Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jim steps off the shuttlecraft with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and whatever credits are left on the card in his wallet. He claps McCoy on the shoulder as they part ways and are lead away to be signed up. It takes a couple hours to complete the entrance exams but because of his results - although perhaps mostly because of Pike's influence - Starfleet accepts him and he is escorted by an officer to his single person dorm room.

They say they will give him his uniform tomorrow and supply him with the first round of credits for his bursary so he is able buy the notebooks and equiptment he will need for classes. His textbooks will be provided for him. If it were a hundred years ago, he would have had to pay for his education and everything else to go with it. But it’s not a hundred years ago, he lives in a socialist society. It's this thought that makes him smile at the officer escorting him and thank her; he's not used to people giving to him, especially not big institutions like Starfleet, and it touches somewhere inside of him and warms him from the inside out. Although he supposes he'll be paying them back in terms of his service aboard whatever ship he ends up serving on, and in terms of the new discoveries that he will aid, especially if he achieves his goal of becoming a captain in three years.

The officer leaves him in his room and he takes it in. It is furnished sparsely, with only a bed, a wardrobe, a desk with a chair, and a small chest-of-drawers filling the space. There's a door immediately to the left of the entrance that leads to a small en-suite bathroom. The room feels unusually warm even after Jim removes his jacket and throws it over the back of the chair. After checking the thermostat on the wall he frowns, seeing it's set to 35°C, and turns the heating in the room off completely. It's the middle of summer, he can definitely bear with his room not being heated.

Laying down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as the heat in the room begins to diffuse, he thinks to himself that maybe joining Starfleet will turn out to be the right decision. Because he was meant for something bigger, something better, more than being a farm-hick, repeat-offender, and general asshole. He closes his eyes, breathes in through his nose deeply, and smiles unabashedly at the ceiling. Yeah. Yeah, this is going to be alright.

----

The next day he gets sized and fitted for his cadet uniform in the morning and is granted the first bursary payment just before midday. He goes out and buys whatever equipment he thinks he'll need. When he returns to his dorm, he finds that his student PADD has been placed on his desk, his password and username scribbled hastily down on a piece of paper underneath it - probably by someone who has been way over-worked. Two new cadet uniforms have been laid down on his bed and he grins at them, grins at the red that's so bright it makes his eyes burn, grins at the turtle-neck jumper he has to wear underneath the jacket that he can already tell is going to itch horribly.

But mostly he grins because it's nice to feel like he's actually doing something again. He’s going to learn, and he's going to finish his four year command course in three years, and Starfleet can kiss his ass as he rises to the top of their ranks and becomes the youngest captain in the history of Starfleet. And he feels like he can achieve it, he feels--

Jim feels far too warm.

He places the bags of equipment down on his bed next to the two uniforms before turning and striding over to the thermostat. It's set to 35°C again and he frowns at it before tapping his finger against the screen and turning it off once more. He’ll have to see about finding someone who can have a look at it because it’s got to be broken some how. A spike of cold travels through the room, causing him to shiver and in no way related to the lack of heating. Jim looks around, ever so slightly uneasy, before shrugging and pulling himself together. It’s just a broken thermostat, nothing more and nothing less.

Picking up the uniforms from the bed, he hangs them up in the closet. He picks up his PADD and the slip of paper. He lays back on the bed and ignores how the room doesn’t feel like it’s changed temperature.

----

Because he’s so unused to doing so much, Jim ends up working himself to the bone during his first month at Starfleet as he tries to balance the heavy load of school work, assignments, and trying to establish a social life. Sometimes he and Uhura catch eyes across the hallway and he winks at her, causing her to shake her head, maybe sigh a bit as she hides what he sincerely hopes is a smile. He knows he’s probably annoying her but it’s an aspect of his personality that he can’t really repress. Flirting is just in his nature. Or maybe it's leftover asshole-ish tendencies. Who knows?

The man he met on the shuttlecraft, Leonard McCoy, ends up being his go-to when he needs company and Jim is pretty sure he’s McCoy’s go-to as well. It’s too early to say that they’re best friends, barely even long enough to say they’re friends at all, but Jim can feel it sort of blooming between them. They’ve started visiting bars and wandering around San Francisco together on Saturdays when they both have time off, as a way to get out and distract themselves from their workloads but also as a way to get to know each other better. So far Jim knows that Leonard has an affinity for mint juleps and strawberry bon bons plus what he’d been told already about his failed marriage when they sat next to each other on the shuttlecraft.

So between the work, the somewhat poor attempt at a social life, and a kind of mild exhaustion he hasn’t felt in a long time (it causes a pleasant hum inside of him that he’s missed because it feels so good to just be doing something) Jim ends up falling asleep at his desk late one night on a Tuesday. His unfinished algebra questions for Advanced Mathematics act as a rather uncomfortable pillow, the paper sticking to his cheek.

When he wakes up the next morning with a start - caused by the loud blearing of the alarm on his PADD - the question paper for his assignment sticks to his face and he sleepily slaps it off with an uncoordinated hand. He blinks a few times, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, and ignores the slightly sick feeling in his stomach that tells him he’s forgotten to do something. He stops ignoring the sick feeling when he actually notices the question sheet he’d just peeled off his face. Sighing as he feels the worry settle into the pit of his stomach, he picks up his pen and returns to the paper where he’d written his answers down.

Only, when he looks down at his notebook, the answers are already scrawled out on the paper for him. Jim finds himself blinking in surprise. The handwriting is too tall and too lightly penned to be his, his own characters half a page up are thick-lined and short compared to this steady swirl of letters and numbers.

It’s too early to question it though, so he doesn’t. He shrugs, yawns and changes into his uniform. He shoves his notebooks and textbooks into his bag and picks up his PADD, thanking whatever higher order sent some sort of Maths angel to complete his work for him.

It only truly strikes Jim how surreal it is at lunch when he’s sat across a table from Leonard.

“Have you ever fallen asleep when doing something and then when you’ve woken up you find out that it’s been finished, only you know it couldn’t have possibly been you who finished doing what you were doing?” Jim asks, resting his forearms on the table and leaning across the space towards the other man. Leonard stares at him like he’s gone insane.

