After a restful round of blood detoxification, Kirk insisted on getting out of bed and forced McCoy to tell his yeoman to bring him a uniform from the ship. His timing was impeccable. Okudo entered minutes later.

Kirk stood straighter in his uniform. Same rank didn't mean much with this kind of gap in experience. "Captain."

"Captain Kirk. Either my CMO is a liar or you are doing remarkably well."

"He's stubborn as a mule," McCoy said. "Captains," he added with a bow in their direction.

"I hope you'll remain long enough to accept an invitation for dinner at my table," Okudo said. "I don't get a chance to comraderize nearly enough."

Kirk smiled, forced at first, but it turned into a real one. He was very glad to be alive and on his feet. "Of course, Captain. I appreciate the invitation." And the delay before compiling reports.

Kirk, flanked by his first and medical officers, followed Captain Okudo into the officer's mess. It was painted brightly compared to the one on the Enterprise, a bit of visual relief from the rest of the ship. Chairs shifted as the officers already present stood up. Kirk spotted Pullman in the corner on the right, and couldn't help but notice she didn't seem to want to be noticed.

Kirk stopped at the first table on the left, full of engineering officers. "At ease, gentlemen, ladies," Kirk said. Shoulders curved and chairs were adjusted.

"Honored to have you on board, sir," a lieutenant said.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Honored to partake of your fine medical equipment."

Smiles broke out.

They moved on to the next table on the left. Kirk tried to catch Pullman's eye across the room, but she steadfastly stared at the door. He was a little disappointed in her. It wasn't the attitude he expected. But then again, he was learning how little he understood any female crew. His options were to assume his instincts were mistaken and avoid an encounter she clearly didn't want, or to act as he always did and arrange to get his own way. No, he wouldn't be driven to inaction by lack of understanding. That wouldn't be him.

Okudo had made it to the food synthesizer and was selling McCoy on some custom programmed Southern food. Kirk, with Spock acting as his shadow, finished greeting the other tables in the room, saving the one in the corner for last.

In glances he assessed how she could see him coming, could see her bracing herself. She glanced at the woman beside her, a Lt. Commander in sciences. Then Kirk understood. His reputation made him dangerous when women were their own worst enemy in the line of command.

At the corner table, Kirk greeted the highest ranking first.

"Lt. Commander . . .?"

"Schimmil, Captain." She shook hands perfunctorily. Her hands were cold. Kirk found himself thinking, cold fish, then stopped himself. He really knew nothing to base an assessment on, other than she wasn't warm to him immediately upon meeting him. And she was likely Pullman's mentor.

Kirk returned Pullman's nod as introductions went around. When they passed her, she was clearly relieved. Kirk tried to square that with her earlier self-confidence. He began to suspect that the variation in behavior was higher for female crew, more circumstance dependent. He didn't remember ever hearing that, but it would explain things. His own crew were likely just as full of potential, but he never saw it. He'd have to create more opportunities for them to blossom.

He encouraged some small science talk between Spock and Schimmil to stall departing from the table. But the two of them would either talk all day or stop immediately after exchanging basic research pursuits, and they chose to stop immediately. Spock waited on him. But Kirk couldn't let it go. Even as embarrassed as he still was by her needing to dry his eye before anyone else saw. Or perhaps because of it, he needed to take ownership of the situation.

She had relaxed and fallen into a watchful state of observation. He waited until she looked his way and gave her time to realize he was not going to let greetings slide by anonymously. She had a mask for this. Only a deep breath she held gave her away.

"I'm glad to get a chance to thank you for your care, Ensign. You are one of the most skillful as well as entertaining medics I've ever encountered."

Her face was coloring. He was afraid she might mumble, but she rose to it strong and clear. "Thank you, Captain."

The sidelong glances from the rest of the table began. Kirk thought, that's not the way to run a department. He glanced back at Spock to signal that they were departing and found his gaze locked on him already.

He took a moment to find his voice. "Shall we eat? You'll excuse us." His last look around, broad smile intact, which was meant to be a parting shot of sorts. But he found Pullman glancing between Spock and himself with a furrowed brow. Kirk nodded and turned away. The scrutiny made him uneasy and the unexpectedness of his own uneasiness blindsiding him.

At the table he sat quietly, letting Okudo do all the talking. He felt fatigued and worn down, and vulnerable. But it was his own fault he'd revealed so much, injury or not. By the end of the meal he was trying not to sway.

