horses, no pigs, not even a dog. Which is a bit odd for an agricultural colony. They must have had or expected to have animals at some point—otherwise what was pulling that cart?

Back in the house, Sandoval is asking Layla about Spock (once again referred to as a ‘Vulcanian’). She says that she knew Spock on Earth, six years ago. Sandoval, apparently having noticed the dreamy background music by now, asks if Layla loved Spock. She says that if she did, “it was important only to myself...Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.”

“Would you like him to stay with us now? To be one of us?” Sandoval asks. Layla smiles at him. “There is no choice, Elias,” she says. “He will stay.”

Elsewhere in the house, McCoy is scanning a colonist. He doesn’t look exactly happy with the tricorder result he gets, but all he says is, “That’ll be all, thank you very much,” and the colonist leaves, passing Kirk coming in. Incidentally, I can’t help but note that this room contains two paintings on the wall and what appears to be a cabinet full of china. I suppose the paintings could have been done by a colonist, but the china could surely only have been brought there. Who decided to pack fancy china on a year-long space voyage to an agricultural colony?

[ID: A shot of the interior of a farmhouse with blue walls, with a large wooden table in the middle of the room, a cabinet with china and glassware in the corner, a wooden desk with a copper tea kettle and some other kitchen items on it against the back wall, and a painting hanging on the wall showing some blurry trees. Sandoval, a middle-aged white man with short brown hair wearing a green jumpsuit, walks past the camera as he says, "Oh, captain, I've been looking for you."]

Kirk asks if McCoy’s found anything yet. McCoy replies that he’s surveyed nine men so far, ranging in age from twenty-three to fifty-nine. And they’re all in perfect condition. Not just healthy—perfect. Textbook responses across the board, from all of them. “If there are many more of them,” McCoy muses, “I can throw away my shingle.”

At that point Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s Spock, calling in from one of the crop fields. He’s made the same observation as Sulu—there’s no life on the planet aside from the colonists and the plants. No animals, no insects. Spock doesn’t have any explanation yet, so Kirk tells him to carry on with his investigation and hangs up.

McCoy notes the absence of animals as peculiar, and Kirk says it’s especially so because the expedition records show that they did bring animals with them to raise for food. And pull their carts, presumably. But it seems none of them are still around. McCoy says he’d like to see the expedition’s medical records, a request Kirk has apparently anticipated because he’s got the floppy disc on hand with him.

Sandoval comes in and says that he’d like to take the two of them on a tour of the fields, to show off what the colony’s accomplished. McCoy says he’ll have to bow out, since he’s still working on the medical examinations. “However, if I find everyone else’s health to be as perfect as yours...”

“You’ll find no weaklings here,” Sandoval says, which uh, sure is a hell of a way to phrase that. “No weaklings! None of those miserable, pathetic sods with imperfect health! Only the strong survive! THE SLIGHTEST BLEMISH SHALL BE CAUSE FOR EXILE!”

Leaving McCoy behind, Kirk and Sandoval head out to the fields, where Sandoval gushes to Kirk about how great this place is: they’ve got moderate climate, moderate rains all year round, and the soil will grow anything they stick in it. Which is pretty miraculous, considering there’s no such thing as growing conditions that are perfect for every plant. But as we’re about to see, that’s not the only weird thing going on with their farming practices.

The conversation is interrupted by DeSalle arriving to give Kirk the biology report. Sandoval excuses himself to attend to work elsewhere, leaving Kirk and DeSalle alone to discuss the report. At first, it seems to be just as Sandoval said: they’ve got a variety of crops growing here successfully. The weird thing is that they don’t actually have very many of those crops. There’s enough to keep the colony going at the size it currently is, but barely more than that. Which tracks with what we’ve seen of the place so far: a couple of tiny fields that look more about the size for someone’s backyard garden than for a prosperous farm, tended by the occasional person idly scratching at the ground with a hoe. For a supposedly bounteous agricultural colony, that’s pretty weird. What have they been doing all this time?

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle all one color,” Kirk muses, taking a moment to stroll a few steps away so he can say this dramatically in the distance instead of actually talking to DeSalle. “No key to where the pieces fit in. Why?”

Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s McCoy, saying Kirk had better get back over there. “Trouble?” “No, but I’d like you to see this for yourself.” Of course. No one can ever just explain something over the phone, can they.

So Kirk heads back to the house, where the thing that Kirk just absolutely has to see for himself turns out to be McCoy just telling him what he’s found out, but he definitely couldn't do that over the communicator for, uh, reasons. What he’s found out is pretty interesting, though: McCoy checked up on Sandoval’s medical records from right before the colonists had left, which said that Sandoval had had an appendectomy, and had scar tissue on his lungs from childhood pneumonia (the weakling!). Yet when McCoy scanned Sandoval himself today, the results came back just as perfect as all the other colonists’. Kirk’s first thought is instrument failure, but McCoy says no, he thought of that and tested it by scanning himself, and it recorded him just fine, down to “those two broken ribs I had once.” Which sounds like an interesting story. But Sandoval’s scan? No scar tissue, and one healthy appendix. That’s right, Sandoval’s apparently managed to regrow an entire organ. Do you think you would notice that happening? Like, would it itch?

While Kirk and McCoy try to figure that out, Spock is hanging out in a field scanning with his own tricorder, while Layla stands nearby smiling ominously at him. Spock muses that there’s “Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you’ve survived exposure to Bertold rays.” Yeah, how are those plants growing without insects? Presumably the native plants have evolved some way around that, but the ones the colonists have brought from Earth would need some help. Are the colonists just manually pollinating everything? Maybe that’s why they haven’t grown very much.

Layla says this can be explained, but when asked to do so, she just says, “Later.” Spock looks annoyed and remarks, “I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” Hey! Cut that bullshit out. No one on this colony has directly answered a question since you got here, there’s no call to go ragging on a whole gender for it. Besides, just saying “Later,” is hardly a stunningly deft diversion, it’s not like she threw a smoke bomb down and disappeared.

“And I never understood you,” Layla says, walking over and placing a hand on his chest. “Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you’d allow them to know.”

[ID: Three screenshots of Spock and Layla, a white woman with a lot of long blonde hair wearing a lilac shirt and green overalls, standing outside in a field with a large tree in the background. Layla, seen from behind, is pressing her hand to Spock's upper chest and saying, "There was always a place in here where no one could come." Spock replies "you know that's not where my heart is right".]

If Layla was hoping this little speech would prompt Spock to cry out that yes, she’s figured him out, he does love her but has never been able to show it! she’s disappointed, because he just looks uncomfortable and steps away. He tries to steer the conversation back onto the mystery of the colonists. “If I tell you how we survive,” she asks, “will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?”

That’s a pretty vague thing to make a promise about, so Spock deflects by saying that emotions are alien to him; he’s a SCIENTIST. “Someone else might believe that—your shipmates, your captain—but not me,” Layla says. Oh sure! Obviously none of the people who have lived, worked, and risked death alongside Spock can be expected to know anything about Spock. Only you are the Spock Expert, gifted with incredible insight by virtue of having a crush on him.

“Come,” she says, sauntering off through the field with her hand outstretched to him. Spock rather pointedly folds his hands behind his back instead and follows her.

Back in the house, Kirk and McCoy are struggling to have a conversation with Sandoval. Kirk tells Sandoval that he’s received orders from Starfleet Command to evacuate everyone on the colony, since, y’know, deadly rays and all that. He expects Sandoval to start making preparations. But Sandoval, calmly, casually, says, “No.” It’s not necessary, he insists—they’re in no danger.

But...but the Bertold rays. Sandoval is unmoved, pointing out that as McCoy’s own instruments show, the colonists are in perfect health and there have been no deaths. Okay, what about all those animals? What happened to them? “We’re vegetarians,” Sandoval says blithely. Which, as Kirk points out, does absolutely nothing to answer the question. Actually it raises further questions.

Sandoval remains thoroughly unbothered and thoroughly unhelpful. “Captain, you stress very unimportant matters. We will not leave,” he says, and goes back to gazing out the window, evidently considering the conversation over.

Elsewhere, Spock and Layla are still walking, and Spock is getting annoyed that Layla still hasn’t explained just what it is they’re going to see. “Its basic properties and elements are not important,” Layla says helpfully. “What is important is that it gives life, peace, love.” Oh boy.

Spock is dubious, but Layla pulls him forward, over towards another one of those large pink flowers. “I was one of the first to find them,” Layla says. “The spores.”

[ID: A gif of Spock approaching a large pinkish-purple flower and saying, "Spores?" The flower then sprays a cloud of white spores all over his face and torso while Spock recoils.]

For a moment Spock just looks startled, but then he starts clutching his head and falling onto his knees in the grass, dropping his tricorder and gasping, “No--” For the first time all episode, Layla’s absolute serenity starts to fracture slightly. Over Spock’s agonized protests, she insists that it shouldn’t hurt—it didn’t hurt any of them. But, as Spock gasps out, he’s not like them. Whoops, did the biologist forget to account for biological differences before handing out a facefull of spores? I bet you didn’t even check if he had any allergies first, did you?

Just as it’s looking like this might put actually put a crack in Layla’s blissed-out impassivity, Spock stops thrashing about and starts seeming less anguished and more confused. Layla’s concern vanishes once again, and she goes back to smiling happily while stroking his face. “Now...now you belong to all of us...and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.”

Spock still seems unsure, but then he takes Layla’s hand in his and smiles. Not the slight hint of a smile or sardonic quirk of the lips you’d expect to see from Spock, but a huge, broad grin from ear to ear. “I love you...I can love you,” he says, and then he kisses her.

Hoo boy.

After the break, we get a quick Captain’s Log to recap:

“Captain’s Log, supplemental. We have been ordered by Starfleet Command to evacuate the colony on Omicron 3. However, the colony leader, Elias Sandoval, has refused all cooperation and will not listen to any arguments.”

Sure enough, we see Sandoval exiting the farmhouse, followed by McCoy and an extremely frustrated Kirk. “Captain, your arguments are very valid, but do they not apply to us,” Sandoval says, as calm as ever. He tries to walk off, but Kirk grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“My orders are to remove all the colonists,” he says, “and that’s exactly what I intend to do with or without your help.”

“Without, I should think,” Sandoval says, and strolls off, leaving Kirk standing there fuming.

Sulu and Kelowitz come walking up to report that they’ve checked out everything and it all seems normal, except for the missing animals. Of course, they also both said they had no idea what to look for in the first place, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. Kirk tells them about the evacuation orders, and says he wants landing parties to start gathering the colonists and preparing them to leave. And by the way, where did Spock and DeSalle go? Sulu says they haven’t seen either one in some time, but McCoy says DeSalle was going to examine some native plants he found. Native plants, huh? I think we can guess what happened to DeSalle.

Since Spock still hasn’t reported in, Kirk gives him a call. Or tries to, at least—Spock doesn’t pick up. On the other end of the line, we see why that is: Spock's communicator is laying abandoned on the ground, while Spock himself, now dressed in the same horrible green jumpsuit as the colonists, is stretched out on the grass with Layla, watching clouds. The communicator beeps away while Spock happily describes how one of the clouds looks like a dragon. "I've never seen a dragon," Layla says. BEEP BEEP. "I have." BEEP BEEP. "On Barengarius 7." BEEP BEEP. "But I've never stopped to look at clouds before." BEEP BEEP. "Or rainbows." BEEP BEEP. "You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question." BEEP BEEP.

"Not here," Layla says (beep beep), and they smile dreamily at each other before going into another makeout session. Meanwhile, Kirk is still on the line, and not getting any happier about it. Layla finally picks up the communicator and holds it up for Spock, who takes a break from kissin' to say, "Yes, what did you want?"

Naturally, this throws both Kirk and McCoy for a loop. While McCoy stands there with a "what the fuck" look on his face, Kirk takes a moment to recover and then demands, "Spock, is that you?"

"Yes, captain, what did you want?"

"Where are you?"

"...I don't believe I want to tell you."

[ID: Three shots of Kirk and McCoy standing in front of the farmhouse, Kirk holding his communicator while McCoy looks on. Kirk has a stunned expression on his face and looks around with his mouth open, trying to figure out what to say.]

Kirk plows on ahead, telling Spock that, whatever the hell he thinks he's doing, he's got orders: they're getting the colonists out, and Spock is to meet back at the settlement in ten minutes.

"No, I don't think so," Spock says casually. "You don't think so, what?" "I don't think so, sir."

Kirk has to take a moment after that one. It's rather amazing that McCoy's made it this far into the conversation without saying anything himself. Presumably he's just in shock. Eventually Kirk tells Spock to report in immediately, but by now Spock and Layla have gone back to kissing, leaving the communicator open but abandoned in the grass once more.

"That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim," McCoy says, putting in his bid for the Enterprise’s bi-weekly Massive Understatement contest.

"No, it--I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little."

"I didn't say that!"

"You said that."

"Not exactly,” McCoy protests, and then somewhat grudgingly adds, “He might be in trouble.”

I'm sure McCoy did say that, or something like it, but "I hope Spock has his brain taken over by alien spores" was presumably not where he was going with it. He obviously sees this sudden change of behavior as something to be concerned about--even moreso than Kirk, who seems more irritated than anything. But then, it's only been a couple episodes since McCoy had his own run-in with an alien influence making people act a lot more mellow than usual, and he didn't enjoy that experience at all, so it's not surprising that "trouble" is his first thought here.

Kirk tells McCoy to take over the landing party detail and start getting the colonists up to the ship, and to make sure the party works in teams of two, with nobody being left alone. Meanwhile, Kirk himself takes Sulu and Kelowitz and heads off to find Spock, using the open frequency from Spock's communicator as a homing signal. They follow a dirt path out of the main settlement and soon find said communicator, laying open and abandoned in the grass just off the path. As Kirk picks it up, they hear laughter nearby, and Sulu points in astonishment further down the path, where Layla is watching Spock dangle upside-down from a tree branch like a kid on a jungle gym.

[ID: A shot of Spock and Layla among some trees at the end of a dirt path. Layla is standing on the ground and holding hands with Spock, who is hanging upside-down by his knees from a large tree branch, laughing.]

For a moment all Kirk can do is stare weakly at this weird spectacle. Then he collects himself with a stern AHEM and marches over like a principal about to deliver some very serious detention.

Meanwhile, back at the main hub of the colony, the landing party seems to have gotten well underway with preparations for departure, with several colonists and crewmen piling up luggage and equipment in the middle of a field while McCoy stands nearby overseeing everything, a job I’m sure he’s enjoying since we all know administrative work is McCoy’s favorite thing. Then DeSalle arrives, carrying a couple of the spore flowers and tells McCoy to take “a good, close look” at them, because they’re very interesting. McCoy steps forward to check them out right before the scene cuts away again, leaving us with little doubt as to what’s about to happen next.

During that little interim, Kirk and his crew have made it over to where Spock and Layla are cavorting. Spock just grins happily at Kirk, clearly not bothered one bit, even as Kirk asks if Spock’s out of his mind. He didn’t report to Kirk, he says, because...he didn’t want to.

Kirk glances back and forth between Spock and Layla, who’s standing there smiling rather smugly, and tells Layla that she’ll need to come get ready to evacuate with the rest of the colonists. Spock cheerfully says that there’s not going to be any evacuation. “But perhaps,” he adds, “we should go and get you straightened out.”

That really doesn’t bode well, but rather than ask just what Spock means by that, Kirk tells Sulu that Spock is under arrest in Sulu’s custody until they get back to the ship. Which will certainly work out well because it’s not like Spock is strong enough to chuck Sulu all the way across the field barehanded or anything. Not that Spock seems especially perturbed about being under arrest; instead he just shrugs, drops down from the tree, and says, “Very well. Come with me,” before heading off across the field, leaving else to follow in confusion. That’s how you arrest someone, right?

Of course, Spock leads them right to another group of spore flowers, which the group stops and stares at obligingly for a moment. Then the flowers explode a bunch of spores at them. Somehow, even though he’s standing right next to Sulu and Kelowitz, Kirk manages to totally avoid getting any spores up his sinuses, while the other two are immediately affected. “Yes...I see now,” Sulu says blissfully, with that trademark Very High grin that George Takei does so well. “Of course we can’t remove the colony. It’d be wrong.”

Kirk grabs him by the shoulders—Kirk’s go-to method for snapping people out of it--but when this somehow fails to bring Sulu back to his right mind, all Kirk can do is say that he doesn’t know what these plants are or how they work, but “you’re all going back to the settlement with me, and those colonists are going aboard the ship.” This stern proclamation has absolutely no effect on anyone. The whole group just stands there happily watching Kirk stomp back toward the colony. “I can see the captain is going to be difficult,” Spock remarks.

Kirk’s day isn’t about to get any better, because upon making it back to the colony he’s greeted by McCoy, who we can immediately tell is under the influence as well because his accent is absolutely out of control. It’s so thick even the subtitles pick up on it.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy walking through a meadow with his communicator out, saying, "Sho’nuf."]

“Hiya, Jimmy boy!” McCoy very happily says to a very unhappy Kirk. “Hey, I’ve taken care of everything. Now all y’all gotta do is just relax. Doctor’s orders!” With a very resigned look, Kirk asks how many plants McCoy’s beamed up to the ship, and McCoy says it must be going on a hundred by now.

So Kirk beams up to the ship and heads right to the bridge, where he tells Uhura to put him through to Admiral Komak at Starfleet, though what he expects Komak to do about all this I don't know. But it’s too late. Uhura turns around to show that she’s smiling as happily as everyone else, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry Dave, I mean, captain. I can’t do that.” She’s short-circuited all the ship’s communications, except for ship-to-surface, since they’ll need that for a little while yet. Then she leaves, pausing in the door of the lift to tell Kirk that it’s really all for the best.

Kirk stands there seething for a moment, then stomps over to grab a plant that’s been left in Spock’s chair. He throws it across the bridge, and the camera lingers ominously on it as Kirk heads back into the lift.

Things aren’t any better on the rest of the ship. Kirk soon finds a long line of crewmembers of all different shirt colors, patiently waiting to transport down to join the colony. Out of what I can only assume is some desperate futile hope that someone will follow his orders if he just keeps trying, Kirk orders them all to go back to their stations at once. Unsurprisingly, they all ignore him. Kirk points out to one of the redshirts that this is MUTINY! but it doesn't get him very far.

[ID: A gif showing a young white man with brown hair wearing a redshirt as he says, "Yes, sir, it is." The camera then zooms in very dramatically on Kirk's stunned face.]

So...they’re all going down to join the colony? All four hundred thirty of them? Or four hundred twenty-nine, I guess, if Kirk refuses to join the fun. That’s almost ten times the amount of people the colony currently has in it. That seems like it could present a bit of a problem, because if you’ll recall DeSalle told Kirk earlier that right now the colony’s growing enough food to feed their current population, with little left over. How are they going to handle such a large and sudden influx into their population? Do they have housing for all these people? Or are they just all going to eat dirt and sleep on the ground because they’re all too high to notice anyway?

After we’ve had a commercial break to contemplate this shocking turn of events, Kirk takes some time out to give vent to his feelings in a captain’s log:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.5. The pod plants have spread spores throughout the ship, carried by the ventilation system. Under their influence, my crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them. I don't know why I have not been infected, nor can I get Doctor McCoy to explain the physical, psychological aspects of the infection."

And indeed, just in case we had any doubt, we then see McCoy strolling through the field and happily telling Kirk, “I’m not interested in any physical, psychological aspects, Jim-boy. We all perfectly healthy down here.” Kirk grumbles about how much he’s been hearing about things being perfect lately. “I bet you’ve even grown your tonsils back.” “Sho’nuf!”

Kirk tries desperately to get McCoy to do something to figure these spores out—run a blood test, take a scan, type the symptoms into WebMD, something, anything—but McCoy is more interested in rambling on about mint juleps. Meanwhile, back in the farmhouse, Sandoval’s having tea with Spock while they talk about how nearly everyone’s beamed down from the ship and things are “proceeding quite well.” Kirk storms in and demands to know where McCoy’s gotten to, and Spock says he went off to make that mint julep. Which could prove quite difficult unless this tiny half-assed farm colony has somehow managed to set up a working distillery around here somewhere, but Kirk’s got bigger concerns right now than where McCoy’s going to get his bourbon.

Sandoval wants to know why Kirk won’t join them in their private, spore-sponsored paradise. Kirk asks where these spores came from, anyway, and Spock exposits that there’s no way to know—they just drifted through space until they arrived at this planet, which is perfect for them because it turns out they actually thrive on Bertold rays. The plants act as a repository for the spores until they can find a human—or half-Vulcan—body to inhabit. No explanation is forthcoming as to how Spock knows any of this.

Spock and Sandoval insist that the planet is “a true Eden” with belonging and love and no needs or wants for anyone, but Kirk is skeptical. “No wants, no needs. We weren’t meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” Of all the things wrong with this situation I’m not sure “BEING TOO HAPPY IS BAD FOR YOU” is the take I would go with, but okay. Spock says that Kirk doesn’t understand, but he’ll come around...sooner or later.

Kirk, disgusted with this whole conversation, goes back to the ship. The bridge is dark, silent, and utterly empty. We get a slow pan of the blinking lights and displays of the consoles, with no one left to man them. Kirk walks over to his chair, hits the intercom, and starts calling one part of the ship after another, with no response from any of them. With nothing else left to do, he sits down in his chair and starts glumly recording a captain’s log so angsty it could be a LiveJournal entry:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship...can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize...just how big this ship really is, how quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against...paradise."

Hold on hold on HOLD ON what do you MEAN the ship can be maintained in orbit for several months? Every time someone takes their hands off the controls for five seconds we get told that the orbit is decaying and they’re gonna plummet into some hapless planet within a few hours at most but now all of a sudden it’s fine to hang out up there for several months? MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Kirk gets up to go sit at the helm, just to get a change of scenery mid-mope, and as he finishes his log/rant the camera slowly pans down to reveal the spore flower that he chucked across the bridge earlier. Which is weird because we just got a wide shot of the bridge and that flower definitely wasn’t there then.

[ID: Two shots. The first is a wide shot showing Kirk alone on the empty, darkened bridge, preparing to sit down at the helm. There is nothing in on the floor in front of the helm. The second shot is a closer shot of Kirk sitting at the helm with his chin in one hand, now with a large spore flower poking up in the front of shot.]

The flower promptly shoots Kirk in the face, and for a moment he just continues to sit there with spores in his hair and a “yeah, this might as well happen” expression. But then he slowly starts to smile, suddenly as happy as everyone else. Exactly why Kirk’s been unaffected by the spores up until now, even after hanging out for quite a while on a ship that’s supposedly been thoroughly contaminated by them, is never really explained. Maybe he's just on a lot of Zyrtec. But it seems even Kirk’s determination to not be happy can’t hold out against a point-blank spray in the face. He calls Spock to say that he finally understands now, which Spock is happy to hear. Kirk says he’ll be down just as soon as he packs up a few things, so Spock says he and Layla will wait for him at the beamdown point.

So Kirk goes off to his quarters to pack up a suitcase, the contents of which seem to mostly consist of uniform shirts. Apparently paradise for Kirk does not include one of those green jumpsuits, which, really, who can blame him. He opens a small vault by his bed and pulls out a couple of black cases, one of which he opens to reveal a medal. This seems to stir some sense of conflict because he sits down and stares at it for a long moment, but then puts it aside and heads to the transporter room, where he puts the suitcase on the platform and then prepares to set the controls.

But then Kirk hesitates, and stands there for a moment looking conflicted. Possibly he’s still having feelings about those medals, or maybe he’s having second thoughts about whether he packed enough shirts. In any case, he eventually exclaims, “No...No! I...can’t...LEAVE!” Then he punches the console for good measure.

Apparently this little emotional outburst is all it takes to cure the spores, because Kirk gasps a little, looks momentarily confused, and then seems to be back to his old self. “Emotions...violent emotions. Needs...anger,” he tells the empty room. “Captain’s log, supplemental. I think I’ve discovered the answer...but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mr. Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being.” Then he treats us to this remarkable line:

[ID: A shot of Kirk in profile at the transporter controls as he says, "Aroused, his great physical strength could kill."]

Down on the planet, Spock and Layla are still waiting at the beamdown point when Kirk calls Spock up and says he’s realized there’s some equipment on the ship that they’ll need for the colony, and he needs Spock’s help to get it all beamed down. Really, you’d think there’d be quite a lot of equipment on the Enterprise that a farming colony could make good use of, but I guess they’re really determined to stick to the whole no-technology approach. Despite this, Spock cheerfully accepts the explanation, gives Layla a quick smooch, and beams up.

But upon materializing, Spock is greeted not with a smiling Kirk ready to go move some equipment with his bro, but Kirk standing there holding some nonspecific heavy metal rod thing that he’s smacking threatening against his hand. “All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed,” he says, “we’ll see about you deserting my ship.”

Spock reacts to this bar-brawl-starter with nothing more than a nonplussed expression and polite correcting Kirk on his syntax. Kirk, determination unshaken, continues laying into him with a stream of insults that would have made that fucker from Balance of Terror go, “Whoa, hold on there a minute.” Undeterred by not being able to use any actual expletives, he compares Spock both to a machine and to various fairy-tale creatures, makes fun of his ears, and rounds it all off by having a go at the entire Vulcan race. He even insults Spock’s parents.

