a/n: My first Star Trek fic. Yes I fell into the ol' Triumvirate, watching TOS again after Leonard Nimoy's death. This fic supposed to celebrate the three-way friendship that I love so much on this show. Comments and feedback are most welcome!

[ To my HTTYD readers, I will finish the webnovel, don't worry guys. I'm sorry about not replying to comments you've made, It's just I'm so afraid of feeling guilty for not working on it, and I know it's been so long. *sigh* ]

BONFIRE HEARTS
by inhonoredglory

It's like they were children again, each in his own way and it looked exactly how Jim imagined their boyhoods would be. Spock, smiling (a feat in itself), splashing his bare feet in the shallows of the lake, laughing and telling McCoy, "but it's logical" and Bones with a straw between his teeth, fishing pole in hand and yelling at the trout for screwing up his bet with the Captain. Jim saw himself rolling back against the bark of a tree, feeling like Huck Finn himself, toes tapping into the water below him. "Boys, you clean up before dinner, you hear me!" came the appropriate mother's voice from the background somewhere, and Jim felt warm all over.

But it was all too good to be true, even if it did feel oddly real. Dreams did that to a person. But as Jim Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise, woke up and blinked regretfully at the ceiling to his quarters, he hung onto the impression that this dream was more a premonition than random synapses in his brain. Wishful thinking? He needed shore leave as much as the next guy, but he was Captain and that meant… work. Apparently.

He rolled over, sighed. He pulled the pillow down to cuddle it but then his brain sparked up again, this time in pain. "Ow." He put a finger to his temple before he realized what it was this time, the itchy irritation behind his eyes. It had this peculiar Vulcan feeling, like a taste (brandy?) but in his head. It came over him sometimes when Spock mind-melded people, or especially when the Vulcan melded with him. He briefly considered Spock hiding under his bed trying to contact his unconscious mind, but that was clearly a figment of his tremendously drowsy reasoning process.

Maybe Spock was dreaming. And sending thought waves across the Enterprise. It didn't have to go far, Spock was just across the hall from him.

Maybe he had a midnight suitor? Jim blinked. Nah. Impossible.

Spock's balcony was not one easily climbed, and if someone did manage to get up there, they'd find a lock called "logic" hanging tidily over the door.

Jim laughed, made a mental note to tell Bones. He stuffed his face into the pillow and made a second note to talk to Spock about keeping his brain off during rest hours.

:: ::

Quarters adjacent to Spock had its distinct disadvantages. Bones woke up in the wee hours to the sound of a Vulcan lyre being struck. Why such a delicate sound awakened him, he didn't know. But there was nothing like Spock and drowsy curiosity to make McCoy slip out of bed and put his ear to the wall. It'd been a long day, one of those missions where he'd heard "red alert" and "battle stations" once too often, and patients (mostly of stress and fatigue) came streaming in far more frequently than he was comfortable with.

High pitch, low pitch… a gentle strumming. He didn't recognize the tune (most times he didn't) but it was soothing, and Bones wrapped his Starfleet-issued robe closer around him, yawned and prepared to saunter over to his bed again. Spock wasn't usually up his late, though. Especially when he'd been the one to wish him and Jim good-night the night before.

Liar. Bones chuckled to himself.

But then the lyre picked up a discordant note. Then another. A pressure brushed by Bones' head, something guttural, almost in his brain. Bones considered fatigue, dismissed it. Then he heard it. A yell. Spock's.

Emergency mode kicked in instantly, and Bones almost rammed into the door before it slid away from him. "Spock!" he shouted, and fell into the adjacent quarters. As a medical doctor, nothing fazed him, as horrible as it was, but a lurching choke still stuck its way in his throat when he saw Spock writhing on the ground, clawing for- for breath, air, help, him? Bones slammed the intercom. "Sickbay. Emergency. Deck 5, 3F 122. Get a medic team over here on the double." A flip switch. "Jim, Spock's in trouble." He slid down to the Vulcan, and he could see consciousness still there in his eyes, thank heaven. Spock's hand reached out to him, and Bones took it, kneeling down, and Spock's lips were trying to say something, as he gasped-

"Don't talk."

"I must, Doctor."

"Dammit, Spock, you're having a seizure."

"I am not."

"Is that your medical opinion?"

"Spock! Doctor McCoy!"

Each turned. Jim, in the doorway, a mix of chiding and panic in his face. Spock lunged again in the doctor's arms, and Bones held him, joined by Jim, whose sleepy delirium had been consummately ousted by the Southern shriek at his intercom. At this point the taint of brandy in his head was burning, and the reason now was clear. Something was going on, and his captain's instinct suspected it was more than medical. "Spock-! " Jim's hands were around the Vulcan's shoulders now, gently, not wanting to hold him down, not wanting to hinder the pulses of violent motion in his thin frame, but wanting his attention, his clarity.

The deep brown eyes focused on him, and Spock sucked in a breath, steadied. "Captain, there is an entity- inside me, it-" Another attack overcame him and he gripped the two arms holding him, gasping for a breath, for sanity, and (as both Jim and Bones knew keenly) dignity and control in the midst of this outbreak. "What's it doing to you, Spock?" Bones gasped, frustrated by his lack of abilities in this situation. Possessions were hardly his comfort zone, for a doctor's hands - his medicines, his drugs - had little power to oust a living creature from another soul. It was the realm of will and power, Jim's domain to command and Spock's to control.

Spock focused, and they could see him struggling there to gather himself together. He shut his eyes and his face wavered in contortions of forced emotion. He could read the passions of the thing living inside him, felt, calculated that fighting it would drain him and his mental energy perhaps to the point of irreversible damage. He instead directed the energy to something useful, to interpreting the entity's mind. Instead of fighting it, he took a risk and joined it. Took the hand offered him and brought the meld to a union. He was so afraid, but it was something Jim'd do if he were in his place and the thought gave him strength.

Jim realized the strategy he was taking now, felt a nervous shudder pulse through his friend. Bones leaped up to grab a hypo- "No, Doctor," he said quickly, breathlessly. He watched Spock's closed eyes, the movement in them, and the confidence he placed in his first officer to command his mind. If this was his choice, he would wait… and see if Spock's mental determination could help them more than medical intervention.

A team of medics had surrounded the Vulcan now, stretchers and emergency devices waiting by the door to Spock's room, by the two figures bent with paused breath over the third. The Vulcan's hands grasped unnaturally on the arms of his captain and his fellow science officer. Jim let his head down, his other hand over Spock's, trust and fear and confidence willing Spock's gamble to be good… Bones searched the Vulcan's face for signs of change, distress, of irrecoverable physical strain. His tricorder was alive with scans and readings (the only sound in the tense room, save Spock's irregular breathing) with the fluctuations of Spock's mental state with the foreign one inside him. They were at a horrible, delicate balance. Agitation built up in him and he searched Jim's tense, quiet face. How he hated to trust Vulcan mind magic over sound medical advice.

And then Spock gasped suddenly. The readings spiked on Spock's side. The dark brown eyes opened with a jolt, darting uncontrolled over the room. He came out of the trance with a gasp as if he had been drowning. The conscious pain struck every chord in Bones' body; he could take it no more - the waiting, the doing nothing. He didn't blame Jim but he hated the choice that was made. He whipped out a hypo of stimulants and jabbed it at Spock's arm. "Tell me you're okay, Spock." His voice was practically aggressive.

At the sound of Spock's gasp, Jim jolted, relief burning through his heart. Spock was mentally more powerful than any of them here, and he had taken a great risk on trusting him over the doctor's judgement. But his confidence was not unfounded, and he had seen Spock go through so much more, and come out of them more informed than if he had run away at the start. He took the Vulcan's shoulder in his palm, his other hand still clasped around Spock's hold of his arm. He spoke softly, let Spock breathe, swallow, compose himself.

