A/N: Thank you so much to those who reviewed—over 900 now, it's so exciting! Thanks for sticking with me and my slow pace.

x

Kirk has pulled up the large corner armchair, the biggest one in the room, and draped himself over it, as if he found reviewing the resumes of medical personnel the most relaxing activity possible. Spock pulls his own hardback kitchen chair closer to the table and the computer screen. He's trying not to stare at Kirk and the way he's completely relaxed, with his legs over one arm of the chair and his shirt starting to ride up to show just a sliver of the skin of his stomach and side. They've been at this for a while and though Spock wouldn't say he's tired, he does feel them approaching an impasse, beyond which it would be illogical to continue.

"As Dr. McCoy will be your new Chief Medical Officer," he says lightly, as he skims the credentials of their latest potential crewmember, "perhaps you should consult him on this process?"

"I tried," Kirk answers, and he sounds completely unconcerned by his apparent lack of success. "He says he has no time for 'grunt work that other people could be doing' when he has 'a clinic to run.'"

Spock raises an eyebrow. "I thought you told me that he was merely volunteering at this clinic."

"He was. But Bones is like that. He likes to be in charge and know that he's got everything under control. Plus, he usually is the most competent guy in the room so it makes sense to give him all the responsibility." He shrugs. "I guess he's sort of a control freak."

Kirk is making no effort to look at the computer screen in front of them; out of the corner of his eye, Spock can just see that Kirk is watching him, instead, and they're slipping into something that they shouldn't. He is here to work.

Out loud he says, "He did effectively promote himself to CMO during the Narada mission."

Kirk laughs, one short, sharp "ha." "Sounds like Bones. I thought you promoted him, though."

"Only after he had already assumed the responsibilities of his deceased predecessor."

To this, Kirk simply nods in approval. "Good man. Got to have people like him on board a ship." His gaze, wandering for a moment, returns to Spock again, and Spock looks away as soon as their eyes meet, pretends he wasn't staring too. He's about to make another comment about Lieutenant Smith, the officer whose credentials they are supposed to be discussing, when Kirk says, light and conversational, shifting slightly in his chair as he speaks, "He joined up at the same time as I did, you know. After his divorce."

Spock knows almost nothing about Dr. McCoy, except that he is a particularly emotional human and, it would seem, a quite talented doctor. He also knows that McCoy is Kirk's roommate and his closest friend, and he can't help wondering if the doctor approves of Kirk's professional overtures to Spock, or if he still holds a grudge over certain of Spock's actions on the Enterprise.

He doesn't answer, and Kirk goes on, his voice a bit tentative beneath its forced nonchalance. "Starfleet's an escape for him. And I understand that. It was for me, too."

He's staring again. Spock finds it quite hard to look away when that gaze is on him. It is steady and appraising, and daring too, a forceful dare, as if to look away were cowardly, and Spock is no coward and will not be seen as one. He tries not to blink. It is disconcerting to see how much Kirk can push his buttons.

Clearly, there will be no more work done on their project, at least not right away, and yet he doesn't move back from the table, wary of acknowledging this new air between them. It is not simply comradely; it is confessional, and it is his instinct to pull away from these moments, unnerved by the possibility of learning almost as much as of revealing.

"There isn't any better place to run," Kirk is saying. "You train long enough and prove yourself good enough and you get to leave your whole planet behind. That looked like a pretty good proposition to me three years ago." He smiles a humorless smile and adds, "I almost wonder why I didn't enlist earlier, actually."

"I am sure that Starfleet appreciates your contributions," Spock answers, "regardless of your reasons for enlisting."

This should be enough of a hint, enough of a clue, that he does not want to continue this discussion, but Kirk does not notice it, or does not admit he does. He swings his legs over the arm of the chair so that his feet are on the floor again and when he speaks again his tone is lighter, no longer the heavy hint of deeper meaning hidden below the surface, no longer a fake nonchalance, or at least, now, a better imitation of indifference. "So, how did you end up here?" he asks. "San Francisco is a lot farther from Vulcan than it is from Iowa."

"If you mean to imply that I, too, joined Starfleet as an 'escape,' as you put it, you are mistaken."

