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Meanwhile, back on the bridge, Spock is pacing up and down. Uhura, unoccupied by anything pressing, simply watches from her station, wary of anything that might give the situation away – like someone asking the doctor for the results of their last checkup or a crewmember asking Doctor McCoy when the next poker night was. Somehow, it puts her on edge, knowing that Kirk was down on a fairly hostile planet with a Spock who wasn't Spock.

But as far as it went, so far, so good. She checks her comm one more time – no distress signal, no hailing on the secure channel – which hopefully means that negotiations are going well and that Kirk and the doctor aren't dead.

"Chess?" she offers when Spock pauses near her.

"The doctor does not like to play chess," Spock reminds her, and Uhura has to really try and reconcile the flat, monotonous speech of Spock with McCoy's vibrant voice. "I believe he deals more with cards." He turns to look at the rest of the crew on the bridge – some of them, like Sulu and Chekov are diligently staring at their screens, but he notices that some of them are fast asleep at their stations. He makes a note to talk to Kirk about this later. "I am more interested in discussing our current situation."

"Mr. Chekov is busy figuring out a solution," Uhura assures him. "He's a genius, Spock, you know he'll figure it out eventually. It can't be anything too complex."

"On the contrary, the problem, I believe, contains multiple levels of complexity, but that is not what I was referring to." Spock blinks owlishly, a movement that definitely seems out of place on Bones' face. "I was referring to our relationship. It seems illogical to continue what we have considering the present circumstances."

"On what grounds?" Uhura raises an eyebrow.

"On the premise that the doctor and I are not currently in our present bodies. I am in his and for us to be seen together would not bode well for you, me, or the doctor himself."

"I agree." Uhura stands up, brushing down her dress as she does so. "Walk with me, Doctor McCoy, if you please."

"Where are we going?" Spock asks, following her out of the room.

"I'm hungry. I didn't get to eat when we ran into the gravitational pull. It happened so fast – and when we got there, you were on the ground and I was worried-" Uhura stops there. Spock watches as she takes a moment to recompose herself. "So I'm hungry."

Spock says nothing for a while as they enter the mess hall. The chatter of the crew members as they eat, gossip and laugh fills the gap between himself and Uhura, at least for a little while. Finally, Spock speaks. "I am sorry for worrying you."

Uhura laughs, a short, stifled sob mingling on the bottom notes. "You don't have to apologize."

Spock raises an eyebrow. "Jim is always telling me that I have to apologize to you."

Now Uhura actually laughs at that statement. "Guess he's good for something."

"He is good for many things," Spock corrects her. "He is a great captain-"

"I know, I know." Uhura swirls her oatmeal around in her bowl. "I just-" She stops. "You're right, I was worried."

"I am unsure as to whether you are implying there is more to that statement or if that is merely fact."

"It's just-" Uhura pauses to think about what she says next. "When you were in the engineering room with Jim a year ago. When he was in the radiation chamber – how did you feel, knowing he was dying? Or when you saw your mother die?"

Spock thinks about that for a moment. "Grief," he says.

Uhura nods. "I face that fear every day – every day I think about how we could all die. How you could go off one moment and be dead the next. When I saw you on that floor I almost lost it." She raises an eyebrow. "Illogical?"

"It does sound illogical," Spock agrees.

"Yes, I thought you would say that." Uhura takes a bite of her oatmeal. "Anyway. Maybe this whole switching bodies is good for us. It will let me get my head straight."

"You surely don't believe that," Spock says, and Uhura realizes that he's watching how much her hands are shaking, so she puts her spoon down and pushes the bowl away as she does so.

"I guess I'm not really hungry anymore," she mutters.

They sit in silence for a while as the crew members around them get up to leave. Finally, Spock breaks the silence. "I am unsure as to why you have chosen today to confide in me. Why not yesterday, or the days before this?"

Uhura scoffs. "Maybe I just think it's easier to confide in the doctor than it is to confide in you."

Spock's comment is cut off by a sudden squawking in Uhura's ear. Wincing, she leans away and begins to get up, listening to the steady stream of chatter pouring into the earpiece: from where he is, Spock can hear someone yelling something along the lines of compromised, beam us up, duck!

"Are they in trouble?" Spock asks, getting up and running after Uhura as she begins to run towards the bridge.

Uhura only rolls her eyes at him. "Did you really think that they wouldn't get themselves into trouble?"

If Spock were any other person, he would have grinned.

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