Year One: Cadet Scott, Canon

[allmhadadh]

When it became perfectly clear to me that the original Scotty couldn't stay in the new universe, aboard the new Enterprise, without it slowly breaking his heart, I needed a solution. I didn't want a new character, though. I wanted the one I knew intimately, the one who I'd been writing for so long. So, I needed an answer. I needed a Scotty who could adapt to being in a new universe, without it breaking his heart. They're adaptable men, that particular breed of Montgomery Scott, but they're also intensely loyal to those they love. I needed a Scotty who hadn't found that yet.

Enter the Cadet.

Fierce, one step out of the proverbial wilderness, he was made of all of the same stuff as the original, with none of the polish and tempering experiences. There was no classifying this young man. He was sharp, smart, half-crazy, sweet, lost and feral. He was wise beyond his years in some ways, and far behind the curve of maturity in others. A strange, curious mix of utterly invulnerable, yet almost painfully vulnerable, all at once. He was mercurial; he could slip from one emotion to another, often in extremes, without a pause. Fluid and adaptive, holding no attachments, he was the answer.

I had no clue that he would become such an amazing, intense, dare I say life-altering character.

I needed a way to branch this young man off from his original without it interfering with the original Scotty's timeline. It was in ST:TNG where the answer was found -- I would create a transporter reflection. Given that it was a temporal storm out there, I could not only get away with creating this reflection, but I could reflect him back to the new Enterprise much younger. The point I took him from was just after his Basic Training graduation, waiting to enter Command School.

Not surprisingly, this young Scott didn't know what was going on. So, the very first thing he did was escape. He woke up on a foreign ship, in a sickbay, surrounded by foreign people. But being the clever little critter he was, he snagged a medical tricorder and escaped into the access crawlways, until he finally took shelter down amongst the scientific sensor probes.

Naturally, they caught him again. He fought like a demon, was thrown in the brig -- there he encountered original_fine. Not surprisingly, the young cadet took full advantage of Jim's kindness and used the shower he was allowed to have to... you guessed it... escape again!

Unfortunately, the young Scotty did not think to grab a towel. But fortunately for him, though not his pride, he came across the man who would eventually change his life... in fact, the man who would be the sole reason there are two branches from this beginning.

Enter haroldlee.

I had not paid that much attention to the whole Harold-Sulu-Chekov subplot. The first time I really noticed Harold was during the officer's briefing, where the mental link between him and Sulu came into play. I started following it then, and by this post, Harold's mun and I were talking somewhat OOC. Annoyed as shit at Harold had been treated by just about everyone in sickbay, I prodded her to have him run into Cadet Scott, who was running buck naked in a corridor.

Harold offered his jacket. Scotty took it. And they ran to go hide in Sulu's linen-closet-turned-botany-lab. They met Spot (ensgn_spottacus) along the way, as well.

Scotty attempts to boost the signal to hide them better from internal sensors, using a tricorder and a PADD... and blows the relays to the lights out on three decks. It also kills a bunch of Sulu's plants, but that's just a bonus. XD

Harold and Scotty do the only thing they can... they run. You'd think life would be simple, but nooooo... because the quarters they duck into in order to hide? Belong to the NuScott.

Scotty doesn't recognize him as Montgomery Scott, but he definitely recognizes him as a member of his family, by pictures and decorations and features. This ends the Cadet's rebellion, though not permanently. Wary and not a little rife with family issues, he and Harold are put to fixing the mess that Scotty made of the lighting systems during his prior escape attempt. It was there that Scotty, unwittingly, handed Harold a line that would continue to come back to the man later: "It's nae natural if it's hurtin' ye."

Repairs were finished, and he and Harold parted ways for a short time -- one to a linen closet, and the other to guest quarters on Deck 6. But Scotty didn't stay still. No, he promptly pulled up a list of repairs and went to work, too restless and anxious to stay in those quarters, even if he was fairly exhausted. He had no clue, at that time, that he was in the quarters that the original Scotty had been in before him.

The next day, he went and made some food for himself, NuScotty and Harold in the galley, making sure to work extra to balance the karmaic scales of justice. Harold came in to thank him, and the two shared a nap against the galley wall, until Sulu decided to be a prick towards Harold, sending him off to Sickbay.

Naturally, though a good man otherwise, dctr_mccoy managed to earn Scotty's ire by being overbearing and abusing all kinds of proper consent issues by threatening Harold with a hypo; in turn, after giving Harold his quarters, Scotty went to sabotage Sulu's and McCoy's shower.

Despite all of the shenanigans that the young Scot found himself in, his own tenuous sort of existence in this new universe wasn't to go unnoticed any further. And after retreating down to the crew laundry where the original Scotty went to have a bit of peace, the NuScott came in and introduced himself to the Cadet.

