There was a silence before John spoke. "Very well, I will go alone. No one has to stay here for me." Dirk took a step forward. "Captain, I would not-"

He cut himself off, realizing he wouldn't be able to talk John out of it. And besides, he didn't want to upset John.

John adjusted his uniform top and walked down the hall to an elevator. When he looked back at the hall after getting in the elevator, most of his crew had followed his semi-order to leave.

He rode the elevator up to a higher floor, tapping his fingers of his right hand on his left wrist. He wasn't really sure if he should be nervous or not. His dad would either be really pissed at him, or not mad at all. John really did not want to be yelled at today. He was trying his hardest not to blame himself for what happened to the ship.

He stepped out of the elevator and headed down a hall, turning a few corners, until he came to the familiar door. He knocked on it gently and waited until he heard a male voice tell him to come in.

He opened the door and was greeted with his father pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. "Oh my god, John." He pulled away. "Are you ok? Is your crew outside?"

John shook his head. "I told them to leave. Figured you really only needed to talk to me. And yeah, I'm ok."

His dad nodded. "Good, good. I really just wanted to talk to you. About.. What happened, obviously." John looked at him. "I'm gonna be honest. No one on my crew has any idea what happened."

"Neither does anyone at Starfleet." His father began, walking to his desk. "One second you guys were fine, next you were approaching a small asteroid belt and a planet, and your engines began to fail. We have a few theories."

John walked over. "Like the asteroid belt really wasn't an asteroid belt? Or something is up with the planet?"

The older man nodded. "You were going into uncharted territory. We don't know anything about that galaxy. All we know is that everyone made it out alive from the ship, and the ship... is no longer on our radars."

"No duh, it crashed into the planet's surface. Probably exploded in a fiery ball of death." John said lowly. "We didn't have time to scan for life signs or heat signatures or anything. I wonder how many natives it killed."

"John, stop beating yourself up over this." His father insisted, putting a hand on his shoulder. "If you weren't the person for this mission, The Federation would've never approved you becoming a captain so fast. They knew you excelled in school. We knew you could handle this."

"I went out with a crew of 100 and within an hour we lost a whole damn starship!" John snapped. "We were barely 100 Earth miles out!"

"John, if a rookie had gone out you know what would've happened?" His father asked. "They would've panicked and the whole crew would've been lost. You didn't panic. You saved everyone on your first mission after having a freak accident happen to your ship in an unknown galaxy. Please."

John looked at him and managed a small smile. "I know, I know. It's just... I feel like someone should be blamed, and for some reason I feel like it should be me."

"Well you're not being blamed. But until we get another ship I'm afraid you'll be grounded for a bit."

John nodded. "I know. Are there plans to go out to that galaxy again?"

"No, no one will be going there for a while." His father replied.

"Is that all you had for me?" John asked, and his father nodded, then gave him another hug. "You're dismissed."

***

John walked out of the elevator, greeted by a sight he wasn't expecting to see.

"-you're extremely fascinating to me! You should come by my lab ASAP! I'd love to get some DNA and blood samples from you."

"Doctor, I'm fairly certain The Federation already has plenty of half-Vulcan DNA and blood specimens."

Dirk was talking to a woman with long brown hair, which was in a braid that went down to her hip. Dirk heard John as he approached and he straightened up a little more, turning his attention to John.

"Captain."

"Dirk, we're off duty." John replied. "You don't have to-"

John stopped talking as the wind got knocked out of him, the female Dirk was talking to had practically run him over and pulled him into a hug. "John!"

John wrapped his arms around her. "Hey, mom. Haven't seen you in a while. I thought you would be gone for another couple weeks!"

She pulled away and kissed his forehead. "Starfleet contacted me about what happened, and, well, I couldn't just sit on the planet and do nothing!"

"Mom, you're doing research. You wouldn't have been doing nothing." John replied, which just earned him an eye roll.

