Thanks to everyone who read and to sunsethill, LauraCynthia, and She-Elf23 for reviewing.

So AoS timeline-wise, between Memory-Alpha and the squishing together of some ToS background I've got Spock as born in 2230, attending Starfleet Academy from 2247-2251, serving onboard the Enterprise under Captain Pike from his graduation until 2254, assistant-teaching and implementing the Kobayashi Maru across the 2254-2255 school year, and then teaching full time from 2255-2258 at the same time that Kirk was attending as a student (Kirk was only born three years later, in 2233 but didn't start at the Academy until he was 22/in 2255).

Also, I realized that the Academy should have been organized by quarter rather than semester so fixed some phrasing in previous chapters, but that doesn't change anything story-wise.

Jim rolled onto his side on his cot so he was looking at Spock, propping his head up on one arm. "I decided it was pointless so I changed it? Seriously, that was about the great extent of my thought process." Even in the less-than-full light, Spock saw him flush slightly as he picked at the blanket under him with his free hand. "Me and impulse control aren't always on speaking terms, you know? Probably a good thing I've got both you and Bones yelling at me about it these days."

Spock hesitated. He did not claim to be an expert at interpreting human vocal tones, but while Jim might occasionally act more hastily than he would prefer, that seemed unnecessarily self-deprecating. Unfortunately even if he was correct in his analysis, he was unclear what an appropriate response would be, and as such he settled for a raised eyebrow and the obvious. "I do not yell unless an immediate warning is required."

Jim's expression immediately lightened. "Oh, yeah? If you really believe that, I'll bet you dealing with Scotty's next dozen complaints that I can find some security footage that says otherwise."

Spock took another 2.7 seconds to consider his proposal. Vulcans did not lie and as such he would stand by his assertion regarding yelling, but he had raised his voice at certain points over the course of the past year, and it was probable to near unity that at least one such instance had occurred within range of a security monitor. His actions had been motivated only be the need to make himself heard over his occasionally-excitable captain and shipmates, of course, but Jim would likely interpret said actions differently and—quite incorrectly—declare himself the victor. And while wagering on the handling of crew complaints was against the spirit of a number of regulations, Spock could not name an instance in which it was specifically forbidden.

He did not desire to be the sole recipient of Mr. Scott's ongoing concerns.

"Well?"

Jim was grinning now, and Spock decided that he saw no value in continuing along that conversational path. "We were discussing the Kobayashi Maru." His intention with his initial question had been to focus on the programming portion, but he did not object to reviewing the test in full if Jim was amenable.

Jim's smile didn't fade, but he did nod. "We were, you're right." He waved his free hand. "Look, me not being able to figure something out? Sure. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. Nobody being able to figure it out? If it was a completely new test I might not have thought too much about it; some of the instructors could be straight-up bastards, and despite never having taking one of your classes, I'm guessing you're pretty solidly on that list. And since you know full well that I'm not talking about anyone's parents, you can stop giving me that look."

Spock shifted, allowing a bit more of his weight to rest against the wall behind him. "'That' is not sufficiently descriptive as to allow me to identify the look to which you object."

A groan. "My point is that four years, or at least four years that I can confirm, and zero passes? Even Bones knew that that failed the sniff test, and the only reason he passed Tactical I was a twenty minute diatribe on the very specific effects of disruptors on living tissue that guaranteed that no one including the instructor ever wanted to hear from him again."

"Four years is correct. However, I am aware that a 'sniff test' in this context does not indicate any form of actual diagnostic."

"I disagree."

Spock tilted his head.

"Call it unconscious processing of information or something like that if you'd rather, but sometimes you can just tell when something isn't right. And for the Kobayashi, it wasn't even unconscious." He shook his head. "The first time through I was way overconfident. That's on me. The second time, though, I actually listened to what people were saying, and whatever Bones'll tell you, I was paying attention during the test, too. And it was stupid."

"Clarify."

Jim winced. "Sorry, that probably came across nastier than I meant. But…." He looked past Spock for a moment and then shook his head again. "Unbeatable test, no-win scenario, whatever you want to call it, right off the bat that's a bad idea. I know that's not the point, and I'll get back to that later, but if everyone knows it's unbeatable, what is the point?"

"As you have just stated that we'll return to such in the future, I am uncertain how to respond."

"That's not...okay, sorry, you're right. Backing up, and a better question anyway: what classes did you take your last quarter before graduation?"

