[ The proximity forces him back, but not enough to slouch. ]

I have no intention of playing the martyr over a man like that. [ Not again if I can help it. ] No one needs to go out there and meet him in the flesh, but if I contact him over a viewer then he'll have to believe it's the real thing after working with me in close-quarters, he knows how I hold myself and won't take me for a fake to get his guard down.

[ It's not an argument he wants or to butt heads, but a genuinely safe solution. ]

Kathryn, as soon as we're done deciding what to do here I'm intending to instruct my crew to follow your orders as if they were my own. If I were anyone else, I'd have called my being fit for duty days ago. [ Exhausted, sweating and sallow, he knows he isn't at his best; this way, at least, he keeps a scrap of dignity instead of having it wrenched out from under him. She's a good captain by all accounts and his trusting her with his crew speaks highly of his opinion (because if he didn't think she was, he wouldn't put their lives in her hands for anything). Jim nods, eyelids heavy. ] It's still smarter to show him my face instead of putting yours on the line for no good reason, you know that.