Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own anything you recognize.

Jim speaks to you about it only once. The whiskey flows freely, and soon the words come too. (like a fountain, a river, a waterfall, rushrushrush)

It's strange for you, Jim is not a talker, not even when drunk, but now he's somewhere between tipsy and maudlin and baring his soul they way you have a thousand times.

You shake off your surprise and offer cheap condolences, but you can't fix this, a raw ache beyond the physical medium.

You're a doctor, dammit, not a miracle worker. Not even a good friend, a truly good friend would (beat some sense into that pointy-eared bastard) have better ways of helping, better ideas, more sympathy to offer.

You are a doctor, not a magician.

You have no hypo for this.

You completely understand. More than he knows, probably.

You too are (unworthy, unequal, unnoticed) ignored. Love's bitch, Mr. Scott had said.

Russian winters were not so cold as this, you swear to it.

When you see the captain eating alone in the mess, you take the empty seat across the table.

"I know" you tell him when he looks at you with question. "I understand, yes Keptin?" You allow your eyes to shift noticeably a few tables away, to where the helmsman (Hikaru!) eats, poring over a Padd, lips around his fork.

The Captain follows your gaze, then nods once, sharply, eyes softening.

You finish your lunches in silence, brothers in this if nothing else.

If looks could claim, you'd have lost your lover ages ago.

You are the best Communications Officer Starfleet has ever seen, you know body language and you know peoples souls, from they way they move, what they say.

And what they don't.

You know everything, but you'll never say anything. You watch your Captain watch you and your lover and refuse to feel (jealous, victorious, smug, sympathetic) anything but indifference.

You saw him first, after all. You know the secrets of his soul, too. And there is no room there for (a reckless, stunning, irrepressible, brilliant captain) another.

And Nyota Uhura doesn't share.

There are a couple of souls on your crew that know. (Damn your weakness, damn them for noticing)

They hold your secret close. (cradle it safely like it's their own)

You are proud of them, of their loyalty, even in the matter of your heartbreak.

You would trade nothing (not even your own happiness, your own completion) to change this, at risk of losing everything.

There is only so much you can ask the universe for and receive; you know this above all to be true.

Sequel now posted: Tarde Venientibus Ossa