Needless to say, the Cadet had a bit of a breakdown. It was kind of easy, even for me, to sometimes forget that this Scotty was only eighteen -- the original Scotty, at any age, was always an adaptable and survival-centric critter. It was easy to forget as he single-mindedly tried to carve some kind of place out how young he actually was, and I think most people probably didn't think of it often unless they spoke with him at some length. Sometimes even then. But in Frayed Edges, it came clear that under the tough and practically opaque exterior was a very young, very lost, half-grown man who already felt some out of place.

Still, he went to Risa. Another escape, though of a decidedly different type. And there, again, Harold found him and spent a good chunk of the day with him. This remains one of my very favorite posts, both for the emotions expressed in the post-body, and for the sheer joy that was watching him and Harold slowly bond and even play together.

Nature and Nurture came next; the next day, and some native bug managed to make Scotty a bit under the weather. Despite this, he went to go work under the table on the docks of Risa, and it was there that the NuScott found him, having already been reflecting some on the situation. What happened was some fairly amazing conversation and even atmospheric play, and it's another of those posts I love for the sake of the sheer span of emotions it crossed. The gentle loop between how the original Scotty touched the NuScotty's life, and how the NuScotty touched the Cadet's, remains an expected but treasured story arc, all over something so simple as peppermint tea.

After that quite intense bit of interaction, Scotty went back to his hostel room to try to sleep off some of whatever had him ill. The next morning, Harold came around to visit him, leading them to head to the open-air market, where Scotty got some paper, something he almost pathologically was desperate for in a universe where PADDs had replaced the written word. On the upside, it was slowly becoming more and more clear that Harold and Scotty had a kind of natural chemistry, though at that point, no one could have guessed where that would end up.

Harold and Scotty parted ways again; Scotty ended up on one of the piers, with his paper and his pen, where he went to work copying down Perera's Field Theory. The post, Forty-Four Sunsets, remains one that I still consider a good example of my best writing in those early days. The followup, named Windowpanes, shows the next morning after he had fallen asleep on the pier; now on the mend, he had to go back to work and make a serious attempt to get some kind of funds in order to be able to survive on Risa until he knew what to do with himself.

Inevitably, when you're working under the table and taking work from the actual employed people, you might find yourself in trouble. When NuScotty went looking for the wayward Cadet again, he found a fight about to go down. The dockworkers who were significantly pissed probably hadn't actually planned on hurting Scotty, but one thing most people learn fast is that grabbing for him is asking for an immediate, punishing response. He laid open one man's face swinging his toolkit, and it was on.

They managed to escape, thank to some clever engineering work, and Scotty went to make breakfast for NuScotty. It was some heartwrenching and again amazing play, which lead to the two deciding to try to forge some kind of relationship, even if they had no idea really how to go about it.

So, they decided to go fishing.

And, since life can be a comedy, it goes hilariously bad. Not at first, oh no. It was downright peaceful. Harold joined them, and they relaxed, all the way up until they were jizzed on by a fishbirdthing. The rest involves a major trip-out, a stoned snog in the lake between Harold and Scotty, and a whole lot of confusion until they retired back to Scotty's hostel room with an unconscious NuScotty in tow.

The next morning wasn't without its comedy; hung-over and aching from repeated bruisings on all parts, they decide on food, have at least one Epic Misunderstanding, Harold takes off to meet with Pavel, and after a very emotional conversation (again!), the Cadet decides to return to the Enterprise to save the NuScotty worrying about him.

It was a decision he later regretted, but it served its purpose. Rather beat (ignore the default icon), Scotty went to just rest awhile on the beach where he had a rather sweet and touching conversation with original_fine; far from the more wary first meeting, they compared thoughts on their native universe's Constitution-class vessels versus this new universe's.

After that, Scotty went to go and find some place to crash, since he didn't have enough to afford his hostel room anymore. And he ended up under a pier, in a moment of something closer to peace than he had mostly known in his young life.

The next day, he went to work. First as... an escort! That didn't go so well. Then, he had some minor success as a courier, even though his pride took a bit of a beating. Writing this post really gave me a long pause, though, for the ending -- the echo off of the original Scotty's life made me have to sit and think long and hard whether I had done the right thing in creating this younger reflection of him. The next post didn't ease my mind any more -- the dockworker whom he hurt pretty badly when swinging the toolkit days earlier decided to ambush him.

Despite the darkness of the subject matter, though, it is an insightful post about how Scotty sees himself in relation to the world; why he was different, in a way, from the more civilized folks wandering around on Risa, even those from the same universe that he was reflected from. There was no self-pity for the beating he gotten; no anger, really, either. He just accepted it, got up and walked away. Bloodied, but unbroken.

