Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk moved as if to move back to the Bridge. Hannah caught his arm, and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Oh no you don't," She chastised, almost a motherly element to her warning smile. She held on to his arm, the two of them paused outside the Transporter Room, hesitating over the direction in which to go. Hannah's smile broadened and she sang her next threat cheerily; "If you don't come with me, then I have to follow you to the Bridge." Kirk looked at her, and then wearily let his guard drop. He stopped resisting Hannah, and followed her, both in a weak smile and to the Med Bay. Hannah didn't let go of Kirk's arm until he was securely held within the confines of the Med Bay.
Kirk thanked the stars that it was Hannah looking him over, and not McCoy. Bones may have been his closest friend, but Kirk wasn't in the mood for being told how much like shit he looked today, and if Kirk was honest with himself, he wasn't sure his brain was functioning enough to understand McCoy's metaphors right now. Hannah just told him what to do, and performed the medical exam, noticeably, still preferring to rely on her own measurements than the tricorder's readings. Kirk stifled a yawn, and stretched out his aching back. Being thrown around by a Mugato was not fun work. Hannah frowned at the tricorder she had begrudgingly used.
"Oh no," She murmured. Kirk's head lifted slowly. He looked at her, defeated. "This is bad news, Jim."
"What is it?" He asked, monotonously, too tired to even add emotion into his voice. Hannah sat down on the bed beside him, and nudged him with her elbow, a playful smile dancing on her face again.
"You're exhausted, is what," She criticised the Captain, leaning forwards, and leaning on her elbows. She placed a hand on his own, and Kirk looked up at her. "When was the last time you genuinely had a break for more than… 5-6 hours?" Kirk could feel her eyes on him as he racked his brain. McCoy, passing by with a tray full of hyposprays, muttered under his breath;
"Since he became Captain?" His sardonic reply was met with a razor-edged glare from Hannah, but when she looked back to Kirk her eyes were full of sympathy.
"Jim," she began, her voice soft. "You can't run on empty forever."
"I am fine," Kirk dismissed, pushing himself up. Hannah caught his wrist and anchored him in the Med Bay, a weight to a fly-away balloon. She looked up at him, and spoke quietly.
"I know that tone, and I know that phrase." Her words were not said unkindly, but there was a steely undertone which made Kirk sink back on to the bed. "I know because I've used them before a hundred, thousand times. And every time its been a lie." Hannah released her grip on the Captain, and he looked at her, with no emotion in his gaze. Hannah stood up, and held out a hand to Kirk.
"Bedtime, Jim."
"I'm sure Sulu can cope for a few more hours," Hannah laughed, as the Captain tried to worm his way out of his medically mandated rest. "Will it make you feel better if the voice of reason stands by him all night?"
"I think Bones would kill me if I made him do that," Kirk broke into a slight laugh. Hannah grinned broadly, glad to finally see some sign of life back into Kirk. She let her laugh fade out faster than normal, however, as the sight of the door to the Captain's quarters came into sight. Kirk sighed again. "But what about Spoc-"
-"Spock will be fine. Mild concussions are very easy to deal with, inject this, scan for that, apply balm to the bruise and hey ho, you're done," Hannah cut across Kirk's protestation. She stopped walking, and squeezed Kirk's shoulder reassuringly. "Exhaustion is less easy, and more dangerous. We can't have you falling asleep in the chair, now can we?" Kirk let out a light chuckle, and opened the doors to his quarters.
"You wouldn't want to stay for a while, would you?" Kirk asked hopefully, turning in the doorway. Hannah's shoulders dropped slightly.
"Do you need me to read you a bedtime story?" She teased, but her teasing was weak. Tiredness seeped into her voice too now, the notion of sleep having cemented itself into her thoughts, and become her primary desire in life. Kirk smirked back at her, and answered,
"If that's what it takes for some company, then I won't object."
Hannah raised an eyebrow at the Captain, and burst out in hysterics. She walked into his room, and pulled Kirk into his room.
"Oh come in, before you say anything else stupid in a public place." Hannah laughed, and the door slid shut behind Kirk as he whirled around to face Hannah.
Hannah sat on the arm of Kirk's chair, glass in her hand. Her glass was half empty, and she grinned at Kirk, slightly too enthusiastically. Kirk sat on the chair itself, his own glass slightly more full than Hannah's, and smiling up at her slightly. Hannah talked animatedly, and gestured with her glass, nearly spilling her drink. Her and Kirk paused, and then burst out laughing. Kirk raised his free hand and covered his eyes with forefinger and thumb, giggling into his drink.
"Sorry," Hannah giggled, and slowly, carefully placed her glass on the floor, so as not to spill the scotch on Kirk. Kirk paused as she raised her head again, her face unnervingly close to his. "Hi," She spoke softly, looking up at Kirk, and teasing her lip between her teeth. She straightened back out her spine, and broke Kirk's gaze, pushing her hair back off her face. Kirk looked away from the young woman perched on his chair, and shuffled back further in his chair. As he moved, his foot nudged the glass Hannah had just placed on the floor, spilling it across the floor.