“I swear to God kid, if you’ve been buying drugs from big bald men in public toilets--” McCoy starts but Jim cuts him off.

“No! No, no. Just... here, look at this,” he bends down and picks up his notebook, turning it to the page where his work had been completed for him and slapping it down on the table in front of McCoy. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

Leonard assesses it for a while before leaning back into his chair with a non-committal shrug. “There have been cases of people writing when completely unaware. I think it’s called something like 'dissociative writing'. Maybe you just did that?”

“No, not possible,” Jim shakes his head. “I was definitely asleep. And besides, the handwriiting changes completely. Look at it!”

Leonard doesn’t look at it. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, kid. Yeah, it’s weird as all hell, I can’t deny that, but maybe it’s easier to move on and just accept it than it is to dwell on it and get all worked up, “ he shrugs, crosses one leg over the other beneath the table. “If it happens again, maybe you could start setting up cameras or somethin'."

Jim doesn’t like the explanation or the advice but he sighs and decides to drop it, ignore it. The conversation moves to other topics and Jim is quietly reminded, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he still hasn’t had the thermostat checked out for any faults yet.

----

The next weekend, he calls in one of the maintenance crew on campus to take a look at the thermostat, which has started to creep ever so slightly higher in temperature and is set to a nice cozy 38°C now. The mechanic frowns a lot as she pushes buttons, takes the panel off and fiddles with the wiring. When she puts it back in its place nothing changes and she runs a hand through her hair.

“I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. The wires are all in the right places and the console seems to be programmed properly... maybe the system itself is bugged or compromised or something. Because it’s summer, I’ll disconnect it completely so you don’t get heatstroke, and I’ll get one of the lot down in IT to look at the system and see if they can figure out what’s wrong,” she gives him an apologetic, sheepish smile but he thanks her as she gathers her equipment and steps out of the door.

For a moment he considers asking her out; she’s smart and from what he can gather she seems good-natured. But as he opens his mouth to ask, a shiver runs down his spine. By the time he regains his composure, she’s turning the corner at the end of the corridor.

Turning back into his room, Jim frowns at the wall opposite the door in confusion and mild annoyance before turning back to the room and then throwing himself suddenly down into the chair at his desk. Immediately, Jim feels a cool chill smooth its way through his body, sapping all of the heat from his insides. It stops suddenly and Jim decides he’s had enough of the weird shit happening today. Grabbing his uniform jacket and his PADD, Jim hightails it out of there, knocking some equipment off his desk in his haste to leave.

The look in McCoy’s eyes when he opens the door tells Jim that the older man wants very badly to tell him to just fuck off, asshole. When Jim says, “I think my dorm room is haunted” McCoy’s eyes squint dangerously.

“And what? You want to borrow my comm unit to call the Ghostbusters, is that it?” McCoy asks, incredulous.

“Look, can I just sleep here tonight? One night. It’s just,” Jim rubs his hand through his hair nervously, feeling just a little bit stupid. “It’s just really creeping me out, okay?”

McCoy lets out an over dramatic sigh but moves away from the door and into his own single dorm room, letting Jim him inside. The doors close behind him and Jim feels a strange sense of mild relief. McCoy immediately slumps down onto his bed on top of the covers, throwing Jim a pillow over his shoulder.

“You’re sleeping already?” Jim frowns, checking the time on his PADD. “It’s barely eight.”

“Yeah, and tomorrow is Monday and I’ve got an eight am class for Xenobiology with some professor that’s never the same person,” Leonard replies, voice slightly muffled by the way he’s pressing his face into the remaining two pillows. “And I want to fit a jog in around six-ish.”

“Oh,” Jim says intelligently.

“Oh, indeed,” McCoy grunts. “Spare blankets are in the bathroom. You can sleep on the couch. And change out of your damn uniform before you sleep, you moron.”

Jim looks down at the red uniform jacket, a little bit lost. McCoy waves his hand vaguely towards a dresser, yawning. “Borrow a spare shirt if you have to. Frankly, I don’t give a damn. Just stay quiet for the next nine hours.”

An hour later, Kirk tilts his head over the arm of the couch and looks at Leonard and the way he appears to be trying to suffocate himself with the pillow. He isn’t sleeping, Jim can tell from how still his eyelids are.

“Psst,” he vocalises quietly. McCoy’s mouth twitches at the edges. “Psst.” Nothing. “Pssst.” Still nothing. Then, louder, “Psst, hey, Bones.”

“Bones?” McCoy finally tilts his head up slightly to look at him. “Is that supposed to be me?”

“Yeah,” Jim grins. “Because you’re a doctor and you’re really old. So old. So old you’re a skeleton.”

McCoy snorts. “I’m barely in my mid-thirties.”

“Sooooo ooold!” Jim draws the letters out, grinning, and receives a pillow briefly smoothered against his upside down face in return.

“Shut up. You’re, what? Twelve?” McCoy asks.

“Yeah, child prodigy. Twelfth birthday last week. I can’t believe you missed it, Bones,” Jim pouts and McCoy full on laughs, a sound Jim only realises he’s never heard before as soon as it stops. Then something hits him from the conversation before.

“Why does your Xenobiology professor keep changing?” he asks.

McCoy makes a strange face at him, like he’s confused at the sudden change in the topic of the conversation. “I dunno, I’ve not really asked. Could have just quit, or been fired.”

“Or died,” Jim supplies.

“Way to be a fuckin’ downer, Jim,” Leonard frowns. “Apparently it was some asshole Vulcan. Whatever happened to them, I’m glad they’re gone. Can’t stand Vulcans.”

“Wow, space racist much?”

“Shut up,” McCoy says, tilting his head back against his pillow. “I don’t like their ethics. Logic over emotion? It ain’t right.”

Jim falls asleep to Leonard ranting about the teachings of Surak in a soft, pleasant, lulling southern drawl.

