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Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2004 23:38:45 -0400
Subject: [ASC] NEW TOS: The Lost Years: New Heading 2/4 [PG-13] Slayer Series
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Posted: 5 Jun 2004 19:59:47 -0700  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: djinn@djinnslair.com (Djinn) 
 

TITLE: The Lost Years: New Heading (Slayer Series)
AUTHOR: Djinn
CONTACT: djinn@djinnslair.com http://www.djinnslair.com
SERIES: TOS
RATING: PG-13
CODES: Ch, K, S, U, Others
PART: 2/4
SUMMARY: The eleventh and final segment in the Lost Years series. I
together (and ripping them apart).
Thanks to Rabble Rouser and Trekki for the beta!



Kirk woke slowly, aware of two things:  the reassuring hum of his ship
all around him, and the warm press of Chris's body next to him.  He
looked over at her, was rewarded with a bright smile from her.

He threw her a mock scowl.  "You're supposed to be asleep.  How can I
wake you up like this if you're not asleep?"  He kissed her, relishing
the feeling of having her in his arms, of being able to touch her any
way he wanted, any time he wanted.

She kissed him back just as passionately.  She had slayer stamina and
breath control.  He was the first to pull away.

"Were you staring at me?" he asked.

She nodded. 

"Why?"

"Because I can."  She cuddled up against him.  "It's a luxury.  And I
like looking at you."

He kissed her again.  "Not that I mind, but just how long have you
been staring at me?"

"A couple of hours."

He frowned.  "Why didn't you wake me up?  I would have tired you out."

She laughed, unable to say anything while he kissed her until she was
breathless.  Or at least until he was.  He had a feeling he'd need to
hit the gym more if he wanted to keep up with her in bed.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

She shrugged.  "I think I'm so used to patrolling and not having much
of an evening left that my body refuses to sleep a full night."

"You can patrol the ship, if it would make your body feel better."  He
pushed the covers off her, intent on doing his own bit to make her
body feel good.  "In fact, that might be a good thing.  We all might
sleep better.  Except maybe Rand."

She laughed.  It was a light and easy sound and he stopped what he was
doing and looked at her.  She smiled again, a bright, happy
expression.  Not one he saw much, but one he thought he saw more than
anyone else did.  He ran his fingers over her lips, felt them curve up
even more.

"I love you so much," he said.

She kissed his fingers.

"It was tearing me up inside, thinking of you with him."

She nodded.

He touched the mark he'd made on her neck.  It had been a stupid thing
to do, to mark her like that.

She smiled complacently, as if she loved that he'd done it.  "I'm
yours," she said softly.

He nodded.  

"And you're mine."

He laughed as she pulled him down to her.  "Yes, I am.  Body and soul,
Chris."

"Well, I don't know about your soul, but your body definitely agrees
with you," she said as she moved under him, their bodies joining
effortlessly.

They were well into the moment when he heard someone cough behind him.

"LaVelle," Chris said, as she peeked out from underneath him.  "We're
kind of busy here."

"Yes.  I see.  Stop."

Kirk rolled off Chris.  He pulled the covers up over them both. 
"Haven't you heard of knocking?"

She rolled her eyes.  "The portal isn't really the kind of thing you
knock on.  Pure energy and all that."

"Can't you do that firebolts thing and knock her back to Kirsu?" Chris
whispered to him.

"I wish," he said with a grin, then he turned back to the other
slayer.  "Is there a reason you're here?  Or did you just want to join
in?"

LaVelle rolled her eyes.  "Not likely."  She sat down on the bed,
handed Chris a root of some kind.  "Does this look familiar?"

Chris nodded.  "Aconite.  Wolfsbane."

LaVelle nodded.  "And it's suddenly in Kirsu.  Lots of big stinky
flowers erupting all over the place from these bulbs."  She threw it
down on the bed.  "I told you no werewolves, not yet."

"I know.  But it's a problem.  The people I wanted to send your
way...they're sort of bad guys."

LaVelle scowled at her.  "Bad guys?  Bad guys who know how to do this?
 How did they find us?"

"They already knew where you were, they just lacked the means to get
to you."

"That's impossible.  The founder Helene--"

"--Helene wasn't the founder.  She just happened to find the rings."

"Are you saying that we don't belong in Kirsu?"

"Of course not.  But don't act like you created the damned place."  In
her agitation, Chris leaned forward, and the sheet slipped off her. 
Kirk reached over and pulled it back up.  She shot him a look. 
"There's nothing here she hasn't seen."

He laughed.  "There's a lot I don't know about you, isn't there?"

"I mean living with a bunch of slayers she's used to the female body."

"Oh."  He laughed, studied LaVelle.  She didn't look all that
comfortable with Christine's nakedness.  He realized with a start what
she was wearing.  "Why are you in a Starfleet uniform?"

