@ak-spra, continued from here
If he were being generous, Spock could claim he was mostly awake, only resting his eyes — a phrase used often by McCoy.
But in truth, there was a possibility that he was nearing his limits. There was a lull between shifts, and Spock had hoped to recover some of his energy by replacing the tiredness with enough food to kick him into gear. It would seem that he had no succeeded.
The hand that secured itself over his shoulder did a better job, pulling Spock to attention and pulling his eyes open, as he looked to his social saviour. “Aella,” he greeted, delayed embarrassment at his situation showing a true testament to his exhaustion. He wanted to follow up with something, but he couldn’t exactly say sorry for almost falling asleep at my table, where I didn’t manage to get any food. How are you?
Instead, he just adjusted his uniform, checking the clock and ignoring the lingering warmth of her hand. Shift started in twenty minutes, not nearly long enough to meditate himself towards full wakefulness if he still wanted any kind of sustenance.
It was always tiring on board the Enterprise when the captain wanted the impossible done -- which, of course, was always. Engineering said it would take twelve hours to fix what the strange nebula had destroyed -- the captain asked for five. It was understandable. Out in the middle of uncharted space, surrounded by possibly sentient beings that seemed intent on finding how many things they could break before the ship imploded -- nobody was happy.
Of course, it was not the only reason one may, say, fall asleep in the middle of the mess hall, but Aella would’ve been lying had she said she’d felt no other exhausted minds recently.
This had to take a much huger toll on those higher in command. Though Aella could still see communication console circuits when she closed her eyes, she was sure Spock was on a pretty continuous stream of command.
A hand reached out to her commander, the other balancing the teas and the plomeek soup she had gotten. It tightened gently around him, before the question came to her mind -- why are you touching him? Aelliana, this isn’t like you. You don’t normally just touch other people!
But much seemed to have changed in her since their last encounter.
“Commander,” she released, her voice a breath of familiarity. She released him as she sat at a chair opposite of him, setting down the tray of teas and soup. “The soup is for you. I ate earlier, and came here only to get tea. I am expected somewhere else soon.” She glanced at the clock, eyebrows raising almost as if she were saying something humorous. “How long do you have?”