Crash and Burn

Something's rotten in the city of San Francisco. The faculty of Barnett Academy are acting funny, and a mismatched handful of students think they've figured out why. (The Faculty AU)

Notes:

This is my remix/fusion of the movie "The Faculty" for the 2009 reel_startrek challenge. Section headers from "New Skin" by Incubus, "Forty-Six and 2" by Tool, and "Black Bomb" and "The Great Destroyer" by Nine Inch Nails. Thanks ever so much to mirorelle and mutantjules for enabling and sharing in the flail; to raindissolved and usually9_15 for reading and encouraging; and to vellum, without whose beta skills I would literally be sitting weeping in a corner right now.

Work Text:

Say your name.
Try to speak as clearly as you can.
You know everything gets written down.
Nod your head.

Tires screech as the old car peels around the corner and into the parking lot, leaving a white cloud and the smell of scorched rubber in its wake. It whips past the security officer directing buses with a bored pre-coffee glaze in his eyes, and past two teachers chatting beside a beat-up green Pinto. It veers into a sharp curve and comes to a stop, perpendicular across three parking spaces.

The door opens and the driver gets out, squinting into the early morning sun. Faded jeans hang a little loose on his hips, the layers of his t-shirts peeking here and there underneath one another, dark hair hanging in his eyes. He goes to the trunk of the car, long fingers trailing across the red stripe lining the side panel, and reaches in deep, pockets a handful of padd pens, long and silver-bright. No book bag; why bother?

Len McCoy crosses the parking lot empty-handed and ducks into the side door of the school, mostly unnoticed.

The quad out front is full of students killing time before homeroom. Pavel Chekov-- Pavel, but he goes by Paul here, not that anyone really knows the difference-- slouches off the bus, thin shoulders hunching into his backpack. His gaze lingers on her as he passes; impossible, for him, not to look at Nyota Uhura where she stands holding court in the shadow of the flagpole.

It's that moment, that stolen glance, that dooms him; he turns too late as an elbow slams into his face, and he sits down hard, warm rush of blood in one nostril. "Sorry," he grits out, sarcasm flooding his mouth like bile. Perhaps something is lost in translation; his assailant, whoever they are, moves on without a word.

"Alert as ever, Chekov," comes the wry voice from above him. He glares up at Spock as he passes, the Vulcan boy's dark eyes bemused, but not unsympathetic.

Spock moves on toward the building; there is no reason to be late for homeroom, his dread of the forthcoming day's tedium notwithstanding. At times he thinks he would give anything for someone-- anyone, one person-- with whom he could carry on an intelligent conversation at this school. Intelligent conversation would even take a back seat to not being treated like the carrier of an infectious pathogen. In his reading he has discovered that centuries ago outcasts would at times refer to themselves as being treated like aliens. On Earth, Spock is an alien; he is not the only one, but at the Academy, he often feels that way.

His thoughts are interrupted by a shoulder slamming into his. He draws himself up straight, lip curling in disgust. The shoulder, clad in the red leather of the school's varsity football jackets, belongs to none other than Jim Kirk, someone who could not be less like Spock if he tried.

"Are you capable of walking, Kirk, or do you need remedial classes in that as well?" A pointless remark (Spock knows Kirk did not need remedial classes last summer, given that he tutored three of them himself and had access to the rosters) yet one he cannot seem to help making.

"You walked into me, elf boy," Kirk replies, sneering before turning quickly away, senses already back on the alert for any sign of his girlfriend.

Down another hallway Nyota Uhura stands surrounded by her faithful followers, her subordinates on the cheerleading squad, the school newspaper-- hell, they're all dancing to her tune no matter what club they're part of. Uhura doesn't join anything she's not going to end up leading sooner or later.

"Come on, T'Lira, you know better than to bring me crap like this," she says scornfully, tossing a notebook back at the slim Vulcan girl who'd handed it to her. "We'd be better off running 'Teachers Possessed by Aliens' than this." Shaking her head, she turns to the blonde beside her. "Answer's still no, Sierra, you can't top the pyramid. Maybe when you lose ten pounds, but as it stands Mdracha and Norn couldn't hold you up. Get out of here, see you this afternoon." The blonde scurries away and Nyota pulls out her mini datapad and checks the time.

"I'm going to be late for chem," she announces, pushing away from her locker and leaving the girls behind without another word. She weaves easily through the halls, showing only the barest hint of surprise as an arm is slung abruptly about her shoulders.

"Morning," Jim drawls against her ear. "How're you doing?"

Suppressing a sigh, she shifts her shoulders enough to swing her hair out from under his arm, and gives him a slight smile. "Jim. I'm a little busy today."

"Too busy for your devoted boyfriend?" He actually sounds hurt. "I really need to talk to you about something."

"You were too busy for me last night," she retorts. "I had time for you then. Today, I'm busy. Really."

He moves to kiss her and she ducks it easily, sliding out from under his arm with a placating smile. "Come on, took me half an hour to do these lips. I'll see you at lunch, Jim. Bye!" Without waiting for an answer, she's gone.

"Well that's awesome," Jim mutters to himself, turning to head back in the direction of his English class, shoving his hands in his pockets. Another body crowds up against him, bumping shoulders, and he turns to see Matthews. "What's up, man," he mutters. Matthews starts in on some tirade, but Jim really isn't listening. Too much else on his mind-- the decision he'd made, the restlessness crawling under his skin urging him to talk to someone about it-- too bad his goddamn girlfriend's unavailable for comment. He walks through the main door of the school, barely sparing a glance for the skinny nerd (the Russian kid, Chankov or something) getting shoved into a storage closet.

The storage closet door bangs open after they're gone and Pavel hops out, meeting the level glance of the blonde girl trailing alone after the main group of kids moving toward homeroom. Abruptly she cuts toward him, her expression shifting toward a smile. "Hi," she says sweetly, her Southern accent lilting over the vowels. "D'you know where the office is, it's my first day here."

He sniffs, still tasting blood, and points up the hall. "Second on the left."

She bobs her head in thanks. "Thank you so much. I'm Nancy Crater, I'm new."

Chekov thinks, No really, I would never have guessed, but what he says is, "Good luck with that."

Listen to the shit they pump into your head,
Filling you with apathy.
Hold your breath.

Around ten o'clock McCoy saunters out to his car again, furtively followed by two sophomores who keep looking behind them at the school. McCoy resists- barely- the urge to roll his eyes.

"This is for real?" one kid asks as McCoy pops the trunk and reaches in back, grabbing a pair of padd pens with purple caps on the ends.

"Guaranteed to jack you up," McCoy says smoothly, holding them up then jerking them back as the other hand goes out, palm up. "Ten credits apiece, boys." Their eyes widen and he sighs, leaning back into the trunk and coming up with a pair of pink lollipops on plastic rings. "Throw in these for free-- first time customer benefit," he says, snide, but they don't get that they're being mocked. They fork over the money and McCoy pockets it, waving with a grin as they vanish.

"Ugh," he mutters, sitting for a second on the lip of his trunk, shaking his head. "Even the shit I do to make life interesting isn't very."

A voice comes from over his shoulder and he gets abruptly to his feet. "Leonard."

His grin is wider, wilder, suddenly. "Miss Chapel. What can I do for you?" It's stupid, he thinks, how this is actually going to be one of the high points of his day. Chapel's one of the only teachers at this school who still bothers with him, one of the only people who tries to see him as anything but the loser delinquent with a reputation he doesn't deserve, which has nothing to do with how much he enjoys prodding her like a specimen til he gets under her skin.

Her arms cross defensively over her chest, her voice practically quavering. "You can stop conducting personal business on school property."

McCoy grins, green eyes sparking. "Well Miss Chapel, I'm not sure I can do that. See, I'm sitting on my car, which is my property." He's never been so glad to be eighteen before.

Chapel shakes her head, timid eyes sad. Cry me a goddamn river, he thinks. Maybe if she were more than three years older than him he might be able to take her even a little bit seriously. She sighs softly and says, "I've had complaints from several students that you've sold them mind-altering substances. Care to tell me about it... or would you like to take it up with the principal?"

He laughs, and doesn't bother answering. She huffs a little; he gets the sense she's resisting the urge to stamp her foot. "Leonard, I'm the authority figure here, it's time you--" But she seems to know immediately that needing to say it means she isn't, so she interrupts herself mid-sentence and tries a different tack. "If you'd apply just five percent of that intellect to your studies--"

Now this isn't anything he hasn't heard a hundred times before, and she's way more interesting when she's riled up, so he talks over her, reaching down into the trunk. "Miss Chapel, I appreciate the concern, but I think you need to lighten up. I know just the thing."

He rummages in the trunk as she continues, "You didn't have to repeat your senior year, Leonard. You could've finished during the summer--"

She stops as he holds out a white paper bag from a pharmacy, grinning as he shakes his hair back out of his eyes. "Here you go. No charge." If she takes it, he might actually consider giving up selling kids ground-up caffeine pills at ten times the cost-- it might be worth it just to see her face when she opens the bag and sees what's actually in it.

But she doesn't take it, just does exactly what he expects her to do-- looks at the bag like there might be a snake inside, the set of her shoulders visibly wilting. "Oh, Leonard," she whispers, full of disappointment, and shakes her head at him before she walks away.

McCoy turns so he can't see her in his peripheral vision anymore. He bends his neck, leaning his forehead against the raised trunk of the car, warm metal against his skin. Dammit.

On his way back inside he's blocked by Jim Kirk sitting on the steps, leaned back on his elbows staring off into space. McCoy stops in front of him, waiting for the guy to move. After a moment Kirk shakes his head and shifts over. "Sorry," he mutters, sounding distracted.

McCoy moves past him and is almost in the door when Kirk hops to his feet. "Hey, McCoy, wait a sec," he calls, and Len stops with his hand on the door, turns, waits for Kirk to say what he wants.

He and Kirk have a weird sort-of-not-really-friendship. They're not friends, but they've been in school together for years; and then there was that party sophomore year where Kirk went into a seizure from one of his seven million allergies and McCoy happened to have the right hypo in his car. Kirk kind of owed him one after that, and they've traded favors ever since without actually getting to know each other more than absolutely necessary. McCoy thinks it's the perfect setup.

"I'm cutting gym," Kirk says, looking uncomfortable. "I uh. I quit football yesterday, and I think if Nero sees me he might burst a blood vessel or something. So if you can just tell him you saw me puking in the bathroom or something..." he trails off and McCoy shrugs, a smirk tugging up one side of his mouth.

"You're asking me to make excuses for you cutting gym," he repeats, shaking his head. "Jesus, you jocks are something else." Kirk looks about to protest, but McCoy cuts him off. "Yeah, I'll tell him you're dying or whatever."

Kirk relaxes visibly. "Thanks." There's a beat, then he asks, "You're not gonna ask why I quit?"

McCoy shrugs. "Couldn't really say I give a good goddamn why." He grins and adds, "I'm not so bad at football myself, you know-- could be this is my big break, my chance to make the team."

Kirk snorts, rolling his eyes a little. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

"Yeah," McCoy mutters, yanking open the door as Kirk goes back to sprawling on the steps. "No problem."

Between classes Jim finds Nyota again, falls into step beside her and guides her swiftly toward the door of an empty classroom. In the alcove he turns her to face him and says honestly, "I really gotta talk to you."

"What is it, Jim?" she asks, impatient. She's always impatient with him lately, never has time for anything. She's so set in her ways, he thinks, so sure of herself; he wonders when they stopped being best friends, stopped really knowing each other at all.

Well, he's about to give their little snow globe a shake. She's not gonna like it, he knows; he's just betting (hoping, really) that the past they've shared is enough to carry them on. "I quit football."

Her head tosses back as she laughs, bright and sweet. "You're funny, Jim."

"I'm not joking, Nyota," he grits out.

"You're serious?" Her chin is up, her eyes narrow, incredulous. She's not exactly making this easy on him.

"I've been weighing the importance of being a jock against my impending future and decided, well-- I talked to Coach already." And God, had that been a weird fucking conversation. Jim had literally expected Nero to inflict physical harm on him when he'd turned in his jersey-- instead he'd just gotten a weird smile and a frank admission of anger-- no yelling, no screaming, nothing.

What am I supposed to say, Jim? the man had asked, tucking his hands into his pockets, eyes framed by those weird tattoos boring right through his head. Do what you have to do. Just don't expect me to be happy about it. He'd practically fled the locker room, sure it was a hoax and the guy was about to drag him to the pool and drown him.

