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

Mentions of Tarsus IV and the associated massacre in this chapter, with some slight alterations from the TOS timeline. Nothing too graphic since Spock doesn't know more than the publicly reported information, and Jim (mostly) meant it when he said that he wasn't talking.

Also including some reasoning for Spock getting to be both First Officer and Chief Science Officer in AoS too, although I'm not sure that was ever stated anywhere.

Spock awoke after an appropriate amount of sleep and upon opening his eyes immediately identified a change in the darkness surrounding them. It took less than three seconds to discern the difference; the warning that had been displayed last night on the communications panel was gone, replaced with a bold 'All Clear.' The dimness of the screen made it impossible to read the smaller print underneath the primary message from his cot, but when he got up to investigate he found that the new lines included the assertion that the storms had caused no loss of life—Spock was unsure as to how they had made that determination since at a minimum he was unaware of anyone who had confirmed the health of Jim or himself—and details about where to report non-emergency damages.

He glanced up into the darkness where the hatch remained closed, but with said information, however questionable its accuracy, there was no logical reason to exit at present. Jim remained asleep, and Spock both required meditation and also had no experience with the aftermath of such storms that would make him of particular use. If there had been a call for personnel with emergency training he would, of course, have responded, but given the lack of such he made use of the facilities and then returned to his cot, folding one of his blankets into a rough substitute for the meditation mat left at the house and sinking down onto the floor. The emergency shelter was considerably cooler than his quarters, but he placed the temperature out of mind as he settled in to review the events of the past day.

Thus far he'd found his leave since his arrival at Jim's home quite acceptable with even the storm not proving to be more than a minor inconvenience, although to conclude so definitively would require a damage assessment. For some amount of time he allowed himself to compare the storm here with those of Vulcan-that-was: the rain that poured down and the novel if short experience of hail against the dryness that had vied with the heat for the first thing noted by visitors to his home planet; the near-random appearance of funnel clouds to from the sky to draw up that which was beneath them versus dust storms kilometers wide and nearly as high that scoured bare the land in their path. A study in opposites, but not an unpleasant one.

Shifting his attention to the interpersonal portion of his visit, he had expected that the ease—friendship—between himself and the captain would extend beyond the leisure hours they'd spent in each other's company onboard the Enterprise, but it was pleasing to have that confirmed. And equally pleasing that there was no reason that it should not extend into the future.

It was not something that he had considered before he'd filed his report regarding the incident on Nibiru, and he was still uncertain as to what else he could have done under the circumstances, but while Captain Abbot had been a respected man and the Bradbury faultless in its mission, he had had no desire to enter into their service. Had in truth never considered that he might be removed from the Enterprise. Despite the seriousness of the offense, he'd assumed that their previously-excellent record would allow for a formal reprimand to be the extent of Starfleet's disciplinary actions. Well, that and perhaps the requirement that the captain refresh his knowledge of certain rules and regulations, something that Spock still believed would be entirely in order despite the fact that he now knew that if their positions had been reversed he could not have left Jim to die in the volcano either.

But for Jim to have been demoted and himself reassigned entirely, those consequences had been both unexpected and undesirable. For Jim it was a waste of his abilities, and with regards to himself….

He and Nyota had spoken of the possibility of being posted aboard different ships at some point; it was only logical given their expected career trajectories and nothing that thousands of couples within Starfleet had not endured before them. But they had expected that should such a thing occur it would be in the somewhat nebulous future proceeding an acceptable amount of time to plan. That it would happen in a day, and for Spock to be separated from Jim, Dr. McCoy, and the rest of the command and science staff with the same abrupt action had left him...disconcerted. A Vulcan could never be considered 'friendly' by the standards of humans or indeed most any other species, and the events that had brought the current Enterprise command crew together had been exceedingly unique. Entirely fortunately so, of course, but given his past experience serving under Captain Pike he expected that, while he was entirely capable of fulfilling the function of first officer wherever he was assigned, it was unlikely that he would ever establish anything beyond what might be termed an acceptable working relationship with another crew. And while logically that should be quite sufficient, he had become...accustomed...to the presence of others during meals, invitations to the various games and competitions in the officer's lounge or the gym even if he did frequently prefer to spectate, and in general terms a level of inclusion that he had not experienced in any of his previous assignments.