The Vulcan did not meet their eyes, but looked afar off, his mind still on the experience he had and the being that had indwelt him. He still would not look at them, for the residual emotions within him were still strong, too powerful, and he needed to restore balance. A moment, a long, steady breath out. "Captain, Doctor McCoy." His voice was just above a whisper.

"Do you need to be alone, Spock?" Jim asked, gently, knowing the process Spock had to go through to recover his personality from such an attack.

"He should be in sickbay." McCoy tried to keep his voice steady. Watching him in so much agony had been too much for him to tolerate doing nothing, and he needed to get him examined before anything worse happened.

Spock gathered his senses, felt keenly the presence of the two men behind him, laying on the ground of his quarters with him. He vaguely recalled the expression of each of their emotion to him, and the temptation to respond now, in his conscious state, overwhelmed him suddenly. (What had the entity done to him? This feeling was not normal for him.) But he only raised his head higher, steadied himself on Jim's shoulder and rose. McCoy was beside him, searching him with those intense eyes, waiting to collect him for sickbay. But he didn't need an examination. What had happened was quite simple, as revealing as it felt for Spock. He wasn't aware for much of the time the attack took place, but he knew he had expressed much desperation, fear, and pain. Also thoughts, experiences, visions, from the entity that had inhabited him. Those he replayed in his mind now, for as emotional as they were he needed to remember. He had seen the deaths of hundreds, one by one. A single young girl, directing a battlefield, caked tears around her eyes. He saw disease and anguish, and warm summer lakes and families, three boys playing by a stream, barefoot and happy. He had seen snow falling and dark naked trees sticking up like pillars from white below to white above. He had heard the sound of war, gunfire, and mortar shells amidst the visual serenity of the winter forest. The clouds of war had become the plaintive wail of a woman, hundreds of thousands of years old, and then a single word. Freedom.

For all the differences between other lives and their own, almost each of them wanted the same ideal, the same ability to be its own self in the midst of its place in the universe. He knew what he needed to ask of the captain, also knew the risk involved in what he proposed to do. He straightened his tunic before turning around to face Kirk, clearing his voice. "I must…" he said quietly. "Go back."

"Back where?" Jim's defenses went up.

Freedom. That word reverberated in Spock's head. He could not be sure if the sympathy in his mind had emerged from his true self or influenced by the being. But it was overwhelming, powerful. The creature was still speaking to him, not with words but with images, feelings, impressions. It had reached that part of the mind that housed intuition and wordless understanding. Come find me, it said, and Spock knew suddenly that it was seeking his presence, that its possession was a call for help. Spock breathed out, long and strained, before responding. "I know the thoughts of the being that lived in me. I must help it."

"After what it did to you?" A frustrated fire was flickering in McCoy's voice.

"Bones." Jim's voice was firm. He looked at the doctor, shook his head lightly. This was no time to argue with Spock. He needed to be listened. They were dealing with unknown entities here, things with powers of the mind and body.

Spock's voice strengthened, determined. "I have known this entity, Doctor. It needs help. Freedom." He pronounced the word with a passionate longing. Spock pulled away from the emotion in his own voice, grimaced. Jim stepped forward, laying a hand on his shoulder, tenderness and honesty in his touch. The captain nudged a small smile at him, a warm gaze that told Spock he was well regarded in his captain's eyes.

Spock let the moment rest. He could accept Jim's affection for a moment. "I am quite fine, Captain," he said, his old self beginning to return to his mannerisms.

"Let me be the judge of that." There was an edge of aggression in Bones' voice, dampened by exhaustion. Spock turned around to look at him, raised his head slightly in notice of the deepened lines under the doctor's eyes, the weary gaze that looked back at him, ever the slightest detached. Spock held back the impulse to reply with a gesture the good doctor would understand as emotion. For indeed it was his secret, that he cared for them as much as they made known of their care for him.

:: ::

The composition of the nearest planet was mostly temperate. Scans detected life of several kinds, marine to airborne, even rare high-altitude dwellers. A core region in the upper hemisphere was significantly cooler than the surrounding areas, and consisted of the highest concentration of sapient life forms. Energy readings seemed to stream mostly from this area as well, while most of the agricultural life in the planet, oddly, came from the native underground vegetation that seemed to thrive on subzero temperatures and moonlight.

Spock gave a full report on his experience, and McCoy, his official medical opinion. The life energy had clearly originated from the planet (Arron 3 on Federation charts, a quiet little planet in this sector). Records told of intelligent existence there for the last thousand or so years, with economic and social development erratic yet upward.

Jim stepped lightly on the transportation pad, ready to give the signal to Scotty on the other side of the room. A few closing tests on Spock had inconclusive results, but Spock's report was clear that they still knew little about the entity that had embodied the Vulcan. Jim turned back, regarded Bones' tense face as he awaited dematerialization. There was still a strain on his face from the morning emergency with Spock. Jim had told him he could stay back, but the doctor would have none of it. "Spock needs constant attention and if he's fool enough to want to go free this creature, his doctor's coming with him," he had said.

Bones nodded to him, gravity in his face, tricorder and medical kit securely by his side.

Jim turned to his other side. Spock was strangely occupied, differently serious. This creature had been in intimate contact with him, and he had the notion that Spock hadn't shared everything there was to know about it. At least, emotionally. Maybe wasn't aware of it himself, but knowing Spock, he would be determined to understand. The mystery of the thing itself, and the sincerity with which it expressed its needs… was a plea for help that Spock could not ignore. There was a certain compassion in Spock, that maybe Bones could not understand, but Jim could see it, and he valued that in a first officer, in a person.

James Kirk was a romantic man, and he found a certain poetry in the current state of his friends: Bones' medical anxiety and Spock's intellectual meditation, on either side of him. In some ways, he played the father to them, policing their constant bickering, trying to get them to focus on the big picture. But in more ways, they were his brothers. Equals with whom he shared his secrets, his fears, and, most importantly, his joy. He didn't know what they might find on the planet surface (did he ever really truly know?) but knowing that he faced it with capable men who were more than just friends and fellow officers made up half the pleasure of leaping into the unknown.

Jim turned to Scotty, gave a nod. "All right, everyone," he said loosely. "Energize."

:: ::

It was cold and dark when they materialized. The target coordinates had put them on the daylight half of the planet, in a calm, wooded region away from major civilization blocks, but who knows about transporters (thought Bones to himself). Jim flipped out his communicator, tried to contact the ship, but the reply was a garbled signal just barely audible. Above them there came the sound of thudded blasts, like thunder but moving through the ground.

Spock was prepared for a similar experience to that of this morning, and he was aware of the tremendous danger he had put himself in by coming down. But he knew the most about the being, and without his knowledge no mission to save it would be successful. He reached out, found Jim's shoulder in the darkness.

"Spock?" McCoy whispered hoarsely. "Jim? Where are you?"

"Follow my voice, Bones. Spock? Say something and let the good doctor know where we are." Jim's communicator chirped again as he adjusted its settings.

"Doctor, are you all right?"

"Well look who's talking!" A tentative joy crept back into Bones' voice. "How's your head?"

"My head is functioning normally."

"Well looks like that spirit did us some good, after all."

Spock allowed the darkness to hide his small smile, and Bones let a sigh escape him, his medical mind still on full alert about Spock's condition, but the even tone in Spock's voice comforting him that the Vulcan they knew was still with them. Bones reached them, found Spock's wrist and took hold of it, taking his pulse at the same time. Spock raised a brow, amused that the doctor did not believe him. "Keep holding onto me, Spock," Jim said, finally giving up on the communicator and striking off into the black.