"How do you expect to get to college without the football scholarship?" Uhura asks, tucking a strand of her long hair behind her ear. "How do you expect to get anywhere? You're not good at studying, Jim, you're good at football."

His teeth bare in something not quite a smile. "Yeah, and baseball and basketball and every other sport I've tried. I just figured--" his breath whooshes out through his teeth, and he shakes his head. "Maybe it's time I tried something I'm not so good at for a change."

She starts walking with her arms folded tight across her chest, obviously too angry to speak, and he follows her. "Look, if I start studying now I've got the rest of this year to pull up my grades, that's enough to get me into college, and I can take it from there. I'm not an idiot, Nyota." He's been content to surf by on what's easy til now. Not anymore.

"And what am I supposed to do while you're off on your yellow brick road quest for a brain?"

Nyota turns to him, dark eyes wide and intent on his, and Jim sees she's actually rattled. Good, he thinks, uncharitably. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he prompts. He feels like he's reading from a script; he doesn't actually want to have the rest of this talk, but he does want to make Nyota own up to what's in her head, no matter how ugly it is.

The way she glances to the side, teeth catching on her lower lip before she replies, says she knows exactly how ugly it is. "The accepted social order is that cheerleaders date football players, not academic wannabes."

"Don't be so superficial," he snaps, but the punch isn't packing; he's more hurt by her shallow offhandedness than anything else, and she sees it.

Sees it, and twists it. "Superficial-- four syllables, Jim, you're on your way to a Nobel prize. Let me know how the cure for Melvaran mud fleas goes."

She stalks off into the crowd, leaving Jim standing there practically openmouthed in surprise. He closes it with a snap and turns on his heel, heading for his first class, thinking, Thanks for living up to my low expectations, Nyota. At least now I know where we stand... and this'll be the last time you let me down.

He stomps through the corridor and walks right past his math classroom; he doesn't want to go, but after what he just told Nyota about pulling up his grades it's not like he can afford to skip class. He goes in and instead of taking his usual seat toward the back, slides into a chair halfway down the second row, slapping his padd down on the desk and slouching back in the seat with what he knows is a petulant expression.

Spock sits down next to him, barely sparing him a glance. Jim knows it's stupid, but the guy's unruffled calm pisses him off. It doesn't do much for his mood, sitting next to that impenetrable quiet for the next hour, and by the time class gets out Jim's decided to spend lunch jogging around the track. If he doesn't take this formless rage out on something, he's going to get himself in trouble-- which would only show Nyota she's right about his inability to change.

Look closely at the open wound, see past what covers the surface
Underneath chaotic catastrophe, creation takes stage.

At lunch Spock sits alone at a table in the shade, a paperback flattened against the rough wood with one hand, picking his fork absentmindedly through a salad with the other. He is so surprised when someone sits down next to him that he is speechless, and stares up at her (it is a girl, and even more unlikely, a pretty one) with a look of dumbfounded curiosity.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asks, her smile genuine and sweet. He has never seen her before; she must be new. She must not know any better. He shrugs, and she takes that for assent, swinging her leg over the seat beside him. "I'm Nancy Crater, I'm new here."

Spock glances at her, one eyebrow raised, taking in her floral dress and plain shoes. "That is apparent," he says, and she flushes. "I am Spock."

She nods toward his book. "What are you reading?" He is, illogically, loath to show her.

"Why are you attempting to engage me in conversation?" he asks instead, eyes slanting sharply toward her.

Her smile has an edge to it this time. "Because I don't have any friends. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have one less than that."

He cannot argue her logic; it still does not incline him to participate in her conversation. He is spared the choice, however, by the sudden appearance of Nyota Uhura, whose hand on Spock's shoulder is tight as a vise.

"Terrorizing the new girl already, Spock? I don't think she's interested in joining your little cult. You wanna watch out for him," she says conversationally to Nancy, her smile poisonously sweet. "Spock's a militant hippie socialist-- meat is murder, capitalism is the root of all evil, et cetera et cetera. You sit still long enough he'll start trying to convert you."

Spock suppresses the vicious flash of anger, the brief image that flies through his head of what would happen if he used his superior strength to show her just how incorrect her perception of Vulcan pacifism is.

Instead he gets to his feet, his height requiring her to take her hand off him, at least, and shoves his book into his back pocket. "Your cruelty makes you hideous," he bites out; a poor insult, but he has never been good at them. It is part of what makes him such an easy target. He grabs his salad, though he no longer has any desire to finish eating it, and takes off through the trees back toward the school, shoulders hunched, pulling out his book again to read as he walks.

Outside biology he pauses at the water fountain; as he straightens he is once again struck from behind, square in the shoulder. Stumbling forward a step, he drops his book and straightens from retrieving it to see Kirk behind him, looking bored.

"Get a retinal transplant," Spock snarls, shifting out of Kirk's way.

He barely registers the other boy mutter, "Maybe if you didn't have your head up a textbook's ass all the fucking time," as he crosses the hall toward the lab.

Inside, he sits in his customary seat and is surprised a moment later to see Nancy standing over him again, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear with a shy smile. "Wanna be lab partners?" She sits down without waiting for him to reply. "I didn't know you were a socialist," she continues. "That's so interesting-- I thought the philosophy had disappeared entirely during the twenty-first century. How did you come by it?"

Spock stirs restlessly. "I am not-- Uhura does not know what she is talking about."

Nancy looks taken aback. "Oh. Then why does she--"

"I allow the talk to persist, it is a useful assumption."

Nancy's brow puckers slightly. "Useful for what?"

Spock straightens in his chair as Mr. Pike enters the room. "For keeping away people who ask too many questions."

Mr. Pike has barely taken his seat before Chekov approaches the desk, dropping a hard brown object onto the tray in front of him. Pike looks up with a quizzical expression, and Pavel shrugs. "I found it outside on the football field," he says awkwardly. "Do you know what it is?"

Pike pulls his glasses out of his pocket and puts them on, peering down at whatever it is with curious interest. "Hmm," he murmurs, taking his glasses back off and rolling his chair over to the haemonetic microscope. The tray with its strange ossified occupant slides into the appropriate slot and Pike presses a few buttons, adjusting the settings and sitting back to watch the magnification come up on the suspended screen.

Pavel is not a biologist; math and physics are his true academic loves, and so he cannot say for certain what he sees as Pike's hands manipulate the image on the glass in front of him. Certainly Pike is seeing something, something that does not make sense. "Some mesozoan forms," he mutters, "only exist in the kidney organs of certain squid and octopi... some aliens like the Sulamid and the Bezeri... but that doesn't make any sense," he says, turning back to Pavel and the crowd of students that's gathered around them.

"Because squid do not walk out of the ocean to drop organisms on football fields," Pavel says, a slight grin curving his mouth.

"Well, yes," says Pike, mirroring his smile. He turns back to the microscope, pulling back the zoom so the screen displays the organism entire. "See, it's a pelagic organism-- sea-dwelling," he adds before anyone can ask. "But I don't recognize this surface tissue at all." His head swivels back and he grins, adding, "I know it's a little premature, Paul, but I think you might've discovered a new species."

"Yeah right," someone scoffs, but Pike shakes his head, pushing his chair back over to the lab desk with the tray and the potential discovery in his hand.

"No, it can happen. Even now, new species are discovered here on Earth almost every day." Pike stands, his hip jostling the desk, and his glass of water tips and floods the tray.

The reaction when water touches the strange organism is instantaneous; it twitches, one end curling upward, moving around like a dog hunting a scent. Gasps echo from voice to voice, including Mr. Pike's, and Pavel sees the excitement of discovery stamped large and bright on his teacher's face.

Everyone is on their feet, and they press in around Pike as he carries the tray to the fish tank at the back of the room, full of water but no fish, and gently dumps the tray and its tenant inside.

The transformation is astounding; instantly the creature jackknifes, swimming toward the bottom, thin red tendrils sprouting and streaming behind it like a banner. Pavel has one hand on the lip of the tank, watching the thing cut a smooth course through the water. "What is it?" he murmurs softly, finally dragging his head up and around to look at Pike.

"I don't know, Paul," the teacher says honestly, running a hand through his greying hair. "I'll have to send it to the lab at the university, they have more equipment to test this sort of thing."

Pavel glances at Spock, whose eyebrow is up, impressed and interested. He grins at the Vulcan, who shrugs one shoulder, nodding toward the tank amid more awed gasps as Pavel turns and sees not one strange organism but two. It replicates, he thinks, his thought echoed aloud by Mr. Pike. There is chatter all around him, but Pavel is not listening; his eyes stay fixed on the tank, mesmerized, his pulse racing.

He wonders what he has discovered, and if it is jarring to the creature to be found, poked and prodded; if it is a shock to find itself swimming suddenly in a new and bounded habitat. At least it is not alone, he thinks, watching Spock press his hand to the tank, the twin creatures crowding toward him, their tendrils reaching out to map the shape of his hand through the glass.

I wanna feel the changes coming down
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

After school Pavel unloads his books into his locker, mentally reviewing his to-do list for the school paper, most of which he has to get done this afternoon. He's not a bad photographer, actually, though he never expected even to be decent at it when he used it as an excuse to join. He doesn't need the paper on his activity resume, but no one's bothered asking him why he still works for it. Anyone who knows him well enough to ask probably knows the answer already; it's not like it's that much of a secret.

His locker door is pushed shut, interrupting his thoughts, and he looks up to see Uhura standing there, looking impatient. "Well, what have you got?"

He grins, only a little nervous. When there's no one else around, she's actually pretty alright to him, and he's never not glad to see her. "Nothing but time," he says, "all afternoon if you need." He reaches deep into his backpack and pulls out his camera, slinging it around his neck as he closes his locker.

"Yeah, come on," she says, starting down the hall without looking behind to see if he's following. "Seriously, nothing?" she goes on, talking over her shoulder. "I need a lead story and a good headline image."

"We found a new phylum in biology," he offers. "Mr. Pike thinks it might be a new species."

"Ooh, let me race to the stands for that issue," she sighs, shaking her head.

It stings, and he hates that it does-- hates himself, and her, but only a little bit. He can't help wondering, always, and so he asks, "Why do you pick on me so? What have I done to offend you?"

She shrugs, genuinely nonplussed. "Nothing, Paul, it's just your lot in life. You're that geeky Stephen King kid, there's one of you in every school." He does not need another reminder that she is so far out of his league as to be in another galaxy; and yet, he cannot help but be impressed by her referencing an author three centuries dead. He wonders which is her favorite of King's works; not the Dark Tower with its epic battles, nor the quietly creepy Lisey's Story. Uhura, he thinks, prefers something with flash-- Misery, probably, or Cell.

He's broken from his reverie as she pauses, her back to the door of the teachers' lounge, and Pavel stops a little breathless behind her; her legs are longer than his even without the three inch heels, and she walks fast. "We can't go in there," he protests, but she cuts him off.

"Come on, Paul, you're with me. Be brave," Uhura says with a little leer, pushing open the door and slipping inside. He follows, as she knew (and he did too) he would.

"What do you even think you are going to find?" he asks, nerves and slight frustration thickening his accent. He watches her go to a cabinet and start rummaging, and can't help pointing out, "We shouldn't be here."

"Miss Rand's medicated," she snorts by way of an answer, tossing a few hypos back into a large green purse. "You really never know, do you. What?" she snaps, accusing and defensive as she catches the look he's giving her.

"Nothing," he says with a shrug. "It is just-- you can be sort of cool sometimes." Her look sharpens and he feels compelled to add, "Times when you are not being a first-class grade-A bitch."

She sneers. "Is that a come-on, Paul?"

"No," he blurts, though he knows it will sound like protesting too much. "I only mean you are nice to be around sometimes. This not being one of them," he adds deliberately. He is not trying to hurt her, only trying to prove he is not as vulnerable to her charms as he actually is.

"Well how nice of-- what was that," she cuts herself off as footsteps near the door; she moves fast, grabbing him by the collar and tugging him into the closet with her.

"Uhura!" he protests, and she claps a hand over his mouth. "Shut. Up." she breathes in his ear. Pavel's glad it's dark enough to hide the flush that creeps up his neck as her lips brush his ear. But she turns quickly away and pressing her cheek against the slats of the closet door, waiting to see who comes in.

The door handle turns and in come Coach Nero and Mrs. Blackwell, which is enough to make Pavel pause; normally those two can barely contain their mutual animosity, the football team perpetually taking money away from the ever-dwindling art department-- yet here they are, talking in soft murmurs, almost companionable, but too low to hear. A few words echoed-- too old... the faculty converted... about the students... Just as they move toward the table in the center of the room, the door opens again and Miss Rand comes in, sneezing copiously into a tissue.