Additionally, and obviously more relevantly as it spoke to his duties, while he had been expected to take up the role of first officer on the Bradbury, the Bradbury's chief science officer had been decades from likely retirement. Spock still had no idea how Jim had been allowed to select Commander Pzzt for the Enterprise's initial crew complement, although upon reflection he suspected that Admiral Pike had been complicit, but when Commander Pzzt had turned in his separation notice less than a month after the ship's relaunch, exactly as anyone who'd reviewed his record should have expected, Spock had brought the issue of a lack of chief science officer to the captain's attention promptly. And Jim had grinned and offered it to him as a secondary position with no consideration.

Or at least no apparent consideration. Spock had been far less familiar with Jim's capacity for plotting at that point.

Regardless, on his part Spock had accepted after only 3.1 seconds of thought since while such a position came with additional duties, they were ones with which he had been both entirely familiar and had also never had any personal desire to relinquish. Captain Pike's insistence that furthering his career meant accepting the command promotion had been his primary motivation for leaving the science department, and the option to have both had been quite satisfactory. No mention had been made of re-splitting the roles since with regards to the Enterprise, although if Jim had remained first officer they would have had to, but while no doubt Spock would have been permitted to continue his own experiments in the Bradbury's labs, there was no logical reason that they would have changed department ownership simply to suit him.

Jim's comment about the low likelihood of anyone taking his blues away had perhaps been more accurate than he had previously acknowledged.

Spock let out a slow breath. As deeply as he mourned the loss of Admiral Pike, as well as Captain Abbot and all of the others that Khan had killed, he could not regret his re-assumption of his post on the Enterprise. And recognizing more clearly now how easily he could be reassigned...he had no control over the admiralty, of course, but he would still take what steps he could to ensure that such an event did not repeat.

He returned his attention to the details of the past day. It had also been pleasing if unexpected to have found an adequate chess opponent, although he would have become aware of Jim's skills earlier if the two of them had ever been able to complete any of their previous games. Still, he anticipated challenging future matches.

Jim's assessment of the incident at the Learning Center during their second game had been satisfying as well. Of course Jim could no more fully comprehend the Vulcan point of view than Spock could understand the careless behavior of the teacher who had taken over the chess program at Jim's school, but while his captain was not given to public reprimands, he had never evidenced any reluctance in privately telling Spock when he thought that Spock was in the wrong, either. That his comments had centered entirely on the poor supervision by their instructors and the, upon reflection, significant ineptness of his classmates was...yes. Satisfying was an appropriate description.

Spock shifted his focus to Jim's curious habit of hiding his proficiency in various areas but on short order was forced to conclude that he still lacked necessary details to achieve understanding. Among the most typical—and typically illogical—reasons for humans to conceal skills included shyness and embarrassment, but the captain was in no way inclined to either of those afflictions. Nor had he temporarily forgotten about his abilities or attempted to hide them when they did become relevant. It was possible that some, for example his hacking skills, might have been gained less than entirely honestly and thus reflection would be warranted prior to disclosure, but neither chess nor a more-than-basic knowledge of xenolinguistics could realistically be deemed similar.

Spock would continue to observe and, should an appropriate opportunity present itself, ask.

Or…. Spock hesitated. As of their last conversation he was aware that his understanding of Jim's background was not as complete as he had believed. And while he was still uncertain as to the propriety of requesting the files that Dr. McCoy had been presented, if he did already have all of the necessary information, it would be illogical to pretend otherwise.

