Kirk ordered the Enterprise to return to Cestus III and then he left the bridge in Sulu's capable hands. Spock, though no verbal invitation had been issued, silently accompanied the captain into the turbolift. He stood, stoic as ever, waiting until his captain saw fit to express what was obviously weighing on his mind.
"I owe you an apology, Spock," Jim finally said. "Don't go all Vulcan on me and assure me it isn't necessary; it is. If I hadn't jumped to the conclusion that the alien ship was part of an invasion, I wouldn't have gone chasing after it into unknown space and I wouldn't have put us all in danger or gotten myself stranded on that planet with the Gorn captain. You were right, Spock. There were other possible explanations, and I should have waited to hear them." Jim frowned a moment. "You were going to interrupt me at some point there, weren't you, Spock?"
Spock merely raised his eyebrows slightly. "Perhaps next time you will listen to me in the first place, Jim, so you do not need to apologize later."
Kirk's gaze flickered to Spock briefly before he turned his eyes back to the wall. He shrugged, not wanting to admit out loud that Spock was right. Again.
A/N: I just watched Arena and Kirk struck me as being particularly rude to Spock and generally belligerent in the beginning, so I decided to rewrite the final scene.