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Occurs after An Act of Faith and is based on the events of TOS: Tomorrow Is Yesterday. The characters aren't mine *sadface* but I hope you enjoy and please forgive errors!




Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


Spock had made his fifth illogical move in a row, and Kirk’s shoulders slumped in defeat. The first two had made Kirk grin, excited that he’d finally beat Spock at chess in under three hours; but after the third one, his gleeful confidence had turned into concern. Now, Kirk felt full-fledged alarm. The fact Spock wasn’t even regarding the pieces as he made his moves had Kirk calling down to sickbay for Dr. McCoy.

“Bring your kit. It’s Spock.”

Kirk knew the first officer had heard him, considering Vulcans had exceptional hearing and Kirk hadn’t even lowered his voice—yet still, Spock continued staring at a chess game he’d never really been playing.

“Maybe I should’ve ordered you to sickbay instead of the other way around.”

“I am not ill, Captain.”

“Nevertheless—”

The door’s buzzer sounded, and Kirk granted entrance. McCoy came rushing inside, a syringe at the ready and his eyes wide.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked frantically, his head whipping from one man to the other. He took out the medical scanner and started readings on Spock.

“I am well, Doctor,” Spock said flatly, still staring at the game.

“And I am winning,” Kirk added, mimicking Spock’s tone.

McCoy glared at them both and stood straighter, his hands flopping to his sides. “You mean to tell me you called me up from sickbay because you’re winning?”

“Bones—”

“I know you can be arrogant, Jim, but—”

“He’s letting me.”

McCoy snapped his mouth shut. Giving Spock another appraising look, he turned on the scanner again. “Nothing’s wrong with him, Jim.”

“I believe I said that,” Spock replied, making yet another illogical move.

“But I’m winning,” Kirk said again. “Or rather, you’re losing.”

“You are correct. It is a great relief we are not playing kal-toh or else the game would never end.”

McCoy couldn’t quite manage to muffle his snort and Kirk glared. “If can beat you in chess, I could beat you at that!”

Spock merely raised an eyebrow, never taking his gaze of the board.

McCoy and Kirk shared a concerned glance. It was obvious to everyone Spock’s mind wasn’t on the game. In fact, it had seemed to Kirk his first officer had been distracted long before now, but he couldn’t understand why. Granted, the day’s events had been wholly bizarre—going back three hundred years into the past was a bit of a culture shock for anyone—but everything was resolved now and the space-time continuum carried on as it should. There was no reason for Spock to be as perplexed as he seemed.

“Something on your mind, Spock?” Kirk finally decided to ask, taking a break from the game.

Spock glanced up at first Kirk, then McCoy, then back to the chess game. “Captain Christopher.”

“Was he that dreamy to you, Spock?” McCoy teased on a laugh.

Spock’s lips settled into a severely thin line.

Kirk allowed a tiny chuckle to escape before sending McCoy a reproachful look. “We’ve succeeded, Spock. He’s back in his timeline none the wiser. Hell, he probably rushed home with a sudden need to make love to his wife! Wasn’t Shaun Christopher born in April of 1970?”

“April twenty-third, 1970, at ten-oh-seven AM; weight eight point—”

“We get the idea, Spock,” McCoy muttered.

“So, what’s the problem?” Kirk asked, folding his hands on the table and leaning forward slightly. “Did we miss something? Not consider something we should’ve?”

“It is a personal matter,” Spock said, steepling his fingers as he regarded the game, “nothing quite so universal.”

“But important, as you are uncharacteristically unfocused,” Kirk noted. “Come, Spock. You can tell us.”

“Yes, anything to make sure the ship runs efficiently,” McCoy added.

Spock sat back in his chair, folding his arms at his chest. “Very well.”

Kirk waited patiently as he watched Spock broach the subject. It must be really serious since he didn’t start speaking right away. McCoy huffed and bounced on the balls of his feet, yet didn’t press Spock, either. Kirk grinned slightly. No matter how much McCoy said otherwise, he knew his CMO respected Spock a great deal.

“I find it interesting that, after his first surprise upon seeing me, Captain Christopher accepted my presence as part of the crew, but he continued to stare at the women on board with great confusion—particularly Lieutenant Uhura.”

At first, neither the captain nor the doctor made a response. Then, McCoy chuckled and tapped Kirk’s shoulder with his elbow. “Now that you mention it, Jim, Spock does look a little green…”

“Doctor, it is much too cold in here for me to be flushed.”

Kirk and McCoy eyed each other. It was a comfortable seventy-five for them.

