Don't own Star Trek.

In case you're curious, I'm a huge fan of TOS and only recently got around to the new movie. I was surprised by the faithfulness to TOS and by the in jokes.

Not that you'd be curious…Enjoy.

… … .. . .. … …

Jim was paralyzed, eyes shut and limbs stiff. He couldn't breath, his mouth open in a silent scream. There was hot breath on his face, someone he couldn't see. The presence was hovering in his space, just in front of him. The immensity was terrifying.

A heavy hand settled over his mouth, a hazy pressure at best, but suddenly he could breath, and move, and feel warm tears dripping down his face. He struggled for freedom, but the hot breath above him only got closer, ruffling his hair as it ghosted across his face. The hand on his lips moved and he let out a blood curdling scream.

All at once a hand returned to his mouth, but it was slimmer, stronger, and far more tangible. His eyes flew open, something he hadn't be able to do before, and he was met with striking darkness. Not just from the darkened room, but from the eyes hovering over him.

"You must calm down, Jim. You must." Spock's voice was just a tad warmer than usual, even as he repeated his phrase again and again until Jim's erratic breathing returned to normal.

Jim started to talk immediately as soon as Spock removed his hand from his mouth. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I mean, yeah it was a nightmare, but I usually don't…Sorry. That screaming probably hurt your ears. Oh! God. You didn't…feel that dream, or see it or something, did you?"

Spock considered momentarily returning his hand to the Captain's mouth to quiet him before gently shaking his head. "I am fine. My barriers were in place at the time of your dreaming. Are you well, Jim?"

Kirk's brain finally seemed to reboot with that word, his blue eyes widening comically. "You called me Jim."

"My father employed a similar tactic when my mother suffered from distressing dreams. He told me she took comfort in the familiarity of…pet names…in such situations." Spock looked away from him.

"Oh. Uh. Thanks. I'm fine though."

"The tears on your face would indicate otherwise."

Jim cursed vibrantly in several languages, wiping his eyes quickly with he forearm. Spock raised one eyebrow, but said nothing. When the young human's face was free of tears, he glanced over at the older man anxiously. He was still watching. Jim looked away.

"So…how much sleep did I manage to get?"

"You were asleep for approximately 4.485 hours." Spock allowed for the topic change.

"Great…yeah…I should get back to sleep." Jim quickly laid back down, rolling over so he was facing away in spite of the strain on his shoulder. "G'night Spock."

"Captain." Spock answered coolly, almost like the word itself was goodnight.

Jim laid perfectly still, slowing his breath to imitate sleep, though he knew there was no way he was going to be able to do that again. Not after his nightmare. After a few minutes he glanced over to see Spock sitting cross-legged on his bed. His eyes were closed as he carefully breathed in and out. It took him a couple seconds to realize he was meditating.

Spock's features were pointedly blank and yet Jim couldn't help but feel like he'd never seen him more open. It was like staring into a quasar and trying to unravel the galaxy hidden deep within. He would have laughed, comparing the aloof Commander to something defined as remote, a compact body of enormous energy. He would have, if he could draw the breath necessary. He was staring into the face of raw emotion and being swept away in the enigma it produced.

Spock opened his eyes, dark swirling chocolate with strings of crisp ebony. The warmth dancing through those eyes faded to a flat, dark brown and Spock raised an eyebrow.

"Captain?"

Jim inhaled, sharply coming down from the high of his own thoughts. "Yeah?"

"Are you well?"

"I…yeah." He let out a shaky breath. "Your eyes are inhuman…"

Spock's eyes widened, turning pitch black. Jim realized he said something wrong and winced, biting his lip.

"What did I just say?"

"You told me that-"

"No, no, not that. I mean, why did you react like that?"

Spock paused, considering his answer a moment. "My peers often held criticism for my eyes."

