Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Nada. Zip. Zero. But I love it anyway.
A slightly different chapter from our last one. But keep that last one in mind...it's coming back next chapter. So's Lowell. Not conscious, mind you, just...back in the general consciousness. Kinda. After that preview of coming attractions, onward to this chapter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As was his custom, Mr. Spock entered the Mess Hall at precisely 6:20 in the evening, PADD tucked under his arm. The room was unusually quiet. An average number of people, but they seemed more inclined to speak quietly than to shout. Spock surmised that this was in response to the pirates' presence aboard the ship. He found the change in volume refreshing. On slightly closer examination, he also noted that, on average, the apparent emotional well being of those present was higher than it had been in the last four days. Most likely a response to the successful encounter with the Queen Mary earlier in the day. Interesting.
At the replicators, Spock ordered three varieties of Terran fruit, with a slice of bread on the side, and picked up his tray. He scanned the room, and located an empty table near the back. He maneuvered around the tables, set down his tray and his PADD, and sat down to eat his supper, while reading a paper from a research facility on Vulcan regarding the effects of several groundbreaking experiments on single-cellular organisms.
* * *
Approximately ten minutes later, McCoy wandered into the Mess Hall. The fact that this was very nearly the same time he'd eaten dinner the day before the Enterprise encountered the Sharks was pure chance, not intent. In fact, he didn't really notice the time. He did notice that the Mess Hall wasn't as loud as usual. The Sharks were elsewhere, and the Starfleet crew was quiet. They looked to be a more contented lot than they'd been for several days, a change McCoy approved. Morale had been low, and understandably so, for the last few days, and it was nice to see it picking up. Never mind that that was as much Kirk's influence, by way of the battle, as anyone's.
McCoy set aside the situation of morale, and went to get his dinner. He got a steak from the replicators, then headed towards the back of the room. As he moved around the obstacle course of tables and chairs he came upon Spock's table. The Vulcan was sitting alone, eating his fruit and bread, and reading something, no doubt some deep chemical tract. As usual. McCoy rolled his eyes, and continued on to join some of his medical staff at a table in the back corner.
* * *
Spock's dinner, and reading, was interrupted by the plunking down of a tray across from him. He looked up from his PADD.
Jim Kirk swung a leg over the bench and sat down across the table from Spock. "Mind if I join you?"
"Do I have a choice?" Spock asked.
"Not really." Kirk picked up half his chicken sandwich. "So, Spock. How've you been?"
Spock considered how to answer. "I assume you are attempting to ascertain my general state of mind and/or health in the immediate past?"
Kirk paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth, and looked at Spock a little oddly. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for. I think."
"Ah." Spock nodded. "I am well."
Kirk nodded. He waited for Spock to continue. Spock didn't. Kirk shook his head ruefully. "That doesn't give me much of an opening for conversation, you know."
Spock's eyebrow rose.
"Okay, let me try again. I'm fine. What's new with you?"
"That is an odd question to ask. You are aware of all news aboard this ship. You are directly responsible for the majority of it."
Kirk sighed. "You aren't supposed to analyze the question, Mr. Spock. Where I'm from, we call it small talk."
"Very small," Spock said disapprovingly.
Kirk stared at him. "Was that a joke?"
"No."
"Oh." Kirk shrugged. "Well, miracles are generally considered rare."
"I do not see the connection."
"You wouldn't," Kirk agreed without explanation.
"I need to return to the bridge. I should check the results of a hypothetical experiment I was running on the computer," Spock said, standing up.
Kirk watched with an amused expression as Spock gathered his tray and his PADD. The Vulcan was about to go when Kirk finally commented.
"A cop-out if ever I heard one," Kirk said quietly.
Spock stopped. "I beg your pardon?"
"You don't want to talk to me, so you came up with a fairly flimsy excuse to leave."
Kirk was completely correct and they both knew it. Spock, however, was not willing to admit that Kirk had been able to read him so easily. "I said nothing about not wanting to speak with you."
Kirk pounced on it. "Then you do want to talk to me."
"I did not say that either," Spock said cautiously.
"Seems simple to me. Either you don't want to talk to me, or you don't not want to talk to me."
Spock blinked. And after a long moment he sat down again. "It appears that it would be easier to attempt to talk to you than to attempt to not talk to you."
Kirk grinned. "Makes perfect sense. So what do you want to talk about?"
"I want to go back to the bridge. You are the one who wants to maintain a conversation."
Kirk sighed, his first hint of frustration. "Don't you ever just talk to anyone?"