Lack of communication with the ship concerned each of them greatly, but it was not a situation they were unfamiliar readings helped guide them, as well as portable lights attached to their phasers. As they traveled through the tunnel, it grew colder, crisper with the cold of water (a familiar Earth-like winter, rather than the odd chill from other chemical substances they'd passed through on their travels). The sounds from above grew thicker and more threatening, and the booms of apparent thunder began to define themselves. Gunfire. Mortar shells? Jim firmed his jaw, looked up searchingly to the ceiling of the dark. War was one of the most senseless and yet most predictable of occurrences in the progress of civilization. They had no history tapes on the wars on this planet, so clearly the conflict above was a new one, and from the sound of it, the weaponry on hand was similar to what Jim had read about about warfare on Earth in the age of gunpowder.

Jim felt Spock's hand on his arm tense quietly, and the whir on the Vulcan's tricorder increase in frequency. Jim paused, drew his phaser over the whole area, scanning the black space with a beam of light. It was frozen rock here, glazed with ice. But there was a chink in the black that looked like sunlight and Spock confirmed the visual. "There is a break in the rock ten meters from here."

Jim did not reply, his mind full of questions, about Spock, the war, the creature that had inhabited the Vulcan. He moved their little chain of three towards the opening, and Spock began to feel what he feared - longing, anger, a fright he knew would erupt into terror. It was brief, but he knew that the entity was near, perhaps fingering his mind again, living as tremors in his psyche. He clasped Jim's arm closer, sensed McCoy's fingers press firmly into his wrist. He felt the need for comfort, and was suddenly alarmed at the emotion slipping out of him.

"Spock, your nerve readings are up." The doctor's voice was surprisingly tender.

"I can still function." Spock released Jim's hand, shook off McCoy's and moved on ahead of them.

Jim felt the nervous tremor in Spock's grasp before the Vulcan let him go. Images of Spock's ordeal flashed back into the blackness before his eyes. A part of him hated to bring Spock here, to risk that all over again. But as much as it pained him, he knew he and Spock shared the same heart, a drive for answers, for truth, and for answering the call to help, no matter where it came from. That's why they had each other - all three of them. To lead, to heal, to knew full well the risk in taking Spock, but maybe that was the thrill of it. Leaping into danger, doing the things no man dared do before. Maybe the very insanity of it kept him sane.

Bones was a much less optimistic man. He wavered between yelling at Spock for coming or beating up Jim for taking the Vulcan. He scanned Spock quickly, noting with rising concern the changing readings on his mental process. Spock almost expected what the doctor would say next. "You should stay back. Jim and I can-"

"I will not remain, Doctor." Spock's voice took on an edge. "Do not hold me back." He felt a trembling anger begin to hiss within him, directed at McCoy now, but he knew in his conscious mind that this feeling was wrong, that it was the entity's doing and not his will. He held back, turned from McCoy abruptly and headed towards Jim, who had reached the opening and was about to leap up towards it.

The sound of war above had ebbed, and even from here they could hear the sweeping chill of wind through trees, a howling circular sound. Far away a gun fired, and another, then men wailing, oh so far away.

Spock felt his heart react to the sound of suffering. He felt close to it, intimate, even the sound of it. Regret whispered quietly in Spock's heart. There was something he'd fear would happen, if the entity attacked him again, and logic calculated it might be a good time to tell Jim and McCoy what might happen up there. Pale white light gleamed down from the opening above, casting a gentle spell over the ground. Spock waited for McCoy to reach the perimeter of the light, tried to convey his apology over the emotion he had felt towards him a moment before. "Captain, Doctor. I do not think I am alone in my body." He set his gaze on each of them. "The being is still with me, and I believe as we move towards its home…" He paused, gathered his will. Oh how wide was the being's presence within him. Just a presence, not a pressing force or even a traumatizing influence. But he felt a premonition and the real fear in him now was not for himself. What if the anger of that creature magnified beyond himself? Who was in danger then? "As we approach it," he said, avoiding the gaze of his friends. "I believe its will upon me may overcome my power to control it." He inhaled. "I want to ask pardon for the actions, emotional or physical, I may have against you both in the course of this mission." He lifted his head, confident… himself.

He watched Jim approach him, understanding and admiration smiling through his eyes. McCoy followed after, his head down, then glancing up at Spock with his upturned brow, supporting Jim's next words. "There is nothing you can do to hurt us, Spock." There was a great confidence in his low, quiet voice, a great weight of compassion that wrapped Spock in warm protection. McCoy tapped his medical bag. "Leave the Grim Reaper to me." He winked playfully, but there was a gravity in his voice that was not lost on Spock.

Spock had allowed himself to be vulnerable, just enough, and he shied away awkwardly before another emotional scene ensued. Told himself to focus on the mission at hand. But his heart was full of warmth, the kind of love his mother had spoken of among humans, the bonds of brotherhood that warriors shared. It was the love of men who had gone through the darkest evil together and come out alive, changed, and forever bound as one. He retreated into his mind, closed his eyes to the feelings that threatened his soul. He heard Jim's voice, turned and saw him cupping his hands, allowing McCoy to jump up into the opening in the tunnel. Spock was grateful they had not lingered to watch him. Maybe they knew more of him than he gave them credit for, and had done what he always did to cover his human tracks.

:: ::

Privileged. That was the special feeling in Jim's heart when Spock opened up like that. There was so much behind the Vulcan's mind (and heart) than whatever he vocalized, so for him to say what he did both warmed and worried Jim. What concerns had warranted the advance apology? He read in Bones' eyes the same worry, and without speaking each of them knew it was the invading entity that was bringing out these feelings of fear in their first officer. A protective anger hummed in Jim's soul. The sooner they got to the center of this being's existence, the sooner he could free his friend of its influence.

He hoisted Bones up through the hole in the tunnel, did the same for Spock. "Everything okay up there?" he yelled.

"I just hope this source isn't that far away. It's damn cold." Bones, of course.

"The scans clearly warned you in advance for this temperature, Doctor."

A grunt.

Jim was amused. "Well get me up there." Two pairs of hands came down from the top, and he gripped firmly both of them. "You got me?"

"Just try to think light," Bones quipped, as the two of them lifted Jim off the ground. They laid him flat on the snow and for an instant, Jim's mind went back to that dream he had earlier. He looked at Bones and Spock, kneeling or splayed out in some way on the ground. Jim had a child's heart and on some shore leave someday he vowed he'd take his buddies camping and fishing and get the Starfleet out of each of them (and himself) for a little while.

The returning boom of mortar fire brought each of them back to the task at hand. They looked out, their shapes small forms in the white-washed landscape. There was snow on the ground, in the air swirling winds of ice and minerals, crystals so beautiful and prismatic it was like rainbows of color streaming down from the sky. Dark black bark reached up to the heavens, ending in a clouds of white. Spock's heart grew heavy, for he knew what was to happen, even without his tricorder warning him of the line of gunpowder-based weapons not far from here. It was shown in his mind, by the creature, and here it was, reality. None of their eyes lay on the beauty of the world, the lights dancing off the snow and the crispness of the forest, but on the one small figure far away writhing in the snow, a path of dark red behind him, a long firearm in his hand. (Foreign in some ways, but weapons of war had a quality that was universal.) And even from here they could see him shaking from the cold and the injuries he must have sustained to be in this state.

Instinct drove McCoy up from the ground and sent him tripping across the distance to the man's side. Jim and Spock followed after, their eyes scanning for danger, for the weapons that were integral to the death about to happen.

McCoy crashed by the injured man's side, fell into emergency mode as he scanned, interpreted, and tried to medicate him to dull the effects of his pain, knowing full well the man needed blood more than anything. The boy had been hit in the upper leg, and a gaping wound corroded fresh and raw in his thigh. "Is communication still down?" he said, with little hope.

Jim knelt down by Bones' side, flipped open his device. Static. McCoy cursed the fact that he could not do miracles. "I'm sorry, Bones."

