When Kirk stopped by lab seven at the end of the day he was surprised not to see Ann there.
"She went to sickbay, sir." Ensign Louis told him, and hurried to add:
"She's fine, she wanted the Doctor's opinion on some tests she ran."
Kirk nodded in response, and stood for a moment indecisive in the corridor. He felt a sharp sense of disappointment at the thought of missing his now regular dinner with Ann, but at the same time he could not go in to sickbay. He had not been near McCoy since the doctor's outburst on the bridge, and he wasn't going to start by giving the doctor a target for more jibes in his friendship with Ann.
Frowning, he went to the Officer's Lounge on his own, and was half way through an unsatisfactory vindaloo when a light voice said:
"Is this chair taken?"
"Ann!"
"I thought I'd been stood up." she said, slipping into the seat.
"Your staff told me you were consulting with Dr McCoy."
"They were absolutely right, so I was. Is this some obscure rule of Starfleet etiquette that I don't know about? Ship's captain may not eat dinner with someone who has had a conversation with ship's chief medical officer?" Ann's green eyes were shrewd, even if her tone was gently mocking. "When I told the good doctor I was expecting you he couldn't get me out of his office fast enough. Aren't you two supposed to be friends?"
"We had a difference of opinion." Kirk said guardedly.
"About what?"
"About who's in charge of the ship!" It came out slightly louder than he'd expected, and the heads of nearby crew started to turn on instinct, until their self-preservation cut in and they fixed their respective gazes on the food before them.
"I presume you won." Ann said with a lack of interest that nettled Kirk.
"Well, last time I looked, I was still sitting in the captain's chair for most of alpha shift."
"If you won, why are you so unhappy about it?"
Game, set and match, Kirk thought ruefully.
"Dr McCoy is less than his usual cheerful self, as well." Ann went on.
The idea of anyone describing Bones as cheerful made Kirk smile in spite of himself. "Are you two going to carry on behaving like children, or make it up?"
"He shouldn't have -" Kirk started, and then heard himself and stopped. "Ah, I mean-" He stopped again, and his natural good-humour asserted itself. "Am I really that easy to read?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" she countered.
"No, I don't think I do." He was smiling broadly now. "It might damage my already fragile self-esteem." Ann guffawed, a loud indecorous noise that was quite at odds with her dainty appearance.
Kirk went on: "Do you make it a habit to provide free counselling for the captains of ALL the starships you travel on?"
"Only the ones I'm attracted to." she said mischievously.
"And, ah, do you make it a habit -"
"You don't want me to answer that, either." Then her voice softened.
"No, Jim, I don't make a habit of it. I don't normally rush things like this, either. But - I told you, I'm scared. I know this is all in a day's work for you and your people, but it isn't for me. I can't help feeling like we haven't got much time, and I - I want to-" Her eyes filled with tears. "I want to be alive. You make me feel alive."
Kirk hesitated, and then reached across the table to take her hand.
"You're clearly not a coward in everything." he joked, but his eyes were serious.
"No." she said quietly. "I'm a lot more scared of dying than I am of embarrassement." Then she slipped her hand from his. "Sort things out with Dr McCoy first, Jim." Her grin was a good attempt to cover her nervousness. "I want all your attention, not part of it."
"Bones." Kirk waited at the door of McCoy's office, leaning one shoulder against the door frame. He would usually have gone straight to the chair opposite the doctor and dropped in to it; but McCoy would usually have looked up with a smile, and not kept his eyes fixed on his paperwork.
"Can I help you, captain?" McCoy asked sarcastically.
"Can I come in?"
"You're the captain, captain, you can do any damn thing you please!"
Kirk remained where he was. "Bones..." he said again, tiredly.
McCoy looked at him angrily for a moment, but even his offended dignity could not keep him from noticing the weary slump to his friend's shoulders, the marks of sleeplessness on his face. He dropped his gaze to his terminal screen again. "Come in." he muttered,
and heard the chair legs scrape on the floor and Kirk's sigh as he sat. McCoy gritted his teeth, but it had to be done. "I'll say sorry if you will." he said, without looking up.
"Sorry, Bones." Kirk offered, and McCoy glanced up to see Kirk sprawled in the chair with his usual untidy grace. The captain's gaze was level, slightly amused, sincere.