"What are you two still doing here? I thought I was the only one left," she sighs, going toward the green purse Nyota had been rifling through earlier. "There are not enough drugs in the world," she adds vehemently, uncapping a bottle and tossing back a pair of red pills.

When she goes toward the refrigerator for a bottle of water, Mrs. Blackwell moves toward the door of the lounge and shuts it. Pavel tries not to think it sounds ominous, but as Coach Nero walks purposefully up behind Miss Rand, he's finding it hard not to wonder what the fuck he's about to witness.

They corner her as easy as two cats with a sniffly mouse. Before Pavel can process how it happened, Nero's pressing Miss Rand into the couch, his hands on either side of her face, ignoring her flailing hands as if they weren't even there. Mrs. Blackwell is standing over them, her face impassive, cold as if she were watching paint dry, and Chekov is being torn apart by the side of him that knows if he's discovered he's dead, and the side of him that wants to run screaming from the room. There's a splattering sound and Miss Rand shrieks, and then goes silent.

Behind him, Uhura is struggling to run; he doesn't even realize he's grabbed her wrists and is holding her back until he tears his gaze from the door to meet her wide eyes with his own. A look of pure anguish crosses her face and he looks back; Coach has backed away and he can see Miss Rand's head lolling to the side, blood running thick and red down her neck, her cheek, into the crease of her eyelid.

Pavel can't help it; he's never seen blood like that before, had never wanted to see it on himself or anyone else, and before he stuffs his fist in his mouth he lets out a gasp.

Normally he would've sworn Coach Nero wouldn't hear anything that wasn't yelled in his ear, but his tattooed face swings sharply toward the closet and Pavel swears, now, that the man is looking right through the slats and into his eyes. Coach straightens, stepping slowly toward the closet, and Uhura lets out a faint whimper. That galvanizes Pavel into action; he grabs the nearest thing to hand, a broom, and backs up, putting himself between Uhura and the door.

Coach's hand closes on the knob and slowly turns. Pavel watches it move as if in slow motion, the scratch on one side glinting off the light as it rotates. Then the door is yanked open and he moves, giving Coach the business end of the broom handle in the gut and bursting out into the room with Uhura's hand clenched in his, while Mrs. Blackwell shrieks and the Coach flails, groaning and trying to get to his feet. But Pavel and Uhura are too fast; they're out the door in a second, fleeing for the courtyard and freedom.

They don't get far before two figures round the corner toward them-- Principal Robau and Vice-Principal Nogura. Robau's hands are in his trouser pockets and he gives the teenagers a genial smile just this side of a grimace.

"What's going on?" he asks, and right away Pavel knows this isn't going to go well.

Uhura's too scared to think before she talks, and as she's babbling out their story he can see, he simply knows that whatever's wrong with Coach and Mrs. Blackwell is wrong with the principal too. "Forget it, Uhura, hurry the fuck up," he blurts, lapsing into Russian as he grabs her wrist and makes a break for it.

Incredibly, the teachers don't seem to care. No one chases them, but that doesn't stop them running. They skid around another corner and Pavel goes down, the worn soles of his sneakers slipping and sending him sprawling. "Uhura!" he chokes, and she halts with an athlete's grace, pivots and grabs him by the arm. "Come the fuck on, Paul," she says, and there are tears on her cheeks that glint in the sun as they burst out of the building.

She drops Paul off at home and somehow makes it to her own house, where she sits in the driveway willing her hands to stop shaking before she goes in. She brushes her hair and checks her makeup; her eyes are puffy but she can't help that, she's just going to have to make the best of it.

She lets herself in the back door, shutting it quietly, but not quiet enough. "Nyota!" She cringes. "Nyota where in God's name have you been? Jim came here looking for you and I had to tell him I had no idea where you-- my God, what happened to your face?"

Her mother appears in the doorway, hands on the hips of her designer jeans. "Have you been crying?"

She shakes her head. "No." But it's a vain attempt; her mother's gold-shadowed eyes narrow, her lips pursed.

"What were you crying about? Couldn't have been anything important-- Nyota, how many times do I have to remind you not to get so caught up in other people? You have everything you could ever want-- looks, money, the best boyfriend that school could possibly offer you-- I mean do I have to keep going?"

Nyota shakes her head. "No, Mother."

She keeps going anyway. By the time Nyota escapes upstairs she's wrapped herself in iron, willing herself to forget everything she and Paul Chekov saw in the teacher's lounge, determined to focus on nothing but her homework.

Later, almost eleven o'clock, she looks out her window and sees three silhouettes, three people standing on the sidewalk outside her yard. Adults. Teachers, a voice whispers in the back of her mind. Cold fingers of dread creep through the small of her back and wrap around her stomach; she pulls the shade down, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.

She knows she doesn't actually hear Coach Nero's laugh echoing in her spacious bedroom, but her skin crawls and she jumps into bed fully clothed, turning off the lights and pulling a pillow over her head.

Her communicator rings moments later, and she's almost too afraid to reach out to the bedside table to bring it under the covers with her. Paul's number flashes across the screen, and she presses the comm to her ear and tries to compose herself, tries to sound less like she's huddled under her blankets like a frightened child. "Hello?"

"Did you see them too?" Paul sounds breathless, his accent sharpened by emotion. She doesn't answer, and he elaborates impatiently, "Nero and the others, were they outside your house at all tonight?"

"Yes," she says simply, and hears her voice tremble. "They might still be out there, I don't know."

"This is a big problem, Uhura. Whatever that was we saw, we were not supposed to see it."

"What did they do to her? To Miss Rand?" Her voice is tinged with desperation; she does not actually want to know what was done to Miss Rand this afternoon, but the question has been beating at the back of her mind like a trapped bird since they left the parking lot behind in a cloud of dust.

"I don't know. Uhura--" he stops, and she can hear him moving around, a sound like a door shutting. "They will not come after us at home, they will wait until tomorrow." There's a pause, and he says softly, "We are safe for now."

She wonders if he even believes himself. But she takes a shaky breath and lets it out slow, lets herself be soothed while trying not to acknowledge the thought that there is no one who understands her so well as he does. "Okay. Okay," she repeats. "I'm going to get some sleep-- you should too."

"Okay. See you in school."

"Yeah, see you." Paul hangs up and Nyota forces herself to get out of bed, put on her pajamas and get back in. The shadows of her teachers are gone from outside the house, and whether she intended it or not, Paul's words have eased her mind enough that she feels suddenly certain that she will sleep like a rock tonight.

She gets into bed and refuses to let herself think on what might happen when she gets to school in the morning.

I hope they cannot see
The limitless potential living inside of me
I hope they cannot see
I am the great destroyer

Friday morning looks just like Thursday morning in the quad before homeroom. Chekov's being chased by two football players trying to shove the head of the school mascot costume on him, Uhura's standing with her gaggle of girls working hard at looking fabulous, Kirk and company tossing the football around, laughing.

Nancy stands on the steps surveying everything with a tiny smile. She likes it here; it's written all over her face. There's a step behind her and she turns, knowing somehow who it's going to be.

"Len," she says, smiling up into his shocked face. "I wondered when I'd see you."

He's gaping; he shakes his head and shuts his mouth, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I... didn't even know you were here. Back here."

Her shoulders hunch up and her hands go out, a child's sheepish shrug, but her grin is guilty as sin. "I didn't want to warn you-- thought maybe you'd find a reason not to be here if you knew I was gonna be."

He'd like to think he's not like that, but he knows he is. He knows he's still in shock from seeing her; his reflexes haven't kicked in yet, the ones that'll eventually remind him she's got no business hanging around a guy like him. They didn't work out two years ago because of it-- because they may be from the same hometown, but really, they're from different worlds.

But she's different now, he can see it in her face, in the way she's looking at him like she remembers everything they did (and everything they didn't) back when they knew each other before, and wants to make up for lost time. If McCoy's being totally honest with himself, he wouldn't mind a chance at that either.

So when she nods toward the table under the dogwood tree and suggests they cut homeroom to catch up on what they've missed, he says yes. He could do worse things with the next half-hour, anyway, and when he looks at her and meets her eyes, he remembers what it felt like to fall for her the first time, and finds he couldn't say no if he wanted to.

It's only later, after he's skipped homeroom and one class and spent another lost in thought, that McCoy snaps out of it enough to notice that things are a little weird. And not weird in a way he can put his finger on, but eerie and creepy and subtle. He doesn't figure it out until it's so obvious he can't ignore, and by then it's way too late to avoid.

It's a gorgeous day. Stepping out of the school and into the sun, Christine feels like a new-made woman. She almost laughs at the irony; she is a new-made woman, and it's bursting out of her skin like fireworks. At first she'd been afraid-- oh yes, terrified, she'd screamed herself hoarse, but it was no good, the Coach's hand on the back of her neck, the weight of him pressing her into the table as the Principal leaned over as if to whisper in her ear-- and it had hurt like the worst migraine she'd ever had.

She'd blacked out from the pain, and when she woke up, she was floating in happiness. Clarity, for the first time in her life, had settled around her like her favorite sweater, and she was free.

Today she's different-- she's special. She deserves better than she gets from everyone around her-- colleagues, superiors, and especially the students. And it's about time, she thinks, that she lets them know exactly how sick she is of being everybody's punching bag.

Her first target is hardly a surprise. She sees him in conference with two sophomores and heads toward him, her steps slow and deliberate. There's a murmur as she passes through the students and Len McCoy hears it, turns toward her, surprise painting his face as he registers who it is stepping up into his personal space. And she's in it, alright, inches away so he barely has room to take in the rest of her; he manages, though, catching sight of her dress, red as sin with a neckline that leads the eye places his have no business going (she can read it on his face, he knows he shouldn't look, can't help it though) especially on a teacher.

"I'm really not in the mood, Miss Chapel," he groans with a roll of his eyes, thinking (how sweet) to cover how he'd been staring. "I'm clean," he adds, moving to brush past her. Her hand presses flat against his chest, drawing him up short, and he looks down at her with widening eyes. Anger, fear, lust-- everything rolling off him in waves, the smell of him is intoxicating, and her new self isn't bothered by the revelation. "Not today," he growls, not backing down in the least. "It's too damn hot and I'm runnin' low on tolerance."

"Eat me, you asshole," she snaps, suppressing the wild urge to laugh, and McCoy's eyebrows threaten to leap off his face. "I'm the one with no tolerance. Pathetic runt," she sneers, giving him the once-over with eyes that burn. Oh yes, it's time he learned his lesson; he's lucky she doesn't put him over her knee right here.

"What are you gonna do," he asks, drawling the vowels out as long as he can make them. "You gonna call my mama on me?"

"Well how am I supposed to do that, little Lenny boy? Do you even know where she is? Europe? Risa? The Neutral Zone? I wonder what remote location she went to this week to hide from her great big bastard mistake." The words roll out of her from a place she didn't know she had, a fierce sort of calm deep inside her where there are no emotions at all, a voice that is not her own.

If she were her old self still, she'd be afraid of this, of the words she's so easily spitting out, and the way she knows somehow that they're not actually coming from her. Christine Chapel doesn't talk like this.

Didn't talk like this, she reminds herself, the inner voice mingling with her thoughts until they're indistinguishable.

"I've taken your shit for too fucking long," she seethes, "you dickless, drug-induced excuse for a human being--"

This, this, is clearly more than he can take, and he blurts out incredulous, "Whoa, listen, lady, I don't know what you're--"

"Listen? Did you just tell me to listen?" McCoy has oh shit written all over his face as she shoves him in the chest again, following him as he steps back. "I'm sick of you, little boy," she gloats, her hand suddenly at the nape of his neck, leaning up real close-- and Len is only eighteen, poor baby, and his body's telling him it's a great idea that she's about to kiss him, even as his brain is obviously telling him to look for the nearest exit.

"If I see you peddling your little wonderdust again," she seethes, and God, it should not be as hot as it is, seeing his scared green eyes less than two inches from hers, "I'm gonna shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be sucking my toes till graduation." And just as fast as she'd grabbed him, she lets him go, shoving through the crowd that's gathered behind them, vanishing.

Christine is dimly shocked at what she's just done; very dim, and fading fast. Her newfound confidence pulses beneath her skin, twisting like an animal begging to be unleashed, and as she dances toward her car she can barely keep from laughing.

Stunned, his stomach burning with anger and shame, McCoy turns away from her with a sneer twisting his features. "She got some bad shit," he mutters, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

Nancy's just coming out of class, and meets him as he heads up the stairs back into the school. "I need a smoke," he murmurs, catching her hand and dragging her into the empty storage classroom.