Spock saw no relation between his past classwork and their current conversation, but there was also nothing objectionable in the query. "Interstellar Ethnology, Exochemistry III and the associated lab, Historical Perspectives on Military Tactics, and two independent research studies, one on warp field generation in the presence of mixed anomalies and the other on the mathematics of repeated phonemes in constructed languages."

"Okay, so number one, you clearly needed better friends because no one should have let you sign up for two independent studies at once. And number two, that means that going into finals you'd have been looking at three actual exams and two...well, at least two presentations, but I'm guessing there was publication prep too because journal submissions always seem to come due right around quarter ends. Sound about right? Plus I assume you'd have had grading and evals for whatever classes you were a teaching assistant for at the time as well because there's no way they wouldn't have pulled you in for at least some of the programming classes."

"Your analysis of my schedule is accurate." His analysis of Spock's friendships was less so, if only because Spock had not had any being even less cognizant of what would be involved then than now, but Spock judged that immaterial with respect to the current conversation.

He nodded. "You know, if Bones ever starts going on about what my workload looked like again—which was no worse than his, for the record, given the number of shifts he took at the hospital on top of his classes—I'm telling him to look you up. Just saying."

"Noted, though I fail to understand the relevance."

Jim waved a hand in vague dismissal that indicated that there in fact was none, and Spock considered pointing out that this conversation could be held tomorrow if the captain wished to resume his interrupted attempt at sleep. There was no sign that he was inclined towards such, though, and Spock decided to hold his thoughts on the matter.

"So anyway, with that schedule and finals looming plus graduation coming right behind, meaning even if you didn't know that you'd be headed for the Enterprise you had to have been starting to pack up and clean out your dorm and all of that," Jim continued, "what would you have done if someone had told you that at some point you needed to find some time to take a test that you knew that you were guaranteed to fail?"

"You forget, even if the test had existed when I was a cadet, I was not on the command track."

"Only because no one's getting you out of science blues short of force, so humor me. What would you have done?"

Unlike a number of his classmates Spock had always optimized his time for maximum efficiency, but even for him the final portion of a quarter had frequently been taxing. And while Jim was incorrect and he had been aware that barring an extreme change in circumstance he would be receiving a posting to the Enterprise's science department upon graduation, there had still been preparations to make in the weeks leading up to that assignment that had taken some amount of his time. "On the understanding that it was an Academy requirement, I would accept the additional task and request the earliest available timeslot so as not to adversely affect the rest of my schedule," he decided.

"Logical. And how much time would you have spent prepping beforehand? Again, knowing that you're going to fail."

"I have not forgotten. And I would not have spent time on such unless I deemed the reviews necessary for other reasons," he admitted. "I would, of course, perform to the best of my ability during the course of the test, but when a conclusion is foregone, it does not behoove oneself to fight the inevitable." He couldn't help a pointed look at his captain on the heels of that statement.

"Yeah, yeah, stubborner than I need to be and not winning any prizes for my outstanding use of logic either. Too bad. Anyway, you were an instructor so you can at least take comfort in knowing that most students would agree with you rather than me."

The notion that it would provide some form of comfort was questionable, but his assessment of typical student behavior was not inaccurate.

"Unfortunately what you're also going to have to agree with is that plenty of students, command track or no, wouldn't have put as much effort as you might have wanted into the test itself, either. Hopefully nobody'd be stupid enough to obviously deliberately tank with instructors watching, but when your finals schedule is Tactical III, Temporal Mechanics, Intergalactic Comparative Politics, Ancient Philosophies, the Command and Control symposium, and whatever the hell that Xenobotany course turned into—seriously, there were so many carnivorous plants in the last unit that I was considering turning vegetarian in self-defense—not many people are going to be able to justify spending hours in the simulator when they could be cramming for a final or finishing a paper or doing literally anything else that's not a guaranteed fail."

"But the point is not to pass," Spock said, although upon reflection Jim's statement was worthy of further consideration. Students who only viewed taking and failing the test as some sort of time-wasting requirement foisted upon them at an already-stressful time were unlikely to display the full range of behaviors that the admiralty wished to evaluate. And while a command track student in their final year should be more cognizant as to the test's true nature, to assume such was to introduce a potential flaw into the design itself. He flattened his hands against the cot. Still. "The purpose of the test is to—"

"Experience fear in the face of death, blah, blah, blah. Fine, might as well get back to that. If the point is to make cadets experience fear, death or no, you obviously turned the safety protocols off, right?"

