Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

Christine could have injected the contraceptive herself, but Dr. McCoy liked to incorporate reproductive health into the annual health exams and, what with one crazy crisis after another, hers had been pushed back several times over the past three months.

Contraception wasn’t exactly at the top of her concerns, truth be told. She was far too busy to pursue sex with another person. Or too picky, some complained. Or holding a torch for someone she couldn’t have, others suggested. Lately, she’d been beset with a kind of nebulous anxiety, the result of bad dreams she couldn’t remember, so, really, she was just too tired.

She did appreciate the absence of menses the contraceptive provided, however, and wanted to make certain that continued without any unpleasant interruptions. When he told her she was pregnant she rolled her eyes and said, “You’re hilarious. Give me the shot.”

“Chris, I can’t.” He pointed at the bio readout above her head.

She whipped around, squinted at the readings, blinked, shook her head. “That’s – that’s not possible.”

“Sometimes the implants dissolve faster than they’re supposed to. It’s rare, but it happens. You know that.”

“Yes. No. I mean, I mean I can’t be pregnant. Did you check my thyroid? Maybe it’s my thyroid.”

“Seriously?”

“Leonard. I haven’t had sex with anyone not me in over six months!”

She watched his Adam’s apple move up and down. The furrow in his brow deepened. He reached for the hand-held scanner and a medical tricorder. Fiddled with the settings and focused the wand over her lower abdomen. “Uh, embryonic development around sixty days.”

“I don’t understand this. I don’t understand. Run the scan again—”

“Chris. Sweetheart…” But he offered little resistance as she snatched the devices from his hands. Ran it once, twice. Stared down at the readings, her fingertips white where she gripped the edges of the tricorder. He pried it away gently, set it aside. A moment later he was rubbing between her shoulder blades, trying to keep her from passing out. “Keep your head down. Slow breaths.”

They came to the same conclusion – some sort of drug or mental coercion that left her unable to recall the event in question. There might be another less nefarious explanation. She hoped there was. But she could tell by his expression he thought it as unlikely as she did.

“I’ll sample the amniotic fluid for a DNA match,” he murmured. “You okay here for a minute?” She nodded. He went to set up a private exam room.

^^^

“Near as I can figure, the assault occurred around the time Henoch was using Spock’s body. He may not remember it any more than she does. Or, at least, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”  

McCoy recalled that moment on the bridge when it was all over, the godlike beings returned to their incorporeal state, Spock, alive, returned to his own body. Christine stood next to him in a kind of dreamy haze. “We shared consciousness,” she'd said. He realized now that Spock’s reaction of mild horror was only mild by human standards, a reaction treated with fond amusement by the rest of them, a sign that everything was back to normal. “Normal” being a relative term on the Enterprise as the current situation made very clear.

Maybe if he'd been able to do more comprehensive physicals right away (like he’d wanted to), he would have seen the signs. They could have taken proactive measures.

Typically, regulations would require him to bring an accusation of sexual assault to the ship’s XO, which, being Spock himself, was out of the question. 

At his desk, Jim shook himself out of stunned silence and moved swiftly into self-castigation. “This is my fault. I brought this on them. All that grandiose speechifying about risk. Bending everyone to my will—”

“Just how charismatic do you think you are? We agreed to take the risk. All of us.”

“Bones, half my senior staff advised strongly against it, you, being one of them.” He pinched the skin between his brows and heaved a sigh. “Jesus, what are we going to do?”

“Well, first, we’re gonna have to talk to Spock.”

The captain’s head shot up. “Shit.” He stood abruptly, straightening his tunic with an air of wild distraction. “Shitshitshit. We need to move this conversation to a neutral area. A conference room. I can’t talk to either of you about this here. Not in my quarters. It could look like bias.”

^^^

“I assume she intends to press charges.” It was the first thing out of Spock’s mouth.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Kirk said quickly. “There are mitigating circumstances—"

McCoy stopped him. “Jim, all due respect, but…shut the hell up.” To Spock, he said, “I don’t know how she wants to proceed. As soon as I got the DNA results, I brought it to the captain. Not to protect you. Just so we’re clear.”

Spock gave a terse nod. Kirk gestured to the chair at the conference table opposite him. After moment Spock sat, his body perfectly aligned, as if he were still at attention. 

“I take it this information isn’t entirely unexpected.”

“That I have impregnated a crewmate against their will? Very much so. But I did suspect Henoch had done something…more to Ms. Chapel than simply making her forget she was injecting your body with poison.”

