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spacedogfromspaceThe Doctor, the Hag, and the AU, or, Bones and the Hallmark Christmas Movie Curse
Chapter 11: Shenanigans
Bones recruits Uhura to join in some scheming shenanigans.
Bones could tell that Uhura and Sulu's mission had been a success by their relaxed demeanour as they entered The Coffee Shop in the middle of a conversation.
"I still don't think you needed me there, you did all the talking yourself, and you crushed it," Sulu was saying.
Uhura rolled her eyes and smiled. "I didn't need you to talk, I just needed you to stand there and look pretty."
Sulu laughed. "Pfft, what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Uhura grinned, "that the one organizer, that Ben guy, has a huge crush on you, so I brought you along to help…. sway the negotiations."
"Wow, Nyota," Sulu said, raising an eyebrow. "Quite the manipulation tactics you've got there."
"Yeah, but it worked, didn't it?" Uhura said, shuffling out of her coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. "Anyways, that guy's cute, you should ask him out."
It was then that Jim finally noticed that Uhura and Sulu were back, and he promptly stumbled out of the booth in his scramble to meet them at their table. "So? Is the Winter Carnival going to help us out?" He asked, eagerly.
Uhura grinned at him. "You bet they are," she said, then elbowed Sulu. "You can thank Hikaru here for that."
"Oh, shut up," Sulu said, rolling his eyes. But he was smiling too.
"So," Uhura said, ignoring Sulu. "Everyone needs to show up at the park at ten o'clock sharp. The carnival organizers are going to let us hijack their event to use as a fundraiser, but we've gotta do some volunteer work to staff some of the events."
"That sounds reasonable," Scotty said, and everyone nodded in agreement.
Uhura turned to Spock. "Add something about the Winter Carnival being a fundraising event to your article." When Spock nodded, Uhura clapped her hands. “Right. Class dismissed.”
It was late in the day, and there wasn’t much left to do. The phone calls had died down, and the only task left to be done was the article for the morning paper, which Spock was diligently working away at, joined once more at his booth by Jim. Scotty and Sulu left The Coffee Shop, followed by Chekov after Uhura assured him that she would close up shop herself. Bones lingered near the counter, keeping an eye on Jim and Spock while Uhura shut off machines and wiped them down.
Bones glanced at the big analogue clock on the wall just as it clicked over to seven o’clock. He grimaced. There were only twenty-four hours left to secure his passage home, and tomorrow would be too busy with town-saving to do much match-making. With a sigh, he admitted to himself that he needed some help.
Wandering up to the counter where Uhura was scrubbing away at a sticky spot on the counter, Bones cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, “Need a hand, there?”
Uhura looked up briefly, flashing him a smile before returning to the stubborn spot. “Thank you, but I’m alright. It’s just this sticky spot that’s giving me trouble. I need to remind Pavel to make sure he cleans up any spilt syrup before it dries and fuses to the counter,” she sighed, then gave him a quizzical look. “Not that I mind the company, but what are you still doing here?”
“I’m in no rush to get anywhere,” Bones said, fidgeting as he tried to figure out a way to say what he wanted to say without sounding like a total weirdo. He had a feeling that 'Jim and Spock need to get together in the next twenty-four hours or I'm trapped in your Hallmark Christmas Movie Hell forever, please help me,' wouldn't go down very well. “Those two seem to be getting along,” he finally said, nodding towards the booth that Jim and Spock occupied.
Uhura looked up from her work, tilting her head to get a look over at the booth. She let out a short laugh and shook her head. “That’s Jim for ya, town’s biggest flirt,” she said fondly. “Too bad Spock isn’t staying in town for long, they might have really hit it off.”
“Maybe we can help speed things up,” Bones suggested, giving Uhura a knowing look.
Uhura laughed. “What, like come up with a bunch of schemes to send them on cute little dates all day or something? Get them committed enough to keep seeing each other after Spock goes back to the city?” She asked, grinning in amusement.
Bones knew she was joking, but he shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Uhura’s eyes narrowed as she realized that he wasn’t joking. “I mean, they’ve only known each other for two days,” she said. “Probably best not to push them.”
“Don’t worry, it’s just part of the genre. Are you up for shenanigans, or not?”
“What genre?” Uhura asked, confused. “And what's it to you? You don’t even know them.”
Bones sighed. “One, don’t worry about it, and two, it’s classified. Please help me.” He clapped his hands together in front of him like he was in prayer and grimaced hopefully at her.
Uhura looked at him long and hard, and Bones was certain that she was going to tell him he was a complete weirdo and kick him out of her shop, when she shrugged and said, “Yeah, alright.”
“What?” Bones asked dumbly, surprised.
“I said 'I’m in,'” Uhura repeated. “I could use some distraction from the impending doom of the town, anyways.”