"Oops?" He winced. Hannah folded her arms, mock sternly- the false disapproving posture undermined by her grin.
"You know, in my halls, if you spilt someone else's drink, you had to do twenty press-ups as punishment," She suggested, smirking at him, challenging him. Kirk grinned right back at her, and dropped to the floor. He pumped out eight press-ups without pause, and Hannah grinned at him. "Okay, okay, you can stop!" She giggled. Kirk dropped his shoulder to the ground, and grinned up at her, squinting slightly. Hannah nudged him with her toe, and slipped on to the cushion of the chair. Kirk pushed himself up, folding his legs up to his chest.
"You're in my chair," Kirk grinned at her. Hannah raised an eyebrow at Kirk, stealing his drink immediately after he picked it up.
"You're not my Captain," she teased, draping her legs over the arm of the chair. Kirk scooped her up in his arms, and sat down in his chair instead, still holding on to Hannah. She grinned up at him, and slowly, deliberately drank from his glass. She fidgeted, moving more upright but didn't move off his lap. Hannah draped an arm over Kirk's shoulder, glass dangling over the back of the chair, tilting away from Kirk's back. Kirk pushed a strand of hair off her face, and his fingertips lingered on Hannah's cheek. Kirk drew her face close to his own and kissed her.
Hannah's head rested on Kirk's chest, sleeping in the innocent sense of the term. This had been the only form their budding relationship had taken, teasing, innocence and a singular, solitary kiss. Kirk lay on his back, an arm wrapping around Hannah's shoulders, hand loose on her mid upper-arm. Sleepily, he placed a kiss on Hannah's head, and she curled further into him. She nestled close in with him, and he followed suit, both of them half-asleep. Hannah murmured quietly, speaking only to the bare chest her head rested upon;
"Go to sleep, Jim," she whispered, disrupting the quiet of the night. Kirk smiled slightly, and merely drew her closer to him. Hannah mimicked his sleepy smile, and closed her eyes once more and let sleep curl around the two of them.
"You look unnervingly cheerful." McCoy's drawl greeted Hannah as she danced into the Med Bay. She grinned at McCoy maniacally, widening her eyes cartoonishly, and bearing her teeth. McCoy blinked. "You made it so much worse." Hannah reverted her face back to her normal, albeit more upbeat than usual, expression.
"I'm sorry, Mumma McCoy. I forgot emotion made you feel deeply uncomfortable," She joked, sliding on to one of the beds in the Med Bay. McCoy raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed, but his attitude didn't affect Hannah's mood in the slightest.
"What's got you in such a good mood?" McCoy resolved himself to ask, and leant over his desk. Hannah grinned secretively at him and winked at him. McCoy rolled his eyes and groaned. "And here I was thinking you'd know better."
"Don't know what you're on about," Hannah sang. She grinned at him, seemingly taunting him for information. "And is there anything you want me to do, or are we just going to sit and gossip all day?"
They sat there and gossiped the day away. McCoy's probing questions about her night in the Captain's quarters were not scandalous enough to entertain McCoy for long, and so the topic of conversation moved away to Hannah demanding to know;
"How do Spock and Uhura even work?" Hands thrown exasperatedly in the air as she spoke. McCoy had suggested her talent for xenolinguistics had allowed Uhura to translate 'Spock'. Hannah had laughed, clapping her hands together in delight, at the CMO's dry response. Their conversation ebbed and flowed, moving through most of the crew, analysing their relationships- which they thought would last after this five year mission, which would end in a deliciously dramatic fight. Upon McCoy admitting that Sulu appeared to actually be a pretty good father and husband, Hannah decided to turn the conversation to McCoy's personal life, and ran into a brick wall. McCoy's laughter died on his face, and he almost grimaced.
"Don't really have one, not since the ex-wife left me," He answered, vaguely. An answer which elicited so many questions, yet his tone made the phrase closed to any further probing. Hannah paused, and answered, soberly for once.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." Her apology seemed deeply sincere, and McCoy looked back up to her. With a nonchalant shrug, he dismissed it.
"Yeah, well, we only have ten minutes left of this shift and then we can go eat, so don't be all mournful for long." Hannah grinned back at the CMO.
"It's like you don't know me at all," She laughed. "When am I ever serious?"
Uhura sidled into the seat opposite Hannah in the Mess Hall, and beamed at her. Hannah paused, hand hovering with a forkful of rice on its way to her mouth, and raised an eyebrow at the woman.
"You missed the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life," Uhura announced. Sulu, placing a plate down next to her, rolled his eyes and muttered;
"It wasn't that funny." Uhura grinned even wider.