----

When Jim returns to his room at 9AM to prepare for his 10AM astrophysics lecture, his room feels strange. Strange and really God damn cold. As he looks over to where he knocked equipment over in his flee to escape his dorm room, he finds it’s no longer on the floor, but rather that it has been placed back on top of his desk. Jim pauses for several long moments, staring before he shakes his head and sighs, letting it just slip. He’ll deal with whatever is happening later, and he will deal with it because he can’t just keep sleeping on the rather small couch in McCoy’s room.

He showers and changes uniforms before grabbing his bag and shoving notebooks, textbooks, equipment and the like into it. He calmly refuses to acknowledge how the room feels like it’s warming up the longer he stands in it, as though his presence alone is enough to restore heat to the space. His PADD beeps with a message from an unknown contact and when he opens it, it just says “Apologies.” so he ignores it. They probably typed in the wrong ID code when they sent it. Jim slings his bag over his shoulder, tucks his PADD under his arm, and leaves.

When he returns to his dorm at 5PM, he collapses into his chair but immediately pauses, frozen in position as that cold shiver returns, sapping heat from his body just as it did the first time, disappearing as suddenly as it came. Jim shakes it off, mentally and physically, slapping his PADD and textbooks down on the desk alongside a pack of post-it-notes and some loose leaf notebook paper. It takes him five minutes in total to work up the willpower required to so much as start the first sentence of the essay he’s been assigned for Astrophysics.

A few hours later he calls it quits. With the essay mostly finished and not even bothering to take his uniform off, he collapses onto the bed on top of the covers. He manages to toe his left shoe off before he falls asleep.

Jim dreams of a desert, hot and dry and harsh as he treks across lifeless land and scales some impressive rock faces. His mind somehow associates the thought of rock faces with Mt. Rushmore which is literally ‘rock faces’ (although George Washington lost his nose and an eyebrow in WW3, so more like 'rock mostly-faces') and he wakes himself up as he laughs at his own subconscious' joke. He reaches out for his PADD, slapping his hand about on his desk until he manages to feel out the cool corner of it. He ignores the digital clock that reads 3AM and messages McCoy and Uhura something semi-coherent about rocks. Jim stretches and sits up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes for a couple of minutes before deciding he might as well read through his essay again and be a good student.

There are four extra paragraphs in blue pen, written in that tall, thin, lightly penned handwriting from before. Each paragraph is labelled with an asterisk and a number to fit in somewhere else amongst the essay.

“Christ, what are you?” Jim mumbles sleepily to whatever entity appears to be haunting his dorm room. He rubs a hand disbelievingly down his face. “A Math angel? A Math angel would be great but it sucks when I don't know who it is. Or are you like, a guardian angel? Or ghost? Are you a ghost? I mean, I'm skeptical but weirder things have happened in the universe...” he considers it for a moment. “Probably, anyway.”

Silence answers him.

“So, are you a ghost or not?”

As he waits silently for his answer, he falls asleep, face pressed sideways into his pillow. When he wakes up again, he’s on his back. A post-it-note tickles his nose. He peels it off and squints carefully, reading it as his alarm blears obnoxiously from the desk.

|| I believe that I am indeed a ghost. ||

“Alright then,” Jim replies to the seemingly empty room. “That’s something I can work with.”

----

Jim slaps the post-it-note onto Leonard's forehead; the strip of adhesive, however, fails and it drifts pathetically to land in the salad that he’s eating. Leonard’s eyes narrow in fractions but he does pick up the small square of paper. He reads it once before looking at it closer. He squints and squinting that hard, Jim thinks, must hurt. McCoy doesn’t say anything.

“It’s a ghost,” Jim supplies helpfully.

McCoy makes a sort of grunting sound and continues to sort of squint and stare at the post-it-note.

“Bones, a ghost is doing my homework for me,” Jim says desperately. “What do I do? Do I ask it to stop? It’s clearly more educated on this stuff than I am but it’s not ethical to let ghosts do your assignments for you, is it?”

Leonard looks at him for a long moment, glances at the post-it-note again before placing it carefully on the table between them. He looks at Jim. “You sure you’re not just on drugs? You're not pranking me or anythin'?”

“Positive,” Jim nods.

“So you’ve got a ghost roommate?” he quires.

“Looks like it,” Jim shrugs.

“Maybe you should establish some dorm rules,” McCoy says, clearly sarcastic and somewhat rudely disbelieving as he shoves a forkful of the salad into his mouth.

----

Jim knows that Leonard means it as a joke but he might as well get some dorm rules sorted so he and this ghost don’t end up hating each other, and so this ghost doesn’t end up thinking it’s a great idea to kill him in his sleep. He's seen a lot of horror movies and from he's seen it's a very real possibility that the ghost will, in fact, kill him if he makes it angry. So, with his mind made up completely, a few days later Jim strides into his dorm room and throws his bag down just inside of the door. He places his PADD down on the desk.

“I don’t know the rules or whatever for how you’re able to communicate through writing and stuff, but if we’re co-existing in this dorm - which I am ignorantly assuming that you can't leave - then we’ve got to get our bearings and make some rules,” Jim says, hovering by the chair at his desk for a moment before sitting down. A cold chill does not spread through his body. “I’ll write down some rules now and then, whenever you can, you alter them and add your own, alright?”

Nothing and nobody answers but Jim’s arm suddenly feels cold so he takes that to be some sort of confirmation from the ghost/spirit/whatever that they have understood what he’s said. Jim plucks a loose leaf sheet of notepaper up from off his desk.

“I’m Jim,” Jim says as he writes. “Jim Kirk. I’m from Iowa and my parents were George and Winona Kirk. Childhood sucked but whatever, and my life was pretty mediocre until Pike convinced me to join Starfleet. Got into a lot of fights. I'm aiming to complete the four year command course in three years. If you can leave some sort of post-it-note or something with basic information you don’t mind sharing on it, that’d be cool. I hate thinking of you as ‘that weird ghost thing’.”

Five minutes later and Jim shoves the paper aside and strides over to his wardrobe to get changed into casual clothes.

“Bones and I are going out tonight so if you can add to the list that’d be awesome. Or if I have to be asleep for you to do whatever you do then that’s cool as well. I totally understand.” For some reason it doesn’t feel weird talking to himself in an empty dorm room.

