Chapter 4

Had the offer come from anyone else, Kirk might have questioned its sincerity. After all, it's one of those things you often just say: you look tired, can I help with anything? But Vulcans don't do politesse and they don't make empty promises. Sure enough, he's barely set foot on the bridge before his First has approached him with a list of potential spaces in their joint schedule, and they settle on a working lunch in Kirk's quarters. And it's a good thing too, because the Captain's body mutinied last night and sent him to an early bed despite the protests of his hyperactive brain. He might be well-rested today – if a little groggy – but the reports aren't going to finish themselves.

It's a small moment of satisfaction, and moments of satisfaction are likely to be in short supply this shift. He holds onto it.

They reach Starbase 2 mid-morning. Kirk stays on the bridge long enough to exchange the diplomatic necessities, then hands over the con to Sulu for final docking procedures, and strides, quickly and silently, to the turbolift. Spock joins him there without a word, except to offer their destination as the door slides shut. The Captain half-expected as much and he nods a tight little smile as they glide through the decks, and Spock returns the nod, but it's pointed towards the doors as though his head is frozen on its axis. Still, he's here. He doesn't need to be, but he's here. Maybe he just wants to make sure Janice Lester is off the ship.

Silence isn't unusual between them and it's often difficult to determine its quality where Spock is concerned. Silence, in fact, may well be one of the arcane Vulcan arts for all Kirk knows, and as far as he can tell it can mean anything from there is no need to talk at the moment to I am considering the moral rectitude of irritation as motive for murder. He has long since stopped feeling uncomfortable in these periods of stillness, ever since he worked out that it was about Spock and not about his company, and there are times when Kirk will actively seek out his First Officer in the knowledge that conversation will not be expected. This morning is a case in point. The Captain has too much going on inside his head to be interested in making small talk, and Spock's silent presence is a kind of tacit approval, a small indication that at least one person in the turbolift is sure Kirk is doing the right thing. Because whatever else has happened, he did love Janice once, and that part of him thinks he's a bastard this morning.

They leave the lift outside the transporter room to the sound of voices drifting through the open doors and into the corridor. One of them belongs to Dr. McCoy, who wakes up cantankerous and has generally managed to spin it into full-scale dyspepsia by this point in the day, as he checks off a list of medications as though it has personally offended him. Kirk can also make out Jerry Freeman, speaking in the low tones of a man who is accustomed to being obeyed without question, and the plaintive voice of Dr. Coleman, whose interruptions Freeman is patiently ignoring. The crew snap to attention as the Captain and First Officer enter the room, and Kirk sees that Freeman has stationed another two security officers in the room. They stand silently against the near wall, hands on their phasers. Janice is strapped to a gurney, twilighted but not unconscious, and her eyes roll towards Kirk and fix on him. He holds her stare for as long as he can before he looks away.

Bones steps forward as they enter and places a hand on Kirk's arm, and the Captain allows himself to be led to one side. "Jim," says the Doctor quietly. "You don't need to be here for this."

"On the contrary," says Kirk, in a voice loud enough to carry across the room. It's a deliberate reproach, and Bones purses his lips as he acknowledges it. "We're docked for the next ninety minutes, Doctor. I'd be remiss if I didn't pay my courtesies to Commodore Ward. Besides," and he offers his patented smile, which never fools McCoy, never, "there's an old friend on the Starbase I'd like to say hello to."

Bones rolls his eyes, so at least he's playing along. "Isn't there always?" he says.

Kirk glances over at the gurney. "How's the patient this morning?"

"She's been unnecessarily sedated for over thirty-six hours now!" protests Dr. Coleman. "It's barbaric, Captain Kirk…"

"It's for her own good, Doctor," says Bones. He flashes half a sideways glance at Kirk, who is carefully keeping his eyes trained away from the cot. "Dr. Lester was showing signs of severe agitation…"

"Of course she was agitated!"

"Ship's security is the top priority, Dr. Coleman," says Freeman. He rarely raises his voice and he carries himself with all the quiet restraint of a stalking predator, and both of these qualities go a long way towards heading off trouble before it starts. He'll be a Captain some day. "If that doesn't make you happy, well, I'm not sure I particularly care. She threatened the Captain and the senior officers of this ship."

"Thank you, Commander," says Kirk quickly. To Coleman he adds, "Until such times as Dr. Lester reaches more suitable accommodation, there are just some things you'll have to put up with, I'm afraid. In the meantime, I'm going to defer to my CMO and my Head of Security in these matters, Doctor."