He headed back under his pier, where he stayed curled around his wounds, until Harold came to find him.

It was another important post in the yet-unrealized tapestry of Harold and Scotty, though we didn't realize it then. Harold took care of Scotty, so far as Scotty was willing to allow him, and they shared food and shared silence and shared some sand and conversation. After he was feeling a little more steady, Scotty and Harold climbed back up where they eventually ran across the new Kirk. Later, at least one version of the Cadet would look back on that encounter wanting to beat the man's face into a pulp, but that is another story altogether.

Regardless, they were invited to a massive beach party! They split fairly early; Harold went to go mingle, and Scotty went to be a wallflower, until headnursechapel came over to talk him into a dance. Suitably gallant, adorable and awkward, a battered and baffled Scotty did his best to keep up. At least, until she decided to take him to see dctr_mccoy... not surprisingly, Scotty was very 'dinna WANT'. Unfortunately for him, he fainted before he could bolt.

McCoy fixed him up and didn't threaten any hypos. A grateful but still wary Scotty stayed outside, where he had a positively beautiful conversation with country_doc. Roaming over ideas and comparisons and fireflies, it's one of those feel-good threads that really warmed my heart then, and still does now.

The real triumph of the night, though, came when Harold found Scotty again. Just after getting his uniform and a position as a yeoman, Harold asks for Scotty's advice on how to deal with the screwed-up love tangle of Chekov-Sulu-Harold. And he got an answer. And it was an awesome answer.

The next day, still reeling, Harold found him again under the pier. Realizing just what he had to do, it was a powerful thread for Harold, and at the end, it was Scotty who wrapped him in and held him through it.

Scotty's last moments of Risa were heavy, and he spent them alone. Giving up his room to run for the sake of a brother he hoped to build something with. He did his best in the days that followed to try and keep himself as busy as possible.

Play slowed down considerably in canon around then, but there were still some wonderful kinds of moments. Scotty's discovery of the Buick Riviera, for one, and the sparks it set off in his imagination of the open road. He worked with leah_lawton, and debated on going pirate. Mostly, though, Scotty felt increasingly trapped all over again and looked more and more towards escape.

He met Riley (its_oriley), and met with George Kirk... and then the new Kirk gave him an assignment. This wasn't a bad thing, of course; he needed something to occupy his mind, even though he kept busy with the Riviera and even as he used his pull in the galley to give the occasional gift.

He finished the concept, sent it to Spock for a check over, and finally got some decent sleep. It was around here, though not exactly here probably, where the Rhy'Din versions permanent split off from the canon versions. I shall explain more when I give the Rhy'Din Scotty his anniversary post; for now, we'll continue with the canon.

Harold had broken it off with Chekov and Sulu before the split, and when it was done, he and Scotty shared lunch and conversation. They also spoke with Spock and started getting Harold caught up on all he would need to know in order to be a yeoman aboard a starship.

Scotty was still looking for the way out, though. He researched this universe's Aberdeen, and ended up having a conversation with the Riviera's owner, len_not_spock. Yes, that Leonard Nimoy! He arranged for catfood, and put in a repair order for the replicator in the actors' suite. And after sending food to a party he had no desire to attend, as that would mean being social, he retreated back to the Buick where Harold eventually came after him. It was there, after a somewhat deep conversation where Harold turned some insight back on the Scot, that Harold declared that if Scotty decided to go, he would go with.

We didn't quite know then how true that would end up being.

Scotty worked on getting the Riviera fuel, and later on caught up with Harold again, meeting kirk_winona in the process. That was when the Captain and his father were kidnapped for a sideplot that hung the game for a month or so on one thread, which made play much more difficult in canon than it already had gotten. Though, at least while Scotty and Riley washed the Buick, Harold got an eyeful of his best friend and (as his mun says) figured it out. He didn't speak up yet, though. And Scotty handled some random galley duties at some point in there after, never knowing that his time on the Enterprise and in that universe was about to come to a abrupt end.

And then it happened.

The original Scotty closed the rift, permanently breaking the connection between him, the Cadet and the storm that created the Cadet. This sent the younger Scotty, the reflection of this temporal storm, breaking off from time and getting lost in it. This is also the first time since their split when the now-older Rhy'Din versions of Harold and Scotty met the canon pair, during the Maelstrom Arc.

The final result of the Maelstrom was that it allowed the Rhy'Din Scotty to send the canon Harold and Scotty (one holding onto the broken-off other) to New Jersey, 2009.

Yes. You read that right.

