The next morning Spock marveled at the ease with which he was able to meditate. Meditation had not been so easy since – well, since he was but a child! The experience left him astonished, and to him that was confirmation enough that the Captain was right like he had thought last night – he could find a balance between both of his sides and become a more whole person for it. He was supremely content as he went to breakfast and got a salad of his favorite fruits and a bowl of plomeek soup from the replicator, sitting next to Nyota. "Good morning, Nyota. How are you doing?"

She peered at him curiously but could not read him with his mental shields at full capacity once more, and sent him a smile, "I'm doing well this morning, thank you Spock. How are you?"

"Surprised," he responded. "Did you know that the Captain speaks Vulcan? Fluently, at that? His inflection was perfect, and what he said was not something he could have just picked up somewhere, as what he said is uncommonly used."

He was speaking of "I grieve with thee," in the way that Jim said that, but "You are not alone" was also uncommonly used in their culture, and most Vulcans simply used the Standard "I" instead of "this one" (nash-veh) nowadays, unless they were elders. Nyota blinked and then stared at him, which made him raise an eyebrow. She flushed lightly and turned her attention back to her meal. "I was unaware of that. I wonder where he learned it?"

Chekov sat down close to them and asked, "Where who learned what, Uhura?"

Sulu sat next to Chekov and said, "Oh, probably the Captain and some language, Pavel, the Captain picks them up ridiculously quick. Did you know he speaks Japanese as if he was raised doing so?"

The young Russian man made an exclamation and added in, "The Captain speaks Russian fluently too! It is so wonderful to speak it again when we converse in it together!"

Spock's eyebrow was far higher now, as he mused, "Vulcan, Japanese, Russian, Standard… I wonder how many more he knows?"

How fascinating. He had been learning that there were depths to the Captain that had been unseen previously, and had a suspicion that they were only scratching the surface here. Then the man in question sat down with a brilliant grin, "Good morning everybody! What's the conversation topic?"

Nyota sniffed and bluntly stated, "You are."

He grabbed at his heart with a dramatic cry and seemingly became morose, leaving Spock marveling at the flair of his Captain, "Ouch! I am wounded, Uhura! You have callously broken my heart, gossiping about me!"

McCoy sat down and elbowed the Captain, "Drama queen. It's too early for this, Jim. Shut up."

Chekov, as usual, took the entire interaction with a smile and asked with clear cusiosity, "How many languages do you know, Captain?"

That made the Captain give them all a slightly confused look before he shrugged, "Ten, not including mathematics, and programming and coding, languages. It's a hobby of mine to learn new languages because language is about communication and expression and it is fascinating to learn what other cultures value the most and how it impacts and shapes how they communicate with each other. I'm thinking about picking a second new one to learn this year – Scotty's teaching me Scots Gaelic right now. Maybe Cantonese. Ensign Biyu offered to teach me a while back, and I might just take them up on the offer. I might wait until I've finished learning Scots Gaelic from Scotty though, I am very busy, after all."

"Da! This is true! Russian is very different from Standard, and some things are easier to express in my native language."

Well, well, well. How extraordinarily fitting. The Captain had more than previously suspected in common with both Spock – who was, after all, a specialist in xenolinguistics (and eight other fields) as well as a scientist – and Nyota, who was their Communications officer, which encompassed far more than simple words. Speaking of Nyota…

Spock turned his eyes towards Nyota and she was staring at the Captain as if he had grown another head, which, he had to admit, was rather amusing. Nyota had likely never even once thought that Jim had this sort of depth to him, although he had been routinely showing it to Spock. It made Spock wonder why the Captain was focusing so much on him until he realized that the Captain had let Chekov and Sulu see other sides of him – McCoy already knew many of Jim's sides, and the Captain had mentioned spending time down in Engineering with Scott. So, it was not Spock that was being singled out, it was Nyota. He wondered why, until she said, "No. Fucking. Way. You do not get to geek out over that kind of shit, what is wrong with you?!"

Ah, so it was not even Nyota being singled out – Nyota was resisting, even blocking, him in his attempts to get to know his staff better.

He blinked and turned towards Jim, eyebrows raised and then lowered shortly. He knew they had some sort of history, but now it seemed like exceedingly bad history if Nyota was still reacting like that after this past year and more that they had been working together. Her grief when the Captain died for them had not been false, but humans could be contradictory, even logical ones. The Captain sighed and said, "Look, Uhura, I know we have gotten off to several bad starts, and I know you resent me a lot based on the very little you know about me, but don't you think you should actually get to know me before judging me ten ways to hell? I've managed to be able to spend time with all of the Officers on this ship except for you, even though I have blatantly not been inviting you to do anything sexual. I haven't even been flirting with you!"

Which was strange in and of itself, and Nyota should have sat up at that. The Captain was an inveterate and almost (but not quite) obnoxious flirt, although Spock had deep suspicions that the moment he got serious about somebody, the flirting would stop (or simply become more subtle) if it had ever existed to begin with. He would have to be incredibly great friends with someone in order for him to be able to actually fall in love with them – Jim held himself back even as he gave all of himself to others and for others. He was incredibly reticent about letting other people see into what made him into who he was now unless it was something trivial, like this instance – notice Jim never said why learning how different people communicate with each other was so important to him. Maybe Spock would ask after chess tomorrow night.

Nyota flushed and was about to retort when Spock intervened. "The Captain is right, Nyota. Ever since he gained Captaincy, he has been taking time out of his limited free hours in order to try and connect with as much of the crew as possible so he can learn their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. In addition to that, it lets them see that he will be a good and trustworthy captain because he actually cares about them. Please do not let your previous prejudice interfere with you doing your job effectively or the Captain doing his job effectively, Nyota."

She shut her mouth and stared at Spock like she had never seen him before, but all he did in response to that was raise his eyebrow in a silent rebuke for her entirely unseemly attitude and behavior. As angry as the Captain had made Spock during their various confrontations and interactions before and during the Nero affair, he had still responded to the friendly overtures given to him by the man in a positive way because he knew that they had to learn to get along and trust each other or their endeavors would be doomed from the start.

The Captain turned towards him and flashed him a smile that made him feel oddly grateful, and he let his approval of how Jim handled the situation show in his eyes, which the Captain could already read exceedingly well – probably part of his obsession with various forms of communication. Body language was perhaps the most integral of languages. Then he turned back to Nyota and sighed, "Thank you Spock, but you can't force Uhura into getting along with me. She has to want to do it herself or it will never work out. She will consistently and constantly resist me and refuse to see that we have anything in common, if she isn't willing to see deeper."

Ah, Spock had not realized that. He did believe that his rebuke was making Nyota think more clearly, however, because instead of being angry she looked worried and thoughtful right now, as if she were only just realizing there were negative consequences to her actions. They all settled into their meals after that, somewhat awkwardly and with Chekov and Sulu clearly trying to pretend the confrontation had never happened.

Then they finished their meals and went to the Bridge, starting Alpha shift.