“That’s not it and you know it,” McCoy insisted, pulling up a chair from Kirk’s computer to finally sit.

Spock raised his eyes from the chess pieces slowly. “Explain.”

Kirk heard the challenge in his first officer’s voice and he put a hand on McCoy’s forearm. “Gentlemen—”

“John Christopher and Uhura!”

“Yes, that is the current topic of this discussion.”

McCoy snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and you couldn’t get him off the ship fast enough!”

Spock stared at McCoy for a full half-minute, then turned back to the game. Both Kirk’s and McCoy’s jaws dropped as Spock, somehow, checkmated Kirk’s king.

“I don’t like you,” Kirk mumbled. Spock granted a tiny smirk and nod. “But McCoy’s right, Spock. You did seem rather…short with our guest.”

“He did not belong here. I simply endeavored to return him to his rightful place.

“Of course,” Kirk said quickly.

“And, it was not as if he were not eager to return to Earth as well.”

“This is also true,” Kirk mused, but he remembered those first introductions, and Spock did have a point. It had seemed as if Captain Christopher had spent as much time staring at Uhura as he had the ship. But Kirk also wondered if Spock had known his spine had gotten straighter and his brows had furrowed whenever Christopher’s eyes had lingered on their communications officer.

“She’s a beautiful woman, Spock,” Kirk finally said, slightly uncomfortable for even mentioning it. But Kirk was not blind, no matter how firm he was about no overly familiar fraternizing with the female members of his crew.

His first officer notwithstanding…

“Her beauty is confusing, Captain?”

McCoy barely masked his snort with a cough.

“That’s not exactly what I mean.”

Spock raised his eyebrows in a silent request for Kirk to clarify his position. Kirk looked to McCoy, who now paid extra attention to the medical scanner and syringe in his hands.

Spock shrugged and continued. “When you and Mr. Sulu beamed down to retrieve the tapes, Captain Christopher and I returned to the bridge, where he immediately went to Uhura. He started asking all sorts of inappropriately personal questions, although Uhura did not seem to mind the inquiries and she answered them.”

“That’s because she’s nice, Spock,” McCoy cracked.

Spock sighed and frowned. “Miss Uhura asked questions in return and he answered them. He was very long-winded at times, but Uhura did not appear impatient. At some point there was a lull in their conversation, and then Christopher told her she was a dream come true. I thought it an odd thing to say, especially to someone one had just met, and because Captain Christopher gave the impression he had very high regard for his wife and children.”

Kirk frowned as well, agreeing with Spock that was a very…intimate thing to say to a stranger, but when he looked over at McCoy, there was a profoundly sentimental expression on his face.

“Bones?” Kirk asked.

McCoy blinked and looked at Spock intently. “Did Uhura…say anything to that?”

Spock cocked his head. “She’d inhaled softly, blinked rapidly, and smiled shakily. Then she told Captain Christopher, ‘thank you’ and asked me if she could be excused from the bridge. I had finished checking in with Mr. Scott and offered to escort her to sickbay since I was returning to the transporter room, but she wished to return to her quarters. I allowed it.”

McCoy stood and returned the chair to the computer. “Jim, may I use this for a second?”

“Sure,” Kirk asked, wondering what McCoy was up to. Spock greeted Kirk’s curious expression with one of his own, and the two men went to the computer to see what McCoy was looking up. After a few moments, a black-and-white video of very poor quality—obviously during the early days of television—appeared on the screen. McCoy stood and pointed to the chair.

“Sit down, Spock.” Inquisitive expression still firmly in place, Spock did as told. “Watch this. I gotta…” He didn’t finish his sentence, merely grabbing his syringe and scanner, then leaving Kirk’s quarters.

They were silent as the video played, their attention riveted to the screen. As Kirk watched and listened, it was hard for him to reconcile that past with his current present. To think at one point there had been a real possibility of them being stuck in 1969 made him shudder. And if John Christopher were any indication, it probably would’ve been easier for Spock, a half-Vulcan, to survive during this time than Uhura, who was a full human being.

Kirk looked down at Spock when the video ended. He was already searching for more information about the era, speed-reading his way through articles and archived journal entries. Kirk sat back at the table where the chess game was and watched Spock go through this, the struggle of Spock’s mind trying to make sense out of something that had none.

“Fascinating.”

“I’ll say,” Kirk murmured.

Spock furrowed his brows as he did more research on the computer. “Your species had a very narrow view of ‘race’, Captain,” Spock mused. “And very flawed. Even your scientific standards were compromised during this time.”

