Work Text:
i. Irony
The first time it happens, he doesn’t want a soul to see. Not his captain, not his crewmates. Not even you, who not only cares but is bound by oath to care. Instead he tries to hide it from the world, and so naturally, as those things go... the whole ship knows.
You’re tempted to tell Spock a thing or two about irony: how nothing ever happens by forcing it, nothing ever goes away by shutting it out. Push in one direction, life is sure to shove you right back. Like the teenage kid you try so hard to keep safe, only to have them sneak out of the house at night. Like a wife who drifts farther away the harder you try.
Yeah. You of all people would know about irony.
And not just you. You're sure Christine could tell him better than anyone. Spending years hoping for any kind of emotional response, only to get it in the shape of a thrown bowl of Plomeek soup. Or Jim. The closest thing Spock has to a friend, almost getting himself killed over a woman that neither of them really knows. If that’s not irony, you don’t know what is.
You could have told Spock when he was on that biobed, sullen and trembling but still fighting you with all he had. Being his doctor – and, you hope, something of a friend as well – yet not being able to lift a finger to help. To know he’d have died sooner than confide in you. You could have told him that was irony too.
You never do tell him, in the end. You figure it out, and Spock lives, and Jim lives, and seeing Spock’s face the moment he realizes, you’re grinning too widely to say a damn thing.
ii. Trust
The second time, he comes to find you. Not openly. Stealthily. Catching you already half-asleep, numb and bleary-eyed after a late-night shift, but still, he comes and you let him in.
Your drink is still on the desk where you put it: Saurian brandy, half a finger left. Spock picks it up and twirls it around in his hands. “You are aware that, for humans, alcohol is not actually conductive to sleep?”
You harrumph obligingly. “I’m a doctor. Damn well I’m aware. Like I’m aware that, for humans, not all cures are rational. Not that a pointy-eared Vulcan would know.”
“Ah, yes.” He gives you a look that’s impossible to read. “A human’s unique capability of taking benefit from cures that do not actually work.” He tilts his head and lets you take back the glass. For a second, his hand spasms against yours, and abruptly you’re wide awake and stone sober.
“What’s wrong?” you say.
To your surprise, he tells you everything.
“Zarabeth?” You shake your head, and he nods for what’s got to be the fiftieth time. “Spock, that was five months ago. Either that or... five thousand years, depending on how you count. And speaking of counting, I thought the math said seven years. Isn't this far too soon for you to–”
“As you stated, Doctor, not everything is governed by arithmetic.” Spock pulls in a sharp breath that’s almost a sigh. “I was not even aware she and I had… bonded.” The words come out so quietly you have to strain to hear them at all. He shudders again, his eyes pinching shut, and if the tightness in your throat isn’t panic you don't know what it is.
“For God’s sake, Spock, she died – what, five millennia ago! If you need that–”
“I do not think ‘that’ will be necessary, Doctor.” For a second you could almost swear Spock is smiling. A tense sliver of a smile, all eyes and no lips, but still a smile. “The effects are not quite so profound. I am confident I can muster them with meditation. But I will require–” He shivers briefly, breath hitching a little as if he’s in pain. “I will require time. And privacy. I would prefer if this did not become public knowledge.”
You lean back and let out the breath you’ve been holding. “So what you’re saying is you want me to cover for you? Find some excuse to take you off duty?” Another nod, and you blink, incredulous. “Did you tell Jim?”
“Not for now,” he says. You take a breath to protest, but Spock is faster. “Please, Doctor. The fact that I am here discussing this with you does not imply this has stopped being a private matter. It is very simple: you were there, with Zarabeth, the Captain was not. This made you the logical person to come to. I assure you I will speak with Jim as well, but –”
“All right. All right, Spock, I just...” You find the glass of brandy and toss down what’s left. “All right.” Deep breath, and dammit, if you’re the one he decided to trust, you sure as hell can’t fail him. “We’ll get you through this, Spock. You can bet on that.”
If there’s emotion in his eyes, you don’t call him on it. “Doctor, I never doubted that you would.”
iii. Empathy
The third time, you don’t have a clue. Not that anything that’s happened to you the past few days has made any sense. All you know is you’re on route to Genesis, a piece of Vulcan mind still stuck inside your head, Jim hovering over you like a mother hen. That, and you’ve all flushed your careers right down the drain, not that anyone seems to give a damn.