McCoy did not answer, only shook his head, supporting the dying man's head in his palm. He was so young, not more than eighteen, with clothing that was clearly military in design. Camouflage white, straps and packs of supplies on him. Bullets, food, gloves…It ached his soul to watch the boy fade gradually from him, those young frightened eyes staring up at him, hopeful questions trying to escape the faltering lips.

Spock knelt by the boy's side, felt a connection to him almost as strong as a mind meld. It troubled him, that he could read the boy's mind, his crying pains of fear, the sparks of consciousness when he thought of the three strangers who had come to save him. Are you angels, his mind asked. Why are you helping me. Where is the hatred, the loneliness? The draw of his dying mind captivated Spock, unnaturally, for he did not choose this mental intimacy. He felt emotions rise inside him, the presence of the creature returning to his soul. The boy's last breath cried out in anger, in sorrow, and suddenly the voice he heard and the thoughts he felt were not the boy's anymore, but the creature, and yet the transition was as if one was the other and each was the same. What have you done with the boy, Spock thought.

And suddenly there was an answer. What I had to. The voice shocked him, for it came with such an overwhelming presence that his own mind felt so small alongside. Spock jolted, as if he had touched fire. A yell tried to force its way up his throat- he stopped it. But the pressure of the creature vocalizing within him was almost too much for his sense of control. Suffering. The premonition came before the feeling started, and Spock reached out for his friends' hands before he felt his consciousness begin to leave him. "Jim," he breathed. "Doctor." He felt his sense of self leaving him, the delicate balance of his soul tilting.

Jim felt that burning in his mind again. Fear, panic came crashing back, and his knees dragged onto the snow as he held onto his friend. McCoy was painfully ready for something like this, threw open his medical bag and poured the contents on the snow. He found the drug for increased mental stimulation and shoved the hypo in the Vulcan's arm. An increase of cranial activity in the region of personality would aid his consciousness fight the attack. "Spock-" He leaned down to the Vulcan's face, took his shoulder. "Stay with us. Stay with us."

"I am… trying, Doctor." The strain in the Vulcan's forced-flat voice was agonizing. Spock's mind was a mad rush of throbbing, probing, fighting. He could feel the presence of the entity, maybe even its soul, pressing into his consciousness, its thoughts fighting for a voice inside him. His own mind was tense to the point of shattering, fighting by its obstinance for a space within his very being. It had melded with every portion of his mind, forced itself upon his soul. And maybe it was wrong to give in to its will before, when he let it into his mind in his room on the Enterprise. The stress was devastating, and already he knew his defenses were crumbling, that this thing was bringing out anger and immense terror within him. He could barely hear the soft, increasingly stressed voice of his captain, and far away was the doctor's now explicitly panicked yelling. Humans, so vocal with their emotional lives. What good would hysteria do to the creature finding its home in his soul?

But James Kirk would not have Spock go through that ordeal again. He had allowed it once, had seen Spock through with his choice, to face the thing alone. But this agony now, the tears that were choking out of the Vulcan's closed eyes, the squeezing hold of the long fingers on his own hand and clothing. The doctor could do what he could, but this was a battle of wills now and this being was no simple life form. It was highly intelligent and very much alive, and those were all the qualities he needed to play this game. He took Spock's shoulders in his hands, looked into his face, directed his voice commandingly, anger pulsing through him. "Who are you and what is it that you want of us?"

Fire breathed into his head when Spock's body pulsed in his grasp, and from his tense lips came words - quiet, unnatural, strained. Was there even a different tone in them now? A sense that they came not only from Spock, but the very ground under their feet- the cold, the wind, even his own mind.

"What would you have me do, Captain."

The power of the voice pressed on Jim's mind. He firmed his jaw, anger rising in his throat. "Leave my friend, and leave him now."

"And is your will mine to obey?" The voice took on a cunning slyness, tangled up in Spock's cool voice, even in his fear. A terrible union of Spock's terror and its own dreadful confidence. With each word, spoken through Spock's clenched lips, Bones' tricorder seethed with alarm. The Vulcan's brain waves were decreasing, as the foreign energy flared alive. The rushing swirl of its very personality seemed to descend upon them, brush through their minds with the sting of acid. Bones clenched his teeth, fought its reflected presence in his own mind, grabbed a second dose of the drug he'd given Spock.

Jim had no time for acid, atmosphere, or threats. He was yelling now, even as the booming sound of war grew closer and louder, the crash of mortars thicker in the air. "I am this man's commanding officer, and I am responsible for him. You have no permission to exist in his body. You have no right to take over his soul."

The tricorder screeched. He hardly needed his instruments to tell him the Spock he knew was being taken from them. The cold staid face was trapped in voiceless screaming. His body was limp and tense in pulses, as the being inside him wavered and turned and thought. Brain levels were inverting. "You're killing him," Bones gasped. What little patience he had was stripped from him. He held the hypo in in hand, poised to inject. But, heavens help him, at this point in Spock's attack he was running the risk of overwhelming him with stimulation, killing him with adrenaline, even panic.

Jim caught his eye, his hesitation. "I will not have this man die," he said boldly to the entity's consciousness, eyes not leaving McCoy's. Bones sensed something, the passionate severity in Jim's face, the tragic sting of his voice. Jim was making a point, and running on empty. The look in his eye was of command and the one-way trip called sacrifice. "Jim-" he whispered, desperately. "Don't do anything foolish."

He continued to stare down Bones, as if drawing confidence from the doctor's fear, answering his concern with action. "You are an intelligent being, whoever you are. Intelligent enough to know what loss is, fear, freedom. To enter minds of your own choosing, to demand with your will and to gain what you seek. I have no desire to kill you, as much as you are doing the very same to this man that I call friend." At the word, Jim turned to Spock, let the horror build up inside him, seethe through his speech. "I demand only one thing, one thing. That you remove your harmful presence from him… and take my body, if you must have one to survive." He held up a hand, stopping Bones before the doctor could object. "I can aid you, free you if that's what you want. And as this man has so generously come to understand you, so will I. You are killing the man you chose to help you. What eyes do you have? Open them and let him go."

Jim waited, all cards on the deck, no Aces up his sleeve this time. Bones, switching strategies, shot Spock with alpha-beta blockers, to slow nerve impulses, lower his internal stress. He could not save Spock's will, but at least he could save his body. It was up to Jim's gamble and the living thing itself now. All he could do not was stop the Vulcan from completely breaking down in an emotional overdose. Spock's body sank into the snow loosely and then suddenly Jim felt it- the consuming fire of the energy's possession - the thoughts, yearnings, and great weariness of its memory.

Jim felt his throat lock up, his nerves and muscles shot with paralysis. He felt all the colors and agony of its existence, of the great longing for love and companionship. The pain, the anger, the sense of motherhood and fatherhood wrapped up in its desperation. It was long ago, so so long ago. Oh Captain, you wanted to know me, to know this?

I wanted to save my friend, and save you.

The being did not respond, only pulsed again in his head, then tore with such a wrath that surged through his soul. Jim shut his eyes, clenched his fists as he collapsed on the snow, digging his heels into the ground. A great anger rose up in Jim, a passion of his own and the creature's. It, she? was angry, hopeless, desperate. He tried to fight it, to hold his own against the consuming power of its will. The images that flooded him were filled with warfare and lives linked organically across generations, hundreds and thousands and then war. As if killing them was the key to freedom, as if this war was the creature's doing, the creature's freedom. Was this the mystery Spock sought to solve? The great draw of her existence?

Or was it the whimper of sadness behind the rage?

In the midst of all this the earth began to rumble. Soft, sudden shocks and then deeper, louder ones of mortar fire coming closer, ever closer to the open space where one man lay shocked and shaking on the ground, one seethed with paralysis and enraged passion, and the third labored desperately over both, his heart unwilling to lose either man to the madness of this place.

