Jim Kirk was completely in love with the Captain's chair. The rush of having an entire ship just beneath his fingertips was a feeling that was far more potent in reality than it ever was in any fantasy.

There was no mistake; the Enterprise was a beautiful ship, the newest in the fleet in fact. However, it was not the ship itself that made being captain so rewarding.

It was the crew.

His crew was absolutely amazing, the majority climbing the ranks from just cadets in the middle of the Narada crisis. Despite the unorthodox and stressful situation, everyone performed admirably.

He was fully aware that he was not the primary reason they had survived their ordeal, and for once, his pride was not bruised by the admission.

Though, despite everything, he was still James Tiberius Kirk and he had no qualms about picking favourites.

The newly appointed Command crew were by far his favourites on his new ship.

Granted, he really only knew Bones and Uhura from the academy; If he really put his mind to it and thought back, he could occasionally remember flashes where he may have seen some of the others, but he didn't really count those, as no actual conversation, let alone introduction occurred.

Bones hadn't really changed much since Jim gained his new rank. He was just as grouchy and foul tempered as he was when they first met, and Jim was fairly sure that was never going to change. However, despite his hatred of anything to do with space, he was acclimating to his new position as CMO well; he wouldn't admit it, but Jim could tell that Bones loved the Enterprise almost as much as he himself did, and that he was deeply enjoying his new job.

After all, he now had the unlimited access to any and all Hypos and the authority to attack Jim with them whenever it took his fancy.

Since the Narada incident, Jim had officially stopped chasing Uhura. In all honesty, he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he was serious about it at any point at all. He supposed that he must have been at least partially serious right at the beginning; on that fateful night in that bar back in Iowa. However, after that, he supposed, it was more about the challenge than anything else. Very few women rejected him after he had set his sights on them, and that interested him somewhat.

When the truth came out, that she was on some sort of relationship with none other than Spock, he officially called off the chase.

He might have been a dick, but he wasn't the sort of dick to steal a man's girlfriend, no matter how much he might dislike the man in question.

Somehow, he wasn't as bothered by that as he would have previously thought he would be. It must be something about finally learning her first name.

At last, the knowledge he had been seeking for over three years now, and yet he didn't use it. It was only after some of their meetings, where he had ridiculous amounts of paperwork to go through and sign and she had volunteered to help by translating some of the foreign statements, that Kirk could begin patching up their somewhat frayed relationship, if you could call it that.

After that, she had completely surprised him by squeezing him in a quick hug.

"Jim," she said as she pulled away, smiling brightly, "You can call me Nyota."

And so he did, he wasn't about to waste a gift like that, however he did make a point of only using her first name in private and referred to her with her last name or rank while on duty.

He did have some sense of professionalism after all; not much, but a bit.

Scotty was hilarious. He was completely brilliant and knew his way around the ship as though he was one of the engineers who designed it. Jim had absolutely no doubts that Scotty loved the ship the most out of everyone, often calling it his 'lady,' and could be found talking to it as he worked.

The man was eccentric and had an unhealthy obsession with sandwiches and scotch, but was a complete and utter genius in engineering. Jim had made a firm appeal to keep Scotty as his Chief Engineer and after some debate; most resistance came from Admiral Archer who still mourned the loss of his beagle, they succeeded. That night, he and Scotty celebrated. Jim couldn't remember much of the night in question, but woke the next morning with a killer hangover, wearing a kilt with Gaelic scrawled over his bare chest in what looked like mayonnaise.

Scotty didn't volunteer any information, so he didn't ask.

After they had been pushed to work together, a large amount of the tension between Jim and Spock had diminished and was replaced with tentative respect.

Jim still thought Spock was an emotionless robot, but he was a necessary emotionless robot. It was a complete coincidence, their shared love of chess, but after a few games together, it had done the job.

Now instead of grudging respect at a purely professional level, that friendship that the older Spock had told him about was blooming. Jim could now see clearly that Spock did indeed have emotions, strong ones at that, but he just knew how to hide them better than any human ever could.

His eyes were his tell though. No matter how perfect his facial façade was, his could not do anything to hide his true thoughts and feelings that were hidden in his eyes; it just took a while for Jim to begin to read them.

Now, Jim could safely say that besides Bones of course, Spock was his best friend on his crew, even if the Vulcan didn't know or was unable to recuperate it. His instinctual behaviour coupled with Spock's calculated logic made for an unstoppable team, and he knew that he could trust Spock to have his back when the need arose.

However, the final two members of Command crew were the ones he was most interested and confused about.

Whenever a conversation with someone he went to the academy with strayed to his current crew, a strange reaction was prompted.

As soon as he said the names of one Hikaru Sulu and Pavel Andreivich Chekov, they appeared as though they were fighting the impulse to laugh and shiver at the same time.

"Watch yourself with them, Captain. They're right hellions those two." They would say, leaving Kirk in a state of bewilderment.

Sulu and Chekov? Hellions? He didn't believe it.

Sulu had saved his life when they were on that drill, and had worked with upmost professionalism and skill during the entire mission from what Kirk could see. And Chekov, the seventeen year old Russian whiz kid saved both of them while they were in free fall.

No, he didn't believe any of those warnings. Sulu was too mature and loyal and Chekov was too innocent and damn adorable to be anything but perfect crewmen.

However, now, as Jim sat in the chair, watching everyone work, he began to question his blind judgement.

Watching them both now, he could tell they had known each other for a long time, years even. They conversed and interacted with each other with that ease that only came with prolonged interaction. But it was the looks of apprehension shot towards them from the rest of the crew that worried him, even Uhura looked slightly wary of what the two men were discussing.

As it turned out, Sulu and Chekov were indeed hellions.

The Hellions of the Enterprise. And it wasn't long before James Tiberius Kirk got the proof.