"It would be very difficult to perform my duties aboard this ship without speaking."
"I mean talking. Don't you have any, y'know, friends?"
The most effective defense is often a good offense. Spock turned the question back on Kirk. "Do you?"
Kirk shifted. "That's beside the point. I was asking about you. I mean, I've kind of noticed, just in passing mind you, that you don't seem to spend much time with anybody. Are you friends with anyone in this crew?"
"Crews aboard ships do not always maintain close interrelations. For instance, are you friends with any of the Sharks?"
"We're not talking about me!" Kirk said shortly. He took a breath. "You're first officer. How about Lowell, are you friends with him? And you're sitting alone because he's in a coma in Sickbay?"
Spock seemed a little puzzled. "Captain Lowell is my superior officer."
"So what?"
"That would inevitably necessitate professional distance.
"Not inevitably," Kirk argued. "But I'm guessing it does here."
"Correct. And yes, inevitably."
"Not inevitably."
"Are you, for example, friends with your second in command?"
"I said, this isn't about me!" Kirk snapped. "How about...how about Dr. McCoy?" he asked, carefully not looking at Spock. He'd only heard one side of this, and was curious about the other. "Seems like you would talk the same language as far as science goes, friends with him?"
Spock's jaw muscles had tightened almost imperceptibly at the mention of the Doctor. "No."
"Well, why not?" Kirk asked bluntly.
"The Doctor is exceptionally emotional, even for a human," Spock said, with the closest thing to irritation Kirk had ever heard from him.
Kirk knew enough to drop that issue. He'd expected some response of that sort anyway. "So you really don't have any friends?"
Spock was becoming just a little annoyed. Only a little. He was a Vulcan after all, but it was still undeniable that some certain annoyance was present. Maybe it was the talking about Dr. McCoy that had done it. "Why does my social life fascinate you?"
Kirk shrugged. "I'm just making conversation. You want to talk about something else?"
Spock took the opening. "You still have not answered any of my questions."
Kirk glared at him, at once defensive. "We weren't talking about me."
"We are now," Spock pointed out.
"I don't want to talk about me."
"Your reluctance to discuss the matter seems to suggest a negative answer," Spock noted.
"It does not," Kirk snapped.
"Yes, it does. I have observed humans for multiple years. A refusal to discuss a matter generally means it is uncomfortable to them. I see no reason why you should be uncomfortable talking about your friends. Therefore I must assume that you do not have—"
"They're my gang!"
"And is that synonymous with 'friends?'" Spock asked calmly.
Kirk started to snap that yes, it was, everyone knew that, but stopped. He sighed. "No. It's not," he admitted. "They're not my friends. Well, Harry is, maybe. The rest of them aren't. It's all right as long as we stay on top, they're all right to hang with, we like each other I guess, but...you don't have to worry about friends shooting you in the back as soon as your luck turns." And there was the crucial difference. Because he had no doubt about his own fate if he weren't as good at his job as he was.
"And do you have friends elsewhere?" Spock asked, just as though they were discussing nothing more personal than a chemical equation.
"We're not having this conversation, okay?" Kirk said sharply. "It's over, we're not discussing it anymore."
"You do not," Spock concluded. "And yet you find it strange that I do not. Interesting."
"No, I don't have friends, okay? I admit it! But what's strange about that? I'm a pirate, damn it! I can't afford any! You make friends, you get ties to people, it holds you back because you have to worry about someone else. I only worry about one person, and that's me, Jim Kirk."
"A not unreasonable rationale considering your lifestyle," Spock admitted.
"Yeah. Sure. So what's your problem?" Kirk demanded. "You're on a starship. You don't have to worry about staying one trick ahead of the law. Why don't you have any friends?"
Spock's eyebrow rose. "Why would I want any?"
Poor Spockie, I know.
~~~***~~~
MySchemingMind: I just realized what a long review that was...thank you! And I can see where you're coming from with the "love at first sight story" although it does sound kind of funny to say it. Absolutely though, Kirk's real love was always the ship. I never planned that to be a major factor in here, that's kind of become something Kirk pushed, in the sense of characters writing stories themselves. And that's a very good insight that Kirk's trying to figure out Lowell. That's coming back. And there's no such thing as reviewing too much!
Mimi6: Let's just say that Lowell is a somewhat, um, different captain. He'd probably do very well on a starbase somewhere. Kirk, however, has a different attitude about captains, and it is making him kind of likeable. Which isn't always a good thing, since he is still on the opposite side of the table from the Starfleet crew.