Spock felt himself jerk to attention. "Captain, I would never risk a cadet's health with such a reckless—"

Jim held up his hand. "Easy, I know you wouldn't. No one who's ever met you would believe you'd do something like that. And it's not like anyone's going to be firing on a simulator at Starfleet Academy anyway, so even if some creep was willing to override the safeties, the worst possible injuries would come from...what? Fall trauma when the actuators trigger, I guess? I don't even think the consoles had sharp corners."

"Accurate to a 97.3 percent degree of certainty," Spock decided, even as he relaxed again. Perhaps he was closer to requiring sleep himself than he had thought if he had believed even momentarily that his captain would accuse him of such unacceptable behavior.

"So what's there to be scared of?"

Spock tilted his head.

"It's a simulator, Spock. A damn good one, maybe, but even if you grew up in the middle of nowhere," he gestured around their emergency shelter, "they're not exactly shiny new technology. And it's not like anyone is going to up and forget that they aren't actually in command of a starship. You could startle people, sure, but if a simulator is supposed to be enough to make me feel actual fear, I might as well start cowering in terror from those scissor-handed bear-kangaroos in the vidgame Chekov brought back from Kelpis IX."

"That was—is—a concern," Spock admitted. "There was obviously no way to create the exact situation which the admiralty wished to evaluate so it was determined that the closest possible equivalent was to create extreme realism in the surroundings. That and the stress of the scenario itself, simulated though it was—"

"Doesn't even come close," Jim interrupted sharply.

Spock remained quiet, and after a moment Jim took a breath and continued.

"I've been there, and it doesn't even come close to the real thing. Knowing that you're going to die isn't something that a simulator can mimic, or even something that your brain in a simulator is going to mimic. It just…." Jim's eyes went unfocused for a moment. "It's totally different."

"You have experienced such a situation now," Spock agreed. As much as he would have preferred that that was not the case. "But as a cadet—"

This time it was laughter that interrupted him, although there was no humor in it. "Oh, I had it covered back then too. It's probably a good thing that I didn't realize that the point was to scare us—which, maybe that's also a hint that it didn't work?—because I wouldn't just have gotten annoyed, I'd have gotten pissed, and that wouldn't have ended well for anyone."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I would submit that a disciplinary hearing and academic suspension does not qualify as 'ending well.'"

"Okay, fine, but a simulator on fire wouldn't have made any of that better."

"I expect that you are aware that I read your file prior to the hearing," Spock said after a moment, leaving Jim's statement about his likely actions aside. Over the course of the past year Spock had learned a great deal about what his captain was capable of, and if he said that he would have burned the simulator, the probability of both such a statement being literal and the action successful was nonzero.

Jim's forehead wrinkled, and then his shoulders twitched slightly. "I can't say I thought much about it, but sure, it makes sense that you would have. Although if you're about to tell me that you didn't see anything like what I just said in that file, that would be because you only got the redacted version. Even Captain Pike didn't have clearance for the real thing, although I think he guessed some of it." He frowned. "Or I don't think he had clearance? Maybe he did after he was Admiral Pike." His frown deepened. "You know, I'm not even sure who among the admiralty does have clearance anymore. There's got to be someone, right?"

The captain's reference to a required security clearance in this situation was of concern, but he was still looking at Spock expectantly, and Spock reviewed his knowledge of such regulations quickly. "Unless specific personal knowledge is involved, as I assume is the case in your situation, security clearances are typically tied to rank and supervisory or functional responsibilities with exceptions made most frequently for reasons of 'need-to-know.'"

Humor returned to Jim's expression. "Oh, that justification has got to drive you crazy."

"As insufficiently specific as I find such a qualification, I assure you that I am quite sane. And regardless, if your concern is with the loss of life in Starfleet's upper ranks over the course of the past year, any personnel promoted into an appropriate vacancy would have received full disclosure, although how closely any specific individual might have reviewed the information that they received I cannot say."

"Hm. I guess that's good."

His tone indicated that his feelings on the subject were not entirely aligned with his words, but when he shook his head Spock did not attempt to follow up.

"Sorry, we were supposed to be talking about the Kobayashi Maru. Which, in summary, is not at all scary unless the person you're giving it to has never had worse than a skinned knee, and I'd say that even that's a stretch but I am probably a little cynical about the whole thing." Jim blew out a breath. "And it's not even a test that'll force graduating command track cadets to spend time reviewing tactical or diplomatic or any other kind of useful strategies because you said it yourself, it's not logical to spend time preparing for something that you know you're guaranteed to fail. So what exactly is it supposed to accomplish?"