Jim paused, mulling it over when Spock didn't continue. It didn't take long for him to realize what they probably teased him about. His eyes were very expressive, something he had noted before. Expressiveness was generally something to pucker your brow at for most Vulcans. He shook his head immediately, frowning.

"It was a compliment. I mean it. It was metaphorical, sort of."

"To what were you comparing my eyes?"

"I'd rather not say." Jim admitted, smiling sheepishly.

"Very well." Spock nodded. "Were you able to obtain more sleep?"

"No. What time is it?" Jim glanced around the room in surprise, not realizing more than a few minutes had passed.

"I have been meditating for approximately 3.5 hours." Spock informed him politely.

"We should probably get up then, our shift starts in two hours."

"1.745, roughly." Spock tilted his head to the side. "It would be best if we prepared for the morning."

Spock stood, stretching gently. Jim watched in unfeigned interest as the muscles rippled under Spock's skin, pulling it taught in aesthetically pleasing ways. Jim shook his head, stretching more overtly, dragging on Spock's arm as he did. He flashed a charming grin when Spock looked his body over, habitually checking for injuries.

"Not bad looking, am I?"

"You fit within the Terran standards for attractiveness."

Jim laughed. "And how about Vulcan?"

Spock inclined his head slightly, a light sage dusting his cheeks. "Affirmative."

"Good. I wouldn't want you to be the only cross cultural hottie." Jim winked.

It was like a light switch, really, how quickly Spock closed off. Kirk quickly realized there was going to be a big problem if his main coping method of flirting sent his First Officer hiding behind his Vulcan training. Jim coughed uncomfortably and began fiddling with the replicator.

"Perhaps we should request someone from maintenance to reprogram the replicator."

"No." Jim replied curtly, focused on his work.

Within a minute, he let out a triumphant holler and instructed the replicator to make what he had just programmed. It produced a deep, science blue shirt with silver zippers on both sides. Spock raised a single eyebrow as he inspected the shirt, taking note of the changes, but said nothing. Jim assumed that was a sign of approval and quickly replicated his own shirt and a pair of pants since he didn't feel like heading all the way to his room.

The gold shirt was adorned with black fasteners, rather than zippers. It was, in most respects, unchanged from the standard uniform. Jim hadn't replicated the typical black undershirts for them though, simply placing a trimming so it would look like it was there.

"I hope you don't mind I used a thermal material for your shirt. Figured you didn't want to get cold." Jim said flippantly as he inspected his replicated shirt to ensure it came out right.

"That is acceptable, thank you. We should shower and eat before our shift."

Jim clutched a little tighter at his change of clothes, feeling a bit lightheaded as the blood drained from his face. If Spock noticed how pale he was, he said nothing.

… .. .

Showers were not made for privacy. They had managed to work it out, but with much twisted shoulders and awkwardly standing outside the shower waiting on the other person. Dressing was…interesting. Spock had managed to completely dress himself before exiting the shower, without getting any residual liquid on his clothes. Kirk did not.

After struggling into his pants, completely soaking the hem, he tumbled out of the shower with his shirt half on. Apparently the clasps he designed weren't so easy to use single handedly. He was getting it, but it was going to take a bit longer than he thought.

Luckily, his hero so kindly stepped in and did it for him. Spock actually commented on how stiff Kirk went when he began fastening the latches over his ribs. Rather than thank him, Jim nervously told him he could handle it himself, practically snapping in the process. After pulling on their boots in silence, they headed to the commissary to eat.

Jim looked the room over while Spock worked the replicator, waving to random crew members and grinning at everyone. He was startled from his morning greetings by a tray being shoved in his hand. Spock returned to the replicators to order his own breakfast, leaving Jim staring at his tray.

It consisted of a lightly sugared grapefruit, two eggs sunny side up, two slices of toast just golden brown, a cup of coffee, and a few slices of bacon. Jim couldn't help the wide grin splitting his face as he casually leaned against his First Officer.

"Ordering my favorite meal…you don't watch me eat breakfast or something, do you?" His voice was dripping with a teasing tone that went completely unnoticed.