"Aren't those supposed to be bad for you?" she asks, grinning shyly as she presses the door closed with her shoulders.

"Maybe," he replies with a shrug, bending his head to light the cigarette. "You always make that joke."

"I know," she says, one finger trailing along a dusty shelf. "So how've you been, Len?" They spent two periods talking earlier, but they didn't quite get around to recent history, and he knows the questions he's got coming. Too bad right now thanks to Miss Chapel he's even less in the mood to talk about himself than usual; he's half in shock, still a little turned on and annoyed about it, and none of those things make for good conversation.

"Let's not, shall we?" he retorts, a little sharp. "I've been. You've been. Now you're here again and I'm here too and do we really need to go through the exposition all over again?"

She laughs. "Exposition, huh. Someone's actually been going to English class." He rolls his eyes, takes another drag on the cigarette, and doesn't answer. "Alright. Have it your way. I've been doing well, it's weird being back but I like it. And I don't feel the need to be shy in saying you're one of the best parts of being back at all."

McCoy smirks. "Way I remember it you were never really shy about anything, Nancy."

She grins, coming closer with a little sway to her walk, reaching out with one hand to catch his wrist. "Your memory's as good as ever." He drops the cigarette into a jar and bends his head to hers. Her lips are soft just like he remembers, and when she kisses back he smiles against her mouth.

Then they hear noises. Voices. It takes them a second to realize where they're coming from; the vent that connects this room to the classroom next door. "..not weird, that's fucking psychotic," comes a guy's voice, "aliens?" They share a secret smile, and McCoy presses a finger to her lips as he draws her toward the door.

See my shadow changing, stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor, hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow, coming out the other side.

As unlikely as it seems, all four of them have arrived at the same impossible conclusion. Chekov was the one brave enough to put a name to it; Spock is still having difficulty believing he is living the kind of story he has spent his whole life reading. He does not like that Uhura and Kirk must be involved, but if Chekov is correct then they will need all the help they can rely on. What exactly they plan to do, Spock is unsure; he knows they ought at least to try and do something.

Inside the science classroom they're grouped around Mr. Pike's tenantless fish tank, glaring at each other like testy dogs. Kirk has the floor, his face a mask of incredulity. "Okay, Paul, let's go alien for a second," he says, gesturing expansively before folding his arms over his chest. "Why here? Why San Francisco?"

Spock wishes he could answer this question himself; even for all his reading both fiction and nonfiction, he has no answer for how or why an alien species might choose a place from which to take over a planet. Paul shrugs. "If you were gonna take over the world, would you blow up all the Colonies, Battlestar Galactica style, or sneak in through the back door?"

Spock finds his eyes drawn back to Kirk's face; the other boy is impassive, but Spock can read trouble there, the first stirring of fear. "Contemplating how an alien race might go about taking over this planet is likely a futile exercise," he says. "Let us instead attempt--"

Then the door bursts open and someone stumbles in, clutching their stomach and retching. Uhura jumps with a little scream, and as the intruder straightens, Spock recognizes Leonard McCoy. Surprisingly, it is Nancy who follows him, laughing, and the two of them meander towards the group at the fish tank.

"Come on, Spock, you should know by now-- the only one who's an alien at this school is you." Spock slits his eyes and resists giving the other boy the finger. McCoy's xenophobia is well-documented-- T'Lira asked him to the prom last year just to watch him turn red and stammer. She had made sure to do it where Spock could see; he knows it was deliberate though she never said so.

He is spared the indignity of responding when a new voice speaks. "What's going on in here?" It is Mr. Pike, hands stuck in the pockets of his lab coat, his face hinting more at bemusement than at the trouble they all might be in. "Shouldn't you people be in class?"

"Well it's like this, Mr. Pike," McCoy says, his voice barely containing a laugh. "Chekov here thinks you're an alien."

Spock is watching Pike's face carefully; the expression barely flickers, a mere tightening around the eyebrows, but to a Vulcan the sign is clear as day, and Spock feels his adrenaline begin to rise.

"Is that so?" Pike asks, almost casual as he turns toward the classroom door, drawing the shade down over the window.

"The whole faculty, actually," says Kirk from behind him, and Spock wishes he did not feel the urge to turn and look at him. He sounds relieved to be talking to someone, to be telling an adult. But Spock has had more time to think about this than Kirk, has been thinking of little else since Chekov began whispering to him in the library, and he knows in his gut that the likelihood they are wrong is diminishing with every second Pike stands there unmoving.

Pike's silence draws out the tension between the six teenagers who stand facing him until Spock feels ready to snap. McCoy breaks first, however, muttering something under his breath as he heads toward the door. Pike's hand becomes a vise around his bicep and McCoy goes utterly still; Spock can see the whites of his eyes from where he stands two tables away, Kirk suddenly not breathing behind him.

"Please take your seats," Pike says softly. "This will all be over quite quickly." But of course all it does is make everyone move at once. McCoy tries to break free of Pike's grasp and is tossed back like a rag doll; in an effort to avoid being caught under his flailing limbs, Spock stumbles back into Kirk, the other boy's hands on his elbows.

There is a span of seconds where Kirk's chest is against his back and he can hear the rasp of Kirk's breathing, quick and panicked, can sense the terror coursing through him almost strong enough to taste. Part of him is steeped in panic and desperate to get away lest Kirk's fear serve to amplify his own-- part of him is fascinated that even in the midst of mind-boggling danger, he can spare the attention to notice how little he minds being shoved back against Kirk like this.

Then Chekov attempts a run for the door and gets Pike's hand around his throat for his troubles, and Uhura rushes him but he sweeps his arm out and she goes flying back over one of the lab tables, and everyone is moving and yelling. Nancy backs toward him and Spock gets out of her way, looks up in time to see McCoy with one knee bent, foot braced on the lab's laser cutter. The handle comes off with a few twists (the energy blade flickers but still functions, resembling nothing so much as a small lightsaber from those classic sci-fi vids) and it becomes a weapon in his hand, held with the easy grace of a player stepping up to bat.

"Put him the fuck down, Pike," McCoy growls, and Pike gives him a withering look before shoving the shorter boy forward. Kirk darts out just in time to catch Chekov before he hits the ground, and McCoy swings the cutter with a grunt.

Pike's fingers sever below the second knuckle, and one of the girls is screaming now, but what has Spock's gaze fixed, glued on Mr. Pike is how little pain he seems to feel. He glares at McCoy as he might if McCoy dumped hot coffee on him or rammed into him in the hallway-- not the way anyone would when half their hand is now on the floor.

And then, as Spock's gaze drops to Pike's severed fingers, he sees they are moving.

He barely registers the crash as McCoy is thrown into the fish tank, falling on the ground on top of its shattered remains. He does not see Pike leaning over McCoy on the floor, does not see the horrible tentacular thing his tongue has become. He is mesmerized, watching the four swollen things that are most certainly no longer fingers moving of their own volition, swerving blindly towards the two girls, both shrieking in panic and fear. They succeed in flinging the small fleshy things away from them; Spock sees one crushed beneath Uhura's heel, hears the cracking sound, not bone, but chitin, the carapace of some unknown insect.

Pike stands up with a padd stylus piercing his left eyeball, and the room goes silent.

McCoy lurches to his feet, disbelieving horror written all over his face, and that's when Pike starts shaking. His body goes stiff and his eyes unfocus and his limbs begin to twitch and jitter like someone in the throes of a seizure. With the crystal clarity that is a side effect of panic and shock, Spock hears the man's teeth clacking together, louder than the girls' shrieks or Kirk and Chekov's yells.

White foam begins to pour from around the place where the stylus enters his eyesocket, and Pike stumbles backwards and crashes into a lab table, falls back over the top of it, collapsing to the ground. Spock's heart seems to still in his abdomen as McCoy starts forward, pulling the end off another padd pen with his teeth, and he sees out of the corner of his eye Kirk bending to pick up the fallen laser cutter.

"McCoy," Kirk says roughly, tossing him the handle. The other boy catches it one-handed, switches it on and holds it up ready to slice down in an instant if Pike moves-- but he does not, and inch by inch the rest of them crowd closer to see what has become of their teacher. His chest does not move; he is dead, and whatever had been inside of him is either dead or dormant.

McCoy's arm drops to his side and the six teenagers stare dumbly down at the mess that was once a man. They have killed someone, a teacher, and though Spock knows without even a shred of doubt that they were right to do so, he also knows the likelihood of anyone believing their story is so small as to be nonexistent.

He hears himself speak from far away. "I believe now would be the appropriate time for one of you to say 'Let's get the fuck out of here'," he says, and he hears his voice shake, too.

Kirk catches his eye and the grimness in his look appeases something in Spock. He feels even better when Kirk is the first to declare vehemently, "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"My car," says McCoy as they head for the door. "Nice and easy." None of them even think of protesting. With Kirk close behind him and Chekov barely keeping himself from trembling at his side, Spock is slightly less full of dread than he had been a moment before; but he thinks of Pike's fingers crawling on the floor, and of the sound of his teeth chattering, and finds he must suppress a shudder of his own.

My shadow's shedding skin and I've been picking scabs again.
I'm down digging through my old muscles looking for a clue.

As McCoy peels into his driveway they can't get out of the car fast enough, spurred by the unspoken terror that in between the safe places where they're surrounded by each other, something (someone) will reach out and grab them.

Jim wouldn't normally even admit to himself he's terrified, but he can't get the picture of Mr. Pike shaking to death out of his mind. They'd made it to McCoy's car and when Matthews had asked if he wanted to hang out it had taken everything in him to grin and call the guy Cupcake like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn't burning up with adrenaline, so hot it felt like his skin was on fire. He still feels that way now, a little, like he's brewing a fever; he'd like to shed his varsity jacket, but he can't quite shake the thought that it protects him somehow.

The ride over was silent. Every turn they took in the dimming light, Jim expected to reach a barricade or to stop short at the sight of Coach standing in the middle of the street, arms folded over his chest, that sadistic smile painted broad across his face.

He knows he's seen too many movies. He knows the safest place he could be right now is in McCoy's car or garage, surrounded by five other people he knows are okay. It doesn't stop the pounding in his chest, the rushing in his ears. It doesn't stop the fear.

They file into McCoy's garage and look around in awe. The table in front of them is a chem lab writ small-- burners, tubes, pipettes, Jim doesn't even know the names for half this stuff but he knows enough to see where McCoy gets all that stuff he sells. He's not just an underachiever with too much time on his hands-- this is the lair of a kid too bored to find school worth his while, wasting time until he moves on to something better.

Not that Jim knows what that's like, or anything.

He watches Nyota move around the table, curious eyes taking in McCoy's setup. Her eyes are haunted, and she looks more disturbed than any of them right now. Jim's never seen her upset enough to show it like this; he wishes he wasn't too tired to give a shit. He knows if he tried to comfort her right now she'd just pull away, anyway, strong and independent and set on proving it. It's something Jim appreciates about her, that strength, but lately it's been biting him on the ass enough to make him a little sick of it. He's been figuring out over the past few weeks that he doesn't really know her; half the time he wonders if there's anyone who does.

"What are we going to do, the cops not being an option?" she asks then, rubbing her upper arms, the gesture strangely vulnerable though her voice is still sharp as glass.

"I can talk to my mom," he offers, a wry twist to his mouth. "She might know what to do."

"If she is even your mother anymore," Paul mutters. Jim's stomach twists, but he can't do anything except nod.

McCoy shrugs as he straddles a stool in front of the table, holding out his hand behind him. Paul slaps a jar into it; Jim hadn't realized it at the time, but it looks like the kid managed to scoop up one of the things that used to be Pike's fingers.

They don't talk while McCoy does his work. He slaps the slug on a metal tray while Paul bends close to look on; curiosity winning out over revulsion for now, Jim stands over McCoy's shoulder, noting Nancy's hand brush the other guy's shoulder as she stands back to make room. Nyota's on Nancy's other side, and looks away when Jim glances toward her.

Spock stands apart, spine straight as ever, only the tense focus in his face betraying how nervous he is. Jim tries to catch his eye, but the Vulcan's not having it. He's too busy staring at the slug, at McCoy's careful fingers on the scalpel slicing off a piece of its end. "What is it?" he asks. He sounds disgusted, fascinated, afraid-- it's the most emotion Jim's ever heard in his voice.

"We're gonna find out," McCoy mutters, turning toward the wire cage holding a white rat, laying the severed end of the slug on the floor and dripping some water on it.

