Kirk
Captain’s Log. Stardate — irrelevant. It’s May. It’s Sunday. It’s Arlington.
Spock.
You’re telling me — and I want to make sure I understand this — that Jeannine. Is at the grill. Right now.
[pause]
Then we go.
Bones, I know what you’re going to say.
BONES: Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a —
I know what you are. You’re a man who hasn’t eaten since the Neutral Zone incident and there is a woman in Arlington, Massachusetts who is doing things with fire that Starfleet Academy never prepared us for and we are going.
Spock, what are the odds that this barbecue — this gathering of the Magic Lab and their friends at seventy Scituate Street — what are the odds that it is as good as last year?
SPOCK: Captain, given Jeannine’s historical performance metrics, the probability of excellence exceeds —
Spock.
SPOCK: Yes, Captain.
Don’t tell me the odds.
[long pause. He stares at the viewscreen, which is showing Arlington from orbit. It looks good. The garden looks good.]
You know what I’ve learned out here? In all these years? Sailing between the stars, making first contact, staring into the face of things that stared back?
A season — a good season — deserves to be marked. Not with paperwork. Not with a commendation from Starfleet Command. Not with a — a ceremony.
With fire. And food. And the people you went through it with.
That’s all. That’s the whole thing.
Felice knows this. The Federation knows this. And Jeannine —
[he pauses. Something moves across his face.]
Jeannine has always known this.
Here’s what we’re going to do.
We are going to beam down to seventy Scituate Street at thirteen hundred hours — one o’clock, Bones, don’t make that face — and we are going to go around to the rear garden and we are going to bring something because that is what was asked of us and a man who shows up empty-handed to Jeannine’s grill is a man who has lost his sense of what matters in this universe.
The coordination of provisions is forthcoming. Starfleet is handling it. Or Felice is. Frankly there’s not much difference.
SPOCK: Captain, I fail to understand why you are emotionally affected by a — a barbecue.
Spock.
SPOCK: Captain.
Have you ever — in all your years — in all the cold logic of your existence — have you ever stood in a garden. In May. When the light is doing what May light does. And smelled something coming off a grill that made you feel like — like whatever you went through to get there — was worth it?
[Spock says nothing. But something happens in his eyes. Something he would deny.]
That’s what I thought.
[He flicks open the communicator.]
This is Captain James T. Kirk. On behalf of the Magic Lab, Felice, the Federation, and Jeannine — who needs no further introduction in this or any other quadrant —
You are ordered. To attend.
May seventeenth. One o’clock. Seventy Scituate Street. Arlington. The rear garden.
Bring something.
Kirk out.
[He closes the communicator. Looks out at the stars. Looks back down at Arlington. Straightens his green wrap-around tunic.]
[He smiles.]