Title:  The Wizard, the Witch and the Whirlwind

Part 4:  Down by the Riverside

Based on The Wizard of Oz  (1939)

Author:  Shoshana

Summary:   Spock and McCoy pay a visit to Jim Kirk at his childhood home in Riverside, Iowa.  But the trio doesn’t remain there.    

Pairings:  S/Mc    Dorothy/original character(s)   K/Antonia

Rating:  PG-13    

Word count:  2800  (Part 4)

Disclaimer:   Brief dialogue quoted/adapted from The Wizard of Oz, screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, based on the children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.   I do not own The Wizard of Oz or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or its sequels.  Nor do I own Star Trek.  Not a molecule, atom, quark or vibrating string of it.

Author’s note:  Thank you to Stef for the beta.  Errors are my own.

The trees of the forest thinned as the travelers reached the edge of the woodlands.  Before them stretched a flat plain, a colorful patchwork quilt checkered with flowers of many colors and dotted with scattered trees.  The yellow brick road wound its way off into the distance. 

“I’m glad to be out of those woods,” Dorothy said, shuddering as she glanced back at the trees.   

“On open ground, we will be more vulnerable to flying monkeys,” Spock pointed out.  He was carrying a makeshift wooden spear, carved earlier by Leonard. 

Spock now accepted the probable reality of Oz.  At Jim’s suggestion, Spock had privately mind-melded with him.  “I am not a hallucination,” Jim had insisted, when he had learned of Spock’s hypothesis that he and Leonard were sharing a hallucination.  Spock had quickly ascertained that Jim was not an illusion, and that his friend was experiencing as real the events in Oz. 

Leonard’s telepathic bond with Spock might explain how they could share an injury-related hallucination, but it could not explain why Jim was experiencing the identical delusion.  The mind meld did not prove the magical land’s reality – Oz could be, like the Wild West scenario they had experienced on Theta Kiokis II, an elaborate illusion created by some outside agency – but Spock was now strongly inclined to believe he and his companions had been transported to a parallel universe when a transporter beam in the process of evacuating them had been disrupted by the massive electromagnetic discharge associated with lightning.  

Jim continued to insist to Leonard as well as to Spock that he had met someone who resembled Dorothy, and also that he had known someone named Simon Head.  Even Jim acknowledged both assertions could be true without it being evidence he had ever met a twentieth century Kansas farm girl or her uncle’s hired hand.  To Jim’s frustration, the brief mind meld Spock had performed had not been deep enough to access memories half-buried in his subconscious. 

Avoiding those latent memories had been intentional on Spock’s part, although he had employed the valid excuse they lacked the time and privacy for a more extensive mind meld.  Spock had formulated a hypothesis which could account for Jim’s claims.  In part because the odds of his suspicion being true were vanishingly small, and in part because of the inevitability of evoking in Leonard and especially Jim some deeply disturbing memories, Spock did not share his speculation, even with his husband.  Spock also kept to himself an additional, equally improbable, theory about Dorothy Gale – one with implications which were potentially more perilous, and more personal.  He would share that second “hunch” about Dorothy, he decided, only if she were in grave danger.  He saw no reason to create in his companions anxiety based on tenuous evidence.

 “This is the most beautiful part of Oz I’ve seen yet,” Dorothy said.   “We don’t have nearly as many flowers, but it reminds me a little of Kansas.  And I like being able to see the sky again.”

Jim was looking upwards.  “Maybe not.”  His tone was grim.

The others looked up.  High above, in a blue and almost cloudless sky, the dark figure of the Wicked Witch flew on a broomstick.  A contrail of ugly dark gray clouds trailed behind her.  She was finishing spelling out the final letters of a message:

                                        SURRENDER

                                          DOROTHY

The message complete, the Witch circled the message with a flourish, and flew away. 

“No!  I won’t surrender to her!” Dorothy said.