It twitches and shudders to life, thin red tendrils like threads extending and questing for purchase. When they find the inviting tunnel of the rat's round ear, Jim watches in horror as they latch on, pulling the chunk of alien flesh inside.

Jim looks at McCoy, seeing his anxiety mirrored in the other boy's face, and swallows hard. He doesn't look away when McCoy reaches into the rat's cage, his fingers finding the animal's fragile neck bones and twisting. He doesn't look at Nancy when she gasps, doesn't even glance at Nyota to see her reaction.

His eyes fix instead on Spock, who is staring numbly at the cage, looking shell-shocked, unsettled. Jim always thought he wanted to see the infamous Vulcan composure ruffled up a little; now, he wishes more than anything that Spock didn't look so rattled.

"It's a parasite," McCoy says later, sitting back from the microscope and staring down in contemplation at the splayed-open body of his rat. "It attaches itself to a host... and then controls it. But look... it's incomplete." He slits open the thing he pulled from the rat's insides, and Nyota forces herself not to look away from the ooze that spills out.

Beside her, Spock's chin tilts to the side and he looks closer, brows drawing together in focus. "Please elaborate."

"It can survive on its own, but it's really part of a greater organism. It's got the ability to replicate, but it needs a host. Something moist... look what it did to Oscar's insides-- dried 'em out." Part of Nyota is panicking-- but that part is dim, and shoved very deep down inside her. She feels more capable of facing this than she has of facing anything before; the irony is not lost. She couldn't find the spine to stand up to her mother, but when faced with this she is cool as a spring breeze.

"See, this partially explains what happened to Pike," McCoy goes on, grabbing a padd pen from a tray in the middle of the table and uncapping it with his teeth. He pours the stream of fine white powder over the slug, and immediately it shrivels, withering with a hissing sound. "The drug's a diuretic. Dries it out... kills it."

"We are being used as hosts. Turned into-- into slaves that they may control," says Spock, dawning horror on his face. Nyota wants to slap the expression off him, wants to put her hands around his throat and squeeze. She has hated him for years, and hates him even more fiercely now with every word he says.

McCoy looks skeptical as he turns toward them. "How do you know that?"

"He doesn't," Nyota's voice is harsh with anxiety, her breath coming quickly as the part of her that is still in control of herself wars with the part that wants to lash out, wants to tear into each and every one of them until they stop. "He's just an egghead sci-fi freak--"

"--who's been right so far," Jim cuts in sharply, glaring at her. The fury surges in her again and she reins it in, barely; now is not the time.

"How do we stop it?" Nancy's soft drawl interrupts.

"Yes, Spock," Paul says, not confrontational but sincere. "This is your area of expertise." The fast-fading voice in Nyota's head notes how open and vulnerable his face is, how she wishes she didn't feel so damn protective of him. The other voice, the one that's been whispering softly beneath her thoughts since one of Mr. Pike's fingers slithered up her arm and into her ear, wants to see Paul Chekov taken. Wants to see his face when she she straddles him, feeds her tendrils into his ear, wants to see his eyes light up when he awakens and everything is new.

Spock's shoulders settle a fraction, and he draws a deep breath before speaking. "In theory, the beings are all connected. If we were to eliminate the master, the others would die out as well."

"In theory," Nyota echoes, the slight mocking edge to her voice falling flat. She does not know where this will lead; she only knows the more they talk, the more dangerous they become.

"What happens to everybody else?" Jim asks intently, cutting around McCoy to stand in front of Spock. "The ones who've been taken over-- they die too?"

"No. They would become human again. But that is in theory," he adds, eyes sliding to Nyota with a quirk of one eyebrow suggesting sarcasm.

"So if we found the leader and killed it," says Paul, "we would beat it."

Nyota shakes her head, rolling her eyes. "What are we even talking about here? I say we get the fuck out of town, hop a shuttle--"

"To where?" Paul interrupts, his eyes feverish with the force of his conviction. "We've got to stop it or it will spread. It took the high school in a day and a half. Give it a week and we will never outrun it. You take that shuttle, Nyota, and you will not even recognize the Earth you return to. We must stay and fight."

"But fight what?" Jim asks. "We don't even know who's alien and who's not-- if one of us had been taken, we wouldn't know."

"He does have a point," Spock says somberly, looking at Paul. "How do I know you are still really Pavel Chekov?"

"Well how do I know you're really you?" Paul retorts, and Nyota suddenly finds she could laugh.

"Popular theory suggests those who have been taken by the aliens become emotionless-- puppets, if you will," Spock says with a significant glance at Paul.

Jim shakes his head immediately. "Nero had emotion... but it was different somehow. Usually he's a real hardass, but when I talked to him he was-- composed. He was pissed, but he didn't take it out on me. It was just really weird."

Nyota snorts, and when he looks at her, her eyes are cold. "Sounds familiar," she says silkily, her hands dropping to her sides as she turns to face him. "Kind of like a star quarterback who mysteriously quits the football team... odd behavior, don't you think?"

Jim looks as if could laugh, or punch something. With her newfound clarity she knows that her feelings for him had faded long before this began to happen; three years ago or even three months ago she might have gone to him, slipped her arm through his, known just what to say to make it better. Now she doesn't know what to say, and doesn't care enough to figure it out.

Jim seems unsurprised by her accusation, and instead of retorting in anger he turns away from her, shaking his head. "I'm not an alien, I'm discontent."

"There's another big word," she mocks.

"We must trust each other if we are to survive," Spock says.

"And I'm supposed to trust you?" Nyota rounds on him furiously, the hatred suddenly back in her mouth like bile, venomous words spitting between them. "You're already emotionless-- most of the time, anyway," she adds with a little laugh.

"What do you mean by that?" Spock's voice is dangerously soft.

"I've seen the way you look at Jim. Looks like some things do get under your skin after all, huh?" she sneers.

It's Nancy who cuts in, just barely ahead of whatever words Jim's fighting to keep in. "Stop it, Uhura." But it only serves to make her the next target.

"Oh, I don't think I will. What about you, Miss Atlanta? Seems pretty convenient you showed up here just as all this starts going down-- what are you doing in San Fransisco anyway?"

Before she can answer, McCoy's on his feet. "Shut up, Uhura."

"This is getting us nowhere," Jim says, brushing out of the group they're tightening into and turning his back on them all. "We have to figure out how to tell, and then we have to find the queen and kill it."

"I got a solution," says McCoy in a tone that begs someone to argue with him. He holds up a pen full of the caffeine dust. "This outs 'em, right? We all take a hit."

Jim snorts, rolling his eyes. "I don't do drugs."

"Come on," the other boy taunts. "If you're not an alien, you got nothin' to worry about."

"He's right," says Chekov, sitting down on the couch next to Jim. "It's the only way to know."

"Look, we all do it." McCoy uncaps a pen and holds it out to Chekov. "Paul."

"What? Why me first?" He's hunched in, thin arms wrapped around himself, and looks as much scared as he does defiant.

"It's your birthright, kid, just fuckin' take it," McCoy snaps, and Chekov takes the pen with a reluctant look. Glancing at each of them in turn, he finally presses in one nostril and sniffs.

"Yeah, and what about you, McCoy, how about you go next." Jim's voice is hard, and he overrides McCoy's protests with a sharp chopping motion. "Take it or I swear to God I'll hold you down and make you take it."

McCoy looks furious, but he does as he's told, and Jim follows suit. Blinking almost sleepily, McCoy holds out a pen to Spock. "You next."

He would like to protest; Nyota can see it on his face. It makes no logical sense and he quite clearly wants to argue with the idea that this could be effective, but he also knows it is futile to set himself against the others when he is already an outsider.

He takes the pen, looking up at McCoy. "What are the ingredients?"

"Mostly caffeine. Some other household shit. Nothing that's gonna do you any lasting harm." Spock finally puts the pen to his nose and sniffs hard, shaking his head and dropping the empty pen to the floor. Chekov and Jim are now collapsed together on the couch, giggling, while Nancy beside them looks severely uncomfortable.

"Uhura." He's standing before her now, pen outstretched in his hand, and she shakes her head.

"No." There's a quiet pause, and she nods at Nancy. "Her first."

"I'm allergic," Nancy says, soft concern in her eyes as she turns them toward McCoy.

"Yeah, and I'm Irish," Nyota snaps, words heavy with mockery, "who gives a shit."

"I can't!" she protests, but McCoy is unflappable.

He holds out a pen to each of them. "You have to take it. Both of you." They each take a pen; dispassionately, Nyota wonders what is about to happen to her. She cannot take the drug, but if she does not... Surrender, a voice whispers inside her. You will be safe.

Though the room is hardly quiet, Jim and Chekov muttering and laughing to each other in the background, she feels the tension and fear build as she and Nancy each unscrew the tops of the pens. In near unison they bring the pens to their noses, as McCoy's eyes flicker dark and heavy between the two of them, unsure who to turn his scrutiny on.

Nancy sniffs in sharply, and it is Nyota who breaks. She drops the pen, its contents untouched, her head lowing as she feels something shift under her skin. It's like she's taken a back seat to her own body, like something primal and furious slipped its leash inside of her and is now directing everything she does.

It's thrilling. It's terrifying. She doesn't even know which way is up, and she loves it.

Everyone's yelling as she crashes into the table, sweeping all of McCoy's tubes and beakers to the floor. It's a very satisfying crash, and she's laughing when Jim lunges for her, trying to pin her arms.

She's too fast for him. She bursts through the door and runs toward the car she somehow knows will be waiting, her adrenaline already quieting as she buckles her seatbelt. "Go," she murmurs to the driver, a boy whose name she can't remember, the one who's always tinkering with the engine on his hovercar.

He drives on without a word, and Nyota doesn't look back. Her fingers are still tingling slightly with the power that had coursed through her back in the garage, and she settles back into the seat with a slight smile playing about her lips.

I've been crawling on my belly, clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused and insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over or a word to guide me in.

With Uhura gone they're down to five, and they return to McCoy's garage in near silence. In the background, the house computer's voice informs them gently, repeatedly, that there is a breach in the structural integrity of the house; Nyota ran through the door with such velocity it's hanging off its hinges, half the doorframe peeling away from the wall. McCoy ignores it, picks up a little briefcase from under the wreckage of his lab table and checks the contents; three hyposprays, bright blue.

"What is that, the T-Virus?" Kirk mutters, and McCoy huffs, the closest thing to a laugh any of them can manage.

"Sedative. Just in case. We've got to go find the queen, and I don't want her gettin' the jump on us." He closes and latches the case. "It's powerful-- would knock out a pro wrestler in under five seconds. We'll need it." No one asks how he got his hands on it. Spock thinks the others perhaps would share his view that it is better not to know.

They head out to the car without speaking. Spock ends up in the middle of the back seat, Kirk crowding him to one side and Chekov trying to merge with the upholstery on the other. The hard press of Kirk's shoulder makes it difficult to think; Spock wishes fervently that flinching away from the contact would not bring more attention to his discomfort, but knows that wish to be as futile as the desire not to be experiencing it in the first place.

"Do you really think it's Robau?" The voice is quiet, the question for him alone. He turns his head just enough to catch Kirk's eye. The blue is still vivid even in the faint sweep from the streetlights, and Spock has to look away in order to fully consider the question.

"It is likely, but not overwhelmingly so," Spock replies finally, keeping his voice as quiet as Kirk's. "As Chekov asserted earlier, the most obvious move is often not the most effective."

Kirk nods. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It's like-- I dunno," he hedges suddenly, seeming embarrassed, then seems to change his mind once more and barrels on, "It's like chess. You have to think three steps ahead if you're going to win, and impersonating the principal of the school right off the bat seems like a really risky gambit."

Spock nods, hiding his surprise at the discovery that Kirk knows anything at all about chess. "It would be. However, choosing a more innocuous identity would mean less influence and more difficulty in gaining access to people to turn them."

Kirk glances out the window, two fingers tapping lightly against his lips as he thinks. "Either way," he murmurs, "we've got our work cut out for us."

Spock tears his eyes away before Kirk looks back toward him. He fixes them on the back of McCoy's headrest and nods stiffly. "Indeed."

"Where d'you guys think we're gonna find her?" McCoy asks, glancing back in the rearview.

Kirk's breath huffs out, a fatalistic little laugh. "On a Friday night? Only one place she can be." McCoy understands, and guns the engine as they head toward the school.

Out on the football field the Academy is cleaning up. Twenty-four to three, it's not a shutout but it's damn near close. Finnegan and Matthews are on fire, running like the wind without ever seeming to tire, and every pass they throw lands neatly in the grasp of another player in red and gold.