Alania: For a long time the summary said "mild swearing" with you in mind. I'm glad you started reading this! And feel free to laugh, parts of it are supposed to be funny. Even serious stories have comic relief sometimes. And as for Lowell, McCoy said in chapter 11 (you probably just missed the line, I do that all the time) that Lowell's suffering from an injury to the lower cranium. It's treatable, but it requires bulky machinery that starbases have and starships don't. Once he can be got to a medical facility on a planet or starbase he'll be fine. Until then...[shrug] he's out.
PearlGirl: I knew I forgot to answer someone's question last time. About Kirk's maneuvers. The clubhauling, obviously, was from Pirates. The Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver really was created by Garth of Izar at the battle of Axanar, at least according to the book Garth of Izar (which sounds excellent but was actually kind of disappointing because I was hoping for an epic spanning his entire career and it, well, wasn't). And I could swear Kirk used it somewhere in First Frontier, but I've never been able to flip through and find it...
Emp: But the funny part is, there's always something new to wait to find out...until the last chapter anyway, which is a while away yet.
Mzsnaz: "Winning them over." Very accurate. Spock's comment about happiness was actually an afterthought, but once I thought of it I was very glad I did.
Jennifer: Perfectly valid point. Can you believe that Kirk might convince himself that he was going to sell the Enterprise? Whether he can go through with it or not remains to be seen. Glad you like the story!
Whatshername: Don't apologize for forgetting about Lowell. Lowell's forgettable. I worked hard to make his impression one of absolute BLAH, then knocked him out at the...opportune moment. And otherwise, that review was very long and rambling, wasn't it? Glad you liked though!
AliciaF: Yeah, I know...Trekkie Soul. I'll kick it sometime soon.
Cyrogenie: Kirk as Captain Jack Sparrow...I acknowledge the resemblance and don't blame you for seeing it but I swear that wasn't the goal! "Unwilling crew." I like that phrase, it says it nicely. Glad you're enjoying the story!
Samantha: "Love/hate dichotomy." Nice. Glad you're back, I missed your reviews! Hope life improves for you soon!
Unrealistic: Deliberately set up an argument...I like that idea. That's really very amusing. Thanks!
All right, time to go. There's a math project looming. G'bye 'til next time!
A slightly different chapter from our last one. But keep that last one in mind...it's coming back next chapter. So's Lowell. Not conscious, mind you, just...back in the general consciousness. Kinda. After that preview of coming attractions, onward to this chapter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As was his custom, Mr. Spock entered the Mess Hall at precisely 6:20 in the evening, PADD tucked under his arm. The room was unusually quiet. An average number of people, but they seemed more inclined to speak quietly than to shout. Spock surmised that this was in response to the pirates' presence aboard the ship. He found the change in volume refreshing. On slightly closer examination, he also noted that, on average, the apparent emotional well being of those present was higher than it had been in the last four days. Most likely a response to the successful encounter with the Queen Mary earlier in the day. Interesting.
At the replicators, Spock ordered three varieties of Terran fruit, with a slice of bread on the side, and picked up his tray. He scanned the room, and located an empty table near the back. He maneuvered around the tables, set down his tray and his PADD, and sat down to eat his supper, while reading a paper from a research facility on Vulcan regarding the effects of several groundbreaking experiments on single-cellular organisms.
* * *
Approximately ten minutes later, McCoy wandered into the Mess Hall. The fact that this was very nearly the same time he'd eaten dinner the day before the Enterprise encountered the Sharks was pure chance, not intent. In fact, he didn't really notice the time. He did notice that the Mess Hall wasn't as loud as usual. The Sharks were elsewhere, and the Starfleet crew was quiet. They looked to be a more contented lot than they'd been for several days, a change McCoy approved. Morale had been low, and understandably so, for the last few days, and it was nice to see it picking up. Never mind that that was as much Kirk's influence, by way of the battle, as anyone's.
McCoy set aside the situation of morale, and went to get his dinner. He got a steak from the replicators, then headed towards the back of the room. As he moved around the obstacle course of tables and chairs he came upon Spock's table. The Vulcan was sitting alone, eating his fruit and bread, and reading something, no doubt some deep chemical tract. As usual. McCoy rolled his eyes, and continued on to join some of his medical staff at a table in the back corner.
* * *
Spock's dinner, and reading, was interrupted by the plunking down of a tray across from him. He looked up from his PADD.
Jim Kirk swung a leg over the bench and sat down across the table from Spock. "Mind if I join you?"