McCoy leaned back in his chair, arms crossed tight over his chest. “And you didn’t think to bring this to anyone’s attention?”

“I accept your assertions of-of the violations, but I have no direct conscious memories of events. Like the captain and Dr. Mulhall, I was not present in my body when the acts occurred.”

“You said you suspected something,” Kirk pointed out.  

“There was physical evidence in my quarters.”  

“What kind of physical evidence?”

“General disarray. The bedding specifically. Odors. Strands of hair. And …other things.” Spock shifted in his seat fractionally. For him, a squirm. “I did not fully understand what such evidence might indicate at the time. Those first few hours after returning to my own body were often disorienting.” He glanced at the captain. “I found myself questioning the reliability of even the most basic autonomic functions. Could I trust my body to breathe, for example, or must it be continually reminded?”

“Yes,” Kirk said, softly. “I remember feeling like that. Like my body was a puppet I should know how to operate but didn’t… quite.”

McCoy realized the captain was describing exactly how Sargon behaved when he used Kirk’s body the first time, deep below the planet’s surface. And for some reason that fact sent him right over the edge.

“Christ on a crutch!” He was half-way out of his chair, palms slapping the table as he leaned across, face red, mouth a snarl. Spock leaned back slightly. Spittle was about to fly. “Why the hell didn’t either of you come to me with this?”

Kirk winced. “Bones…”

“What could you have done?” Spock asked.

“I don’t know! I didn’t get a chance to find out!” He banged the table again as he straightened and pushed away, pacing, pausing every so often to point a finger at one or the other of them. “This is the typical bullshit I get from you two. I tried to act with all due diligence after that little…misadventure. I scheduled neuro-process scanning, brain wave comparisons, in-depth physicals, but I could never pin you down. Goddamned children the pair of you! Oh no,” he cried in mock alarm as he wiggled the strings of invisible marionettes. “I’ve forgotten how to operate my flesh puppet. Gosh! How do lungs work, again?”

Kirk swallowed convulsively, Spock stared at some tiny speck on the tabletop, waiting for the rant to wind down. It was a full minute before McCoy finally came to a stop and another second or two before he heaved a sigh into the weighty silence. “You should have told her what you suspected, Spock. At the very least.”

“I weighed the ethics of keeping silent, Doctor, but I had no memories of what transpired, only a theory based on disturbing but, ultimately, inconclusive evidence. My body may have known, but I did not. Telling her what I suspected seemed … counterproductive.”

“Counterproductive for whom?” McCoy shot at him.

“Perhaps I mean cruel. She appeared content, even happy, as I understand the emotion. And in our interactions since then she has behaved towards me much as she had before. How could I inflict my own inchoate suspicions upon her if she did not appear to be affected?”

McCoy scowled, still not quite convinced.

Spock took a pointed, steadying breath, offered,  “While Sargon was in the captain’s body, he rarely strayed from sickbay—”

“Well, he couldn’t, y' know - on account of the poison.”

“Yes, of course. And Thalassa, in Dr. Mulhall’s body, spent much of her time in the robotics lab. Yet Henoch required Nurse Chapel to administer his injections in the privacy of my quarters. No one appeared to question her prolonged absences from sickbay on those occasions.”

It was not presented as an accusation, but McCoy flinched as if he’d been slapped. “You’re right. I should have paid closer attention. I should have tested the formulas myself, insisted on more oversight despite being told by ancient, all-powerful beings that I was too stupid to understand any of it —” He shot Kirk a quick look. “That’s a huge red flag by the way. I mean, the next time we’re dealing with seemingly benevolent all-powerful beings."

Kirk huffed out a grim chuckle, shook his head. “I’ll keep that in mind. Meanwhile, how do we proceed from here?”

“We do not.” Spock said. “It is up to Nurse Chapel now.”

“And if she wants to bring charges against you?”

“There is an acceptance of risk when signing on to deep space missions. And under the specific circumstances in which the assault occurred, I am unlikely to be held criminally responsible even if she does.”

“That’s convenient,” the doctor muttered.  

Spock’s mouth tightened. “It does not lessen my ethical responsibility. Miss Chapel has other legal recourse should she choose to pursue it. Whatever recompense she requires from me I will accept without protest—”

“Spock—”

“We chose to participate, Jim. She did not.”

McCoy grunted softly, then said, “Well, you won’t be responsible for a child I can safely say. She’s in her cabin waiting for the abortifacient to do its job.”