[ID: 1. A shot of Spock standing in the transporter room looking perplexed as Kirk, off-camera, says, "Whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" 2. A gif from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of John Cleese as the French knight on the battlements yelling, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"]

Spock stands there taking it all stoically for quite a while, even as the background music gets increasingly tense. He finally starts to crack when Kirk goes after Spock’s relationship with Layla, and when Kirk keeps going despite Spock angrily telling him, “That’s enough,” Spock finally flips out big time. You know what that means, it’s time for a STAR TREK FIGHT SCENE! This one’s got it all: close-up shots of the actors intercut with long shots of very obvious stunt doubles; cardboard props getting punched; even people picking up random unidentifiable bits of starship equipment that may or may not have ever been there before to use as weapons. The only thing we’re missing is Kirk doing some kind of weird wrestling move.

[ID: Three gifs showing a fight scene between Kirk and Spock. First we see a long shot where Kirk and Spock are clearly being played by stunt doubles, as Spock punches a metal rod Kirk is holding, bending it in half. He then punches Kirk in the jaw, sending him careening into the wall. Then a close-up of Nimoy and Shatner as Spock advances on Kirk and throws a punch but misses, denting the control panel in the wall behind Kirk. Kirk dodges out of the way towards the console, and Spock throws another punch that hits the side of the console. Then back to a long view with the stunt doubles as Spock throws Kirk into the opposite wall, which Kirk careens off of, falling on his back on the floor, while Spock picks up something resembling a square metal stool or stepladder and raises it over his head. Finally, we see Nimoy and Shatner again as Kirk lays on the floor looking up at Spock, raising the thing he's carrying over his head.]

We dramatically cut to black as Spock stands poised above Kirk, raising whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is over his head threateningly. Apparently the ad break gives him enough time to cool down, though, because instead of bringing the thing down on Kirk’s skull, he hesitates.

“Had enough?” Kirk asks. “I didn’t realize what it took to get under that thick hide of yours.”

Spock slowly lowers the thing, looking a bit regretful about having to do so. Kirk says he doesn’t know what Spock’s so mad about, anyway. “It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain...several times.” Dude, you just stood there and unleashed a screed of personal and racial insults at your best friend here. A “sorry” probably wouldn’t go amiss here.

“You did that to me deliberately,” Spock realizes, and then realizes that the spores are gone. “I don’t belong anymore.” Kirk explains that since the spores are “benevolent and peaceful,” violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them—that’s the answer. Which...definitely makes sense, chemically speaking. Sure.

Spock, still looking pretty glum about all this, points out that Kirk’s method might have worked out alright for curing one person, but they’ve got over five hundred infected people down there, and trying to pick a fight with all of them probably isn’t going to go so well. But no worries, Kirk’s got another plan. He wants Spock to rig up a subsonic transmitter that they can hook up to the ship’s communications system and then broadcast to all the communicators. Spock says he can do that, but hesitates as Kirk turns to leave. “Captain. Striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense,” he points out.

Kirk mulls over that one for a moment. “We-ll...if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?” he says, and Spock concedes the point. Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about striking fellow officers now.

[ID: A gif from The Naked Time of Kirk and Spock standing in an Enterprise conference room. Kirk slaps Spock across the face, and Spock retaliates by backhanding Kirk so hard he is thrown across the table in the center of the room and falls onto the floor on the other side.]

But what with the insults and the punching and de-sporing and everything, it seems that something has clean slipped Spock’s mind: Layla’s still down there waiting for him to come back. As she stands around the field, McCoy wanders over and asks what’s up. When she tells him that she’s been out here for some time now waiting for Spock and Kirk to come back, he gentlemanly offers to fix that for her and calls the ship. Spock picks up, and Layla asks if everything’s okay up there.

With obvious discomfort, Spock tells her that yes, he’s...quite well. Layla, oblivious to anything being wrong, asks if she can come up there, because she wants to talk to him, and besides, “I’ve never seen a starship before.” Wait a minute, never seen a starship before? You’re on a planetary colony! What, did you drive here?

Spock asks if she’s still at the beamdown point, and if McCoy’s there. Layla says yes to both, so Spock tells her to give the communicator back to McCoy, since she won’t need it to transport, and he’ll have her beamed up in a few minutes. One might think that at this point they might take this easy opportunity to also beam up McCoy and get him cured (it shouldn’t be hard, McCoy is already 85% comprised of negative emotions to begin with), so he can start investigating these spores, just in case Operation Go For the Eardrums doesn’t work. But they don’t. Kirk awkwardly asks Spock if he’s sure about talking to Layla while she’s still spore’d, but Spock just nods and heads to the transporter room.

He beams Layla up, and she happily runs over to give him a hug—they’ve been parted ever so long, after all—but when he just stands there stiffly, not reacting at all, she slowly pulls back and says, “You’re no longer with us, are you?”

Spock says it was necessary. Layla begs him to come back to the planet and belong again, but he says he can’t. She starts crying and saying she loves him. "I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. But we're happy here. I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock, I can't." Look, if the only time the relationship you want can possibly work out is when the other person is being mind-controlled by alien spores, I think it may be time to consider whether this is really a relationship you should be pursuing in the first place.

“I have a responsibility to this ship...to that man on the bridge,” Spock gently tells her. “I am what I am, Layla. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Layla soon realizes that all this anguish has resulted in her getting de-spore’d as well, and she’s not happy about it. “And this is for my own good?” she demands angrily. Well...yes, I mean, it is, but Spock doesn’t say that. Nor does he respond when she asks, “Do you mind if I say I still love you?” but she hugs him again anyway.

[ID: Layla tearfully embraces Spock and says, "You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock." Spock replies, "You couldn't pronounce it."]

ROMANCE

We’re obviously supposed to read this little story arc as the tragic tale of true love destined never to be, because Spock is only able to express his feelings for Layla under the influence of the spores. He has experienced paradise, but alas, he cannot linger there, and so on. It’s never set all that well with me, though. The problem is we never really get Spock’s side of the story and so it leaves open the question of how much he actually did want this relationship in the first place. Layla said earlier that “Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me” so evidently he never outright said “I love you but I can’t be with you” or anything of that sort to her. When they’re alone in the field before Spock gets spore’d he seems stiff, standoffish, awkward, and deflects all of her overtures with what appears to be discomfort, even annoyance. He clearly has no interest in talking about whatever history they had together, even when they’re all alone. For all that Layla goes on about how she can see a side of Spock that his crewmates don’t, we see interactions with those crewmates multiple times throughout the show that prove that Spock is perfectly capable of showing people that he cares about them, even if the ways he does it are usually a bit atypical. We don’t see any of that in his initial interactions with Layla.

If we accept the premise that the spores only make people act as they would if they had no inhibitions or fears holding them back, then yes, Spock saying he loves Layla after he’s been spore’d would indicate that he did secretly love her all along. The problem is that we know the spores make people do things that they would not ordinarily want to do. You think all of those four hundred thirty people on the Enterprise secretly longed for a quiet life among the soil but all chose to instead join the space navy for some reason? Should we believe Scotty is actually deep down perfectly okay with abandoning his beloved ship to a slowly decaying orbit? I doubt that Kirk has always harbored a subconscious desire to give up exploring the final frontier to pursue a peaceful agrarian lifestyle, but he very nearly does do just that. So the question of how much a relationship with Layla is what Spock “really” wanted seems to be a bit hazy.

Mind, I’m not saying this makes Layla an evil person who deliberately drugged Spock so she could have a relationship with him or anything like that. It’s clear throughout the episode that the spores induce those who are infected by them to spread them around to anyone nearby who’s not in the spore fandom yet, so there’s no reason to believe Layla would act as she did if she wasn’t under the influence herself. I just personally find it hard to buy into the tragic romance of a star-crossed relationship when the thing crossing the stars is that one of the participants is only enthusiastic about the whole thing when they’re not fully sober. It makes me question how much of their previous relationship really was Spock having feelings for Layla but being unable to express them, versus Layla projecting a lot of feelings onto him and writing off his disinterest or discomfort as denial.

Kirk and Spock go back to working on the signal, while Layla deals with her heartbreak by disappearing into thin air for the rest of the episode. Spock says that the sound they’re going to send out is on a frequency that won’t be heard so much as felt, but apparently it will be felt quite emphatically. Kirk compares it to putting itching powder on someone. Which may seem like another silly technobabble deus ex machina, but speaking from personal experience, driving someone into a frantic frustrated fit by playing an obnoxious noise just on the edge of hearing sounds totally legit. All they need to complete the sensory overload meltdown experience is find a way to simulate some flickering florescent lights and put tags on the backs of the uniform shirts.

And indeed, as the device starts to work, we see Sulu and DeSalle working in one of the fields—for a certain value of ‘working,’ anyway, they’re kind of just digging around aimlessly—when Sulu accidentally elbows DeSalle in the back. He apologizes, but DeSalle shoves him back, and before long they’re having a full-on brawl right there in the field, which can't be good for the crops. As the device on the ship hums away, two more crewmembers start their own fight over by the farmhouse, and when a third tries to break them up he promptly gets dragged into it as well.

The effects haven’t quite reached everyone just yet, though, as we see McCoy chillaxing under a tree with some unspecified concoction. Sandoval strolls up and says that he’s been thinking about what sort of work he could assign McCoy to. When McCoy protests that he does one kind of work and that’s doctorin’, Sandoval says that he’s not a doctor anymore—they don’t need any doctors here.

This does not go over well.

[ID: A gif showing McCoy reclining against a tree in a grassy meadow, a stalk of grass in one hand and a grass of something brown with several leafy stalks in it. Sandoval is standing over him. McCoy says, "Oh, no?" and then slowly stands up, tosses his grass stalk aside, looks Sandoval in the eye and says, "Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?"]

Undeterred, Sandoval says that he’s the leader and he’ll be assigning McCoy whatever work he wants to, but when he tries to walk away McCoy pulls him back and snarls, “You’d better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you.” Sandoval throws a punch at him, but McCoy dodges and whacks Sandoval in the stomach, putting him out flat on the ground. See, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to cure McCoy. Everyone else on the Enterprise was perfectly happy to give up their careers to go do a bit of light farming, but tell McCoy he can’t be a doctor anymore and no amount of spores are going to save you.

While Sandoval is busy rolling around on the ground, McCoy stands there looking confused for a moment, then—presumably having only just now noticed that instead of a mint julep he’s actually been drinking a coke with a bunch of cilantro in it—throws his drink aside and admits that he’s not sure why he just clobbered Sandoval. But Sandoval has other concerns for the moment. With a look of dawning horror familiar to all us chronic procrastinators, he abruptly realizes that they haven’t actually been doing anything all this time. “No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted. We wanted to make this planet a garden...”

McCoy points out that the colonists really will have to leave—they can’t survive here without the spores handling all that radiation for them. But the dream’s not over; the colonists could be relocated to start again somewhere a bit less deadly, if that’s what they want.

“I think I’d...I think we’d like to get some work done,” Sandoval muses. “The work we set out to do.”

McCoy calls Spock and says that Sandoval wants to talk to Kirk. Spock notes to Kirk that the crew are all starting to rather sheepishly call in by now. Sandoval tells Kirk that the colonists will fully cooperate with the evacuation now, and Kirk tells him to start making the preparations. Real ones, this time.

Sometime later, everyone’s back on the bridge getting ready to head out. McCoy reports that he’s examined all the colonists and they all remain in perfect health. “A fringe benefit left over by the spores.”

One would think that this would have been quite the eventful afternoon for the medical sciences, given that they just discovered spores with such incredible healing powers that they can make people regrow organs, and McCoy just confirmed that anything healed by the spores stays healed after the spores are gone. Sure, they’ve got some side effects, but Kirk’s already discovered a simple way to get rid of the things once they’re no longer needed. Strap someone to a bed, give em a facemask full of spores, let them lay there for a while having a nice buzz while they heal their cancer or whatever, then play an irritating noise at them until they sneeze the spores back out again. Boom. Done. You’ve solved medicine. Or, y’know, we could vacate the planet and never speak of it ever again, that works too.

Notably unmentioned by anybody during this little denouement is the fate of the other two settlements on the planet that Sandoval mentioned back near the beginning of the episode. The length of the timeskip isn’t specified, so it’s possible that the crew went and collected them as well in the interim, but we never get any details as to how that little adventure went, assuming that it did happen and that the Enterprise isn’t about to get halfway to the next starbase before Kirk realizes he forgot something.

As they watch the planet diminish behind them on the viewscreen, McCoy muses that this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagrees. "No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through--struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Spock remains unimpressed by this bit of philosophizing. “Poetry, Captain. Nonregulation.” Kirk notes that they haven’t heard anything from Spock about this whole ordeal, since, y’know, that definitely seems like something Spock would want to talk about. He says he’s got little to say about Omicron Ceti 3.

[ID: A close-up of Spock on the bridge as he says, "Except that for the first time in my life...I was happy."]

oh my god someone needs therapy

On that INCREDIBLY CHEERFUL note, the Enterprise flies away and the episode ends.

It’s somewhat baffling to me that of all the quite reasonable objections available to the whole situation with the spores, the main problem that Kirk—and by extension, the episode—seems to have is that “the spores make things too EASY and mankind was meant to STRUGGLE!!!” I mean, effectively what we had going on here was people being drugged without their consent into a state that overwrote their own desires, ambitions, emotions and much of their individual personalities and replaced them with bland, happy conformity to a goal and lifestyle none of them actually chose. That seems a bit worse to me than “people weren’t working hard enough.” Kirk goes on and on about how the spores made things too easy, but what they really did was make people apathetic to whether they succeeded at anything or not. Sandoval’s horrified when he’s cured of the spores because the colonists had much different plans for their colony; far from making those plans easier, the spores made them impossible. The dreams and desires of the Enterprise crew for a life of exploration among the stars would have been forever unmet if they had permanently joined the colony, they just wouldn’t have been able to care. Kirk seems to believe that the ultimate evil of the spores is that they deprive people of ambition; to me it seems that the worse evil is that they deprive people of their individuality and their autonomy.

Then there’s the fact that while the spores make people happy and friendly, they also make them remarkably blasé about the well-being of anyone who isn’t part of their collective. They have to be—caring about whether someone else is upset or hurt would make them unhappy, after all. Spock and McCoy are completely unconcerned with the mounting distress of their best friend, and beyond peer pressuring him to get with the program and take the spores like everyone else, they don’t seem to much care if he remains the only unhappy person on the planet. The colonists seem completely unbothered by the fact that all the animals they brought with them died a rather grueling death by radiation poisoning. Everyone on the Enterprise is happy to abandon the ship and join the colony with no message left behind for Starfleet, with apparently not a thought to spare for any friends and family back home, who would only ever know that their loved ones disappeared into space never to be seen again.

Or at least, they would if things actually went according to plan, which they probably wouldn’t, because the spores also made everyone cheerfully oblivious to the idea that anything could potentially cause a problem or pose a threat to them. After all, if Kirk hadn’t had a recovery at the last minute, the Enterprise would have been left unmanned in orbit around the planet, with no way for anyone in the colony to get back onboard. Uhura also goes out of her way to make sure that they no longer have any off-planet communication. So it’s probably not going to be long before Starfleet notices that one of their prize starships has abruptly gone incommunicado, and I’m willing to bet they’d be a bit quicker on that investigation than they were about checking on a tiny backwater colony (although it is Starfleet, so who knows, really). And since they know exactly where the ship was headed on its last recorded mission, it probably won’t take them long to find it. If Starfleet sends another ship along to investigate quickly enough, they’ll find the abandoned Enterprise hanging out in orbit around the planet, and Kirk’s log clearly lays out what happened, so all the other ship has to do is figure out how to neutralize the spores and everyone’s going to get rescued from Omicron Ceti 3 pretty quickly whether they want to be or not.

If Starfleet doesn’t show up in time...Kirk says the ship can be “maintained in orbit” for several months, but then what? It can’t stay up there forever. Sooner or later, the orbit will decay and the ship’s going to crash into the planet, and if it crashes anywhere near one of the colonies, their magic healing powers are going to be put to the test. Also their magic agriculture powers--rich soil and mild weather is all well and good, but is that going to be enough to carry all those crops through the ensuing environmental effects of an impact that big? Especially since, as already mentioned, the colony has enough to feed them and that’s about it—so they really can’t afford to lose any crops for very long.

Sure, maybe the Enterprise wouldn’t crash close enough to any of the colonies to ruin them, but why take the risk? All they had to do was have a helmsman set it on a course out of orbit, then take a shuttlecraft back to the planet. Doesn’t occur to anyone, evidently. Nor do we see anyone bothering to bring any supplies or equipment from the ship to the colony, even though there’s gotta be lots of stuff up there that would be useful. All in all, it seems quite likely that Paradise would have eventually collapsed in on itself simply because the spores make people unable to pay attention to any potential threats or obstacles long enough to do anything about them.

So what’s the moral here? ‘Society can’t survive if everyone is stoned all of the time’? I mean, okay? Sure? Cool? Glad we sorted all that out.

That said, despite having ranted for the past nine hundred words about the weird moral, I’m not saying this episode is bad. As a serious point about human nature I don’t find it especially compelling—YMMV, but I just personally tend to side-eye stories that center around the idea of “wouldn’t it be awful if we all had it too easy??”--but as fifty minutes of extremely Star Trek-y silliness it’s glorious. We’ve got Spock hanging from a tree and talking about dragons while making out in the grass, McCoy going full Georgia and wandering about with something he thinks is a mint julep, Kirk stomping around in increasing agitation as he tries to get some sense out of somebody and then making emo log entries while he sits on the bridge alone...it’s great.

The original draft of this episode apparently had the romantic subplot be for Sulu, who would have been motivated to stay with Layla after having been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that was cured by the spores, kind of like the eventual plot with McCoy in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. D.C. Fontana rewrote the story to focus on Spock, since if you have an episode about something that causes a strong emotional reaction, throwing Spock and his ever-present internal conflict into the mix is kind of the most immediately obvious way to generate some pathos and drama. The spores originally granted those affected with them telepathic abilities, enabling them to link with everyone else who��d been spore’d and form a hivemind. There are some traces of this in the final episode with spore’d people talking about “joining us” and “being one of us” and so on, but without the telepathy part it just kind of makes it sound like they’re in a cult. Also, the cure for the spores would have been consuming alcohol, so presumably in that draft McCoy never got infected.

For the purposes of the Trek Tally I’m going to count the spores as a Space Disease, which might be broadening the umbrella of that term a bit but hey, close enough. Next time we’ll be looking for life, Jim, but not as we know it, in The Devil in the Dark.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.24 This Side of Paradise #1.24 This Side of Paradise recap

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tirednerd2012 · 3 years

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Ian Missing, Part 2

Hey, guys. I changed my mind about the video timeline. The last one will be sent on Ian’s birthday rather than Barley’s.

Good news: they had taken the straps off his bed. Bad news: Barley was constantly under surveillance and not allowed to leave until he was deemed mentally stable. How on earth was he supposed to be stable when his little brother was out there, alone and hurt? With a fucking lunatic?

Oh, and more bad news, it was now day 6 of Ian missing. But he was supposed to be okay with that?

Barley groaned as he sat up. The stitches from the bullet were healing nicely at least. His mom said she would see what she could do about getting him out once he healed more, because deep down she knew there was nothing that was going to stop Barley from getting to Ian.

He couldn’t focus on anything else. He knew he loved Ian, but he didn’t imagine it would be this hard. The idea of never seeing his brother again, which he heard the police tell Colt outside his hospital room was a legitimate possibility, drove him insane. Ian. What on earth would he do without him? What would his life be like without him?

His mind wandered back to when he was clinging to life a week ago. He heard Ian’s voice. It was so broken and desperate, like he blamed himself for something he should have known Barley would do. He admitted he thought he was a mistake, that he should have never been born. Barley always tried to see the good in things. He always tried to look at the positive side, but what good was left in this world if it really took Ian from him?

He didn’t plan on going back home. Not only was it hours away, but he didn’t think he could handle the idea of going somewhere that Ian wouldn’t be? He wouldn’t be upstairs doing his homework where Barley could occasionally hear the chair move because Ian would fidget when doing his essays. He wouldn’t hear his laugh when Blazey came in his room and jumped on him. He wouldn’t hear him tell their mother how much he loved her. He wouldn’t see Ian in his room. Ian wouldn’t be coming into his room just to see what he was up to or just because he wanted a hug.

None of that would be home for him, and he knew that. He felt like he was missing his half. Like a huge part of him was missing and there was nothing else but that thing that could fill the void in him. He couldn’t just pretend like everything was fine. He needed to find Ian.

Nothing was going to stop him.

“Barley? Hey,” Colt said, as he knocked on the door to the hospital room. His stepfather came in and sighed. “No luck yet, but we’re getting the state police involved. Hopefully get a federal investigation going soon.”

Barley didn’t respond.

“I talked to your doctors. Said you haven’t really been talking or eating much. If you want something other than hospital food, I can go get it,” Colt offered. “Whatever you want.”

“If I get better, can I join the search?” Barley asked. Colt hesitated before sitting down beside the young man. “I know Mom doesn’t want me to, but you both know I’m going to with or without your permission. Might as well try to be on the same side.”

“I am on your side,” Colt said. “I know I don’t always seem like I am, but I want Ian home, too, and I won’t stop until we make that happen.”

“Then am I going with you or am I doing this on my own?”

“I’ll let you go with me, but first I need to see that you are in the health to do this. I know you want to find Ian and Kirk. I know what you want to do to Kirk, and truthfully, I plan on looking the other way. Ian is the only thing that matters right now. But I need to know, before I send you out in a dangerous situation, that you can handle it.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to. Like you said, Ian is the only thing that matters right now.”

Colt sighed and stepped out of the room. Barley didn’t care if he was being difficult, he just wanted his little brother back.

His phone buzzed and he glanced down and saw a video message from an unknown number. He opened it and a video of Kirk appeared.

“Hey, Barley, how’s it going? Hope you’re still alive, otherwise this video is going to be a little awkward,” he said. He was sitting in a chair, and he had the same smirk Barley wanted to wipe off his horrible face. “Don’t worry, I’m taking real good care of your little brother. I would have sent this video awhile ago, but I wanted you to sit there and worry. I imagine you’re losing your mind now that I have your little brother in my possession.”

“I fucking hate this guy,” Barley grumbled, feeling a horrible sick feeling in his stomach. The video changed to Ian, in chains, somewhere Barley couldn’t recognize. His brother was physically shaking and trying to fight his way out of the chains that held him there.

“Your brother is hardly in the condition to do anything, and even if he was, no one is going to find you, Ian. No one knows where you are, and no one can hear you scream. This attic is hidden, and we are nowhere near your home,” Kirk told him, and pulled up a chair by his struggling brother. “Don’t you understand? I won.”

“No, you haven’t,” Ian snapped, bitterly.

“Why? Because your precious big brother is still out there? Because he’s going to find you?” Kirk asked.

“My brother is twice the man you’ll ever be. You know that; it’s why you’re so afraid of him,” Ian said, fiercely and with passion. “He’s going to find me, and I’d hate to be you when he gets here because whatever you do to me is nothing compared to what’s coming for you.”

“I think he’s the scared one right now,” Kirk responded. “After all, he’s not around. And you look so small in those chains.”

Barley noticed Ian was in clothes way too big for him. He continued to struggle, but Kirk just seemed to be enjoying the game. That’s what it was to this bastard, a game. And he would not stand for it for another second. He was going to rip this guy’s head off his head first chance he got.

Kirk got up and ran his hand through Ian’s hair. Something Barley does to comfort his little brother was now being used against him. But Ian did something Barley didn’t see coming. He spit in Kirk’s face.

The older boy backed away for a second.

“Don’t touch me,” Ian demanded.

“Guess you’re about to learn the hard way,” Kirk snapped and then beat Ian. Barley had tears pouring down his face at the sight of his younger brother on the ground, gasping for air. Kirk knelt down and started playing with his hair again. “You’re never leaving again Luke. I’m never letting you escape again.”

The video cut and Barley sobbed again. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t care about his injuries. He didn’t care if this killed him. He was going to get his brother back and he was going to do it now.

He ripped the cords off, ignoring the sound of the machine running wild. Colt rushed in and Barley shoved him away and ran past the nurses and doctors, until suddenly his entire body stopped. Everything in him burned and shut down at once. He hit the ground.

Weeks went by. A week turned into a month. Barley had tried to escape the hospital so many times he made his health worse. He didn’t care about that. All he wanted was to find Ian. No one could find any signs of him. The police took the video Kirk sent him but found nothing from it. Who the hell was Luke? Figuring that out could make all of this faster.

Eventually, they started sedating Barley regularly so he wouldn’t keep making himself worse. His mom was in and out, but he was asleep most of the time she was around. He felt her play with his hair or hug him, but everyone was worried that he would snap.

Ian couldn’t remember a time he was in so much pain. Kirk started to use a shock collar to control him, but at least he wasn’t in shackles anymore. He was getting enough to survive, but he honestly didn’t even want to eat. He wanted to curl up and just die because that would be so much easier than the hell Kirk were putting him through.