"Spock, come on." Kirk is shaking his head and smiling, a sort of smile that does not signal happiness and which is, for this reason, still confusing to Spock, who first learned to read human emotion as if he were reading a book, referents and clues counting for more than instinct. "I'm not out to trick you. I'm just trying to have a friendly conversation."

"Your comments and questions are quite personal for a friendly conversation," Spock says quietly.

Kirk doesn't answer right away, his gaze still down at the floor, and Spock isn't sure if he's embarrassed or simply taking his time to form the perfect response. Perhaps, he thinks, it is a little of both.

"Maybe," he admits finally. "I don't mean to pry. I'm just trying to….get to know you better. I guess."

Spock's sure if he waits long enough Kirk will change the subject back to the project, but he doesn't keep his silence for this reason. He must admit that he had wondered how that young man, more practiced in his recklessness than Spock, more confident in his rebellion, with an air of self-destruction or at least of decay, and decay come to soon, how such a boy could grow into this Captain. The last choice his fifteen year old self could have foreseen the human boy making was to enlist in the military.

Though it's true, he thinks now, that he was very charismatic, and so convincing. An able diplomat.

It's just as true that he wouldn't have considered himself a likely military recruit, either.

When he sees Kirk open his mouth to speak he is snapped from his reverie, and he quickly interrupts. "I applied to Starfleet when I was seventeen. I was accepted, and I decided to attend this Academy instead of pursuing other options."

When he hears no answer, Spock looks over to see Kirk staring, brow furrowed, as if Spock had said something quite incomprehensible. "That's a very mundane story you've just told, Spock," he answers flatly, after a moment.

"It is the truth. If you would prefer I invent an elaborate tale for your amusement—"

"I'm just saying, why not pursue other options? Why not stay on Vulcan? Why move to another planet, where you're an alien, and bring your son who was what?—a toddler at the time, to raise him all by yourself—"

"Perhaps I should be flattered that you have clearly spent so much time contemplating the details of my life, Mr. Kirk." This is the voice he first perfected as a professor, and it feels false, now, too stiff and too impersonal, perhaps excessive. Still, it provides a certain useful cover. "However, you have very few facts upon which to base your speculations."

Kirk remains unfazed, just sits there, staring, and Spock notices he's leaning in just slightly, perhaps unaware of this posture, sitting as one would sit when concentrating particularly intensely on his subject. It is as if Spock were some specimen, naked to his gaze, and he cannot help remembering that, once, he did lie naked next to this man. Even then, he did not feel this open, this exposed. Their movements were so rushed then, so desperate, the actions of people who are not thinking and like it that way, and there was no time to examine or explore, no time to be careful with each other.

"I'm just making guesses based on what I know," Kirk shrugs. "You must have really wanted Starfleet, to go to such effort for it."

"There were advantages to leaving Vulcan," Spock tells him, and it is no answer, not even an acknowledgement of Kirk's comment, except that he is admitting that they are truly having this conversation, after all. "But it was not a decision I came to lightly and it was not, despite the stories you have might have imagined for yourself, my goal since I was a child."

"Well, you have to admit, Spock," Kirk answers, "it's a pretty ambitious second choice."

Spock makes a slight noise of assent, but says no more, because he does not feel ambitious, nor accomplished; if Kirk were the sort of person he could confide in, he would tell him that he often feels that perhaps it was all a mistake. He doubts Kirk would understand. We saved people, Spock, he might say, and Spock can hear the exact tone he'd use, as if he were really listening to those words being spoken instead of simply waiting out another tense silence.

"It's a good thing you are here," Kirk says, and turns back to their work, though Spock doubts he is really reading any of it, gaze resting on the computer screen, unmoving and unseeing. "I'd be lost without you."

"That is not true. Do not joke about such matters."

Kirk laughs, perhaps at Spock's tone, perhaps at himself, but what he says is only, "Who's joking?"

x

The next day, they take a more formal break. Kirk disappears for a few minutes and comes back with apples and bananas and tangerines from the store at the corner, and they move to the kitchen to eat. The window is open and Spock can hear the sounds of vehicles and people on the street below them.

"Do you mind," Kirk asks, as he digs his thumb into a tangerine to peel it, "if I ask you a personal question?"

Spock wants to mock him for asking permission this time, but instead, he tells the apples he is picking through, "I do not mind."