Pulling on a leather jacket and grabbing his wallet, he says a quiet goodbye to the room before leaving to meet Leonard where they’d agreed.

When he gets there, Leonard is outside and grinning at him. When Jim gets close enough to do so, the other man slaps his shoulder. Jim can smell the alcohol on McCoy's breath that tells him he's started without him when McCoy says, “How's that ghostie of yours doin’, Jimmy?”

“Oh, it’s Jimmy now is it?” he asks, eyebrows raised as Leonard’s hand presses against his shoulder and guides him into the bar. “If I’m ‘Jimmy’ that means you’re gonna have to be ‘Bonesy’.”

Leonard outwardly cringes and shakes his head. “That’s fuckin’ awful. Don’t you ever call me that.”

“Got it, Bonesy,” Jim grins at him as he takes a seat on one of the stool at the bar. Leonard grumbles as he sits down besides him and orders for them both.

It takes a few minutes for Leonard to realise that Jim hadn’t answered his initial question. “So how’s that ghost then?” he asks. Jim doesn’t really know how to answer so he shrugs. “Come on, Jim-Bob. Answer the question.”

Now it’s Jim’s turn to cringe because ‘Jim-Bob’ is absolutely at least a million times worse than ‘Bonesy’. “I took your advice,” Jim says simply.

“What?” Leonard asks, clearly unaware of what advice he’d actually given him. “What advice’d that be?”

“I made an attempt to establish dorm rules,” Jim says a little be haughty as he takes a sip of his beer.

Leonard chokes on his own drink, laughing so hard it looks like he’s either going to throw up or fall off the bar stool. “You did what?” he asks, voice loud and slightly hysterical.

“I attempted to establish dorm rules with the ghost,” Jim says again and yeah, no, that does sound a little bit funny when he says it out loud. Actually, who is he kidding, it sounds fucking hilarious, as proved by the fact that Leonard’s laughs are now almost silent, punctuated with a sort of cough as he tries to calm down. When Jim looks at him his face is a shade of red that says he’s having difficulty breathing as he laughs entirely at Jim’s expense.

“You talked to a fuckin’ ghost,” Leonard manages to wheeze out, hands pressed over his face. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Jim.”

Jim ignores him and downs his drink before ordering another one. To be honest, he brought this upon himself for answering the question in the first place. He shouldn’t have tried to one up a drunk McCoy because a) you can’t, and b) he did attempt to talk to a ghost. It’s his own fault.

----

When Jim gets back to his room he’s slightly tipsy, a little bit dizzy, and mildly queasy. He trips clumsy and uncoordinated over the threshold and almost gets his jacket stuck in the door as it slides shut. He does, however, have enough state of mind to check on the list of dorm rules that he left for the ghost to fill out. When he manages to reach the desk and looks down at the paper he’s pleasantly surprised.

1) Thermostat absolutely stays at 30°C as the highest temperature.

2) Jim must announce where he is going to sit so he doesn’t accidentally end up merging with entities (such as Spock ) whenever he sits at his desk.

3) Jim is/is not allowed to bring people back to the room. (for reasons sexual or otherwise)

4) Jim will not eat meat products in the dorm room.

5) Dorm room must stay somewhat clean.

Jim grins at the dorm rules that have been added on because not only do they prove that he’s not insane like Leonard has been telling him he is all night, it also proves that this ghost actually exists and that they’re beginning to lay down some sort of groundwork for their understanding to be built on. It’s a shame that he’s drunk though because the excitement at making groundwork with a ghost manages to overpower any sort of scientific interest he may have had whilst sober regarding the paranormal phenomenon that’s happening right here in his own dorm room. Who would have guessed it. After re-reading over the rules a few times - just to prove that they’re well and truly real - Jim peels the post-it-notes off the top of the page and lays back on his bed, reading each of them in the order that they have been numbered.

|| 1. I am Spock. I was a student at the Academy and this was my dorm room. ||

|| 2. Upon becoming a teacher, I moved off campus. As far as I am aware, I cannot be seen. ||

|| 3. I cannot recall the date of my death, however I believe it to be somewhat recent. ||

|| 4. I am Vulcan and therefore vegetarian. Hence the request regarding meat products. ||

|| 5. As illogical as it is, I have a fondness for cats. I am aware humans have a fondness for useless information. ||

|| I am somewhat surprised that you unquestioningly accepted that I am a ghost. ||

“Hello, Spock,” Jim says to the empty room as he sits down on his bed and attempting to toe his boots off in a way that must look hilarious to any onlooker. To be honest, if he and this ghost are going to be sharing a room together then the ghost is going to be getting a look at much worse sides of him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sure we’ll have a blast together. Ghost roommate.” He gives the room a lopsided smile before whispering, “Ghostie roomie.”

He trails off as he gives up trying to get his boots off and lays back on the bed, feet still on the ground. He just lays there for a few moments, breathing, before he laughs and grins at the ceiling. “Just don’t watch me changing clothes, yeah?”

----

For a few days he doesn’t receive any post-it-notes, nor does Spock make any corrections to the work that he does. This either means that he’s doing incredible work, or it might possibly mean that Spock is annoyed at him. Maybe Spock just needs some space though. Jim doesn’t know in any way how ghosts work and maybe communicating with Jim just takes it out of him a lot. He can’t imagine the amount of energy it must take to lift a pen and write with it when you don’t have any kind of physical body with which to manipulate matter. Fortunately, after a week has passed and just as Jim is starting to believe he’s gone insane, his PADD beeps out it’s message tone. He picks it up and checks the contact, which turns out to be the same unknown ID that he’d received a message from a couple of weeks back. He opens it.

Δ It appears I will be able to contact you in this way at any time as long as you are in the room, although it is somewhat more taxing than writing post-it-notes while you sleep. -Spock.

“Do you need to be in the room with just the PADD or do you need me here as well?” Jim asks, staring at the PADD with a sense of wonder. The message takes a couple of minutes to come through and during that time, Jim changes the name of the anonymous ID contact to ‘Spock’.

Δ Both. Although the PADD is more important it appears that you, however, are something of an energy source. It is hard to explain. -Spock.