"I'm going to help you look for these people who want Kirsu."

"You're not a part of my crew.  And where did you get that uniform?"

LaVelle smiled nastily.  "I have my sources.  And I think I'll stand
out less as crew than as a civilian."  She seemed to notice something,
reached over and chucked Chris's chin up.  The hickey he'd given her
competed with the bite scars David had left.

"Do I even want to know what's happened to you?" she asked, letting go
of Chris's chin.

"No," he answered for them both.  "Now, do you mind?"

"Do I mind what?"

"Call the portal and go home," Chris said, turning her back on her and
cuddling up against Kirk.  "You can't stay here, there are two many
people onboard that might be loyal to our enemies.  And they'll notice
you.  If we need you, we'll call."

"She's right.  Good-bye."  Kirk turned back to Chris, hoping the dark
slayer would take the hint and leave.  He tried to lose himself in
kissing Chris, but he finally had to look.

LaVelle was leaning up against a wall.  "Don't mind me.  Just finish
up quickly so we can get to work."

Chris closed her eyes.  "I'm sorry," she said softly.  "I don't think
she's planning to leave on her own."

"It's okay."  He kissed her again, LaVelle be damned.  Then he looked
up at the other slayer.  "You.  Turn around."  Once she was facing the
wall, he grabbed a uniform and hurried off to the bathroom.

A moment later, Chris joined him.  She moved past him, into the
shower.

"What about our guest?" he asked, noticing that she had a red mark on
her chin, and another on her arm.  He wondered what kind of marks
LaVelle sported.  He was almost sorry he'd missed it, if they'd come
to blows.

"She's gone.  I told her we'd be by in a bit."   

"By?  By where?"

"Kirsu.  If someone is making wolfsbane grow there, then it's got to
be magic.  And maybe we can trace it."

"I'm not sure I'm that good."

She smiled.  "Oh, you're that good.  Remember last night?  Because I
do."  She pressed him up against the wall.

He gave himself over to her and found out there were all sorts of
interesting things you could do in the shower if your partner was
exceptionally strong...and limber.

A visit to the gym was definitely in order.

------------------------

Spock tried not to watch the lift doors.  Jim was two point five
minutes late for his shift.  Jim was never late.  He was usually
early.

But he did not usually sleep with Christine.  Spock tried to pay
attention to what was on his terminal and not the lift doors.  He
failed.

A moment later, the doors opened and Christine and Jim came out.  They
appeared subdued as they came over to him.  Christine leaned down and
set a root on his terminal.  "We need to know the origins of this." 
He began to move it toward his scanner and she stopped him, her hand
cool on his skin.  "On a stand alone, if you can make us one.  We
don't want this going back to Command."

"It has to do with Kirsu?"

She nodded.  

He noticed her hair was wet and she smelled of some herbal-smelling
soap.  The same soap Jim smelled of.  Spock looked away.  "I will take
this to the lab."

She stood up.  "I'll ride down with you."

He nodded. Surprised.  He turned and saw that Jim was watching him
carefully.

"Good morning, by the way," his friend said.  

"Good morning," Spock murmured back, trying not to notice how happy
Jim looked, or how carefully he moved as he walked to the chair.

Spock turned to watch Christine.  She seemed to be in no physical
discomfort, although she had a strange mark on her neck.

She seemed to realize he was staring at it and said, "You won't mind
stopping in sickbay first?"

He shook his head, unsure when she could have become wounded since he
had seen her last.  It looked like a bruise.  She held her hand over
it.

When the lift doors closed, he said, "I trust you are well,
Christine?"

"I am.  Thanks for asking."  She looked over at him.  "How are you?"

"I am fine."  He did not say that he would have been better if she had
slept with him and not his friend.  He supposed there would be many
things he would not say as he became accustomed to their relationship.

"You remember LaVelle?"

"The slayer?"

She nodded.  "She paid us a visit this morning."

Spock suddenly felt better...and a little spiteful.  He could remember
how amorous Christine could be in the morning.  Could only hope
LaVelle put a damper on their morning activities.

"You don't have to look so pleased," she said softly, smiling at him. 
"For you that's a positively gleeful expression. Spock."

He looked away.  "I am sorry.  It is my human side, no doubt."

She laughed.  "No doubt."

"What did LaVelle want?"  Not that she had to want anything, as long
as she had interrupted Jim and Christine.  Perhaps she could stop in
every morning?

Spock decided that not all of his post-V'ger emotionalism had worn
off.

"That root is wolfsbane.  Monkshood.  Aconite.  It has lots of names. 
We care because it suddenly showed up in Kirsu--blooming all over. 
Jim and I are going to take a look and see if we can trace it back
magically.  But I wanted to find out everything we could about it
beforehand.  It might give us an idea where to look for Lori.  If it
was Lori."