Every time they tackle a player to the ground, they cough into their fists, and a little alien slug drops into the black and white helmet, seeking out the ear canal.

Spock pushes through to the fence on the thirty yard line, forcing himself not to focus on Kirk standing directly behind him. "They're getting everybody-- the whole town's here," he hears him mutter, practically in his ear. "There won't be a hu-- a regular person left by morning."

Spock appreciates his correction, though at this juncture he supposes "human" is as good a descriptor as any to separate those who have been turned from those who have not.

The crowd of cheering fans sits down as the players line back up for another play, and Spock knows Kirk is seeing it too; Principal Robau and Mrs. Blackwell, shoulder to shoulder surveying the crowd like a feast laid out before them. It is irrational and impossible, but as the adults' gaze swings toward them, Spock feels isolated, picked out, as if everyone around them has stepped away and it is only he and Kirk standing under the teachers' scrutiny.

Kirk's hand closes over his upper arm, and Spock tenses, nerves tingling from the contact. He knows he should shake off the hand on his arm, but he does not. He turns, just enough to catch the other boy's eye in the corner of his, the seriousness in Kirk's expression startling and fascinating.

"Come on," he mutters, and Spock allows himself to be drawn away as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

The other three are waiting for them in the gymnasium. "We found Robau, he's at the game," Kirk says, giving Spock a last look as he slouches towards McCoy.

"What are you kids doing in here?" The voice startles them, and Robau is in the door, tall and imposing. "The gym is closed-- please come with me."

Chekov steps forward. "We can't do that, Mr. Robau."

"And why is that?" Robau seems genuinely confused; he doesn't get a chance to answer, however, because Kirk suddenly slams into him from the side, wrapping him in a volleyball net.

"Quick, McCoy, get the door!" he yelps, tying the net around the man's head, pinning his arms, ignoring his spluttered protests.

"Drop the act," Chekov says defiantly, and turns to Nancy to help decant some of McCoy's wonderdust into a pen. He turns back, and passes it to the principal without a trace of irony or amusement in his face. "Sniff this."

Robau now looks genuinely confused. "What?"

Kirk twirls one of McCoy's hypos around his fingertips, grinning maniacally. "It's our way or the hard way," he says, "and I don't know if you want to find out what's in this hypo the hard way."

"Why are you doing this?" Robau asks, looking from Kirk to Chekov and back. "What gives you the right to--"

"Oh shut up," Kirk says vehemently. "Sniff it or I hypo you."

Robau begins to protest, but before he can, McCoy grabs the hypo out of Kirk's hand and injects him with it. "I gotta do everythin' my goddamn self," he mutters as the principal drops to the floor.

Spock's mouth presses tight together, and he says, "And now that he is unconscious, what do you plan to do?"

"I dunno, but I'm gonna damn well think about it while he's--"

He is cut off as Robau begins to rise. He is still unconscious, Spock thinks, because his eyes are still rolled back in his head so far that only the whites are showing. But something is controlling his body, moving it like-- like a puppet, he thinks, and could almost smile but for how jarring it is.

Everyone begins to yell, and Nancy flings herself forward with the canister of wonderdust in one hand, dumping most of its contents in Robau's face. What happens next is something Spock has only read about or seen on television; the man's skin begins to pucker and smoke, his face caving in on itself like a collapsing souffle. When it is done he lies still, finally.

"Fuck," says Kirk frankly, scrubbing a hand through his hair and turning toward the door. "Well, how do we know if it worked?"

"How'm I supposed to know?" McCoy hunches his shoulders in irritation. "I'm a delinquent, not a psychic."

Kirk exits the gym and heads for the doors that look out onto the parking lot. "Looks like the game's over." He turns to face them, a look of resolute determination on his face. "I'm going out there to check."

"What? No, that's crazy," Chekov begins as McCoy and Nancy loudly agree.

"I'm going," he says simply, shrugging and glancing toward Spock, who takes a step toward the other boy.

"You will not go alone."

Kirk snorts. "Like hell I won't. We're not risking more than one of us--"

"There is no logic in becoming bait for the alien," Spock argues, "if there are two of us--"

He breaks off as Kirk steps closer, inside his personal space in a way no one has ever trespassed before. Spock goes still, tense with anticipation. "You wanna protect me?" he asks, so quiet the others likely could not hear him though they are mere feet away.

Spock does not plan to answer that question, now or ever. Kirk is not fazed, however. His lips curl up at the corners, his chin tilting up as he goes on, "Maybe Nyota was right, huh?" There's nothing of mocking in his face, only interest and a discerning focus so intense it's almost intimidating. Spock says nothing again, unable to do anything but meet Kirk's stare with one of his own.

Kirk leans even closer and Spock wonders for a brief, insane second, whether Kirk is about to kiss him. Every nerve in his body is screaming, his fight-or-flight response overloaded and his mind frozen-- and then Kirk steps back, and Spock can breathe again-- until Kirk's fist swings up, catching Spock in the jaw. He is so shocked he cannot defend himself in time, and he sprawls on the floor looking up at Kirk in anger and confusion. His jaw is throbbing, and Kirk shakes his hand out, a little breathless. "You wanna make sure we're both alive to talk about this tomorrow? Stay the fuck here."

He's got his hand on the door before he looks back at McCoy and adds, "I'll be back." None of them reply.

Taking over assisting with my revelation
Empty spaces as if it was an invitation
Your invasion exceeding every expectation
now I feed from the many mouths of your persuasion

"We need more of your magic dust," Chekov says despondently, pacing along the lowest tier of the bleachers.

"The only place I've got any left is my locker, and that's way the hell in the east wing," McCoy replies, waving his hand in the general direction of his locker.

"We could go," the kid offers. "With two of us-- we could at least try."

McCoy huffs and considers. He's really not keen on the idea of leaving, not just 'cause he doesn't want to make a run for his locker with God knows what between it and him, but because he doesn't want to split up. But Chekov's right, and they should be better armed.

"Fine," he says. "But we go fast, and we come back faster."

Chekov nods, and McCoy turns to Spock and Nancy, sitting silent in almost mirrored straight-backed poses of each other. "We'll be right back, okay?" His eyes are on Nancy, but she's not looking back.

Out in the hallway McCoy shoves his hands in his pockets and stays close to the wall. "C'mon," he murmurs. "Let's do this."

They make it almost all the way before they start to hear footsteps. "Shit," Chekov mutters. "Shit shit shit." They flatten themselves in the hollow beside a group of lockers, and McCoy hears the kid's breath catch in his throat as they watch Uhura come down the other hall, pause at the intersection, and turn away from them, walking back toward the theater wing.

They let out a collective sigh. Up another flight of stairs and down another hallway, and they're almost there--

It's only instinct that makes McCoy press back against the wall as they begin to round the corner, but he lets out his breath in silent relief as he hears Uhura's voice and knows she can't see him.

"Pavel," comes the soft musical voice; he can't see her, but he does he see Chekov freeze in his tracks. "Pavel, I'm so glad you came back."

"Uhura," says the other kid, stiff and scared.

"Well, I shouldn't have been surprised-- where else were you going to go? You've been labeled pathetic since the first grade and you're afraid it's going to spill over to the rest of your life-- but we can stop it, Pavel, we can help you belong. Isn't that what you want?"

The words spill out of Pavel's mouth. "Please don't do this, Uhura." He sounds panicked.

"I haven't been this happy since-- well." She pauses, her voice taking on a note of sadness. "Since before my dad died. Isn't that what you want, Pavel? To be happy?"

"Uhura, I--"

"I know you want me, Pavel," she murmurs, and McCoy rolls his eyes. If the kid shows signs of going for this, he's gonna have to intervene, but he'd really rather not. "Come on," she says. "Let's do this together."

Then there's scuffling, the squeaking of Chekov's sneakers against the floor, and then a bang and a sharp cry from Uhura, presumably as Chekov shoves her into a locker. Then there's fast footsteps receding, Uhura's voice sharp on words he can't make out, and he emerges from behind the lockers to an empty corridor.

"Thanks, buddy," McCoy mutters, waiting until they're gone to continue on down the hallway at a jog. He catches his breath as he skids to a stop beside his locker, fingers fumbling with the keypad. "C'mon, ya bastard," he mutters under his breath, and doesn't hear the footsteps until it's almost too late.

"Hello, Len." Miss Chapel's voice is soft, her smile sweet as when she was still human, though her eyes spark with that unnatural fire. McCoy's mouth goes dry as she slides up next to him, putting her back against the next locker and looking up at him almost beseeching. "What are you looking for?"

McCoy shrugs. "Aw, nothin' important." His hand has already closed over a couple of pens and he slides both hands into his pockets as he turns to face her. "Nothin' you'll have to bust me for, anyway."

Her head tips to one side, a smirk hovering around the corners of her mouth, the soft fullness of her mouth painted a vivid red. "You sure about that, Len? You let me bust you so often I'm starting to wonder if you actually enjoy it."

He laughs, short and dry, lifting both hands in an exaggerated shrug. "You know, Miss Chapel, I--"

When she grabs him, he's not expecting her to go for his hands. Her small fingers wrap around his wrists with alien strength and he's only got a second to panic before she's pressing his palms against her tits. He can feel-- oh God-- she's not wearing anything under her shirt, the soft material doing nothing to mask the hardness of her nipples against his hands. He knows her gasp is fake, knows everything about this is a ruse and he's about to get a slug in the ear. But if he can just time it right-- his brain short-circuits when she moans and he's careful to keep his head pulled back, just so he can see when she moves to attack, not at all to watch the way her eyelids flutter when he pinches her nipples or to see her mouth drop open and imagine that wet heat around his cock.

Her laugh is low and her eyes mere slits of blue, her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her foot draws up the back of his leg torturously slow, and that's when she goes for him. One hand like a vise around his neck, the other on his hand, but his body's pumped full of hormones and adrenaline and it actually works in his favor, makes him a little faster and a little more forceful and as he jerks away she stumbles and barely catches herself on the locker door.

McCoy takes off running. She's right behind him, no matter he's got five inches and fifty pounds of muscle on her and he's not in heels; he knows he's not imagining her fingers brushing the back of his shirt as she reaches out to grab him. High ground, he thinks, and darts through the door to the stairwell with Chapel right behind him. He takes the stairs three at a time, putting some distance between them, her high hectic laugh sending chills down his spine.

He's not sure how he manages it, in the end. It's like something you'd see in a damn James Bond movie, except it's at least ten times more gruesome than the movies make it out. As he rounds a bend he cuts close to the railing, his arm shooting out and grabbing her by the hair. She struggles, and he can see the bulge of the thing moving under her skin as she claws at his hands, the other one round her neck now, thumb pressing against her trachea. She gags, her mouth opening impossibly wide, and with a yell that's more fear than anything else, McCoy jerks his arms down and lets go.

Miss Chapel tumbles into the space at the center of the stairwell, screaming as she falls. Her head hits something with a wet thwack and McCoy suppresses a retch as he runs for his life down the stairs, back to ground level and where (he hopes with embarrassing fervor) Chekov will have rejoined Nancy and Spock.

Chapel's head is twisted at a stomach-turning angle, one leg splayed out and broken below the knee. He looks back just in time to see the leg straighten, her head still wrenched to look behind her as her hands reach blindly for purchase on something that will allow her to stand.

"This is some serious shit," McCoy mutters, breaking into a flat-out run toward the gym.

Resurrection, infection as I fade away
There's no fear, there is nothing left to make me stay
Fitting in my new skin just tell me what to do
I'm defined, I am blind, I am a part of you

Spock and Nancy are alone for five full minutes before one of them speaks.

"So how does it end?"

Spock looks at the soft-spoken girl, his eyebrows drawn together, and she elaborates. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers and all that-- how does it turn out?"

Spock turns back to face forward; he can't see her out of the corner of his eye as he answers, "They are successful in their pursuit. We lose," he adds, though elaboration is likely unnecessary.

"Did you ever think-- maybe that means we actually win? I mean Uhura-- she seemed happy, you know?"

Spock's smile is paper-thin and just as dry. "A sure sign that it was not truly Nyota Uhura."

"Maybe it was her, only better." Nancy pauses, and when she resumes there is a direction in her voice and in her words that was absent a moment ago. "I know you pride yourself on being the outsider, Spock. But aren't you tired of being something you're not?" She stops, and Spock can hear the smile in her words. "I know I am."

Spock has always found references to one's stomach sinking ludicrous, knowing that the body's organs cannot move while a person is stationary; however, as he turns toward Nancy, in the second before her arm whips out and knocks him to the ground, he feels the pit of his stomach drop toward the floor.