Spock inclined his head, considering the matter. Jim's analysis had been somewhat meandering, no doubt in part due to the hour, but he had made several salient points.

"Look, maybe in the beginning it did do what you want," Jim added in the silence. "Or at least cadets were probably afraid of failing in front of whoever was observing, even I still don't buy anyone being scared of anything physical. I mean, I damn well didn't like it in front of Pike. But when failing is a given…."

"Your arguments are not without merit," Spock decided. "I remain unconvinced as to your final conclusion, particularly as the simulation was developed with specific input from members of the admiralty who have far more collective experience than either or both of us combined, but the matter bears additional examination."

"Fair enough."

"A further question," Spock said, since they had never gotten to what he'd intended for this conversation. "How, specifically, were you able to hack the simulator?"

Jim looked up, clearly surprised. "I sent all that to you."

"You did not."

"Yeah, I did. Right after everything. Come on, you don't seriously think I'd tunnel into Starfleet Academy databases and then not tell someone how to fix it, do you?"

Phrased in that manner it did seem unlikely, but that changed nothing of the result. "I received nothing of that nature, Captain."

"Shit." He reached down into his bag and then shook his head. "Damn it, I left my PADD up at the house. When we get back inside, assuming the house is still standing, remind me to dig up my Academy stuff, would you? Because I meant to send all of that to someone, and if it didn't go to you, I have no idea where it ended up."

Spock nodded. "I look forward to reading it, but perhaps you would provide a summary for the time being?"

"Sure, but it's not that complicated. I don't program the way that you do. Not normally, anyway. If you told me to write something like the full simulation I could probably do it, but it would take me I don't know how many times as long, and by the time I was done I'd be caffeinated to the point of giving Bones heart failure and more than spoiling for a fight. Breaking stuff, though, that I was always good at. Give enough inputs that a by-definition-logical system isn't expecting, and eventually something'll give. I haven't met a system yet that I couldn't get into if I wanted to." A snort. "Hell, that's how I learned most of what I know about my father, because it wasn't like my mom was talking."

"You hacked a Starfleet database?"

"Federation, technically; it wasn't like the information was classified-classified, it just wasn't the kind of thing that they wanted eight year-old civilians getting their hands on. Caught ten kinds of hell for it, but I still say if they didn't want kids getting into it, they shouldn't have written something that a kid could hack."

As noted Spock had read Jim's records, and he was aware that Jim's test scores placed him well above the typical human, civilian or not, of any age, but before he could say so, Jim rolled onto his back.

"Sorry, but do you mind if we pick up again tomorrow? I should probably get some sleep."

"I have no objection."

"Do you want me to leave the lights on so you can read or whatever?"

"Unnecessary as I also require rest."

Jim pushed himself to his feet and for a moment Spock was confused, but it seemed that the running lights here were all on primitive manual controls because he had to go to the panel to shut them off before dimming both the panel itself and the single remaining light on the other side of the crate wall to near-nothing as well. "You want everything off, or is this okay?"

"The current illumination is acceptable."

"Okay. Weather advisory still says stay in the shelters, but I'm guessing things will be clear by morning." His footsteps were steady as he made his way back to his cot, and then there was some rustling as he laid back down. "Hey, Spock?"

Spock paused in his distribution of a second blanket. "Yes?"

"The whole classified file thing, you maybe already have enough information to logic it out now that you know it exists, and that's fine with me as long as we're clear that I never talk about it, all right? And if you don't and you want to know, get Bones to show you my medical file. The un-redacted version. He doesn't have clearance and therefore can't officially tell you either, but after the whole cluster at intake I hacked him a copy, and the results are...kind of hard to miss."

Spock hesitated. For him to search out that which his superiors, his captain aside, had deemed inappropriate for him to know would be directly in conflict with regulations. And yet it was his captain, and the notion of medical consequences was concerning. "Understood," he finally said.

It went quiet again in the dark, Spock would have said oddly so given that the only sounds were their breaths and the light hum of electrical conduits despite the storm raging outside, but he was quite familiar with the sound-dampening properties of concrete and shielding. Even so Jim's breathing showed no signs of steadying, though, and ten minutes later he looked over again. "May I inquire as to what you refer to as a 'cluster' at intake if that is not also restricted information?"