“Well, well, Ian, guess what? It’s been a month. An entire month and your brother still isn’t here,” Kirk said. He didn’t bother glaring. He didn’t feel like being shocked. Kirk had the same smirk he’s had all month.

“You’re lying.”

“Really? Look at the date, smart one,” Kirk responded, holding up his phone and Ian saw the date. July 18th. Barley was taken to the hospital June 17th and Ian was kidnapped the following day. It had been an entire month. And Barley wasn’t here.

For a split second, he wondered if anyone had given up. If Barley had stopped looking.

“Now, are we ready for practice today?” Kirk said and brought out Ian’s staff. He handed it to him and then put his hand on the remote that controlled the shock collar. Then he brought out a box that had a dead mouse inside.

“What do you want me to do?” Ian snapped.

“We’re going to bring it back to life,” Kirk responded.

“I can’t bring things back to life,” Ian said. His mind wandered back to Luke. Over time, he managed to learn that Luke was Kirk’s little brother. He frequently called Ian Luke, especially when he was drunk, which was more often than it probably should have been. One of two things. Either Luke was dead, now seeming a lot more possible, or he ran away and left Kirk. But now he was starting to gain an understanding of what really happened.

He tried to keep his voice steady and watched his words carefully as he spoke next. Maybe, just maybe, he could break through to Kirk.

“Why do you need me to bring something back to life?” he asked, gently. The older boy didn’t answer. “Kirk, it’s not possible. Everything happens for a reason and some things can’t be changed. I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“You will.”

“I can’t. It’s not possible.”

“That’s Barley talking. He refused to get you to your full potential. He was too soft on you.”

“You’re just jealous of him,” Ian snapped. “My brother is twice the man you could ever hope to be. He doesn’t need to use fear to control people. He cares and he is a good person.”

“If he cares so much about you, then where is he? It’s been a month. I have beaten the absolute shit out of you, shocked you and if you don’t bring this mouse back to life, you’re in for a lot worse. He’s not here because he doesn’t give a shit about you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I? Then where is he?” Kirk snapped, then shook his head. “Forget it. Just bring the damn mouse back to life.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t know who Luke is, but I’m not bringing him back. Even if I could, I’m sure he’s suffered enough as is and I won’t bring him back just so you can hurt him all over again,” Ian snapped, and Kirk became quiet. He didn’t say anything as he snatched the staff out of Ian’s hands and left the attic. He returned a few minutes later with a small pot of boiling water. He splashed the water all over Ian’s stomach and arms.

Everything burned. Ian howled in pain and collapsed, curling into a ball and prayed for some kind of relief.

“You don’t know anything about Luke. And you’re going to bring him back whether you want to or not.”

#iwlg #onward #onward au #barley lightfoot #ian lightfoot #ian #barley

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labyrinthof-fan-fiction · 3 years

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Two Ships Passing in the Night {7}

Part 7

Series Masterlist

Spock x fem!Reader, Bones x fem!Reader

AOS

Summary: Through Jim’s planning, the Defiance and Enterprise are on shore leave, in conveniently, the same planet. It’s time for you to confront Leonard and Spock, or maybe for them to confront you.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who’s liking this, asking to be added to the taglist, you’re keeping me going, thank you for sticking with my nonexistent upload schedule! If you want to be added to the taglist, just let me know!

Warnings: Alcohol Consumption, Alcoholic Tendencies (let’s face it, Leonard has a drinking problem), swearing.

Word Count: 2,631

You sat on the bridge of the ship, fingers tapping on the arm rest of your chair. You had one week until you were meeting the Enterprise for shore leave and you were starting to wonder why you had agreed to this? And you were inevitably going to have two confrontations that you had been pushing into the deep recesses of your mind. Spock’s message had made you begin reflecting on the past years, when you were a part of Starfleet Academy, then the crew of the Enterprise. Leonard and you had become fast friends at the academy, even though you were on separate tracks. Jim had been your first friend within the Command group, his father’s reputation was a burden for him, but he was determined.

Being around Jim reminded you of a saying your mother had aways told you, “Surround yourself with great people and you will achieve greatness.” He was a good friend, but the first time you met Leonard something had clicked between the two of you.

“C’mon, it’s just going to be me and my roommate, you’d like him.” Jim said one Friday walking with you after class, giving your shoulder a bump with his.

“Jim, you cannot be setting me up with your roommate, I see enough of your ugly mug.” You retorted.

“I’m not setting you two up.” Jim said, holding his hands up, “I’m merely introducing two people.”

“That is exactly what someone who is trying to set up their friends would say.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said, “But if you don’t want to just lock yourself in your room tonight, eight o’clock.” He winked and started trotting away from you.

You grumbled as you made your way back to your room. The day turned to night and you found yourself alone in your room. You roommate had pranced out of the room once her classes were finished. You sighed to yourself. “We have two choices.” You muttered. “Stay alone, and get sad, or go hang out with Jim.”You changed into your jeans and threw on a top, you weren’t too worried about your appearance, it was just Jim and his roommate. You walked to the bar, you entered and saw that the younger cadets had shown up in uniform, hoping that their position would get them laid.

You felt an arm wrap around your shoulder and looked to your right to see Jim. “You made it!” He said excitedly.

“I’m here.” You answered, shrugging out from under his arm.

“Let’s introduce you to Bones.” He said, leading you over to a table in the corner where a man sat. He had what seemed like a permanent scowl on his face and a glass of whiskey in front of him. Jim made introductions and motioned to the open seat next to ‘Bones.’

Not setting you up my ass. You thought to yourself as Jim made his way up to the bar. You looked over at the man next to you, “So, how’d you get the name Bones?”

The man chuckled, “Doctor Leonard McCoy, I made the mistake of opening my mouth the first time I met Golden Boy over there and now I’m doomed with a nickname.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “My ex-wife is the reason I joined. Told the kid that she had left me with just my bones, and my nickname was born.”

“And he’s been a sad sack of shit since.” Jim said, putting your drink in front of you. “So, what’s your roommate doing tonight?” He asked, eyes scanning the room.

You took a sip of the drink he had placed in front of you. “Uh-uh, she’s off limits.”

Jim pouted and glanced around the room, searching for someone to amuse him for the night. He clapped his hands together, “Alright you two, don’t cause too much trouble.” He got up from the table and made his way over to a girl at the bar.

“Jesus.” Leonard muttered, gently swirling the whiskey in his glass.

“Let’s drink to the poor girl’s health.” You said, holding your glass out towards him. A small smirk came across his lips as he tapped the glass against yours.

“Amen.” You both took a swig of your drinks and a silence fell between the two of you. “Look, I know Jim was trying to set us up and if you don’t want to be stuck at a bar with a sad divorcé, here’s your chance to run kid.”

You glanced around the room at all the cadets circling to find someone to take home for the night, and honesty, that just wasn’t too appealing to you. “Considering the prospects, I think I’ll take my chances with you. So what made you go into medical?”

Leonard’s eyes widened for a moment, surprised that you actually were willing to stay. “Well, I was between a rock and a hard place, but have always wanted to be a doctor, not necessarily on a star ship, but we take the jobs we can.”

Conversation flowed easily between the two of you, it was comfortable. You both lost track of time and the night was cut off by the bartender calling final call. You glanced at the man next to you.

“I guess that’s the end of the night.” He murmured. “How far away is your dorm?”

“Not too far.” You answered, standing up.

Leonard stood up, “Call me old fashioned, but I think it’s only right to walk you home, would that be alright?”

You smiled, “That would be fine.”

The walk was filled with more conversation, it was odd how easy it was to talk to him. When you arrived at your dorm you weren’t sure how to say good night to him. Leonard shuffled his feet before breaking the silence. “I had fun tonight, but don’t you dare tell Jim.”

You laughed, “Ditto.” You held your hand out to him. “Here’s to surviving friendship with Jim Kirk.”

Leonard chuckled and shook your hand. “Good Night.”

“Night.” You said as you watched his retreating back.

The next weeks your Fridays fell into a pattern, meet Jim and Leonard at the bar, watch Jim find someone at the bar, then make fun of the cadets in the bar. A quick friendship had formed between you and Leonard, Jim kept trying to nudge the two of you into more, but you both assured him that you were just friends. You were inseparable, almost irritatingly so to anyone who was around. And now you found yourself debating every moment you had with Leonard. The nights spent talking at the bar, then eventually the nights just talking in dorms, aboard the Enterprise. How you always sought him out when you were unsure or just needed someone. How no matter the hour or how busy he was, he had time for you. How he held you when you cried over Spock, how he stayed with you when you realized you were pregnant. How he promised to stand by you no matter what. How you needed him. God, you needed him like you needed air. And that’s when you realized, you loved Leonard McCoy. That damn snarky, surly doctor with a heart of gold, you loved him.

The week passed quickly and in what felt like no time you were beamed onto the planet’s surface. The planet Jim had chosen was basically a glorified resort, but an entire planet. Which was not a surprising choice for Jim.

“Captain.” You heard a voice greet from your left. You raised your eyes and saw Spock, you had to admit, this was the first time you think you had ever seen the Vulcan look a bit nervous.

“Commander Spock.” You responded in kind.

He paused for a moment, you could almost see the gears in his brain rotating to form the perfectly phrased response. “I was hoping that we might be able to talk?” His eyes moved down from your face to your stomach.

You closed your eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “I think that would be a good idea.”

“Jim said there’s a quiet restaurant around the corner if you would like to go there, or we could walk.” Spock answered, eyes never leaving you.

“Real food sounds great, we’ve grown tired of replicated food.” You answered a small smile on your face as Spock gestured in the direction of the restaurant and fell into step beside you.

Spock’s eyes met yours when you both had finished your meals, you knew this was going to be a heavy conversation. “So, what did you want to talk about?” You asked, knowing damn well what the man wanted to talk to you about.

“I know that the message I had sent you was sudden and after my reaction at the hospital, I’m grateful that you’re willing to speak with me tonight.” He began. “ I know that I have made mistakes and that my actions have hurt you. And I apologize for that.”

You saw the sincerity in his eyes. “I forgive you and I want to apologize for keeping the baby from you, for planning to keep it secret. It was a stupid idea, you have every right, I was scared. You have every right as the father to this child to be a part of their life.”

“I will only be as involved as you allow, I do not want to overstep.” Spock began, but you cut him off.

“You are his father, that means we are equal partners in this as parents. I will not restrict you from him.”

Spock’s shoulders relaxed, but still tension knitted his brow. “You need to know that I also care for you, but I cannot give you a romantic relationship, it would be a disservice to you. And I have already done far too many disservices to the woman who is the mother of my child.”

You bit your bottom lip and gave him a small smile, “That’s alright, I don’t think we were meant for each other in that way.”

He chuckled, “There’s that human optimism, I thought Jim was the only one who had it.”

“Where do you think I learned it?” You asked a laugh falling from your lips.

Spock shifted in his seat, preparing to bring up a part of the conversation that he was less than pleased to present. “I want you to know, in my opinion, I would not mind sharing fatherly duties with Leonard McCoy, he is a good man, he would be a good fatherly figure for a child. He might feel differently, but I do not mind.” You stared at the Vulcan, mouth gaping, he chuckled. “I honestly was surprised when we had our….time together. I had always assumed the two of you would be a couple.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t all be that perceptive.” You answered once you shut your mouth.

“I hardly believe that. From my observations of humans, you all seem blind to the obvious, at least when it comes to emotions.” He teased.

“And Vulcans are completely logical, all the time.” You said, nudging his knee with yours under the table.

“Always.” He answered, quirking his brow for a moment, causing you to laugh. He glanced over at the clock on the wall. “We should probably find our other halves, no doubt they’ve gotten themselves worked up in unnecessary worry.”

Leonard sighed, he had finally completed all the medical checks on the crew members for them to be allowed free on shore leave. Jim had commed him to tell him that the Defiance had arrived. He knew that it would take you some time to finish up your duties as Captain and remained on the Enterprise for a while longer. He changed from his medical uniform into his civilian clothes. He glanced at himself in the mirror, he looked tired, probably from staying up too damn late this week. He was nervous, the two of you hadn’t spoken for a while, aside from his updates about Jim’s antics and checking on your condition.

Once he was beamed onto the planet’s surface he glanced around, looking for you, and he saw you. Rather, he saw your retreating form, along side the silhouette of a science officer he knew too well. His heart sank into his stomach. You were going off with Spock, it made sense, he was the father of your child, and Leonard had guilted him into making amends of some kind with you. But nerves created a knot in the pit of his gut.

It was no secret to him that you had strong feelings for Spock, maybe out of a feeling of obligation Spock would extend some kind of companionship to you. He was brought back to his previous argument with Spock. She loves you more than she could ever love me. That sentence had worn on his mind for so long. Leonard had tried to shake that sentence from his brain, Spock had been angry, he had started having more emotional outbursts following the death of his mother and planet. Maybe he just was letting his emotions get the best of him, Leonard had scoffed at himself. While Spock’s emotions were occasionally showing themselves, there was always logic backing them, and one thing about Spock’s logic, he had no reason to lie.

Leonard’s feet carried him into a bar, he walked in and saw some crew mates milling about, Uhura was in a corner nursing a drink, a sullen look on her face. A knife twisted in his gut, if she was here, and Spock was with you, he tried to shake the dread from his mind. He ordered a double of whiskey and made his way over to her.

“Nice night.” He said, she raised her eyes to his.

She gave him a small eye roll and gestured to the empty seat across from her. She took a sip of the drink, “Nice night for our fates to be decided, and we aren’t in the room where it’s happening.”

Leonard swirled the whiskey in his glass. “He didn’t tell you anything?”

Uhura chuckled, “He told me he intended to have a conversation with her, not much more. Told me not to worry.”

Leonard took a sip of whiskey, “Don’t worry….. Seems pretty on par for a computer.” He muttered.

“He’s not a computer.” Uhura snapped.

Leonard lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Uhura sighed, “Why do you hate him so much?”

Leonard chuckled, “Isn’t it obvious?”

It was Uhura’s turn to laugh. “I want you to say in words, why you hate him.”

Leonard took a long swig of his whiskey. “Because he took the one person I love in this damned universe and tossed her aside like she was nothing.”

Uhura gave him a knowing glance, took another sip of her drink. The pair was nervous as time continued to pass, they both knew what you and Spock were discussing, but it was uncomfortable, your future in the hands of other people. Leonard lost count of the drinks, Uhura had kept the orders going. Leonard glanced up at the door for a moment and saw you walk in with Spock, Spock’s hand was pressed against the small of your back to maneuver you around the door. You were laughing as he lead you to the table. Leonard felt his stomach twist into knots and he took a swig of his whiskey, finishing the glass, his vision started to blur as you reached the table.

“Evening.” He heard Spock greet as he slid next to Uhura.

Leonard glanced up at you, his head started spinning. His eyes met yours. “Hey, darlin’.” He murmured, then the world went black.

Taglist:

@general-latino

@440mxs-wife

@cobe76

@elizabeththefandomgirl

@harry-potter-geek

#star trek #star trek imagine #leonard bones mccoy #aos fanfic #leonard mccoy x reader #spock x reader #bones x reader #dr leonard mccoy #jim kirk #leonard mccoy imagine #2 ships

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sarah Ellen Parsons

Sarah Ellen Parsons has 18 X-Files stories at Gossamer and 19 at AO3. If you want high quality fic with interesting characters, go read her stories. Some of my favorites of her fics are The Crouching Thing and My Constant Touchstone Who Makes Me A Whole Person (which are two very different stories!). Big thanks to Sarah Ellen for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

With today's binge-watching culture, I'm not at all surprised. You can watch a bunch of eps and then seek out fic that is where you are in the series.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I took away a writer's group Yes, Virginia, that is still together. Mostly as friends, but whenever I write something, or someone else writes something, it's the first place we all run for machete beta. I have betad SO MANY novels.

We have a number of folks who are published writers since then and our time in X-Files fic brought us lifelong friendships IRL and made us all better at our craft. The majority of those folks were better writers than I am. And I make my living as a writer in my day-job.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else. We had our own Yahoo group for beta. We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories. But the main method of distribution was the lists.

Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.

Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there's a will, there's always someone ready to step up and find a way.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That's the best takeaway.

Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people's egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn't serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror. I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer's room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.

I'm a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being "too dark". And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn't terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.

My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I went to the X-Files Expo to see if I could make contact with someone from Harper Collins because the tie-in novels sucked so hard. I got rejected with my pitch as I didn't have a literary agent.

Around that time, a pal who I watched X-Files with IRL was looking for a free X-files wallpaper for her work computer when she found the website where fans in Pennsylvania had fic archived. She read some and wrote to me - "you need to see this, and you can do better." So I started reading and was.... I probably CAN do better. So I wrote The Batman Plot. And made two friends I'm still friends with with that one story.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Nonexistent. I couldn't even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.

X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn't end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)

I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can't tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

This list is far too long to actually make. But characters I spent time writing about include: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Co. (I wrote three unpublished Star Trek novels before I found online fandom). King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, Sherlock Holmes (I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play after seeing "Crucifer of Blood" and entered it in a national competition, where I got very nice comments back.), Mulder, Scully and Krycek, Rowling's Hermione and Snape (like him or not, its masterful characterization), Dean and Sam Winchester, John Winchester and Bobby Singer. I wrote one comedy story starring Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A couple of Roswell stories under a different name. Catwoman and Batman. I have some unpublished Avengers fanfic lying around as I'm an OG Marvel fan with a massive comic collection.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I was on a business trip a few years ago and FX had a marathon and I watched part of it when I was in my hotel room. Early seasons are comforting, but I don't go back there now.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic anymore. I read a tiny bit of Star Wars after the second movie because Rian Johnson had it right. Now I don't care. I love Mandalorian, but am content to watch.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to count. All of YV. Which reminds me, I need to go update our entry at Fanlore. I promised Punk I'd do it a while back. I need to at least get everyone linked. Right now it's only Punk and Sab.

But it was a ton of us. Marasmus, Maria Nicole, Cofax, CazQ, M. Sebasky, Livia Balaban, Kelly Keil, Wen, Ropobop, Jess Mabe, JET, fialka, and a bunch of others that I can't remember their fic names any more, just their real names because I know them all IRL. I need to go back and look up their fic names and link them up there.

In addition to my little group of pals, I loved reading Mustang Sally and Rivka T, Rachel Anton - I keep trying to find her to encourage her to write romance if she's not doing it already, but no dice, Dasha K., Anjou, there were so many great ones, but their names have slipped my mind in the past 20 years.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I'm most known for Prone, and I'm proud of that story for all kinds of reasons, but I think my very best is The Crouching Thing.

I mostly didn't publish anything I didn't think was good and hadn't been machete betaed within an inch of its life, but I'm not sure much of the angsty romance stuff holds up as well. I think it worked when the show was still ON and we were all in that emotional headspace, but probably not now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I have been making my living as a writer for 25 years. I write the word count equivalent of 5 Tolkein novels a year, just for my day-job. I am turning back to original fiction, which is where I was before X-Files. I'm working on the M/M thing, a high fantasy thing, a low fantasy historical thing and a bunch of M/F Regency romances as I get time and energy. I publish Fantasy and SF under my real name. Romance has pen names as you don't want that getting back to your workplace, either.

SEP is fic only and here she will stay.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have too many ideas to count. I try to write them down when they come, so I won't forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I've been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because "Mists of Avalon" pissed me off so bad as I'd read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Sarah Ellen was my great-grandma, Parsons was her grandma's last name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn't know about the fic. Just the "real" writing. I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

My X-files stuff is up on Gossamer mostly. I'm trying to get the stories all moved to AO3 for all the genres. I'm working on this now. SEP is really not a living thing anymore, but there was a time when she was more me than me.

If you want to find my "real" non-fic writing, write to me at se_parsons at yahoo dot com and I will point you at it.

And PLEASE someone, hunt down Rachel Anton and get her writing something we all can BUY. Where are my old Krycek bitches at? Do any of you know where she is? [Lilydale note: I’ve tried contacting Rachel Anton for this Old School X project but have not had luck. I would love to find her too!]

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show. Find a living community you love for a show you love. There are great people out there creating and get involved. It will be worth it.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 15, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #sarah ellen parsons

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

Text

September 29: 3x09 The Tholian Web

Today’s episode, The Tholian Web, was completely new to me and I came in with no expectations at all. I wasn’t sure about it at first but ultimately I really liked it!

In uncharted territory looking for lost ship the Defiant. Space appears to be breaking up. Idk but for some reason this sounds very familiar.

Like truly I don’t know what this is reminding me of but hasn’t space broken up before?

And now there’s a mysterious object! Nothing is going Kirk’s way today at all.

“Fascinating.” / “Explain.” Truly the root of this relationship.

It’s the Defiant! Looking ghostly.

Uhura’s on the case already. You don’t need to tell her how to do her job.

Scotty and Sulu looking badass together.

Conveniently, it’s another constitution class, allowing all the sets to be reused. (Though also I do think it makes sense only a large ship like that would be in uncharted space.)

Look at them in those suits. They look like they’re going to the grocery store in May 2020.

How do they know this isn’t an illusion? Because “we can see it, but the sensors don’t pick up anything” screams “illusion” to me. I wouldn’t want to beam into open space!

The triumvirate + Chekov, fourth wheeling again. (My mom suggested he’d be incapacitated soon, which is fair--he IS the red shirt in this scenario.)

All of this is feeling very familiar--missing ship, unusual space phenomenon, people going mad--but I'm not sure if it's repetitive or classic.

NO mutiny ever? That seem unlikely. Also didn’t Spock literally commit mutiny? Chekov would appreciate knowing this.

Kirk manages to look intense even through the space suit.

I find it really weird he doesn’t know the captain of this ship. Like, first off, he knows everyone, and second, there only about 12-14 constitution class vessel Captains so I really do think they know each other.

“Spock, stay with me.” Don’t have to tell him twice.

Lol the ship looks so silly just...drifting away. Adorable, but silly.

Seeing an Asian man in sick bay reminds me how few Asian people there are in Starfleet. Like... 1.

“What the devil?” That’s a Southern man there.

Is the ship actually dissolving or is it an ILLUSION? (It’s actually dissolving.)

Uh, the transporter’s not working? That’s not good.

I love how Scotty hears that and immediately abandons the bridge, like there is NO other man for the job.

O’Neil’s face when Kirk asks to be beamed aboard is hilarious. Human embodiment of the :O emoticon.

“You too, Spock.” He delays ordering Spock back to the ship because he KNOWS Spock’s going to argue.

“Completing the data set” yeah okay. He just doesn’t want to leave Jim alone. Especially in the extremely suspicious circumstances of there being 4 people and 3 transporter spots.

He’s vanished!

Spock is NOT having this.

The fabric of space is very weak here. Sounds legit. And there are many alternate dimensions that are very close at hand. So in other words... Kirk is literally stuck in an AU right now.

This is sorta like The Alternative Factor but way better.

You know it’s serious when they break out the fish eye lens.

When Bones rushed in, I was expecting him to sedate Chekov but Spock has it covered.

I feel like Spock is extremely concerned for Chekov here. Like it’s subtle, but just the attention he’s paying to him. And Sulu is obviously very concerned too.

His “environmental unit” only has so much oxygen. What a great name for a fancy spacesuit.

Spock will not believe Jim is dead!! Never. (This is the plot of the whole episode in 8 words essentially.)

That’s an alien!

“According to the Federation, this area is free space.” ...Okay, that sounds a little colonialist. In his defense, he doesn’t press the point. He basically says, kay, we’ll go as soon as we’re finished rescuing.

And I appreciate the Tholian’s respect for that even though surely he must feel gaslit by Spock--rescuing WHO there are NO other ships??

Also I like the look of the alien.

Nifty lab equipment there.

MCCOY FIGHT SCENE.

Wow that orderly was easily disabled lol. I guess Chapel hypoed him but it really looked like she just tapped his shoulder and he fell.

Hmm, there are still 30 minutes left so something tells me this Kirk rescue mission won’t work.

Captain Kirk is not in his designated area. I repeat Captain Kirk has wandered away from his designated area.

The space was disturbed by the Tholians. I guess they weren’t factored into the delicate calculations.

Something about this exchange really screams Southerner meets Alien. Like more than most McCoy and Spock exchanges.

You can tell Spock is thinking about this whole "nothing’s being transmitted, it’s just the nature of space; everyone's already sick" thing but also not caring because CAPTAIN KIRK.

Now they’re being fired upon! A lot is happening here.

“Renowned Tholian punctuality” lol. Always a sense of humor on this one.

Spock’s face when Sulu questioned his order was 100% “Did I stutter?”

“I know you don’t like to use the phasers.” Because he’s a pacifist.

Well he changed his mind on those phasers fast enough.

“You’ve lost Jim.” UM no I think NOT.

Everything happens so much.

“That is the mark of a starship Captain like Jim.” I mean Spock is no Jim but there’s no need to be rude about it

“Doctor, go to your room and do your homework.”

Aw, the ships are kissing.

Now they look like little weaving shuttles. Adorable.

Hmm, it IS a web. Appropriately named episode.

“We shall not see home again.” Lol Spock way to be the Most Dramatique as always.

Tholian web screensaver Windows 98.

No, not a funeral!!

“This service requires my attention, Mr. Spock.” Crying emoji.

