AN: So! This is completely unbeta'd, and I own (and make) absolutely no money as a result of this silly fic. Leave a comment and tell me what you did and didn't like, por favor. Now, on with the story!

/AN

In Which The Captain Discovers That He Is No Longer Alone

Kirk had the distinct impression that he was sleeping in. Which was rather odd, as the last time he'd been allowed to wake up on his own was more than a year ago. This thought propelled him into wakefulness. Frantically, he looked at the display next to his bed. 2:43. That made absolutely no sense. He felt rested, yet according to his clock he'd only been asleep for a bit over two and a half hours. Or else twenty-six and a half hours, but the former seemed slightly more likely.

He sighed. He didn't feel sleepy at all. Some back corner of his mind commented that Bones was probably still awake. He tried to comm sickbay. The comm wasn't working.

The clues came together in his head, and he suddenly realized why this feeling of complete and unyielding wakefulness was familiar.

Playing it safe, he tried turning on the sink, poking his finger with a knife, and yanking out the wires that fed the lights (he'd taken to sleeping with the lights on at 20% since the last red alert had propelled him out of bed and into the pointy end of his desk). No water, no blood, and the lights were still on (albeit infuriatingly dim). Sighing, he donned a uniform and made his way to the bridge.

XXXXXX

As he'd suspected, every person he encountered along the way was frozen in place. It may have been about ten years since he'd last experienced this phenomenon, but he remembered the eerie quiet and the glassy expressions well enough.

First order of business was to check the bridge. There were two very good reasons for this. One, perhaps the Enterprise had picked up some sort of radiation or anomaly that would explain the situation. Two, failing an explanation, he needed to check that the ship would not be in any danger when they came out of this stasis. Kirk knew from experience that this could last any amount of subjective time (it was absolutely impossible to quantitatively or qualitatively measure time in this place; the Earth did not rotate, clocks did not run, candles did not burn, and he never got hungry or thirsty or tired. Just bored. Very bored).

So he knew that, if this thing lasted a relatively long period, he might be in no state (or position) to deal with any problems that cropped up immediately upon time resuming its progression. Better to check on it now, and formulate any plans he might need, than to wait.

As the universe had frozen during gamma shift, none of Kirk's usual command crew were present on the bridge. Leisurely, he wandered from station to station, checking whatever readouts were present on the screens when time stopped. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Kirk could feel the maddening sense of boredom threatening crash over him. With an effort, he drew himself back from the brink and decided to explore the ship. Perhaps he'd find something nonessential that he could take apart and reassemble. Barring that, something essential but not currently in use.

Walking down the halls, he gave in to the desire to sing. The silence was awful and pervasive, and even at the tender age of five he'd been smart enough to realize that making noise while in this strange twilight was the only way to stay sane.

He was unapologetically off tune as he belted a half remembered song through the dim corridors. He'd learned it from a drinking buddy in Starfleet, Dave, who had been lucky enough to be assigned to the Enterprise during the Narada incident, but unlucky enough to have been on Deck 8 during the confrontation above Vulcan. He was one of many who'd graduated posthumously.

"And he sang as he watched and waited 'till his billy boiled—" Kirk ground out tunelessly, until he was interrupted by something that sounded suspiciously like another human being.

"Captain?" Came the question again, and Kirk stopped cold in his tracks. Frantically, he grabbed at his communicator and checked the time. 2:43.

"Captain?" Came the question again, closer. Kirk stared at the communicator, willing the time to change and prove that the world was running again. Still it said 2:43. Just as he admitted to himself that yes, time was still stuck, the speaker caught up to him.

"Spock?" He asked slowly.

"Captain." This time it was not a question. "I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised to find that I am not the only one experiencing this phenomenon."

"You do not seem..." Kirk searched for a word while he searched his first officer's face for any minute emotional tells, "…phased by this situation."

Spock shifted slightly. "I have experienced this before."

Kirk blinked. "So've I, actually."

They looked at each other, unsure of where to take the conversation next. Kirk broke the silence.

"Do you play chess? Please say you do."

Spock performed his trademark eyebrow lift. "I do."

Was there a hint of amusement in his tone? Kirk decided that if there was, it probably just meant that Spock was finding his CO's characteristic non-sequiturs to be as illogical as usual.

