[ It takes everything that makes up James Tiberius Kirk to not reach out and steady her when she stands. It's not that he doesn't think she can do it (he knows she can--she is, without a doubt, one of the most competent people he's ever met; it's at least half of what makes her so damn compelling to him) but more that she was right when she accused him of being someone who couldn't walk past someone in need.

He's a fixer who hates not being able to do something tangible about a problem.

But he lets her stand on her own, partly because he values keeping all of his limbs in one piece and not taking an elbow to the gut, and partly because he thinks she might need to see for herself that she can do it. He hovers though--one hand near the small of her back, ready to catch her if she falls.

At her admonition, he cocks an eyebrow--expression asking the 'are you serious, right now?' so he doesn't have to say the words aloud. She may miss it, in the state she's in, but it's there to read if she wants to notice ] Sam's checking on the science yeomans. And his--are they experiments? Pets? I don't really know the proper terminology here.

He'll be fine without me for a few hours. [ a beat, quiet tension while he debates something before he lets his hand settle on her back fully, fingers spread wide as he looks down at her ] Let me at least get you into your quarters?

[ he swallows, and then adds: ] Please?