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The blood had failed. For some reason, something Doctor McCoy hadn’t understood, Khan’s blood had worked for a Tribble, but not for the Captain. Spock knew, though. He had been too slow, had gotten to Khan too late, for the blood to be of any use to the Captain. He had failed.
When it became clear Kirk would not be waking, Spock excused himself from medbay and walked briskly – not run, not when he wouldn’t be fast enough– to his quarters, dodging the attempted soothings of a well-meaning Nyota. He couldn’t face her, not now, not with the pain that surged with each rapid heartbeat still raw and fresh in his veins, burning through his mind sharper and hotter than the sun on Vulcan.
Not with a severed bond in need of calming.
He fled, then; from the body of his Captain, from the touch of his friend, from the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. He sank down onto his mediation mat the moment he entered his quarters, not even bothering to adjust the temperature or change into his robes. Instead he plunged into his mediation, diving into his own mind and seeking out the pulsing point where his bond with his Captain had lived, unattended and unrecognized until the moment beside the reactor.
T’hy’la.
For so long he had avoided the word, relying on its secondary definitions to allow him comfort aboard the Enterprise, but even then, he’d known. Known that with the Captain it would never truly mean simply “friend”, that it would always entail more than “brother”. It would, forever and always with Jim, mean “lover”, even if their relationship had never reached that level.
He kept digging, looking for the broken link, but he couldn’t find it. There was pain, yes, grief, terrible, gut-wrenching grief that made his heart heavy in his side, but none of the gnawing emptiness of a broken bond. That emptiness was, unfortunately, familiar to all Vulcans, and yet Spock could not seek out the emptiness that meant Jim. He found the ache of his mother’s passing, that of his childhood bondmate’s, and that of his people, all soothed by time, but none of Jim’s. It ought to be easy to find, but… it was almost as if he weren’t dead at all. Or as if his katra remained.
Spock allowed himself to hope, blindly and foolishly, for a moment. Perhaps the Captain wasn’t truly dead, was merely in a deep coma… but no. The grief he felt, the pain, it was real as well. He had watched his Captain die, had felt his katra slip away from his body as Spock’s cried out for him, and had heard the screams of anguish through their tentative link. Jim was dead.
So why was the bond between them still thrumming with energy?
o0o
Weeks passed. Spock assumed full command. McCoy recovered from the truly massive amounts of alcohol – genuine, smuggled in – he’d consumed in the days after Jim’s funeral. Sulu took over Spock’s former role as First Officer, and performed admirably. Scotty refused to let anyone else work with the core, insisting it was his duty, and Spock was loathe to take that from him. Chekov walked around quietly, his usual energy dimmed by sadness. The crew carried on, somber and sad, but slowly, joy was returning to the ship. A few days prior, McCoy had even cracked a small smile at a joke Chapel had cracked.
Spock still refused to speak with Uhura beyond the necessary interactions on the bridge. It felt wrong, as if he were betraying Jim somehow, and though logically Spock was aware that what he was doing what hurting her, he couldn’t seem to stop.
It was hard enough to walk the empty corridors to his room after each shift. The Enterprise felt emptier without her Captain – her true Captain – and it was difficult for Spock to avoid the feelings of another presence with him when he walked her halls alone. Once or twice, after more exhausting shifts, he almost felt a gentle Vulcan kiss being pressed to his fingertips.
Sleep was even more difficult. The Enterprise had never been fully soundproof, and with his advanced hearing, Spock had always been able to discern Jim’s gentle snores and the creaking of his bunk through their adjoining walls. Often it had been irritating, but now, Spock found he couldn’t sleep properly without them there. The silence felt incongruously loud.
Mornings were impossible. Instinct still screamed for Spock to put on a blue shirt, not a gold one. Oftentimes he found himself staring blankly at the command golds, unable to put them on until he was very nearly late. It was becoming more and more challenging to find the will to dress.
Jim would find it shameful, Spock knew. He’d consider it an insult to his memory, to see his XO acting this way. But as much as he could hear Jim chastising him – and oftentimes, Spock could almost hear his voice – he couldn’t shake the shadow that had fallen over his soul.
o0o
Nyota insisted on speaking with him that evening. They walked together after Alpha shift, but instead of going down a silent corridor to Spock’s room, Spock took them to the observation deck, where Jim often went when he needed centering.
He’d joked with Spock once, claiming that when he looked at the whole universe just outside the ship’s walls, decisions about schedules didn’t seem quite so pressing.
