He was discussing mission reports with the Captain, who had only just returned to the land of the wakeful, if not sober.

'Chekov shoulda cut on drinking,' Kirk frowned in a big-brotherly fashion, absolutely insincere. Spock scrolled down the list of reports on his own PADD and opened the one in question.

'I suppose by 'downing the shot' the Ensign means 'kicking down an armed adversary', Captain. I personally monitored his alcohol intake.'

Kirk whistled. 'Kid's no lightweight. Only needs a new dictionary. What I can't understand, Mr. First Officer, is why didn't you call me?'

'You were there.'

'I was? I don't remember.'

Spock serenely nodded.

'Right under the table. Mr. Scott was quick to recognize its strategic significance and organized the defense.'

'But what was I doing there?'

'Nothing, as you relinquished your tenuous hold on consciousness 2.4 minutes after asking me if I were a Scorpio, a Sagittarius, or both.'

'You don't have to tell,' Kirk waved dismissively. The fog in his mind was almost visibly beginning to dissipate. Spock was grateful there were no sound effects.

'Thank you, Captain. Would you like me to summarize the following events?'

Kirk cringed.

'Let me guess. The Commodore arrived, and we were arrested, and they will –have? – stripped me of my Captain's bars.'

'Not exactly, sir.'

'But this is the Brig, isn't it?'

'Yes, Jim, it is.'

'And we are here.'

'You are here. I am visiting.'

'Oh. Okay. Umm… Am I still Captain? If yes, summarize. If no, I don't want to know about it.'

'After Lieutenant Uhura overheard Mr. Darvin muttering obscenities in Klingon and saw to his detainment, the Klingons attempted to retrieve their spy. They did not succeed.'

'You guys stopped them!'

Spock hesitated.

'You did, didn't you?' Kirk asked in a small voice.

'Yes, Captain. As the other crewmembers on leave were otherwise engaged…' Spock swallowed his apprehension at his commanding officer's glee at the lame pun, 'I was the only one free to counter-attack.'

'You're enough,' Kirk generously allowed.

'At this moment, the Station is resuming its regular work, having enlisted Mr. Jones's help to collect the tribbles, and the tribbles's one to question the Klingons –'

'Neat. Wait, do they get paid?'

'And we are en route to Omicron Ceti III,' hastened Spock, not liking where Captain's line of thought went.

There was a beat of blessed silence.

'So I am in the brig of – of the Enterprise?'

'Indeed.'

'For drunk in disorderly right there along with you all?'

'For your hangover to have time to recede,' Spock chided, giving the cranky bleary-eyed child – for Jim Kirk could transform into one with frustrating ease, - a bottle of water. Duty had a knack of placing him in the most uncomfortable situations.

'I'm still pretty out there,' Kirk confessed, flopping back on the cot and cringing. 'Why aren't you on the Bridge?'

'I have to see to your welfare,' was there a plaintive note in his voice? Yes. Did he regret it? No. Complaint was logical and even warranted, but regret wasn't.

'Why?' the Captain, however 'out there', still retained his intuition and now was staring an answer out of his suddenly reticent XO.

'I was told of your dislike of confinement,' was the careful rejoinder. If McCoy breathed a word that he'd asked for the task of briefing Captain himself, impulsive fool that he was, he'd have to nerve-pinch the Doctor and transport to a Klingon ship. There were precedents.

But Kirk only nodded, hazily, stretched and was asleep again in a minute. Impossible human. Spock sat back on the floor, taking both datapadds to sketch a believable entry for the Captain's log.