McCoy shot Kirk with muscle relaxants and the brain stimulant he had almost given Spock, before it was too late. "Don't die, Jim," he whispered, more to himself than to anyone. He leaned down to Spock, pressed his fingers to his neck and felt the grateful shiver of a pulse. "Spock are you with me?" The Vulcan was still delirious, Vulcan methods kicking in to recompose his mental and psychological equilibrium. And Jim, trapped in a locked state, breathing words between clenched teeth. Oh the fury pent up in Jim's soul-

Jim yelled, and with it, Bones could hear the cracked anger that had also come from Spock, when the creature lived within him. Bones slapped out his communicator, rammed the buttons with his free hand. "Enterprise, come in. Enterprise." Silence. "Dammit!" he yelled.

But the sound of Jim's scream brought Spock suddenly out of his trance, his head shaking conscious. Bones turned, his nerves too frayed to speak, and eased another hypo into the Vulcan, a stabilizing substance that should ease the transition back from such an experience. McCoy looked to Jim, leaned over to take hold of his arm, the captain's strong figure shaking, his voice beginning to crack through the paralysis of his lips. A great heaving panic pulsed through Spock, to see Jim in such agony. The emotion was shocking and strong, and he looked to the doctor, his eyes asking wordlessly, what can we do.

"You can't just kill-" Jim's passion seethed from his lips, shaking with an unnatural fear. His eyes were still closed. Spock leaned down and pressed his hand around Jim's shoulder, the tension of the creature's life reverberating like a ricochet in his head. He turned his head down, fighting the reflected emotion. He heard the nearing sound of mortars, the boom, crash and the shaking of the ground. And then the doctor's voice, so close, a hard whisper at him. "Don't leave me, Spock, not now."

The Vulcan opened his eyes, focused on McCoy's strained face not a foot away from him. He pulled his hand away suddenly from his captain. Sharing Jim's agony would help no one. It was not logical. He tried to recover his loosened lips and blinking eyes. McCoy broke the stare, focused back on the tricorder, the mad readout of sounds.

The ground erupted again in a deafening crash not fifteen yards from them. Bones instinctively ducked down, and debris from the trees above crumbling, branches heavy with snow clouding with white on impact. Spock threw his head down. He was so close to Jim now, his face pressed up against his shoulder, his ear by McCoy's. He could hear the fierce whispers from the captain's lips. "This genocide-! Revenge…"

Another boom shook the earth, and the sound of the crash dug deep into McCoy's head. He could hear the yell of men coming near, words he could not recognize, but emotions that were the same in any language. Cries for help, charges to battle, anger, determination, surrender. It bore itself into his head, as if there was living essence behind the sounds, the existence, of this battlefield. Jim's body fought again, and this time he screamed, a vicious fighting wail that shook with anger and with terror. Bones felt his friend's body tense suddenly, and there was anger suddenly in the captain's soul, he could see that from here- He was clawing for sanity. Bones' tricorder flashed with red and a deafening screech. Spock placed his hand on Jim's chest, felt the heart rate crashing erratically below his palm, and in his mind, he felt the anger he himself had only felt a breath of. Oh how would Jim handle it? He was not a Vulcan, and he would fight that one danger to them now. He let the swirl of mental energy touch him, flashed a glance into Jim's mind, the earthquake of thoughts within them. The arguments, the warfare. And then- "Bones-!" Spock gasped suddenly, still half in Jim's mind.

The doctor's nerves slicked back the instant he heard Spock calling him. The Vulcan was leaning over Jim, his eyes locked over the captain. Bones stepped back, swept his medical supplies away from Jim, still looking to Spock, heeding the unsaid warning that spoke through his tense figure. McCoy could already see the symptoms Jim was experiencing now and he grabbed his circulatory drugs before shoving away.

Spock tore his mind away from Jim, leaned back, but it was too late.

Jim's mind was filled with violence, the guttural response to the senselessness he had seen in his mind. The creature - this spirit, had been so long in the world, too long and now she demanded death to live, for she had stretched herself so thin among the inhabitants that now they had a hold on her own life. And yet there was so much regret in her being, a sense of hopeless desperation. Why did you take them in the first place.

With them, I was alive.

You cannot take their lives because of your lack of foresight.

They are MY people. I will do with them as I please.

You stole them, that is not the same as ownership. You cannot own another life.

But I control them.

Control is not ownership, control is not purchase or agreement. It is forced and that is not freedom. The freedom which you speak and value and understand.

Where Spock had fought with his control, Jim fought with his passion. The anger in him intensified, layered with the ferocity of the spirit herself. He yelled, at least in his mind, a cry of force against the mental bounds she chained him with. He could see her, without definition, without shape or form, only colors, her voice slicing his thoughts, a threat to the ones he loved most. Spock, McCoy… the threats she had laid on them, the way she wanted to use them. To heal me, to carry me from here.

"Jim-!"

A hurricane swirling in his mind, her pain and her desire, the cost of the freedom she sought- as he reached out and fought the wind, his hands and his soul warring with her ideas and her incorporeal presence, pain rushing acutely to his shoulders.

"STOP IT, CAPTAIN!"

The hurricane surged within his mind, drowned his soul. Red anger, water rushing, her laugher like an evil monarch untouchable. His chest erupting in pain, his head swimming without an anchor. Stop, stop.

"JIM. YOU'RE KILLING HIM."

McCoy's voice, Jim sensed it suddenly. The words shoved their meaning into his head, and a gaping emptiness fell into his heart, a choking lightheadedness. He forced his eyes to open, felt Bones' hands pressing down on his shoulders and- thin fingers holding his wrists, desperately holding back his hands. Until he realized where his fingers were, what his raised arms were grasping after- Life crushed back into his soul, and he ripped his hands away from the throat of his first officer.Spock. He could not choke the word out, felt his body going into something he could not control.

Spock had long since backed into his protective cove of unemotion, the numbing shock of Jim, his Jim, throttling his neck with murderous intent. It was the creature's doing, he knew that in his conscious mind, but the action threatened to traumatize him as it happened and his only sanity was McCoy, the doctor's raving emotion allowing him to vicariously live out his terror, even as his friend's warm hands strangled the life out of him. Oxygen starved out of his body, and he pressed his fingers to Jim's wrists, tried in vain to overpower him. He would not nerve pinch Jim in his state; he needed medical help, not unconsciousness.

Bones had drained his cardiac hypo of its nitroglycerin and beta blockers, in time to spare Jim Kirk the full effects of the impending cardiac arrest. There was still a small emergency dose of ACE inhibitors he could use on Spock; no doubt the Vulcan's blood pressure was skyrocketing. He hated to think what he'd find in their health readings now. His own body was shaking viscously, the cold and the shock and the terror that had been thrown at them in these last few hours. Watching Jim lay a hand on Spock was the last straw, and his stock of defense and sanity finally ran dry. That thing had gone too far, damned if he would forgive it now. He was only here for Jim and Spock, and the people on this planet.

But he was so exhausted now, even for his anger. Spock fell back, released from Jim's grasp, and Bones crawled over, boosted him with the last of his blood pressure drugs. Spock didn't even respond, his eyes still dilating, glazed, rough coughs reeking out of him. "Was it the creature, Spock?" His voice was gentle, less of a question than an affirmation that it wasn't Jim's person responsible for what had happened. Bones put a hand on Spock's arm, trying to be supportive, hoping Spock would accept the emotion as he intended it to be.

Spock nodded vaguely, not looking at McCoy, brows tense and drawn. He had warned them about the flame of rage the being commanded, but still the shock was tangible, the anger even more so within him. "I do not blame the captain, Doctor," he said, gathering his control. "If that was your concern."

"I know." Bones' voice was soft. He left Spock to his meditation, turned to Jim, found an uneasy calm fall over the captain's body. Bones felt a sharp pain hit his own chest, slid down on the snow and pressed a hand to his heart. He'd get a shot of something once he got back on the ship. For now…

He let himself look around finally.