Kirk went back to the computers where Spock was reading an old study that had occurred in Tuskegee, Alabama. His stomach turned at the images he saw and the protocols he read. Kirk was glad McCoy wasn’t around to see this, although he had no doubt the doctor had knowledge of this part of his field’s history.

Spock shook his head. “I do not understand. Groups of humans were considered inferior because they had greater inherent biological protection against the sun’s ultraviolet radiation?”

Kirk stared for a long moment, then he burst out laughing. Spock’s eyebrows rising only made Kirk’s mirth stronger and he collapsed against the table, pounding it with his fist.

“Did I say something humorous?” Spock asked.

“No, you just summed up one of the most illogical premises we humans ever had in our history quite succinctly, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, sitting up straight and wiping his eyes.

“I see,” Spock said with a sigh, then turned back to the computer. “Forty years after our inadvertent visit, the United States inaugurated its first president of African ancestry, Jim.”

“Yes.”

“A start of genuine progress,” Spock determined. “A slow start, but a start nonetheless.”

Kirk nodded. “When you have a set of preconceived notions, Spock, it is human inclination to find evidence to support it, not refute it.”

Spock sat back and looked at Kirk as his mind undoubtedly coalesced all the disparate information into one tiny ball of logic. “And since I was not a preconceived notion, it was easier for Captain Christopher to accept me than it was for him to accept Lieutenant Uhura,” Spock conjectured, standing slowly.

“Yes—where are you going?” Kirk followed Spock into the turbolift. The other man did not say a word as they went to Deck Three. Upon reaching it, Spock went directly to the recreation room where Uhura and McCoy were seated in a corner in deep conversation. Uhura’s lute was still in her lap, but her right hand grasped McCoy’s on top of the table while McCoy seemed to be listening attentively.

Spock sighed. “I did not understand.”

“That’s okay, Spock. I think it’s a good thing you didn’t.”

“But Uhura had appeared distressed.”

“Maybe, or maybe just flattered by Christopher’s comment. Now that I think about it, it was actually quite a poignant thing to say,” Kirk said, regarding his chief communications officer. She suddenly looked up and smiled, though her expression faded when her eyes landed on Spock. Kirk felt him stiffen, but then Spock went directly toward her. Kirk followed.

Uhura was standing by the time they reached her, the lute in its case, which was in the chair beside her.

“I’m sorry I worried you, Spock,” she apologized.

Spock frowned. “Worried me?”

Uhura looked sheepishly at McCoy. “Len said you were distracted over me earlier.”

“Ah. I was uncertain if Christopher had done anything to upset you.”

“What were you gonna do if he had— order Scotty and Sulu to slingshot us back to 1969 and demand an apology?” McCoy asked, rolling his eyes.

Uhura and Kirk glanced at each other before breaking into laughter. Spock sighed and looked toward the ceiling.

“Oh, Spock, I’m fine,” Uhura said, reaching out and touching his bicep. “I guess…talking to Captain Christopher brought to light a lot of things I take for granted, and I was suddenly very grateful.”

“And that made you weep?”

“You know me and crying,” Uhura muttered with an embarrassed grin. Kirk’s eyes widened with Spock’s expression softened.

“You now reserve your tears for actual sonatas, Miss Uhura,” Spock said with amusement.

Uhura chuckled and squeezed Spock’s arm before dropping her hand. “Yes, well, I am an emotional, illogical woman,” she mumbled, rolling her eyes and waving her hand absently.

“You are also a dream come true,” Spock added. “And I am grateful for that in return.”

Kirk and Uhura froze, but the immediate shock at what Spock had just said dissipated with McCoy letting loose body-racking coughs while hovered over his mug of coffee.

“Are you all right?” Uhura cried, going to McCoy and patting his back.

“Wrong pipe,” he wheezed, his face turning red and his eyes watering.

“Did I say something untoward?” Spock asked, an eyebrow rising as he regarded McCoy and Uhura.

Shaking his head, Kirk grinned and patted Spock’s shoulder fraternally. “No, you actually said something quite…”

“Sweet,” Uhura supplied, still rubbing McCoy’s back in soothing circles as she bestowed Spock with one of the warmest smiles Kirk had ever seen her give. To Kirk’s unending surprise, Spock returned the smile, even if only just barely.

McCoy huffed and took a more manageable sip of his coffee this time. “Never thought I’d live to see the day, which is just as well considering I almost died from it!”

“I will venture to be sweeter next time, Doctor,” Spock vowed.

McCoy scowled while Kirk and Uhura laughed again.











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