"Follow me." Kirk said, waving for Spock to follow. "Chess should help pass the time. Well, not the time, but whatever it is we have here in great and smothering abundance. I've always wished for someone else to talk to during these…freezes. Otherwise, I pick up the awful habit of talking to myself. One time, the longest (I think) that I ever had to sit through, I got so used to hearing only my own voice that I freaked out when everything unfroze. I became downright antisocial, and nobody could figure out why. And it took me a good three months to kick the urge to soliloquize on every single thought that entered my head. Speaking of soliloquies, I guess I haven't really kicked the habit because I'm having a really hard time shutting up and please tell me you're still following me, Spock." A hint of panic had crept into his voice.

"I am." Spock confirmed, and when Kirk glanced back to look at him he saw that his first officer had slightly risen both eyebrows giving his face a strangely comforting expression, considering the lack of effort he'd apparently put into making it.

"Good. And, we're here." Kirk said, stopping outside his quarters.

"Excuse me, Captain, but how would you propose we enter? None of the doors are working, and there are no maintenance hatches terminating in your quarters."

Kirk smiled a tight little smile, and wedged his fingers in a slight irregularity between the door and the wall. After exerting a fair amount of pressure, the door began to slide open.

"That is a highly unorthodox modification." Spock chastised.

"Yeah well, a couple weeks into our mission I had a nightmare that the universe froze while I was in my room, and I became trapped there for the rest of eternity because I couldn't get the fucking door open. I was so traumatized by the thought that I refused to sleep in any rooms that I couldn't get out of without using completely manual means until Scotty came up with this modification." He gave Spock a 'Yes, I know I'm illogical, get over it' look before entering his rooms.

"On the contrary Captain, from my experiences with these situations, I think that that is a completely valid concern." His voice was as monotone as usual, but Kirk smiled anyway.

Not bothering to muscle the door shut behind him, Kirk entered his room and advanced on the chess set he had stowed under his bed. Once he'd retrieved it, he grabbed his desk chair and began dragging it out into the hall. At Spock's inquiring glance, Kirk explained, "It's too dim in there. I'll drag my nightstand out too; we can use that as a table."

Once the board was set up satisfactorily and they both were comfortably seated, Kirk picked up the kings in separate hands and asked, "Black or white?"

XXXXXX

Sparring was illogical given that, in this bizarre stasis, one could not develop new muscle memories. Kirk also pointed out that it was illogical to stand in the corridor and bang his head against the wall, but that was exactly what Spock had found him doing after he'd 'brutally shot down' Kirk's sparring suggestion.

So the half-Vulcan relented.

Injuries, adrenalin, and muscle fatigue were all foreign concepts in this stasis that Kirk had resignedly begun to call 'safe mode.' However, once Spock became used to the idea that he would not be able to hurt his captain, the matches became looser, more zen-like. There was no urgency to their strikes and parries, and Spock allowed his true strength to show through. This resulted in Kirk doing some spectacular midair acrobatics. After one such toss where he'd failed to land on his feet, Kirk looked up at Spock and asked, "What's the highest thing you've ever jumped off of in safe mode?"

XXXXXX

Spock's answer: none.

Kirk's answer: "A cliff."

Spock raised an eyebrow.

Kirk shrugged.

"Might I enquire as to why you would feel it necessary?" he prodded.

Kirk frowned and waved his hands a bit in an effort to define the indefinable. "I was trying to run away from home. So I was walking down the road and I heard a car in the distance. I moved into the corn on the side of the road to hide, but suddenly I couldn't hear it anymore. I listened, and realized that I couldn't hear anything besides my own breathing. That's when I knew that everything'd stopped again. This was great news; I could get even further away from home, and I didn't need food or a place to sleep. So I kept walking. I came across an abandoned quarry and decided that I wanted to explore it. Hell, even if I hadn't been in safe mode, I doubt that would have stopped me. But I was, and I'd discovered…maybe…a year before that I wouldn't go splat if I jumped off of stuff. So I did." He shrugged, as if to suggest that the story wasn't very interesting but at least the telling had passed the not-time.

"Fascinating." Spock said.

Kirk stared at him for a moment, and then decided that, if nothing else was forthcoming, he'd go find something more interesting to do.

Spock stopped him from leaving with a hand on his arm.

"Tell me about that experience." He suggested.

"Huh?" came the eloquent reply.

"To put it more bluntly: what was it like to jump off of a cliff?" the eyebrow was raised in challenge.

Kirk's eyes unfocused as he stared at the wall behind Spock's head. The silence stretched.

"Terrifyingly unterrifying."

The look Spock sent him demanded clarification.

"I have a fear of heights, now. Not a phobia, though." He paused, a sour smile flitting across his face. "Ever since, I haven't been able to shake the impression that, on impact, I'll be perfectly fine. Not even have the breath knocked out of me. I look down from some height, and I think, 'Wouldn't it be fun to throw myself off this roof a couple times?' and I'm completely serious. I'm terrified of heights because I can't seem to convince myself that they're dangerous."