But there was no peace there. Fire was burning somewhere far off, behind the veil of snow and wind. Gunfire rattled the air. They each had been so caught up in saving each other's lives to notice the impending doom of the landscape around them. The rumbling earth, the whirring sound of projectiles, explosions in the cold. He threw the scattered hypos and scanners into his medical bag, tried the communicator once again. "If you're stopping this-" he whispered violently, to the air, the wind, wherever that thing was now. "Enterprise, come in." To no avail. Cold shuddering wind whipped his hair into his face, and then another boom rocked the earth beneath, throwing Bones flat to the ground. "Medic!" he heard, far away, the sound of a man, calling for aid. But where? Where? The sound has no direction. His heart heaved within him and he looked out, growing swirls of snow obscuring the trees. He could see now the small figures dug away in foxholes and trenches, spits of earth from where mortars had blasted the edges of their holes. Rifles poked out of the ground, in a line not far from them. The cry of for help eased away, and Bones' reached for his tricorder, its life readings settings, and found the number of deaths was too great to quantify. The war was too close, too horrible, and too outside of their control. They needed to get out of-

Another explosion, above them, ramming his ear with thick force, branches falling down over them, the very real possibility they may die here from the crossfire alarming Bones now. "Spock," Bones took the Vulcan's shoulder, trying to be gentle, to allow his internal process to cure him from his own stresses, but they hadn't the time. He turned, took Jim's pulse, set the scanner on him, grateful for the yellow alarm now, the more comforting yet still concerned whir.

That's when he heard it, and maybe his sense of doom knew it was headed straight for them. The shrill, thin hiss of mortar shell. Get out, he told himself as much as the near-unconscious figures, but (as usual) didn't follow his own advice. He shoved Spock just barely farther away in the time before impact, throwing him into Jim's limp body, and pouring his own small figure over both of them.

The blast deafened him, a great tearing sound, a consuming crunch that ate up the earth beneath him. The doctor yelled, the impact of the weapon so much more excruciating than he expected. He crumbled to his back, his eyes forced open with the starkness of the pain. Focus. It was his only defense against the distracting agony. His hand grappled for his medical bag, or what was left of it in the debris. "Spock," he gasped, praying the Vulcan was awake and aware now.

It was Jim who came over him suddenly and a clutching dose of irrational fear slammed into Bones' heart. He felt so defenseless and he still remembered Jim's terrifying anger, the insanity, and he did not want to die by his friend's hand. But Jim's eyes found him, and there was compassion in them, delirious and shaky but there. "Jim…?" he whispered.

"I'm okay. It's gone," the captain said, anticipating his fear. He still looked pale, but he pressed a tired hand on Bones' shoulder, torn between comforting the doctor's fear and processing the injury that had happened to him. He was still in shock over what he'd done to Spock, had barely the time to process that before the impact of the explosion shook him to his senses. He moved over to where the blast had viciously gashed a long, deep segment of the doctor's leg. "What is it with you and a martyr's complex?" He pressed his arm to the wide wound.

Bones seethed a breath between his teeth, unused to the raw, pure feeling of this much pain. "Let's just say you started it," he hissed, but oh the comfort of Jim's sane voice again, the characteristic lightness of his speech, even in the darkest of times.

"We could have lost our doctor."

"I'm expendable."

"Don't take the martyr thing too far, Bones. That's an order."

"Two can play at that game." Bones closed his eyes. Spock was by his side suddenly, maybe he hand't even noticed when he slid over, hovering above his head. A great weariness in his eyes, and raw compassion flowing through them now. Bones felt his heart warm, the heightened emotion from his agony seeping over into a desperate relief to actually see the Vulcan's great care in his eyes. "You were that close to finally losing your incompetent CMO," he smirked at Spock, holding his hand up, trying to form a tiny space between his forefinger and thumb.

Spock took that hand, quite seriously, and placed it on Bones' torso. "I refuse to understand your humor, Doctor." And Bones opened his eyes gratefully to hear the uncolored sincerity in Spock's voice.

Another crash shook the landscape, and this time Bones felt surrender, as if something was trying to keep them all here in agony forever. He could not hold against the rage of his injury forever. "You guys go on and get back to the ship-"

"What did I just order you not to do?" Jim prodded, screaming the last bit to be heard above the rising gunfire.

"Fine. But you realize this needs treatment right now, and I can't move?"

"So you're injured in a war zone. People have faced a lot worse, McCoy." Jim made a face and Bones huffed back at him. "Where's your bag of tricks?" Jim probed the debris-scattered snow.

Bones grit his teeth, the loss of blood beginning to alarm him. "I don't know, should be nearby."

Spock looked around him, leaned over and picked up, well, what was left of the doctor's medical supplies. The explosion had ruptured the bag, laid waste to most of the tablets and hyposprays. But the bandages were still protected, securely encased as they were. The small medical scanner was still operational, and as Jim wrapped Bones' leg quickly, Spock took stock of McCoy's health.

"We need to move Bones out of here." Jim pulled, fastened the last strip of the bandage. The sound of war had quieted thankfully. The natural beat and pulse of war, calm before destruction. Jim had been inside the entity's head, had felt her claim of captivity here, knew the cost of death on her conscious. Genocide. That was the word that came to his head when he saw the terrors she had shown him in his mind. How many lives had she killed, and for what? She wanted freedom, but to kill the lives she had sustained? She was responsible for this war, and all he needed was to get to her again, to find out why she needed to kill these people to gain the good thing she wanted.

Brandy hummed in his brain again, and he knew then the shared consciousness between him and Spock had formed a mental bridge that perhaps would take some time to fade. It proved to him that traces of the being was still there with them, and he put his defenses up, realized that in this world, her incorporeal presence could be anywhere, probably was everywhere, and likely inhabited every sentient life form in this area.

Jim collected his strength again, turned to Spock. He tried to forget the anger and rage that had consumed him earlier under her influence, except to realize what that anger had driven him to. Spock's warning from himself was far more relevant for him, and that was one advantage the Vulcan had over his captain. The ability to control. Maybe that's what made her so drawn to his mind. To heal and carry me from here, she had said.

He looked up at the sky, falling with ice and fire, a beautiful sight despite the war and cold that had formed it. Spock was safe, he mused. He was, too, for now. Bones needed immediate medical attention. They were alone in a hazardous environment, without ship communication and with one mission, to save a life. The log line of a thousand starship missions. He nodded to Spock, let's go and lifted Bones off the ground, supporting his lower back and legs. He commanded Spock, "Find us some shelter."

"Yes, Captain," Spock said, grateful to settle into his official position. His psyche was still working through the experience, and he wanted work to pour his logic into. Emotions were such a strain. They brought pain where there was none and distraction to the things he needed to do to keep his friends safe.

Bones felt the threat of unconsciousness waft over him in pulses, woke up sharply when he felt Jim hoist him up into his arms. "You shouldn't be doing this, Jim. The stress on your circulatory system-"

"Well," Jim rolled the words off his tongue, "I think Spock is far worse, to be honest," he lied.

"You've essentially had a heart attack!"

"And you fixed me right up," he said, with nonchalant ease.

"The human body is not a machine-" He sideglanced Spock. "At least to most people."

Spock raised a brow, turned a dial on the tricorder. "There is a closed structure due east of here, if you would turn, Captain." He struck off ahead, wind howling in his ears, guiding Jim towards where the tricorder listed a high concentration of perishable goods and dry ground.

Bones relinquished himself to Jim's hold finally, let his awareness waver in his friend's loyal embrace. "Wake me up when you gotta close the wound," he whispered medically, slipping into a restless unconsciousness.