That got a quiet laugh. "Nah, that's fair game. Since I was coming at things kind of sideways—that part was not my fault, for the record, you can blame Pike since he's the one who decided that it was somehow a good idea to recruit me out of a bar fight with a pack of cadets—they combined my intake physical with some of the other stuff that should have been done prior to me showing up. Including vaccinations. And, just my luck, the absolutely most idiotic of my non-food allergies is to a really commonly-used carrier for human medications. The intern they had doing my screening didn't even bother to look at my chart before shooting me up, and by the time I realized what he'd done it was too late. Although Bones did say later that I did a better job administering my own 'dreno while I was collapsing than most people do in controlled tests. Of course, that was after he'd finished ripping that poor intern a new one and then having it out with the doctor who was supposed to be supervising the interns but had stepped out for a personal call. I think he just about got himself kicked out before he even started for some of the stuff he said to them."

Spock had taken all of the emergency courses required for both a science officer serving onboard a starship and a professor who might be called upon to handle a medical emergency in the classroom and was familiar with the emergency treatment for an allergic reaction, but it was unacceptable that Jim had had to endure such due to the carelessness of Starfleet medical personnel never mind been forced to administer it himself. "While I have no doubt that the doctor was as unnecessarily emotional as ever in his lecture, I find it difficult to disagree with his conclusions given the circumstances that you have described."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what the commandant of Starfleet Medical said when she showed up. Especially since it turned out that he already had more qualifications than most of the doctors there. Kind of surprised me since he'd spent the whole flight out, or at least the part of the flight that he wasn't staring blankly at the wall insisting that he was about to throw up, telling me about all of the horrible ways that space was going to kill us."

"Was he unaware that Starfleet operates in space when he enlisted?"

Another huff of amusement. "I asked that same question. Anyway, I think about the time that I rolled off the biobed and landed on my face courtesy of post-anaphylaxis low blood pressure was when he decided that I clearly couldn't be trusted to keep myself alive without assistance, and we've stuck together since."

Spock raised an eyebrow, and while it was impossible for Jim to have seen him in the darkness, he must have assumed the gesture.

"To be fair, there was some annoyance at the other cadets in there, too. Especially the ones in the first-year prereq classes that they wouldn't let me—us—test out of. Way too many of them...I don't know. Bones had a single room from the start just because no one with sense is going to give someone with hospital rotations a roommate, but the kid they put me in with had never even done his own laundry. And that's when laundry consists of shoving your damn clothes down the service chute. And most of the rest of them...they were young enough that they would be scared by your test, let's put it that way."

"I see." Even without an apparently-classified background Jim had been as old as most graduating cadets when he'd enlisted, and Dr. McCoy was several years older; such friendships had precedence. "Another question," he decided. "While I will not ask you to speculate on Captain Pike's motivations as you have already stated an unawareness of such, how did you end up in a bar fight with multiple cadets for him to recruit you out of?"

Jim's pause was unexpected. "Um, hypothetically?"

"If you wish, although as you were there I would assume that such is unnecessary."

"Well, yeah, but see it might have involved a group of cadets completing a shipyard stint prior to starting their second year the Academy—the shipyard here is where they built our Enterprise, if you didn't already know that—and a group of them making a run to one of the bars the night before they left. And me being very drunk and hitting on one of said cadets who might happen to be the girlfriend of a now-friend of mine with an absolutely vicious right hook."

"Indeed." Spock could not say that he had expected that explanation, but no doubt it had contributed to Nyota's irritation early in their acquaintance.

"I'm sure you won't be surprised that she declined pretty damned bluntly, and asshole drunk or not I do know what 'no' means, but at that point a couple of the other cadets decided that they wanted a fight, and I wasn't exactly against giving them one. And then I pretty solidly got my ass kicked, which is when Pike stepped in and decided that being drunk, bloody, and probably concussed somehow made me a good candidate for the Academy."

"While I too make no pretense as to an understanding of his motivations, he was obviously not mistaken," Spock said after a moment. "And also Nyota has made it quite clear that she is capable of, as she puts it, 'fighting her own battles,' and any presumption on my part to do so except at her express request would have far more severe consequences for myself than for you." Particularly given that the incident in question had occurred not only several years ago but also prior to his and Nyota's romantic relationship.

A laugh. "Yeah, I could see that." He yawned. "Goodnight, Spock."

"Goodnight, Jim."