Much Ado About Vulcan (A Spock Love Story) - COMPLETE

The Final Frontier

I sighed to myself. Evidently, this wouldn't go as unnoticed as I had hoped. I put on a face that I hoped looked slightly confused, and replied, leaning my elbow on the desk,

"Shit, yeah. What do you think happened?"

"Sex game gone wrong?"

I snorted out a guffaw of laughter at that answer. She looked at my doubtful expression and gave me a wicked grin.

"Sex game gone right?"

I rolled my eyes at her and took a closer look at the brain, my face flushing. If only she knew how close she had come to the answer. The reason that Leonard's face looked like a boxing champion's was certainly to do with sex, just not his.

"Whatever it was, he looks kinda hot beaten up..." she mused, and I chuckled at her. She wasn't the only one of the students to be attracted to Len. If I had to hear T'yonga say the word 'lumbersexual' one more time I was probably going to punch her.

"Su Ling Kent," Bones yelled, and Su Ling gave me a cheeky wink, sauntering off to Bones' desk, leaving me alone with a lung, a scalpel, and my thoughts... a dangerous combination. I decided to make the most of my time and begun dissecting what remained of the lung. Gorns had unusually large bronchioles, and it was interesting to see the inner workings of the respiratory system. Despite that, there was still a sense of unease in my gut.

I was wondering if Bones would even call on me at all, or just ignore me after what I had said to him on Sunday. After a few minutes, Su Ling returned to our little table, her face practically flushed with excitement.

"Holy crap, Alex, you should see the cerebellum on that thing. It's unreal."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Birchwood," Leonard called.

Ouch, not even 'Alex'. I sighed inwardly and pushed myself up off the desk, slowly walking towards the front of the room, where Bones was leaning against the large table. He saw me coming and averted his eyes. I braced myself for the worst.

"Can you see the hypothalamus, here?" He asked me, pointing to the inside of the pre-dissected brain, refusing to look me in the eyes.

"Bones..."

"What can you tell me about the comparative size of the cerebral cortex?" He ignored me and continued talking, not looking up.

"Bones," I said his name again, with slightly more emphasis. He raised his eyes to look at me, and I noticed a small bruise at the corner of his forehead. His eyes were blank.

"What can you tell me about the comparative size of the cerebral cortex, Cadet?"

"Bones, I'm sorry."

He stood up straight, one of his eyes slightly swollen shut by the bruise. He raised a single eyebrow.

"Cadet..." there was a warning tone to his voice but I ignored it.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said the things that I said. I was wrong."

He looked behind us to see if anybody was taking an interest in our conversation and, satisfied that nobody was, turned to me again, annoyance in his eyes.

"Cadet, this isn't the time or the place..."

"Oh for God's sake, Bones." I muttered, "I know you. If we don't sort this out now we never will."

He rolled his eyes slightly and removed his hands from the large brain on the desk.

"Also," I continued, "Did you seriously get into a fistfight with a Vulcan?"