“So you can only talk to me when I’m in this room?” Jim questions, then adds: “And you can stop signing the messages with your name.” Once again, it takes a number of minutes for the message to come through.

Δ I believe so. It appears that I am confined to this room physically as well.

“It must get lonely,” Jim finds himself saying and he frowns at the message. How long ago did Spock die exactly? How did he die? He’ll have to do some research on the first one, look through the school records. He can’t do that from his PADD - he’ll need a computer. The second question he can just ask. Spock takes longer than the other messages to reply.

Δ It is. However, I was lonely before my death. I am Vulcan, thus I can repress such unwarranted emotions. You need not concern yourself with whether I am lonely or not. It is irrelevant.

“How did you die, by the way?” Jim asks, picking up a post-it-note and writing a reminder for himself to book a terminal late tomorrow evening in the library. He sticks it to the wall above the headboard of his bed. Spock doesn’t reply for a long time and Jim gets worried that the question he’s asked is too invasive, that he’s made Spock uncomfortable by asking it. “If you don’t feel comfortable answering that, don’t answer it, okay? I was just--”

His PADD beeps.

Δ I committed suicide.

And now it’s Jim’s turn to be silent for a long time. He stares at the screen, mouth slightly open in shock as he tries to absorb the information. The only thing he can think is ‘not logical for a Vulcan’. He wants to ask why but the question seems more invasive than the last and he can’t bring himself to ask it, the words stranded on the tip of his tongue. Fortunately, Spock answers it anyway.

Δ In hindsight, my reasons for doing so were illogical.

"I doubt many suicides are logical," Jim answers. Spock must have been part way through writing the next message when Jim spoke because when he replies he doesn't comment on what Jim said.

 

Δ Loneliness factored into the decision. I felt alone, divided between Vulcan and Earth yet I did not truly belong on either planet. I did not self harm beforehand however I thought of it. Perhaps if I were alive longer I would have. It was not spontaneous as I spent several weeks planning it and making sure my students would not suffer academically due to my choice.

“Do you regret it?” Jim asks. His skin feels cold.

Δ I am not sure.

The answer was almost instantaneous that time. Jim breathes in, then out, then puts the PADD down on his desk. He wants to tell Spock that he’s not alone any more, but he sort of is. The only person Spock actually has for company right now is him and he’s not exactly a stellar member of the human race. He runs his hand through his hair, conflicted, and decides not to say anything else. Spock doesn’t try to continue the conversation. If he wanted to, Jim could pretend Spock didn't exist but Spock can't do that with him.

----

It’s been so long since he so much as looked at a computer that it’s sort of hard to get used to using it again. His typing on the keyboard is atrocious as he’s more used to writing with his thumbs on the touchscreen of his PADD or with a pen in a notebook. It takes a few minutes for him to access Starfleet Academy records, never mind typing in what he wants to search and it pains him - it really does - that he couldn’t have done this from his PADD, although he’s sure that if he tried hard enough he could probably find a way. He’s finally found a list of staff from a couple of years ago when Uhura sits down at the terminal next to him.

“I’m going to pretend I don’t see you stalking the profiles of staff members,” is all she says as she punches keys on the keyboard quickly and precisely, logging into her student account.

“That’s great because I’m not stalking them. I’m just trying to find the name of someone who used to work here,” Jim answers, leaning on his hand as he stares at the names and pictures on the screen.

“Oh, so you’re only stalking one person. That’s much better,” Uhura smirks, leaning back slightly in her chair as she waits for the computer to load. “So who’s the person you’re looking for. I’ve been here a year longer than you, I might know who they are.”

Jim frowns slightly, scrolling up and down the list. “I only know that he’s Vulcan and his first name, or at least I think it’s his first name, is Spock.”

Something changes about the atmosphere and Jim looks up to see Uhura’s stiffened, sitting tensly besides him. He frowns a little bit more. “Did I say something wrong?”

Letting out a breath, Uhura shakes her head before leaning over to take the mouse from him and scrolling through the list of names and pictures. “I knew him. He’s dead now but he used to teach my Advanced Phonology class and I think he taught Xenobiology as well. And he’s not just Vulcan, by the way - he was the first and only Vulcan-Human hybrid ever born. His mother is a genius, helped to invent and engineer the universal translator. His father is still the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth.”

“So he didn’t die very long ago?” Jim asks.

“No. I think it was the week after final exams. I heard he killed himself but we never got told, just rumours among students,” she clicks on one of the pictures, enlarging a profile. Sitting back, she waves at the screen. “That’s him. S’chn T’gai Spock. Deceased.”

Jim stares at the picture, taking in the features of the man he believes is haunting his room. His facial expression is stern, eyebrows slanted at a severe angle and lips pulled into a line that Jim believes he would find to be perfectly straight should he ever have the opportunity to check with a ruler. The man’s bowlcut is cut perfectly straight also, all hair aligned perfectly, the hair in front of his ears shaped into a fine point, probably to match the fine points of his ears themselves. He’s kind of beautiful, in a strange way, although he looks too tense to be comfortable. Just your average Vulcan, Jim supposed.

“Hey,” Uhura begins, but hesitates before turning to face him again. “How do you know him? As far as I know, he didn’t socialise much at all. And, well, no offence but--”

“How would he know some farm boy who lived way out in Iowa?” Jim continues for her, his smirk matching the wry smile she gives him.

“Yeah, that.”

“I don’t know him, not personally anyway,” Jim eyes up the information in a sidebar next to the picture of Spock. First Officer to Christopher Pike. He decided to lie through his teeth. “I know Pike though, and he mentioned his old First Officer who was a Vulcan. I thought I’d check him out.”

Lying to a Xenolinguistics expert isn’t easy because if there isn’t something in his voice that gives it away, there’s definitely something in his body language. Uhura looks at him suspiciously but she nods and accepts what he’s said, turning back to whatever project she’s doing on her own computer terminal. Jim turns back to his computer screen and continues reading through the information on Spock’s profile that he has access to as a student. When he’s read that, he hacks it and reads the rest of it before logging off and shutting the terminal down. He pats Uhura on the shoulder as he leaves and she answers his “see you around” with a distracted “yeah, bye” as she continues with her own work.