"Why would a werewolf want to cause the plant that repels her to
grow?"

"In Kirsu, she doesn't have to worry about the change.  But I don't
think she plans to stay in Kirsu.  And if she's going to send
werewolves back and forth, she's going to have to be able to control
the change in them.  And this is the easiest way.  Especially for the
newer wolves.  We don't know where she will want to go, but nowhere in
this dimension is free from the pull of the moon."

"So a werewolf will always change while in this dimension?  Chief Rand
will change at some point?"

"No, she's been trained to not change."  Christine frowned.  "It
doesn't have to be Lori, though.  It could be Nogura.  If he caused
enough of the wolfsbane to bloom, then Kirsu would become lethal for
the wolves.  And he is good with flowers.  His hobby is growing
irises--and wolfsbane."

He nodded. "Logical."

Christine led him into sickbay.  She grabbed a regenerator and then
went into one of the heads.  A moment later she came back, her neck
devoid of the mark.  He noticed that she didn't put the regenerator
back in the drawer, but slipped it into her uniform pocket.

It suddenly dawned on him what had caused the mark or at least who. 
"Captain's privilege?" he muttered.

She shot him a startled look, but didn't answer.

He thought that was wise.

--------------------

Christine watched Spock as he analyzed the wolfsbane.  He seemed
comfortable with her, not angry or resentful and for that she was
extremely thankful.  It would have been better to leave then to send
him back to that dark place he'd been in when he'd hated Jim and her.

He made an adjustment to the tricorder he'd rigged to not communicate
with the central databases and then looked up at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I did not say anything."

She smiled at him, waited for him to tease her, but he just went back
to studying the herb.  She had expected to be more uncomfortable
around him, but she felt all right even if she wondered what was
really going on underneath that tight Vulcan control.

He frowned for a moment, the expression barely readable unless you
knew him well.

"What is it?"  She moved over to look at the readings.

"This has been genetically reengineered.  It is impossible to tell
where it originated because its code is so different from the closest
plant, which I believe is common monkshood, or wolfsbane as you call
it."

She leaned in, "The mods, can you tell what they might have done to
the plant?"

He pointed to one line on the terminal.  "This appears to be the
olfactory signature.  It has been modified greatly--wolfsbane does not
appear to normally have a fragrance."  He touched the bulb.  "When
this blooms, the flower's scent will be detectable from great
distances.  And the poisonous attributes of the rest of the plant seem
to be present in the fragrance.  Minute quantities only.  A normal
human would probably not be affected."

"But a werewolf?"

He nodded.

"What about a slayer?  We're not exactly normal humans."

"I do not know.  And it would depend on how many flowers were
blooming.  The concentration might become lethal due to the number." 
He looked up at her.  "You will have to check the Kirsu slayers for
side effects of aconite poisoning.  You know what they are?"

She nodded.  "I've read up on it since we ran into Lori.  Tingling
followed by numbness, most symptoms are gastro-enteric in nature." 
Death was the final result though.  Christine wondered how many people
the Nogura's had killed as they'd searched for the right mixture of
the aconite remedy they used on the werewolves.  "It's a deterrent
then, Lori wouldn't want to poison the landscape, she'd only want
enough to harvest to suppress the change.  This must be Nogura."

"I would be able to confirm that if I had a better sample?  One bulb
does not tell the entire story, as I know you are aware.  It is
possible they are both working this magic, in which case there may be
more to tell."

She nodded.  "You in the mood for a quick field trip?"

"To Kirsu?"  At her nod, he said, "But I thought that you and Jim were
going?"

She nodded.  "We are.  You can come too.  The ship will be fine the
short time we're gone, and we need your expertise there."

He seemed pleased.

She laid her hand gently on his arm.  "Did you think we wouldn't want
you there?"

He looked up at her.  There was something sad in his eyes.  "Dynamics
alter as relationships change, Christine."

She squeezed his arm lightly.  "I know.  But that doesn't mean we
don't need you."

He laid his hand over hers.  "You did not need me while you were on
Earth."  His eyebrow went up, as if daring her to argue.

"Yes, we did.  But we didn't let the lack of you stop us."

"Ah."  He let go of her hand.  

"Ah," she repeated, her tone a bit more teasing.  "We couldn't exactly
page you at Gol, now could we?"

"That is without question.  The head priestess frowns on
interruptions."

She grinned.  "What was it like?"  She checked his expression, ready
to drop the question if he looked uneasy.

He just seemed to be considering his response.  "It was harsh. 
Austere.  There is little in the way of comfort there.  Lack and
hardship enhance perfect repose is one of the tenets."  He shook his
head.

"How far did you get?"