He glances up at the operations console, to which Spock has absented himself during the brief exchange, and from which he watches with hooded eyes and an unreadable expression. Kirk scans his face for a moment in search of some clue as to what he's thinking, but there's nothing there. It's like lead in the pit of his stomach and he suddenly just wants to get out of the transporter room with its cacophony of guilt and recrimination, and to set the process in motion that will get this constant sense of castigation off his ship. He steps quickly up onto the transporter pad and Spock falls in beside him without a word.

"Commander Freeman, Dr. McCoy – I'll leave the transfer arrangements with you," says the Captain. "Mr. Spock and I will beam down initially and signal when the Starbase is ready to receive our medical party. Energize, Mr. Kyle."

As the beam takes hold, Kirk notices that Dr. Coleman's hands are bound in front of him, and something painful twists in his gut. He lifts his eyes and stares at the wall as it dissolves in front of him.

-o-o-o-

"Captain Kirk!" says a familiar voice as the whine in his ears recedes and the familiar sense of weightlessness inverted marks the reconstitution of his atoms.

The transporter room on Starbase 2 is four times the size of the one he's just left, with a section cordoned off to the left for the transport of heavy freight up to the size and weight of about half a shuttle. The air crackles with leashed energy and the lighting is low by the console where the welcoming party waits. The CO steps forward, smiling widely with her hands outstretched, and Kirk fixes an answering grin across his face and steps forward to meet her.

"Commander Sun," he says, taking the hands in his and leaning in to kiss her cheek.

"You remembered," she says cheerfully. "I was sure I'd have to remind you it wasn't Lieutenant anymore."

"Long overdue," he says. He extricates himself from one half of the embrace to gesture back towards the transporter pad, where Spock has found something fascinating to stare at on the ceiling. "My First Officer, Commander Spock," says Kirk, and the dark eyes shift from the shadowed heights to focus on their Captain and his new friend. He steps forward. "Spock, this is Commander Mee-Kyong Sun, First Officer of Starbase 2. She and I were at the Academy together."

"Commander Spock," she says and releases Kirk's other hand to make the ta'al. Spock acknowledges it with a terse nod and mirrors the gesture. "It's a pleasure to meet you in the flesh. Your reputation precedes you." She grins at Kirk. "Like Jim's, of course."

That earns her another nod and a stone-faced mask of purest Vulcan implacability. But she recovers well.

"The Commodore sends his apologies," she says. "There was a last minute conference call from HQ – he'll join us as soon as he can. We're expecting a merchant party from Columbus VI in four days' time and the admiralty are anxious we make sure they know how profitable they'd find life in the Federation."

Kirk laughs. "I can't say I'm sorry to miss that party."

"Jim Kirk, you'd have them eating out of your hand in thirty seconds flat!" she scolds. Valiantly, she nods over to Spock. "I'm sure you've had plenty of opportunity to witness the Kirk charm in action, Commander," she says. "James Kirk could sell snow to the Andorians!"

Spock inclines his head. "The Captain is an accomplished diplomat."

If her smile falters for just a second, she covers it quickly, and Kirk plasters a smooth grin across his face to distract from the ice monster to his left. He says, "It's a shame we can't stay longer, though. It's been too long."

"And yet you haven't changed a bit," she says fondly. There's a pause, and her shifting expression clearly broadcasts what's coming next. "Jim," she says. Kirk braces himself. "I'm sorry to hear about all this. It's… it must be very hard for you."

His smile tightens despite himself, but he says, "It's a relief to know that she'll be getting the treatment she needs."

"I'd heard…" She stops, and then visibly realizes that she's committed herself and plows on. "I heard Janice had a breakdown a few years back. She was never – I mean it was a shock, but she was always…"

"Yes," says Kirk.

There's a pause and he can see the emotions play out across her face. Mee-Kyong and Janice were briefly friends, in that vaguely hostile way that he'll never completely understand, but towards the end of the relationship, Mee-Kyong's presence in Kirk's life was just one more source of their constant battles. She wasn't the only friend advising him to leave, but she's one of the very few women he knows who was consistently kind about Janice in the aftermath. She says, "She'll be in good hands, Jim."

"Yes," he says again, and, because it clearly requires a little more input this time, he adds, "Thank you." He glances towards the rest of the party. "If your team are ready, I'll signal the ship to begin beam down."

A middle-aged Saurian in science blues steps forward. "I am Commander Kozu," he says. "Chief Medical Officer aboard the Starbase. I will be supervising Dr. Lester's transfer to Elba. We are ready to receive the patient."

