Spock sat opposite Kirk, besides McCoy, joined by Scotty. Kirk was eating a sandwich, the contents of which are irrelevant, and close to what the food pretended to resemble, that but the slight aftertaste of cardboard, which, for anyone not working on a starship, would be recognisable immediately. Spock ate a small bowl of twisted pasta covered in a green pesto sauce, this too was irrelevant.
"Spock, whats your secret?" Kirk asked now that they were in a slightly more private area.
"Which secret?" Spock asked "besides, you said you couldn't keep a secret."
"The secret you were going to tell on the bridge. I promise I could keep it now." Kirk said.
"Sometimes I dream" Spock said slowly stabbing at his food. Kirk, with relief, allowed his shoulders a little slump as he took a bite from his sandwich.
"I thought it was going to be something serious" Kirk said.
McCoy nodded with a slight smile "I can't imagine Spock has many secrets, just things he hasn't told us, apart from that, you know. Besides I can hear him whispering in his sleep sometimes?"
"What's he whisper? Math?" Kirk asked.
"Nonsense" McCoy whispered back with a wicked grin only a sleep eavesdropper could have.
"If you ask me I reckon everything in Spock's past is a secret" Scotty said.
"I said that" McCoy said defensively.
"No you said he has a past he doesn't talk about, which makes it seem like he has secrets. I say he has a past he doesn't talk about because he's got secrets in his past he needs to keep."
"He's just vulcan" McCoy said oddly in his defence.
"Nah, I bet he did something shifty, what with strangling you on the bridge, no offence captain, and then hunting down Kahn, by the way did you see the damage he did to him? Nah, I bet he's done something awful."
"He's going to remember that when he returns to normal" McCoy said.
"Aye, and he'll defend himself or admit it." Scotty said "I'm just curious, mind you if I accidentally fall out an air vent in the next month or two, I'm telling you now it ain't an accident."
"Scotty thats enough of that. Commander Spock is your superior, he has earned that place and you will respect him." Kirk said.
"My apologise Captain" Scotty said wide eyed.
"What am I like?" Spock asked looking from Scotty to Kirk with big eyes "when I'm older? Am I, unable to control myself?"
"What? No, god no" Kirk said "I mean if I were you, I would have lost it so much more, what happened was just this odd one thing, and you were under a lot of stress, and it was my fault. Your a good vulcan, you're logical and nice."
"Nice?" Scotty asked.
"Well he isn't a mean vulcan, is he?" Kirk challenged him.
"I suppose not directly."
"You are to me." McCoy said "mind you, you still are even now. You just keep insisting on making my job that little bit harder."
"Your job is your responsibility. I do not see how I am making it harder than it already is." Spock said.
"Enough, enough please." Kirk ordered.

The eating was silent. There were questions that wanted to be asked. Like an apple tree with fruit, ready for picking, if you could collect a ladder high enough, the tree might even think that the pickers were giving them attention, crawling over their branches for apples. But in the end all the pickers want of an apple tree is the fruit, without it, they will leave, and the tree will enter winter and the leaves from branches will fall, and the tree will hope, she survives this winter alone. McCoy was not a fruit picker. McCoy was a doctor.
"What do you dream of?" McCoy asked.
"If I do not mediate for long enough I dream of dragons."
"Are they good dragons, or bad dragons?" Kirk asked.
"A dragon has no knowledge of good or bad. A dragon is only hungry, and the only food I carry in my dreams are upon my bones."
"Well. I can see why vulcans don't dream now." McCoy said "I'm going to be honest with you Spock, that wasn't such a secret to me, I've seen the odd rare mumble your give in your sleep."
"I still dream as an adult?"
"At the very least a little" McCoy said "only when you're injured though, and not had time to mediate."
Spock nodded "although my dream was not the secret I meant of, dreaming just happens around the time I notice."
"Notice what?" McCoy asked.
"It's a secret." Spock said.
"Did you tell your parents about your secret?" Kirk asked.
"I did. Father told me I was dreaming, that I was being illogical, that I should control myself, that there was nothing but me in my room, and occasionally I-chaya." Spock said and his fork slipped from his handing landing in the middle of his pasta. He pulled it out again.
"Lad, is ye secret dragons live in ye room?" Scotty asked light heartedly, whatever he seemed to suspect of Spock, he did not seem to show it in hate.
"No. Vulcans."
"That would be ye, lad." Scotty said.
"I am not vulcan, I am half vulcan. There are other vulcans in my room under the bed and in my cupboard, they hide beneath my window ledge. They leave spies in my books."
"Well, I did wonder what a vulcan child was like, I'm glad i've got my answer" Scotty said.
"That, can't be true Spock, has your mother or father searched for these vulcans?" McCoy asked.
"They did. They do every night I ask them to."
"What do they find?" McCoy asked.
"Nothing, vulcans cannot fit under my bed. But they are there."
"Maybe you are having too many dreams, that does sound like a nightmare" McCoy said "that would be a logical explanation."
"It would be one explanation. It would be logical. But it would be wrong."