"The replicators store records of the meals each crew member has ordered. This arrangement was most frequently requested by you." Spock almost sounded curt, almost.

Jim huffed and dragged Spock off to a table in the corner. He wasn't surprised to see the man's tray had a bowl of mixed fruit, toast slightly darker than his own, and a cup of tea. He would admit to watching the other man eat. For curiosity, of course. He watched a lot of his crew eat just to learn a little about their preferences and personalities. Bones said it was creepy. Jim thought it was thorough.

Speaking of Bones, Jim would give anything to have the grumpy man eating breakfast with them. At dinner, they were so busy being prodded by various staff with devices for it to be awkward. Now he was sitting across from Spock, holding his hand and eating breakfast. He was half tempted to ask the computer to take a photo using security feeds and add the picture to the dictionary entry for awkward. He wasn't really sure he wanted this moment immortalized though.

"Lieutenant." Spock's voice broke him from his reflections.

Uhura sat down next to Spock, her tray of tea and cereal accompanying his on the table. Jim wished her a good morning and she fixed him with a solid look that had him squirming.

"What?"

"This could be good." She smiled, sipping the hot liquid carefully.

"To what are you referring?" Spock inclined his head slightly.

"You two being stuck together."

"How could that be good?" Kirk tried not to laugh and almost succeeded.

"I must reflect the Captain's sentiment."

"Oh come on Spock." Uhura rolled her eyes. "Just the other day you were telling me that you wanted to be friends with Kirk."

"He did?" Jim perked up, eyes practically sparkling.

"I said no such thing." Spock hadn't even turned to look at Jim, so he missed the turbulent shift in his eyes leaving them almost dull and broken.

Uhura did catch it though and stood angrily, absurdly disturbed by the look in her Captain's eyes. "I'm so sorry for paraphrasing. I forgot that wasn't allowed."

"Whoa, hey. No need to fight over me." Jim smiled at her, trying to get her to sit again.

She rolled her eyes, partially placated, but still glaring towards Spock. "Fine. But cutting out some of the explanation, what you said was: "For the benefit of the crew and our mission, the Captain and I should set aside our differences and work together. I would not be adverse to eventually finding benefit from his company." And that basically means you want to be friends."

Spock inclined his head slightly, but with a definite Vulcan frown. "I will allow for your familiarity with colloquialisms to be applied to my own words."

Jim grinned, beaming at the pair across the table. Uhura smiled back, but Spock jolted, wiping his head around to look at him. The furrow in his brow deepened momentarily before he wiped all emotion from his face. His eyes were the intense brown that reflected his curiosity as he scrutinized Jim.

For a split second, he could swear he felt something akin to terror washing through their connected hands.

Jim was wearing his usual smile though, warm and irrationally open. Too open, in fact. Spock found himself illogically tempted to probe the emotions behind that smile, but the invasion of his Captain's privacy was reprehensible. Even if a small, human part of him insisted that if he did not want his emotions scrutinized he should not wear them so openly.

Jim's smile faltered as he shied back across the table, cheerful blue eyes taking note of the intense brown inquisitiveness. Spock's eyes flicked to a dull, dark brown and he returned to his meal, avoiding eye contact.

"So." Jim looked back at Uhura, smiling again. "How do you feel about your boyfriend sharing a room with the all time playboy of the universe? I could be a bad influence."

Uhura snorted, shaking her head. "He's not my boyfriend. And you're not that good."

"What?" Jim glanced heatedly between the two, noting how Spock continued to ignore him. "But I saw you two kissing! And touching!"

She outright laughed at him. "We're good friends. Very good. We only kissed in the heat of the stress. And friends can touch you know."

"Seriously?" Jim laughed, glancing at Spock, who had looked up from his meal to watch Uhura. "You're not interested at all?"

"Oh come on. I wouldn't go for a married man!" She said indignantly.