"Is it…" He waves his hand in circles as if he's looking for the right phrase. Spock has never seen the future Captain at a loss for words before. Either he's stalling because he is nervous, or this is truly a first. "Is it…difficult…to date? When you have a son?"

Spock's head snaps up. "Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity," Kirk shrugs, but he meets Spock's gaze and he does not seem curious, does not seem to radiate that feeling that Spock knows so well, the pure desire to know for the sake of knowing.

Spock looks down at the apples again. He picks one, a green one with only one small bruise on its side, and takes a large bite from it before he answers. "One's romantic life is not everything," he says.

"But it isn't nothing, either," Kirk counters. "Unless you've been celibate since—" He stops abruptly when Spock glares at him, and then puts up his hands as if in surrender and leans back in his chair. "If the question is too personal, I won't mention it again. You are, of course, welcome to ask me anything you want about my life—"

"Soon you will be Captain of the Enterprise. As such, you will have to learn to be more discreet."

"I promise I won't make any ship wide announcements about my sex life." Kirk smiles, that smile that's almost like a grin, the one Spock can't bear to look at, and peels the rest of the skin from his tangerine in one long loop. "Although, you would have an easier time getting me to keep that promise if you agree to be my First Officer."

Spock makes no reply to this remark, as it deserves none, only continues to eat his apple and to pretend he is not watching Kirk pull the slices of his tangerine apart. "I'm just saying," Kirk continues, after a moment. "It must be harder to meet people, at least if you're looking to be serious with them."

Spock catches his gaze, then, and raises his eyebrows. "You assume that I wish to, as you say, 'be serious' with my partners."

"You don't?" Kirk asks, and he sounds, for once, honestly surprised. Spock draws out the gaze and doesn't answer, and he's wondering if Kirk believes him and what he thinks of him, this person who once fell into bed with a stranger. Is it then so hard to believe that he could have done the same thing since, with another?

"You should not assume anything of me," he says at last, and turns away.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to get that." He's smiling, Spock can hear it in his voice, but he's serious too, and somehow this conversation isn't as unpleasant as Spock would have imagined it to be.

His apple is done to the core when he says, and as if no time had passed at all since Kirk's last comment, "It is true that, when one has a son, it is difficult to sustain any sort of romantic relationship with a partner who does not wish to involve himself with that son. In addition," he takes a tangerine from Kirk's side of the table, "it is difficult to find sufficient time for such activities."

The truth is that in the six years since he left Vulcan, he's had two relationships, and gone on a handful of other dates. None of the dates knew about Sevin. He'd gone on them because caring for Sevin without break wore away at him, and because he wanted their adult conversation, and because, in a way, he was flattered to be asked. He'd gone because he'd hoped to forget the human boy, and to forget Soval, and, later, to forget too the first relationship, and all the opportunities he'd had and hadn't taken. He'd imagined that nothing was quite like his night with the human boy, something always missing even in those most satisfying moments with the other men. He could not have imagined any of them being a parent to his son, and so each relationship, and each possibility, came with its own expiration date, came with the knowledge that it was temporary, fleeting, finally insubstantial.

"If you ever wanted," Kirk is saying. Spock had expected him to laugh, perhaps, or smile, what Spock has come to recognize as his common reaction to many of Spock's statements. It is perhaps part of the same charm that once seduced Spock so cleanly, though he sees now how in anyone else it would be irritating. Now he feels his stomach clench involuntarily, and he stops in his peeling of his tangerine. He imagines Kirk will offer him a date, and this thought is so irrational and so unwarranted, and he does not even know what he would say if it were true, that, a second later, he feels embarrassed that he'd ever had the thought.

"If you ever wanted, I could watch Sevin for an afternoon or an evening. I know you have your dad to help and that you and Uhura are close but," he hesitates, shrugs, and quirks up the corner of his mouth in a sort of smile. Spock pretends he does not notice this shyness, real or put on he cannot tell. "I'd understand if you didn't trust me with your kid, either. I like Sevin, and I would enjoy spending time with him. But I don't have any qualifications." He pauses, and because he has his eyes turned down Spock thinks it's safe to watch him. Perhaps he is simply doing Spock a favor. Perhaps this, too, is part of his attempt to convince Spock to serve on the Enterprise with him. "Of course," he adds, "I don't have much experience captaining starships either and somehow I'm going to be doing that."

