Chapter 2
Kirk unexpectedly found himself swept into one of those moments where he was suddenly realizing something that he knew, but hadn't consciously thought about before.
Already, he'd become so use to looking at Sulu and Chekov's back, absent-mindedly noticing when they accessed the different readouts of information that their jobs required them to check periodically throughout their shifts.
In the beginning, they both seemed to force their alertness and focus, going through steps confidently, but cautiously.
Maybe it was at the end of a full week, Kirk noticed that they both looked as though they were thinking about other things while they checked readings and made adjustments almost automatically. Their bodies and the expressions he caught glimpses of from time to time were more relaxed. They were operating by feel, rather than recall.
Something was different now, though. They were both still going through tasks automatically, but there was a tension in them that reminded him of the first couple of days.
An alarm went off in his mind when Chekov's head turned to the left and he found himself caught in the act of stealing a glance at his captain. As if attempting to throw off any suspicion, he twitched the corners of his mouth in a polite smile, and then turned his attention back to his console with visibly forced casualness.
Kirk would have written it off as a moment of boredom that the navigator had gotten caught succumbing to, except for the fact that Sulu's head twitched in Chekov's direction. Another alarm went off when he caught the intensely disapproving glance that Sulu gave Chekov.
Chekov seemed to shrink, ever so slightly, in his chair after his head turned, almost imperceptibly, in Sulu's direction.
Kirk couldn't make sense of this odd scene. Things had become monotonous before, and he'd gotten across that he wasn't opposed to intermittent diversions from their stations, so long as they were short enough.
He could recognize that Chekov was struggling with the urge to fidget--and Sulu was struggling with the urge to...reprimand him?
"Is there a problem, Mr. Chekov?" Kirk had decided to ask the question without straightening in his seat as he initially intended to.
It rather amazed Kirk that he could pick up on the strange stillness that overcame Chekov just before he turned to face him. It had lasted maybe all of two seconds.
"No, sir." Chekov answered with a directness that seemed forced.
If it was actually possible for a person to growl without making a sound, that was just what Kirk's thought Sulu was doing. "Mr. Sulu?" He used the tone of his voice to request a confirmation.
Sulu turned, with the slightest amount of movement as possible to look at Kirk respectfully. "No, sir." He turned back to his console, noticeably avoiding looking at Chekov as he did so.
Chekov hadn't turned back around. His eyes were cast downward to some unmarked spot on the deck, and his mind seemed to be making calculations...or weighing options?
"Is there something you wanted to say, Mr. Chekov?" Kirk saw Sulu's head turn just a fraction of a degree in Chekov's direction, and he thought he somehow sensed that the ship's pilot had just fixed a him with a covert stare of warning.
"No..." Chekov said before looking up at the captain again. His expression openly told him that he was making his mind up about something, and then he met his eyes once again. He seemed to be searching Kirk's face for something, some sort of clue as to what to say or whether or not to say anything. His attention darted for a split second to the side of Kirk's head, and quickly back to his face. "Not right now." He finally stated with an odd look of determination, but seemed to be searching, again, for some sort of unnamed sign.
Kirk turned his head with intentional slowness, until he was looking at Uhura. She answered his gaze with a 'Can I help you, captain?' expression. His expression replied 'What makes you think I need any help?'.
Sulu gave birth then, to a half-breed sigh-huff. A sighff? Suff? Highff?
The hell??? Kirk snapped his head around to fix on Sulu, who was concentrating on his console... and radiating annoyance.
Chekov was looking at Sulu, with another expression of trying to make up his mind. Again, he turned to search Kirk's face.
Sulu was almost never grumpy, or coercive. Chekov was never intimidated by Sulu; Sulu had never given him reason to be. And Uhura was never voluntarily helpful, unless it promised to bring Kirk's ego down whatever fraction of a notch it offered.
What did Chekov want to say, that Sulu didn't want him to say, and that Uhura was acting like she had no clue-or interest...
