Author's Note – This is a response to the st xi kink meme prompt - For some reason or another, Spock leaves Starfleet. Months later, the Enterprise crew finds him on New Vulcan, bonded to his former childhood bully and three months pregnant. Problem is, the Enterprise hasn't yet found a good first officer or science officer to replace Spock, and it is blatantly obvious that Spock isn't really happy with his new life either. The Enterprise crew decides to intervene.

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

Leonard McCoy grabbed Jim's bruised face maybe a little harder than he should have, but damn it he was pissed. It was supposed to be a peaceful planet. Yeah, that's what Jim always said.

"Ow! Jesus Christ, Bones!" Jim yelped as Leonard jerked his head this way and that while working the dermal regenerator over his cuts.

Leonard ignored his Captain while the cuts healed themselves; instead, he took a moment to give an appraising glance at their new science officer, Joe Mulligan. Unlike Jim, who was covered in cuts and bruises, Mulligan seemed fine.

"You hurt?" Leonard grunted.

Jim sneered as Leonard finally released his head. "Of course he's not hurt. For that to happen he would have had to pull his head out of the sand."

Mulligan scowled and crossed his arms. "It wasn't like I was cowering. I was providing you with covering fire. You can't be mad at me because I didn't blindly rush head first into the danger like you did."

"Maybe I wouldn't be so mad if you had managed to actually hit something," Jim snapped. "Aiming can be a little difficult when you're screaming in fear with your eyes closed."

Mulligan opened his mouth to respond, but Jim had apparently gotten tired of arguing with him. "You're dismissed." He said curtly and, for a second, it looked like Mulligan was going to defy his Captain's orders and stay. Finally, he snapped his mouth shut and walked off at a brisk pace.

Jim sighed. "What the hell made Spock think he was a good replacement?"

Leonard's stomach did the strange little flip-flop that it always did when someone mentioned the Enterprise's former First Officer. "He is the only one here who can come close to matching Spock's intellect." He answered quietly.

Jim shot him a glare. "Don't tell me you actually like him?"

"I just don't think you're giving him a chance. You want Spock back, we all do, but taking it out on Mulligan isn't going to make the situation any better."

Jim slid off the biobed and began to pace Leonard's sick bay. "I know that, Bones. I know… but, I just don't understand what happened." He stopped his pacing to look at his best friend. "I mean one minute he's fine – we were even starting to become friends – and then he just leaves! Okay, okay, he didn't just leave. I know he said that he needed to go to New Vulcan to help rebuild, and that's fine. Really, it is. But if he really felt that way then why did he come aboard in the first place? Why didn't he just go straight to New Vulcan right after the thing with Nero?" Jim leaned towards Leonard conspiratorially. "Did you know that he met up with some Vulcan scientist on the Dido colony a week before he left? I think he had something to do with this, made him feel guilty for staying on the Enterprise instead of going to New Vulcan or something."

Throughout Jim's tirade Leonard had remained quiet, allowing the guilt inside him to fester. He couldn't take it anymore; he had to tell Jim the truth. "Jim…" Leonard began, taking a deep breath. "There's something you should know: Spock left the Enterprise because of me. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

Jim fell silent. He stared at his doctor uncomprehendingly. "Huh?" He asked.

Leonard shifted uncomfortably. "It was after one those away missions. Spock had gotten hurt… stabbed through the chest."

Jim nodded. "I remember."

"While he was stuck in sick bay we got to arguing. It escalated farther than any of our other fights before, probably because Spock couldn't get out of bed to leave. Anyway… we just… we kissed."

"Kissed?" Jim blinked. "He left because you two kissed?"

Leonard flushed. "It may have been more than just a kiss."

"What? Really? Here in your own sick bay?"

"No! No, we didn't- we didn't do that." Leonard snapped, feeling his face get redder by the minute. He waved his hand in the air absently. "It was just… there was a lot of kissing… and possibly some groping… But the point is he pushed me away and after that he wouldn't willingly be in the same room with me for more than ten minutes. Hell, he wouldn't even look me in the eye…" Again, Leonard felt the rush of guilt, anger, and some other unidentified emotion that he didn't particularly want to examine at the moment.

Jim stood there for a few seconds without saying anything, just staring at Leonard with his hands on his hips. "Okay," he said slowly, carefully. "On the one hand I'm very proud of you. It's not every day your uptight best friend makes out with an equally uptight Vulcan. But on the other hand I am very, very pissed off. We'll be arriving at New Vulcan in a couple of weeks for a supply run. While we're there you are going to fix whatever happened between the two of you, got it?"

Leonard flushed again and nodded. Jim rarely ever used his command voice on him. He sighed to himself as he watched Jim leave. Facing Spock was something he really did not want to do.

ALPHTALPHTALPHT

Leonard gritted his teeth as he stepped off the Enterprise. The heat of this planet was just as hot as it was on the original Vulcan homeworld, but instead of an arid climate the atmosphere was incredibly humid. It was even worse than an August day in Georgia.

Leonard looked around the station, trying to pick out Spock among all the Vulcan faces in the crowd. When it became obvious to him that Spock had decided not to greet his former crewmembers Leonard seethed in anger. So, he had made a mistake, he got that. But not even bother to acknowledge Jim or Uhura just so he wouldn't run into him? That was low.

Before he could find himself too irritated with the Vulcan, Leonard caught sight of an almost-familiar face. Honing in on the alternate universe Spock (or, as Jim had affectionately dubbed him, Old Spock), Leonard marched right up to him and, for once, was too annoyed to feel uncomfortable about being around this not-quite-right-Spock.

"Where can I find Spock?" He asked before Old Spock even had the chance to open his mouth.

One of Old Spock's eyebrows rose at this statement and Leonard groaned. "Not you you… the other you!" He snapped.

If Leonard didn't know any better he could have sworn emotion had just passed over Old Spock's face. "I do not believe it would be wise for you to visit him at the moment."

Leonard took a deep breath and tried to gain control over the volume of his voice. People were starting to stare at them. No doubt they were thinking, Look at that illogical human making a fool of himself… how illogically illogical. "Look…" he began. "I need to make up for what happened."

Old Spock almost looked incredulous then. "Why would you need to 'make up' anything?"

"Because it's my fault… all of it."

Oh yeah, Leonard could definitely see the incredulity in Old Spock's face now. "In that case," Old Spock said. "I will give you directions to where he is living."

It took him a little longer than he thought to find Spock's house. The buildings of New Vulcan were all rather uniform, unlike the beautiful architecture of the original Vulcan planet. There was just not enough time and resources to waste it on non-functional decoration.

Leonard rapped on Spock's door and for a moment wondered if Vulcans knocked on doors or if they had some other way of letting people know that they had a visitor. He was pulled from his musings when the door suddenly slid open. Spock stood there, looking as unflappable as ever and dressed in traditional Vulcan robes. If Leonard wasn't a doctor he probably wouldn't have noticed the slight tell-tale bump that Spock's clothes didn't quite cover.

Leonard pointed to Spock's stomach. "That's not my fault." He stated dumbly.

Spock cocked an eyebrow at him. "Indeed," He said. "I am aware of that. I was there when it happened, after all."