Snippet 4b

"Your welcome," Kirk grinned, seeming satisfied with Spock's acceptance. "Sooo I'm gonna need some help locating where my room is on the ship. Think you can help me with that?"

Spock nodded, putting the chocolate in his other hand. "If you wish." he said, motioning to the door.

"Great. We'll just traipse - or, you know - waddle right over there," Kirk ended in a mutter, starting toward the door. "Where d'you think the captain's quarters would be? Deck E?"

"I would think his quarters would be more toward the Bridge," Spock offered, following him. "Deck 6, perhaps."

"Well, if I find it, and I find that little device-thingy inside, I'm gonna find out who my mate is straight away," Kirk said solemnly as they paced out of the room and down the hallway, toward the turbolift. "I wanna know who knocked me up before I'm supposed to squeeze out this kid. God knows how I'm even gonna do that...I mean, honestly, who's friggin' idea WAS this, anyway? I've GOT to have someone to scream at for this whole situation. Did Lesh'ar take it all right? You know - the fact that he's a dad and all?"

"He did." Spock replied, following behind him. "He was not overly surprised."

Kirk snorted. "I don't remember a lot about Vulcans, but you guys are currently driving me nuts." He stopped at the turbolift, waited for the doors to open, and then stepped inside alongside Spock. "You make this stuff seem so easy."

"You make it seem overly difficult." Spock countered, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Well, not everyone can just walk up to each other and tangle brains, Spock," Kirk said, calling out for Deck 6 to the computer to get the turbolift moving. "Some of us have to take time to do things, and then pray we don't screw up and end up embarrassing the shit out of someone in the process."

"Vulcans are not telepaths."

"Yeah, but you could just find out all the details you needed to know by Mind-Mushing...or whatever you did," Kirk said, stepping off the turbolift when it opened for them on Deck 6. "Not to mention that Lesh'ar was all hunky-dory about the whole thing. I bet he just walked right up to you and said 'you'd better meld with me, I think you're my mate' or something."

Spock did not qualify that with an answer.

A few minutes later, the two of them came to the quarters part of the hallway, and Kirk stopped, looking around at the rooms. "So...uh....what now? How do we figure out which one is the captain's?"