"I, too, have experience with the illogical impressions that this state can leave us with." Spock admitted. Kirk looked at him with interest.

"I was young, no older than four years old. I had not mastered self control yet. I became very bored, and I decided to see how long I could hold my breath for." Kirk straightened a bit, looking interested. "As we do not actually need to breathe here, I trained myself to resist the urge. I did not breathe for the rest of the freeze. And I did not resume breathing even after the freeze had ended. I simply did not feel the need to."

Kirk's eyes widened. "But—"

Spock cut him off with a motion of his hand. "Fortunately, I was on the street when I collapsed, and I was rushed to the hospital. It took an illogical amount of time to relearn the necessity of breathing." He finished, sounding disgusted with himself.

They sat in silence for a moment, during which Kirk slumped down on himself in thought. Abruptly he sat up again, an excited light in his eyes. "That's how you did it! Omicron 3! You were the only one that didn't inhale the gas. You passed out from lack of oxygen, but that was easier to treat than the rest of us who'd breathed in the gas. I knew it wasn't just some 'superior Vulcan control.' Vulcans can't not-breathe to death any more than humans can." He looked triumphant.

"In this case, you are correct Captain. In that chaotic environment I would not have been able to summon the control necessary to withstand my natural biological impulses, had I possessed any. However, there have been reports of a few Vulcans who have, for whatever reason, voluntarily ceased respiration and expired as a result."

"Oh." Said Kirk, staring down his entwined fingers in his lap.

XXXXXX

"Hey Spock," Kirk said, sitting up abruptly from where he'd been lying on his bed reading a book on astrophysics.

"Yes, Captain?" replied Spock, glancing at Kirk from where he was seated a few feet away.

"Call me Jim."

"No."

"Yes!" Kirk insisted.

"Captain, we both have experienced how persistent habits picked up in Stasis can be. I do not think it wise to refer to you by your first name, as the evidence indicates the tendency will be difficult to eradicate when time resumes." He said it in his usual logical monotone.

"Who says it's something you'll have to 'eradicate'?" Kirk challenged.

"It would be unprofessional to refer to you as anything less formal than 'captain.'"

"Bones calls me Jim."

"I do not see how the inclusion of Doctor McCoy in your argument is meant to strengthen it. He is inherently unprofessional." Was Kirk imagining it, of was there a smirk hovering around the edges of his first officer's mouth?

"And yet, that does not interfere with the performance of his duties. Bones makes a good doctor, admit it."

"Captain, I am reluctant to classify any actions Doctor McCoy has taken in the carrying out of his duties as being inherently 'good'." Ok, the bastard was definitely smirking. On the inside. But it was a start.

"You know what I mean! Um…ok. Sufficient, then. Sufficient? That seems cold. He's patched us both up a number of times in the past year. And he cares, despite what he says. If that's not good, I don't know what is. And Spock?" Spock has gone back to examining his book while the argument was taking place. At the change in Kirk's tone, he looked up. "I know a distraction when I see it."

He then attempted to blind his companion with his most brilliant grin.

Spock appeared unaffected.

"Was that all you required, Captain?" He asked, innocently putting extra emphasis on the title.

Kirk groaned in frustration. "Jim. And no, actually. This whole conversation has been a digression from my original purpose." He blinked at himself. "Speaking of habits picked up in Stasis, I'm sorry, but I sincerely hope that I do not sound like you for the rest of my life."

"I consider it a marked improvement to your usual method of communication, Captain. Also, would this be another digression?" Spock had to be enjoying this conversation, Kirk decided. Or, whatever Vulcans did that was analogous to enjoyment. Since when was his first officer this playful?

"Yes, yes, another digression. Damn. What was I going to ask you, anyway?" Kirk furrowed his brow dramatically, hoping to elicit another snarky comment from his companion. He was not disappointed.

"I do not think I would be incorrect in pointing out that, having forgotten the original query that had prompted you to initiate this conversation with me, the entire discussion had been rendered pointless."

"I've not forgotten! Merely misplaced. And I do not think I would be incorrect in pointing out that any actions undertaken in this place are inherently pointless, inasmuch as they do nothing but stave off boredom." Spock inclined his head slightly to concede his point, and Kirk resisted the urge to do an entirely illogical victory dance.

And then he got up and did one anyway.