The most likely time for Jim to have encountered a potentially-fatal situation requiring Starfleet to declare some or all of the incident details classified would have been while he'd been serving a short tour of duty onboard the Farragut. It had been an unusual posting for someone on an accelerated Academy track to take since it had required completing classwork in parallel, but there was a commendation in his records indicating that he had carried out his duties admirably regardless. But to Spock's knowledge there was nothing of a classified nature that had occurred within those two quarters.

It was possible that Spock wouldn't be aware of such an incident, of course, since the rank of lieutenant commander did not in any way entitle him to information about classified missions. But as Jim thought he had enough information to 'logic it out,' he assumed that whatever had occurred must be at least somewhat generally known.

An additional indication that Jim's time on the Farragut was unrelated to the matter in question was Jim's assertion that he had gotten his complete medical records for Dr. McCoy shortly after their Academy intake. Despite Jim's ongoing failure to comprehend 'forever' and the fact that 'shortly' was yet more nonspecific, Spock expected that it still encompassed less than a month rather than the 1.75 years that had elapsed between Jim's Academy acceptance and the start of his Farragut assignment.

In fact, given the datapoint of the medical records, it was probable that whatever had happened must have occurred prior to his arrival at the Academy entirely.

Curious.

Spock considered the problem further. Something immediately prior to Jim's start at the Academy at the latest, at the earliest...for obvious reasons Jim would not remember his own birth which ruled out anything directly related to the Kelvin, although tangentially related remained a possibility given that Jim's mother had served as well, but given the limits of human recall Spock decided that the age of five was an appropriate boundary. Although as there had been no generally-known classified incidents in the vicinity of Earth over the course of Jim's lifespan, logically it would make more sense to focus on any trips that he had taken out of the solar system and use early age as an exclusion point if there were multiple options.

Given the string of misdemeanors in Jim's record, if he had left Earth between reaching the age of majority and enlisting, he had not been gone for long. Therefore it was likely that whatever had occurred must have happened prior to Jim's eighteenth birthday, and while Spock suspected that there was a juvenile file somewhere that would narrow things further, the fact that it was a juvenile file meant that it was sealed and not something that even Starfleet would have access to without special dispensation.

Jim had said that his mother and stepfather had moved to Alpha III when he was a teenager and that his aunt and uncle had left not long after, but perhaps before his mother had departed she'd taken him along on one or more of her contracted delivery flights? Jim had mentioned nothing of the sort, but it would account for the lack of anything classified in the vicinity of Earth, and no doubt by the time that Jim had been in his mid-teens he'd been proficient enough in engineering to have been of some use. Spock didn't believe that such actions would be out of character for a human parent, either, as he recalled several references to a 'take your child to work day' made by his mother during his childhood. His father had immediately directed their attention to the many reasons that such behavior was illogical unless a child was intending to apprentice in precisely the same occupation as the parent in question, but his mother had simply raised an eyebrow in return and asked how the child would know until they'd tried.

Contradicting his new hypothesis as to the time frame was the fact that Spock had been at the Academy during most of those years and then settling into his post onboard the Enterprise, though, and if some form of only partially-classified action had occurred, he should be easily able to recall the details. While he had never personally contributed to such, the Academy gossip mill had been quite unavoidable, and aboard the Enterprise it had been part of his duties to be cognizant of any major events happening in Federation space.

However, despite a thorough review, the only incidents that seemed even remotely possible related to skirmishes in the Neutral Zone, and none of those had involved civilian or colony ships of any form.

Something even earlier than that, then? Jim had spoken of being sent offworld once, at the age of roughly eleven...Spock was uncertain as to what a 'troubled-kid camp' entailed, but by Jim's own admission he had remained offworld until he was fourteen. And in addition had added that circumstances had been 'a lot better until they'd been a lot worse.' Such a statement was quite promising from an investigative standpoint although perhaps less so from others given the captain's relatively young age.

