Jim sighed deeply as warm rivulets of water ran down his back. He was already slightly sore from the sparring, but he could feel his muscles relaxing with the shower. The last two days had instilled a sense of anxiety in his bones that he could not quite shake.
He dealt with inexplicable and often alarming circumstances all the time. He was a Starfleet Captain: that went with the job. So he was handling the arrival of Amanda and Selik well enough. Externally, anyway.
On the inside, the whole ordeal left him feeling odd, like he was being shoved into a life that was not his. Some part of him felt like it was right to be paternal to these kids. But it felt like putting on a uniform that didn’t quite fit.
And Spock. Why would he marry Spock?
His curiosity was starting to distract him from his work. Sure, tall, dark, and mysterious was great for admiration, but not so much for long-term companionship.
Was there something about his First Officer that he just didn’t get yet?
Amanda was already turning a lot of the stereotypes he held about Vulcans on their heads. She assured him that she was more Vulcan than Human, and yet everything about her mannerisms screamed Human.
So maybe Amanda had just never learned the skill of mastering one’s own thoughts. Which implied that Vulcans did feel just as much as Humans, but most chose not to show those emotions.
He would have to do more reading. Surely he could find something more about Vulcan emotions. He had scanned through The Teachings of Surak once about a year ago—so that he could better argue with his First Officer, of course—but he had found the readings vague and a bit overly preachy.
Jim smiled at the memory. It had totally been worth reading just for the look on Spock’s face when he quoted Surak in an argument.
He forced himself to stop reminiscing about his First while in the shower as he finished washing.
When he got back to his room, he had messages waiting at his PADD. He held the tablet in one hand and was supporting his towel around his waist with the other.
One message was from the admiralty. He grimaced and flicked to the next message. He needed to inform Starfleet about their extra visitors. He got into enough trouble with them as it was.
The next message was from Spock. There was not any text in the body of the message, but there were three fairly large documents attached. The title of the first one was “Spatial and Temporal links in the determinism of the Superposition Converter in Material Transporters.”
He reached for his communicator beside his bed and keyed in Spock’s frequency.
“This is Commander Spock,” his First Officer’s voice crackled through.
“Hey, Spock. It’s Jim.” He laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. “Thanks for the light reading you sent,” he said, sarcastically.
“You are most welcome, Captain.” Spock’s voice, as usual, had no trace of having understood the joke. “I believe you will find the academic papers most elucidating on possibilities of Selik and Amanda Kirk’s current predicament.”