"Time to go, I'd say," McCoy said when Okudo suggested breaking out his Saurian Brandy.

They were alone in the mess. The rest of the officers had eaten quickly and departed.

Kirk considered standing, then decided he needed to gather his strength to manage it. "I have to pass on the hospitality of your bar, Captain."

"Oh, Jim, of course you do. I got carried away. Forgot you were on death's door just three days ago."

"Was it that long ago?" Kirk asked. He didn't know what day it was.

Okudo laughed and gestured for them all to depart.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk was allowed to sleep in his quarters and considered this a dear gift from McCoy. But he woke at oh three hundred and stared at the mesh partition in his quarters. He had to figure out Spock. He couldn't let it go, as tempting as it was to let the private Vulcan remain as private as he clearly wanted to be.

Kirk wished he could speak to someone else about it. He badly needed advice, a second read on the situation. But he'd spill his guts to Ensign Pullman long before he'd trust McCoy with that much ammunition.

Kirk wondered if he had a Pullman on his ship. Or several. He very well might. He needed to figure out how to give them space to prove themselves.

McCoy ordered Kirk off the bridge for a week. A week. Starfleet held off on issuing new orders suspiciously the same amount of time. Kirk filled his time by briefly visiting each department then, when he could shake the hovering presence of McCoy long enough, meeting casually with small groups inside each department. He was officially off duty and that seemed to put his crew more at ease. If they all got to know each other as people, that gap would close and Kirk dearly wanted that gap to close. It could kill them otherwise.

While they talked, he looked for his own Ensign Pullman. He looked for women in his crew who could be fully comfortable in their own skin, who had the confidence to take charge in an emergency, who had what it took to grow into well-polished officers. If he had one, there was no way of knowing. Male crewmembers were, on the whole, more than willing to show you what they had to offer, even if it was mistakenly overconfident. Women held back. When an opening came, they may step into it. If directly asked, they would answer, up to a point. It was aggravating beyond belief.

Kirk wondered if they had failed to explain how to handle this in command school. Or had he not paid any attention when they did? At the end of the week, he could have forty Ensign Pullmans and not know it. Everyone: man, woman, other, was here because they were exemplary in all ways. All ways. But it didn't show on the surface of all of them. He kept thinking about his reputation for bedding any woman he found alluring. But what did that mean here on the ship? It shouldn't mean anything. The men around him had always responded so positively he'd never imagined there could be a downside.

Orders finally came through. Kirk had never dived so thoroughly into any document from Command. A nice safe scientific mission to explore an unexplained astral phenomenon. Kirk should have chaffed at it, but he was relieved. He needed time to get to know his crew better. Run drills. Run drills no one had ever thought of before, drills that got every last one of them to reach into themselves and know their own potential so they could wear it with pride. So he could see it.

In his copious downtime in his quiet quarters, Kirk had the central computer read out everything it had on Vulcan emotion and touch telepathy. There had been less of it than of any other topic in the databanks and what had been there had been remarkably unhelpful. Kirk sat at his desk after asking it to repeat the sections on telepathic links between related family members. it was late and Kirk should already have been asleep. He was still up because he was wavering on talking to Spock and hated that it was happening. His First seemed so normal, so controlled, that he was beginning to fool himself into relaxing his concern. And as his duties filled his day again, and tensions rose, the opportunity to talk was going to become difficult to find, if not dangerous to the ship, if Kirk disrupted a mission doing it.

The computer said, "End of file."

Kirk hadn't really been listening. And Spock wasn't like other Vulcans, no matter how hard he tried to be. That human genetics thrown in the mix made what the computer had to say even less relevant.

Kirk reached for the switch. Spock had been getting by under Pike for eleven years just fine. There was no reason to assume he wasn't still fine.

Kirk moved his hand away from the switch. "Computer, what is the origin of the phrase . . . 'a hundred years of waking death'?"

"Working."

Kirk waited. The only reason he had asked that was that he was too tired to not ask that.

"It is a reference to Vulcan literature, used from some of the earliest writings, although it has become less common in the last six hundred years."

Kirk felt chilled. He had no choice but to take action. Consequences be damned. "What does it mean?"

"Working."

"It refers to the average Vulcan lifespan, after maturity, measured in Vulcan years, which is equivalent to approximately one hundred and seventy earth years. The literary meaning is varied. It can be an expression used for one who has suffered an emotional blow too significant to recover from, who must live with mental controls too strong to appreciate living."