Spock went back to reviewing his knowledge of recent Federation history, but between 2244 and 2247 he had been very focused on completing his secondary school studies and then preparing for the entrance exam to the Vulcan Science Academy. Followed, of course, by his declination of the VSA's acceptance and an abrupt move to Earth to start at Starfleet Academy, and his attention to current events had always focused more on the scientific than the political or—

Even in meditation Spock felt himself stiffen involuntarily. During his first year at the Academy, Starfleet had greatly overhauled its colonization protocols following a ten month investigation into the massacre on Tarsus IV and the cascade of failures leading up to the same, and as such said events had been a not-infrequent topic of conversation among cadets. The details of the situation were well known: an exotic fungus had destroyed the food supply on a remote, lightly-settled colony too far from regular transport routes for any possibility of immediate resupply, and 4,000 colonists had been executed by the colony governor with the excuse that their deaths were necessary to preserve the lives of the other half of the population. A vile experiment in eugenics even from the perspective of one who believed that the needs of the many must take precedence over those of the few.

The same reports also told of nine people who'd seen Kodos issue their death warrants but had managed to escape execution and stay alive until Starfleet had arrived.

Nine people whose identities were, to his knowledge, the only part of the Tarsus IV massacre that was classified.

Spock forced himself to mark the incident and continue his review, but little of interest meeting even the relatively few qualifications he'd identified had had happened between 2238—or even 2233—and 2244, and of what had, he could find no possible involvement for an Earth-residing human child.

So Tarsus IV with a roughly 68.3 percent degree of certainty given the remaining gaps in his knowledge, possibly even as high as 74.2 percent if he allowed himself to assume that he had not overlooked another classified incident during the height of his studies.

Despite his lack of participation in Academy gossip, he was still aware that most cadets had decided that the nine must have been some sort of ex-Starfleet or perhaps ex-colonial militia survivalists, a not-illogical conclusion. The idea that a thirteen year old version of his captain belonged on that list, and what survival must have looked like…at a minimum it must have had notable physical effects given the need to redact portions of his medical records.

And there were no odds for such given how many of those executed had been full adults, some of whom must have had precisely the training that the other cadets had speculated upon.

A thump and a curse startled him out of his meditation, not that he was particularly well settled at this point, and he opened his eyes to find a rough shape barely visible in the darkness picking himself up from the floor.

"Captain?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. Got up to use the facilities and caught my foot on my own damn blanket."

"You did not wake me, I was completing my meditation for the day. Are you injured?"

"Nah. Back in a minute."

There was some rustling and then footsteps indicated his progress around the crate wall, and Spock shifted to put his back against the cot. Given the hour it was entirely possible that Jim would consider the night's rest complete despite the fact that a full night for a human would include at least two more hours of sleep, and while if he did choose to go back to sleep Spock would do his best to resume his meditations, he was uncertain as to the likelihood of his success.

He was equally uncertain whether it was appropriate to state his conclusion, particularly given what Jim had said about not wishing to speak of the classified portion of his past.

Jim returned a few minutes later, pausing front of the screen. "Well, that's a good sign, at least. Not sure how they decided we're all okay, but I guess I'll take it. Are you up, or do you want me to leave things off for a while longer? Either is fine with me."

"I am fully awake."

"Okay." He tapped the panel and the running lights rose. "So I don't know about you, but I'd much rather go out now and see what the damage is and hope that the synthesizer's not included than deal with emergency rations if we don't have to."

"Logical."

"The lights will shut down as soon as I open the hatch, thank the idiots again, so we've got to pack up first."

Spock stood, turning to re-fold his blankets and placing them and his pillows back into the crate before handing it over to Jim who'd been doing the same with his own bedding, albeit somewhat less neatly.

"If we don't get stuck back down here, we'll toss all of that in the wash with the other sheets and stuff before we leave," Jim said, putting both crates on his cot. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the hatch. "Cross your fingers."

Spock ignored the nonsensical order as he shouldered his own bag. "Per your request yesterday, have you confirmed with a second source that we are safe to exit?"