Spock had wound up doing that paperwork himself.
“I know there’s something you aren’t saying,” Nyota said, interrupting Spock’s reflection. Spock chose to let her speak, to air her grievances. “You won’t talk about it. With anyone. I know we aren’t – that we aren’t whatever we were anymore. I understand. I don’t think I could do it even if we wanted to. But you need to talk to someone. Maybe Doctor McCoy. You aren’t the only one who lost someone, Spock.”
Spock didn’t answer her. Instead he stared out the windows as the stars spiraled by. He was not the only one who lost someone, but he was the only one who lost everything.
She pressed a hand gently to his clothed shoulder, so he only got a vague impression of her emotions – concern, caring, sadness – before she left him alone with his thoughts. With her gone, he was free to let his forehead rest against the glass.
“You never told me you guys broke up,” a voice said.
Spock shot upright, standing at attention with shuttered eyes as his Captain’s voice sounded through the room.
“Holy shit you actually heard that! Finally, I swear, I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, you just haven’t heard me. Jesus Christ, Spock, I’ve been talking your pointy ears off and you haven’t even heard me,” the voice continued, but it was impossible.
Jim Kirk was dead, yet there was no other voice this could be.
“Don’t try to talk back just yet, I think it’ll break this somehow, just let me talk. God, I’ve missed talking to you, and having you hear me. Talking at you just isn’t the same, y’know? Knowing you hear me, Spock,” a sigh, the sigh the Captain had often used around Spock, but somehow more relieved now than exasperated, “it’s everything.”
A short pressure, gentle enough to perhaps just be a burst of air, trailed over his first two fingers.
“I’m not real sure where I’m at. It kinda reminds me of my grandpa’s house. I used to stay there a lot, while mom was off-world, before she married Frank. I swear though, I spent more time outside than in when I was there, and that’s what this reminds me of. It isn’t really someplace to see though, it’s just the feeling that’s the same.”
There was silence after Jim’s voice stopped, silence that went on long enough for Spock to gather his thoughts. “Why are you here,” Spock said, and he was inordinately proud of how even his voice sounded. While inside his emotions ran rampant, outside he was calm.
“Because we weren’t done there, in the engine room, and you know it. It’s why you’re hurting still, why you’re pushing away the crew. Why you keep second-guessing yourself,” Jim said gently, his voice closer now. Spock kept his eyes closed, despite how desperately he wanted to open them and see Jim there. What if he did, though, and Jim wasn’t there? What if this was just an elaborate hallucination brought on by grief? Spock couldn’t risk it, the resultant pain would tear him in two. So he kept his eyes closed.
If this was a trick of the mind, Spock never wanted it dispelled.
o0o
That was not the first night Spock dreamt of Jim, but it was the first night Jim halted his nightmares.
Spock was halfway through his worst memory – Jim’s hand pressed to the glass, his Captain trying to speak through pain while Spock pushed his shields past their limits and still felt overspill of Jim’s katra as it left the Captain’s body, those overpowering screams for Spock to help, to ease the pain and fear – when a strong hand closed over his shoulder.
“Hey, don’t, don’t listen to that. Look here, look at me. Listen to me,” Jim coaxed, convincing Spock to turn his head and then to lower his hand from the glass. The room around them faded and shifted while Jim helped Spock to his feet.
Spock took a moment to stare openly. Jim looked – he looked alive. Not the way he had looked just before death, with nausea and pain etched between his eyebrows and sweat coating his face, and not how he’d looked pale and small on the biobed before McCoy had respectfully pulled a sheet over his face before punching the wall and breaking two knuckles. And not at all the last expression of horror as his katra had torn apart from Spock’s.
No, Jim was grinning, his eyes sparkling with joy at Spock and his cheeks flushed a healthy color. His hands were warm where they rubbed over Spock’s skin, the human temperature soothing on Spock’s constantly-cool skin. He hadn’t noticed, but Spock had been so cold since Jim had left –
Had died. Jim had died. Not left. He’d died, and something Spock was doing was keeping their katras linked this way, keeping Jim from going forward. It was awful, Spock should let Jim go on to whatever came next. Instead, he was holding him in this world, in a life he couldn’t have.
But damn if Spock wasn’t going to enjoy it.
o0o
“You’re compromised, Spock,” McCoy proclaimed after his latest physical. Jim’s voice sounded concern in Spock’s head – he’d realized in the past weeks that only he could hear Jim, and so it must be a manifestation of their bond, and not in fact, an auditory even – but Spock ignored it for the moment in favor of speaking with the doctor.
