A/N: Hello, this is my first venture into writing for the Star Trek fandom. I've loved Star Trek since I was little, and now I decided to put my writing talents to a Star Trek story. Really hope you enjoy. This story takes place after Into Darkness and is rated T for language and some dark themes.
Scotty groaned as he started to wake up. He rolled over and immediately regretted it. Nausea hit him hard, his stomach continuing to roll even though he'd stopped moving. It took a minute for his stomach to settle down and afterwards he opened his eyes.
His vision was a little blurry, but he could tell he was surrounded by tall prairie like grass, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a bit of pale blue sky. Carefully Scotty tried to sit up to get a better view, and immediately squeezed his eyes shut as his vision started to swim.
Letting out a sigh, he slowly opened his eyes to look around as he tried to remember what happened. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest place he'd ended up after a night of drinking, but this wasn't how he normally felt when he had a hangover. And his vision certainly wasn't this screwy, or at least it hadn't been since before he'd gotten his eyes fixed when he was twenty. That's when everything started to come back to him.
He had been on the surface of an unexplored class M planet. There was no signs of sentient life, although there were many signs that there had at one point been a highly technological society there.
Most of the crew was given shore leave, while he, Kirk, Spock, Chekov and Uhura had set out to explore some strange readings they were getting from one of the remnants of the long since dead race.
McCoy had immediately tagged along because Kirk on an away mission was a bad idea, both Kirk and Spock on an away mission was the best example of Murphy's Law anyone could ever hope to find. Sulu had decided to come along to help keep Chekov company, who was torn between wanting shore leave and wanting to help with the discoveries.
They had found the source of the readings. It was some sort of ancient machine that was giving off lots of power in waves. Uhura had tried to make sense of the symbols with no luck. Kirk ordered Scotty and Spock to try and shut the machine off. Without knowing what it did he didn't want to risk what would happen if it went off.
Unfortunately, because they had no idea what it did, nothing inside the machine seemed to make any sense at all. Scotty and spock had spent about thirty minutes shoulder deep in the guts of the machine when Scotty felt a shift in the power that was being given off.
He immediately separated himself from the insides of the machine. From behind him he heard Kirk and McCoy yelling at them to get away from it. He wasted no time getting away from there, that is until he saw McCoy running towards him and Kirk stopping Chekov from doing the same.
Looking over his shoulder he saw what he knew he would see, and it still made his stomach drop. Spock was still working on the inside of the machine. Scotty stopped in his tracks and turned around, McCoy not to far behind him. Spock had just stood up, Scotty barely three feet away from him when the machine went off, and that was the last thing Scotty could remember before waking up.
"God damnit Jim!" The phrase itself was not an uncommon thing to hear coming from the Chief Medical officer, however the accompanying voice crack was something Scotty never thought he would have heard.
The shout had come from somewhere really close by and Scotty quickly looked around till his eyes landed on McCoy. It was a decidedly younger McCoy, but it was definitely McCoy. 'Well that explains the voice crack.'
McCoy was swimming in his shirt, freckles clearly dotting his face. Scotty wasn't surprised at the scowl on the doctor's face, but to see it on a younger face made it very hard not to laugh.
"Havin' some trouble there laddie?" Scotty stressed the last word, and broke into a huge smile when McCoy's frown deepened.
"I wouldn't be so quick to judge." McCoy's southern accent was thicker than it normally was, and it took Scotty a second to understand what he'd said. He then looked down to see that he too wasn't quite the age he thought he was.
Scotty's engineering shirt was a size too large on him, and he knew he'd have to tighten his belt to keep his pants falling down when he stood up. It really wasn't too big of a deal, Scotty had done most of his growing early, leaving him towering over his mother and a few inches short of his father by the time he was seventeen. After that he didn't really grow much other than waist size.
"If you're done being dumbfounded, will you please come help me up?" McCoy said this with his hands in the air, waiting to be pulled up.
"What the weak little fifteen year old needs help standing up?" Scotty mocked the doctor, but he still stood up, and moved over to where McCoy was on the ground.
"I'm seventeen. Now help me up!" McCoy snapped at the Scot, who put his hands up in a sign of surrender.
"How do you know you're seventeen? I can only guess that I'm around eighteen or nineteen." Scotty asked this as he helped pull McCoy to his feet. That was also when he noticed that the doctor was favoring his left foot.
"I sprained my ankle when I was seventeen. My ankle is sprained again, and it's not a new sprain. I can only assume somehow we have any injuries we had when we were this age.
"Who are you two?" Their conversation was interrupted by the distinct voice of the Enterprise's communications officer. The pair immediately looked towards where the voice had come from.
Uhura was standing several feet away from them, arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked to the side, an unamused look on her face. The pair exchanged a glance before looking back at the now teenaged communications officer.
"Where are we? And you never answered my first question. Who are you?" Uhura took a step towards the two men turned teen.
"I'm Monty, and this is..." Scotty, or rather Monty, introduced himself and then looked towards McCoy to know what he wanted to go by.
"I'm Leo." With that McCoy held out a hand for Uhura to shake. "You are?" Uhura frowned, and not the inside of her lip as she looked warily at McCoy's extended hand.
"I'm Nyota." She said this as she took the offered hand. Uhura then looked around some more. "Do you have any idea where we are? Last thing I remember was studying for my upcoming Russian test..."
She trailed off as she noticed something in the tall grass. Immediately she ran over towards what she had seen, while Scotty and McCoy shared a very confused look. Uhura knelt down next to something before looking up and motioning for them to come over.