And in Harold & Scotty Go To White Castle, they wake up in the back of Neil Patrick Harris's car, whilst Neil is digging for 'shrooms in a field full of cows, including one he lovingly named Deliverance. That isn't even close to all that happens -- Neil pisses the Scot off, who clobbers him, steals his car, and with Harold... gags him in cherry-flavored condoms. Having nowhere else to go, they head for Harold's apartment and figure out that they've landed in October of 2009. Oh shit, right?

Harold has to swallow his pride (and fear) and call Kumar, who he hadn't seen since they'd had a major fight. Kumar, to his credit, comes over with the keys to let them in. Scotty's still got a wicked headache from the jump, and takes some NyQuil -- this wasn't maybe his best move, as it ended up with Neil on his lap, cuddling on him. In the meantime, Harold and Kumar talked. And by talked, I mean talked. Serious conversation kinda talking. Not exactly comfortable at points, but very sweet in others. The insanity finally pauses when Harold and Scotty fall asleep, sharing Harold's bed.

The next evening was no less hectic. They had to deal with Neil -- and they did -- and they had to deal with reality, which was some harder. Scotty finally got the idea that poor Harold was a bit overwhelmed and tried to offer him both a bolster and a distraction by asking him for a date. After disposing of Neil (no, they didn't kill him!), they ended up on a date to... the Waffle House!

There was much adorable flirting there, and plenty of awkward as well. They started learning more about one another, too. After that, they headed to Sinatra Park for the rest of their date, which naturally, was likewise adorable. As the day broke, they went back to Harold's apartment, only to find... uh oh. Law enforcement types. Given that one of them had been missing for months and the other wasn't even remotely a native of Earth of this time, they did the only thing they could do: They bolted for Harold's parents' house.

There was quite a long conversation, though only parts of it were posted for public reading. I suppose it was around here that we started keeping parts of it off the journals, depending on what was important to follow the story or not. Harold's parents took him dating a guy fairly well, considering. And they no doubt have a lot more they will want to discuss in the future. In the meantime, though, they gave Harold and Scotty the keys to the timeshare in New Fairfield Connecticut, and the guys headed there. That lead into their first NC-17 post, though that rating doesn't mean they got very far at all.

They woke up to try to deal with that, and that ended up leading into a... decidedly more successful attempt at lovemaking, though we decided we didn't intend to post that part. We also neglected (unintentionally this time, I believe) to post Kumar showing up not long after Harold and Scotty fell asleep naked on the couch. Unfortunately for both Kumar and the guys, Kumar didn't knock.

Awkwardness abound, with Kumar asking questions that sent Harold's blood pressure through the roof, and an uncertain Scotty retreating upstairs to try to wrap his brain around what they'd done on the couch (while dealing with Kumar walking in unannounced), it was about to take a turn for the much more surreal...

The Rhy'Din pair (many months older than they were during the Maelstrom) end up Nexus-bumped and switched Scottys. Canon!Scotty ended up in Rhy'Din. Rhy'Din!Scotty ended up in Connecticut. Two Harolds in two realms try to piece together what the heck is going on. Alas, this was all done in real-time RP format, and wouldn't be easily postable. The dynamics were fascinating, though; Rhy'Din!Harold, long having a deep understanding of his own Scotty, was able to handle the still-insecure and wary Canon!Scotty. In the meantime, Canon!Harold found not only understanding, but a buddy in the Rhy'Din!Scotty that couldn't quite be realized in the same way with his own, given their romantic attachment.

The Nexus didn't quite fix it; after it got the right Scottys where they were supposed to be, it switched the Harolds for a day. Canon!Harold got to see how things played out, in this other universe. Rhy'Din!Harold had a chance to speak with Kumar, a much-needed talk.

Eventually, the universes righted themselves, and for a brief moment, the Harolds had a chance to meet again and talk. Poignant, and often painful, it didn't answer all questions, but maybe somewhere down the road...

Finally, they were settled. A week passed, and Harold and Scotty slowly started getting to know one another better after the frenzy of their first several days in 2009.

Their future is still very much in the air. They're early on in dating, and where they go from here is still uncertain. But looking back, considering that there was no way to know that they would have ended up together, I can't say that I dread it. Wonderful things happen, when you least expect them. Or, as Harold likes to quote: The universe tends to unfold as it should.

The Cadet's creation was almost an impulse. I could have never predicted what came of it, and I never stop being grateful that I took that impulse and ran with it. His interactions with others, and with Harold, have been insightful and given me a look deeper into not only the original Scotty, but also into humanity and myself. In the end, I got two young Scots out of it; I'll write more on my other later. But it still blows my mind how far it's all come, and I sometimes read back and marvel at this journey.

And I can't wait to see where it all goes.