“I am aware,” Spock agreed. He’d been compromised since Jim’s death, but had been somehow cleared for duty anyway.
McCoy scowled, genuine fury and not the playful anger he’d always directed towards Jim. “Then why the hell haven’t you removed yourself from duty,” he spat.
Spock looked up. “I have not been on the bridge in approximately three point two seven days, Doctor. I didn’t feel the need to alert you because it is not a medical removal, and so is outside your command,” Spock explained. Jim had thought that a smooth transition would be easier than an abrupt one, and so Spock had phased himself off of the bridge rather than announce his resignation. “Acting Captain Sulu processed the paperwork. Upon our next stop, I will be left at New Vulcan.”
“I don’t give a damn about my command,” McCoy shouted. Nurse Chapel looked up startled from her work, but quickly left sickbay, with the other two ensigns in tow. Once they were gone, McCoy apparently felt comfortable enough to let loose on Spock. “If you’re stepping down, I need to know, and I need to know why, not because you’re the goddamned Captain but because Jim would’ve killed me if I let something happen to you, and that includes letting you be a damn fool!”
Spock stood, his mind crystal clear for the first time in weeks. His grief was stark black on a white landscape, the only reality he could cling to as his mind began to slip. “Doctor McCoy,” he began, his voice dangerously low as he stared the doctor down, “I have suffered the death of my t’hy’la, there are only two possible outcomes. Either I will lose my mind or I will die. There is no recourse. Had our bond been solidified I may have had a chance, but as it stands, my mind is already losing its grip on reality.”
McCoy blanched. “Spock – I – I don’t know what to say. Is there something I can do?” McCoy demanded, his natural instinct to nurture overwhelming his anger in the moment.
“There is nothing,” Spock said. In the silence after, he nodded briskly, and left sickbay, pausing to allow Nurse Chapel and the others reentry.
o0o
New Vulcan was strange. It looked similar to home, and yet, it was different enough that the subtle wrongness of the landscape cried out to Spock as loudly as the ache forming in his mind.
Jim kept up a long stream of chatter as Spock journeyed into the desert. It had been late when he beamed down, and now it was even later. No one planetside was aware of his presence. McCoy had been instructed to send a transmission to Sarek revealing the coordinates of Spock’s communicator and, it was implied, Spock’s body.
Even Jim seemed to sense the dark nature of the journey, and his voice trailed off as Spock continued to walk.
“You could just let me go, Spock,” Jim said when Spock finally stopped walking. He’d reached the peak of a small mountain, just too tall to be called a hill.
“No,” Spock disagreed. “I could not.”
“I could leave,” Jim replied, though he didn’t sound certain.
The idea pierced through Spock’s mind like a lirpa. No, no he could not allow Jim to leave him. Tears pricked at his eyes and threatened to spill at the thought of being without Jim. And that alone should have shown Spock just how far from sane he’d travelled, but it was too late. His mind was already drifting, it was only a matter of time now.
“Uhura will cry,” Jim said. Spock nodded. She would, she would mourn him. “Sarek will be furious.” Also true. His father, while he denied much emotion, always had been more susceptible to anger, at least when inspired by love. “McCoy will never forgive you.”
“It isn’t his forgiveness I’m seeking,” Spock said. “It’s yours.”
Jim inhaled sharply, and that didn’t make sense, he was dead, he didn’t need to breathe but then he was speaking so Spock’s world refocused to the words, not the air behind them. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Spock. But if it’s what you need, I forgive you. Forever and always, t’hy’la, you are forgiven.”
Spock’s shoulders lost their tension. His body felt so tired, his mind so frantic. Perhaps he could lie down, just for a bit, and look at the stars while Jim spoke. That would be nice.
“Will you wait for me, Jim?” Spock asked, his body somehow already reclined. The stars were spinning above him, and his body felt like it was floating on the dusty ground.
Phantom fingers pressed kisses over his skin, light and barely discernable from the desert breeze. “I will. You’ve just got to let me go for a moment, Spock. Just let go. You’ll see me once you fall asleep, I promise.”
Spock let his eyes close and savored the sound of his t’hy’la’s voice. They’d be together soon.
“I promise,” Jim repeated, his voice right in Spock’s ear. And with the promise still echoing in his mind, Spock finally did what he’d never been able to before.
He let go.