The information he had access to as a student had outlined what Spock had taught as a professor (Advanced Phonology, Xenobiology, and Interspecies Ethics), the dates at which he joined and left Starfleet, his rank, and the ships he had served aboard - or, in this case, the ship Spock was supposed to serve aboard - and under whom he had served. On the full Starfleet record he’d been able to access a report on Spock’s death. Spock had died on Saturday 1st July 2254, about a week after his classes had sat their final examinations. His death was officially listed as a suicide. He’d left a note to his mother, the contents of which Jim wouldn’t read even if they were available.

When he enters his dorm room it’s unusually cold, although it seems to warm up a little bit as he steps through the door.

“Hey, Spock,” Jim says to the room, dumping his bag down next to his desk. It’s when he’s changing into a more comfortable shirt and out of the jumper of his uniform that his PADD pings from across the room. The room itself is still a somewhat cold.

Δ You looked at my Academy record.

Jim frowns a little at the message but really, what’s the point in trying to lie when Spock clearly already knows. “Well, yeah. I was curious. I wanted to know more about you,” he says sheepishly, hesitating next to the chair in front of his desk before he sits down in it.

Δ If you wished to know more information about me and my past you simply could have asked me.

He lets out a quiet scoff as he reads the message. “You see, the problem with that is that you’re a Vulcan, and Vulcans have a reputation of not wanting to talk about emotional things, like their pasts. So I didn’t ask you. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with sharing information or anything.” Jim pulls a textbook out of his bag and flips it open. When he runs a finger over the page, the words highlight themselves.

Δ Is it not customary for humans to talk to one another when seeking out information about someone’s past? It is rather impersonal for a human to look at a record about an emotional subject.

“Yeah, but you’re Vulcan,” Jim sighs. “Like I said, didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He picks up a pen and pulls a sheet of loose paper over to himself with the intention of writing notes.

Δ I believe you are misunderstanding me. It may be difficult to read my true meaning as paralinguistic features are not present in written text. The pragmatics of what I am saying indicate that I am giving you an opening to ask me about my past. It is likely that the Starfleet records did not include everything.

The message causes Jim to stop the movement of his pen, ceasing the doodling of stars when he should have been writing notes instead. He swallows. “Are you sure? Because really, you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. If it makes you uncomfortable you don’t--” A beep from his PADD cuts him off.

Δ Jim.

That’s all it says but suddenly his forearm feels cold and Jim gets a sense of some kind of fond exasperation being projected through his skin. He stares at the cold spot on his arm for a moment before looking towards the bed, where Spock must be sitting if he’s the one who is touching Jim’s arm. “Is that you?” he asks. The message takes a while to come through.

Δ I was unsure if attempting to project emotion on to you would work or not. I’m pleased to see that it does. Touch telepathy is rarely able to transmit emotions from the telepath to another person, never mind when the telepath is a ‘ghost’.

Jim merely shakes his head and the cold patch on his arm disappears. “Maybe we could do the talking about our pasts thing tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday, I’ll have more time to talk after classes. Right now I really have to study, Spock.”

Δ I understand.

There are no more messages after that for the night.

----

It’s at around 10PM when Jim decides to go to sleep, closing the textbook and turning his PADD back on to check any unread messages he might have on there before he goes to bed. None from Spock, but there’s one from McCoy asking if he wants to go out for drinks tomorrow. Jim decides it's probably better to answer that one in person rather than this late considering he might actually wake McCoy up and make him grumpier than he usually is. There’s also one from Uhura, asking him the real reason he was looking at Spock’s Academy records. He doesn’t reply to it because if he tells the truth, he doesn't think for a second that she'll see him as anything other than some douchebag playing a horrible trick, but if he lies again then he doesn’t doubt that Uhura will know he’s lying.

With a sigh, he drops the PADD down on the bed next to his pillow and gets up to change out of the rest of his uniform, putting some pyjama bottoms on. He almost trips over his boots on his way to the small en-suite bathroom, kicking them to the side, both boots making a ‘thunk’ sound as they hit the wall. Going through the usual routine, Jim squeezes toothpaste onto his brush and shoves it into his mouth. Only, when he looks up, he sees a shimmer out of the corner of his eye in the mirror.

“Spock?” he asks, forgetting to spit the toothpaste foam in his mouth out into the sink and having to wipe away however much manages to dribble out of his mouth. After he spits it out, he continues. “Spock, is that you?”

A faint reflection is visible in the mirror now, and if Jim squints he can almost make out a facial expression. It’s not as stern as the picture he’d seen in the report; Spock’s features are somehow softer (admittedly, that might be because the reflection of Spock in the mirror is almost entirely see-through), a vague expression of surprise adorning his features. Jim spends minutes staring at it, squinting the whole time in order to keep the reflection in focus. Spock is completely still, meeting Jim’s eyes in the mirror.

When Jim gains the nerve to look behind himself at the spot where Spock would have been stood, he can’t see Spock at all. He looks back to the mirror and the last of the reflection of Spock’s ghostly form is fading away. A coldness seeping into his bicep tells Jim that Spock’s still there, that his ghost roommate hasn’t passed on fully just yet. Jim finishes brushing his teeth before returning to the main room.

A new message on his PADD simply reads: “Δ Fascinating.”

----

Chapter Text

Classes the next day are redundant and Jim can’t focus. He’s glad this isn’t high school because there aren’t desks, there are just seats in a lecture theatre. If he were sat at a desk his professor would be able to tell that what he’s writing in his notebook isn’t actually writing, it’s just terrible drawings of flowers. They’re actually awful but he really can’t focus on the words coming out of her mouth (something about space but that’s sort of granted when you sign up to somewhere like Starfleet). Although he records most of his lectures on his PADD so he can just listen to it later or read the transcribed version. Professors don’t tend to ask students questions during lectures, that’s saved for the one on one lessons, so as long as he looks at least somewhat interested in what's being saying he’s good.

When the class ends he heads to lunch, hoping to get there early enough to avoid Uhura and possibly McCoy. He has no such luck because when he’s walking down the row of tables with a sandwich and a bottle of some kind of juice, Uhura steps into stride with him from out of nowhere, tray in hand, and smiles sweetly in a way that makes him feel sick for some reason.

