AN: I've decided that my muse is like a mismatched sock. You know, the one that's shiny and new in the beginning and you wear for a few times and then it loses its partner in the wash and sits in your draw for a little while until you dig it out again. Then you pair it with another mismatched sock and wear it for a bit and then it ends up under your bed where it sits gathering dusts until you clean your room and throw it in the wash and then it sits in your drawer and the whole thing is a vicious cycle, really, and you only end up wearing the sock a few times. That's my muse. And I'm pretty sure it's been under the bed for however long its been since I've updated. But I really really do want to finish this story, and I do have it planned until the end. So I'm terribly sorry to keep you all waiting so long, but with many apologies and freshly baked cookies, here's chapter nine.

Trigger – Chapter 9

Marisa inhaled. She took a step. She exhaled. In and out, in and out, she told herself, the air whoosing through her lungs in time with her footsteps. That was about the only thing she could hear right now – her steady, even breathing and their footsteps as they made their way down to blinding white corridor.

The slightest movement of his arms caused her wrists to chafe against their restraints; she could feel the skin being rubbed raw. No matter how many ways she twisted them, however, they stayed put. Clearly, the Talosians had known they would hold – they had done nothing to stop her. It didn't help that her arms were behind her back, either. Marisa couldn't even see what bound her wrists, which was making it difficult to try and get out of it.

That was really her only option, she realized. She had to escape. Spock had said that the Talosians would observe their emotions, but Marisa had paid close enough attention in the Academy to know that the human definition of 'observing' didn't always match up with other species'. In Marisa's world, 'observing' didn't involve any sort of probe.

She wondered briefly where they were taking them. They had passed quite a few doors since they had left their white-walled prison, just like the plain silver one that she had exited from. The hallway seemed never-ending, curving slightly to the right as they walked forward. Were they headed to a lab, maybe? Or some sort of observation room?

In and out, she told herself, concentrating on her breathing. That way, she didn't have to think about other things – like the fact that they were imprisoned on a strange ship by potentially dangerous creatures that wanted something from them. She knew, deep in the back of her mind, that there was a very good chance she would never make it back to the Enterprise. Her breath hitched in her throat, the rhythm breaking. She might never go back.

Her eyes cut sideways, landing on Kirk's face. Unlike her, he was facing straight ahead, his chin jutted outward. If his hands hadn't been behind his back and two Talosians hadn't been flanking him, he would have looked like he was walking into the bridge on the Enterprise, ready for another day of ordering everyone around.

No, she told herself, pressing her lips together tightly. He didn't just arbitrarily order people around. He was trying to help. He was trying to prevent them from doing stupid things like getting captured by big-headed bozos who didn't even speak English. He was trying to keep them from getting killed.

And what had she done? She had argued with him. She had fought back, daring to think that she, a cadet fresh out of the Academy, might know a thing or two more about Starfleet than Captain James Tiberius Kirk. It was easy now, in the silence, to realize how stupid she had been. The bright light that washed over the ship – yet seemed to have no particular origin – made things abundantly clear.

In the din of the mess hall, however, or the shadowy corridor outside his room, things were different. He wasn't trying to save their lives when he asked her to dinner. He wasn't trying to run his ship when he called her child.

"You know him." Nyota's words floated through her head. "He teases people, he pushes buttons. That's what he does." And Marisa, with her too-short temper and her knack for always taking things a bit too seriously, had been offended. So she snapped back. She sighed, softly enough to not break the silence that had settled over them. Why couldn't she had just rolled her eyes at Kirk's antics like everyone else and gone back to work? Why did he rile her up so much?

He was still looking straight ahead, and it was odd to see his lips not curled up in their familiar smirk. Well, he hadn't been smirking much lately, she realized. In fact, the last time she had seen his eyes dancing as he teased her was….oh God. It had only been earlier that evening. At least that's when Marisa thought it was. She wasn't quite sure how long they had been out under the effects of the Talosians' poison. It could be next week for all she knew.

Suddenly, Kirk's head swiveled towards her. Once again, Marisa found that her steady, even breathing jolted - a quick gasp threw a wrench in the pattern. As her eyes met his electric blue ones, she saw not mocking laughter or even the righteous anger they had been burning with earlier. She saw a plan.

He jerked his head to the side slightly, towards the Talosian next to him. "On three." His lips shaped the unspoken words, and Marisa inclined her head in understanding. This was going to be their only chance at escape, their only chance to help the others get off the ship. They would have to attack at precisely the same time, and there couldn't be any screw-ups. Marsia frantically wracked her brain for what little she could remember from her hand-to-hand combat classes. After all, she was a Weapons Officer – she always felt better with a gun in her hand.

What should she do first? Elbow? Kick? She couldn't do much with her hands behind her back, so she was going to have to get creative. She eyed one of the Talosians curiously. Did their extra-large brains make their craniums extra-weak? The skin looked thin, but she wasn't sure whether or not the skull was too. Marisa didn't have any more time to think, however, because Kirk started counting. One. She tensed slightly, her steps slowly imperceptibly as she watched his thin lips curve around the numbers. Two. This was their chance. Three.

Without warning, Marisa stopped, kicking out at the creature at her side. She wasn't quite sure what the anatomy of a Talosian was, but tried to aim for what she thought was the gut. A low grunt and a shock spreading from the toes of her Starfleet boots up her leg told her she had hit her mark. She jabbed her elbow out on the other side, but her guard was been ready – he grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her painfully.