(I’m with Spock in almost everything in this ep but come on, you can’t ban McCoy from Kirk’s funeral, that’s just rude.)

This seems more like an assembly than a funeral tbh.

[agonizing scream] is also how I feel about Kirk “dying” and that’s why Generations isn’t real.

AOS Kirk would 100% approve of a brawl at his funeral.

Sulu and Uhura <3

“Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.” Spock definitely will.

Wait, that was it? The whole eulogy? Both Kirk and Spock really suck at eulogizing the other.

McCoy probably could have skipped this honestly.

Wait, Kirk left his space husband and his BFF a final in-case-of-death message? Noooooooooooooooo I can’t.

McCoy is so insistent they watch it and Spock is like “nah, that makes it too real, not gonna do it.”

“The Captain’s last order is the top priority.”

Why does everyone always assume Spock wants power? He obviously doesn’t. He could be a Captain if he wanted, probably. He’s early enough in his career where he still has time to become a Captain, too--eventually he does! Most of his career and literally every statement he’s ever made would kinda imply he’s not interested.

Also, if he didn’t care about Jim and he just wanted to take over the Enterprise, he would have left 3 hours ago? Like multiple people were saying he should? Including Bones??

“He was a hero in every sense of the word.” True.

McCoy is being VERY mean today.

And now he’s mad at him again for fighting the Tholians instead of leaving without Jim! Like which is it! What did he do wrong? At least pick a specific thing to criticize lol.

"I need not explain my rationale to you or to any other member of this crew." That’s true but also all I can hear is “I love him. I’m in love with him. I must have him back.”

What is that art work on the wall? That’s new.

I don’t get how Bones isn’t getting this. He KNOWS about the “warm, genuine feeling.”

Vulcans clearly aren’t immune to the...space weirdness. But yes, another pot shot at his alienness is always welcome lol.

“I AM in command of the Enterprise.” You tell him.

Finally, the secret message!

Omg Jim is literally dead and he’s still reassuring Spock. What a good boyfriend. I know this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you got this bb.

Now he’s lecturing them both from beyond the grave and getting everything right and they’re just standing there like chastised schoolboys.

That “take care” was so soft.

“It does hurt, doesn’t it?”

“What would you have me say Doctor?”

Like??? I can’t stand this.

Uhura! At home.

I like that twirly thing they have in their quarters; very efficient use of space and also I want one.

I also love that her chair has crocodile arms.

Kirk shows up in the mirror just to be dramatic and disappear again.

“Of course you saw him. We’d all like to see him.” Lol. Yes, yes, he’s still with us... in our hearts.

If the Tholians complete the web, what will they do with what’s inside? Eat it?"

“Are we any closer to the cure for space weirdness?” / “No. Except also yes.”

Love all the vague science that goes into solving their problem at the last minute but also extremely quickly by any objective standard.

Is Chekov restrained with seat belts?

Whereas Uhura’s just chilling. She knows what she’s about.

Ghost Kirk! Ghost Kirk!

"Do you suppose they're seeing Jim because they've lost confidence i you?" Damn bones, harsh. I thought we were done with this.

Pretty distressing that everything relies SO much on Scotty lol--arguably the MOST critical single member of the crew.

“I’m sorry.” Glad to hear him say it, finally!

“He would just say ‘Forget it Bones.’“ Adorable.

I feel like everyone’s simultaneously thinking, ‘Okay, we ALL see that, right?”

I am overwhelmed by the longing in that shot of Spock trying to reach Kirk through the dimensions. Like, we’ve established everyone loves him, everyone misses him, everyone wants to see him, but Spock actually approaches him and tries to meet him...

“We were separated. He couldn’t touch me.”

I want to know Scotty’s opinion on Spock’s crazy statue.

So Spock shouldn’t have fired those phasers? Because they... did something... bad to the dimensions? But what other choice did he have, other than to leave without Kirk?

Wasn’t Scotty literally just saying this wasn’t fixable? And now he’s like ‘eh, I can fix it in 20 minutes and get you 80% power’?

The antidote is derived from a nerve gas used by the Klingons...that’s honestly rather hilarious. They’re good for something I guess.

“It simply deadens certain nerve inputs in the brain.” / “Any decent brand of Scotch’ll do that.” Starfleet’s finest lmao.

Lmao Mccoy's no longer drugging the crew he's straight up killing parts of their brains with booze and deadly nerve gas. The man must be stopped.

Noooo don’t give Scotty the whole bottle. We’ve already established the ship doesn’t run without him.

They still gotta get out of the web.

If I shipped McCoy/Spock I would DEFINITELY ship it in that little moment where they look at each other over the glasses.

I have no idea what happened but they seem to be free. Bye Tholians!

Kirk back in the chair where he belongs <3

“No problems worth reporting”--I mean that is technically true, I GUESS.

Kirk is trying to get the gossip.

“Only what one would expect when humans are involved.” / “What humans?” The oxygen hasn’t fully returned to his brain, I see.

Also he is completely lying about understanding McCoy’s explanation.

Sulu and Chekov are having a great time listening in. Collecting future gossip for the cafeteria.

“M-my last orders. That I left for both of you.” He’s adorable.

"The crisis was upon us and then passed so quickly that w-we...." Lol yes the crisis came and then 4 hours later, it was passed! Just like that.

I totally get that Kirk wants them to admit they watched the tape. It was his orders that they watch it first, plus he knows he said helpful stuff and he wanted to be helpful! But I also get why they don’t want to admit they saw it, because it is rather awkward to admit they watched his last words when he’s... not dead.

That was a great ep overall! I really enjoyed it.

My only two complaints are that there wasn’t enough Kirk, and I wasn’t fond of Bones’s characterization. I mean, I get that he was affected by the... space weirdness and maybe his usual prejudices were purposefully exaggerated to show that but it still felt like he was constantly piling up on Spock and in the most unhelpful way. Like, they often disagree, in part because they have different general philosophies, and Bones often misunderstands Spock. But Bones wasn’t really offering anything helpful in terms of command advice, and his criticisms were both repetitive and incoherent. Did he want Spock to leave Jim behind or not? Was firing the phasers bad or necessary? Is Spock doing too much to save Jim or is he just out to get rid of him and take command? And again, he had like 6 moments where he said something cutting and cruel and...one or two of those go a lot farther to show the point. I also just... Bones really, really doesn’t get Spock, and I can see how he’d get meaner given the space aggression. But he’s not cruel. And he and Spock are friends, and he does know that Spock loves Kirk more than anything. So I did not find him IC overall.

But I did really like Spock and his characterization. I could feel all the emotion in him, so pent up and controlled but so present--especially in the moment when he held the tape Kirk made, but in so many other places as well--the “funeral,” the first moment after Kirk failed to materialize, reaching for him on the Bridge...

I also liked this portrayal of Spock in command. He is a good commander and he has obviously grown a lot since the Galileo Seven. But he’s not Jim, and the show is clear about that. Kirk is not replaceable and his job is not easy. I’m not even sure that Kirk would have done much different than Spock--he wouldn’t have left without one of his crew, and that probably would have involved firing on the Tholian ship. But when Spock did it, it really felt like he was overwhelmed, frustrated, and not thinking--he didn’t want to, but then Scotty said he should, and he did. Kirk would have made the decision, not been pressured into it. Would it have mattered? It comes out to the same, but I think it would have been a different scenario. Kirk only ever makes his own decisions--then he can own them, no matter what. That didn’t feel like Spock’s decision, and it affected others’ confidence in him (cough cough McCoy).

I would have to watch again to see if I thought there was any other choice.

This ep made me think of the cave scene in ST09 where Ambassador Spock meets Kirk and thinks he is HIS Kirk, come on purpose to find him. Because obviously Kirk is like that: he comes back from the dead, he finds Spock no matter what, he comforts and reassures and supports him no matter what. He would cross dimensions, he’d travel through time, he’d become No Longer Dead, if that’s what Spock needed.

I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see Kirk’s adventures in the AU lol. I think he was lying about being alone in the other universe. I want to see the fic where he was actually in the AOS verse lol.

Even though there wasn’t enough Kirk in this ep, I appreciated how strong his presence was anyway, seeing everyone love him so much, and seeing just how effective he is as a Captain by comparison with Spock, who is good and who did get them out of the situation, but who lacks that certain... Captain’s quality.

And it outright was a great Spock episode, and a good Spock and McCoy ep except for all of the OOC-ness in McCoy. I’m starting to feel like actually there’s a pretty significant amount of Spock and McCoy stories (this one, The Paradise Syndrome All Our Yesterdays, even Bread and Circuses) and I wish there were more Kirk and Bones stories, too. They are best friends after all!

Next is Plato’s Stepchildren, which is a pretty meh episode, but not awful.

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #2021: fandom thoughts #start trek tos

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helloalycia · 4 years

Text

kiss me again // rory gilmore

summary: you're new to Stars Hollow and find yourself making friends with your new neighbours, the Gilmores. You certainly didn't expect to develop a crush on your new friend.

warning/s: none, just fluff tbh

author's note: i've got a handful of rory gilmore imagines written from like a year or 2 ago? wanna post them eventually so they're out of my drafts lol

masterlist | wattpad

"Thank you, Mr. Danes, this means a lot." I smiled appreciatively at the older man.

"Luke," he said, offering a small, almost-forced smile. He seemed very serious, but nice nonetheless. "You can call me Luke."

"Luke." I nodded and stood up from my seat at the counter. "When would you like me to start?"

He wiped down the counter as he said, "Tomorrow after school good for you?"

I grinned eagerly, excited to start working at Luke's diner. "Tomorrow after school is perfect. I guess I'll see you then."

He merely nodded and I took that as his confirmation before leaving. Getting a job was something I'd been meaning to do since moving here last week.

My parents and I had moved to Stars Hollow and I was still getting to know the place, but Luke's seemed like a friendly enough place to work. I'd only worked once, and that was at my local coffee shop back home in Chicago, so that experience must have made Luke consider me. I preferred being self-sufficient, and my parents definitely didn't mind, so a job was what I was after. And now I had it!

Settling in here wasn't too bad. The town was definitely different to my old one – everyone was too friendly here. Not that that was an issue, but it did feel strange.

I was riding my bike through town, smiling as I saw the mayor – Taylor something or the other? – in a small debacle with some woman. She seemed amused as he threw a mini tantrum. I didn't know too many people just yet, but some people at school had told me about Taylor. He was a character, alright.

I left my bike by the gates to our new house and headed inside, calling out for my parents.

"Mum?! Dad?! You home?!"

A moment of silence, before: "In the kitchen!"

I headed to the kitchen, past the moving-in boxes full of our stuff, and saw my mum sat at the kitchen table, hunched over some papers. She smiled as she saw me walk in.

"How was Luke's, honey?" she asked as I leaned down to give her a kiss.

I smiled as I remembered the good news. "I start tomorrow! Awesome, right?"

"Aw, sweetie, that's amazing! I'm happy for you. Your dad's at work, but I'm sure he'll love to get a call from you."

I nodded. "Thanks, mum."

The next day rolled around pretty quickly. School wasn't very exciting, but I was settling in well which was a good sign, I guess. After school though, I headed straight to Luke's with a bounce in my step. First day jitters took over a little.

"Y/N, hey!" Luke greeted when I walked in.

It wasn't very busy in here, since the lunch rush had ended, so Luke was filling up the salt and pepper shakers at the counter.

"Hey, I hope I'm on time," I said nervously, offering a small smile. "I was running a little late."

He waved his hand dismissively. "You're all good. You can leave your bag in the back, Caesar will show you where, and then I'll get you started on the basics. Serving coffee."

I chuckled. "Awesome."

I rounded the counter and headed into the back (Luke had given me the tour yesterday), where Caesar showed me where to put my bag, and also gave me an apron. Was it nerdy of me to get excited over the apron? Because I was.

When I returned to the front, Luke pointed to the coffee maker.

"You like coffee, Y/N?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I pursed my lips into a sheepish smile. "Will I get fired if I say no?"

He shrugged and handed me the pot as it finished brewing. "I'm not bothered as long as you can serve it without spilling it."

I accepted the pot and nodded confidently. "That I can do."

He nodded and got back to the salt and pepper shakers. "Okay, well, just refill anyone who asks. If anyone orders food, write it down and give it to Caesar. Deliver the food and that's really it. Pretty simple, so don't worry about screwing up or anything."

I nodded. "Gotcha."

"Can I get some coffee over here, please?" a customer called out, to which I perked up at.

"And that's my cue," I joked as I went to the customer.

Luke suppressed a smile and we both resumed with our jobs. This went on for about twenty minutes and I managed not to break, spill or drop anything. I wasn't exactly clumsy, but sometimes nerves got to me. Unsurprisingly enough, this was a pretty easy job, so it was going well so far. Then again, it had only been twenty minutes.

The bell rang signalling someone had entered, but I had my back to it as I collected some food from Caesar.

"Luke! If there isn't coffee cup waiting for me, I will most definitely melt into a puddle of stress!"

As I delivered food to this strange yet polite guy, Kirk, I caught a glimpse of the loud customer who had entered. A young woman and possibly her younger sister were seated at the counter. Luke didn't seem bothered by their cheerful, noisy presence (which he usually was with others), so I presumed they knew each other well.

"Lorelai, in case you didn't notice, the diner was pretty quiet until you walked in," Luke said knowingly, though he was filling a cup for the woman anyway.

"Yeah, mom, why can't you be more like me? Quiet yet adorable," the younger girl wearing a school uniform said with an adorable smile.

The woman – Lorelai, who I recognised as the woman laughing at Taylor yesterday in town – was smirking at her daughter (how was she a mother when she looked so young?!) as Luke rolled his eyes and gave her a cup of coffee.

"Luke?! The oven is doing something weird!" I heard Caesar shout from the back.

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good," Lorelai said teasingly.

"Can I get a coffee over here?" a customer called from the other side of the diner.

"Luke!"

"You might wanna check that out, Luke," the younger girl said with a laugh. "And a cup of coffee would be great."

"Yeah, I know," Luke said, growing irritated with Caesar's yelling. He looked around before saying to me, "Can you brew another pot of coffee whilst I see what Caesar's shouting about?"

I smiled and nodded. "You got it, boss."

As Luke headed to the back, I went behind the counter to make some more coffee.

"Luke hired someone new?"

I turned around as I heard Lorelai mention me. She smiled brightly my way.

"Uh, hi, I'm Y/N Y/L/N," I introduced with a nervous smile. "I just started, like, twenty or so minutes ago?"

Lorelai seemed impressed as she looked at my apron. "And not a coffee stain in sight. I'm impressed."

I chuckled. "Yeah, I guess so. Though I can't guarantee the apron will make it by the end of my shift."

Lorelai laughed before saying, "I haven't seen you around town before. Are you new?"

"Yeah, my family and I moved to Stars Hollow last week."

Lorelai nodded as she took a sip of her coffee, before widening her eyes and saying, "You're beeping delivery driver people!"

I smiled with confusion and quirked an eyebrow. "Erm, sorry?"

Lorelai nudged her daughter, who was staring at me with her bright blue eyes. "Remember? Beeping delivery driver people?"

The daughter, who zoned back into reality and looked to her mum, nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah."

"I'm really not getting this." I laughed nervously as I checked the coffee pot. Almost done.

Lorelai sat up straight and smiled. "You moved in down the street from us. Your delivery driver was beeping really loudly for some reason, hence beeping delivery driver people."

I snickered. "Ah, that makes sense now."

"I'm Lorelai Gilmore," she finally introduced with a grin. "And this oddly silent clone is my daughter, Rory."

I grabbed the pot of coffee and said, "Oh, well, nice to meet some neighbours. I'm Y/N, as you know." I stopped in front of the daughter, Rory, and said, "Did you want some coffee?"

Rory looked at me, seeming a little speechless. I felt nervous under her intense gaze, wondering if I had food on my face or something, but waited patiently.

"Rory, sweetie, anything alive in there?" Lorelai joked, shaking her daughter's arm.

Rory cleared her throat and smiled awkwardly. I could no longer meet her eyes because they were too intense and I felt like she was judging me for some reason.

"Sorry, uh, yeah, coffee. Coffee would be great," she finally spoke.

I chuckled a little and grabbed a cup from underneath the counter. After filling it up, I said, "If you guys need anything, just let me know."

I went back to filling up other people's coffees and dishing out food, all whilst paying a little attention to the Gilmore girls who were tucked into unreciprocated banter with Luke. I also stole a few glances at Rory – she was strange, quiet, but intriguing. Also, I was sure I felt her looking my way at times.

"Y/N, you free?" I heard my name and turned around to see Lorelai waving me over.

I headed over, setting the dirty plates at Caesar's, before standing behind the counter. "What's up?"

Lorelai smiled mischievously. "Rory and I were wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner. Well, you and your parents. You know, a little neighbourly welcoming into town."

Rory almost choked on her coffee before spluttering out, "We were?"

Lorelai ignored her. "So? What d'you say?"

I shrugged. "I guess so. But like, you don't have to. I don't want us to be a bother."

Lorelai waved her hand dismissively. "Pfft, nonsense. As long as you're okay with chinese takeout."

"Hmm, I'm not sure about chinese," I joked.

"I can settle for Italian, but that's my final offer," she played along.

I laughed. "Italian sounds great."

"Great! We'll see you, say... tomorrow evening? Our house is the one with the mailbox that says Gilmore."

I nodded. "Thanks. We'll see you then."

Lorelai smiled before standing up with her daughter. She left some cash on the counter, including a tip, before waving goodbye. I waved in return, even to Rory who seemed awkward and shy.

After my shift, I told my parents about Lorelai and Rory and the dinner invitation, and they seemed up to it, so that's where I found myself the next day at dinner.

"Please don't embarrass me," I begged a final time as we approached the door.

"What do you honestly think we're going to say?" my dad asked with a chuckle. "That you didn't sleep in your own bed until you were 7?"

"Or that you wore the same Mickey Mouse shirt every day for 2 weeks in third grade?" my mum added.

"Or that you arrange your bookshelf by favourite protagonist?"

"Or that–"

"Okay, I get it!" I cut my mother off before she could finish. "Geez, next time I won't say anything."

My parents both pulled me in for a side hug as I grumbled to myself. I really hoped they wouldn't embarrass me in front of these new people. It was a small town and I was sure word would spread if I did something stupid.

After what felt like forever, the front door finally opened to reveal Rory in a lovely dress and cheery smile.

"Hello! Please, come in," she said politely, stepping to the side. "I'm Rory Gilmore."

My parents walked in, earning a smile from the younger Gilmore, and I followed behind, only to meet her eyes and receive a nervous smile.

"Ah, Rory, yes," my mum said kindly. "Y/N mentioned you. I'm Y/M/N, Y/N's mum and this is my husband, Y/D/N."

"Lovely to meet you, Rory," my dad said.

Rory blushed a little before saying, "You guys can take off your coats and I'll hang them up for you. You can go straight into the kitchen and my mom should be there with the food."

"Thank you, dear," my mum said as she handed her coat over. My dad and I did the same before we all went to the kitchen.

"Hey, Lorelai," I said as I walked in. She was setting the food out on the table when she saw me.

"Y/N, hey," she said, smiling my way, before her eyes drifted to my parents. "And these must be the parents! Hello! I'm Lorelai Gilmore, mother of Rory."

Everyone got acquainted and we all took a seat in the kitchen to indulge in some good old pizza.

"I hope this is okay," Lorelai said as we all tucked in. "I'm not exactly the best cook, so I figured you can't go wrong with takeout."

"Not the best is an understatement," Rory added. "It's either pizza or death by food poisoning."

Lorelai shoved her daughter playfully as we all laughed.

"This is fine, Lorelai," my mum said with an amused smile. "Pizza is a go-to in our house too, what with Y/D/N and I working a lot and Y/N insisting we eat pizza all the time."

"Hey, pizza is beautiful and you've never complained before," I defended, earning chuckles all around.

"What is it you both do, if you don't mind me asking?" Lorelai asked, and cue the boring job discussion.

My parents were realtors which meant we moved around a little, and it was cool, after you hadn't heard it a million times over. I was more interested in Lorelai's answer. She worked at an inn just outside Stars Hollow which was interesting. Her bubbly persona was totally understandable now.

"So, Y/N, how are you settling in at school?" Lorelai asked, and it took me a moment to realise she was talking to me.

"Hm? Oh, school."

She suppressed a laugh. "Bored you already? That can't be good."

I felt my cheeks heat up with embarrassment. "No, gosh, no, sorry. I just got a little lost in my thoughts... School is good. It's just school, isn't it?"

My dad rolled his eyes. "She's modest. She's brainy this one. Already enrolled in the debate team, started up as a librarian and staying back at lunches to help her English teacher. She loves school."

"Remember that thing I said outside before we walked in?" I said to my dad with a sarcastic smile. "This is it. This is what you're doing."

Lorelai laughed. "Hold on, hold on, let me guess. You guys got the 'don't embarrass me' talk, too?"

"Nailed it," my mum answered.

I sat there smiling with embarrassment as they laughed at mine, and now Rory's, dismay.

"So, Rory, you go to Chilton? You mentioned earlier on," my dad switched the attention from me, thank god.

"Uh, yeah, just started actually," she replied with a nervous smile.

"Well I hope everything is working out for you," my mum told her. "You must be very intelligent."

Rory seemed embarrassed as she nodded in response. Her cheeks were a bright red in contrast to her blue eyes.

The parents mostly made conversation as Rory and I stayed silent and listened, chiming in every now and then.

Eventually they seemed to notice though, as Lorelai said, "Why don't you guys head into Rory's room? Rory, honey, you can show her your books or something."

"Uhh..."

"You don't need to do that," I assured her, noticing her awkwardness.

"She's fine," Lorelai said, nudging her. "Go on."

"Go on, Y/N," my dad urged, doing the same.

Rory and I, practically forced to mingle, stood up and I followed her to her room, which was connected to the kitchen. I could hear my parents and Lorelai making their way to the living-room, probably with wine, and so I knew we wouldn't be leaving for another half hour or so.

Rory closed the door behind us and motioned to the room. "This is it, really."

I looked around at her spacious room. It was very clean and seemed very organised, which made sense because that was just the vibe Rory gave off.

"It's cute," I complimented with a smile, hoping to ease the awkwardness. "Clean. Organised."

She merely smiled, her cheeks still a little red from embarrassment.

I stepped in a little more and noticed her bookshelf. "D'you mind if I take a look?"

"Feel free," she said before taking a seat on her bed.

I browsed her bookshelf and immediately noticed it wasn't organised alphabetically. Nerdy, yes, but I was curious.

"Is there a reason for the way you've ordered your books or...?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound like a loser.

She chuckled. "Oh, god, okay... I'm not crazy, honest. But yeah, they're currently organised by the publishing date."

I chuckled and looked to her oldest book, pulling it out. I didn't recognise it, but I opened it and saw it was published in 1956.

"Wow, old," I said, putting it back how I found it. I turned around and hoped I didn't offend her by laughing. "I organised mine by favourite protagonist, so you're definitely not crazy."

The first real smile I'd ever seen from the girl appeared on her lips and I'd be lying if I said it didn't weirdly make my stomach do somersaults.

"You can sit on my bed, I won't bite," she said, feeling a little more comfortable with me.

I pressed my lips into a smile and took a seat beside her. "So, care to share what the deal with the mayor is around here?"

She laughed and her eyes sparkled when she did. "Oh, boy, you're gonna need some popcorn and a recliner for this one."

–

After that evening spent at the Gilmores, it made settling in a little bit easier. Of course Rory wasn't in my school, but I'd always see her at Luke's right after, since she'd stop by when the Chilton bus dropped her off. I obviously worked there, so that was kind of our way of seeing each other and developing a friendship.

Plus her and Lorelai lived on our street so we'd see them around a lot, especially in town. I got to meet a few other townspeople too, thanks to Rory, who offered to give me a tour. She even introduced me to her best friend who goes to my school, Lane.

At first, Rory seemed shy around me, but I think it was just because she didn't know me very well. Now she seemed alright which was cool because she was pretty awesome. And she gave me this funny feeling when I was with her – I didn't know what it was, but it felt nice.

"Are you alive over there? Hellooooo?"

I zoned back into reality as Rory waved her hand in front of my face to grab my attention. I immediately noticed her laughing at my dismay, that funny feeling becoming present again.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm just a little tired," I explained. "I stayed up trying to finish some science homework last night only to realise it was Friday night and I had all weekend to complete it."

Rory laughed once again, her eyes widening with amusement. "Why are you like this?"

I shook my head. "I honestly don't know."

"You know what you need?"

"Don't say it," I said, smiling at her cocky smirk.

"Coffee." She looked to the counter. "Luke! Please can we get another round?"

I sighed as Luke came round to refill our cups. "I've never met someone this obsessed with coffee, you know that?"

"It's a gift," she winked playfully, before taking a sip of her coffee and completely unaware of what her wink did to me.

My gaze flickered down to my cup, which was filled with some freshly brewed coffee.

"You know, I'm so sure you didn't like coffee," Luke commented once he filled our cups.

I nodded, ignoring the glare Rory was giving me from across the table. Instead, I looked up to Luke and said, "I'm not a fan of it. The only time you'll probably catch me drinking it is when I'm, well, with Rory and she's forcing me to."