Jim said, quietly, “I think the message was directed at the rest of us.  Don’t worry, we won’t be following her suggestion.”

“Oh, I know that,” Dorothy said, with a shining look at Jim.

Later, Leonard whispered to Jim, “Good thing you’re a lion.  That girl would have a huge crush on you otherwise.”

“At my age?  I doubt it,” Jim said, knowing Leonard was thinking of Miri.  “I’m way too young for her.  And I don’t go for older women, remember?”

“I’m thirsty,” Dorothy said.  “Toto is, too.”  The brindle Cairn was lagging behind the group and panting heavily.

“Actually, I’m thirsty, too,” Jim said.

Spock pointed right, to a cluster of trees surrounded by a carpet of purple.  “There is a stream.  Shade, as well.”

Leonard picked up the fatigued terrier.  “Toto, you’re one pooped pooch.” 

“There are advantages to being a nonorganic sentient being,” Spock said, as the group left the yellow brick road and crossed the field to the stream and the grove of fruit trees growing on its banks. 

Leonard discreetly touched Spock’s hand.  //Had that figured out a while back, didn’t we darlin’?//

//Indeed.//

Spock and Leonard helped Dorothy first kneel, then rise, at the edge of the stream.  She and Jim both said the water was delicious, the sweetest they had ever tasted.  Toto eagerly lapped up his fill as well, and soon was gamboling among the violets.

“Cherries!  My favorite,” Dorothy said, plucking one from a low-hanging branch of a tree.   

“You want my cherries?” the tree asked angrily.  “Here, take them!”  The tree began to pelt Dorothy with fruit.  “You are supposed to ask!”

“Ow!  I’m very sorry,” Dorothy said.  “I didn’t know I was supposed to ask.  Please, may I have some of your cherries?”

“I will be happy to let you have some,” the tree said, placated.

Dorothy also ate an apple and two peaches, making sure to ask the trees beforehand.

Leonard lay on his back, looking up at the sky.  “Oz sure has some unusual plants.  And bright colors.”  Unfatigued, he was enjoying the lambent hues of his surroundings after the gloom of the forest.  And though he missed his human body, including the pleasure of eating peaches, he was enjoying as well his current freedom from the vague ailments which had increasingly plagued him.

Toto trotted up through the carpet of violets, his mouth bloody.    

“I think Toto caught himself some lunch,” Leonard said.  “That reminds me – Jim, are you getting hungry?”

“Not yet.  Lions can go days between meals.”

The group was leaving the stream when a ball of flame and smoke exploded in front of them, revealing the Wicked Witch of the West. 

Leonard said, “Oh, great, it’s Elvira the Evil paying us another visit.”  

“Be quiet, you lumbering lump of aluminum,” the Witch said.

“Did you know you’re a rotten chemist?”

“And you’re an inept woodcarver,” the Witch said, motioning dismissively at Spock’s spear.  “I hope you were better at cutting up patients than you are at carving wood.  How futile, and entertaining, you trying to fashion a shaft for your fodder-brained friend, to replace his . . . weapon.” 

Leonard said, threateningly, “Watch your mouth, lizard lips.”  Jim wondered whether the doctor was defending his husband’s lost virility, Dorothy’s sensibilities, his own surgical skills, or Spock’s intellect.

“Captain, order your subordinate to stop insulting me.”

“Tell him yourself,” Jim said.  “We’re retired now.  Dr. McCoy is his own man.”

“No, he isn’t yours, is he,” she said, as her eyes slid speculatively to the scarecrow.  “And even in your heyday, you weren’t very successful at controlling his mouth.”  Addressing the three friends as a group, she said, “Stop the insults, or I’ll reveal to the girl the uncomfortable truth about you.”

Which truth?  Which “you”?  She could have meant that they were from the future.  That Spock was an alien.  That he and Leonard were married.    

Jim looked at Leonard.  A scowl and a jerked nod of Leonard’s chin acknowledged Jim’s silent request.

