AN: Hey all! I got really bored, this was sitting around on the HD, and I wanted to finish the story I started in the last part of A Girl Named Jim. The central story was complete, but I had more ready to go. Here it is! This story is part of the AGNJ storyline but a stand-alone of sorts. Enjoy!

Chapter One

After returning safely home, Jim Kirk and her officers were relieved when they started landing research missions that took them nowhere near the Neutral Zone or anywhere there might be marauding Klingons or Romulans waiting to ambush the not-so unsuspecting Enterprise. As part of this string of missions, the Enterprise was assigned to explore a region of space in Sector 441 better known as the Briar Patch. Time to chart anomalies in a region of space that was pretty much one massive anomaly. The Klingons called the place Klach d'kel Bracht, the Federation called it the Briar Patch, and it was just one, big, astronomical booby-trap. Supernovae leftovers, metaphasic radiation, and false vacuum fluctuations were just a few of the joys awaiting them in the Briar Patch.

When Jim received these particular orders, she read them and went straight to Sickbay, where she found her husband doing paperwork.

"It had better be important." He snarled as she coded his door with her override and stepped into the office. Jim snickered.

"You are such a joy at 1030 in the morning." She teased, smiling when he glared at her, "Who pissed you off? It's a little early for you to start hating the universe, isn't it?"

"Neilson."

"Again? What'd he do this time?" Jim could only imagine. Jack Neilson, lovingly called Cupcake, had a propensity for pissing off the Senior Officers by doing something incredibly stupid. What was so sad was the fact that he could do it almost without trying.

"I'll say this. He may be eighteen, and therefore the youngest officer in Starfleet, he may be skinny as a fucking beanpole, he may have a speech impediment because of his accent and psychological trauma as a child, but you do not call Pavel Chekov a stuttering Rusky kitten and think he'll just stand there and take it."

"Excuse me?" JIm bristled, a natural reaction when there was any mention of Trouble, thy name is Chekov.

"Nielson showed up about ten, fifteen minutes ago covered in scratches. Arms, hands, face, he was in pretty bad shape."

"Scratches?" Jim frowned, "What'd he do, make a pass at one of the girls or something?"

"No, that would have been understandable, even permissible." Bones smirked, "No, I had to treat Lieutenant Neilson for a case of CSF." Jim thought about that for a minute before she started laughing. Bones had treated her for the same malady after a mishap with Spock, who wouldn't come out of his quarters for three days after.

"Cat-scratch fever? Oh, lordy! Who clawed Neilson?"

"Come 'ere, I'll show you something." Bones got up and she followed him out of the office. A large male Siamese with pale green foot-pads and nose and a decidedly green cast to his fur greeted them. Jim smiled and reached down.

"There you are, Commander. I was beginning to wonder where you'd gone off to."

"My apologies, Captain. I've been keeping an eye on Ensign Chekov for Doctor McCoy." Spock settled onto her shoulder, his usual perch when he was in Phase, Jim thought of something Bones had said regarding Chekov and frowned. Going into one of the exam rooms, she found Hikaru Sulu sitting on the exam bed, cradling a calico kitten. Spock jumped from his perch and sat on the bed beside them.

"Oh, Chekov! You poor thing!" Jim was horrified.

"I am wery sorry, Keptin. I didn't mean to cause so much trouble for Lieutenant Neilson." Chekov looked at her with sad green eyes. Jim reached for the kitten.

"Here, Lieutenant, I'll take him."

"Be gentle, Captain." Sulu warned as he surrendered little Chekov. Jim just smiled and took Chekov into her arms. Spock watched, tail and ears twitching. It was only a matter of time before Chekov was purring in her arms. He turned out to be a cuddler and rested his paws on her shoulder and tucked his head under her chin.

"I'll be damned." Bones chuckled, "Would you look at that?"

"There it is, Chekov. You're alright now." Jim smiled and cuddled with her navigator for a few minutes.

When Jim left Sickbay, Spock trotted along at her heel, Chekov rode on her shoulders, and Bones and Sulu took their places to her left and behind her. Rounding up Scotty and Uhura, Jim got them all to Conference Room 6 to tell them about their orders.

"Wait a minute. Where are we going?" Bones looked less than thrilled. Jim snickered.

"Klach d'kel Bracht." She folded her arms.

"The Briar Patch?" Spock's ears went back. Not a good sign.

"Please don't tell me this is Starfleet Command's idea of an easy, low-key research mission."

"Orders from Admiral Pike's desk." She looked at her officers, "There's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"There have been reports of rift anomalies splitting the time-space continuum near one of the two habitable planets. I have a chart of the Briar Patch and I've worked out where the anomalies have been appearing in the last few days." She pulled up the map on the projector, pointing out the anomalies, "They seem to be concentrated within a few hundred klicks of this planet."

"That's Anyarr, some people call it the Fountain of Youth." Sulu frowned at the rotating world.

"Very good, Mr. Sulu. I've also heard it called Devil's Eden. That's where we're going."

"Getting there, no problem." Scotty folded his arms across his chest, "What about when we get there?"

"We'll have to run at less than one-third impulse to keep our manifolds from overheating."

"There's reasons people don't go in there, sweetheart."

"We have orders, we're going in."

"I don't like it." Bones grouched. Jim rolled her eyes.

What are you so happy about? He snapped.

I knew you'd react that way. Like you always said, Bones, space is disease and danger wrapped up in silence and darkness.

Yeah, don't remind me. Bones grumped. Jim snickered on his behalf, knowing he hated that.