The turbolift doors swished open and deposited one serene, unexpected, Chief Medical Officer, with his morning coffee.
The doctor walked right in, as if it were his regular routine, and parked himself right next to Jim's chair. He nodded courteously to Jim.
Jim stared up at him questioningly.
McCoy raised his eyebrows slightly, with an innocent look that said, 'yes, Jim? You wanted to ask me something?'
Jim glance around at each member of the current bridge crew, and fixed his gaze on Uhura, who was conspicuously looking as though she wanted to appear inconspicuous.
He tilted his head back to give the doctor a cheerfully threatening grin. "Bones..." talk or I'll...permanently fuse your body to Spock's, he added in his head.
"Yes, Jim?" Leonard basked in the fact that the divorce he'd gone through made him immune to any of Jim's threats, with the exception of dying in front of his eyes, of course.
"What brings you here?" Stark fear suddenly replaced the preditorial menace in his eyes. Oh, God. He wouldn't.
Leonard caught the change, and saw the color in his captain's face go pale with true fear. He'd become old friends with this kind of thing, and was seasoned in the art of communicating with it. His expression didn't waver, but he did change his plans...slightly. He handed Kirk the thermal cup of coffee that he'd come in with, but hadn't taken a drink of.
Kirk took it, sensing that doing so would result in things going much easier on him. "Thank you," he said with quiet uneasiness.
The doctor didn't like the strange variety of emotions that he saw behind his friend's eyes. He was having none of this, especially not on a friend's birthday. He refreshed the perk in his smile a bit, clasped his now completely free hands behind his back, and rocked forward, once, on his toes. "I just thought I'd come up for a visit, bring you a little touch of Southern hospitality," he brought his right hand forward again to wave at the coffee Jim was now holding, "--and wish you...Good MORning...CAP-tain." The way he said the last three words of his statement sounded just shy--JUST shy--of singing them to the first line of a suspiciously familiar tune.
Captain James T. Kirk's eyebrows flinched downward and slightly closer together, his eyes climbed carefully to meet the CMO's, with a look that he would have given him if he'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Hardly a beat after fixing an outraged stare at the gleefully smug doctor--
"Good MORning...CAPtain." Uhura's voice came from behind him...JUST shy of singing the second line of said suspicious tune.
Kirk's head snapped to face in her direction, only to snap immediate to look at Chekov the moment he heard the young man whirl around in his chair and join his voice in the 'almostbutnotreally-singing Happy Birthday' conspiracy, "Good MORning, -- CAPtain!"
What could he do? He'd taken on inexplicibly vengeful Romulans that outmatched him many times over with a moon-sized ship and advanced technology. That single, recent encounter had given him layers of combative experience, that was rendered additionally useless now. He couldn't even bring himself to do so much as glare sternly at the sincerely thoughtful young navigator, who beamed directly at him enthusiastically, and made him feel instantly...tanner.
Fortunately, Chekov was unable to resist turning to give Sulu a smug glance, which evolved into an urgent, albeit, silent admonition to be a part of the...whatever, and finalize the not-song.
Sulu sat motionless and stared deadpan at Chekov for just the right about of seconds, turned to look back at Kirk with an expression that seemed to say 'bro, I'm there for ya." With that, Sulu turned forward, and crossed his arms in front of his chest stubbornly.
"Good morning, captain." The unexpected voice made Jim blood turn to ice in his veins.
Had Spock meant to say those words so that they sounded like he'd completed the final line? He looked at Bones. The man was actually looking at Spock with unrestrained approval.
Spock looked at Dr. McCoy as if he had no idea why the doctor was looking at him the way he was.
That sealed it.
"You two are no longer allowed to be in the same room together, unless there's a medical reason," Kirk announced sternly, "One of you has to leave." He initiated immediate evasive maneuvers and turned to look at the star-filled screen.
Both the doctor and the the Chief Science officer looked down at the captain from either side of him, almost mirroring each others stunned expression.