"Do I have a choice?" Spock asked.
"Not really." Kirk picked up half his chicken sandwich. "So, Spock. How've you been?"
Spock considered how to answer. "I assume you are attempting to ascertain my general state of mind and/or health in the immediate past?"
Kirk paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth, and looked at Spock a little oddly. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for. I think."
"Ah." Spock nodded. "I am well."
Kirk nodded. He waited for Spock to continue. Spock didn't. Kirk shook his head ruefully. "That doesn't give me much of an opening for conversation, you know."
Spock's eyebrow rose.
"Okay, let me try again. I'm fine. What's new with you?"
"That is an odd question to ask. You are aware of all news aboard this ship. You are directly responsible for the majority of it."
Kirk sighed. "You aren't supposed to analyze the question, Mr. Spock. Where I'm from, we call it small talk."
"Very small," Spock said disapprovingly.
Kirk stared at him. "Was that a joke?"
"No."
"Oh." Kirk shrugged. "Well, miracles are generally considered rare."
"I do not see the connection."
"You wouldn't," Kirk agreed without explanation.
"I need to return to the bridge. I should check the results of a hypothetical experiment I was running on the computer," Spock said, standing up.
Kirk watched with an amused expression as Spock gathered his tray and his PADD. The Vulcan was about to go when Kirk finally commented.
"A cop-out if ever I heard one," Kirk said quietly.
Spock stopped. "I beg your pardon?"
"You don't want to talk to me, so you came up with a fairly flimsy excuse to leave."
Kirk was completely correct and they both knew it. Spock, however, was not willing to admit that Kirk had been able to read him so easily. "I said nothing about not wanting to speak with you."
Kirk pounced on it. "Then you do want to talk to me."
"I did not say that either," Spock said cautiously.
"Seems simple to me. Either you don't want to talk to me, or you don't not want to talk to me."
Spock blinked. And after a long moment he sat down again. "It appears that it would be easier to attempt to talk to you than to attempt to not talk to you."
Kirk grinned. "Makes perfect sense. So what do you want to talk about?"
"I want to go back to the bridge. You are the one who wants to maintain a conversation."
Kirk sighed, his first hint of frustration. "Don't you ever just talk to anyone?"
"It would be very difficult to perform my duties aboard this ship without speaking."
"I mean talking. Don't you have any, y'know, friends?"
The most effective defense is often a good offense. Spock turned the question back on Kirk. "Do you?"
Kirk shifted. "That's beside the point. I was asking about you. I mean, I've kind of noticed, just in passing mind you, that you don't seem to spend much time with anybody. Are you friends with anyone in this crew?"
"Crews aboard ships do not always maintain close interrelations. For instance, are you friends with any of the Sharks?"
"We're not talking about me!" Kirk said shortly. He took a breath. "You're first officer. How about Lowell, are you friends with him? And you're sitting alone because he's in a coma in Sickbay?"
Spock seemed a little puzzled. "Captain Lowell is my superior officer."
"So what?"
"That would inevitably necessitate professional distance.
"Not inevitably," Kirk argued. "But I'm guessing it does here."
"Correct. And yes, inevitably."
"Not inevitably."
"Are you, for example, friends with your second in command?"
"I said, this isn't about me!" Kirk snapped. "How about...how about Dr. McCoy?" he asked, carefully not looking at Spock. He'd only heard one side of this, and was curious about the other. "Seems like you would talk the same language as far as science goes, friends with him?"
Spock's jaw muscles had tightened almost imperceptibly at the mention of the Doctor. "No."
"Well, why not?" Kirk asked bluntly.
"The Doctor is exceptionally emotional, even for a human," Spock said, with the closest thing to irritation Kirk had ever heard from him.
Kirk knew enough to drop that issue. He'd expected some response of that sort anyway. "So you really don't have any friends?"
Spock was becoming just a little annoyed. Only a little. He was a Vulcan after all, but it was still undeniable that some certain annoyance was present. Maybe it was the talking about Dr. McCoy that had done it. "Why does my social life fascinate you?"
Kirk shrugged. "I'm just making conversation. You want to talk about something else?"
Spock took the opening. "You still have not answered any of my questions."
Kirk glared at him, at once defensive. "We weren't talking about me."
"We are now," Spock pointed out.
"I don't want to talk about me."
"Your reluctance to discuss the matter seems to suggest a negative answer," Spock noted.
"It does not," Kirk snapped.
