Despite his shortness of breath and the fact he was nearly drenched in sweat, Jim adjusted the controls on his treadmill to just a bit faster. He had spent the last week burying himself in work, but as of this afternoon he was officially caught up with, and even ahead on, all his paperwork, and if he tried to schedule himself another shift today, Bones would be breathing down his neck. With no work to offer a distraction Jim had tried to turn to physical exertion to drown out his thoughts. At the very least, it might exhaust him beyond the point of dreaming, so he wouldn't have to yet again relive the moment his soul mate had turned to him and said, in no uncertain terms, that he was ashamed to be Jim's friend.

Jim cranked up the speed even higher.

"Good evening, Captain," Uhura greeted as she hopped up on the treadmill beside his, starting it up at an easy jog.

"Lieutenant," Jim responded.

Uhura peered over at the settings on Jim's treadmill, then shot him a look that was two parts impressed, and one part suspicious. "That's quite a work out."

After a second's thought, Jim turned down the speed of his treadmill to match Uhura's – exhausting himself clearly wasn't working, so maybe a little social interaction would. "I've been a bit busy with work this past week, and now I'm trying to make up for lost time," Jim offered as an explanation. "And how have you been, Miss Uhura?"

"Fine, thank you," she responded. She paused for a moment, then added, "Though, if I'm being honest, I'm feeling a little let down at the moment."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Jim asked.

"Maybe," Uhura said. "Do you know Ensign Cheryl Miller?"

"Of course; she transferred over from the Columbia the same time I did. How's she doing?"

"She's just fine. The only reason I bring her up is because I was talking to her before we started our mission, about what it was like serving under you."

"All good things, I hope?" Jim said, keeping his tone light and teasing to make it clear that he didn't really expect an answer. He tried to be the type of commanding officer that people enjoyed serving under, but Jim was well aware that he wasn't perfect, and he wouldn't begrudge anyone who needed to complain to let off a little steam, even if they were complaining about him.

"All good things," Uhura agreed with a light smile. "Specifically, she told me that one of the best things about serving under James Kirk is that he is very diligent about going to the gym, but somewhat less diligent about wearing a shirt when he does so." She gave his sweaty t-shirt a pointed look, and for the first time, Jim caught the mischievous glint in the corner of her eye.

The chuckle escaped Jim before he could stop it, and his lips quirked up in an amused grin. "I have been trying to be more diligent of late," he told her with mock-graveness that he doubted was the least bit convincing.

"Pity that," Uhura quipped back, and Jim chuckled again.

"You can tell Ms. Miller thanks from me, though I doubt my ego needed the extra stroking."

"Maybe not, but it got you to smile, didn't it? I've been missing that this past week," Uhura said.

And just like that, the smile was gone again. "Have I been that obvious?"

"Not at all. In fact, I doubt anyone's even really noticed," Uhura assured him. In response Jim gave her a look that quite clearly said that she had apparently noticed, or else they wouldn't even be having this conversation. "I'm your Chief Communications Officer, Captain," Uhura said, with the tones of one who was explaining something that really should be self-evident. "And there's a lot more to communication than just words."

"As long as the rest of the crew doesn't think their captain has been moping about," Jim said, though that suddenly seemed like a very likely scenario.

"Almost everyone has been at least a little out of sorts since Psi 2000," Uhura assured him. "I'm not sure what it was you got up to, but it can't have been worse than Christine. Poor thing nearly had a breakdown when she told me about it after."

"Why, what happened?" Jim asked automatically, before realizing it probably wasn't Uhura's place to tell him. "Never mind. I'm sure she wants to keep it private."

"No offense meant Captain, but you're probably the last person she wants to know what happened," Uhura agreed. She paused for a moment before adding, "Well, second to last, but since the other person is the one it happened to, more or less, that's a bit of a loss cause."

Jim winced a little. He still couldn't begin to guess exactly what happened, but he could certainly empathize with the idea of saying the exact wrong thing to the exact wrong person. "My sympathies, regardless. I hope she's feeling a bit better now, at least."

"She is. I think talking about it helped her a lot," Uhura said. She hesitated, feeling, perhaps, that she was overstepping her bounds with what she said next, but she continued with it anyway. "It might help you too; I'd be happy to listen, of course, but I'm sure Dr. McCoy or Mister Spock would be willing to lend an ear too."

