Disclaimer: I continue to Not own Star Trek, the Original Series or otherwise.

A/N: ...Hey. Sorry it's been a few months. In addition to my usual excuse of school, I just had a ton of trouble finding the ending for this chapter. As such, and I have to apologize again, this is the shortest chapter of Curious Case yet (I think). It's also probably fair that I have literally no idea where I'm going with this. It was planned as a series of silly vignettes about a cat, and that's probably how it's going to stay. So...sorry for a third time, I guess.

Now, onward!

For the third time that hour, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott heard something from inside the jeffries tube. The first two times, Scotty hadn't been sure he had heard something at all. It was a subtle noise that could have just been the hum of the ship or a hiss of hydraulics, but with it's third occurrence, Scotty was sure that something was in there. Grumbling that if he found someone trying to build a still in a jeffries tube again he'd give the engineering staff a talking to they'd never forget - why anyone thought putting alcohol in a maintenance structure was a good idea was beyond him; if they wanted a still they could very well do it somewhere else. He was using a hollowed out wall panel himself - Scotty went to investigate.

What he found was a pair of yellow eyes looking down at him. Scotty's own widened in surprise.

"What is a cat doing on the Enterprise?" Scotty blinked "Tell me laddie, what are you doing on this ship?"

The cat meowed and sniffed Scotty's nose.

"Well you can't stay in here; people do maintenance in these things. Come 'ere." Scotty scooped up the cat from his perch. The cat protested briefly, trying to hold onto the ledge he had made home on, but his stubby legs betrayed him and he lost his grip. Scotty chuckled. Regardless of where the cat had come from, he was a cute little bugger. Maybe he could ask the Captain if he could keep him…?

After an hour or so of doing paperwork with a lapful of happily purring orange, Scotty set out to do just that. He scooped the cat up into his arms, chuckled to himself, and headed for the upper decks. It would be nice to have a cat around again. He was just passing the science labs when-

"Oh thank goodness! You found Russia!" Chekov looked like he could cry in relief. Scotty's heart sank, even as part of him doubled over in laughter at the name.

"Oh. He's yours then?"

"No, no! I just brought him aboard. He's actually-"

They were interrupted by Russia vaulting himself out of Scotty's arms. He shot like a phaser blast to the lab doors - and much to Scotty's eternal surprise - jumped into a resignedly waiting Spock's arms.

"Mr. Scott," Spock nodded in greeting. He then nodded to Russia, who was trying to rub his face against Spock's. "A birthday gift from Mr. Chekov."

"Oh!" Scotty briefly found himself at a loss for words. "...Well, ah, if you need any advice, I know all about taking care of one of these little fuzzballs. Had a cat named Midgie growing up, though the was a fair bit greyer and longer legged than Russia here."

Spock nodded again. "My thanks, Mr. Scott."

By the longing note in the engineer's voice, Spock was not at all surprised when Scotty turned up at his door with what might have been the largest cat condo in the known universe and a 'Fleet insignia shaped tag two days later. He did, however, raise an eyebrow at the tag's reading "Lt. Russia."

A/N: ...Let's just say I'm excited to do the chapter with Bones.

In other news, and by news I do mean shameless self advertisement, I've got another Trek fic in the works - one that's considerably more serious than this one. I'm working on a Star Wars fic too, but that one might be sillier than this one. Also, if any of you are into M*A*S*H and you like my writing, I just posted a fic for it! Thanks again!