The Wicked Witch said, “I have come to negotiate for the girl.”

“We will not negotiate,” Spock said.

“Is that your father’s attitude, in his position as ambassador?  To reject offers before even hearing them?

“I have a new proposition to make.  A deal better than anything the so-called Wizard of Oz can do for you.  If you give me the girl, I can transform you back to your normal forms, but younger and with a greatly extended lifespan, to be lived out in Oz.   

“Think on it, Captain Kirk.  A whole new world to explore, with strange new people to meet.  Were you really looking forward to years – decades – of empty retirement?  Have you not relished the opportunity in Oz to be a leader again, to play the hero once more?  Adventures await you here, if you reach for them.  And think what it would be like to be thirty, even twenty, years old again. 

“Ah, Dr. McCoy, I saw your eyes light up at that last thought.  I know why.   At home you have felt the weight of physical aging, even – ”   

Surreptitiously, Spock touched Leonard’s hand.  //It cannot be, ashayam.//

//I know.//  Spock felt, under Leonard’s steely resolve, the sadness.

“ – more than your Captain has.  But prolonged youthfulness would not be the only attraction of Oz.  The people here are long-lived, but not immortal.  They get sick.  They get injured.  They die.  You could still practice medicine.  You could teach the physicians here skills, as they could teach you theirs.  You would be surprised at their facility with drugs.  You have an ambivalent attitude toward technology.  You would learn quickly not to miss it.

“Mr. Spock.   As I told the Captain, here is a new world to explore, creatures and wonders as marvelous as anything you have known in your voyages.  You have seen only a tiny portion of Oz.  You would not be bored here.  And you and your . . . friends . . .  would have five hundred years together, rather than a human’s limited lifespan.  I know your fear of outliving them.  The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.  Does not the good of the three outweigh the good of the one?

“So, gentlemen, what is your answer, this time?”

Jim took a step forward.  His ears were pinned back and his eyes glittered with menace.  His teeth bared, he snarled, “You dare to speak to me of being a hero, in the same breath that you suggest I turn over to you a child, for you to do God only knows what?”  He roared, his voice like thunder.  “Insult me no further.”

Leonard said, “You’ve insulted me as a physician.”

“As you have insulted my honor,” Spock said.  “You have our answer.  Leave.  Without the girl.”

“Fine, my trio of rejects from a curiosity shop.  You want to get back to Riverside?  You don’t need that useless Wizard to do that.” 

With an ugly laugh, she made a slight motion with her broom.  A subtle, almost imperceptible change settled over the landscape; a momentary dimming of the light, like a cloud passing in front of the sun.  “You can thank me later.  For this will not be the last we meet.”  In a seething cloud of charcoal and flame, she disappeared.

“That hag’s nastier than a Hagabateelian nightwing scorpion,” Leonard said, muttering.  “Uglier, too.”

Spock said, “Look at the stream.”

“Oh, my!” said Dorothy.  “So this is what a real river looks like.”

The stream was no longer the narrow brook from which she and Jim had drunk.  It was a wide river, curving around the land where they stood.  The view across the flowing water was no longer a colorful flat plain, but instead, a dense wall of trees.

“I don’t understand,” Dorothy said.  “Is that the forest we came from a little while ago?  What happened to the yellow brick road?”   

“The view here is familiar,” said Jim.  “See that pair of broken trees directly across from us, flanking that very tall tree?  I think it’s the view from the shore at my nephew’s house, looking across the water to East River Regional Park.  This river is a lot wider, though.”

“You are correct,” said Spock.  “The opposite shore here is at least seventy meters away, roughly three times the width of the East River where we crossed.  And if I am not mistaken, we are now standing on an island.”

The group investigated.  Spock was correct:  they were on a wooded island, roughly forty meters in diameter.  Mysteriously, no matter where one stood, the view of the opposite shore was always the view from Peter Kirk’s property on the shore of the English River.  