Jim felt Bones' thin frame turn limp in his arms, was grateful the doctor had given in to the rest he so desperately needed. He adjusted his hold on him, threw his body over his shoulders, holding his leg and arm in front of him. The rumble of war was easing more and more from them, as a sense of stillness began to gather around the forest. He turned to Spock, the Vulcan looking ahead, driven to get to this shelter. His tall figure was not as sharp and cold as he was used to, his pose more human and less Vulcan. "Spock," he said gently.

The other man regarded him with a raised brow, as if anticipating the subject of conversation.

"I'm sorry… for what I did to you."

Spock paused quietly in his walking, raised his head and turned. Jim looked at him, the soft gaze of his brown eyes, the simple purity of his words. "It was not you, Captain," he said, returning the glance. They shared a moment of understanding there alone in the winds and white, two men standing alone in the world, realizing the horror each one of them had experienced. The shared knowledge they had, shared fears, shared temptations that the entity had driven them to. The mental link that hummed between them now, a comforting sense of connection that Spock for once did not fight.

"I saw what you saw, Spock." Jim broke the gaze, walking forward again. "I know… the power of that spirit. I saw her devastation, her need for love."

Spock felt his mind brush with memory, that fearful emotional place that still haunted him. The picture of warfare, the deceiving tragedy of her pain. His own sympathy that still remained. "The entity was in our minds, Captain. Do you think even now she can hear our thoughts?"

Jim paused. "Well if she can, maybe she'll learn something about taking lives… about saving them."

They walked, trudging through the barren landscape. Every once in a while, coming across another fallen soldier. A boy, a young woman, an older man. Even civilians, it seemed, were not spared the death knell. They found mothers and swaddled newborns cast upon the snow, with no apparent injuries and yet… lifeless. As they passed a body, Spock would check for vital signs, and sometimes medical supplies, McCoy's kit having lost so much. It wasn't all that advanced, the morphine syrettes, sulfa powder, more bandages, needles and sutures. But it was something, and the dead could not use them anymore. Jim was grateful for McCoy's unconscious state. The image of so much lost life would have broken his healer's heart.

The crash of mortars and gunfire was far away now, when they came across the dark shape that was Spock's detected structure. "Anyone inside?" Jim asked, his shoulders wearying of McCoy's body weight, his heart feeling significantly weakened by the strain. Of course the doctor had been right, and of course, Jim was glad not to have listened to him completely.

"Not according to our sensors," Spock responded. They approached the building, and as it emerged clearer from the mist of snow and evening fog, something grew familiar about it, its shape, the porch (a welcoming one had it not been for the cold and death around it), the wide frozen lake beside it. It looked all too familiar and then Jim realized… it was the lake in his dream of that very morning. So distant and foreign it seemed now, but how uncanny, suspicious, he should see it now. But wild, somewhat disturbing coincidences were low on his priority list right now. He tucked away the memory.

Spock led him inside, cleared the threshold of the spider's webs that gave away how long the inhabitants had been absent, or likely dead. Inside dark, wooden beams formed the walls of the little outpost. Cupboards hung open in the corner, a rusting ancient stovetop below them. A fireplace rose up from the center of the place, a wooden table in front of it. A musty crispness permeated the enclosure.

Jim lowered McCoy gently over the table, lay his ravaged leg carefully on the flat surface. Spock had thrown the sulfa powder on it when they collected a pack from a killed soldier, and it had kept the bleeding down to where it was manageable now to sew up part of the open tear in the skin and tissue.

Bones stirred, the placid state of unconsciousness giving way to the sharp realism of his condition. Before he could even call their names, he felt Jim and Spock near, his captain's calming voice easing him into wakefulness. "Bones?" And Spock's deep timbre, "Doctor McCoy?"

Bones squeezed his eyes open, the weakening pulse of his blood keen on his consciousness. He licked his dry lips, whispered hoarsely, "I hope while I've been out, you guys haven't forgotten to take care of yourselves." (Jim exchanged a knowing glance with Spock.) "How's your heart, Jim?" Bones' hands on the table vaguely, instinctively motioned the way it would with a scanner in his hand. He directed his tired voice to Spock. "You know yourself better than I ever could. Are you okay?"

"I am… recovering, Doctor," Spock intoned, truthfully. "It is the captain-"

"Spock!" Jim shook his head.

"What, Jim?" Bones' red flag went up. "Get me a scanner. How many times do I-" He coughed abruptly, the dryness catching up with him.

Jim held him. "Don't worry about me, Bones. We've got to get you patched up now."

Bones sighed thickly, feeling lightheaded. "You got tranquilizers?"

Spock set the charred bag on the table by McCoy's head. "Most of our supplies were lost in the explosion that disabled you, Doctor. However, we found morphine on the battlefield, as well as sutures-"

"Don't tell me-"

"I'm afraid so, Bones." Jim's voice was laced with sly tease. Oh Jim, you're killing me.

"Okay who's gonna do the patchwork quilt job on me?" The griping irritation was almost as healing as medicine itself.

"Spock, who do you suppose?" Ah, the playfulness in Jim's voice!

"I do believe I am most qualified. No offense, Captain."

"None taken. You're in good hands, Bones."

McCoy grumbled. "Imagine me. Operated on by a Vulcan."

Spock raised a brow, began to thread out the sutures. "Maybe, as you humans are so fond of saying, it will be time to 'eat crow.' "

"Just be a Vulcan, Spock. Human insults aren't becoming of you. And get me some of that damned morphine."

:: ::

Jim kindled a fire in the hearth as Spock worked on Bones, gathered the cans and condensed meat he found in the cupboards. He could still feel the breath of the entity somewhere in his spirit, as if she had left a taint of presence on him, even now. Why she'd left him, he did not know. Maybe it was all a ruse, the way Spock was lured here. She wanted them to help her escape, that much he knew. And this war was a part of her master plan, as if mass bloodshed could free her of the bounds of captivity.

The wind picked up suddenly outside, swirled around the small structure fiercely, slipping through the many cracks in the wall and chilling Jim to the bone. He inhaled carefully, realizing his heart was still weak. Ah. Shore leave! He had a good reason for it now, and he'd have a good case for Spock and McCoy too. So long as no planet needed imminent vaccination or some rogue Romulans went traipsing into neutral space, they were all virtually guaranteed a lengthy leave of absence, courtesy himself and his captain's authority.

He was already imagining the epic vacation he was going to take them on when he wandered into a back closet, took a double take when he realized a young woman was lying there, knees bent to her chin. He knelt down quickly to her, and found she was breathing, at least.

She looked up at him before he could speak and her eyes glowed unnaturally, moved in an odd, unreal way. He guarded himself. "Captain Kirk?" she spoke, a voice much deeper and mature than her appearance.

"Who are you?" But the humming stir in his brain told him what he had suspected. She stood, revealing the bloodstained overalls that covered her small form, the slash of a terrible wound that went from her shoulder across her torso. Jim slowly rose, gravity settling into his heart. "Have you killed her too?"

"She is dead, yes." Her voice was flat, and she looked up at him, eyes meeting his. Power breathed behind those eyes, and the human body she possessed shook with an unnatural rhythm. "And thus I cannot long remain alive here," she spoke, gently, a sorrowful yearning in her voice.

"Are you trying to buy my sympathy?"

She broke the glance, looked over beyond him, where Spock was still working on McCoy, the doctor holding the table edges tightly, hissing out commands at Spock, to which Spock replied, patiently and consistently, that yes, I know the procedure, Doctor.

Jim took a step in front of her, setting himself between her and his friends. "I'm here for one reason, because you need help," he said sharply. "Let me give it to you and you can stop the massacre you've started."

She shook her head. "Do you not value my life? I have been in your mind. I know the principles of your Federation. Freedom, choice. You would give your life to break the shackles of another. Would you not save me? Free my spirit from this place?"