He glanced at Spock partway through the dance, and he decided that any embarrassment he suffered was totally worth it to see the mirth bubbling in his officer's eyes.

XXXXXX

They had decided (well, Kirk had suggested and Spock had actually conceded that it was a logical use of not-time) to get to know the Enterprise intimately. There were several immensely practical reasons for this (Kirk explained). One, it was impossible to move about the ship through normal means during Stasis because the lifts and automatic doors didn't work. So they were going to have to get used to crawling through Jeffries tubes anyway. Second, this was good knowledge to have even when the ship resumed working properly. Lastly, it staved off boredom. Spock's eyebrow had risen at this, but he had not voiced any contradictions.

Kirk had become used to explaining the reasoning behind his actions to Spock. It had started as a not-very-serious persuasive technique ("I'll sit here and bang my head against the wall if you don't spar with me") but had since evolved into something more. Sometimes Spock would interrupt him in mid explanation, and the resultant discussion of Kirk's logic, Spock's logic, and logic in general was never uninteresting. Even if the half-Vulcan did not take serious interest in the logical implications of Kirk's arguments, the looks of amusement and occasional surprised respect that flashed across his face were reason enough.

So they were in the Jeffries tubes. Together. Kirk had the irrational (and unvoiced) fear that he'd never see Spock again if they went separate ways in the hundreds of miles of tubing that made up the Enterprise's ventricle system.

Spock insisted that they take the nonfunctioning communicators with them. His logic ran that, if they managed to get stuck or hopelessly lost, at least the crew would be able to find them when time unfroze. It made sense, and was exactly the sort of thing Kirk would not have thought of on his own. He said as much, and Spock shot him an unreadable look.

XXXXXX

"Hey Spock." Kirk said. They had made it to one of the cargo bays. Spock had informed him that it was cargo bay five, and Kirk saw no reason to doubt him.

"Yes, Captain?"

"Call me Jim." Kirk grinned at the momentary look of confusion that flashed across Spock's face as he was hit head-first with a wave of déjà vu.

"I believe we have already had this conversation, Captain. It would be illogical to have it again, as the outcome is unlikely to change." The words were stiff, but Kirk could tell that Spock didn't really mind.

"Guess what? No, don't give me that look. You remember that conversation? Of course you do. Well, I've remembered what I wanted to ask you." Kirk smiled, waiting for a response involving some sort of snarky congratulations. Spock merely raised an eyebrow.

"You always know what time it is. Do you have any sense of time, here?"

A minute crease formed between upswept eyebrows. "In fact, I do not. I find it mildly disconcerting, but understandable." Kirk's expression begged him to elaborate. "My sense of time is a result of an awareness of the movements of the universe." At the captain's skeptical look, he continued. "Not the entire universe, but its contents. If I am on a planet, I am cognizant of its path through space. Even starships have developed internal rhythms due to the patterns and emotions of their occupants. There is none of that, here."

"Fascinating." Kirk remarked with a smirk.

XXXXXX

They were in the Jeffries tubes again when Kirk was hit with a debilitating wave of exhaustion. "Spock—"

The name was barely out of his mouth before his first officer piped up, "It would seem that time has resumed its natural course."

No shit thought Kirk, but he wasn't about to take his sudden bad mood out on Spock. "Do you know the quickest way to get out of here? I think I've just been woken in the middle of an REM cycle." He tried to stifle a yawn.

"I believe this direction holds the speediest path to egress." Spock pointed, and Kirk tried to follow. After a bit of crawling he began to wake up a bit, but his head still felt stuffed with something warm and heavy.

His communicator beeped.

He fumbled with it and managed to hit the appropriate button. "Kirk here."

"Captain, is everything alright?" Yeoman Rand sounded worried.

"I believe so." Kirk said cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

"I went to drop off some reports to your quarters, Captain, and I found some of your furniture…" she paused a beat to search for an appropriate word, "…arranged in the corridor."

Kirk hit his head with the bottom of the communicator, cursing himself for his stupidity. "Um, yeah. We—I mean, Spock, Commander Spock and I—we were, umm…." Captain Mode did not want to engage, and his brain seemed in need of a reboot. He was saved when Commander Spock plucked the communicator from his hand.

"Yeoman Rand? Spock here. The Captain was curious about some noises he was hearing that appeared to be coming from the ventilation shafts around his room. We had to move the furniture to take more precise readings, and we are currently in the Jeffries tubes investigating. We will be back to the Captain's quarters in approximately 9.72 minutes. Spock out."

Kirk gently nudged Spock's shoulder with his forehead in gratitude for the help, then gestured that they should continue moving.