"There are two more kids over here." McCoy immediately didn't like that she'd said kids, how young were they? Scotty helped McCoy hobble over to where Uhura was and had to bite back a gasp at what he saw.
Kirk was curled up upon himself, his skin was covered in bruises, and the golden command shirt dwarfed his skinny body. McCoy let go of Scotty and knelt next to Uhura who looked like she wanted to help but didn't know how.
McCoy jumped in, and put two fingers at the base of his best friend's neck. In the back of his mind McCoy knew he had to be alive, otherwise he wouldn't have been their captain, but seeing him like this sent all logical thoughts out the window.
At the McCoy's touch, Kirk took in a gasping breath, which quickly turned into body wracking coughs. The doctor turned teen started gently rubbing circles on his young captain's back, trying his best to be careful of the wounds and bruises he knew to litter his back.
"What happened to him? Do you know?" Scotty whispered the questions, and was completely ignored by McCoy who had his complete attention on Kirk.
"You're alright. You're safe. Just breathe." Kirk didn't seem to really listen to what Mccoy was saying, and struggled to try and sit up.
"What about my kids? Where are they? Are they okay?" Kirk looked around frantically, presumably trying to find 'his kids'.
"Calm down, your kids are fine. Now how about you tell me your name. Mine's Leo." McCoy gently held onto Kirk's too thin upper arms to keep him from going anywhere. Kirk glared at the hands that kept him there, but after a few seconds he let out a sigh, slumping his shoulders as he gave in.
"Name's JT..." Kirk muttered this as he leaned against McCoy's chest. He seemed to be starting to drift off when his eyes suddenly snapped open. "You're Starfleet! You finally came! I knew you would! Did you get 'em?" McCoy nodded as he gently combed his fingers through Kirk's tangled blond hair.
"Yeah we got 'em. Cornered him a room, and then someone threw an overloading phaser in the room. He's dead. You don't have to worry about him anymore." Kirk smiled sleepily, and have a huge yawn, before snuggling down against McCoy's chest.
"Wish I coulda been the one to throw that phaser." With that Kirk was fast asleep. Scotty stared at the out of character niceness of the chief medical officer, with a very young and vulnerable captain lying against his chest.
"Nyota will you look around to see if there is anyone else around?" Nyota bit her lip as she looked between McCoy and where a sleeping five year old Chekov was. "He'll be fine till you get back." Uhura nodded once and stood up, before wandering off.
"What in bloody hell happened to him?" Scotty motioned towards their sleeping captain, and McCoy let out a heavy sigh.
"What did he call himself?" Scotty frowned at this but answered anyways.
"JT, but I don't see how that's important." McCoy rolled his eyes.
"Think, in recent history, who is famous and known as JT? You would have been 23- 24ish when it happened." At this Scotty's eyes widened almost comically.
"Do you mean to tell me that..." McCoy nodded.
"Yes, Jim is the same JT as the famous survivor and child leader of Tarsus IV. One of the Tarsus nine. And you can't tell anyone this. Hell I'm not supposed to tell you. I only know because I'm the chief medical officer, and have access to all of his medical files, even the highly classified ones." Scotty nodded to what Mccoy was saying, and then looked over his shoulder at where Chekov was lying curled up, thumb in his mouth.
"What are we gonna do about him? He looks to be about four." McCoy frowned, there was something off about the now literal Russian wiz-kid. "Hell, what are we gonna do with all of them?"
"I say we tell them the truth. Tell them exactly what happened." Scotty stared at McCoy for a second before shaking his head.
"Whatever you want to do... You get to explain all off it though." McCoy rolled his eyes at this but didn't say anything else, turning his gaze back to Kirk's sleeping form.
"Leo, Monty, this is Hikaru." The pair looked up to see Nyota standing next to a young Sulu, with an even younger Spock held in her arms. "The little one is still asleep. Do either of you know what we're doing here?" McCoy let out a sigh.
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but... We're all officers in Starfleet, and we were on an away mission when we all got de-aged. Only the two of us seem to remember though..." Uhura scrutinized the pair for a minute, before letting out a sigh, and shifting how Spock was held.
"I believe you. We're all standing here in oversized Starfleet uniforms, there are a couple of phasers and communicators lying around on the ground, you act like you've know each other for years, and I can't shake the feeling that I know all of you." Uhura then softened her voice and looked at Kirk. "And I can easily see you really care about him."
"Can I see the ship?" The young helmsman perked up as he said this, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Can I fly the ship?" This drew chuckles from Scotty and McCoy.
"Let's just get back to her first. So where's a communicator?" Scotty said this as he started to stand up so he could look up. Immediately Uhura stepped forward a communicator in her hand. "Thanks lassie." Scotty took the offered comm. and flipped it open to hail the Enterprise.
"Scott to Enterprise, come in."
"Mister Scott! What happened? There was a giant energy surge, and then we couldn't raise you. Is everyone alright?" Scotty looked around at those around his eyes landing on Kirk. McCoy nodded to Scotty's unspoken question.
"We'll need a medical team standing by..."
"Okay, please stand by." At this, McCoy motioned for Scotty to pick Kirk up, and then for Sulu to help him stand up. With skill Uhura shifted her hold on Spock and managed to also pick up Chekov without waking either of them. "Beaming you up now." With that the away team was beamed back onto the Enterprise.
A/N: So tell me what you think. I'd love to get some feed back on this. Good, bad it doesn't matter to me, it all helps me get better. Especially tell me if you think I should continue this story. I have a little bit more written but not much. I'm also not sure about the title, and I would be open to suggestions for another title. Thanks hope you liked it.