"Hey, I'm not holding a gun to your head, am I?" she asked with disbelief.

I smiled with amusement.

"I can bring you some tea if you want," Luke suggested monotonously.

"Don't you dare," Rory threatened jokingly.

"Tea would be great," I muttered to Luke, who nodded and went to fetch me a tea.

Rory seemed fed up. "What can a girl do? Being betrayed is not how I saw our lunch beginning."

I chuckled at her adorable facial expression. "You're being dramatic."

"Can Lane take any longer to arrive? I don't wanna lose my appetite when the back-stabbing begins," she continued over exaggerating.

"Rory!" I laughed at her exaggeration. "Quit it."

She gave me a 'what can I do?' look, making me roll my eyes. Luke returned with my tea and removed my coffee, which only made Rory sigh extra loudly.

"Lane's arrival would be good right now," I agreed teasingly.

Just on time, the door to Luke's rang and in walked Lane, who joined our table in an instant.

"Sorry I'm late, you know how my mom can be," she apologised, before looking between us both. "What did I miss?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but Rory beat me to it.

"Not much," she nodded, "Y/N here was just planning to bury me alive."

"I'm not even going to bother," I gave up before sipping my tea. I glared at Rory playfully adding, "Mmm, lovely."

Lane snickered. "Gosh, you're both so childish."

"She started it," Rory retorted, pointing her finger at me, making me smack it away lightly. She continued nonetheless. "Leading me on in this fake friendship, pretending she liked coffee when she's a tea drinker!" She said it with such feigned hostility that I couldn't help but laugh.

"I thought she knew," Lane said to me. "It was literally one of the first things you said to me when we met at Luke's."

I shrugged. "Yeah, well, you're not madly obsessed with it, so it was kinda easy to tell you. Rory on the other hand..." I gave her a knowing look, to which she pursed her lips at.

"You could have told me still," she continued, shrugging indifferently. "I wouldn't have judged."

"Like you are now," Lane added with a laugh.

I suppressed a smile as I said, "When we first met, Rory, you were the epitome of awkward and shy. I thought you didn't like me. So you totally led me on with false impression. But you don't see me complaining, do you?"

"What? That doesn't sound like Rory," Lane said with a knowing look.

Rory began to blush behind her cup of coffee as I glanced her way.

"No, that was definitely Rory," I said, sure of myself. "She just sat there, at the counter, not saying a word. I half expected her to insult me with the odd stare she was giving me."

"Really?!" Lane was in disbelief before looking to Rory. "That's so unlike you!"

Rory tried to wave her hand dismissively. "It was a bad day, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, though I was smiling teasingly at her. "It all worked out though. That dinner at your mum's was a good icebreaker. Even if you didn't want me there."

Rory avoided my eyes as she smiled with embarrassment. "I never said I didn't want you there."

I laughed. "You didn't have to. Your mannerisms said it all."

Lane looked like she'd just uncovered a rarity as Rory blushed into her cup. Meanwhile I couldn't stop the butterflies in my stomach as Rory seemed super flustered before me.

"You girls ready to order now?" Luke asked, approaching our table. And thus the conversation was over.

Eventually, over time, I was figuring out what all of these unexplainable feelings around Rory were. I just hadn't wanted to face the truth at the time, but they began to make sense when I took time to truly think about it.

There was one time specifically though, when I thought she may have felt it, too.

I was sat down cross-legged on the floor of Luke's pantry. I was unpacking some canned goods onto the lower shelves of his stockpile when I heard a knock on the door.

I turned around with confusion, since it was only supposed to be me here, but relaxed when I saw it was only Rory.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked her as she approached me. "I thought you'd be out there with the rest of the town."

She sat next to me on the floor as I continued to place the cans neatly on the shelf.

"I was, but Lane had to go and my mom's still at work and I realised you still weren't there, so I came looking for you and Luke sent me here."

"Oh, so I was your last choice of person to hang out with," I teased, pretending to be hurt. "Nice."

I looked up for a moment and saw a beautiful smile on her face as she rolled her eyes. I blamed the weird lighting in here that made me think of her in any way other than as a friend, but I knew deep down it wasn't the case.

"Why are you back here, Y/N?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "It's Friday night and you're stacking tinned cans."

I nodded as I moved to grab the next box. "True, but Luke– well, you know of Rachel, right?" Rory nodded. "Well, she's here and Luke obviously wanted to spend time with her, so I told him to hang out with her tonight and I'll finish these last few boxes off and lock up for him."

"That's sweet," Rory said, watching me.

I shrugged. "He looked happy. And you know how rare it is to see Luke happy."

Rory chuckled and looked down to her lap. "Very true."

"I'm almost done here," I said, meeting Rory's gaze. "You don't have to wait up."

Rory shrugged. "I don't mind. I can help, too, if you want."

"I don't see why not," I answered, before pushing an open box in front of her. "Just unload these and stack them on this shelf here."

She nodded and got to work, a comfortable silence between us both.

"You've been in Stars Hollow for a few months now," Rory suddenly spoke up.

"Yeah," I agreed, unsure where she was going.

"You like it here?" she asked casually.

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I've got a job, made new friends, my parents are happy... it's great."

Rory nodded in response. "Yeah, that's cool... so, how's school? You like it?"

I shrugged. "Sure, it's alright. It's just school, really."

Rory nodded again, all of her attention on stacking. "Anyone there who you like? You know, like, like like?"

I almost laughed. "Excuse me?"

She chewed on her lip whilst remaining her casual attitude. "You know, has anyone caught your eye."

I couldn't help but let out a quiet chuckle. "No, Rory, not really."

She nodded and it went quiet. I presumed it normal until she spoke up again, this time looking right at me.

"But like 'not really' as in there may be someone? Or 'not really' as in nobody?"

I stopped what I was doing and noticed how conflicted she seemed. "'Not really' as in not really, Rory."

She bit her lip and nodded, looking down again.

I rested a hand on her wrist and asked, "You okay?"

She licked her lips and nodded, her eyes flickering from her wrist to me.

"You sure?" I asked again, furrowing my eyebrows. "You seem a little puzzled... it's funny, don't get me wrong, but a little worrying."

Her eyes looked up to mine and I noticed how bright they were, even in this badly-lit pantry. They lowered to my lips and I tried to convince myself I was imagining it, until suddenly I felt her lips against mine.

Rory Gilmore was kissing me.

One hand was holding my cheek as the other was pressed to my leg as she kept her balance close to me. I closed my eyes, beginning to kiss back, until she suddenly pulled away, her eyes wide like flying saucers.

"Oh my god," she muttered, moving further away from me.

"Rory–"

"I'm sorry," she apologised, quickly standing up. "I've got to, erm–"

"Rory," I said, standing up and trying to move forward, but she stepped back.

"I just realised I have some homework to do," she said, her eyes still wide with surprise. "Yeah, I guess I can't hang tonight. Sorry."

Before I could say anything, she ran out of the pantry and I was left alone realising how much I really wanted her to kiss me again.

–

That evening, I left a voice message on Rory's answering machine – nothing too specific in case Lorelai heard, just that I wanted her to call me back. Of course, I received no call and the next day, I was still left pondering our kiss.

She must have liked me, right? You don't just accidentally kiss someone. So why was she avoiding me?

I didn't want to pressure her to speak, but I also deserved some answers. I didn't try ringing again – it was obvious she didn't want to call, so I gave her some space the next morning. I did some homework, nipped into town to see if Rory was around – a mere glance is all, and then rang Lane to ask if she'd seen Rory about. Of course, she hadn't, so I ended up back at my house debating whether or not to stop by her house. Eventually my thoughts ate away at me and I stopped by.

When I knocked on, it was Lorelai who answered.

"Oh, hey, Y/N," she greeted with a smile. "You wanna come in?"

I smiled politely. "Erm, that's okay. I was just wondering if Rory was in? I had something to talk to her about. This book she was interested in."

Lorelai nodded. "Well, she decided she suddenly wanted to take a trip to the book store in town."

I sighed. "Ah, that makes sense." Of course she'd be in the one place I didn't check.

"Is that all?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot," I said, nodding. "See you later."

Lorelai waved as I walked down her porch steps. "Bye, sweetie."

I grabbed my bike and cycled back into town, trying to ignore my raging heartbeat and unsettled stomach. The anticipation was only growing the closer I got to the book store.

After chaining up my bike, I headed inside and smiled at the shopkeeper before going down the first aisle of books. It was pretty quiet and I only saw like three people here. I was starting to lose hope that Rory was even here until finally, I caught sight of her in the back corner of the store, her head deep in the blurb of some book.

I took a deep breath before stepping forward and clearing my throat. "Erm, hey, Rory."

She jumped, startled at my presence, and dropped her book. "Y/N, hi!"

I apologised as I picked up the book she dropped. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Rory, who I noticed was looking everywhere but at me, waved her hand dismissively. "Scare me? Nah, you did no such thing." She made every effort to avoid touching my hand as she accepted the book I held out to her.

I nodded and chewed on my lower lip. "Oh... well, erm, you didn't return my call last night, or, well, today..."

She chewed the inside of her mouth as she busied herself with putting the book back. "Yeah, sorry, I was going to, but I forgot."

I nodded awkwardly, watching as she ran her hands over the spines of the books clumsily.

"Don't you think we should talk?" I asked, lowering my voice a little. "About what happened?"

She swallowed deeply, looking down at her shoes. "Yes, talk..."

I decided to say something, knowing she wouldn't. "Look, I don't think you're the kind of person to do something and not mean anything by it. You're too clever for that."

She stayed silent, sucking on her lower lip nervously.

"You kissed me, Rory," I finally said, making sure I wasn't too loud. "You kissed me and then ran away."

"Should I not have?" she suddenly asked, looking me in the eyes.

I blinked. "Huh?"

She didn't look away. "Should I not have ran away?"

I cleared my throat and broke the eye contact when I felt myself growing nervous again. "Erm, well, I guess, in an ideal scenario, I would have liked it if you stayed...."

"Really?"

I nodded, risking a glance at her, only to see a small smile tugging at her lips. "Really."

She nodded slowly. "I would have liked that, too."

I mirrored her small smile, feeling those butterflies in my stomach again.

There was a pause in conversation, as someone walked past us. But when we were alone again, I spoke up.

"I've never done this before," I admitted shyly. "You know, liking a girl."

Her eyebrows raised hopefully. "You like me?"

My smile widened. "I thought that was obvious when I kissed you back?"

Her cheeks reddened a little. "Right, yeah... well, I'm new to this, too."

I admired how beautiful she looked right now, eyes darting around nervously, her smile shy and hidden, and decided to just go for it.

I glanced around, noticing we were still alone, and stepped forward, closer to her, before grabbing one of her hands gently.

"Why don't we figure this out together?" I asked quietly, meeting her curious gaze. "Because all I know is that I've been wanting you to kiss me again since you did last night at Luke's."

Her eyes brightened. "You– you have?"

I could feel my cheeks heating up with embarrassment as I nodded. "Yeah."

She smiled down at me and grabbed my other hand, pulling me closer to her. After a quick glance around us, she pulled me close and kissed me like she did last night. Except this time it wasn't hesitantly, but rather confidently and passionately. She moved her lips perfectly against mine, making my brain melt into a pile of mush and my heart beat excessively at her touch.

It didn't last long because we were both still nervous someone could see us, but it lasted long enough to leave me breathless and staring at her dumbfounded.

"That was..."

She nodded, her face as flushed as mine. "Yep..."

At the sound of someone approaching, we immediately let go of each other's hands, but when I looked up to meet her eyes, I saw an honest, caring smile on her lips and I knew that we could make this work. Somehow.

#rory gilmore #Rory gilmore x reader #Rory gilmore imagine #gilmore girls #Alexis bledel #Rory gilmore x female reader

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dreamthinkimagine · 4 years

Text

The Laugh

WARNING: stressed!Bones

For @anasticklefics

On the Enterprise, laughter was a beautiful thing; everybody knew that. They also knew that every laugh was different - some laughs were quiet, others loud, some high, some low. They loved them all and everyone had their own favorite type of laugh; but there was one laugh that Doctor McCoy liked to hear the best.

Whenever James Kirk laughed really hard, what came out was a high pitched, contagious laugh capable of drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Once Jim laughed like that, no matter how bad your day had been, you instantly felt better, the weight lifted off your shoulders and you felt lighter, as if you could walk on air. This laugh only came around once in a while though, so Bones dubbed it, “The Laugh.”

Maybe that was why he tickled that laugh out of Jim whenever he was down in the dumps.

"What's up, Bones," Jim asked when he saw his friend sitting alone in the mess hall. Bones was hunched over a plate of untouched food with an elbow up on the table and a hand supporting his head.

"Long day."

"Anything I can do?"

"No, I - actually yes. Meet me in Sickbay in ten minutes." He got up, leaving his food on the table and made his way to Sickbay. The Laugh. The beautiful Laugh. He was certain that it was the only thing capable of bringing him out of his funk. He immediately went to his computer and started looking for the best jokes he could find, since Jim didn’t do anything to provoke any tickling.

***

“What’s up,” Jim asked as he walked into his office. He was then bombarded with at least ten jokes, all of which were funny, so he laughed; but none were the funniest he’d heard, so he didn’t do The Laugh. Jim looked at Bones who plopped onto his chair, sitting in a strange way that Jim thought would be uncomfortable. “Whahat was that, Bones?”

“You gotta laugh.”

“I was.”

“No, you gotta do The Laugh.” The what? Bones could tell how confused Jim was - of course he had no idea that he had branded one of his laughs. “...When you laugh really hard it gets all high pitched and I wanted to see if I could get it out of you another way because -” As he was talking, Jim suddenly had a barrage of flashbacks that hit him almost at once.

The first one happened about a year ago. They had just had a particularly tough mission where they beamed down onto a planet and got themselves in some kind of trouble. Again. But when they beamed back aboard, it wasn’t the usual happy ending. Bones was upset. Something on that planet was sticking with him, so Jim went to go see if he could help.

He couldn’t even remember what got Bones to finally snap. Probably something he did on the planet that Jim saw as heroic while Bones thought otherwise - all he really remembered was being trapped between a biobed and his CMO as his ticklish spots were under a vicious attack. His fingers were quick - running up and down his ribs, kneading into his stomach. Kirk was so focused on the sensations, that he didn’t even notice his own voice getting higher. What he did notice was him slowly starting to slide to the floor and, once there, Bones took full advantage of it. Jim didn’t think he’d laughed so hard in his life...up to that point anyway.

“Bo - Bohohohohones!”

“Not now, Jim.”

“Stohohoahahahap! Hahahahahaha!”

“I’m busy.” Deep down, Kirk was grateful, but couldn’t figure out why his friend liked tickling him as much as he liked being tickled. It wasn’t like Bones could feel it too. Whatever the reason was, Bones laughed with him.

Another time was a few months before. Bones had just had an intense argument with Spock - the right brain vs the left. They’d been at it for at least twenty minutes before Jim stepped in canceling their little battle. He asked his first officer to finish analyzing some strange liquid they found on their last mission. This allowed Spock to escape with the last word, while providing a much needed distraction.

“He did have a point,” Kirk said with a smirk. That. Jerk. He saw that Bones was getting worked up. That had to be why he had Spock leave. But then he turned around and teased him?! Traitor! Before he could say “warp twelve” Bones was already working his magic. Drilling his fingers into the ticklish skin on his sides. He only stopped when he got to hear The Laugh for a little bit and Jim was curled up on the floor, giggling as McCoy took his hands back. Bones laughed too.

“Don’t do that again,” Bones said with a smirk that matched Kirk’s from a few minutes before. “Now get out and go to the gym. Doctor’s orders.” Jim stayed panting on the floor. “Jim,” he said, getting the Captain’s attention and wiggled his fingers in the air. Before he could say, “warp twelve” Jim was out and on his way to the gym.

The last was the time when a mission mishap ended up filling his Sickbay completely. Jim had been in his quarters contemplating how he could have done better when he heard a knock at his door. He barely had time to open it when McCoy grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him onto the bed. For the split second before he was getting the living daylight tickled out of him, he noticed a bit of distress laying upon his friend’s face.

“Bohohohohohones! Hahahaha!” He screeched as the Doctor dug into his ribs.

“You need to laugh. What happened down there is not your fault.” Jim’s laugh filled the room so much that McCoy felt he could swim in it. The weight he carried physically lifted away the higher Jim’s voice became. And all he had to do was listen to The Laugh. It felt like for the first time since all those people came into Sickbay that he could properly breathe. He didn’t know why this helped him. Maybe because he was a doctor and laughter was the best medicine? Maybe he just liked hearing someone who had a greater constant stress than he had laughing? Maybe that gave him hope that things were still OK and would be OK.

He kept it up until Jim had been laughing hard and high for at least five minutes - Jim lost track after Bones went for his hips. But he definitely noticed that the doctor was a lot calmer when he left because he was laughing a free laugh, the kind he only did when things seemed right. Maybe they both needed Jim to be tickled.

What did all these have in common? Bones had been stressed. Was this all it took to get Bones to calm down and feel better? He guessed so. At that moment, he fell under another attack, Bones obviously had noticed Jim wasn’t listening to him - and that warranted some tickling. And it’s not like Jim really minded either. In fact, when he listened to his own laugh get higher, he relished in the sound. A feeling of pride overwhelmed him as he knew that the sweet sound, the same one that made one of his closest friends happy, came from him. So, Jim let Bones have his fun and would be sure to laugh like that more often.

And Bones laughed with him.

#ticklish!jim #references to TOS #based on TOS bloopers where Shatner's laugh is really high-pitched #Also DeForest Kelley had weird sitting positions #WARNING: stressed!bones

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter three: fire and lemons

“i'm goin' back, of course i am! as if i ever had a choice. back to what i always knew i was on the inside. back to what I really am.” -”burning bright (field on fire)”, nine inch nails

It would be another couple of days before Sam heard a peep from Joey again. In the meantime, she had picked up Metallica's phone numbers given she knew she would have more encounters with them in and around their shows, and she made a promise to a tipsy Lars to share some of her drawings when she found the chance.

Cliff offered to take Sam home but she had already been promised a ride from Marla, Frank, and Charlie back up to the Bronx; Joey hitched a ride with them given he was in no shape to drive back upstate. The last thing she saw before she left the restaurant was Cliff's thoughtful facial expression, there right behind James and Kirk; Legacy, meanwhile, were headed on back to their hotel somewhere down in Manhattan. Sam peered out the car window in time to see that boy with the little white tuft in his hair at the curb: darkness shrouded his face but she could make out the shape of the small piece of white through it all.

The warm spring night greeted her and Frank once the two of them had returned to the apartment complex for the night: Sam's knee still ached a bit as she took the steps up to her place, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it used to be before. She made a mental note to head on back to Frank's apartment to fetch that journal and make some more drawings, that time to show to Lars.

In the meantime, she used a small journal she had delved out from the bottom of her bag for doodles. She kept her mind fixated on Cliff, especially since she knew it was him at that point. Indeed, when she fell asleep on the couch that night, he appeared in the wake of her dream. The white stripe bled away into darkness and into a pair of snakes atop his head. His handsome face gazed back at her like the old stone face of a statue.

It wasn't him, but it also was. The man of her dreams, same as he ever was and always will be to her. He was in between something, somewhere, someone who graced the earth. It was Cliff. It wasn't Cliff. Somewhere in between there.

She reached out to touch him, to feel him, to get to know him, and yet he drifted away from her, much like that of a ghost in the shadows. He wondered around her as if he was about to circle his prey, but he never said anything. His deep set eyes watched her, even as he walked behind her and underneath her.

She awoke with her arms outstretched before her, such that they dangled over the edge of the couch cushions. She let her fingers curl back towards the base of her palm. So close and yet so far away from her.

Sam also recalled the promise she made to Joey, to go and hang out with him at some point that week. She had made a couple of calls to him over the course of two days but he never picked up once. She did, however, pick up his answering machine and the sound of his soft voice coupled with his distinct upstate accent. Every single time she did, she closed her eyes to relish in it.

“Hey, this is Joey Belladonna—I'm either out jammin' or playin' hockey, but you can leave a message if you'd like, please and thank you.”

It was only for a few seconds, but it was something.

He finally made the call back to her early one morning, but she was quick to pick it up there in the kitchen as she began to brew a small pot of coffee for herself.

“Hey, my li'l Sam I am,” he greeted her in a soft, broken voice.

“Hey, Joey! I've been wondering what's been going on with you.”

“I had a feelin' that was the case.” A gentle crackling noise on his end caught her attention.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him. “You don't sound good.”

“I just woke up,” he answered, “I haven't been able to get back to ya 'cause I was nursin' the hangover.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It was also one of those things where it was like—I kept forgetting to get back to you. That's kinda my fault, though. I kept forgetting and by that point, it was always like almost midnight and I figured you had already gone to sweet. So—but here I am now! How is everything?”

“Oh, you know,” she replied with a shrug of her shoulders, “—just waiting to hear back from the admissions desk at my school and doodling and whatnot. I can foresee hope of paying my rent soon.”

“That's so good,” he remarked and the crackling noise emerged from the background again. “So, uh—what you wanna do when we see each other again?”

“What do you have in mind?” Sam leaned back against the edge of the counter and folded her arms across her chest.

“Well, Metallica's coming back out this way—not this week but next Friday, I think? They haveta finish up on some important stuff for their new record. Apparently they recorded it over in Denmark so they left for there just last night and then they're comin' back here.”

“Wow. Why Denmark?”

“I dunno—sump'n 'bout the studio being cold so everything stands out better. Scott, Frankie, and Charlie know about it way more than I do. Legacy are comin' back over this way around then, too. I guess they'll be playing at L'Amour again.”

“Oh, how fun! I'd like to see them again—I wanna get to know them more.”

“Right? They're kind of at the tail end of this whole wave going around here and back out West, too. This wave of... 'speed metal' as it's known. Everyone is calling Metallica, Anthrax, and two other bands outta California, Megadeth and Slayer, as like the ones who're leading the way. Like the big ones.”

“The big four?” she followed along.

“Yeah, they're like the big four! The big four of the whole thing. And Legacy are kinda at the tail end of it 'cause they started a little later and they're still shuffling around.”

“A 'transition stage' as Zelda described it,” she recalled. “And you're part of it!”

“And I'm part of the big four! It almost feels like a movement of sorts. Although Anthrax to me feels like the oddball of the bunch 'cause y'know, we're from New York and those guys are all from your neck of the woods in California.”

“But they all frequent out this way, though,” she pointed out. “At least Metallica and Legacy do anyway.”

“They all do, yeah—we should meet up with Megadeth and Slayer at some point. The couple of times I got to meet Slayer, they were—for lack of a better word—fucking badasses. These seemingly scary looking dudes but they were real cool, though. Real friendly and genuine buncha guys. I haven't met Megadeth yet, though. We all should have a big party together some day.”

“All the parties and all the rage,” she remarked.

“All the parties and all the rage, all the world's a stage,” he waxed.

“That's good, you should write that down.”

“I ain't no song writer, though. Some people are good at that sorta thing—I don't really see myself as that.”

“But that was good, though! I liked that, Joey. You should do something of your own some day, like Stormtroopers of Death.”

“Do my own shtick and release under the label down there in the City,” he joked.

“Yeah, exactly!”

“But anyways, that's next week when Metallica are coming back from Denmark, though,” he continued, that time in a serious tone. “What about this week and before you hear back from the school people is what you wanted to know, though.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, let's see—I'm not doin' anything together. And I haven't been able to do anything, either, 'cause—you know.”

“Hungover.”

“Hungover—that lasted a little more than a day, too. But I'm back and invigorated, though.” He fell silent for a second, and the rustling noise caught her attention once again.

“What's that sound?” she asked him.

“What sound?”

“I keep hearing like this crackling sound on your end.”

“Oh, I'm layin' on my couch and there's a bunch of newspapers down on the floor and I keep brushing my foot up against it. Sometimes I don't even pay attention to what I'm doin' when I'm on the phone and—ah, shit—” More crackling on his end.

“What happened?”

“I kicked it over—hang on a sec.” Silence fell on his end: she could hear him shuffling around and doing something off of the phone. But within time, he returned to the phone and let out a long low whistle. “Here's an idea—how 'bout I drive on down there to the Bronx and come on over to your place and we play by ear there?”

“Sounds good. I'll be waiting for you.”

“It's gonna be a while—like—well, you've been up here before. It takes a while to get on down there. So—take a shower if ya wish. I know I'm gonna do that.”

“You wanna look good for me?” she teased him.

“Well...”

“Well?” She raised her eyebrows even though he couldn't see her.

“I won't deny it, but I also need a shower,” he finished in a single breath. “I smell like an empty liquor bottle.”

“Oh, yeah—get in that shower, big fella.”

He laughed at that and within time, they hung up, and Sam made her way to the bathroom for a warm shower and a fresh change of clothes. She knew she would have to return home from her day with Joey soon enough given the thought about her attending school hung over her. An excuse to get away from there and a reason for him to get away from that awful feeling.

Indeed, as the warm water cascaded over her head and shoulders, she figured she could help him out of that. That night in the alleyway told her that he was a boy in need of help. There was no way she could fix him but she could at the very least be a friend to him and dig him out of the alleyway once again.