Jim somehow managed not to wince again. Talk about saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. "Thank you for the thought, but I didn't actually do anything all that embarrassing. I did ask Mister Spock if he would go with me on a walk on the beach, but I don't think he'll hold that against me." Jim had also rambled on about soul mates some, but nothing too specific, and nothing that was liable to make Spock draw any conclusions. "I actually wasn't so concerned with my behavior as I was with something I learned during that… episode, we'll call it."

Uhura raised an eyebrow at him – Jim rather suspected she had been getting lessons from Spock while they claimed to be practicing music. "A lot of the crew was pretty intoxicated when all that was going on; I would recommend you take anything that was said with a grain of salt."

"Maybe, but what's that old Earth saying? In vino veritas?"

Uhura pursed her lips. "You know, just because a saying is an old one, that doesn't mean it's a good one."

"You don't think people are more honest when they're drunk?" Jim asked, curious. It seemed a common sense sort of truth to Jim, but of the two of them, Uhura was the expert on communication, and Jim hadn't gotten to where he was by not listening to his officers.

"I think people ae less inhibited when they're drunk, which might lead to honesty, and it might lead to running down the halls shirtless and challenging people to duels," Uhura said dryly, and Jim chuckled. "In any case, there's a difference between a truth and the truth, and alcohol is much more likely to give you the former than the latter. Personally, I prefer a different saying, one my mother used to tell me when I was little. 'It'll all be alright in the end. If it's not alright, then it's not the end.'"

Jim found himself grinning. "You know, I think my mom might have told me that one a time or two as well."

Uhura smiled back at him. "I thought she might have. If I may, Captain, I'd advise you try to get the whole story behind whatever it is you heard the other day. If you can't, then don't worry about it too much because pretty soon this whole thing is going to blow over. Why, I even bet that Lieutenant Riley might even be brave enough to stick his head out of his quarters any day now."

That earned an actual laugh from Jim. "Maybe when he does, you could give him a few singing lessons."

"That'll only encourage him," Uhura responded.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes after that. Jim found himself wishing he could take her up on her offer to talk; maybe she'd have some insight into the matter. At any rate, she was certainly Spock's closest friend on the ship besides Jim himself, and possibly McCoy (Jim still hadn't come down whether Spock and McCoy's constant bickering came from a place of genuine incompatibility or was a sign of deep respect and camaraderie, but at the moment he was leaning toward a little of both), which would give her a better vantage point on the problem than most. But Jim wanted Spock to be the first to know about the two of them being soul mates – though if Spock didn't figure it out soon, Bones was going to know before him; Jim could only duck taking a physical for so long – somewhat limiting Jim's ability to talk about the situation with others. Somehow he didn't think 'I have a friend who has a Vulcan as a soul mate' was going to fool anyone.

Though, there was another way he could get her opinion on the matter, in general, if she didn't mind sharing. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" Jim said.

Uhura smiled at him. "Of course not, Captain. But that doesn't mean I'm going to answer."

"Fair enough," Jim said, giving a nod of his head in acknowledgement. "I was just wondering if you had met your soul mate yet."

"If I have, then I haven't fallen in love with him yet," Uhura said. Then she frowned a bit to herself and added, "Or at least, I don't think I have. My soulmark is on my back, and to be honest I don't check it all that often."

"Really?" Jim asked. Before his soulmark had come in, it felt like he was checking it every day, sometimes even multiple times a day, waiting for it to become clearer. Even now that it he knew what it said, he still found his eyes straying there, or his hand smoothing against it, just to reassure himself that it was there and real. Granted, his soulmark was in a much more accessible place than Uhura's apparently was, but even still. "Though, I suppose if it had come in you would have felt something."

Uhura shrugged. "Maybe, but my family has something of a history of being a bit slow and soft when it comes to falling in love. My mother's is on her back too, and she had no idea that it had come in as my dad's name until he saw it and told her. They had known each other for years at that point, so it's hard to say how slowly it had been in coming in, but the point is she never felt even a twinge from it that whole time."