There’s no warning. One minute you’re nodding off in Spock’s chair on the bridge, the only place that still feels right for you to be. The next you’re hot as hell and shaking like a palsy victim, and you don’t even know what’s happened in between. For a second, there’s the nagging sense it wasn’t even you it happened to, then the feeling tapers off again.
“Bones?” Jim’s voice is hushed, edgy, like it’s been since this started. Not that you blame him. It’s scary enough to be dragging Spock’s katra around, but for Jim, who can't stand not being in control, it has to be even worse.
“ ’m Fine,” you mutter, though you’re not sure you are. You suppress another shudder, another flash of being in a different mind than yours. It’s not that you’re hurting, it’s that someone else is. Which sounds crazy enough to make you wonder if you’re starting to lose it again. If you didn’t know better... But no. Just – no.
Jim doesn’t look convinced either, but he sucks it up for your sake. “In a normal situation, I’d order you to Sickbay, Bones. But I’m afraid right now–”
“We’re a little short on medical staff.” You manage a chuckle. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” You wave Jim off, and somehow, you manage to drift to sleep. When you wake up, you can hardly even remember the feeling.
It’s only hours later, after losing David and losing the Enterprise, after everything’s gone to hell and all you’ve got left is Spock’s too-quiet form on the gurney, that it comes back to you. Sitting at Spock’s bedside because it’s the only place you can be right now, you watch one crewman after another file in to see him. Jim spends an hour or so there with you, eyes bright with tears he still can’t shed. Spock’s hand is clenched in his, like he wasn’t able to hold his son’s. And of course that’s how it’ll always feel to him: Spock’s life for David’s. Even though that’s never how life works, and no man should have to bear that burden. But you know he will, anyway.
Saavik enters just as Jim is called out. She sits beside you without a word, and you don’t even know where the question came from until you’re asking it.
“Something happened to him, didn’t it? Down on Genesis.” You watch her turn her head towards you. “I mean, apart from the being dead and coming back to life and aging stuff. Something else, something... painful.”
“You could sense it,” Saavik says, and it’s not a question. Suddenly there’s warmth in her eyes, then more warmth as she picks up Spock’s hand, strokes it with a pair of fingers. “I can tell you, but most likely it will not mean much to you. It was Pon Farr.” She watches you, curious. “You know of it?”
You don’t know what shocks you most: the word, or the ease with which she says it out loud. “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” you mutter. “But he’s fine, now, isn’t he? Physically, at least. So how –”
All she’s done is incline her head, then you know.
For a second, you could swear you love her.
iv. Happiness
The fourth time, and the last that you know of, is no spectacle, no drama. In a way it feels almost ordinary. That in itself says something about how far the two of you have come.
Vulcan’s as much of a furnace as ever, and you know you shouldn’t be drinking this much, but you don't really care. If you’re not allowed that kind of indulgence at your age, when will you ever? Vulcans don’t drink, of course, but there’s a handful of off-world guests and a selection of alcoholic beverages to match, just as long as you don’t mind being scowled at when you order.
By the time the bride and groom arrive, you’re tipsy. You’re a melancholy drunk, Jim always told you, and that thought in itself really doesn’t help. Jim is long gone, but you can almost imagine what he’d have said if he was here. He’d be hitting on Saavik the moment he saw her in that dress. You’d be elbowing him in the ribs, and he’d grin that cheeky grin at you, a grin that meant “just try and stop me”. Then he’d give Spock that look they had, the one that was deeper below the surface than above it, like an iceberg. The look you’d give anything to see again.
Of course, chances are if Jim was alive, there might never have been a wedding at all.
But Jim isn’t here. It’s just you, worn and wobbly and more than a little drunk by now. Which is why you don’t feel the slightest bit guilty when you take Saavik’s hand and kiss it like you mean it. It’s probably not the smartest act to be kissing a Vulcan’s wife-to-be, especially a Vulcan in the throes of Pon Farr. Then again, it’s not worse than putting your arms around said Vulcan and hugging him tight, and that goes down surprisingly well.
You wonder, sometimes, in the years that come, if there’s a fifth time, a sixth. If there are, they don’t involve you, and in most ways that’s good. There are no children, and you wonder about that, too. Still, they seem happy together, or whatever word Vulcans use to say...
No. Happy is the proper word.