Within time, she had dried off and ran a brush through her hair. A knock on the door caught her attention and she flung it open to find Joey standing there in a little white shirt and fitted black jeans. His jet black flyaway curls glistened under the ambient sunlight of the hallway and his sun kissed skin looked so soft and smooth. His black Chuck Taylors fitted his feet like a new pair of gloves. Meanwhile, the marker ink had stayed intact on his dark skin even after a couple of days and after he had cleaned up for her.

She noticed a flat silvery metallic band on his right wrist: something she hadn't seen before with him.

“What, no flowers?” She was taken aback.

“Was I supposed to get ya flowers?” he asked her, slightly hurt.

She hesitated for a second, and then she realized what she had done.

“Can I ask you a question?” she started.

“Yeah, sure,” Joey raised his dark eyebrows at her.

“Is this your first date?”

He stopped with his eyebrows still raised up into his bangs. She gazed into those dark irises.

“You really wanna know?”

“Please.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip.

“Is this a date?” he asked her.

“It's a date if you want it to be one,” she pointed out. “It can be a play date.”

“Nah, it's a play date if you and I are jammin' together.” He hesitated. “Do you—”

“Do I what?” She turned her head a bit to make sure her purse was within her arm's length on the hook.

“Play an instrument at all?” he finished with a bit of reluctance.

“I don't. I probably should, though.”

“Yes, you totally should.” His face lit up at that. She showed him a smile and then she reached to her right for her purse.

“Shall we?” she started.

“Yeah, let's,” he said as he lifted his elbow up for her to link up. She slung the purse over her shoulder and she closed the door in one fell swoop. The two of them made their way outside to the bright sunlight and the fresh aroma of springtime. Joey reached into his jeans pocket for his mirrored sunglasses: with one hand, he put it on over his dark eyes and his straight Roman nose. The lenses shone in the bright yellow light; Sam squinted her eyes once they reached the sidewalk.

“There's a little park over here,” Joey told her with a point up the block. “Like, around the corner. We can hang out and take a walk around the place.”

“Is there a lake or something there?” she asked him as she shielded her eyes from the midday sun with her free hand.

“I don't think so,” he confessed. “I didn't see one. I also saw a hockey rink not too far from here.”

“You wanna show me a little round of hockey, don't ya?” she teased him.

“If ya don't mind,” he replied with a little shrug of his shoulders and a lopsided little smile.

“Can we walk?”

“We can,” he said, and he ran his fingers through the fine, minute ringlets on the side of his head.

Joey linked up his right elbow with her left and they strolled together down the sidewalk to the corner. Sam peered past him to the narrow side street and she spotted the narrow strip of grass which he called the park.

“That's more like a dog park,” she declared.

“Yeah, now that I look at it—I imagine a bunch'a little dogs running around there now that I really look at it.” He lifted the sunglasses from his face for a moment; once they crossed the pavement, he brought them back down. She spotted the hockey rink in question, a long low dark building set back from the blacktop.

“I should've brought my skates with me,” he confessed over the noise of the street. “But then again, I don't think either of us can go onto the ice without one of us asking.”

“You could always say you're a hockey player,” she suggested as they looked both ways before they crossed the street.

“Yeah, but I'd need to do a little more than just say it, though,” he pointed out. Stray, damp black curls flew out from the back of his head as he led her across the first two lanes of the street. He paused at the center divider to let her catch up to him.

“You sure can run fast,” she remarked with a bit of a pant.

“That's part of the trade,” he replied with that lopsided grin back on his face. “Here—” He extended his hand for her and he guided her across the other two lanes to the sidewalk and ultimately, the hockey rink. Joey's black curls sprawled over his shoulders once they were in repose so as to catch their breath.

“For a skinny little guy, you sure are strong and full of stamina,” she said as she adjusted the strap of her purse.

“As I said, it's part of the trade. The strength of the whole thing will make you help the others find it for themselves. C'mon...” He led her to the hockey rink, which had been closed for the springtime, but he was willing to look in through the front window at the dark front room. She joined in next to him: through the cold shadows, she could make out the sight of a low bench and a series of lockers on the side of the wall.

“God, this takes me back,” he said in a low voice. “It seems like a lifetime ago since I would sit on a bench like that and lace up and put on my knee pads and my jersey.”

He turned to her with a serious expression on his face.

“Do ya think maybe you'd be up for a game of hockey at some point in the future?” he suggested. “I can show you how to do it if you don't know anything.”

“It'll be a while, though, Joey,” she pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” he nodded at her with haste. “But I wanna show you the world that came before I turned into Joe the singing drummer—or Joe the drumming singer, whichever suits best. And I'll see if I can find a pair of skates for ya. And now that we bring it up, I kinda wanna show you something...” His voice trailed off and he turned his head. Without hesitating, he ducked over to a white plastic pipe laying on the grass. She stood there before the window and watched him.

“I was a goalie for a long time,” he called out; he held the end of the pipe with two hands, and he held it down by his slim waist. He spread his legs so it looked as though he was about to brandish a sword. “I did act as offense and defense a few times in the past, but I was mostly a goalie.”

“Did you have those big pads on your knees?” she asked him with a gesture down to her own knees.

“Oh, yeah—they stuck onto my knees and went all the way down to my ankles. I had these big oven mitts for gloves to protect my hands. You don't really think of the goalies taking a lotta shit, but we do. Well, I did, anyway. I got hit in the head and in the stomach a lot. Anyways, I'm holdin' this pipe like this 'cause you never wanna raise the hockey stick any higher than this. Any higher and you hit the guy next to you right in the face and you get sent to the box, too. You don't wanna be in the box.”

“Do I have to spread my feet like that, too?” she asked him.

“Nah. I'm only doin' it out of habit. When I'm on the ice, I wanna steady myself so I have a good shot for my teammates. C'mere—” Sam sauntered over to him and he handed her the pipe. She held it by the opposite end with both hands herself.

“And when you're swingin' it, like you're hittin' the puck with it, you wanna put the hand you write with closer to the head. Which hand do you write with?”

“My right.”

“Okay, so, here—” She moved her right hand down the pipe right as Joey stood right behind her. “Just like that, yeah! Well, not that far—” She moved her hand up towards her. “—yeah, that's better. And now put that end down to the ground—” She did just that and her purse slid off of her back, but she didn't mind. “It's a lot easier if we're movin' around and we're on the ice, like it just becomes natural to you.”

Sam stood back upright and held the pipe as if it was a baton.

“I was going to say, I can see this being real hard on your back.”

Joey shook his head a bit.

“It is kinda, like at first it was for me. But you get stronger with each time and on top of that, like I said, we're usually moving around at a real pace so you don't really think about it too much when you're playing a round with your team or you're hanging out with a bunch of friends.” He ran his fingers through the ringlets on the side of his head yet again.

“Wanna take a walk?” he suggested.

“Yeah. I haven't really seen much of this neighborhood since I moved here. I've either been hanging out with all of you guys or concerned with school and my own things.”

“Or it's been snowin',” he added.

“Or it's been snowing, right!”

“I'd put that pipe back on the ground, too—I saw something crawl out of it.”

Without even thinking for a split second, Sam tossed the pipe off to the side and they made their way down the sun bathed block. That time, they didn't link arms, but Joey walked side by side with her. All of the buildings were made of faded pale brick, but the whole neighborhood of the Bronx was in stark contrast to the rest of the city with all the little shops and the apartment complexes that lined the street.

“Maybe at some point, I can take ya a little bit upstate,” he said at one point.

“We can go now if you'd like,” she suggested, “you know, if you're not doing anything else today.”

“You wanna?” He showed her a grin.

“Yeah, let's do it! I only saw the one part of it when we went to go get you.”

“Alright—let's get on back and I'll drive you up to Poughkeepsie. It's one of my favorite places to play a gig at. It's a little bit of a drive, but I think we do it, though.”

It took them a little bit to return to Sam's block and to climb inside of Joey's beat up car. The same car that broke down in the months before out in the middle of the harsh New York winter. The same car he almost froze inside of.

“You still haven't gotten a new car?” she asked, stunned, as she rested her purse upon her lap and rolled down the window.

“There hasn't been any money,” he admitted with a solemn look on his face. He slipped the key into the ignition. “Trust me when I say this, though—the second there is a bit o' money, the first thing I'm getting is a new car.” It fired up without any roughness, but once they made their onto the parkway outside of the Bronx, Sam could feel the car was nearing its final miles: the way in which it seemed to struggle with staying in a straight line on the hard black pavement and also with staying up to speed with the rest of the traffic.

“I don't know if we'll be able to even get there,” he confessed at one point. She peered out the window at the sight of one of those green road signs, and its decreeing that Poughkeepsie was eighty miles away.

“You were able to drive down this way with no problems, though, didn't you?”

“Not at all. So this—this kinda worries me a li'l bit, if I'm honest.”

“What do you think we should do?” she asked him.

“Well—let's see. Keep an eye on those payphones out there. If we break down either out this way or on the way back, we're gonna haveta hit up either Frankie or Aurora or somebody to come and get us on one of those. I'll do the same if it breaks down and you're not with me.”

They drove up the wide four lane parkway for a few miles when the whole car began to gyrate and shake while in motion. Sam caught the smell of something burning.

“Shit,” he blurted out. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—shit!”

“What the hell is that? What's wrong with it?”

“It's overheating.” Joey shuffled his feet underneath his seat. Sam clutched at her purse. He drove towards the far right lane and the guard rail. He hit the brake pedal and the car screeched to a stop. The second they were at a halt, hot steam emerged from underneath the hood. The steam was then followed by a short flame out the front grill.

“Oh, my god, this car is dying, Sam!” He hit the edge of the steering wheel with both hands and bowed his head in frustration. “This fucking piece of shit!”

Sam climbed out of the front seat with her purse in hand and she made her way towards a tree on the side of the road to be away from the burning car. Joey followed suit right behind her. They stood together several feet away and watched the whole front of the car catch on fire.

“I'm sorry, Sam—I didn't mean for you to see that part of me,” he sputtered; Sam looked into his face to see tears in his eyes.

“Joey, you did what you could. That car was going to die anyway.”

“It was, yeah.” His upper lip trembled and she moved in closer to him. Sirens down the parkway caught her ear.

“Joey—I don't want to fix you. I want to be a friend to you. You're a sweet boy. You are. You are!”

“But I'm fucked up, though.”

“You're not! You're not fucked up, Joey. You like to party and have fun, and sometimes things like a burning car happen. But it's not your fault, Joey. I promise you. None of it is your fault.” She threw her arms around his slender body and she held him close. She leaned the side of her head against his chest so she could watch the back end of the car ignite into big hot yellow flames. They stood a ways away from it to keep away from the smoke, and the black column rose in the other direction from them, but she could feel the heat from the inferno.

“Thankfully I took my blanket out of the back,” he tearfully said. “That thing belonged to my grandma.”

“And thankfully, we're out of there,” she pointed out; she peered up at him and she brushed a tear away from his face.

“What the hell am I gonna say to my dad now?” he asked, and his brown eyes grew wide with concern.

“Tell him the truth,” she advised. “That's all I can tell you. Just tell him what happened.”

“I don't wanna lie to him after all,” he said with a sniffle and a shrug of his slender shoulders.

Within time, a fire truck and an ambulance showed up. But at that point, the car had burned down to the axles and Sam had already hunted down the payphone to give Aurora a call.

“They're taking us down to the station to check on us,” she told her. “Okay—call Marla and Charlie and tell them what happened. I'll give you a ring when we get there.”

Neither of them had inhaled any of the smoke given they stood so far from it and the column billowed in the opposite direction, but Sam could hardly shake the image of those bright flames from her mind as she and Joey rode in the back of the ambulance back to the Bronx.

“Why do I always get into deep shit when we're together?” he pointed out to her as they neared the familiar neighborhood. “Like it almost feels like karma is working against me whenever you and I hang out.”

“Why would karma work against you?” she asked him.

“I puked my guts out twice, the hockey rink was closed, and now my car caught on fire. It's almost like the universe is telling me we shouldn't hang out together.”

“I drew your face, though,” she pointed out. “It's in my journal—the same journal I handed in to get myself into school.”

“Oh, shit. I don't wanna jinx it then.”

“You won't jinx it,” she insisted.

“But that's my fear, though.”

They reached the driveway of the hospital, where a pair of nurses checked on them to ensure they didn't inhale that acrid smoke or received a bad burn of some sort. Sam recognized Marla's orange hair in the afternoon sun at the far end of the driveway.

Charlie reached them first with his arms wide open and he was quick to embrace them both.

“God, I'm so glad you guys are okay,” he murmured into Sam's ear.

“It was so scary,” she told him as Marla pushed him out of the way to embrace her.

“What were you guys even doing?” Charlie asked them.

“I was gonna take her up to Poughkeepsie for the day,” Joey explained, “we got a few miles out of town and the damn thing started overheating. It started shaking like a boiler, and then I pulled over and that was when the radiator went out and it caught fire. She got out of there so fast. Like she saw the steam rising and she just bolted. Right, and I'm the fast runner.” That coaxed that lopsided grin out of him, and a slight chuckle out of her.

“So what happens now?” Marla asked him.

“Bunk with me?” Sam suggested. “My couch is so comfy.”

“You're gonna make him sleep on the couch?” Charlie cracked.

“Where else is he gonna sleep at? On a hook?”

The two men burst out laughing at that.

“Yeah, I don't see why not,” Joey replied with a shrug. “I need to call my parents and tell them what happened, too.”

* * * * *

Given he had no means of returning home and fetching a fresh change of clothes for himself, Joey stayed in the same shirt and jeans for the next couple of days before Frank offered to take him home on Saturday night. But he lay on her couch with his sock feet and he greeted her every morning with that crooked smile plastered on his face. He always asked her how she slept the night before, and he always offered to help her out whenever he could.

On Thursday night, right before they turned in for the night, she realized that she was correct about him. Joey just needed someone to talk to in the whole grand scheme of things, being the boy from upstate New York and the guy thrust into the music scene from the hockey world. He only drank as much as he did because he needed a means of escape. He took it out on himself because of that old stone face that stared back at her through the darkness as she switched off the light.

The next morning, Sam was jarred awake to the sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. He caught it first given he lay there on the couch partially awake.

“Yeah,” he was saying in a broken voice; she stepped into the room right as he turned to face her. He showed her a smile. “Yeah, yeah, she's right here.”

And without changing his expression for a second, he handed her the phone. “I won't jump to conclusions but I think you're in business,” he told her with a twinkle in his eye.

Sam gasped and she brought the receiver to her right ear.

“Hello?”

“Is this Sam Shelley?” a man asked her.

“It is.”

“I'm Bill Gaunt—the man from admissions you gave the journal to about a week ago.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember you well.” She couldn't resist the excited smile on her face.

“Well, all I have to say is we love your art so much that we need to meet you and we need you here with us.”

“Seriously?” She brought a hand to her chest. Joey leaned in closer to her with his eyebrows raised high up into his bangs.

“Seriously, seriously. If you can come down some time today or Monday—the sooner the better—we'll figure out a grant for you. Welcome aboard!”

“Oh, thank you so much! I'll be there soon.” She hung up and she turned to an excited Joey.

“I'm in!” she declared. “I'm an art student!”

“Oh fuck yeah!” He threw his arms around her and she leaned her head against his chest. “Oh, my god, Frankie and Charlie are gonna freak when they hear about this.”

“Make a pot of coffee,” she told him as she stepped towards the kitchen doorway. “I'm gonna tell Frankie about it.”

“Is he even up?”

“I don't care if he isn't,” she quipped, “this is a time of celebration!” That brought a laugh out of him, and she ran out of the apartment in her pajama bottoms and her camisole; down past Emile's place and down the hall. She pounded on the door panel with both hands, and Frank greeted her with bleary eyes.

“Sam? The hell's going on?”

“I got into art school!” And his face lit up.

“Holy shit! See? I told you you'd get in!” He threw his arms around her. “Oh, god, that just made my life!” His chest shuddered a bit from the feeling. She pulled back to look into his face and he wiped away some happy tears.

“Oh, fuck—fuck, man.” He then rubbed his hands together. “I've gotta call Charlie and Marla and tell them—they're gonna be thrilled.”

“I'm gonna call my parents,” she told him. “I owe them absolutely everything.”

Frank returned to his apartment still with tears in his eyes and she ducked past Emile's apartment right as he poked his head out to the hallway. “What's all the commotion, Miss Shelley?” he asked her.

“I got into school, Emile! I'm gonna have some money coming in!”

“Excellent!” He showed her a thumbs up.

Sam hurried up the stairs to call up her parents and to have a cup of coffee with Joey. Every step up felt lighter and swifter. It was like a dead weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was finally a part of New York City, and she was going to let everyone know it.

Indeed, when she and Joey made her way down to Manhattan together so she could do it that day, and he didn't want her to go alone, she had a desire to tell everyone on the subway about it. She had to stop herself given she knew what Charlie had told her about living in the city. Joey huddled close to her on the other side of the support pole but he never touched her. He only showed her a big, excited smile and the twinkle in his eye.

“How exciting!” she decreed as she clutched the strap of her purse.

“Got a hand in Anthrax's world and now you're about to embark into art school,” he said with a nod of his head; the smile never left his face as they arrived in Manhattan and they surfaced from the subway to the bright sunshine outside.

“I'm just dyin' of thirst right now,” he confessed to her over the noise of the street. “I'm gonna grab a glass of lemonade. Would you like one?”

“Yes, please!”

Joey made his way down the block to one of the cafes on the side of the street. Right across the street, she spotted a tall man with a big floppy hat atop his head. She recognized him even from a distance. She hurried towards him right as he reached the street and turned in the opposite direction.

“Cliff!” she shouted over the noise of the street.

He never moved, even as she reached the corner of the side street.

“Cliff!” she called out again, and that time, he wheeled around to look at her: that black brim cast a soft shadow over his handsome face, and thus she could see into his eyes as they crinkled up at the corners with his big greeting grin.

“Hey!” he answered in a big bold voice; he set his hand on top of his hat. She peered both ways on the street, and then she darted across the pavement to meet up with him. He never dropped the grin from his handsome face as she came within earshot. She put her arms around his long torso and he returned the favor.

“What the hell, I thought you guys were in Denmark all this week?” she asked him as part of her greeting.

“Yeah, we were but we came back early, though,” he explained.

“How is it there?”

“Beautiful. It's springtime so the darkness and the daylight is perfect at the moment before it falls out of wack again.”

“Joey told me that you guys went there for the perfect sound of your new record,” she said as he led her away from the crowded street.

“Yeah, we were told—it was like a warehouse, this big empty space in the heart of Denmark—it was cold enough for Lars' drums and for the three of us to work harder. So what'cha doin'? I was just gonna go into his little book shop here.” She turned her head for a look at the cozy shop nestled in between a restaurant and a tattoo parlor.

“I got into art school!” she declared with spirit.

“Oh, that's so cool! I'm sure Lars'll like the sound of that.”

“Joey's across the street getting lemonade, but—I don't really wanna stand there on the street, though.” Without hesitating, Cliff held the creaky wooden door for her and she stepped inside of the cozy shop first. Right before her stood a low wooden table covered in books and faded papers: beyond that was a series of bookshelves, and to the right stood a short staircase. Cliff stepped around her and took off his hat to reveal the crown of fine brown hair atop his head. The black stripe was missing that time, to which she frowned at the sight of it.

He gazed on at her with a puzzled look on his face.

“What's the matter?” he asked her.

“For a second, I swore you had a black stripe in your hair,” she confessed.

“I don't,” he promised her, and he showed her a lopsided little grin. “But I can see how it'd confuse ya, though. My hair likes to change color depending on the lighting. One time, I went out with a girl who thought I had some white hairs on the side of my head.” Indeed, he gave his hair a toss back with a flick of his head and it looked as though his hair was comprised of a myriad of different colors. But she spotted a black stripe and a white stripe on the side of his head. It might have been part of the lighting after all, because the colors disappeared and returned to plain brown.

“You are a man of many colors,” she remarked with a grin upon her face. He set his hat down on the edge of the table and he picked up a book from the table in front of him: a blue paperback about the size of his hand from the base of his palm to the tip of his middle finger.

“What book is that?” she asked him.

“Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse—guess it's about Buddha? It's got a picture of Buddha on the cover.”

“Oh, yeah!” she squeaked with a wave of her finger. “I remember reading that when I was in high school.”

Cliff opened up to a random page near the back.

“'I have always believed,'” he read aloud, “'and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.'” He glanced up at her with his eyebrows raised and his eyes big.

“I remember it well,” she said in a low voice.

“Sam?” Joey's voice floated in through the door behind her.

“Oh, there he is!” She opened the door for him, but he stood there on the sidewalk with glasses of lemonade in either hand. “How'd you know I was here?”

“Saw you walk in,” he explained, and he lifted his gaze into the shop. “Hey, Cliff!”

And Cliff nodded at him and showed him a smile. Sam took the cup in Joey's right hand.

“I gotta go,” she confessed to him, and he nodded at her, still with his eyes big and his face warm and soft. Before she followed Joey out to the street, and with the glass in hand, she stepped closer to Cliff.

“Call me when you get home,” she told him in a low voice.

“That is if you call me first,” he vowed to her with a wink.

#chapter 3 #fanfic #fanfiction #anthrax fanfic #metallica fanfic #anthrax #metallica #joey belladonna #frank bello #cliff burton #fever in fever out #fever in fever out fanfic #long reads #also on ao3 #text #deadly nightshade

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bluesakura007 · 3 years

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Undeniable - Chapter 4: Khan’s Past - Khan Noonien Singh x OC

Summary: After storming off following the start of her feud with Bones and Spock, Zinalya seeks comfort with the man who said feud revolves around in the first place, during which he divulges the story of his origins and how he ended up being awoken in the 23rd century.

Warnings: Roughly about half of this chapter is angst, and it includes mentions of the deaths of a parent and a friend.

Zinalya was almost flying down the corridors and then onto the ground floor via a turbolift, filled with her now released anger at Dr. McCoy. He had no right to be telling her how she was allowed to feel about someone, and her blood additionally boiled at the recollection of what she’d walked in to hear Spock saying earlier on before that, about how her plan to get Khan sent away with an exile sentence and go with him - and she guessed that the former also meant this about her feelings for the latter in the first place - would bring disrepute to Starfleet.

According to Bones, he and the others were trying to help her, but she felt in the back of her mind that this was a lie, as he and Spock clearly didn’t actually care about what she wanted or how she felt because she was obviously the only one out of the three of them who could be bothered to look past Khan’s exterior for what lay underneath. This reminded her of a phrase she’d heard of once: “If you look for the good in people, you’ll find it.”

She was thankful for the fact that Scotty and Chekov were supportive of her wanting to leave with him - further proof to her that, as always, they were good friends - and she knew that while Kirk, Carol, Sulu and Uhura were remaining neutral and hadn’t picked either side of the argument, this could have been worse, due to the fact that one of these two sides they could have picked was to shut down and oppose her plan entirely, like Spock and McCoy.

In spite of her annoyance at this latter pair, though, she felt the same kind of twinge as she had during her sarcastic remark to Spock when she’d walked in and heard him, which was guilt for the hostile moments of her behaviour just now. Especially for the particular moment when she slapped Bones. But this was only a temporary twinge as, with another surge of her blood boiling, she remembered that, effectively, they’d disregarded her viewpoints in the conversation and insisted on wanting to keep her away from the man she liked.

Within another few seconds, she’d arrived at the place where she’d been heading as soon as she stormed out. The room where Khan was being held in another cell.

The retinal and fingerprint scanners outside this room both recognised that she was indeed lieutenant-commander Zinalya Hamilton and allowed her to enter as a result.

What she immediately noticed upon doing so was that apart from a few guards near to the door on the outer side, there were none inside the room itself, which she initially found to be a relief because of her wanting to speak alone with him until she found out why: to her right, in the corner of the ceiling above her, was a tiny, spherical-shaped black glass object which could only be noticed if you put in effort thanks to this size. It hardly took a detective to deduce that it was meant to be some kind of security camera.

"Did you mean it?"

She was suddenly snapped out of looking up at the camera by a certain deep and English-accented voice from in front of where she was standing. There he was, in a cell with a large floor-length glass window not unlike that of his previous cell onboard the Enterprise. Even the colouring of the room as a whole was very similar, except this one was slightly more like grey with a blue tint as opposed to pure white. "Sorry, what?" She turned her head back to facing where he was sitting at the back of his cell, looking at her with an owllike unwavering gaze, during which she found her anger from a minute ago fading.

"Did you mean what you said earlier in the courtroom, Miss Hamilton?" The sound of Khan’s voice still gave her shivers despite the amount of times she’d already heard it. "When you declared that you have romantic feelings for me?"

"I did, yeah." She nodded her head and simultaneously walked closer towards the cell. It took that little fraction of less time compared to on the Enterprise due to the room being marginally smaller than this ship’s brig. He now once again had the same look on his face that he’d had before, when she’d made this announcement he was referring to: a little dash of curiosity and slight skepticism but predominantly feeling touched by what she said. "Why do you have those feelings?"

Zinalya chuckled to herself. "I’m obviously not going to catch a break from that question anytime soon." When she saw his aforementioned expression change into one of mild confusion, she elaborated, "Commander Spock asked me the same thing just now."