“That table over there, the empty one by the window,” she directs and Jim does as he’s told, taking the seat opposite her and studiously staring out at the view of the Golden Gate bridge.

Jim peels back the packaging for his sandwich and makes a conscious effort not to look at Uhura and she taps her fork restlessly against the side of her tray. She’s trying to think of what to say, how to word it perfectly to give the desired effect. She’s a linguist and she’s good at what she does. That’s why Jim looks over to her sharply when she says, “What the fuck, Kirk.” He doesn’t doubt that his reaction is the desired one because now she’s definitely got his attention.

“What the fuck?” he asks.

“Yes. What the fuck,” she answers, and when Uhura swears it sounds surreal. No swear word should ever be pronounced so precisely.

“What the fuck, what?”

“You know what.”

“The fuck.”

Uhura’s lips twitch and, the way Jim sees it, it could go one of two ways. 1) Uhura laughs. 2) Uhura physically injures him in some way. She does neither, instead breathing in sharply through her nose and placing the fork down on her tray, shoved into the salad. Their eyes meet and it would be like some terrible romantic comedy if it weren’t for the fact that Uhura actually terrifies him sometimes, especially when she’s looking at him like that. Jim hesitantly bites into his sandwich.

“I know you were lying yesterday. I was busy at the time so I left it but you know what? It’s irked me,” she straightens in her seat, shoves her tray to the side, and clasps her hands together on top of the table. It’s all very intimidating. “You knew Spock somehow.” 

He’s got to admit that she’s pretty close with that. He can’t lie so he shrugs and says, “Sort of.”

It’s too vague and Uhura narrows her eyes at him before she apparently comes to a conclusion, then they widen significantly. “Did you have sex with him? Because I always thought he was asexual, and even if he wasn’t then there’s the classic Vulcan stigma towards casual sex.”

“No!” Jim exclaims, shocked. “No, absolutely not! I was not--”

He stops when McCoy rather rudely throws himself down into the chair between them with a grumble that somehow manages to sound distinctly Southern despite having no opportunity to display accent at any point during its utterance. He throws his tray down roughly against the table, causing it to clatter loudly as it made contact with the surface top.

“I think an Orion felt me up in the line,” he says in a conspirational tone as he twists in the chair and looks behind himself. Jim follows the direction he faces and just makes out Gaila waving at McCoy with her fingers. McCoy turns around to face the table again. “So what are you two talking about?”

Jim swallows then grins. “Nothing, not much. We were just--”

“I’m trying to find out why Jim would be looking at the records of a Vulcan teacher who died here,” Uhura cuts him off, voice precise and sharp in a way that things that don’t have any kind of physical form shouldn’t be.

McCoy looks a little bit confused for a moment before his lips twitch into a grin. “Is this to do with that ghost you have in your dorm room?” he asks, somehow managing to sound both genuine and mocking at the same time.

He sighs loudly and Uhura raises her eyebrows at him, facial features twisting into an expression that questions more about his state of mind than any words she might have said possibly could have. Leaning back in his chair, Jim sighs again (for emphasis) and gesticulates with a sandwich. “Look, it’s a really long story,” he tries.

“Trust me, Kirk. I have all day and so do you considering neither of us has a class after this lunch break considering it's been cancelled,” she folds her arms across her chest and waits for him to start. McCoy is staring at him expectantly as well and Jim’s not wanted the ground to swallow him up since middle school but he feels the emotion resurging with a vengeance right now.

“Okay, look. At the beginning of the year I fell asleep writing essays and when I woke up someone had finished them for me. This ghost left a post-it-note on my forehead telling me he was a ghost. I even,” Jim pauses, then reaches into his bag and pulls out his PADD. Opening up the conversation with Spock, he places it on the table for both McCoy and Uhura to see. “I have conversations with him sometimes. He said he could draw on my energy somehow to be able to communicate with me. I don’t understand it either, okay? It’s weird and sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”

“So you weren’t kidding when you said you made dorm rules?” McCoy asks and Jim can tell from the way that his lip twitches that he’s being mocked. He just frowns, finishing off his sandwich and twisting the lid off the bottle of some-kind-of-fruit juice.

It takes Uhura a few moments to read through all of the messages on the PADD and when she’s done she carefully pushes it back over to Jim’s side of the table. Her eyes are narrowed but not with any kind of annoyance or malice, more like she’s thinking about something - like when you can’t quite remember something but you can vaguely recall being told about it at some point in the past. Knowledge being described with some kind of bad metaphor about wind and dust.

“Maybe it’s something to do with his katra,” Uhura says, unsure of the explanation but curious and apparently willing to humour Jim.

“Katra?” Jim asks. “What’s that? He’s never mentioned it before.” 

“It’s basically what Vulcans call the soul, only as far as we know only Vulcans have katras because of their telepathy. Humans like us are generally psi-null but Vulcans have a different neurological make up to us that allows them to communicate through bonding, touch, and mind melds. Somehow that can let their katra stick around after death sometimes,” Uhura explains. “Have you ever experienced any connection with Spock? Interpret that as you will.” 

“Oh, so his name is Spock,” McCoy asks.

“Yeah, and he would have been your Xenobiology teacher. Now shut up,” Jim snaps at McCoy before answering. “Sometimes I feel cold, but not chilly. More like heat is being removed from me. That’s how I can tell he’s touching me.”

“So handjobs are out of the quest--” Jim hasn’t done anything but it’s safe to assume, from the way Uhura’s body jerks a little bit and the way that McCoy manages to combine the sound of choking and a whimper, that she’s done something particularly painful with her foot.

“What about mind stuff. Have you ever felt emotion from him?”

He shakes his head, uncertain. “I don’t think so. I generally feel like I’m feeling my own emotions, I guess.”