Her blow sends him flying down the bleachers, grunting as the corners dig into his flesh. "No," he gasps, rolling to an upright position, stumbling backwards. He hears footsteps and Chekov is behind him; they look at each other in horror as Nancy's body begins to ripple and collapse, her arms already turned to tentacles, her form bulging and shifting into the gleaming segmented form of the queen alien.

The thing's mouth opens wide and a screeching cry echoes through the gym, and then they are running. They burst through the door into the pool room, their feet slipping on tiles damp with humidity as they dart around the pool toward the door beyond-- the door that leads to the locker rooms, and then outside.

They are halfway around the pool when the screech of the alien sounds again, and a wet crash signals the creature has gone into the pool. Chekov is several steps ahead and turns back screaming Spock's name, and Spock is nearly there when he feels the tentacle wrap around his ankle and pull his feet out from beneath him.

His head hits the tiles and he tastes blood, the last thing his senses register before he is dragged into the water.

Pavel watches Spock go under, momentarily transfixed by the thick green smear his blood leaves on the tiles and the clouds blooming in the water, but as he snaps out of it he is moving before he thinks about what the hell he's even doing. He sees the alien swimming toward Spock and knows he has to get to the Vulcan before it does-- he fetches up against the lifeguard's chair and a long pole clatters into his hands.

He shoves it into the water right near where Spock is floating, and just as the alien draws near enough to show its many rows of teeth, Spock's hand closes on the pole and Pavel pulls harder than he knew he could, yanking the other boy from the water. Spock stumbles to his feet, avoiding the reach of the tentacle questing after him, and slakes water out of his eyes.

They dash into the locker rooms certain of pursuit, but it is not the alien whose shadow appears in the doorway behind them.

"Avon calling," McCoy calls through gritted teeth.

"McCoy." Spock emerges from behind a bank of lockers; Pavel watches from further back, his heart beating so fast it fairly flutters. McCoy goes toward the slim Vulcan but a voice interrupts before he can speak.

"Don't." McCoy turns, and Pavel can't see his face anymore but he imagines it's written with the same shock as his own, to see Nancy dripping wet and naked standing behind him. "It's him. He's the alien."

"Do not listen to her, McCoy, it is her." Spock is unruffled.

"He attacked me, Len, don't listen to him. He's trying to fake you out." She takes a step closer to McCoy and if Pavel were braver he would run forward and get between them. As it is, he simply stays where he is, all but gnawing on his hand with anxiety and fear.

McCoy just breathes for a moment, unmoving, his hands in his pockets. Finally, when he talks, it sounds as if he can't believe his own ears. "Answer me somethin' if you can, Nancy. Why're you naked?"

She smiles and looks down at herself. "Does it bother you, Len? Never used to before. This body... well, I'm gettin' kinda used to it."

McCoy stumbles back a step, Spock still behind him, shaking his head. "But-- you took the test, I saw you take the test, I--"

She shakes her head with a soft clucking sound. "Len, honey, how can you be sure what the hell you saw?" She shrugs. "You saw what you wanted to see."

It seems to be all McCoy needed to hear; he raises one hand with a pen ready to strike, but suddenly Spock has grabbed his hand, stilling him, and Pavel hears McCoy's shocked yell as something begins to move under Spock's skin.

He doesn't realize he has even moved until his arms are already around Spock's waist. Perhaps the element of surprise has worked in his favor; he cannot be sure how he manages to drag the other boy toward the cage with the football gear and throw him inside, but the helmets crash down on top of the Vulcan and Pavel locks the door practically gasping for breath.

Spock stares at him with an insolent smile that is ten times as eerie for appearing on a face usually as composed as his; Pavel has known Spock for years and has never seen him smile. He backs away slowly, whirling around as he bumps into McCoy, who holds out a pen.

"Take this," he says, and when Pavel moves to pocket it he finds himself shoved up against a locker. "Sniff it."

"Are you out of your mind? No." He tries to get away but McCoy's arm is implacable, his eyes wide and tinged with madness.

"Not takin' any chances-- I leave for five minutes, I come back and everyone's a fuckin' alien, so if I'm gonna have to Men in Black your ass you're gonna fuckin' sniff it."

Pavel snorts, the drug sparking up into his sinuses like electricity, and he drops the empty pen with a shake of his head. "Happy now, I hope?" he bites out, lifting his eyes as the shadows above them begin to move, coalescing into the graceful shapes of waving tentacles. The fear is so familiar now he hardly feels it; it has settled in his stomach but he has no time for it now. He wonders dizzily if this is what it means to be brave.

They move down the aisle and Pavel's feet are clumsy, his head spinning. "Jesus, I'm seeing two of everything," he mumbles in Russian, collapsing to his knees. McCoy is gone when he raises his head, and he crawls forward, muttering, "McCoy! Leonard, where are you?"

Then there's a grunt, and McCoy flies over his head, crashing into the lockers opposite him and slumping to the ground, unconscious.

"Shit, shit, shit," the word is like a mantra as Pavel scrabbles to scoop up the pens that spilled from McCoy's grasp, shoving them in his pocket and running toward the deeper recesses of the locker room.

Then Nancy is back, her voice sweet as she calls out to him.

"Pavel... Pavel, honey... Come out come out wherever you are..." He's not sure how she's doing it, but the shadows are still moving like her many sinuous arms, twining around her like a caress as she pads up the center of the room.

"You know, in my world, Pavel, there were limitless oceans as far as the eye could see. But they began to dry up, so I escaped and came here. I met Nancy first-- poor Nancy, she was already sick when I came upon her, and she let me in with nothing more than a smile because I could take away her pain. The same promise I wanted to give you when I met you-- all of you, so different from the others. Lost and lonely in your own way, like me. I thought that maybe I could give you a taste of my world, a world without anger or fear or attitude... I can make you a part of something so special, Pavel, so perfect, so fearless. Don't you want that?"

He hears her turn the corner on where he was sitting, but he is already halfway to the door that leads back to the gym. He has listened to her speech and felt nothing but defiance and anger, and the words spill from his lips before he even realizes this is how he feels. "I would rather be afraid!"

Her voice echoes with finality. "Fine. Have it your way. But this is where your world of fiction gets it right-- we win. End of story."

And then she's gone, vanished inside the amphibious monster that lumbers toward him, its maw stretched wide and screaming for his blood.

Pavel lets her see him, standing before the door. He lets her take two steps toward him before he barrels through it, into the empty gym where Principal Robau still lies dead at the other end of the basketball court, where the bleachers are still unfolded.

He sees the switch on the wall and knows immediately what to do.

He waits again until the alien crashes through the door, then hits the button and darts forward-- not toward her, but underneath the slowly compressing seats. Section by section he hops over and under the support spurs, hearing the gears cranking and then finally, the screech of the beast as it follows. Come on, bitch, he thinks, halfway to the other side. He hears something snap and the seats begin to close faster, and he is moving faster, his breathing practically a scream in his own ears.

He has never been grateful to be small and lithe, not until tonight; he flings himself through the last opening as the bleachers crush the alien to the wall, where she screeches in fury, tentacles waving toward him where he is pressed against the wall, dirty and shivering. He uncaps the pen with his teeth and spits the cap aside.

"Guaranteed to jack you up," Pavel gasps, his chest heaving, and stabs the queen in the eye.

The effect is instantaneous; she screams again in pain and horror, spraying him with saliva and more of the small insectile slugs that worm their way into his flesh. Pavel screams, flinching back in horror at the feeling of small teeth working at his cheek; but she is dying, and so are they, and they fall to the ground before they can do much damage.

The panic fades as Pavel watches the alien die and feels an odd sense of mingled pity and relief. She goes still, her body fading to white as the drug does its work, drying her out to a husk that lies limp amid the twisted struts of the bleachers. Somewhere in the back of his mind something is screaming, It's dead, you killed it, you killed the queen, but he pushes it back.

Finally he gets to his feet and stumbles back toward the locker room, where McCoy and Spock lie unconscious. "Hey," he says, bending down beside Spock and shaking the other boy awake. "Are you... you?" he grins.

"So it would seem," says Spock slowly, rubbing his head.

They both jump, and though Pavel knows Spock will forever deny it, he knows he's not the only one who yells in surprise when McCoy collapses against the cage wall, rattling it. One side of his face is covered in blood, but otherwise he appears uninjured. "Is it over?"

Pavel nods, catching his breath. "Yes. She is dead."

McCoy collapses back against a locker, eyes slipping shut, laughing. Pavel doesn't know why, but he thinks it probably means things are back to normal.

I want to feel the change consume me, feel the outside turning in.
I want to feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured within

They have to call the police, Pavel knows, but he has something to do first. Up on the third floor of the school Nyota Uhura is locked in a classroom, and when he opens the door it is to find her slumped on the floor just inside; it appears she was still attempting escape when the queen was killed.

"Hey," he murmurs, dropping to his knees beside her. "Uhura, wake up."

Her eyelashes flutter and then snap open, and she gasps, her fingers suddenly seizing his arm with all her strength. "What," she chokes out, struggling to sit, her eyes on his dark and fearful. "What the hell happened?"

"It's alright," he says, helping her up, brushing away the dead carcasses of the slugs that infected her, now lying on the floor nearby. "It's done. It was Nancy," he adds.

"I know," Uhura whispers, looking away. Her eyes are wide with shock; Pavel wonders how she's processing this, if she is at all.

She turns to look at him then, and he's never seen her so concerned, so intent upon making him listen. "I'm sorry, Paul," she murmurs. "I don't know what I was doing. At McCoy's place, in the hallway earlier... I know it sounds like a cop-out," she says with a shake of her head, "but I really just... couldn't control it. Myself."

Pavel knows there aren't many people who really appreciate how hard it must be for her to admit that; and he feels more like this is the Twilight Zone than ever before when her hands slip down his arms to rest lightly in his.

"It was her, the queen," he manages; flushed as he is with victory and the rush of narrowly escaping death, there is nothing he could think of that would make him fail to react to this, her small hands warm in his, the length of her leg pressed against his hip, an honesty in her face he hasn't seen since they were friends in the fifth grade.

"It wasn't you," Pavel repeats. "You were controlled."

Uhura smiles self-consciously, her eyes dropping to their hands. "Thanks," she says quietly.

Pavel grins, unexpectedly close to laughing. "For forgiving you, or for saving the world?" he teases, hopping to his feet and offering her a hand up.

"Take your pick," she says dryly, squeezing his hand before using it to pull herself to her feet.

On the first floor of the school, Christine Chapel wakes up with a splitting headache, her limbs splayed out around her, every nerve in her body tingling, every muscle aching like she'd run a marathon.

She blinks twice, takes a slow, shaking breath, and remembers.

Oh, God, she thinks, feeling a blush burn through her skin as she recalls everything she said and did over the past two days, Oh God as the feeling floods her, the memory of Len McCoy's hands on her, the merciless knowledge that her response to him had almost nothing to do with the alien inside her.

She gets unsteadily to her feet. She remembers falling, but little else after that; how she got from the stairwell to the east wing of the school is a blur. Outside the rain has slightly abated, and out the window she can see her aircar still sitting where she parked it that morning. The key is in her pocket, and as her fingers close around it she feels the weight of her exhaustion. Home, and a bath, and then bed, she thinks decisively.

Christine heads toward the door, her feet still a little unsteady, a chill prickling her bare arms. She turns, wild fear starting in her heart as she hears a step behind her.

"Miss Chapel," says McCoy, shoving his hands in his pockets with an unhappy expression. He looks nervous. And so he should be, she thinks, suppressing a surge of panicked laughter. "You're." He pauses. "You're okay."

She nods, but doesn't think either of them are convinced. "Yep. Just heading home." If she can make it to her car; if she can remember how to drive it. He opens his mouth and then closes it again, looks at the floor and then back at her. They speak at the same time.

"Do you think I could borrow your--"

"I could give you a--"

They both stop mid-sentence, looking and feeling awkward, and Christine makes sure to speak first. "Can I borrow your comm to call a cab? I don't... I don't think I should be driving right now."

Len's mouth relaxes, not quite a smile, but not the pained expression he's been wearing. "Yeah, sure. But I could-- I mean if you want-- I could just drive you."

Her mouth is halfway to forming a polite refusal when she stops herself. She stops, and lets herself look at McCoy without flinching. He looks different, she realizes; beyond the bloodstains on his shirt and the fatigue drawn clearly through every line of his body, he looks more vulnerable than she's ever seen him. He looks like he's been through hell and back, and like he can see she's been there too.