"And what did you say to him?" Another one of those subtle outward expression shifts happened, this time her sensing slight dislike from Khan towards this half Vulcan first officer.

"I told him that I’m not entirely sure why, but it was partially because I felt like you’d been through an emotional rollercoaster, with all the admiral Marcus business." Zinalya replied, hesitant to bring up this subject. She and Khan were now standing right in front of each other, only about a foot apart on either side of the cell’s glass.

He momentarily laughed to himself through closed lips and craned his head to the side, looking down at the floor. "I take it I’d be right in presuming he and your other colleagues tried to convince you that the way you see me is a mistake?"

"Spock and Dr. McCoy did." Responded the half human-half Trill. "But not all of them were like that; the others haven’t taken a side but ensign Chekov and Mr. Scott are being supportive of it."

"You seem to trust those two a great deal."

"They’re my closest friends." Her inner sensation of gratitude and relief at their support swung into action again, because she remembered that this meant she was at least not fully alone in her plan and in that day’s developments.

Khan looked back up towards her, seeming as if he himself had just experienced a memory recollection of his own. He paused for a beat, and then spoke again, "I’d like you to know I feel the same way, Miss Hamilton; I find you endearing in return."

It was a surprise to her ears, because, after all, she was hoping that her emotions would indeed be reciprocated by him but the prospect of it actually, really happening was unexpected, so now it was her turn to pose the question, "Why?"

"Because from the people who I met and interacted with on your Enterprise, you appeared to be the only one who didn’t dismiss me as a mere criminal." Answered Khan, whose eyes she thought were like that of a snake due to the brightness of his light turquoise eyes, which made his pupils, at some moments, look as if they were slitted.

She’d additionally used this time where they were in front of each other to mentally take in and properly admire every edge of his tall body and his immaculate black hair. "You only came to speak to me a few times, but during those instances I noticed that you behaved kindly towards me. Apart from this reason however I’m not certain myself: I like you in return for a reason that I can’t put my finger on either."

Zinalya thought to herself deeply about this weirdly complex concept of attraction. "Maybe we’re not supposed to understand why we’ve got feelings for each other. Do you believe in destiny?"

"It depends on the specific context." Said Khan.

"Well I think the bigger reason could be because it’s pre-destined and it literally is what’s meant to happen."

Khan nodded his head, slowly and gracefully, in understanding of this theory. "If we are pre-destined to be together as you say, then I think I should be fully honest with you - I should tell you about how it all began. The events that ultimately led to my revival last year and everything that followed."

"Okay." There came her own nod again. "I do know that at one point back in the 20th century you were a world leader, the head of a large empire, but that's all I know about you, so I would like to learn more." She sat down on the floor in front of the glass, anticipating that what was about to follow might take some time.

Khan quietly took a breath and he, too, sat down, the right side of his body leaning lightly against the glass. "The first four years of my life were rather peaceful - most of the memories I had from back that far became vague over time so I had to find out later on by doing my own research, but I lived during those first years in India, with my mother." He began. "Her name was Dr. Sarina Kaur, a biochemist who had, around that time, been carrying out experiments and investigations into asexual reproduction."

"Asexual reproduction? Like how plants and some insects have children without having to...?" She trailed off at the end, realising how awkward the rest of her sentence was going to be.

"Yes." Khan, luckily, answered what she was trying to query without her having to put in this ending. "I found out when I did my own exploration into the four early years that I was apparently conceived by her via artificial insemination. And it was entirely artificial - she'd managed to perfect her theory of creating a human child from a single parent without the need for a donor of any kind, dubbed the Chrysalis Project. I was born in the year 1970, so this was quite a notable scientific achievement for the time." Zinalya was still listening intently, while he continued, now with a feeling of poignancy shown upon his face, "I was initially conceived as another one of her experiments, which is why she gave me minor changes and enhancements in my DNA that created my different eye colour and accent and my light skin tone, allegedly whilst I was still in utero, as well as a small mental enhancement allowing me to recall early memories more easily. But I still remember clearly that once I’d been born, she was the kindest and most loving person I had ever known."

"She sounds like she was a really sweet woman. I think I would've liked to meet her if she was still around today." The lieutenant-commander opined with a gentle smile, knowing in her mind that based on how long ago the 1970s were, Sarina would have been long gone by that time.

"She was. When I was still very young, she had a pet dog named Cinder, a border collie I believe; he had already reached old age when I was born and he died when I was two years old, but before then it was just me, Cinder and my mother together in New Delhi as a family. And then one day, another two years later, I found out that she died, as well."

"What happened to her?"

"Something went wrong at her laboratory. It caused a fire which she was killed by as she tried to escape." He said. "I'd been out that day, playing in the streets with some of the other children who lived nearby. Her parents lived in Kolkata, meaning there was no one close enough to take care of me, so I spent the next year living on those streets. The first few days I spent moving from place to place with my blanket in my hands and I spent most of those nights crying until I cried myself to sleep." Zinalya felt her chest tighten at the sight of the wistful look in his eyes. "Until I met another boy, Tanvir Acharya. He was three years older than me and was also an orphan on the streets, and was the leader of a small group of others which he allowed me to join. Me and him became friends to the point where we both considered each other as a brother figure, but a year on, we and the rest of the group were taken, among numerous other orphans, for experimentation."

"Is that what made you into an Augment? What gave you all your abilities?"

"It was - there was a total of twenty-four boys including myself and fifteen girls who were subjected to genetic engineering over the course of several years, for the purpose of eventually becoming living weapons. Seven years after our capture, in 1982, Tanvir and I devised a plan to escape and then later come back in the hopes of liberating the others in addition, and we both ran off in different directions. I made it to the Gobi Desert before I was found by Dr. Heisen, the director of the eugenics project responsible for our augmentations, and was recaptured and returned to the research facility by the use of a neural inhibitor in my body, which doubled as a tracking beacon. All thirty-nine of us had each been implanted with one for controlling us with pain if need be." The wistful expression began to gradually amplify itself. "After I was returned, I discovered that Tanvir had also been recaptured, but the use of his own inhibitor had killed him: he was born with a heart defect which was never treated, so the electric shocks from his inhibitor had stopped his heart from beating."

He remembered how truly awful he’d felt at this moment way back when - a twelve year old boy holding the corpse of his best friend, his older brother figure, in his arms and entering back into what he did during those first few lonely nights on the New Delhi streets, which was crying his eyes out.

"Oh god..." Said Zinalya.

"Three more years on from then, I successfully removed my own inhibitor and those of the others and killed Heisen myself." He moved on from this particular part of the story before he lost himself in the memory, hissing the sentence with a small edge of aggression in his tone. "From there, we escaped and gradually released other eugenics subjects in various countries across the world, and I imagine the rest is familiar to you."

"You set up your empire in the early 1990s and ruled over half of Earth." She confirmed. "Before you escaped the planet with seventy-two other Augments later."

"It was our belief that the rest of the human race couldn’t properly look after itself. Myself and a few others infiltrated world governments in 1990 and established our own, leading to the beginning of the Eugenics Wars in 1992. It was during this time when I did my research into the finer details of my origins, and one of the other things I eventually uncovered was my mother's naming process for me: I was named Khan after one of her grandfathers, she gave me my surname after the 15th century poet Singh el Bashir, and my middle name was after Noonien Prasad, her boyfriend who died from lung cancer while she was pregnant with me. We were attacked during my reign that followed by the non-Augment governments and threatened with nuclear weaponry, but I refused to retaliate with my own."

"I remember; you told me once on the Enterprise that yours was one of the few Augment governments where there wasn’t anything like genocide or the other worst parts of a dictatorship." Zinalya, who was currently leaning the back of her own body against the glass, stretched her legs out so that she was sitting with them in front of her and craned her head around to look at him. "You had the threat of total destruction over you and you still stood your ground without using the same weapons..."

"At one point, me and my own followers were also attacked by another Augment leader, although as you can see I was the one who won the battle." She could see his eyes becoming misty at this point. "But my leadership still almost cost me everyone I knew throughout this last year. In 1996, we were forced to flee to Australia and board a sleeper ship which we christened the SS Botany Bay, and then came Marcus' discovery of us." A tear slid ever so slowly down out of his left eye while the other one was still welling up. "If it is destiny which has brought me here to you in this time, then it must have a perverse way of thinking. I'm not certain whether or not I should be thankful for those circumstances."

"I'm so sorry." The security chief was finding his tears to be contagious. "I wish me and the others knew what was going on - he was manipulating you and threatening to take away every person you had left who mattered to you, and we did nothing..."

"You mustn't blame yourself, Zinalya." Khan turned to face her slightly more, and then came the tear from his right eye to match the one on his left cheek. "I'm sorry that I've gotten us into this current situation." He placed his index and middle fingertips from his left hand onto the surface of his side of the glass to indicate what he meant: they were separated from each other by nothing more than a thin material, and faced with the uncertainty of whether they'd be allowed to go into exile together or be well and truly separated indefinitely.

She gently shook her head and did the same with that of her right hand, turning her position herself to make it so that it was the left side of her body up against the glass instead of her back, as it had been previously. "It's okay. I know half your life's been hard - you didn't deserve those deaths of Tanvir or your mum, Khan. You didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to you at all."

Hers were somewhat more free-flowing compared to his, but Khan and Zin just let their tears stream out in each other's company. The former shifted his position again in terms of how his head was inclined, which now made it look to anyone seeing it from in front of or behind them like they were leaning into each other with her head on his shoulder and his own head on the top of hers. They sat there for a while, in a silence laced with unspoken tenderness between them.

#khan noonien singh #khan noonien singh x oc #star trek aos #star trek into darkness #into darkness #khan x oc #into darkness khan #benedict cumberbatch #khanbatch #khan singh #stid

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kiss-my-freckle · 3 years

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The mark: Neville or Constantin

Red: A confluence of peril had entered your life, and I wanted to be within reach, to have influence.

I started theorizing Tom’s character in 2x19 due to Red’s confluence of peril reference. imo, a second “unknown” employer for Tom was introduced in that moment.

Red: The secrets she took with her could compromise any number of players on that map. They’ll be coming. They’ll be coming for you.

In Arioch Cain (3x5), the enemy coming for Masha branched off. It’s my opinion that Red was preparing for a war against Neville Townsend up until the moment he received the “Rostova” painting, but once he received the painting, knew that it was Constantin Rostov coming for her. imo, those “secrets” Red spoke to in 3x11 would be the secrets contained in the Sikorsky Archive that Katarina stole in 1990.

Red: As I feared would happen, elements from Katarina’s past are circling Elizabeth like a pack of wolves in the night. I put Tom Keen in her life to keep an eye on her, and he married her. Kate: This isn’t about Tom Keen. It’s about your need for control. Red: Indeed. I need to control the danger to Elizabeth. I’ve built a vast criminal network predicated on that very principal. It’s time to live up to my mission statement.

In 4x17, Red connected Tom to Katarina in his own dialogue. One must consider her deceased since 1990 given her fake death and change of identity. That’s why her name had been lost to history.

Red: Katarina Rostova was a name that had been lost to history.

To connect Tom to Katarina Rostova specifically, he had to be connected to her through someone or something that existed up to but not surpassing 1990. The only thing I saw (at any time throughout the series) connecting Tom to the past was the mark in his go-box. This mark immediately connected him to the night of the fire because the mark had to be there in order to scar her.

Forget about Berlin. He had NOTHING to do with Red's surrender.

What I'm stuck with now, is choosing which of these two men Tom worked for because both are directly connected to Katarina Rostova, while only one was said to be the reason Red turned himself in.

Constantin Rostov vs Neville Townsend

1. Both connect to Katarina Rostova in 1990 (or prior to).

Katarina: Seeing Masha with Constantin makes me think of my own father. I wonder what he would say now about the choices I’ve made.Look at me - in love with the man I was sent to seduce and betray. An American. Raymond wants me to run, take Masha and disappear with him. But how could I do that to her? She’s my entire life. She’s everything.

Woman: N-13 is an operative. The “N” stands for “neopoznanny,” the Russian word for “unidentified.” 13 represents the 13 packets of intel he stole from Lubyanka Square in 1990.

2. Both could’ve been at the fire, but I lean toward Neville.

Kirk: Do you know what I’m thinking, Raymond? That house by the water, holding a gun in your mouth… I should have pulled the trigger.

Kirk: One day I came home, and you were gone. He’d taken you. I never thought I’d ever see you again… until there you were - in the news, you… and Reddington - the most wanted fugitives in the world.

While Constantin spoke of the house by the water, he never thought he’d see Masha again after she was abducted, which means he didn’t see her after she was taken from the campus. He could’ve went after Reddington at the beach house at any time prior to that.

Katarina: Listen, carefully - you stay here with Masha. Speak to no one. Do not answer the door or the telephone. Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to. Listen. When it’s safe, I’ll call with instructions. I’ll ring once, hang up, and call back. Understand? Lock the door behind me.

Katarina's actions at the motel room with Kate gave off the impression that she and Masha were already being tracked by someone even though the motel was an hour’s drive away from the fire.

Either one could’ve scarred Masha, but I have a hard time believing Constantin left both Katarina and Masha at the fire. I believe he would’ve waited for them to exit the beach house and made sure they got home safely.

3. Masha’s paternity and the fabricated DNA report.

In 1x22, Tom whispered to Liz that her father’s alive. Despite what many believe, he had no idea Raymond Reddington was her father. I believe he was speaking of Constantin Rostov.

Kirk: I had proof that she was my daughter. A DNA test. Red: You saw what Katarina wanted you to see. She lied to you about everything.

If Neville is connected in any way to Constantin, the KGB, Moscow, or perhaps even a Russian official, he may have been given a copy of Rostov’s fabricated DNA report. Constantin had reason to believe he was the father because Red told him Katarina fabricated it. Either way, either of these two men could’ve given Tom a copy of Kirk’s fabricated DNA report, but I don’t believe it was in Kirk’s SVR file. Neville would have to believe Constantin was the father, despite the possibility of him questioning Masha’s paternity after the fire.

4. The Russian connection.

Gina Zanetakos, Berlin and fake Berlin, Constantin and his possible fake are all of Russian descent. If Neville connects through Russia, he could be connected to one or all of these characters. Same can be said of Constantin. If Tom was employed by either one, they could be how he connects to all of these characters.

Tom: Did the same thing last month. It’s probably why you don’t recognize me. Constantin. Berlin, man, he’s tough. I had to get away for a while, go to Germany, figure a few things out. Constantin: I come here for the peace and quiet. Tom: Sure. Sorry. Gosh, you know, I just thought maybe you could help me. Man: He said to piss off, pal. Tom: Just take a minute. Constantin: I don’t know who that is. Tom: I think you do. Why don’t you take another look?

5. The Drexel painting, the blood pool, and the Devry map.

While it's hard to say what woman commissioned the painting of Masha Rostova on behalf of Alexander Kirk, it could've been anyone. Gina, Odette, and Scottie are my suspects. I'm not even sure the woman who commissioned the painting is relevant at this point, only that Kirk was the one who had it sent to Red.

What I am interested in is the Devry map and the message Red sent in blood in Arioch Cain. If he were doing as I believe - preparing for a war against The Townsend Directive in 3x12, then I believe his message in that blood pool in Arioch Cain was directed toward Neville. Because Neville could be connected to Constantin, he may have reached out and waited to see if Constantin would force Katarina to surface. After all, Constantin had no idea his wife was a KGB agent, so it's likely he had no idea she had a bounty on her head.

The Devry map makes more sense for Neville because of the parallels they’ve thrown in to the Fulcrum and the Cabal with that Sikorsky Archive. I'd expect Cabal’s competition to be much larger and consider the Townsend Directive a better fit for actual competition against them. And as I’ve said before, the way Red spoke of those secrets Katarina took with her fits more in line with Neville than Rostov. He was after a woman he believed could save his life, not secrets Katarina had. If Constantin had no idea his wife was a KGB agent, he’d have no idea she took these secrets with her anyway. Certainly not secrets that could compromise any number of players on the map. It just fits more in line with Neville.

6. Tom’s three passports.

Either Neville or Constantin could've issued those three passports Red mentioned in 1x18 and Liz questioned him about in S2. imo, he lied about Red issuing those passports.

Red: Lizzy, I’ve been monitoring Tom since he entered your life. About a year ago, I discovered that he had purchased three passports from a trusted forger I use in Warsaw.

Liz: Can you be honest about the passports? Tom: The passports? Liz: They’re real - Government issue. Where’d you get them? Tom: Berlin had a guy. Liz: I guess not. Tom: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I can’t. Not about this. Liz: That’s not how the truth works. You don’t get to pick and choose. Not if you want to learn how to swim.

Tom: I’ve been thinking about what you said – About needing to tell you the truth. So I’m gonna tell you the truth. Liz: I don’t understand. Tom: The passports - The passports came from Reddington.

What it would look like....

Red told Liz in the pilot, “Someone tried to hurt you.” Liz herself made several mentions to the idea that she got the scar from her father. This could speak to either Raymond or Constantin. However, if she’s getting the roles reversed in her head (as Dr. Orchard spoke of in 2x10), it could’ve been anyone.

Constantin

If employed by Constantin Rostov, would simply appear that he was trying to reunite Masha with a man he believed to be her real father. He’s a quick and easy connection, but he’d need to be the reason Red reentered Liz’s life when he did. Did Red kneel on the seal because he saw this mark and connected it to Constantin Rostov? I doubt it. Red's pre-pilot scene with Kate in 4x17 came off urgent and rather desperate. He considered this enemy an immediate threat.

Neville

I can’t even begin to describe how this looks in current story. Neville put a bounty on Katarina's head. He wanted her dead. Period. Setting up the woman from Paris (imposter Katarina) was done in an effort to protect Masha, so Dom felt she was in direct danger of Neville using her as leverage to get to Katarina.

Young Dom: Do you know they’ve assembled a directive? The Russian Vory, KGB, the Americans - her enemies - have pooled their resources and put a bounty on her head. They’re calling it the Townsend Directive. Young Ilya: Neville Townsend? Young Dom: He’s at the top of a very long list of people who want her dead. Young Ilya: Are you worried they’ll find you? Young Dom: I’m worried they’ll find Masha, try and leverage her. Young Ilya: Look, Dom, I - I can’t help you. Young Dom: You made a promise! To Katarina. You told her you would look after Masha if anything happened to her. Young Ilya: Yes, but I can’t call off Townsend. And he will not stop looking. Young Dom: Sure, he will. He’ll stop looking. And so will the rest of them if Katarina’s dead.

Young Dom: He’ll never stop. And instead of protecting my granddaughter, we’ve put a target on her back. Young Ilya: Oh, stop using the child as an excuse! This was about you, Dom. Young Dom: This was about Masha!

In seeing Tom with this mark, Red would see Neville in Masha’s life and consider her in immediate danger because Neville would use her as leverage. This would give him enough reason to turn himself in.

If he's connected to the mark in Tom's box, Neville was introduced in the very pilot and had been discussed several times since then.

Red: But if I die you’ll never know the truth about your husband.

Red: You’ve discovered something curious about your husband, haven’t you, Lizzy?

Red: Tell me about your husband. Does he know you as well as you know him? Does he know about you as a child? Does he know about the fire?

Red: Right now, the only thing that matters is the immediate threat - your husband - finding out who he is and who he works for. The rest will come. I promise you.

If he's connected to the mark, in framing Red and Gina with it, Tom removed his own association to Neville and made it appear as though Red and Gina were assisting Neviille in finding and killing her mother.

Red: God willing, Katarina’s daughter will live a private life of quiet courage. But if anyone learns her identity, the only way I can stop the threats from rising is to rise up as a greater threat than all of them.

Liz already sought revenge against Red for Tom's death in S5. In 8x4's sneak peek, she's having pretty little flashbacks of Tom proposing to her on the pier in S3. She pulled Tom's go-box from her vent in S7. There are parallels to future episodes from what I've seen of audition spoilers, so Tom's box continues to play into the storyline through dialogue. There have been numerous mentions to him throughout the series since his death in S5. In current storyline, imagine what it would look like for Liz to be seeking revenge against Red for killing a woman she believes is her mother, only to turn around and find out that her dead husband worked for the very man who put a bounty on her mother's head.

Red: I turned myself in to the FBI to point you toward a truth that inevitably you would have to discover for yourself.

If he's connected to the mark, Neville Townsend and Tom’s connection to him was the truth Red was trying to point Liz to from the very beginning. The very man who would’ve scarred her at the fire, which would've given him reason to question her about it in the pilot.

Red: Someone tried to hurt you.

Even better if I’m right about Liz’s second memory wipe and Tom was involved in Red’s Vanessa Cruz shooting. Because Red is Liz’s mother.

#Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2 #Rederina

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 4 years

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fixing The Menagerie

The circumstances behind The Menagerie pose an interesting writing problem: how do you take an already shot, totally completed episode for an earlier version of a TV show that differs considerably from the version that actually made it to air, and turn it into an episode that you can use now, as part of that later version, in a way that actually makes sense for your audience? That would be challenging enough without the additional problems that 1.) you can't reshoot any of the original episode because you no longer have access to the sets, costumes, most of the cast, etc., and 2.) the whole reason you're doing this in the first place is because you can't get a completely new episode out in time to meet your air date, so whatever your framing device is it has to be something that can be shot and finished very quickly--and cheaply, because at absolutely no point in the making of this show has there been spare money to throw around.

When I recapped The Menagerie (eons ago, it now seems) I said in the conclusion to the second part that I thought the framing device used wasn't as effective as it could have been. So, I figured I’d put my money where my mouth was and see if I could come up with another one. Before I start I want to put out the same disclaimer I used for the Return of the Archons post: I am not a professional TV writer (or a professional anything) and I intend this only as a fun exercise and not an angry and serious screed about the writing quality of TOS, which I do very much love for being what it is. I can only offer what, in my opinion, would make a more enjoyable episode, which may not necessarily be what you would find to be a more enjoyable episode. And if you already greatly enjoy The Menagerie as it is, you probably won’t want to read this.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to take The Cage itself as written. It has its own problems, and that might be worth its own post at some point, but I’m not going to take it on here. We’ll assume The Cage exists exactly as it was produced, and the problem now is entirely focused on how to turn it into an episode—or two—of TOS.

(And, just to get it out of the way: I’m not going to talk about how either The Cage or The Menagerie play into Discovery, AOS, or the rest of Star Trek in general. It’s obviously a very important episode backstory-wise, but for this, right now, I’m just going talk about it purely as a TOS episode.)

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about The Menagerie for a moment. What’s wrong with it?

Well, the framing device could certainly have been worse. It’s not terrible. Hell, Part I even won a Hugo, so, guess I’m up against the Hugo committee on this one. But, there are a number of things that I find awkward about it.

In a general sense, there’s the way that, once the flashbacks start, the story is attempting to maintain two separate threads of tension: the flashback story, with the tension being on what’s going to happen to Pike, and the present-day story, with the tension being on what Spock is doing, why he’s doing it, and whether he’s going to wind up getting the death penalty for it. This second thread starts out well—by this point in TOS, we’ve gotten to know Spock well enough to know how out of character all this is for him, which makes the mystery quite gripping. However, once the flashback starts, the story struggles to maintain the tension of this second thread. The attempt to keep the present-day story as tense as the past story only results in breaks away from the action for scenes in the courtroom where something or someone stops Spock from showing the footage, which never results in anything because by the next commercial break they’re back at it. Most of these interruptions are either arbitrary (the screen goes off for no reason and then comes on again for no reason; fake!Mendez randomly decides he’s had enough and tries to stop things) or just not that interesting (Pike fell asleep), and with each one it only becomes more obvious that the only real purpose they’re serving is to pad out the framing story.

The resolution of the present-day story is also rather unsatisfying for a lot of reasons. After so much tension built up about what’s going on and why Spock is acting this way and is his life on the line and is Kirk’s career on the line and how’s he going to get out of this...it turns out that Mendez has been fake this whole time, so nothing he said or did since Kirk left the Starbase matters at all; Starfleet casually waves the whole thing aside with no repercussions, making all the build-up about Spock risking the only death penalty remaining in the Federation mean nothing whatsoever in the end; and we never really get a satisfactory answer as to why Spock insisted on carrying out his court martial the way he did. Sure, eventually the Keeper says the whole court martial was basically staged to stall Kirk so he wouldn’t focus on getting control of his ship back, but not only does that raise further questions—if Mendez was only ever an illusion sent by the Talosians, why did he try to stop the court martial several times? Why did the Talosians turn off the footage at a crucial point, and why did it come on again?--there’s also no reason given why Spock couldn’t just recount what happened himself, which could have taken up enough time if he was careful enough about it, instead of needing the Talosians to broadcast a video version of the events.

There’s also the simple fact that Pike’s ending is itself rather dubious. I suppose this one comes down to a difference of opinion between me and Gene Roddenberry (one of many) since both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character going to permanently stay with the Talosians, with no concern at all expressed about the fact that the Talosians are cruel, torture-happy, and frankly insufferable wannabe-slavemasters who see humans as nothing more than brute animals to be caged, bred and make to work. I said I wasn’t going to tackle The Cage here so I won’t go off about its ending, no matter how much it pisses me off. But The Menagerie is also at fault here, because it needlessly repeats the exact same problem (with a bit less sexism, but still). The ending of The Menagerie gives us no sign that the Talosians have reformed in any way, and no explanation as to why they suddenly care so much about Pike to go to all this trouble for him. We’re just expected to believe that Pike’s gonna go have a nice happy illusion-life with them even though the last time we saw them they were trying to breed a race of human slaves. Really, Gene? Really?

