It was lunch time all the cadets were hurrying to the mess hall, McCoy included. Kirk followed. He didn't feel particularly hungry, but if people didn't see him soon they would start talking and this was the one time he didn't want to be the topic of conversation.

When they got to the mess hall. McCoy ordered a tray and Kirk did also. They looked around and finally spotted an empty table.

McCoy started eating with gusto. Kirk picked at his food for a few seconds, and then he felt a slight twinge as his now empty stomach protested at the lack of sustenance.

The twinge was minor compared to the one's he had felt on Tarsus IV, while he was slowly starving to death, but it hurt the same.

Kirk picked up the fork and took a large mouthful, chewed and swallowed. Then he rapidly shovelled another bite in. He continued eating that way and within two minutes the plate was clean. He got up and ordered another tray and began consuming that one.

Gaila sat down at the table "Hi, Jim" she said.

Kirk didn't bother to answer; instead he nodded and continued eating.

"You're really hungry." Gaila watched him for a moment then said "I heard what you did in Relik's class that was brilliant. Somebody needed to tell him off."

Kirk nodded and continued eating.

Uhura came by with a tray.

"Come sit with us!" Gaila said patting the space next to her.

Uhura glanced between Kirk and McCoy, then said "Only if these two promise to behave themselves."

"On my honour as a gentleman and a doctor" McCoy said, and then added "It's not really me you should be extracting a promise from anyway. It's him" He nodded at Kirk.

Uhura turned to Kirk and said "Well, are you going to keep your hands to yourself and your comments to a minimum?"

Kirk swallowed a mouthful of food and said "Don't I usually? It's not my fault if my gentlemanly reserve is occasionally broken by your stunning beauty, or that my mouth gets ahead of my brain sometimes."

Uhura rolled her eyes "Not sometimes all the time" She said as she placed her tray down.

Kirk went back to eating, since he had started he felt extremely hungry. He couldn't stop. He knew he should. He got another plate, and continued wolfing food down.

McCoy noticed. "You're going to eat that one also? What did you miss breakfast?"

"I'm hungry" Kirk said

McCoy shrugged.

Everybody finished their food and Kirk had gotten a fourth plate. He came back and started on it. As he began cramming food into his mouth, the conversation suddenly stopped. Kirk continued eating until the silence struck him then he looked up to find everybody staring at him "What?"

"You just ate three large plates of food and you're eating another." Gaila asked

"I'm hungry" Kirk said somewhat defensively.

Kirk took another bite. Uhura said "Seriously, why are you eating all that for? That can't be healthy."

The words came out unintentionally. "You have to eat as much as you can when you can, there might not be any food later and we might not be able to take any with us."

"What?!" McCoy said

Kirk realized what he had said. It had been the right thing to say to the younger children when they had all but given up and were refusing to even eat the food he had stolen, but it was the wrong thing to say to a group of Starfleet cadets in the mess hall.

You're on Earth, not Tarsus IV. Kirk mentally chided himself. He shook his head and muttered "nothing" to the others inquiring gazes.

"What do you mean nothing? You just said you had to eat all this food because we can't take it with us" McCoy stared at him and continued "Good god man, this is Earth not some refugee camp or famine zone."

Kirk shook his head again, realizing he had to say something to diffuse the questions he could already see gathering in the other's eyes.

He forced himself to laugh and said "I was joking; you should see you guys' faces"

"This was a joke. You just ate three and a half plates of food and probably made yourself sick as a joke?" Uhura said disbelievingly.

Kirk grinned and said "I'm serious about my jokes"

"You're seriously crazy" Gaila muttered

They continued to stare at him. Kirk realized that he still had the fork in his hand and was just raising another bite to his mouth. He dropped it. "Honestly, I-I- was joking. I'm done now." He stood up and walked away. He could feel the others eyes following him.

He felt embarrassed. It was a long time since he had done something like that. It wasn't a conscious action on his part either. For almost three months after Tarsus IV. He hadn't wanted to eat much of anything. The doctors said that was normal, his body was becoming used to eating again and he was still feeling guilt over eating when so many others had died from starvation.

His mother had come home one day and found him in the kitchen with every food item he could find open and spread out on the counter as he stuffed whatever was within reach into his mouth. Flour, raw eggs, unpeeled vegetables, and half-spoiled milk anything in sight he devoured. Dried pasta was as equally delicious as a cookie to him. He didn't care what he ate it was food and he had eaten a lot worse. His mother had stared in horror at him then said "Jimmy dear, what are you doing?"

"I'm hungry "he had replied.

Later that night at dinner and for a year and a half afterwards he had consumed helping after helping of food. Many times eating so much he had to throw up afterwards. It wasn't that he was even hungry sometimes. He wanted his stomach to be full so it wouldn't have the slightest sensation of emptiness. The faint twinges of an approaching meal time brought back memories of cold nights and gunfire as he tried to sleep and ignore the pain he felt after giving his food to some else so they could eat. The faint twinges brought back memories of Tarsus IV.

He also ate because after months on Tarsus IV, one thought had been ground into him from spending, sometimes almost a week without food: You ate when you could as much as you could. Nobody ever knew when their next meal would come and on the very few times they had actually had more than enough food to spread around the more than twenty kids that thought of him as the leader , they all had overate.