Spock examined the remnants of the stone circle in the distance. Some ancient human culture had erected it and every culture since had theorized about their motives. He felt the various theories were far more useful in assessing their creators than the stones.

He took a deep breath and examined his companions.

Dr. McCoy was glaring at their captain while the younger man sat cross legged on the ground. The doctor's agitation was quite visible. He was making no effort to hide it. He paced and rubbed at the back of his neck. He muttered under his breath, forgetting, as humans were inclined to do, that Vulcan hearing made such a practice less than effective. As the day progressed, McCoy's concerns pushed him toward aggression.

James Tiberius Kirk was oddly still. The man was almost always moving, so this prolonged period of peaceful meditation was unusual. McCoy's concerns about unusual behavior seemed valid. The captain was not behaving within his usual parameters.

"There is nothing here." McCoy hissed under his breath. "We've scanned it. We've tromped about like fools. I'm a doctor not a farm animal."

Spock looked over at the doctor and raised an eyebrow. He saw the moment McCoy realized his mutterings were loud enough for others to hear. The quick heat in the man's cheeks was accompanied by further irritation.

"We need to get him back to London." The doctor gestured to the captain with one hand. "This isn't healthy."

"When he accepts that his visions are false, he will leave." Spock looked toward the sun as it slanted through the stones. "If we try to force him, he will return without us."

Jim listened as his companions chatted about him, but he didn't care. They'd scanned everything around him. They'd measured every level and even scanned a sheep or two. They were depending on logic, science, and medicine.

He was putting his faith in instinct.

He'd done it for most of his life, and it had never led him wrong. He took a deep breath in and held it. There was something in the air here. He could smell it. There was a hint of something smoke like underneath the damp green all around them. It teased at his mind and sparked at the edge of his vision. His fingers moved occasionally as eddies of that something seemed to brush against them.

His companions were humoring him. He knew they thought this was stress related. He wasn't a fool. He took a deep breath and held it in his lungs for a bit before letting it flow out slowly over his lips.

They would be surprised.

She was here somewhere. Hermione. The woman he kept seeing in flashes of laughter and joy was here. It made no sense, but he knew it was true.

"We've been here for hours, Jim." Bones stepped closer to him. "Maybe we should head back. Have some lunch."

"I'm not hungry." Jim pushed the words through his teeth. "I want to be here."

"Well, you want to be flat out crazy." Bones snarled and paced around him. "This is madness and not the good kind."

"Then let me be mad." Jim looked up into the hazel eyes of his friend. "Let me have this little bit of crazy. I can't explain it to you. This isn't something I can share."

"Why?" Bones planted his hands on his hips and glared down at Jim. "I'm here. I'm trying to help, but, damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor not a mind reader."

"As edifying as this discourse must be for you both, I think we may have a situation that needs our immediate attention." Spock stepped into Jim's field of vision. "There is some observable time dilation between this region and that of the stone circle."

"That can't be." Bones spun around and looked at the stones. "You can't see that, not even with your Vulcan eyesight."

"The shadows no longer align." Spock gestured toward the shadow of one of the stones with a quick movement of his arm. "I imagine you can see that with your own human eyes."

While Spock and Bones argued, Jim steadied his breathing and tried to focus on that whisper of something dancing in the back of his mind. Pain lanced up through his body from his gut. He felt like something huge was anchored to him and an odd force was winding the reel inside his body.

His skin flashed hot in the cool air. He felt sweat sliding down his face, but he could not raise his hands to wipe at it. It felt like he was trapped between two pieces of hull plating during a shield test. Each breath he managed to drag into his lungs burned.

Closing his eyes, Kirk leaned forward and concentrated on the pain and the odd draw behind it. There was something just beyond his reach, something he needed. He ignored the pain and concentrated on drawing that something closer.

Spock grabbed Bones and dragged him back as blue flames danced along their captain's body. He blinked twice and watched something that he had believed to be a legend of his father's culture happen in front of him. The fire danced around James Kirk, but it didn't burn him.

"Let me go." McCoy fought his hold. "Jim's in trouble. He's burning."

"No." Spock looked over the doctor's shoulder. "He is the source of the flame, but he isn't fuel for it."

"What green goblin nonsense are you spouting, Spock?" McCoy pushes against the Vulcan's arms. "There's fire all around him."

"He is unharmed, but there is no guarantee that those flames would leave us without injury." Spock took a deep breath. Controlling his emotions was far more difficult in the face of this proof that his people's deeper legends were factual. "It is likely a transformative fire. We must not interfere."

"There is no such thing as transformative fire. Spontaneous combustion was debunked centuries ago." Bones flailed and fought against him. "We need to help him."

"We must not. We have no evidence that any action we might take would actually help him." Spock pulled them both back another step from their captain.

"We should try." McCoy sagged against him. "We have to try."

Spock watched as the flames flared brighter and felt helpless. Logic offered no comfort to him. He longed for his mother's illogical faith.

The earth pulsed under his fingers and the pain began to fade. He felt something settle under his skin as if it had always belonged. The pull inside him eased, and he opened his eyes. A trilithon stood as a doorway into a cave. It looked to be made of bluestone, but it was heavily carved.

"What in blazes is that?" Bones sounded panicked. "We've fallen down some sort of rabbit hole now."

Jim took a deep breath and pushed his body up until he was on his feet again. He felt something deep in the ground pulsing up and through him. A welcome.

"Croeso." He whispered the oddly familiar and unfamiliar word. The land welcomed him in some odd way; a child born amongst the stars, a man always searching.

He dragged another breath in through his nose and expelled it through his lips. The odd scent of fire disappeared and left the scent of something warm, and comforting. He moved toward the cave easily. He heard Bones and Spock arguing and trying to reach him, but they were not of this place. They couldn't interfere without his consent. He stepped up to the great stones and laid his hand upon one. He felt the power welling up from the ground flow through him and into the stone before he stepped through the henge into the darkness.