On that note, the treatment of disability in both The Cage and The Menagerie bothers me a great deal. The effect of Pike becoming disabled is to essentially strip him of all his autonomy. I mean no disrespect to Sean Kenney here, but if they’d replaced him with a mannequin it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to the episode, because in The Menagerie Pike is not a character, he’s a prop. We’re assured repeatedly that Pike thinks and feels as much as he ever did, but we have to be told that by other characters because the episode certainly never takes any opportunity to let us in on any of it. Here’s the sum total of what we know Pike thinks about the events of The Menagerie:

1. He doesn’t want to visit with Kirk and McCoy at the beginning of the episode but allows Spock to stay.

2. He tells Spock “no” when Spock tells him his plan.

3. He keeps repeating “no” the rest of that day, which everyone is confused by but no one makes any effort to understand.

4. He falls asleep at one point.

5. He votes for a guilty verdict for Spock during the court martial, when asked.

6. He says “yes” when asked if he wants to go live with the Talosians.

Pike is treated with sympathy and the respect due to his rank and history, but mostly he’s an object of pity. We’re told he can move his chair himself, but he appears to be confined to one small hospital room that’s not even set up for his needs, and he spends the entire episode being moved around by other people. Everyone talks about how bad his situation is, but only Spock attempts to do anything to improve it—and he does so knowing that Pike doesn’t want him to do it. When Pike tells him “No,” Spock doesn’t ask any questions, he doesn’t try to find out what part of this whole thing Pike is objecting to, he just overrides Pike’s objection on the assumption that Pike is only concerned about Spock doing something so very illegal, a concern he pretty much disregards. He turns out to be right—as far as we can tell—but for all the information Spock has at the time, Pike might have been saying, “No, I don’t want to live with the Talosians.”

It doesn’t need to be that way. Pike’s condition is certainly very severe, but as I mentioned in the recap, there are plenty of other things that could have been done for him, or at least attempted. And even if none of those were done, there are other ways that the episode could have developed his character, or at least treated him like a character. Spock’s discussion at the beginning of the episode could have been a mind meld that allowed us to hear Pike’s thoughts on the matter. Spock could have heard his objections and addressed them, and he and Pike could have come to come to an agreement and actually become co-conspirators instead of Pike spending the entire episode as a helpless hostage to Spock’s plan. We could have gotten a scene of Pike and McCoy interacting after Spock tells McCoy to look after Pike—McCoy’s not only highly suspicious at that point and unlikely to be greatly put off by Spock's order to not ask Pike any questions, he’s also the one who gives a whole speech about how cruel it is that Pike “can’t reach out, and no one can reach in”--so give us a scene where he does reach out! We could have had a scene of Kirk talking with Pike—he’s certainly got plenty to ask the man about, both in general and in regard to the current situation. All he has to do is put a little extra work into how to frame his questions. The Talosians could have delivered a message from Pike at the end, or one of them could have astral-projected in earlier to have a telepathic exchange with him. We could have seen Pike express himself by moving his chair, turning towards or away people when they talk to him, interjecting a “yes” or “no” into a conversation instead of only replying when asked something, or repeating a response incessantly to show that he’s emphatic about something. (Yeah, we kinda get the latter when he’s saying “no” over and over early in the episode, but that’s only treated as a “what could he possibly be trying to communicate??? oh, if only we knew!” moment.) There were so many ways Pike could have been treated as a character, as a person, instead of a plot element who exists to be pushed around in his chair and have speeches made about how tragic his situation is.

Both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character who is disabled choosing to spend the rest of their lives isolated from the entire rest of humanity on a barren planet inhabited by jackass aliens because, as everyone around them nods and solemnly agrees, that’s a better fate for them than living among human society. To be clear, it’s not Pike and Vina seeking solutions to their problems that I object to. If Vina wants to be represented by what is essentially an avatar of her own choosing, or if Pike feels that an illusory world offers better quality of life for him, that’s entirely their right. But when life with the Talosians is set up as a situation so horrible that we see four characters literally willing to die rather than remain on Talos 4, and then have two disabled characters say “actually it’s better this way if I stay here,” you kind of wind up with a message that looks a lot like “being disabled is a fate worse than death.” I doubt that was intentional, at least not entirely, since we see other disabled characters in TOS who are treated considerably better—but there it is, all the same.

This is not to say that there’s nothing of value in The Menagerie’s framing story. The tension between Kirk wanting to trust his friend but being forced to act in authority over him because he’s undeniably done something very seriously against the rules, and he won’t tell Kirk why, is great while it lasts. Spock’s character is expanded considerably by showing us that there are some things he places above his honor and obligations as a Starfleet officer—and indeed above his own life. We see a bit of his history, a glimpse of a relationship with a former captain that he respects so much that Spock will put everything on the line to secure a better future for him; and we see how much he respects and values Kirk, that he foregoes the chance to explain himself—and thus gain an ally and aid in his cause—because to do so would put Kirk in danger as well. And we get that great little moment where Spock tells McCoy to call security on him and McCoy has absolutely no idea how to react. And we get backstory! And kind-of-continuity! Okay, it’s not much backstory, but by TOS standards it’s practically a goldmine.

I don’t want to throw all that away. But I think there must be some way to address the problems without totally losing the good parts.

It’s only fair, though, that any attempt to improve the episode should keep in mind the circumstances it was made under. I don’t know enough about budgeting and producing TV in the 1960s either generally in or in this specific case to know exactly what was available to them when it came to producing The Menagerie, so I’m just going to try to deduce roughly what we might have to work with based on what what was in the finished episodes:

Much of Part I and all of Part II take place in preexisting sets, either the Enterprise ones or the shuttlecraft interior set. The new sets include the Starbase 11 exterior—which is mostly a matte painting—Mendez’s office, Pike’s hospital room, and the Starbase computer room. The computer room is a redressed Engineering set; I suspect the hospital room is also a redressed existing set, but I don’t know for sure. It’s quite simple regardless, and is clearly mostly using existing pieces (the bed and the chair). Mendez’s office is likewise set up with pretty standard preexisting TOS set dressing pieces, with the exception of some cut-outs outside the window standing in for the Starbase exterior.

Discounting any background extras we have five new characters: Commodore Mendez, Piper, Chief Humbolt (the computer room guy), Lt. Hansen, and Pike himself. Of these, only Mendez and Pike have much significant screen time. So, we can assume that hiring an extensive guest cast is probably not on the table here.

Most of the original cast from The Cage are probably not available. Pike we know is definitely out—Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t willing to come back after The Cage failed, and probably would have been too expensive to hire for two episodes anyway. Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett were, obviously, still working on TOS, so presumably we could incorporate past-Spock and Number One if we really needed to. Since Malachi Throne was also on hand for The Menagerie, we could record new dialogue for the Keeper (as The Menagerie did indeed do), but presumably no new footage (Throne voiced the Keeper, but they and all the other Talosians were portrayed onscreen by female actors). I don’t know if any of the other original cast could have been gotten back, but since they weren’t, let’s assume we can’t use them.

Let’s also assume that all of the sets, costumes, makeup, etc., from The Cage are inaccessible. In reality I’m sure at least something was still kicking around in storage somewhere, or was reused for TOS, but there’s no point in trying to figure out exactly what, so for simplicity’s sake we’ll say anything we might want to use from The Cage has to be recreated from scratch, and if it can’t be then we can’t use it.

Because the entire reason this is going on in the first place is because the effects work was making TOS run behind schedule, we can’t have much in the way of effects for The Menagerie, especially post-production effects. There’s a shot of the planet Starbase 11 is on, a matte painting for the Starbase 11 exterior, a couple uses of the transporter, Pike’s chair and makeup, some shots of the Enterprise and the shuttle flying around in space, and some things being shown on screens—and I think that’s more or less about it.

So. If I was told that I had to take The Cage and wrap it up as a TOS episode with the above restrictions in mind, here’s some things I would keep in mind:

If we look at this from a starting-from-scratch perspective, it seems to me that if you have an episode that you need to incorporate into your main show that has an almost entirely different cast, and one of the characters from your original episode, who has never once been seen or even referenced in your main show, is played by an actor that you can’t get back, the simplest thing to do is to not show that character. We don’t actually need Pike himself to be onscreen for The Menagerie. That he would be at least mentioned in some capacity, sure, but we do in fact have the opportunity to avoid putting some poor dude through five hours of makeup by simply having Pike remain offscreen. We'll probably wind up putting someone else through five hours of makeup, but we'll get to that in a bit.

For me at least, if the Talosians are going to re-appear, they either need to still be villains in some sense or we need to know that they have begun to change their behavior in some way. To have them simply show up again and be treated as friendly after everything that happened in The Cage, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the fact that they did do everything they did in The Cage...it just doesn’t make sense, and it’s much too distracting for me to get past.

Although I’ve set the rule that I’m not going to change The Cage itself, The Menagerie being a sequel to those events opens up the opportunity to follow up on the ending of The Cage in a different direction. In other words, I’m going to rescue Vina, because her fate in The Cage really, really bothers me.

Insisting on the preexisting footage being literally shown as a video in-universe has always felt pointlessly awkward to me. It’s so weird that the characters have to stop and go, “Hang on, what? Where’d this come from? This can’t possibly be security footage. Why does it have different camera angles?” to forestall the exact same questions the audience were probably having at that point. And, as I said above, there’s really not a good explanation as to why the footage did have to be shown in that manner. It seems to me that it would be much simpler to have the flashback footage be just that: a flashback. A story which is being recounted, but not literally shown, in-universe. By doing so you avoid having to open up a bunch of dead-end plot threads about why the footage looks the way it does and is being shown the way it does. I think we can give the audience at least enough credit to assume they’ll understand that if a character starts recounting an event, and the scene cuts to footage of that event, that footage is a representation of what the character is saying, not literally something being shown in-universe.

I’m not going to bother with the whole “going to Talos 4 warrants the death penalty!!” thing. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to begin with, and it never actually pays off in The Menagerie. We can manage a better source of tension than that, I think.

All of this would ultimately take my version of The Menagerie in a pretty different direction than the actual episode, I admit. It's a rather drastic change, but, if I was tasked with writing a framing story for using The Cage in TOS, here's how I'd do it:

The Enterprise is out tooling around doing their usual business when Uhura picks up a distress call from a ship stranded in space. It’s very faint, distant, and there’s something odd about it, but of course they’re gonna follow up on it because that’s how they roll. So they head off in the direction of the call, but the funny thing is that as they get closer, Uhura says that the source of the distress call appears to be moving around. They follow it, send some hails, and finally get back a scratchy, staticky response: it’s coming from a ship that’s been heavily damaged, and the crew is no longer able to steer it, so it’s drifting erratically through space. Kirk has Uhura send a hail: “We’ve received your signal. Keep broadcasting it and we’ll find you.”

They keep following the ship. It’s difficult—the call is weak, and the Enterprise has to go carefully or risk overshooting it. After they’ve been chasing it for a while, Spock points out that they should be wary of entering a nearby star system, because it contains a planet all Federation ships are warned to avoid. Kirk, of course, doesn’t want to give up on the damaged ship, but Spock steps over to his chair and quietly says, “Captain...I should warn you that it may be the lesser of two evils to abandon this ship, rather than risk going too close to Talos 4.”

Kirk, of course, is stunned to hear Spock say this, and asks what makes Talos 4 so dangerous. Spock says it would take rather a long time to explain. Kirk says that Spock almost sounds like he’s familiar with the place, and Spock replies, “More than familiar, captain. I’ve been there before.”

[dramatic sting, cut to commercial]

Since it looks like the damaged ship will take a while to track down, Kirk has McCoy, Scotty and Spock convene in a briefing room to hear Spock’s story. Spock gives a short introduction: “What I am about to tell you, gentlemen, occurred as I said thirteen years ago, when the Enterprise was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. I’ve pulled up the log entries of Captain Pike pertaining to this time to provide his own perspective on the matter, as it was he that had the closest encounter with the Talosians. At the time, the Enterprise had only recently escaped a disastrous encounter on Rigel 7 which had resulted in the deaths of three crewmen and injuries to several more, including myself. Some of the injuries were beyond the capacity of the ship’s doctors to treat, so we were en route to the Vega colony for treatment when we began receiving a distress signal...”

Spock’s voice-over fades out over a transition to the Cage footage. We watch that--perhaps interspersed with the occasional bit of narration from Spock, or a question from Kirk or McCoy or Scotty--until about the point where the landing party encounters the fake survivors' camp and Pike is captured by the Talosians. Then Spock is suddenly interrupted by Sulu calling Kirk to the bridge. Everyone hurries up to the bridge, where Uhura reports that the distress call has suddenly disappeared. Sulu says it's not just that: somehow, he doesn't understand how or why, his sensors are suddenly showing that they're not on the same course or even in the same place that they were only moments ago. Somehow, they've wound up in the Talos star system--and they're heading directly for Talos 4.

"It is just as I feared," Spock says gravely. "This has all been a trap."

Kirk orders Sulu to change course, and he tries—but somehow the ship doesn’t divert even a little. It’s like the helm just isn’t responding. Kirk does all the usual things, telling Scotty to do something, etc, nothing’s working, and then Uhura reports that they’re receiving a hail. And it appears to be coming from Talos IV.

Naturally Kirk tells her to put it on. The voice on the other end is staticky and faint. "Greetings. Is this...the Enterprise?"

"This is the Enterprise. I'm Captain James Kirk."

Silence for a moment. Then the voice on the other end, obviously surprised, says, "Captain Kirk? Not Captain Pike?"

"Captain Pike no longer commands this vessel."

There's a long pause. "I see. We were...in error. We apologize for the deception, Captain Kirk. It was important that we bring Captain Pike to this planet, but we feared that his...past experiences here...would leave him unwilling to come close enough to hear our message.”

“That would be a most logical decision for Captain Pike, were he here,” Spock says coldly. “Considering the nature of those experiences.”

“You speak as though you are familiar with what transpired here before, then.”

“I am First Officer Spock. I was present aboard the Enterprise as Science Officer during the events thirteen years ago.”

There’s an even longer pause. When the voice returns, the signal is even more crackly than ever. “Our apologies, this communication is...difficult to maintain. We must wait to deliver the message in full until you are...closer to our planet. However...until then...you may be assured, Spock...that this time...” [pause for more crackling] “This time...the intent of the Talosians...is peaceful.”

The signal cuts out, and Uhura can’t get it back. The ship appears to still be locked on course for Talos 4. With seemingly nothing else to do for the moment but wait, everyone goes back to the briefing room, where Spock continues recounting Pike’s story.

At some point, Spock has to pause so everyone can go take a break, and everyone else files out of the room while he remains behind for a moment, staring at the computer contemplatively. Then suddenly, we hear a voice saying, “Spock--” and Spock turns around in surprise. We can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, only a soft glow at the edge of the camera, and then the scene cuts away.

Kirk’s grabbing a nap in his quarters when he’s woken by an urgent message: they’re still some way from Talos 4, but the ship appears to have stopped moving all on its own. He hurries up to the bridge, where Sulu tells him that it seems like they’re having some kind of computer error with the helm, but they can’t track it down yet. In the middle of all this, Uhura whirls around and exclaims, “Sir! Shuttle bay reports Mr. Spock has knocked out the tech on duty and is boarding one of the shuttles!” Kirk yells for security to get down there, but they are, of course, too late: Spock rigged the shuttle bay doors to open automatically and flies out before they can stop him.

Stunned and confused, Kirk orders Uhura to raise the shuttle, which she does.

“Spock, are you out of your mind?!”

“Negative, captain. My reasoning is quite sound, though I regret I cannot explain it to you just yet.”

Kirk yells for the tractor beam to grab the shuttle, but Sulu can’t get the tractor beam to respond either.

“You need not be concerned, captain. I believe it is well within Mr. Scott’s abilities to repair the computer in due time.”

“You did this to the computer?”

“It was necessary. You will find the transporter similarly incapacitated. I could not risk you coming after me, or stopping me. Not yet.”

“Spock—do you know what you’re risking by doing this? You were the one who warned me not to go near Talos 4!”

“Yes, captain. And it is because I know what the Talosians are capable of that I am doing this. Either they are telling the truth, in which case there is no danger...or they are not, in which case it is better that I alone risk doing this.” A pause. “Jim...wait 24 hours for me. If I do not contact you by then...you must leave in all haste.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

“You must. 24 hours.” And with that, Spock ends the call. As Uhura’s trying fruitlessly to reestablish contact with him, she suddenly looks up and says, “Captain...we’re receiving a message from...Fleet Captain Pike?”

“What?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well...put him on.”

So Uhura puts Pike on speaker, and Kirk says, “We’re, er, in the middle of a bit of a situation, sir...what can I do for you?”

“I might ask what I can do for you, captain. Mr. Spock left a message requesting that I contact you.”

Stunned pause for a moment. “He did what?” Kirk finally says.

“About an hour ago. I regret I wasn’t able to return his call earlier, but it’s the middle of the night here...Kirk, what’s this all about?”

Kirk sighs. “It’s a long story, captain, and I don’t entirely understand it myself. Uhura, patch this into the briefing room...it’ll take a while to tell.”

A little later, we see Kirk and McCoy sitting in the briefing room as Kirk finishes up explaining everything to Pike. “What do you make of that, captain?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it, Kirk. I can’t imagine why Spock would want to go to Talos 4. All Federation starships have been warned away from there ever since our encounter with them, and Spock’s well aware of that.”

“Yes...Captain, I confess I’m not familiar with the entire story of that encounter myself...Spock was telling us about it before he, er, left, but he hadn’t finished. Could you enlighten us about the rest of it? We do have your logs, of course, but you might have more information--”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, but I can at least tell you what I know...”

Pike continues telling the story where Spock left off. Around about the point where Pike and the others escape from the cell, there’s a call from the bridge reporting that their sensors show that the shuttle has landed on Talos 4. Frustrated, Kirk wonders once again just what Spock thinks he’s doing down there.

We then cut to a shot of what looks kind of like the barren landscape of Talos 4, only this time there seems to be a small surface settlement among the cliffs. Then we see Spock entering a small, plainly decorated room with windows looking out to the rest of the settlement. “I am here, as agreed,” he says, and then the camera turns to show us a figure wearing a robe and a hood sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

“Welcome, Mr. Spock," the figure says. "Won’t you sit down?”

Back aboard the ship, Pike finishes telling Kirk and McCoy the story.

“So...that’s all of it?” Kirk says.

“Yes. We left Talos 4 and never looked back. Never heard anything from the Talosians, either, but Starfleet marked the place as too dangerous to visit just in case.”

“Poor Vina,” McCoy murmurs.

Pike sighs. “Leaving her there is one my greatest regrets. She seemed determined to stay, but...Even put in a request to go back, once, but Starfleet wouldn’t allow it. Too risky. I often wonder what happened to her. If she was really happy with them after all. But, as you may have gathered, Kirk, none of this explains just what the devil Spock thinks he’s doing--”

He’s interrupted by a call from Uhura: “Captain—message coming from Mr. Spock!”

“Put him on! Spock, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Quite well, captain. Has Captain Pike contacted the ship yet?”

“I’m on the line right now,” Pike says. “Spock, what do you think you’re playing at?”

“Ah, captain. I have someone here who wishes to speak to you.”

We then cut back to Spock sitting at the table with the figure, who takes his communicator and says, “Hello...captain.”

Pike is too stunned to speak for a moment. “Vina...? Is that you?”

“The very same. I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Between them, Spock and Vina explain just what is going on. There's been a change in Talosian society since the Enterprise left. Not all of the Talosians agreed with the plan to breed a slave race to begin with—others felt that they could, and should, attempt to reclaim the surface themselves. The incident with Captain Pike brought matters to a head, and a rebellion erupted shortly afterward. Once in power, the new leaders dedicated their efforts to repairing their ancestors’ machines and establishing a colony on the surface.

The reason the Enterprise was lured back to Talos 4 was Vina: she's had medical problems as a result of the crash and the botched surgery, and it's been getting worse for years, to the point that she likely won't live much longer if she doesn't get proper treatment. The new Talosian leaders wanted to make up for what their predecessors had done and gave her the best care they could, but simply didn't have the human medical knowledge to fix the problem. So Vina asked if they could help her get home, instead. The Talosians were concerned, however, that the Federation wouldn't believe a genuine call for help, given their history, so they hatched the plan to lure the Enterprise, and Pike with it, back to Talos 4. They've been waiting for quite a while, listening to subspace chatter, hoping the Enterprise would come near. Once it did, they put out the illusion of the damaged ship to bring the Enterprise close enough that they could maintain an illusion over the helm controls, making sure the helmsmen were not altering their course as they thought they were.

When they discovered that Pike was no longer aboard the Enterprise, they instead sent a telepathic message to Spock, hoping that his own experience with the Talosians would make him see the difference between their current society and the old one, and thus be more likely to believe them. They had to wait until the ship got close to Talos 4, because the new society of Talosians have been deliberately letting their psychic powers weaken, attempting to break the addiction to illusion that was holding them back from reclaiming the surface. They were able to keep up the illusion of the damaged ship for a while, but couldn't manage that and the illusion on the helm and extended contact with the Enterprise at the same time, making the whole thing very nearly fall apart at one point.

Kirk demands to know why Spock ran off on his own, and Spock explains that while he found the Talosians' message plausible, a risk remained that this was all an elaborate set-up. They might have been attempting another pass at the plan that failed thirteen years ago. If that was the case, Spock would be the least risky member of the crew to make contact with them, since as a non-human he wouldn't be suitable for their plans. Since he knew Kirk would never agree to that, he took the shuttle and hacked the ship's computers to ensure that they wouldn't be able to follow him, at least for a while. He now feels confident that this is not a trap, though, as the Talosians' powers have weakened enough that his own mental defenses are strong enough to mostly see through them.

So Vina accompanies Spock back to the shuttlecraft, and they fly back to the ship. Vina's taken to Sickbay while Kirk confronts Spock about stealing the shuttlecraft. Spock says he'll accept all punishment, but felt he had to do it--he saw what almost happened to Pike on Talos 4, and couldn't risk the same fate happening to Kirk. But he also felt he owed it to Pike to investigate Vina's story, and help her return if that was truly what she wanted. Kirk lets the whole matter go, because of course he does, telling Spock not to try that shit again because he can't lose his best officer and all that.

Kirk and Spock go to visit Sickbay, where McCoy reports that with proper Federation medical care Vina's prognosis is good. Kirk wants to talk to her, but McCoy tells him to wait because she's got another visitor. Kirk glances around the doorway and sees Vina sitting up in bed looking at a video monitor, from which Pike's voice is coming. Kirk smiles and says he'll come back later.

Everyone goes back to the bridge, and with the computer damage now fixed, they're preparing to leave, when Uhura reports that there's a call coming from Talos 4. Kirk has a short conversation with the Talosian on the other end, who is glad to hear that Vina will be alright. They also ask that Kirk relay a message to Pike, extending their apologies for what he went through, which Kirk assures them he will. He then adds that the Federation would likely be willing to open trade negotiations with the new Talosian government, and the Talosian says they may take them up on that. And with that, the ship flies off.

Most of this story would only require the existing Enterprise sets, and potentially some brief shots of the shuttle interior. The only new locations needed would be the Talosian settlement exterior, which could be a matte painting, and the inside of the building where Spock meets Vina, which wouldn't require much dressing. The only non-main-cast characters would be Pike, Vina, and the Talosian that contacts the Enterprise. The Talosian is a voice-only role. Pike is also a voice-only role, and would require someone who can approximate Jeffrey Hunter's voice, but it's a lot easier to find a sound-alike than someone who's a sound-alike and a look-alike--plus Pike would be thirteen years older than in The Cage, which allows some leeway. I don't know if Susan Oliver would have been willing/able to come back to play Vina, but if she wasn't, a hood, wig, careful camera shots and some old-age makeup would probably serve well enough to disguise another actress. The only special effect needed is a bit of glowiness for the Talosian that appears to Spock just out of frame.

As for the fate of Pike himself, I don't want to erase a disabled character, but I also don't really feel that Pike's appearance in The Menagerie does any justice to him as a disabled character. Did Gene always envision that kind of fate for him or did he simply seize upon it as a plot device in a desperate moment? I don't know, so in the end I decided to leave it more or less open. There would be considerable leeway for multiple options that would still allow him to serve the same role in this episode: he could be commanding another ship, he could retired and settled down somewhere, he could have suffered an accident as he did in canon and spend this entire episode talking through a voice synthesizer. Imagine whatever one feels most suitable to you.

This is only my own take on the story. I know it would have considerable repercussions to later Star Trek canon and I'm not going to make the claim that those repercussions themselves would be better than what actually happened. It's certainly a more hopeful ending than The Menagerie, on the whole, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it was an interesting exercise.

#trek talk #1.11 The Menagerie Part One #1.12 The Menagerie Part 2 #fix-it post #fixing The Menagerie

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