"You know what I mean!" She insisted. "Anyway, I finally met Dirk after like, what, a month?!" She pulled John over to the Vulcan, grinning. "He's so great and so smart, then again he is Vulcan.." Dirk quirked an eyebrow. "Doctor, I believe you give me far too much credit. John is far superior to me in many ways."

"John, you have to take Dirk to Earth someday! He's never been!" She said, ignoring Dirk's comment. John huffed. "He doesn't have to go to Earth if he doesn't want to, mom."

"Well I've been told it's quite pretty." Dirk said. "I'm not opposed to going."

"We should all go to the big Federation conference that's held in San Fran!" John's mom insisted. "It will-" She cut herself off when she heard a ringing noise, and she slipped a small device out of her lab coat pocket.

"Uh oh, something came up in the lab!" She said, stuffing the device away. "I'll see you two later!"

She kissed both of them on the cheek then ran off.

Dirk gazed at John. "C- John. Your mother is... quite the woman."

John stepped over to him and kissed his cheek. "Yeah. She's great."

"I see where you get your hyperactivity from."

John furrowed his brow and tilted his head. "My hyperactivity? What??"

"When you get very anxious or excited, you move around quite a bit." Dirk explained. "You also tell bad jokes as defense."

"Hey, you don't need to point out that they're bad!" John joked, poking Dirk's shoulder, to which Dirk quirked an eyebrow once again.

"John. Why do you always poke me like that?"

John couldn't help but smile. Everything Dirk said was adorable. Whenever he asked anything he seemed genuinely curious. "Is it a custom among humans?"

"Oh, no. I just feel like poking you." John replied, reaching up and giving Dirk's cheek a poke. "Boop."

Dirk raised his eyebrows at him. "John, you are very interesting. You can switch between extremely serious and very, as humans would say, happy-go-lucky, within a second. I've come into contact with many humans before, and I've concluded this is not... 'normal' human behavior."

John had been smiling when Dirk started talking, but by the end he was straight-faced and not looking at him. Dirk tilted his head curiously. "John?"

John looked at him quickly, as if he'd been snapped out of a trance. "Hm? Yeah?"

Dirk frowned slightly, then took John's hand in his own carefully. After a moment he spoke. "I apologize for upsetting you. I... did not realize what I was saying would impact you so much." John gave a little shrug. "It's fine."

Dirk let out a little huff. "I can sense your feelings, John, you know this. I can tell that what I said is not 'fine'. Now, please, let me make it up to you."

John blinked slowly and squeezed Dirk's hand. "I.. You don't have to make it up to me." He insisted. "I just overreacted. Don't worry about it."

Dirk settled his chin onto John's shoulder. "I may be Vulcan, but I can still worry about you. I've done significant research when..."

John zoned out, not paying attention to Dirk. He couldn't help it. He could tell he was getting close to snapping at Dirk, and hearing about the research Dirk had done on human emotions or some crap wouldn't help.

Dirk trailed off, quickly realizing John wasn't paying attention. He lifted his head off of John's shoulder, now determined to make things right again.

He spun John around, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him into a kiss, which caused John to let out a small noise of surprise. They'd kissed before, but not in public like this.

Dirk pulled away, a light blush on his cheeks. He had no idea what had overcome him. He'd just kissed his captain in a Starfleet facility!

"C-Captain.. I..." He began, trying to form the correct words, but John just put a finger over his lips.

"Don't be sorry." He said softly.

"I have every right to be. I just engaged in a very inappropriate act with you on Starfleet property!" Dirk muttered.

"Dirk, human kisses are not that-"

"John!"

John pulled away from Dirk a bit and looked down one of the halls to see the source of the shout. He saw Rose running towards them at a sprint. She stopped in front of them, panting hard.

"Rose, what happened? Are you alright?" John asked. "Holy crap you look like you just ran a whole mile."

"I practically did.." She replied, standing up straight. "But there's something you two have to see. You need to follow me!"

Dirk tilted his head. "Rose? What happened?" Rose took in a few more breaths.

"The Enterprise. It's back."