"Thank you," says Kirk. He glances up at Spock and sees that he is already reaching for his communicator. Gratitude floods the Captain's chest.

"Spock to Enterprise," says his friend, and, though he doesn't meet Kirk's eyes, his voice is gentle. "Prepare to initiate patient transfer."

-o-o-o-

The Captain strides rapidly towards the door as soon as the beam releases him, and his parting words are a brusque injunction to Spock to take the con and report to him in his quarters for their lunchtime appointment. Spock briefly glances at Dr. McCoy, whose eyes are fixed on the figure disappearing down the corridor.

"Damn it," says the Doctor softly. His gaze meets Spock's. "How long til your lunch, Spock?"

"Fifty-seven minutes," says Spock.

"Think you can be early?"

The idea had occurred to Spock even before they beamed back up from the Starbase, but he dismissed it uneasily. Even if he had the words, he doubts they would be welcome. Sometimes Kirk just needs to be alone.

He says, "I would counsel against any intrusion into the Captain's privacy at present, Doctor."

He expects an explosion of Georgian acrimony and has partially shielded against it, and so the soft puff of air comes as something of a surprise.

"Yup," says McCoy slowly. "Never thought I'd see the day, but looks like I agree with you, Spock." He steps down from the transporter pad, hands folded behind his back, and glares up at Lieutenant Kyle. "And you just remember who gives you your yearly physical before you go telling anyone I said that, Mister."

It's a problem, of course. How much of a problem it was became clear when he glanced up at the Captain as he was leaving the bridge this morning and realized how much the past few days have cost him. It's a problem because Spock needs to keep his distance for a while in order to repair the damage done by a moment's lapse outside Janice Lester's room, but one look at Kirk's tight, locked-in face was enough to cast serious doubts on the logistics of that strategy. Following Kirk into danger or adversity isn't even a conscious decision anymore; it's just something his body does automatically unless it's specifically commanded otherwise, and, if they hadn't specifically discussed Spock joining the away party, they hadn't specifically discussed him staying on the bridge either. There was time in the turbolift for the Captain to send him back but he didn't and, standing beside him, Spock was alarmed by the heavy waves of distress that singed the air between them. It doesn't take a telepath to read the Captain's thoughts at the moment, and there is simply no way he can abandon his friend to that kind of darkness. He might be uniquely ill-fitted amongst the ship's crew to offer consolation or support, but that doesn't erase the need for it, and the Captain's need cannot be ignored. Even in the face of some very shaky controls.

The command chair is largely decorative this morning, and there is nothing to be gained from telling Sulu or Chekov their jobs during routine maneuvers. Spock occupies himself with a series of mundane tasks of the niggling variety: sifting through command communiqués about nothing urgent or important, reviewing maintenance reports, updating duty rosters for the coming weeks, and none of it is remotely sufficient to keep his mind from wandering back to the moment of rematerialization in the Starbase transporter room when a high, clear voice cut through the darkness in evident delight.

Vulcan and Human standards of aesthetic attraction are not identical, but they are similar enough to call Commander Sun beautiful. Her slender body was slight but powerful, her dark hair glinted in the low light, and her pale skin seemed to glow from within. Her smile stretched from one high cheekbone to another and the teeth it revealed were white and straight. None of these things alone is enough to mark a being as attractive, but they converge on a face that defines an ideal of feminine allure to which, experience tells him, the Captain is highly susceptible. And the answering joy on Kirk's face when she offered her greeting was enough to gnaw a hollow pit of resignation in his First Officer's belly.

It comes to this: the knowledge has always been there, however deeply buried, that their current situation is transitory. After an inauspicious start, the years of this mission have grown into the most contented and the most satisfactory period of Spock's life, and the only differential factor between this assignment and the eleven years that preceded it is the presence of James Kirk on the Enterprise. In a matter of months, that fact will most likely no longer be true – men of Kirk's caliber do not remain in low-level command for long – and, for all that Spock would gladly follow him wherever Starfleet decides he belongs, it remains the case that his Captain is a handsome, virile man approaching middle-age, and his marital status is something of an anomaly among his peers. One day, probably soon, he will make his choice and everything will change.