"Everyone's different I guess," Jim said and Uhura made a noise of agreement. They jogged side by side in silence for a few minutes, before Jim found himself unable to hold back. "I just don't understand. How can you be so blasé about your soulmark?"

"Well, worrying about it isn't going to make him show up any faster, is it?" Uhura said, which Jim had to acknowledge was a good point. "Besides, if I'm too busy looking for the perfect guy, I might completely overlook the right guy when he comes knocking at my door. The way I see it, he'll show up when he does, or he won't if he doesn't. Either way, I've got a good career, supportive friends, a proud family, and plenty of time to practice my singing, so I'm pretty happy with my life."

For a few moments, Jim found himself quite unable to do anything but blink a few times in surprise as he thought about what Uhura just said. "You know, Miss Uhura," Jim said after a minute, "you may very well be the most sensible person I have ever met."

"Well, I could have told you that," Uhura said with a saucy smile, and Jim found himself laughing.

It was a testament to the positive effect of their conversation that Jim didn't notice Spock approaching until he had very nearly reached Jim and Uhura's treadmills, and that once Jim did notice him, he no longer felt disappointment churning in his gut. Well, he still felt it – there was only so much even an epiphany could be expected to do all at once – but it was greatly lessened from what it had been earlier that day. Uhura was right; Spock would come around in his own way an own time, and even if he never did, it didn't make Jim any less lucky that he had managed to find this amazing man and bring him, even in a small way, into his life.

"Your emotional state has improved, Captain," Spock observed in that blunt way of his, and Jim shot another look at Uhura.

"Of course Mister Spock noticed. I thought that was a given," Uhura said.

Jim shook his head, more at himself than her. "It probably should have been. I am feeling a bit better, thank you," Jim said to Spock. "Are you here to get a work out in?"

Spock didn't actually call Jim out on how very inane a question that was, but his raised eyebrow very clearly communicated it was something that he would have said, were he a less well-mannered individual. "Indeed, I just finished going through some Suus Mahna forms in one of the private rooms." And Jim had missed it? Damn. "I was wondering if you would be amendable to a chess match after you were done here."

Jim couldn't have been more shocked if Spock had dropped on one knee and proposed right there in the middle of the gym. Of course, that was mostly because if anything that improbable happened, Jim would have to assume Spock had been possessed by some incorporeal alien being, and that sort of thing wasn't that uncommon, unfortunately. But it was still a bit of a surprise, Spock asking him for a game of chess. Jim was sure that Spock enjoyed, or derived satisfaction from, to state it the Vulcan way, their chess games together, but Spock had never attempted to initiate one before – at least, not after that first time when Gary had more or less backed him into it. Jim just assumed that it wasn't the Vulcan thing to do, deliberately seeking out social interaction for no purpose other than to be social, and yet here Spock was, asking Jim to play chess.

"I'd love to. In fact," Jim turned his treadmill off and hopped down, "I think I can go ahead and call it quits now. I need to shower off and get changed first, but we could meet in twenty minutes? My quarters?" Jim was taking a little bit of a risk there, as they had only ever played in the rec rooms before, but if Spock was going to bring them a step closer by issuing the invitation for the first time, then Jim thought he should also have license to increase their level of intimacy. Not that two people sharing a game of chess in one of their quarters was terribly intimate in a traditional human sense, but Spock was Vulcan and Jim was fast learning that intimacy with him was gained in the smallest of baby steps.

"That would be agreeable," Spock said, giving no indication that he found any significance in the change in venue.

"Great. You're going back to your quarters to change as well, I presume? I'll walk with you."

"Logical, given our quarters are next door to each other," Spock noted and Jim grinned.

Before he left with Spock, Jim turned back to Uhura. "Thank you for the conversation. It was… enlightening."

"Anytime," Uhura said warmly.

When he reached the doorway out to the hall, Jim glanced over his shoulder back at Uhura again. In the less than a minute it had taken him and Spock to cross the room, she had turned the speed up on her treadmill significantly. The logical assumption, Jim supposed, was that she had been warming up earlier while they had been chatting, and now she was going into full swing. And yet, something in Jim's gut was telling him that he had been quite thoroughly ambushed.

Somehow, he didn't mind.