"You have more than proven to Starfleet that you are capable of such a responsibility," Spock reminds him.

"Yeah?" he answers, his voice a little quieter now, which Spock did not expect and won't know how to answer. "And what have I proven to you?"

x

Twenty minutes after Spock leaves, McCoy is in the door and taking off his shirt.

"You don't have to go to so much trouble to seduce me, Bones," Jim tells him. He's washing dishes for the first time in about a month, and he can't help thinking that a Captain's salary has to be big enough to allow him to get a real dishwasher. At the very least, the Enterprise will have one.

"Oh, I'm well aware how easy it is to seduce you, Jim," Bones calls back through the open door of his room. "In case you haven't noticed, our bedrooms share a connecting wall. What are you doing washing dishes anyway? We have to leave in five minutes."

"Leave for what?" he yells back.

There's a pause, and then the sound of something like a knee smashing against something like a dresser, and then a loud "ow!" and some swearing. He dries off another plate and then he hears, again from Bones's room, "It's Friday."

For a second, the information means nothing to him, and he's about to shout back some comment to that effect when it comes to him. "Oh yeah," he says out loud. "Whose place is the game at this week again?"

"Uhura's. It's her housewarming, too, for her new apartment."

"Oh." He shuts off the water and grabs a towel to dry off his hands. Usually, he doesn't dress up special for a low-stakes poker game, but suddenly he can't help thinking that he should at least put on a nicer shirt. And he's already wearing one of his nicer shirts. "Hey Bones, are we supposed to be bringing gifts to this 'housewarming' thing?"

"Don't worry about it," Bones answers, as he reappears once more in the doorway, no longer in the sweaty and stained uniform from his clinic job, but looking instead only one good shave away from a real Southern gent. "I already bought flowers."

"What flowers?"

"The ones on the table in the other room."

"Oh," Jim answers again, and tries his best to sound disappointed. "I thought those were for me."

Bones just rolls his eyes and says, "They'll be from both of us." But he's the one who goes back and picks them up and carries them all the way to Uhura's apartment, and all that way Jim's wondering how Bones knew to get flowers.

They're the last to arrive but the game hasn't started yet; Sulu and Scotty are still pushing the furniture to the edges of the room so there's enough space to play on the floor. Chekov and Uhura are on the other side of the island that separates the main apartment from the kitchen, gathering drinks and food, and in the rush of greetings and flowers and searching for the cards and something like poker chips and everyone bumping into each other and stepping on each other's feet, he forgets that he's been running around all day and that he's tired. He can just be.

"Uhura," Chekov says, as he tries not to bump his head on the table looming over him, "your new apartment is very nice and all but perhaps it is a little…"

"Little," Sulu finishes for him, but Uhura just shoots both of them a look.

"If I were still living in the dorms, then you'd have a reason to complain," she reminds them. "This space is huge in comparison."

"It's huge in comparison to what we'll be livin' in on the Enterprise too," Scotty reminds them.

"Not that we'll be meeting to play poker in anyone's quarters," Bones adds. He's gotten the cards and has started to deal.

"Of course not, that's what rec rooms are for," Jim says. "And speaking of our future on that beautiful ship, Uhura, when are we going to see Spock at one of these games? You said you were going to ask him, right?"

"I did. He said he didn't want to come."

"This week or ever?"

She gives him a strange look as if she didn't understand, and he considers the possibility that he might sound a little desperate. He notes that Bones's eyebrows are starting to gravitate toward his hairline. He's both mocking and warning at once, and Jim looks down at his hand.

"He didn't specify," Uhura says. "But Spock is….wary in groups, especially if they're informal and there aren't any strict rules about how to act."

"Hey, if we're talking about having Spock at Enterprise poker nights, does that mean he's accepted the First Officer position?" Sulu asks.

"Not exactly," Jim admits. "But I'm working on it. And as far as I'm concerned he's already earned his place at poker night for life, if he wants it, even if he leaves Starfleet altogether."

"No debates there," Sulu answers. "I was just wondering…you know, if he does leave Starfleet? Who else are you thinking of for the spot?"