Kirk said, "I thought that described all Vulcans."

The computer ignored him. "This meaning is more prominent in references predating the time of the philosopher Surak when stories of single survivors of battles between communities were common. It can also refer to someone who has lost an unusually close mate young and is not fit to be bonded to another. Further, it can refer to someone who suffers an injury or illness of the mind that makes it impossible to function properly within the strictures of Vulcan society, although this usage is far less common."

Apparently, studying Vulcan literature would get Kirk a lot farther understanding Vulcans than the computer's scientific summaries. That he had not considered.

Tomorrow he would talk to Spock. Come hell or high water.

The next morning McCoy reluctantly certified Kirk for full time duty and Kirk used it to hold a formal three hour meeting with the department heads. He didn't order them to do anything. He asked questions and let them talk. At the end of it, everyone was all smiles. The relief that their captain was healthy and on duty was palpable.

Kirk remained sitting as the conference room emptied. McCoy came back over to check on him. Kirk shooed him away.

When Spock turned off the monitor and stood up, Kirk said, "Stay for a minute, Commander."

Spock didn't resume his seat. He straightened his tapes and waited beside his chair.

McCoy shot a glance back then departed.

Kirk did not have a plan. He had intended to have a plan before this moment but had failed.

Kirk's voice was probing. "How are you doing, Spock?"

Spock registered surprise by raising both brows. "I am quite well, Captain." He seemed to want to say more but fell silent.

Kirk said, "Something else?"

"I was curious how you were faring, yourself, Captain."

He wanted to reassure Spock, and his voice sounded inappropriately gentle as he said, "A little tired for a mere meeting, but doing well."

Spock didn't react, so perhaps it hadn't been too strange a tone, or perhaps Spock truly could not read humans.

The moment passed.

"Was there something you wished to discuss, Captain?"

"There is."

As badly as Kirk felt for the man before him, he couldn't broach the subject. Or perhaps because he felt so much for him. He respected him too much to want to risk the awkwardness, and possible pushback, or even lashing out. Plus, he didn't really know what the subject was, only the symptoms of it.

Kirk rubbed his chin and gave an awkward smile which was probably the wrong signal for a non-human. "I don't know how to start."

"Is it regarding the drills you wish to run? You seemed quite adamant, but did not finalize a plan."

"I am interested in working that out. I'm not sure how to broach the heart of that topic, even with my officers. It can get touchy getting into gender differences."

The comm whistled. "Bridge to captain."

Kirk went to the comm, annoyed that he felt relieved to be rescued from the conversation he'd started.

He told the comm he'd be on the bridge in half a minute and with a nod, Spock followed.

On the bridge, Kirk took his seat and watched his bridge crew work. The sensors were quiet for three hours.

"It was just a blip, sir," Mr. Sulu said. "Sorry if we called you up for no reason."

"Mr. Sulu, I don't want you apologize that something may be nothing. It usually will be and the one time it's not is when we will be in trouble if we dismiss it. Lt. Uhura . . ."

"Sir?"

Kirk stood up and went to her station. She had a quiet strength that he had learned to rely on without appreciating what it took to maintain it. He should air his concerns to her about the rest of the female crew and see what she said. Even if his questions turned out to be embarrassingly ignorant, he expected she'd keep that to herself.

"Any chance that was not a communications blip we encountered?"

She took the receiver from her ear. "Since we reversed and passed through the same zone again a light hour back and did not re-receive it, I suspect a focused communications beam, sir, that dissipated."

Kirk raised a finger. "Good point." He was too tired to be on the bridge. He should have thought of that. But that was also his crew's job. He had to give them all space to do their job.

Kirk said, "I think we should resume course and see if we get a new transmission. Barring any way of identifying the source we are wasting time out here. Helm."

"Yes, sir." The navigator began entering new coordinates.

If Kirk was going to be on the bridge he needed to appear strong or go and get a rest. "Mr. Spock. Take the Con."

"Yes, Captain."

Kirk received a long look before Spock assumed the captain's chair. Kirk gave him a weak smile to ease his mind. He'd be better tomorrow. McCoy promised he'd feel noticeably better every day. He'd feel better faster if the memory of that pain wasn't haunting him at night. He'd feel better if he could act like a commander, even when it was personally risky.

Two more chapters to go. 5 is getting a bit long.