“Huh. Well, thank you,” Bones said, still stunned by the development.
Uhura cracked a smile. “See you tomorrow.”
“Release the child,” Bones said into his walkie-talkie.
“Roger that,” Uhura’s voice replied, crackling through the device, shortly followed by, “Child has been released.”
“Copy,” Bones answered back. He was sitting on a park bench freezing his ass off a ways off from where Jim and Spock were stationed behind a table in front of the hedge maze, where they couldn’t see him, but he could see them. The overhanging branch of a tree leaning out over the bench provided him just the kind of cover he needed for the job.
Jim and Spock had been confused by their assignment of counting the people who went in and came out of the maze. Spock was right, their assignment was illogical, but it was part of the plan, and Uhura wasn’t going to let it fail out of the gate so she came up with a somewhat convincing explanation for the job. Luckily, Jim and Spock didn’t put up much of a fight.
Bones shuffled his feet, hoping to unfreeze his toes a bit, but had no success. He had been sitting there watching the entrance and exit of the maze for about half an hour, waiting for the foot traffic into the maze to slow down enough to trigger the next stage of the plan, in which Uhura pays a child that Jim is familiar with to enter the maze and sneak out the back, making it look like he had never left.
He spotted the kid, who Uhura said was named Kevin, heading for the maze, stopping to talk to Jim for a minute before skipping on into the entrance. Raising his walkie-talkie, Bones reported, “The kid is in the maze.”
“Nice. Give it half an hour before initiating the next phase,” Uhura replied, voice staticy. “Do you remember your script?”
“I remember,” Bones answered. “Can I wait out that half hour somewhere warmer? I think I’m about to lose some toes.”
“Yeah, go warm up,” Uhura said. “Just don’t get lost.”
Bones rolled his eyes and grumbled, peeling himself off the frosty bench and heading for a nice warm shop to loiter in for a while, keeping a close eye on the time as life trickled back into his frozen extremities. Once the half hour was nearly over, Bones braced himself for the cold and journeyed back outside, towards the hedge maze.
Jim looked up at him as he approached, his face breaking into a smile as he waved. “Hey, how’s it going?” He asked cheerily.
“Cold,” Bones mumbled into his scarf. “Anyways, Uhu-” he coughed, covering his mistake “-Nyota sent me to ask if you’ve seen a kid named Kevin around? She said you know him. I guess his mother has been trying to track him down.”
Jim’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Kevin? Yeah, I know him. I talked to him a little while ago,” he said, glancing at Spock, who nodded in confirmation.
“Perhaps half an hour ago,” Spock supplied.
Bones waited for a moment, but it seemed that they had nothing more to say. “Did you see where he was heading next?” He asked with exaggeration, trying to lead them along in the plan.
Jim’s brow furrowed and he glanced briefly at Spock. “Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing him come back out. Did you, Spock?”
Spock shook his head. “I did not. The maze does not take long to complete, he should have found the exit by now.”
Jim frowned. “That’s a bit concerning. Nobody else has gone in there for a while, so if he hurt himself or something, nobody would have come across him.”
“I guess someone should go look for him. It’s pretty cold out to be stuck out in the maze somewhere,” Bones suggested.
Jim nodded, getting to his feet. “Right, I’ll go look. Spock, you stay here, yell if he comes out.”
Shit, Bones thought, in a panic blurting out, “Both of you should go look, I’ll watch your station and let you know if he comes back out.”
“That is unnecessary-” Spock started, but Bones cut him off.
“No, you can have enough eyes in a search party,” he said. “Besides, Jim might get lost in there all by himself.”
“Hey!” Jim protested, but Spock stood up, agreeing with Bones.
“Good luck,” Bones said, waving them off as he sat down in one of the chairs behind the table. He waited for a minute after watching them disappear into the maze, then picked up his walkie-talkie, saying, “Hedge maze date is a go.”
Bones was shivering out by the pond where he and Uhura were keeping an eye on the skates that were borrowed out to the Winter Carnival to rent out to anyone who wanted to skate on the pond. According to Uhura, there were a few takers in the morning, while Bones was out on top secret business, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of interest that afternoon.
“Maybe it’s because of the cold,” Bones guessed, shrugging. “The wind has picked up, it’s chilly out here by the pond.”
“Yeah, but that gives me another idea for getting Jim and Spock out on another mini date,” Uhura said, donning her scheming hat.
Bones frowned at her. “I thought you would be more concerned about the lack of skaters. This is part of the fundraiser, after all.”
Uhura sighed, slumping in her chair. “Look man, it’s kind of out of my hands now. I’m just trying not to stress out about it too much.”
“Understandable,” he said, nodding. “So, what’s your grand idea this time?”