"Oh, right." Jim stepped back off the ladder, tapping at the panel for a few minutes, but to Spock's relief did not repeat his hack, instead pulling up what appeared to be a site for reporting damage. "Crap, it looks like the elementary school took a hit. The weather's fine now, but…." He shook his head and then shut the site down again. "I'll see what the work crew plans are later, I guess. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

The hatch opened at Jim's shove, and as he'd said the ceiling lights shut down immediately, but this time filtered sunlight from above broke the darkness easily. Jim pulled himself up and and out, followed by Spock.

"Have to check the roof, but it looks okay in here," Jim said, making a slow turn. "Or I don't see any water anywhere, at least. Not a bad way to start."

"I concur." Upon initial review neither the structure nor any of the exercise equipment appeared to have taken any damage, a reasonably promising start although Spock was aware that tornadoes could inflict damage at a far smaller radius than dust storms and from this position he had no view of the house.

The sunlight was bright when they stepped outside, only the mud remaining as evidence from the storm yesterday, but the house was standing as well, and Jim smiled as he turned towards it. "And that's even better."

Spock remained close as they entered and made a short survey of the interior, but by all appearances it remained structurally sound as well, and he left Jim upstairs and went back to the guest room to clean and dress for the day. When Spock exited the guest room again he found Jim also back downstairs muttering curses at the entertainment screen in the main room.

"What is wrong?"

"It looks like it finally died," Jim said with a sigh, waving him towards the kitchen and the synthesizer. "Probably should have seen that coming, but I was hoping I could pull up the damage reports. Guess I'll just do that on my PADD, though." A pause. "And any chance you'd be up for a work crew this afternoon? Don't feel obliged, there's a good chance you'll get some stares if you do go given the great lack of Vulcans in the area, but from even the little bit I saw down in the bunker, the elementary school will need some hands."

"I will assist." He had been stared at before, and it did not concern him.

"Thanks."

Spock dialed up a plate of Gespar for breakfast. "I will also familiarize myself with Dr. McCoy's restrictions on your activities prior to our attendance." He had neglected to read the doctor's response to his message last night prior to beginning his interrupted meditations, an usual oversight for him given that he and Jim had discussed the matter some hours previous, but it was nothing that was not easily rectified. And Jim was unlikely to concern himself if someone requested assistance.

Jim groaned and took Spock's place in front of the synthesizer as Spock moved to the table. "Okay, see, now that's just unkind."

Spock raised an eyebrow.

"It's roofing for goodness sake." He dropped into an unoccupied chair with a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries. "Or probably roofing, anyway. I've been doing it since I was a kid."

Jim's reference to childhood brought Spock's final meditations back to the forefront of his mind, and he hesitated.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Are you sure? That was a funny look."

"'Funny' is an exceedingly variable descriptor."

Jim stuck out his tongue.

"And that is juvenile, as we have discussed previously. Do not throw any portion of your breakfast at me."

Jim sighed and tossed the blueberry he'd picked up into his mouth. "Fine. Seriously, though, are you okay? Was it too cold for you to sleep down there or something? Because whatever you want to call it, I know you, and that wasn't one of your normal looks."

"My sleep was adequate." His meditation clearly less so if his expression had been so poorly controlled, but the captain was still looking at him, and after a moment he decided that continued reticence in the matter was illogical. "I have completed my analysis of your history given the additional information from our discussion last night, and I find my conclusion unacceptable."

Jim's face went abruptly blank. "Oh. That was quick." A quick pause, and then he shook himself and something of his normal expression returned. "Should have seen it coming, though, considering I pretty much told you to do it. For what it's worth 'unacceptable' was pretty much what we considered it too, although our language was a little stronger."

"You know the other eight?"

"They were my kids, of course I know them." A pause. "Knew them. They split us up to whatever options we had afterwards, and we didn't stay in touch. Safer for everyone that way, even if it didn't exactly feel good at the time."

His conclusion was correct, then. However unacceptable it remained. "It is not possible that they were biologically yours," he said after a moment.