"Yes, it does. I have observed humans for multiple years. A refusal to discuss a matter generally means it is uncomfortable to them. I see no reason why you should be uncomfortable talking about your friends. Therefore I must assume that you do not have—"
"They're my gang!"
"And is that synonymous with 'friends?'" Spock asked calmly.
Kirk started to snap that yes, it was, everyone knew that, but stopped. He sighed. "No. It's not," he admitted. "They're not my friends. Well, Harry is, maybe. The rest of them aren't. It's all right as long as we stay on top, they're all right to hang with, we like each other I guess, but...you don't have to worry about friends shooting you in the back as soon as your luck turns." And there was the crucial difference. Because he had no doubt about his own fate if he weren't as good at his job as he was.
"And do you have friends elsewhere?" Spock asked, just as though they were discussing nothing more personal than a chemical equation.
"We're not having this conversation, okay?" Kirk said sharply. "It's over, we're not discussing it anymore."
"You do not," Spock concluded. "And yet you find it strange that I do not. Interesting."
"No, I don't have friends, okay? I admit it! But what's strange about that? I'm a pirate, damn it! I can't afford any! You make friends, you get ties to people, it holds you back because you have to worry about someone else. I only worry about one person, and that's me, Jim Kirk."
"A not unreasonable rationale considering your lifestyle," Spock admitted.
"Yeah. Sure. So what's your problem?" Kirk demanded. "You're on a starship. You don't have to worry about staying one trick ahead of the law. Why don't you have any friends?"
Spock's eyebrow rose. "Why would I want any?"
Poor Spockie, I know.
~~~***~~~
MySchemingMind: I just realized what a long review that was...thank you! And I can see where you're coming from with the "love at first sight story" although it does sound kind of funny to say it. Absolutely though, Kirk's real love was always the ship. I never planned that to be a major factor in here, that's kind of become something Kirk pushed, in the sense of characters writing stories themselves. And that's a very good insight that Kirk's trying to figure out Lowell. That's coming back. And there's no such thing as reviewing too much!
Mimi6: Let's just say that Lowell is a somewhat, um, different captain. He'd probably do very well on a starbase somewhere. Kirk, however, has a different attitude about captains, and it is making him kind of likeable. Which isn't always a good thing, since he is still on the opposite side of the table from the Starfleet crew.
Alania: For a long time the summary said "mild swearing" with you in mind. I'm glad you started reading this! And feel free to laugh, parts of it are supposed to be funny. Even serious stories have comic relief sometimes. And as for Lowell, McCoy said in chapter 11 (you probably just missed the line, I do that all the time) that Lowell's suffering from an injury to the lower cranium. It's treatable, but it requires bulky machinery that starbases have and starships don't. Once he can be got to a medical facility on a planet or starbase he'll be fine. Until then...[shrug] he's out.
PearlGirl: I knew I forgot to answer someone's question last time. About Kirk's maneuvers. The clubhauling, obviously, was from Pirates. The Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver really was created by Garth of Izar at the battle of Axanar, at least according to the book Garth of Izar (which sounds excellent but was actually kind of disappointing because I was hoping for an epic spanning his entire career and it, well, wasn't). And I could swear Kirk used it somewhere in First Frontier, but I've never been able to flip through and find it...
Emp: But the funny part is, there's always something new to wait to find out...until the last chapter anyway, which is a while away yet.
Mzsnaz: "Winning them over." Very accurate. Spock's comment about happiness was actually an afterthought, but once I thought of it I was very glad I did.
Jennifer: Perfectly valid point. Can you believe that Kirk might convince himself that he was going to sell the Enterprise? Whether he can go through with it or not remains to be seen. Glad you like the story!
Whatshername: Don't apologize for forgetting about Lowell. Lowell's forgettable. I worked hard to make his impression one of absolute BLAH, then knocked him out at the...opportune moment. And otherwise, that review was very long and rambling, wasn't it? Glad you liked though!
AliciaF: Yeah, I know...Trekkie Soul. I'll kick it sometime soon.
Cyrogenie: Kirk as Captain Jack Sparrow...I acknowledge the resemblance and don't blame you for seeing it but I swear that wasn't the goal! "Unwilling crew." I like that phrase, it says it nicely. Glad you're enjoying the story!
Samantha: "Love/hate dichotomy." Nice. Glad you're back, I missed your reviews! Hope life improves for you soon!
Unrealistic: Deliberately set up an argument...I like that idea. That's really very amusing. Thanks!
All right, time to go. There's a math project looming. G'bye 'til next time!