Dr. McCoy interrupts a fencing practice between Kirk and Sulu, nearly getting struck in the head when the foil flies out of Kirk's hand. McCoy tells them he's worried about Scotty, who hasn't been himself since picking up a package on Space Station K-12. Kirk and McCoy go to Scotty's quarters and find a drunken chief engineer clutching half of a pendant in the shape of a broken heart. Scotty tells them he has received word of a death in the family: his wife's. Kirk, shocked because he never knew Scotty was married, asks when they married and when Scotty's wife died.