That got a quick smile. "I was the oldest, or at least the oldest left after…." A quick shrug. "Anyway, they were mine."

A thirteen year old version of his captain being the oldest survivor and responsible in any capacity for caring for the rest was even more unacceptable, but stating such achieved nothing.

"You can ask," he said after a minute. "I won't—most stuff I won't talk about, but…." His hands flexed against the table. "Anyway, same as before. You can ask. Your questions don't tend to be stupid."

That assessment was both gratifying given Jim's previous statement that he never talked about it and also implied certain things about those who might have questioned Jim before, but the first question that came to Spock's mind was a very simple, "How did you survive?" that he only realized in retrospect was unnecessarily vague. And perhaps inappropriate to have asked at all given that Jim's...involvement...was still a classified matter.

Jim only shrugged, though, picking up his spoon and mashing some of his blueberries down into his oatmeal. "For the initial extermination it was luck, mostly. I mean, the whole thing was pretty obviously screwy. Not that I was supposed to have read the call to assembly, I hacked in from one of the learning terminals so I could see what the fuck was going on after I heard a couple of the counselors talking, but it was just weird." He shook his head. "According to the message Kodos was calling two town halls—the place might have been small by colony standards, but it was still legitimately too many people to fit into any of the existing structures—and our group was assigned to the one at the big granary on the northwest side of town."

"Two different town halls at the same time?" Spock asked. "If it was a broadcast, why not simply send it to all dwellings? Or if they were staggered, could both groups have not used the same location?" He supposed convenience could have been an excuse, but it seemed a poor one upon initial review, and even a remote colony would have been provided with all standard satellite capabilities.

"Very good points, do you still want to tell me that the sniff test isn't a thing?" Jim asked. "Especially since there's more weirdness that goes with it. Like our camp was against the southeastern border of the settlement since most of the colonists didn't want us delinquents coming around and corrupting their kids, so why send us way across the colony when the other town hall was being held in city square at less than half that distance? And why all of us in the first place? In retrospect it's pretty obvious, a couple hundred kids no one gave a damn about weren't going to be anyone's priority and I doubt Kodos even bothered to read our jackets before putting us on the kill list, but at the time? The delinquent part was pretty solidly crap no matter what the other colonists had to say, there were a few kids there that you didn't want behind you with a knife or a rock or at all if you were smart, but most of us were pretty nonthreatening. Just didn't get along with the step parents or foster parents or aunts or uncles or whoever'd gotten stuck with us, and their solution was to dump us back of beyond. But somehow the governor thought everyone needed to know the details of what he was calling at the time his rationing plans? I could understand the adults who ran the place, obviously, maybe even a couple of the older kids since some of them had practically grown up there and knew the planet as well as anyone, but someone like me? I was barely thirteen, and I'd been there for just over a year at that point. If you wanted a satellite rewired, sure, but I didn't know jack about food allotments and wasn't much interested, either. And even I made more sense than the four year old daughter of two of the house parents or the pair of eight year olds who'd gotten dropped off on the last shuttle two months before."

"None of the people who ran your camp noticed such details?"

"If they did they didn't say anything to us about it, although I'm not sure it would have mattered if they had. A colony transport came to pick us up instead of the old rickety shuttle the camp used for supply runs and bringing people in from the shuttleport, and there were extra men onboard who...they weren't spare pilots, that was for sure. And even so we were late getting to the hall because getting 200-plus kids anywhere always takes longer than anyone expects."

He went quiet, staring at something that wasn't in the room, and Spock was uncertain if he should say anything, but before he could decide Jim started again.