"We were all having a nice, relaxed hour, with not much to do and no apparent imminent disasters," Uhura began, Hannah's hand still paused, but her mouth slowly forming an intrigued grin. "When suddenly, out of nowhere, there is this huge THUD. And I turn around to see Sulu, lying sprawled out on the floor and Chekov is crying with laughter. Turns out, this guy, this guy right here," She gestured at Sulu with her fork, "Managed to fall off his chair trying to adjust the course."
"I did not sprawl on the floor!" Sulu objected. Uhura began giggling and shook her head.
"You were sprawled, admit it," She sniggered.
"I may have slid. A little," Sulu amended. He paused, and then quickly added. "On an unrelated note, should a bruise be warm to the touch, asking for a friend." Now Hannah and McCoy joined in the laughter along with Uhura, McCoy's laughing was a quiet, almost inaudible laugh, but visible on his whole face. Hannah, however, inelegantly snorted and didn't attempt to restrain the bubbles of laughter that spilt from her. Sulu relinquished his stance of adamant denial, and allowed a snigger to break into the air. The four of them lulled into an easy conversation after that, trading stories about the events that occurred on their shifts.
Hannah sat alone in Med Bay. The quiet hum of the ship enveloped her in a welcome embrace, and she allowed it to wash through her. Closing her eyes, she leant her head back against the leather of the chair and simply, listened. It was almost peaceful, here, on the false-night. Time meant nothing on a space ship. There was no rotation of a planet to set your days by, no rising or setting sun. Years were not true years, after all, The Enterprise orbited no star, how could it have a year. Time was what an individual made of it, yet the comfort of a familiar routine caused there to be a 'day' shift and a 'night' shift. And the night shift was blissfully dull. The boredom was soothing; even something as manic and improbable as a space ship could be boring. Hannah kept her eyes closed. To an outside observer, she looked almost asleep, yet her ears were tuned into every creak, every vibration. Had she been a cat, her ears may have rotated to each new sound. The doors slid open, and Hannah slowly raised the eyelid of her right eye, peering through her eyelashes at the intruder. Spock stood in the doorway and waited, patient, his hands folded behind his back. Hannah's voice came out monotonous, almost robotic;
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
"There is no emergency,"
"Then what the hell do you want?" She rolled her head back to upright, and both her eyes opened warily. Looking the Vulcan straight in the eye, she pushed her frame into the back of the chair, pulling her leg off the arm of the chair. Returning to a normal sitting position, she raised an eyebrow, eerily similar to how Spock had so often raised his to her.
"I came to seek your medical opinion on a matter," He spoke slowly, almost hesitantly. Hannah's mouth formed a growing, interested grin. She waited, leaving Spock to elaborate to fill the silence. "The Captain's vital signs are changed. I was… concerned for his well-being." Spock removed his hands from behind his back, and handing a PADD to Hannah. She glanced down at it, and smirked.
"Oh, my dear Spock. You really do not need to be concerned about Kirk, he's perfectly fine," she giggled. "However, I am using these balance of hormones against him- and the fact that they concerned you." It was now Spock's turn to raise an eyebrow. Hannah looked up at him, and laughed. "You see these-" she pointed at three separate coloured lines- "serotonin, dopamine and acetylcholine, suggest that he's spending a lot of time daydreaming about something which makes him very happy, and one may even say; something he loves. And I'm going to fine out what."
Kirk stared surprised at the young woman that walked into his room, uninvited and unannounced. Hannah grinned at him, holding aloft a PADD and shaking it at him. Kirk merely leant back on the chair he was sat in, and crossed his arms.
"You remember last time one of us walked into the other's room unexpectedly?" He prompted, "That didn't end so well." Hannah shrugged, and grinned wider.
"Ehhhh, all the fun parts were covered," She teased with a wink. "However, I have some interesting facts about you." Kirk's eyes grew wide, almost fearful. Hannah merely grinned maliciously at him, holding the PADD above her head. Kirk, abandoning his dignity, stood up and reached for it, but Hannah danced out of his way. Kirk lunged for it, yet Hannah skipped away yet again. She clutched it tightly to her chest, and pranced around the room, laughing and taunting Kirk. He joined in with her laughter, and managed to grasp one of her arms, pulling her closer to him. Hannah looked up at him, sliding the PADD behind her back, and standing on tiptoe whispered into his ear.
"What, or who, have you been thinking about to alter your brain chemistry so significantly?"
"Spock," Kirk answered, without missing a beat. Hannah grinned.
"Knew it, I'll have to tell Nyota," She sighed, holding her free hand to her chest, feigning concern. Kirk frowned.
"How did you find out her first name so quickly?" He demanded, furrowing his brow in a sulk. Hannah grinned, and sauntered backwards, answering him with nothing more than a tantalising wink.