#luck-over-logic

“I– of course. Is something wrong?” 

Well, if this wasn’t any way to start the day. “This weather is about as fickle as any lover,” Leonard growled to what he assumed was the remainder of the landing party. Yet with a short glance over his shoulder, the doctor immediately realized his own loneliness. The rest of the crew had disappeared into the darkness, along with everything else. A jolt of panic and adrenaline crept up his spine. Where the hell had they gone?

Keep your wits, he demanded of himself. Trudging down the most walkable path of the jungle, Leonard strained his ears for any signal of his crew mates. The tricorder strapped across his chest felt heavier with each step. Dread weighed it down like lead. 

“Oh Captain, my Captain,” she responds, silver eyes light and voice not quite a purr.  “I am as loyal as I have ever been. After all, I chose you.”

It’s the first time in five years that he’s able to feel the wind on his face again. Familiar wind, not some foreign wind from a strange planet that smells faintly of celery. It rustles his hair like a father greeting his son after he comes home from school.

Jim can’t help but smile as he walks the familiar road he remembers driving right before he was shipped to Tarsus. The ride that changed everything. To think that car might still be in the bottom of the canyon...

Shaking the thoughts from his head, he reminds himself that he’s here to just pick up some things, maybe spend the night, and get the hell outta dodge as fast as possible so he can go back to the Academy. Hopefully Starfleet will house him before his next mission so he doesn’t have to badger Bones or Spock for a place to stay. Neither would probably mind, but Jim has a feeling they might be sick of him for a bit. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, after all.

So this is how he ends up creeping up the familiar driveway to the decrepit home of his childhood. The last he heard, his mother had moved out years ago, along with his ‘Uncle’. It’s been empty ever since.

So why are all the windows open and he can hear music blaring from the garage?

“What the Hell?” He mutters, reaching for a phaser he doesn’t have and cursing under his breath. He shifts his duffel bag to the other shoulder and changes course to the two car garage off to the side of the old home. It’s there that he sees an older man working on one of his father’s old motorcycles, back turned to him.

Something familiar makes Jim’s headache and he’s not sure why. He waits to be seen, shifting closer to try and see if this old dude is actually stealing parts or not.

How the Hell did he get the door open without the passcode?

I think you mean especially when he’s giving out Melvaran Mud Flea Vaccinations.

Pris is used to being alone during shore leave, particularly when they’re orbiting earth. Generally, when the crew returns home, Pris finds herself at Utopia Planetia, hiding from engineering crews or metaphorically licking her own wounds. Time planetside is a rarity, even without the strange limitations of her connection to her true body.

“I don’t have many other places to go,” she points out. Besides, most of the skeleton crew scheduled for duty had pleaded for time off, and Pris had so little reason to leave that it didn’t seem fair to keep them, when she could handle herself with even less crew than Starfleet technically recommended.

Through no fault of either of thiers, it had been some time since Spock and Jim had been able to sit down and play. There had been mission gone wrong after mission gone wrong, and as long as they had been on the ship, Spock had almost come to expect the interruptions, though they got no less inconvenient. 

He had, however- not missed, of course, but had found himself... pleased once they had enough down time for the both of them to sit down and play again. There was a special kind of calm that came with playing chess, and playing chess with Jim brought intellectual stimulation and a comradery that Spock would not comment on, but was glad for.