Jim knew the game she was playing, trying to force justification out of her twisted logic. "We believe in the right all life has to live its own choices in peace and tolerance. But what you are suggesting is not freedom. It is murder."

"It is sacrifice."

"You cannot force another person to sacrifice his own life. You cannot kill him … to get the freedom you want."

"And how shall I then?"

Jim paused, incredulous. She wanted her life so desperately, and yet was caught in a cycle of her own life force given to others, unable to gain herself back except by death. Sacrifice. Hardly something she could ask for now. "That's the one thing you cannot ask of someone. They must give it willingly… out of love."

Her eyes wavered suddenly, as if the word culled up so many old memories in her ancient being. The shaking in her arms eased, as if her mind had gone far back, far away from here. She stepped forward, took a steadying grasp of the wall, eyes on the pair at the table. They'd noticed her now and Spock stiffened, no doubt feeling the same burning in his mind as Jim felt now. "So these are your friends, your companions," she said.

Jim narrowed his eyes. "Keep your threats to me," he hissed.

"Do you know why I left your body, James Kirk?" Her voice suddenly wavered between a conscious voice and a sentience in his mind. He turned his head slightly, did not respond.

"I know you have, I have been in your mind." She moved beyond Jim, her presence seemingly ghostly in the room, the fire from the hearth setting a warm glow on her coarse clothing. Spock stepped up from the table where Bones was still laid out, positioned himself between his patient and the woman's searching gaze.

"How have you already felt love, in your so very short lives?" She searched Spock's eyes, but her words carried the weight of all of them, the way the touch of her mind searched each of their souls, the gentle embers in each of their minds.

Spock furrowed a brow at her, looked to Jim for an explanation. She turned back to the captain, her voice pained, taking on an ethereal quality, that sense that these feelings came from far back, beyond all the pain, the tragic knowledge, the desperate measures. "In all my centuries of existence, I have seen many things. I have learned hatred, sorrow, and I have known loneliness and longing." She glided past Spock, touched McCoy's shoulder. He looked up at her, her mind brushing his, her eyes lost in a distance as she stared down at him. "The people here, I claim as my children, because I have lived once in the bodies that conceived them." She looked up, found the fire's reflection in her eyes. "For all the ages, I have created generation after generation, spread my spirit so thin in my search for what gives life meaning. I control them… and yet I am not of them. I take their form but I cannot have their heart, as much as I tried. Maybe rage is all I have left because in this world that I have made I have never found what I needed the most." She set her gaze on Spock, then McCoy, both of them watching her guardedly. "So to answer your question, Captain. I took your officer's mind, because I knew it was strong and he could carry me from this place. I took yours because you loved him, and I left it because they both loved you.

"Is this the sacrifice of which you speak?" And she looked at him with eyes that yearned to learn, anger so desperate, so numb.

Anguished joy pressed itself to Jim's heart. Yes, he mouthed, emotion swelling through him.

She pressed her brows together. Hurt, hope, and regret pulsed through her consciousness, her mind an open door to the minds of each of them now, and they could read the waves of her anger ebb, waft unsure in her consciousness.

That's how you do it, Jim eased into his thoughts. Love is the giving of yourself to another. Sacrifice is when the life of someone else is more pleasing to sustain than your own.

She looked up at him, at last, a gleam of cold tears in her eyes. How do I find this love.

Kirk approached her, took her shoulders in his hands. Don't be afraid to take joy in giving more than you receive. And one day… you will find someone willing to do the same, for you.

:: ::

The three of them sat at the edge of the porch, staring out at the cold, thawing lake spread out before them. It was warmer now, ever since she left them that cold night three days ago. They'd finally made contact with the ship, even if it was spotty, but it had taken them three nights of meticulous reworking of their communicators, to align with the heavily sedated (as Bones called it) electromagnetic spectrum on the planet. A search party was heading for their coordinates now, though transportation would have to be by foot, since ion storms had erupted locally with the conflict between the Enterprise transportation mechanism and the gaseous chemicals this planet used in the production of its weapons.

Gunfire continued, but slower now, ever since she'd left them. Even the sky seemed to open up more now. And after every heavy barrage (which was not often now), Bones would sneak out in the native uniforms and check for injuries among the soldiers.

It was evening now, pale sunset on the silver of horizon peeking though the trees on the left.

McCoy sat in the center, taking a non-regulation puff on a smoke he'd found in the shack. Jim looked at him mockingly, as if he'd gone completely mad.

"You, a doctor. I thought you'd know better." He slipped the smoke from Bones' fingers and took a drag himself.

"I do. But damn if it isn't good." He blew out a crystallizing puff, took the smoke from Jim and threw it into the lake.

Spock leaned forward, his knees pulled up higher than the rest of them. "You realize the effects of just one cigarette on the human body is-"

"Save it, Spock." He threw a raised eyebrow at him, wasn't in the mood for a lecture when his leg was still tangled up in pain. Spock did a good job sewing him up, he had that much to say to him (and he did say it, on Jim's order). "If I wanted a medical analysis, I'd consult myself."

"Then your choice of smoking is highly-"

"Illogical, I know." He breathed out the last of the drag. "It reminds me of home, is all."

Spock turned his head to look out at the lake again, mightily offended.

They sat in silence, boots paraded along the porch steps. "What do you suppose happened to her?" Bones said finally.

Jim shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Found herself, I hope." He crossed his arms across the top of his knees and lay his chin atop them.

Spock turned his brows in, observing his captain's casual pose. He crossed his arms carefully over his own knees, tilted his head. A fascinating behavior. "If the reduced occurrence of battle is any indication, I would say she has found a new purpose."

"You know I thought I couldn't forgive her." Bones leaned back.

Jim turned to look at him. "And have you?"

"Not completely. But we gave her new hope. What else can we do? Can't bring back the dead."

Jim hummed, looked past Bones. Spock was now in his line of vision and Jim made a face at him. The Vulcan raised a brow and craned his head back. Bones drew a sly eye on Spock, shook his head at Jim. "Haven't you given up already?"

"Hope springs eternal." He flashed that winning smile. This was the life. The cool briskness, the placid evening light, the quiet cottage (more romantic than "shack") behind them, and his two best friends. He gazed at the both of them, a smile beaming from his closed lips. Spock seemed to catch his train of thought (well, they didhave some vestige of that mental link still around, after all). He regarded him warmly, without saying a word, and Bones let his eyes search Jim, the way they did in quiet times, shared affection and trust.

He looked over his companions, his shore leave plans, the dream… Now why was it that of all the premonitions, the best one didn't come true? Which didn't fit the pattern established in their possessed premonitions. It was probably her influence, one way or another. And, clearly, destiny needed a helping hand. He rubbed a hand on his mouth, thoughtfully kicked his boots off and wriggled his toes in the patch of dirt under the porch.

He looked up, saw two sets of raised eyebrows judge him questioningly.

"I was thinking about shore leave," he said, cheerfully.

"On a beach, apparently." Bones still eyed him.

Jim just smiled. "You're both coming with me, wherever it happens to be. You've earned a good shore leave."

Spock had finally given in and was tentatively resting his head on his arms. "I shall be delighted, Captain," he said.

Bones was quietly amused, still too interested in watching Spock to really hear what Jim was saying. "Count me in, Jim. I'll go for anything right now."

"Skinny dipping in the lake?" he popped in quickly, while the window of opportunity was open.

Bones let loose the fury of his medical mind. "Are you out of your blasted head? It's freezing!"

"That's the whole fun of it, the challenge!" Jim rose flamboyantly, flexed his arms.

"Well you can forget it, I'm staying medically safe here on the shore."

"With a cigarette."

"That was one time." Bones poked his finger at him.

Spock raised a brow at the banter. "Tell me, Captain. What is this… skinny dipping?"

And Jim laughed, an easy exuberant laughter that drained all the stress from him. "Oh you'll enjoy it. I promise!"