So she changes her mind, closes her mouth, and nods.

His car is slower than hers, than any aircar would be, but Christine doesn't mind. The motion is soothing, and she curls up in the passenger seat with her cheek against the leather. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, after ten minutes of driving in silence with the streetlights streaking her vision yellow.

He glances at her with amusement in his eyes. "I think I've got more to be sorry for," he admits, and they pass beneath a light that lets her see his face darken with a flush.

"Maybe. Maybe not." She pauses, stifles a yawn, and adds in a murmur, "I didn't mean what I said."

He turns to look at her again, that haunted sadness in his eyes, and shrugs. "You weren't wrong."

"Doesn't make it okay." She'd never spoken like that to anyone before, and hopes she never does again. "There are better ways of standing up for myself."

He snorts, an actual grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. She wants him, she realizes abruptly, and doesn't even bother scolding herself about it. She's not ready to put a name to everything that's happened over the past few days, but she knows it's big enough that admitting she's attracted to one of her students is small potatoes beside it. She doesn't care right now about anything beyond knowing what's real, and the way her stomach flutters at the dark sweep of his hair over sharp green eyes is definitely, definitely real.

"Here you are," Len says, breaking into her thoughts as the car pulls to a stop in front of her apartment building. She doesn't feel ready to be alone yet; the thought of going up there by herself is intimidating. But Christine knows there's nothing to fear in her apartment, nothing to fear anywhere that could be worse than what she's been through.

"Thank you," she says, putting her hand on the door handle, steadying herself to open it. Her pulse beats wildly in her throat as she turns back, pushes off of the door and closes the distance between them, one hand on his chest and her lips pressed soft against his. One arm comes around her waist, holding her lightly, keeping her from backing away, and when she breaks away to breathe she lets her head drop to his shoulder. This is real, she says to herself. You're alive and you're okay and it's over.

They sit that way for a few minutes, her nose pressed against his neck, his breath stirring her hair, marveling at the comfort she takes from his touch, until she's ready to move again. She sits up, feeling how warm her face is, embarrassed but still smiling for the first time. "Thanks," she says again, and this time Len grins, full and sincere.

"Yeah, you're welcome, Miss Chapel," he says wryly, and she blushes again.

Spock walks home alone. It is too late for the BART and he finds it foolish to pay for a cab when the distance is negligible. He had left the school only after the police did, after he and Chekov had given statements and shown them the carcass lying desiccated among the twisted ruins of the bleachers.

They were lucky to have proof, Spock thinks, such proof that nothing could refute. Otherwise they might be on their way to the police station right now to answer for Principal Robau's death. Instead Spock walks steadily on in the wet evening air, free and calm and turning over the events of this week in his mind.

His jaw still aches from Kirk's punch. He rubs it meditatively as he walks, arms folded around himself. It is October, and already chilly.

He walks up the street toward his house, his mind elsewhere; not exactly an excuse for why he does not look ahead at the figure lounging in the soft light thrown by the lamppost at the foot of his driveway, and only looks up (his head whipping up, startled) at the voice that addresses him.

"You walked home?" Kirk looks uncomfortable, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched, but his eyes are clear. He looks like he ran here from the school; the collar of his shirt is spattered with blood, and his hair has been swept and ruffled by the wind, or perhaps his fingers, til it nearly stands on end.

"It was not far. Why are you here?" Rude, he knows, but he cannot fathom why Kirk would have done this-- why he is not at home seeing to his family, or at the very least resting. They have all been through quite an ordeal.

Kirk only shrugs in response. "Talked to McCoy. He says you, uh. You got bit. But Chekov got her, right? It was Nancy." He shakes his head, and Spock sees the baffled shock in his eyes.

"Yes, it was Nancy. The alien appears to have possessed the real Nancy Crater, who died some time ago, and the alien kept her form when it came here, deeming this a more prime environment to facilitate the spreading of its parasites." Spock is glad to have facts, takes refuge in them, in being the one with information. It helps give him a buffer of sorts, between himself and the stricken look on Kirk's face.

"Jesus," the other boy mutters, running a hand through his hair. "That's... intense." He drops his hand back into his pocket, turns his direct gaze on Spock's face. He says nothing further, however, and Spock finds himself increasingly unnerved by the depth of that stare.

Finally the silence stretches on so long he feels he will snap if it is not broken, and Spock allows himself to voice a question he has been mulling for some time. "What did you mean, earlier," he says, almost impatiently, "implying we would have reason to speak after tonight?" He is fairly certain Kirk only said it to prevent his following him outside-- an illogical thought, why it worked Spock has not yet analyzed.

He is not expecting to see Kirk's eyes widen, his chin jerk up in surprise. "I-- why wouldn't we have-- what, you were planning never to talk to me again?"

Spock's exhalation has more of frustration in it than he intended. "I did not say that."

"You didn't answer the question either," Kirk points out quickly, crossing his arms with a defiant expression.

Spock is becoming rapidly impatient, both with this conversation and his inability to control it. "There is no logical reason for you to seek out my company. You have never done so before, and simply because chance brought us both into the same circumstances--"

"You talk a lot of crap, you know that?" Kirk interrupts him, grinning. Spock cannot understand what is funny; he is speaking only the truth, whatever his personal opinions or wishes on the subject might be, and in any case he is hardly about to intimate those details to Kirk.

"Your meaning is unclear," he says bluntly, hands fisted tightly at his sides.

"You're annoyed that I'm not the idiot you always thought I was. It fucks with your worldview or some shit," Kirk replies with a careless shrug. "Which is cool and all, except you're not the only one who's had to reevaluate the entire fucking world in the past three days."

He circles around and Spock is forced to turn, putting the height of the brick wall at his back. He is tense and his pulse is quick; he does not know what to do besides stubbornly, belligerently, protest. "I fail to comprehend how your altered viewpoint would affect--"

He's cut off as Kirk gives an exasperated sigh and moves, getting up in his space the way he had in the foyer of the school, crowding him up against the wall with nowhere to go. "Shut up," he directs, one hand curling around Spock's neck, the other thumb tracing below his lower lip, and Spock would like to say something simply to be contrary, but he is finding it difficult to speak.

He swallows hard, feeling his fingers tremble, and there's a second where Kirk is just looking at him; and then his brain simply stops functioning, his body takes over, a hand at Kirk's shoulder and the other wrapped around a handful of his shirt, pulling them together in a harsh, messy kiss. His brain catches up then and instantly panics; he drops his hands to his sides, thinking to back away, but Kirk only moves closer, callused hands at his nape, in his hair, making him shiver. He has never been kissed like this, has so rarely been kissed at all that he is quickly overwhelmed by the sensation of Kirk's body pressed against his, and breaks away with a gasp for breath.

Kirk stands back, grinning, looking irrepressibly pleased with himself. "Well shit," he says, and Spock can see he is trying to catch his breath as well, "if I'd known that was all it took to get you to stop arguing with me..."

He lets the statement hang, and Spock crosses his arms over his chest, his chin lifted with a defiance he does not truly feel, especially not since he can tell he is still flushed, visibly affected. He speaks and knows the amusement in his voice is noticeable, which for him is close to laughing. "Unless I am much mistaken, you would be disappointed if I did stop arguing with you."

Kirk's grin brightens; even in the foggy yellow light, it's dazzling. "Yeah, well, what can I say, I'm predictable."

"No," Spock says, thoughtfully honest. "You are not."

It's all been saved, with exception for the right parts.
When will we be new skin?

In early November Jim Kirk sits outside on the bleachers after school, watching the football team practice with a cup of coffee steaming beside him and Tearfly's Transplane Life open on his knee. The sounds of practice are comforting in a weird way, hearing Nero yelling and cursing and looking fit to burst a blood vessel; familiar, yet he's indescribably glad not to be experiencing it up close.

"McCoy seems to have adapted well to Nero's coaching methods," says Spock quietly from behind him. Jim turns a little, grinning over his shoulder, then looks back to where the would-be scientist is yanking off his helmet, giving the coach the finger behind his back.

"Yeah," he agrees, nodding. He squints across the field; is that Miss Chapel sitting on the other side? He'd say for sure it was, except she definitely just waved at McCoy when he looked her way. Shaking his head, Jim looks back over his shoulder and adds, "I didn't realize you were there."

"You were absorbed," the Vulcan says absently. "I must admit I am impressed by your choice of reading material and did not wish to distract you from it." Jim's a little proud of that, he's gotta admit. Spock also has a book open in front of him, in some strange language Jim doesn't recognize. His eyes drift back to the field as the players line up again, his eyes following their formation. After a moment Spock speaks again. "You do not miss it?" It's not hard to guess what he means.

Jim twists his torso around all the way then, draping an arm dramatically over Spock's book and resting his chin on it, eyes sparkling upward. "Not a bit." He means it, too; it's so god-awfully cheesy, but he's been happier in the last month than he can ever remember being. He thinks the same's probably true for Spock too, and both of them remember what it was like having that treacherous little voice in the back of their minds, whispering.

Down on the field practice is breaking up, and McCoy ditches his helmet in the hands of a freshman who's too nervous to tell him to take it back into the locker room himself. He's got kind of a reputation now; they all do, all five of them, no one at the school wants to say boo to them even if they don't believe the rumors. The only people besides the five of them who saw Nancy in all her tentacled glory were the ones who saw her dead in the gym after Chekov got done with her, and even that was mostly confined to the cops.

McCoy doesn't give a shit. He doesn't act any different (except for playing football, and sticking to the deal he made with Nero to stop selling drugs) but he feels different. He hasn't bothered to analyze why; it's not his strong suit, and he's not really interested in mining the depths of his feelings. Life's good, and it doesn't need to get more complicated than that.

He saunters out to the parking lot, grinning when he sees the blue car idling next to his. He sidles up between the two vehicles, tugging a cigarette out of his pocket. "Didn't you get off work like three hours ago?"

Miss Chapel-- Christine-- leans on her lowered window and smiles, blushing a little. McCoy wishes he didn't find that insanely cute, but he does. "I did."

"And you're hangin' around here 'cause-- what, you're so transfixed by me bein' a productive member of society?" He snorts, trying to play it cool, seeing if there's a chance he'll actually stop thinking about what'll happen when they meet up later.

She shrugs, the flush deepening. "Maybe."

McCoy grins. He knows this is something that could get them both in trouble, but it's hard to bring himself to care. His last girlfriend got impersonated by an alien that tried to take over the world; weighed against that, having a case of 'hot for teacher' is something he's definitely not worried about.

"Well I'm done being a good little schoolboy for today," he says, heading around the front of the car and opening the drivers' door. "I'll see you later." It's sort of a question, but the way she grins at him is all the answer he needs.

As he's leaving the parking lot, McCoy passes a line of news vans, each from a different network. The anchors are outside with their cameramen, each scanning the crowd of kids milling around outside. The target of their scrutiny is sitting at a table behind a tree, safely out of sight.

Pavel looks up as a padd gets tossed down in front of him, the screen sliding from one magazine cover to the next, all showing his face and various headlines decrying or praising him with equal vehemence.

"How does it feel to be a hero?" Nyota asks, dropping down beside him. Her hair's swept back off her face in a high ponytail; she's been wearing it like that a lot lately. Pavel likes it, thinks it makes her look more serious, more tough.

"It is... alright, I guess," he says, considering. "I don't know. It is... different." The best part hasn't been the publicity or the money or even the way things with Nyota are developing. The best part about the last four weeks has been the power he feels, the lack of fear.

They've talked about it a few times, just between the two of them, in private. She feels it too. She's talked a little about what it was like being controlled, but she doesn't remember a lot and Pavel thinks that's for the best. They're both living a little freer these days. Nancy's words haven't left him, and most of the time he thinks they probably never will.

Pavel wonders what she'd think if she knew; he's not afraid anymore, but it's not because she gave him guts. It sounds so fucking corny, but what she proved to him was that he'd had them all along.

"Your fan club's here again," says Nyota, leaning back to peer around the tree. One of her hands got tangled with his while he was thinking, and she gets to her feet, pulling him with her.

"I don't," he starts, but she's leading him away from the cameras, back toward the school. Her arm slips around his shoulders and he lets his hand settle around her waist. "You know, Uhura, you can be sort of cool sometimes," he tells her, looking up with an affectionate smirk.

"It's Nyota," she murmurs, her smile easy and content, a slight flush darkening her cheeks as she turns to brush her lips against his. As they pass through the door of the school she adds, "Things sure have changed."

No, Pavel thinks. They are just as they always were.

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