They discussed options to escape the island.  Leonard, who was hollow but not airtight, would not float for long; even if he made it to shore, he would soon rust solid.  Spock would get moldy after being saturated with water.  Dorothy was injured, and would not have been able to swim even if she knew how, which she did not.  She had never seen running water wider than a stream before. 

Leonard said, “Jim, you can swim.  Let Dorothy and Toto ride across on you, and leave Spock and me here. We won’t starve to death.” 

“No.  We’re not going to split up,” Jim said.  “And with her shoulder injured, I’m not sure Dorothy could hold on.”

“There is another option,” Spock said.  “We can build a raft, and Jim can pull it.  There are trees on this island, and Leonard has the axe.  I have rope to lash logs together and to make a harness of some sort for Jim.”  He pulled out the ball of twine he had been holding in his overalls ever since he had left the cornfield.

Jim said, “Spock, that witch was mistaken.  Your logic is useful in Oz, after all.”

Leonard chopped down several trees.  After stripping the trunks of branches, he and Spock lashed the logs together, reinforcing them with some vines they had found on the island. 

While Spock and Leonard were occupied constructing the boat, Jim took Dorothy aside.  The girl had had questions in her eyes ever since the Wicked Witch had alluded to “the uncomfortable truth,” but had said nothing.  With complete truthfulness – and intentional deceptiveness – Jim told her:  “The three of us were court-martialed together.  That’s being prosecuted in a military court for crimes.  In order to save the lives of Leonard and Spock, I had committed mutiny, and had stolen a valuable ship.  At the trial, I was pardoned, but demoted.” 

“You got in trouble, for saving the lives of your friends?  They were in trouble, too?”  

“We disobeyed orders.  In the military, you obey orders, no questions asked.”

Dorothy reflected on his words.  “Uncle Henry won’t take any backtalk, from me or the hands.”  With a sudden, puckish grin, she added, “But sometimes he does from Aunt Em!”

Jim smiled.  “The Witch was right about one thing, Bones gave me backtalk occasionally.  Dorothy – what I’ve told you is a secret, for you to keep.  Like my friends and I will keep your secret, about Al kissing you.”

With a sincerity Jim knew would brook no compromise, Dorothy promised to keep his secret.  They rejoined the others.

The boat completed, the remaining rope was knotted around Jim’s neck and shoulders, and the two ends secured to the corners of the raft.

After Dorothy, Spock, Leonard and Toto boarded the raft on dry land, Jim carefully waded into the water, dragging the boat behind.  

Toto, to Dorothy’s dismay, jumped into the water as soon as the raft was clear of land.  Spock and Leonard tried to assure her that dogs knew instinctively how to swim.  But the little dog had something else in mind.  He paddled up to the swimming lion, clambered up his mane, and perched himself atop Jim’s head.

When they were half way across the wide river, the sun brightened, and the water’s surface became, momentarily, blindingly bright.  Everyone hid their eyes.  They opened them to Toto barking, and to light which had subsided to normal.  

“Look,” Dorothy cried, pointing.  “The yellow brick road!  It’s back!”

On the far bank, the paved path wove its gleaming away through the flower-bejeweled plain.  Jim quickened his stroke, and soon they reached land. 

Toto shook himself dry, spraying Dorothy’s bare legs.  Jim was loosed for his traces, and he agreed to carry the salvaged ropes, draped over his neck, until they had dried.  He was careful to step away from the group before shaking his massive frame, but a few stray drops reached Leonard and Spock.  Leonard laughed, unconcerned.  The scattered drops would quickly dry in the sunlight.  In a low voice he said to Spock, “Wish you could sprinkle me with a few drops of oil, instead.”

Spock whispered back, “I look forward to doing so, at a more opportune time.”

But that time was not now, for Jim said, “My friends, let’s go find this Wizard we keep hearing about!”

                To be continued in Spiced Peaches XXXVI