He looked up at her.  "All the way."  He seemed to be back there, on
that place in Vulcan.  He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing more
than normal.  "I was ready to take my place among the masters.  It was
my final test, and the easiest--a simple sharing of minds with the
head priestess before she put the necklace that showed mastery of the
Kohlinar discipline around my neck."  He seemed to shake himself. 
"But V'ger interrupted that moment, and I was rejected."

"You could have followed V'ger your own way, Spock.  Why come back to
the ship?  Why come back to us?"

"It was the most logical way.  You were already on course to it; you
had the resources to fully study it."

"And we had Jim.  If you were monitoring our progress then you knew he
had taken control of the ship."

"Yes.  I knew that.  But you misunderstand me if you think I came to
the ship for him, or in some hope that you would be on it.  I was
rejected from the discipline not because I felt emotion when I
contacted V'ger but because the moment I heard its call, it became my
path.  The priestess would have sent me back to training if I had
experienced a stray feeling during the meld; she would not have
rejected me for that."

"So she rejected you because you rejected Kohlinar first?"

He nodded.  "Precisely."

"Fascinating."  

He shot her a look, and she smiled to show she was teasing.  His
expression seemed to lighten again.

"Am I interrupting?" Jim grinned at them from where he stood in the
doorway to the lab.

"Not at all."  She thought at first he was smiling to cover up some
jealousy, but then realized he was relieved that she and Spock were
getting on.  It still weighed on him, the fact that he had stolen her
from Spock, but she had faith that he'd get over that eventually.

She held her hand out and he came to stand next to her.  He didn't
take her hand, but as Spock showed him what he had found, his hand
came to rest at the small of her back.  The warm touch of his hand,
the slight press, it was both a comfort and a claim.  It was a subtle
thing, but definitely possessive.

She loved it.  After having him push her away for so long, she found
it heady that he wanted to make it clear who she was with, even if
only to the two of them.  She touched her neck, where she'd erased the
bruise he'd left.  He saw her do it, took in the now clear skin, and
winked at her.  His hand pressed down on her back more firmly, then he
let go of her.

"So you'll come with us then, to get more samples."  It was not a
question, obviously a given.  Jim turned to her, "Maybe he can take a
look at the amulet, see if it might be acting as some kind of homing
beacon."

Spock shook his head.  "Jim, if it is using magic, then you would be
far more capable than I of determining that."

Kirk shrugged, grinning.  "We'll both take a look at it.  One of us is
sure to figure it out."

"Your faith in our abilities is undaunted, I see."

Jim reached over, touched Spock's shoulder.  "Do you know a reason it
shouldn't be?"

She smiled when Spock did not answer.  

Jim laughed.  "When you think of one, you tell me."  

Christine saw Spock nod.  He seemed to finally relax.  

"Let's go then?"  She looked at Spock.  "The safest place to leave
from might be your quarters.  They won't expect us to be working from
what should have been Commander Sonak's quarters."

"Agreed," Spock said, as he picked up the root and led them to his
quarters.  "Have you been to Kirsu, Jim?"

"Nope.  It's a girls only club."  He grinned at Chris.  "Or so I'm
told by the head slayer there."

"LaVelle is still in charge?"  At Christine's nod, Spock said, "Has
her disposition improved?"

"Sure hasn't," Christine said, fingering a red mark on her chin.  She
should have used the regenerator on that too.

"She doesn't like me at all," Jim said softly.  "You might fare
better."

"Doubtful, Jim.  She did not appear to enjoy my company either the few
times we interacted."  Spock shot her a curious look as he palmed open
his quarters and let them inside.  "Do we not need the ring?"

She nodded.  

"Are you going to retrieve it?"

"She already has it, Spock."  Jim reached gently up to her neck,
feeling around underneath her collar until he pulled the necklace out.

Chris could feel the short chain moving but could see nothing.  The
necklace was as invisible as the day they'd done the spell.

Spock leaned forward, studying what he was not seeing.  He reached
out, his hand moving across her collarbone until he found the chain. 
"Curious, it is there, I can feel it.  Yet it appears to be cloaked."

"Try finding it if you drop it."  She'd learned not to take it off at
all.  The chain was short enough that it didn't move much and no one
seemed to notice the tiny bump in her uniform collar from the ring. 
"Who needs Romulans when we have Jim?" she said softly.

Spock looked at him in surprise and Jim grinned with pleasure.  "I'm
really good with protection spells.  The rest...eh."

Jim shot her a look, bland enough to not be disrespectful of the
lingering feelings Spock had for her, but one that reminded her he
hadn't done the invisibility spell by himself.  She smiled and looked
down, easing the ring onto her little finger, it was just big enough
to allow her finger to squeeze past the sturdy chain.  She touched the
stone, thought of the portal, and the air began to swirl in front of
them.

The portal stabilized, and she looked at both of them before stepping
through it.  "Ready or not, LaVelle.  Here we come."


End part 2 of 4

--
Forwarded to ASCL by:
Stephen Ratliff
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