It's an unpleasant reality, but the fact is that neither of them can remain in stasis indefinitely. What are the chances, in any case, of Spock escaping another pon farr unattached? His Human heart will always be at war with his Vulcan body, and if he can decide, illogically, to resist the biological imperative for so long, at some point his conscious mind will cease to have any say in the matter and it's more than likely he'd find himself on the other side of plak tow with a wife at his side and no real memory of how she got there. Logically, he knows this is not the way he wants to proceed – it's just that it always seemed like there would be time before he had to face it. But Kirk is lonely and, when he decides to do something about that, there will be no shortage of opportunities for him. Commander Sun is simply the most immediate option right now.

Spock is habitually early for meetings anyway, so it's easy to justify his arrival at Kirk's door with ten minutes to spare. His buzz for entry is met with a reasonably cheerful, "That can only be you, Spock. Come in," and the door slides open on the Captain seated behind his desk with a stack of data tapes in front of him, his face lit by the reflected glow of the terminal screen. He smiles up at his First Officer as the door closes behind him and the sentiment makes a noble attempt to reach his eyes, but their customary spark is missing.

He gestures a hand towards the empty chair. "The food'll be another few minutes," he says. "Have a seat. I don't suppose there's much to report from the bridge?"

"Negative, Captain," says Spock, settling himself across the table from Kirk. "We are making adequate progress towards our rendezvous with the Potemkin, but there is no appreciable update to our ETA."

"Good," says Kirk, with another valiant effort at a convincing insouciance. "I think we've all had enough excitement for one week, don't you?"

"Agreed," says Spock. The Captain's eyes meet his briefly and he is aware that he is being examined carefully, aware that Kirk is testing the current boundaries of their friendship. Spock resists the urge to shy away from the scrutiny and meets the gaze, offering what silent reassurance he can in his unpracticed expression.

Presently, the Captain's face softens and he says, "I appreciate you beaming down with me today. I was glad of a friendly face."

Spock's eyebrow quirks before he can stop it. It provokes a genuine laugh from the other side of the desk. "Mee-Kyong?" says Kirk. "Yes, that's true enough. But you know what I mean."

Spock is not entirely sure that he does, so he says, carefully, "I understand your reluctance to depart from the Starbase so quickly, Captain."

Kirk waves a hand dismissively. "Diplomatic niceties. There are plenty of other places I'd rather spend a shore leave, but it doesn't do to say as much."

"Nevertheless." Spock is feeling his way slowly through unfamiliar territory, and his words are guarded. "Perhaps you might have found it beneficial to have… spent some time in Commander Sun's company."

He realizes that he's staring at the desk and forces himself to look up at his Captain. Kirk is watching him with a strange expression on his face, and a shrill whine of discomfort sets up on the edge of Spock's hearing.

The Captain opens his mouth and then closes it again. Then he says, "Spock…" He stops, purses his lips, and tries again. "Spock," he says slowly, "Mee-Kyong's married."

There are a host of possible responses to this. He could protest the lack of any visible commitment symbol on the Commander's left hand, which he certainly would have noticed. He could pretend not to understand Kirk's reference, in an effort to imply that he has misconstrued the nature of Spock's enquiries. He could draw attention to their effusive greetings and the impression they are bound to create in the casual observer. But his recalcitrant eyebrow has already quirked itself once more, and this essentially limits him to an entirely too revealing, "I see."

"Her wife's just opened a restaurant on the commercial level of the Starbase," continues the Captain. "She makes the most wonderful truffle and parmesan ravioli; I'll take you there some time if we ever get the chance." A beat. "We're old friends, Spock. That's all."

An apology is probably required, but he can't imagine how he's going to frame it in a way that won't embarrass them both. He settles for, "It was not my intention to pry into your personal affairs, Captain."

And that's enough to trigger the sunshine smile. If it's unexpected, it's no less welcome. Kirk's hand is lying on the desk between them, and it makes a tiny, abortive motion as though he's tried to lift it and thought better of it. It twitches once more, and on the third movement it breaks free of its constraints and rises uncertainly to press against Spock's lower arm where he has folded it on the table edge. Canted forward to reach his friend, Kirk smiles into his face and says warmly, "I appreciate the concern, Spock."

Their faces are less than half a foot apart and Spock can just feel the gentle brush of the Captain's breath on his skin. To pull apart now would be to destroy this fragile moment of calm and potentially to deliver an injury from which they cannot recover. And with every instant that passes, another piece of his control shatters.

It's over in seconds. The Captain slides his hand away and settles back into his chair and the door buzzes to announce the arrival of a Yeoman with lunch. The ordinary business of an ordinary day rushes back into the room so suddenly and so quickly that the moment might never have been – but for the fact that Spock finally understands that he is lost.