"When we got there it turned out there wasn't quite enough room inside for everyone, at least not without breaking even the human version of too close for comfort, so the back doors were standing open and us and maybe a couple hundred others were still outside when Kodos started his speech. Kind of surprised that he let it happen, actually, but I guess he figured that his soldiers and their guns would be more than enough to take care of everyone he couldn't fit into his homemade antimatter chamber. And then he got to the part of the speech where he declared that our lives weren't worth shit and we should be grateful for the opportunity to sacrifice ourselves to save the rest, and I think it was Artem who finally realized that we were ringed in. Or at least his yell is the first one I remember. But then the doors slammed shut on the people inside, and for those of us outside…." He closed his eyes. "Trying to get back to the shuttles would have been running into open fire even if any of us had known how to fly them, but growing up dodging fists makes you damn good at turning rabbit when you have to, and they didn't have the sides of the building closed off as well as they should have. Especially since it had a river running behind it. Kevin fell in front of me so I grabbed him, and then Penny's dad was holding her when he got shot, and it's not like she was very big so the three of us ended up in the water together. I'm not sure anyone got clear any other way, if they did I'm guessing they didn't last very long, but in the end I know of thirty-seven of us who made it out of the kill box."

"Thirty-seven that became nine."

"Surviving afterwards was…." He broke off, pushing himself up abruptly and turning towards the kitchen exit. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Jim."

Jim froze for a moment and then turned back, and while Spock didn't need to be an expert in human expressions to read the wariness, he also had no idea what an appropriate response was.

"I grieve with thee," he finally decided, if only because even if it was a Vulcan expression, it was one that Jim would recognize after the events of last year.

It seemed that it was at least not inappropriate as Jim gave a quick half-smile. "Thanks." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm gonna grab my PADD and see what the plan is for work crews."

Something that he should not attempt to take part in without adequate nourishment—that, and Spock reviewing what Dr. McCoy considered appropriate activities regardless of how Jim regarded such an action—but Spock understood oatmeal to be a reasonably heavy meal and not something that a human feeling unsettled was likely to finish. He considered for a moment and then cleared both his empty plate and the captain's nearly-full bowl away and synthesized a second plate of Gespar, adding blueberries at the last moment. Both components were light and appropriately nutrient-filled, and Jim had considered them acceptable snacks in the past.

Spock moved into the main room, settling in with his back against the couch and the plate beside him as he lifted the upper portion of the model he'd been working on yesterday. Under the circumstances he believed that a distraction was in order, and this should suffice unless it was necessary that they leave immediately.

When Jim came back down the stairs with his PADD eleven minutes later it seemed that his instincts had been correct, as Jim brightened slightly and folded himself to sit in front of the partially completed model as well, tossing his PADD back onto the couch. "They said everyone willing to help out at the elementary school should finish checking their own places first, and then we'll meet up a little after 1300 when the advance volunteers have had time to sort out the jobs that need doing. It'll take us about an hour to get there, about half an hour to walk to the public transit port and then another twenty or so minutes to the school itself." He paused. "Or I guess we could double back to the shuttleport and rent a personal car if you'd rather, but I don't usually bother. It seems kind of pointless unless there's a lot of scattered work that needs doing."

"Why do you not keep a vehicle of your own?" Spock asked. "I was under the impression that that was standard practice in less populated locations on Earth." Of which Riverside, Iowa definitely qualified.

"It is, and I used to have a bike, but I gave it away. Didn't exactly figure I'd need it at the Academy and didn't have a way to get it there anyway. And I sort of drove my dad's antique car into the Rift when I was eleven so that's long gone, although I don't know what happened to the utility one." He frowned. "Mom and Frank probably got rid of it when they left. That's what my aunt and uncle did with theirs, anyway, and if it was anywhere on the property I'd know."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I believe I require additional clarification regarding how one 'sort of' drives a car into a chasm."

Jim flushed slightly. "Okay, so maybe it was less 'sort of' and more I did just that." A quick shrug. "It was right after Sam left, I was angry, and I'm just lucky that physics meant I got thrown clear before it actually went over because there's no way I could have jumped that far."

"Indeed." Spock slid the plate of fruit towards him and was gratified when he took a piece without appearing to pay any specific attention. "Public transit is acceptable as I am not familiar with this region, and I do not prefer that you drive."

"Come on, I said I was eleven!"