Both Spock and Jim straightened in their seats, their postures reflecting each other perfectly. Jim gawked openly at his First Officer, the revelation flooring him. Spock's eyes darkened ever so slightly, narrowing only so much that someone looking for it would see.

"At no point have I ever been wed."

"You were betrothed. It's basically the same thing."

"You were betrothed?"

"My intended was chosen for me upon my seventh birthday, yes."

"Jeez Uhura! Kissing a guy that's been engaged that long! Wait, is that normal?"

"Almost all Vulcans get engaged at seven."

"I hardly see this as any of the Captain's business, Lieutenant."

"Why aren't you married now?"

Spock inhaled sharply and Uhura cast him a dark look. Jim winced, realizing what he said as soon as it left his lips.

"I'm sorry."

"It is illogical for you to apologize. T'Pring and I had not maintained contact with each other after the twelfth anniversary of her birth."

"Still…" Jim glanced at Uhura, as though she could provide some sort of idea on how he was supposed to apologize.

"I do not wish to discuss this further. We must report to the bridge for our shift." Spock cleared his tray and stood, effectively dragging Kirk into a half standing position.

He awkwardly trailed after Spock to dispose of their trays, casting a hopeless look in Uhura's direction as he was made to leave. She was already moving, cleaning up so she could report for her own duties. Being half dragged by his Commander allowed him to stare blatantly at the man's back as they stalked up to the bridge.

He'd never imagined Spock was engaged. They'd never talk about that kind of thing normally, but he was intrigued by the insight. Was Spock attracted to her? Did her loss hurt him as much as the loss of his mother? What was she like? Were they close? Spock said they hadn't seen each other since they were children. What happened the last time they were together?

It was frustrating, getting small glimpses of his Commander. It was like being handed the ends of strings and being showing the knotted mass they led him to. Each end he was handed lead to a worse knot, rather than provide a clue on how to unravel it.

Most of the crew was already at their post or languidly chatting as they settled into place. Spock actually hesitated a moment, glancing at the Captain's chair. Jim trotted happily forward though, continuing to Spock's work station and leaning against the console. Having followed him, naturally, Spock settled into his seat and proceeded to pour over his work, straightening out everything he would need for his shift.

"All right everybody." Jim called for everyone's attention once they were in place. "We're leaving this system and stopping by the closest Sarbase to deliver our important documents and all that jazz."

He was met with a few chuckles.

"You all know what to do. Sulu, take us out of here."

"Yes Sir." Sulu grinned, "And no grinding the gears this time."

The crew laughed with him as the ship lurched forward into warp. Sulu was still giving himself a hard time over that parking break incident. Just a week ago he had come to Jim, asking him to teach him various terms regarding old fashioned cars, so he wouldn't miss something like that again. Jim reminded him that the crew survived because of that little delay even as he agreed. With luck, he'd get his whole crew admiring classic cars.

It was important to him that Sulu came to him. He could have asked Scotty, or Bones, or even looked it up on the computers. He trusted his Captain though. It was tough the first few weeks, but apparently requesting by hand that each and every one of them maintain their positions on his ship had done quite a bit to shine the right light on him. It had taken a lot of work looking up the names of the individuals serving in every position. Four hundred and some hand written applications for personnel took something out of you, but it was worth it. After seeing how the ship ran with near perfect efficiency during the Nero incident, he would trust no one else to handle his ship.

Spock's joining the crew seemed to cement the fact that he was at least partially competent.

Truth be told, he hadn't asked for Spock. Not formally. He had verbally bugged every single member of the Admiralty about what he might be doing once everything settled down. He honestly expected Spock to go assist in the colony. Not that he didn't make a point of drilling Pike on just how good the science facilities were on the Enterprise. He'd been so absent minded about it that he didn't realize he hadn't appointed a First Officer until the morning they were scheduled to leave.

Pike insisted it would all work out and he could send notice of his appointment back to Starfleet once he had decided.