"Sorry, Jim." he said at last, and immediately felt better. He turned off the terminal where he had been reviewing the crew's psyche evaluations, and reflected that his own score would be markedly better now than five minutes ago. Psychologist, shrink thyself, he thought wryly.
"Do we shake hands and make up?" Kirk asked, smiling.
"I have a better idea." McCoy turned to the liquor cabinet. "Let's shake hands with this nice rye whiskey I've been saving instead." He glanced sharply at the shadows beneath Kirk's eyes. "That's a prescription, Jim."
Kirk shrugged. "Saves me from having to make it an order." He accepted the glass McCoy offered, and raised it in a toast. "To absent friends." he said quietly.
McCoy cleared his throat. "You know, Jim, when you were missing for all that time on the Tholian mission, Spock didn't sleep for more than forty days working out a way to get you back."
Kirk frowned. "I haven't given up on them, if you're back to that."
"No, I'm not, and just listen for a change. Spock worked himself nearly into the ground getting you back safely, but he didn't fret about it."
The thought of Spock fretting brought a glint of amusement to Kirk's eyes. "Vulcans tend not to." he pointed out.
"He's more than a Vulcan, and you know it. And I suspect Vulcans are more than we think they are, too. What I'm getting at is this. Spock did his end of the job and let you get on with doing yours. Right now, what I see sitting in front of me is someone agitating himself over his own job and Spock's as well."
When Kirk said nothing, McCoy went on: "Trust him to get on with his end of this, Jim. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
"That is not," Kirk said, " standard operating procedure for Starfleet."
"Maybe it should be."
"Huh."
McCoy poured another drink. With any luck, two drinks would put the captain to sleep as effectively as any sedative in his current state.
"I was talking to Christine about this the other day." he said conversationally. "She's eating her heart out as well."
Neither man needed to mention Nurse Chapel's hopeless love for Spock to share a complete understanding of just why she was eating her heart out.
"I'm noticing this general pattern of reaction, and I seem to be the only one immune." McCoy went on. "And I don't even LIKE Spock."
Kirk didn't call him on the lie. "What pattern?"
"You all think he's the hottest thing since dilithium." McCoy said sourly. "And not a one of you is willing to trust him out of your sight."
"I trust Spock," Kirk protested. "I'd just - I'd feel a lot better if the rest of the landing party were Vulcans, too."
"So you think human crew are less competent?"
"You know I don't. I think - Spock would - I mean -"
"You mean," McCoy said, regretting the necessity, "you think he's a fine officer but you don't trust him with command."
"I trust him with command." Kirk said. "I'd rather it was over tried and tested crew."
"Then you don't trust him."
"Remember Murasake 312." A landing party led by Spock had been trapped on the surface of Taurus II, under attack and out of communications. Two crew members had died, and Spock's refusal to delay repairing the shuttle craft to bury them had caused deep hostility in the remaining crew members.
"I remember."
"They nearly mutinied on him, Bones. He's different to almost every officer that landing party will ever deal with. They'll expect things from him that he can't understand. They'll put demands on him that he can't meet. And then what?"
"He's unemotional, not unperceptive." McCoy pointed out wryly. "And besides which, he may well be different from every other officer any of us will deal with. You're different from any other captain I'll ever deal with. I'm different from every CMO you'll ever deal with.
We're all of us unique beings, Jim. Spock isn't human, but he's no more or less unique than any of us - you can't be more or less unique.
I remember when the landing party from Taurus II got back to the ship.
They might have nearly mutinied down planet, but they didn't forget that Spock saved their lives. Every member of that party gained a new appreciated of Spock's abilities by the end of that mission - and he got them back against impossible odds. Remember that, when you're tossing and turning at night and wondering how he's doing down there."
"He won't make the decisions a human officer would." Kirk persisted.
"Or not in the same way."
"He'll make his own damn decisions! And they'll have as much chance of being right or wrong as any human, any Vulcan, any Lemurian! Don't be a bigot, Jim."
It was a harsh word, and Kirk drew breath to protest, then let it out in a sigh. "You think I'm not giving him enough credit because he's not like me?"
"That's exactly what I think. I think half this ship is doing the same. And you know what REALLY annoys me about it?"
"What?"
"I feel I have to defend the over-precise, under-emotional genetically engineered threat to civilization as we know it." McCoy growled, and Kirk laughed more loudly than he had for some time.