It was Uhura who reacted first. There was the sound of the lift swishing open and then her gladdened cry.
"Captain!"
Every eye turned to find Jim Kirk bounding onto the Bridge like a tiger reclaiming his territory. He didn't acknowledge the small cheer that rippled around the room, dismissing the breech of military etiquette as if he hadn't heard. Daphne was aware of the waves of relief and pure joy the sight of their Captain had produced. She was feeling the same thing.
Kirk strode over to Spock, who had risen when his commander came onto the Bridge. Gilt brown eyes met and held the midnight velvet ones of his First Officer.
"McCoy tells me you should be in sickbay," Kirk said, bluntly. He looked like he wanted to sock the Vulcan in the jaw and haul him down there himself, "Where do you think you should be?" Jim's tone softened only slightly at the end.
"Here," Spock replied.
Daphne looked from one to the other. The energy between the two men crackled like phaser fire, though she sensed it was not deadly or dangerous. They were both men who had both risen to a position of power – one consumed by the same restless energy she felt in her own heart, the other a mountain of strength and stability – perhaps only they understood what passed between them in that one long steady look.
She had learned that Jim valued Spock for the same things that McCoy chided him for – his 'alienness.' McCoy seemed to think Spock would have been much better off choosing the walk a Terran path, embracing emotion and his mother's heritage. Jim, on the other hand, accepted and seemed to cherish the fact that his First Officer was not human. He may not understand him all the time, but he didn't need to.
This was one of those times.
Kirk nodded and there was a collective sigh of relief on the Bridge, though it was a relief tempered by the knowledge that their First Officer needed to be in sickbay. He looked around the Bridge, at the collective sets of eyes watching him, waiting for orders. His manner was calm, assertive, determined. Daphne knew that women found her brother handsome. Even being his sister didn't stop her from seeing it. But there was something about Jim Kirk, an intensity too unorthodox to call him merely good looking, something that made him powerfully attractive as a man and as a leader.
Something that made people like McCoy and Spock willingly lay their loyalty at his feet.
Kirk gave them all a crooked grin, hazel eyes lit with humor and intelligence, shimmering over with the depths of his experience and power to command.
"All right," he said, "Can someone tell me where the hell we're going?"