He wasn't sure about Spock, but he was certainly surprised to find that Pike had already approved the Vulcan as his First Officer and Chief Science Officer.

Looking over his crew, he couldn't help the small, genuine smile on his face. Crazy was common place for them. They were baptized by fire and now they walked through without flinching. Even this situation was being regarded as nothing but the utmost normal. Everyone was more interested in the science behind the shackle-moss, as engineering had come to call it, than the actual physical repercussions of it. No one looked at them like they had done something glaringly incompetent.

Well, other than Bones and that was just how he viewed everyone.

He knew, just watching them, that his crew could function just fine without him. They were the best of the best, prodigies in every right. He could place his implicit trust in them and they would deliver fully. They'd deliver even if he didn't place his trust in them. And, for better or worse, they were trusting him. He just hoped he got the chance to deliver too.

"Captain?" Spock's voice sounded hesitant, but was loud enough to draw the entire crew's (not so) subtle attention.

"Hm? Yeah?" Jim glanced down to see Spock staring up at him, expression a muted version of childlike wonder.

"Your emotions are…exceptionally strong…" He dared to allow the slightest trace a green creep into his cheeks. "I find it difficult to block them fully."

"Oh." Jim flushed brightly, aware that his crew was not openly watching them. "Sorry."

"Your apology is unnecessary. However, I find myself curious." Spock admitted with some trepidation.

"Yeah? Shoot." Jim flashed him a wide grin.

A suspiciously false look of alarm passed through those dark eyes. "I am disinclined to fire upon you."

Jim snickered. "It's cool as long as you use questions as ammo."

Spock's eyebrow twitched up in response, even as the crew snickered behind him. "Very well. The emotion you were experiencing with such force is foreign to me. If it is not too great of an invasion, would you explain it to me?"

Jim's jaw dropped open. Everyone assumed it was because Spock was openly asking him to explore his emotions. That was why their mouths had fallen open. They couldn't imagine the mixture of pity and horror flooding through him at the thought of what Spock was missing. He felt he did a good job of keeping Spock from noticing too as he focused on the thrill of Spock relying on him for an answer. Judging by the expectant look in his eyes, he assumed he was right.

"It's no problem at all!" Jim beamed. "I bet you already know a bit about it, but it's just good old fashioned hubris."

The crew jolted with surprised, suspicious looks on their faces. That wasn't seriously it, was it?

"What elicited this emotion?" Spock was leaning forward ever so slightly, eyes focused solely on the Captain.

"My crew." Jim's smile softened. "I'm proud to have such an awesome crew."

Some of them shifted awkwardly in their seats, faces heated with embarrassment at the praise.

"It is a very complex emotion." Spock nodded thoughtfully, scientific background shining through as he analyzed what he was told.

"Yeah. You should try it some time." Jim laughed, trying to feel a little less embarrassed by the sudden scrutiny.

"I have no need of pride, Captain." Spock turned back to his station, closing off again.

The crew returned to their own work, snapping their eyes away rapidly as if to pretend they weren't watching. Jim sighed, leaning more heavily on Spock's work station and glancing down at the screen to see what he was doing. Spock's long fingers flew over the console, dancing nimbly like a pianist performing a melody known by heart. Jim found himself distracted by the deft appendages.

It was like the man worked magic at his console, so in his own habitat that he never imagined making a single mistake.

He felt a touch of pride at having Spock with him on the ship. And was promptly reminded not to let it get too out of hand. Spock may not be actively probing him for his emotions, but apparently feeling too strongly could still get something across. He'd remember that. Remember, and keep a close eye on it.

He wouldn't want to be an inconvenience.

… … .. . .. … …

So yeah…I'll try to make sure that, even as it gets darker, there is plenty of humor in this story. Smack me if I forget. Not that we're anywhere near dark yet.

Bit of character background going on…how terrible is that?

And no, Uhura will not be dismissed so easily.