Uhura smiled. “Well, they’re due for a break about now. I’ll summon them,” she said, taking her phone and typing into it. Ten minutes later, Jim and Spock turned up.
“How’s it going out here?” Jim asked as they walked up to join Uhura and Bones.
Uhura shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like a lot of people want to go out there,” she said, nodding her head towards the pond. “I think people don’t want to be the only ones out there. I bet you if there were a couple people out there already, we’d get some takers.”
Jim hummed in agreement. “Yeah, you almost need to plant someone out there.”
Bones rolled his eyes, but Uhura had more self-control. “Hey, that’s a good idea!” She said to Jim, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “You and Spock should get out there for a bit.”
“Well…” Jim said, uncertain.
Uhura punched him in the arm. “Come on, Jim. You’re a good skater. And you guys are on break anyways. It’s perfect! Do it for the town!”
Jim grinned sheepishly. “Well, alright.”
Spock was standing stiffly. “I cannot skate. Perhaps I should stay off the ice.”
“No, you should totally go try it!” Uhura coaxed. “Jim can teach you.”
“It’ll be good for people to see you fall on your ass a bunch of times,” Bones added. “It’ll make them feel less self-conscious about their own clumsy selves.”
Spock was reluctant. “I am unsure if-”
“Come on Spock,” Bones interrupted. “Do you want to save the town or not?” When Spock’s only response was a clenched jaw, Bones clapped him on the shoulder. “I thought so. Grab a pair of skates.”
Spock grimaced, but the nagging from Bones and Uhura paired with a reassuring smile from Jim convinced him to give it a go. Jim walked out onto the ice with confidence, and waited for Spock, who was far less confident. He wobbled on his skates despite not even being on the ice yet, and after shuffling awkwardly to the pond’s edge, he stopped, reluctant to attempt stepping onto the slippery surface.
Seeing his hesitation, Jim glided closer, holding out his gloved hands to Spock, who gave Jim a skeptical look. “Come on, Spock, it’ll be fun,” Jim grinned.
“I have the distinct feeling that I am going to break my neck,” Spock said.
“Oh come on,” Jim teased. “Do you think I’d let you break your neck?”
Spock raised an eyebrow at him. “I am unsure. You hit me with your truck a few days ago, so statistically, I’m going to have to say ‘yes.’”
“Wait, what?” Uhura asked quietly, leaning towards Bones. “He hit him with a truck?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bones whispered back.
Jim threw his hands up in a dramatic imitation of despair. “But I thought we agreed that it wasn’t my fault!” He gave his best puppy-dog eyes.
Spock sighed. “That we did,” he said resignedly, holding his hands out for Jim to take.
Jim grinned, taking Spock’s hands in his own. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall,” he said, then added, “Well, not right away at least.”
With one last apprehensive look, Spock cautiously stepped onto the ice, wobbling on his skates, but Jim kept his word and didn’t let Spock fall… yet, at least. Uhura and Bones watched as Jim skated slowly backwards, towing Spock along with him to the centre of the pond. Once they were out of earshot, Uhura turned to Bones and raised a hand.
“... What?” Bones asked after a beat.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Uhura scoffed, rolling her eyes.
Bones shook his head at himself. “Right,” he muttered, and gave her a high-five, the sound muffled by their gloves. “Well, that went well.”
“I was worried we wouldn’t get Spock out there,” Uhura said, turning back towards the ice, where Spock was still holding tightly to Jim, but awkwardly shuffling his feet as Jim made an attempt at teaching him the basics.
“I didn’t think he’d do it, either,” Bones agreed, thinking about the Spock from his own universe. Would that Spock, who had grown up on the desert planet of Vulcan, be more reluctant than this Spock to step onto the ice? That was something he would have to find out when he returned to his own universe. If he returned.
They watched the two skaters like they were a silent film. They could see them talking and laughing, but were too far away to hear over the wind. Spock had no natural talent when it came to skating, but Jim was patient with him, only letting him go when he thought Spock was ready. Then, he skated lazy circles around Spock as he slowly shuffled his way across the pond, Jim offering encouragement along the way. Bones couldn’t help laughing when Spock inevitably lost his balance and fell, and he was grateful they were out of earshot. As Jim helped Spock back to his feet, Uhura and Bones turned around at the sound of footsteps. A shy group of friends came up to rent skates.
“Well hey, we weren’t bullshitting after all,” Bones remarked to Uhura as the new group of skaters took off along the edge of the pond.
“Two birds with one stone,” Uhura grinned, and they both laughed when Spock fell again, this time grabbing Jim’s sleeve in a panic and dragging him down with him, the two falling onto the ice in an awkward heap. “This is going well,” Uhura commented as she caught her breath.
Bones shook his head, amused. “No kidding.”
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