There's no quick and easy answer to that question because the truth is he has no idea. Various names have been floated around, and there are certainly a thousand people in Starfleet willing to give him their recommendations, or to kindly recommend themselves, but he's told all of them thanks and he'll get back to them and never talked about it again. He's considered a few. Maybe Gary Mitchell, except that he's said to have a bit of an ego, and they don't know each other very well, and anyway, he isn't Spock. That's the problem with them all, in the end.

He's about to say something about how he's thinking about it, okay, but his silence speaks for itself and before he can wave the question away, Scotty asks, "Are we playing poker or what?" and the conversation is dropped.

Later, between hands, and as Bones gets up to get more drinks from the kitchen, Chekov asks, "Is it true that Spock has a son?"

"True and not a secret," Uhura answers. She's separating her winnings into piles of perfectly ordered chips and Sulu, Jim notes, is staring at her like you couldn't pay him to take his eyes off her. "Why?"

"Just…" Chekov shrugs. "I was wondering if he'd bring this son with him, on the ship?"

"Don't want to be the youngest one on the Enterprise, lad?" Scotty asks, smiling. He's lost more than almost anyone so far but he plays with impossible confidence, and, about half the time anyway, he's right about his chances for a comeback.

"No," Chekov answers, sounding slightly defensive. "I was just curious. It would be without precedent, da? And he would be the only one his age?"

"Fleet brats aren't without precedent," Jim answers. "And it's not like there haven't been plenty of kids whose parents have taken them to live on other planets. One could even argue…" He pauses, and glances around at the other faces. They're watching him more carefully than he'd thought, and he's sure they're wondering what sort of speech he's making here, and why, and why now. He sighs. "One could even argue that we lose a lot of good people on our ships because they have families that it's hard for them to leave."

"Or they leave anyway and Starfleet gets the soldiers and the kids don't get parents," Sulu says quietly.

"You don't have to tell me," Kirk answers, and quirks up the corner of his mouth even though it's far from funny. "Anyway," he adds, as Bones comes back into the room and starts distributing beers, and vodka and scotch where appropriate, "it's not really up to me, what choices Spock decides to make for his family."

"But you're also a Captain," Uhura says. "You know that the environment at Starfleet makes it harder for people with families to serve on ships. There's no compromise, only family or career. Maybe that's inevitable. Or maybe it's partly the way the system is designed. You're an important person in that system now." She smiles, suddenly and inexplicably and to take out the bite from her final comment, "Inexplicably."

"Ha ha," he says dully. She isn't wrong, and he's thought about it too, thought about it more than he'd admit even to Bones. But if there's anyone he should be telling those thoughts to, it's Spock himself, so out loud he just tells Sulu to deal.

Through three hands (he loses each one, but Scotty makes a comeback to make anyone hopeful), he notices Uhura's eyes on him, steady and thoughtful. Just before he folds, the thought that comes to him and makes him want to fold, he remembers how close she and Spock are, at least as close as he and Bones, and even though he can't imagine Spock gossiping or telling secrets from his private life to anyone, he knows well enough how easily even the most close kept of information can spread to best friends. She knows. She knows about their first meeting, their youthful encounter, all those polite euphemistic phrases he has for that night they met and fucked. For a moment, he's almost embarrassed. Then he wonders if she's wondering what he's like in bed.

He smiles at her, and she looks away.

The idea of Spock gossiping about him is so strange as to be almost funny. But then, it also means that Spock thinks about him, that he remembers. He hadn't really thought Spock could have forgotten—who forgets Jim Kirk? he smiles to himself, and Scotty asks him if he has a good hand, then—and the day he'd met Spock's father, he'd actually come close to getting him to admit it. He'd been rattled. Jim takes a perverse sort of pleasure in knowing he can rattle Spock, in knowing he can reach some of that emotion that Spock keeps so well buried and controlled.

Uhura is watching him again and he can't help wondering what she knows, what exactly Spock told her. He can't imagine there were many details involved, and he didn't do anything really kinky or weird, didn't admit any particularly secret part of himself, anything that could make her want to stare at him as if she were trying to see through him. But he shouldn't overthink.

"In or out, Kirk?" Sulu asks him, and he glances at his cards and without really seeing them, answers, "In."

x

In chapter twenty-eight, Kirk takes Sevin to the aquarium. Kirk becomes curious about Sevin's mother.