"Argh!" She cried out, her body twisting with her arm. This was not the time to break something. She kicked out blindly, trying to connect with any part of her captor. There was a sickening crunch, and suddenly her elbow was released. Marisa gasped, taking a deep breath as she wriggled her arm as best as she could in her current position. In that split second, however, the first Talosian had advanced again, his hands reaching out to grab her.

"No you don't!" Marisa cried, running the last few steps between them and slamming into the figure with as much force as she could throw. It wasn't much – he was much taller than her, after all – but the element of surprise was enough to make his stumble backwards. She kicked out again, aiming at his knees. Another crunch, and his legs buckled underneath him. She chanced a glanced over her shoulder, her eyes catching sight of Kirk clobber a Talosian over the head with his wrists still bound. The guard slid to the white floor to join his partner. Kirk, without pausing, strode over to where the last Talosian was crawling across the ground towards Marisa, incapable of walking.

"I don't think so," he muttered, knocking him out with a quick blow. An uneasy silence settled over the hallway. The bodies on the floor marred the whiteness around them, like specks of dust on an otherwise clean surface. It made Marisa uneasy.

"Here," Kirk muttered, grabbing her wrists with his own hand, his head craned around as far as he could. "Let me see if I can get this off." It didn't make it easy that they were back to back; Marisa's neck was starting to get stiff from looking over her shoulder, trying to see her wrists to undo the restraint. She could hear Kirk's muffled curses as he tugged at the cuffs, his fingers sliding across her skin.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Marisa steadied her breathing again, letting her pounding blood fade to its normal volume. With a click, the cuffs fell off her wrists, clattering to the floor. Sighing heavily, Marisa immediately pulled her arms in front of her, rubbing the chaffed skin at the base of her hands. It was red and raw, she could see, but it felt so much better already.

"Alright, your turn," she told me, a sliver of a smile gracing her lips as he dutifully spun around, holding her arms out behind him. It was much easier to figure out how to under the cuffs once she could actually see them, and soon Kirk's wrists were free as well.

"Let's go." With those two short words, he was already striding down the hallway.

"Wait!" Marisa called, hurrying after him. His long legs and purposeful gait meant that it took her a few seconds to catch up with him, and when she did he didn't slow. "Wait, Kirk! Where are you going?"

"What do you mean where am I going?" He replied bluntly. "I'm getting off this damn ship."

"But what about the others?" Marisa cried, glancing back over her shoulder. She could still see the Talosians knocked out cold, sprawled across the floor. Somewhere, around the bend, was the silver door that lead to their friends. Kirk was going in the wrong direction.

"We'll get them," he replied. His voice was clipped, and his answers were short. There was no typically long-winded explanation or playful banter. He was wearing that expression again, with his chin out and his eyes hard. Kirk meant business.

"Kirk!" She grabbed his elbow, forcing him to stop in the middle of the hallway. "We can't just leave them there! What if more Talosians come? What if they find the guards knocked out? What if they decided to move everyone to a different cell? What if - "

"Ward." He cut her off mid-tirade. "We'll never be able to get to them if we don't get weapons. They'll be more Talosians, and you're right – the guards won't go unnoticed for long. We need to arm ourselves."

"But what about Sulu? And Spock?" She argued, thinking of them all just sitting in that tiny white room, not knowing what had happened to their crewmates, not knowing what was in store for them. "What about Uhura?"

"We'll get them, Ward!" He was frustrated now. He pulled his elbow from her grip – an easy task for him – and grabbed her by the shoulders. "We need to get guns first, or we'll end up right back in that room with them. And that won't help anyone." His voice was firm. She could feel his fingers pressing into her flesh through the thin fabric of her Starfleet dress, and she was suddenly aware of how close he was standing.

"But the others!" She protested, her brow creasing with worry. She couldn't just leave them there.

"Marisa." His voice was a bit softer now, but she could still hear the undercurrent of authority. She registered, dimly, that he had used her first name. He was staring at her now, his eyes boring into hers. For some strange reason, Marisa didn't look away. His eyes, his too-bright blue eyes, were staring into hers, and Marisa noticed for the first time the gray flecked around the edges.

They were close. Too close. So close that if she lost her footing and fell forward she wouldn't collide with his body at all but fall straight through, into the swirling electric blue in front of her. Somewhere in the back of her brain she realized that she hadn't taken a breath in quite some time, but she couldn't quite seem to get her lungs to work. She was telling them to open, to take in the oxygen swirling around her, but somewhere between the nodes and the synapses and the nerves and the tissues, something got lost in translation.

"Marisa," he said, his voice low and even. "If we want to rescue them , we need to arm ourselves. This is our only chance." She found herself nodding, once again aware of his hands on her shoulders as they squeezed lightly before falling back to his sides.

"You're right," she replied, still a bit dazed. She took a step back, taking a deep breath. In and out, Ward, she told herself. In and out. Setting her jaw, Marisa looked back up at Kirk, a determined glint in her eyes. "Let's go get those guns."

AN: Alright, so it's terribly short, I know, but it's something. I probably should've combined this with the last chapter, but we all know that my muse is a fickle fellow, and I could only get out so much. Hopefully, the next chapter will be a bit longer – and there won't be so long of a wait in between! Also, this chapter is dedicated to Sakura Mikan91, because her lovely message was the impetus for this chapter. Big thanks to her and everyone who has kept reading through all this!