Alternate Realities, Alternate Destinies

The Last Straw

Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate!

Three weeks passed. Leonard was at the 35th week mark. Most days he laid in bed at the hotel unwilling to do more than shower and eat unless he had to see his patients. The sheild Scotty put up around his house protected it well enough but the forestry that lead to the conservation behind his house was destroyed. Nothing but scorched earth and vegetation could be seen from Leonard's back porch. It was a sign that they didn't have to get to him. They could just get everything around him keeping him prisoner.

Starfleet was either incompetent or unwilling to do anything. Back in their reality things like this would never have been allowed to get so far. At the first threat security forces would have swooped down on xenophobic groups and sent them to penal colonies in the farthest reaches of the federation. This reality's Starfleet was complacent and negligent in their duties. Kirk had pleaded and appealed to his contacts in the upper echelon to no avail. Many felt the displaced Enterprise crew wasn't their problem and after Jim put many of them in place, few were reluctant to anything other than barely required.

However, they did find allies in the vulcans. They could not intervene with legal matters on Earth but they could gather intelligence and provide security. They discovered the old woman outside the mall was actually a member of the xenophobic group X who had her look altered. She had been seen at several other fertility facilities right before someone was attacked or the building was destroyed. They deduced that she worked as the decoy for a team that did all the dirty work. Because they couldn't tie her to the acts themselves, she was let go. The perpetrator that pushed Leonard down the stairs had gotten away as well.

So here he was, holed up in a hotel, until they were caught. Leonard's depression came back with a vengenace. Things were finally settling down with him and his lovers. Jim hadn't committed fully but he was around more. The experiment was a raging success and there were talks of expanding it to the colony. He was finally settling in and accepting his fate and preparing for the birth of his little miracles.

Only to have that Enterprise luck strike him once more.

The crew decided to take matters into their own hands. They contacted the other Enterprise crew for help. After hearing what happened, they were happy to lend a hand. They, too had been trying to locate this X group but they were like whisps of smoke. As soon as they drew close, they disappeared.

It took only a few days of near round the clock work but when they were finished, they contacted Jim and Spock and told them to get Leonard on a shuttle and bring him to the old Enterprise. It took the captain and first officer twenty minutes to wrestle Leonard out of his bedclothes, into the shower, and redressed in a light blue robe. Spock brushed his hair into a ponytail while Jim avoided kicks as he tried to put on Bones' shoes. Wiping sweat from his brow, Jim called to be beamed aboard to help them get ready while Spock ushered Leonard out of the house to catch a shuttle that would take them.

Leonard crocheted the entire ride to keep his nerves in check. He didn't want to think about floating in space with only so many inches of metal between him and the cold blackness of death outside. Besides, he could do something useful with his time besides annoy the pants off Spock whose job it was to fly them safely to the old Enterprise. When they landed, Jim was awaiting them in the shuttle bay.

"Can't believe I let you talk me into getting back on this thing," Leonard stalled in the doorway and looked around the shuttle bay. No change there. Grey on grey on black with some white or yellow here and there.

Jim walked up to the shuttle and took both of Leonard's hands in his to help him down. "You'll love it, Bones."

"We couldn't do this on earth? You know I hate space."