Uhura’s quiet and back to thinking, a silence spreading between them. Nobody breaks it and, as Jim’s finishing his drink, his PADD pings. He doesn’t usually get messages from anyone other than McCoy and Uhura when he’s outside of the dorm, so he checks it. It’s Spock, which is more of a surprise than anything. Although the message only says “Δ .” so, while it's incredible as Spock had previously said that he couldn’t send him messages while he was outside of the dorm room, it's still worryingly short. It’s very short. This could convey that Spock didn’t have the ability to send a longer message either because he lacked the strength or because he lacked the time, or Spock could be in trouble.

Standing from his chair, he collects his rubbish and shoves his PADD into his bag. Slinging the bag onto his shoulder, Jim begins making his excuses. “Look, I’ve got to go. Something came up.” 

“Fine,” Uhura says, still slightly distant as she thinks about what Jim’s revealed. “But don’t think I’m not going to keep nagging you about this. Because I will, I can promise you that." 

He says his goodbyes to both of them, dumping his trash into the recycler on his way out.

----

As soon as Jim walks into the room, his PADD beeps as it receives a message. Probably Spock, though it could be McCoy mocking him. Jim picks up his PADD and checks the message. It's Spock again.

Δ Do you wish to speak presently.

He’s not mentioning the message that he sent while Jim was away from the room, so Jim mentions it for him. “That was impressive by the way. I thought you could only send me messages while I was here,” he says as he drops his bag down just inside of the door, walking over to the desk and leaning against its edge while he waits for an answer.

Δ I wished to experiment with the limits of my abilities. I was only able to send a short message such a long distance.

“Yeah, I guess a full stop is as short as it gets,” Jim smiles slightly. It goes quiet for a while.

Δ I do not wish to intrude on any plans you may have made, but the offer to engage in conversation still stands. 

It sounds too formal and Jim reads it as being somewhat impatient, like Spock’s willing to take back the offer to share this part of his past with Jim any second now. Personally, Jim’s surprised that Spock has waited this long in the first place. He wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d decided to take back the offer after Jim had turned him down yesterday so he could study. But, technically, since he’d usually be in a class right now if it hadn’t been cancelled, he has no real excuse to turn Spock down. Commitment is sort of terrifying but he’s been curious about Spock’s past ever since he found out about him, the interest growing radically when he discovered Spock was willing to extensively interact with him.

Jim takes a seat on the edge of his bed. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Definitely. Only share as much as you’re comfortable with, though. Don’t tell me anything you’re not comfortable telling me.”

Δ Affirmative.

The next message takes several minutes to come through but Jim waits, but it’s not some giant wall of text about every detail of Spock’s life. It’s a request.

Δ I would like to attempt an alternative form of communication that I feel would more accurately and more effectively communicate to you the events in my life. Additionally, if you want to share life information with me then this platform of interaction would allow information to be sent both ways without having to pause or try to describe it verbally.

Jim contemplates this before nodding. He pulls his feet up onto the bed and shimmies back until his back bumps against the wall on the other side. “Sure,” he replies. “What are you going to do?”

Δ I wish to attempt a mind meld.

The name kind of gives it away and Jim kind of got what it might be when Uhura mentioned it earlier, but he asks anyway, just to be sure. “What exactly is a mind meld? What happens?” 

Δ As said in the name, it is a melding of two or - if the individual initiating the meld is skilled enough - more minds. You will be able to see the thoughts I project just as I will be able to see any thoughts that you wish to project. As it will be a shallow meld, I will be unable to see any thoughts that you are not currently thinking about. It is hard to explain the sensation of what a meld feels like other than by experiencing it first hand. Usually melds are only initiated when there is no alternative way to share information or for recreation/pleasure with someone you trust extensively, such as a bondmate.

“So is this absolutely necessary or am I somehow your bondmate?” Jim asks as he crosses his legs, grinning slightly at the screen of the PADD.

Δ I would not describe it as necessary however it is easier and surprisingly simple to orchestrate. 

Δ I also wish to test my capabilities while I occupy a incorporeal form. I was able to send you a message on your PADD while you were away from the dorm, a feat I previously thought I was incapable of achieving. It would be beneficial if I were able to determine whether I am able to initiate a meld also. Of course, this is if you will give me your permission to do so.

Jim shakes his head at the PADD, lips tilted up in a small smile, before placing it off to the side next to one of his legs. “Whatever you want, Spock. Do your worst, or your best in this case,” he says, bracing himself for whatever may be about to happen to him. 

Eyes closed, the warning he receives before Spock’s mind slips into a space besides his own is the feeling of cold fingertips sliding across his cheek. Usually when Spock would touch him he’d feel an indistinct sensation of heat being removed from his body, but now he feels something akin to soft pressure as fingers, and what he assumes to be a thumb, press against his temple, cheekbone, and the underside of his jaw.

After that, he’s glad he closed his eyes because his mind explodes into colours, all eventually drawing into a cluster of white, pulsing light. The light dissipates and fades into a memory of Spock’s. Jim feels like an outsider looking at something that he shouldn’t be seeing. But Spock wants him to see this, all as part of sharing his past with Jim as he had offered to do. The memory shows Spock as being young, probably the Vulcan equivalent of a human pre-teen. The surroundings shout ‘school’ and there’s a feeling of mixed emotions about that: positivity about learning, negativity about something else.

The negativity becomes clear when the young version of Spock is approached by three slightly older, taller Vulcan boys. He can’t understand what they’re saying when they start talking because it’s in Vulcan instead of Terran Standard but he can feel what Spock felt at the moment of the memory. Sadness, rejection, anger, alienation, self-loathing. The setting changes, blurring between being inside and outside, in corridors and on sand, classrooms, gardens. The boy who appears to be the leader of the group of Vulcan children spews the insults first, spitting them out. Inside himself he feels a loathing that must be Spock’s, aimed towards Vulcans who conveniently forgot about the IDIC. 

The backgrounds stop blurring and fix on one of the strange classrooms he’d seen before, concave domes in the floor with screens displaying information. The main Vulcan says something and Jim can feel Spock’s anger surging through himself as the memory of Spock throws the other Vulcan into the pit in the ground and throws fists into his face.

“It took them a long time to find out that my weakness was my mother,” a voice emerges in his mind and he assumes it’s Spock’s, deep and calm. Grounding. “And in extension, my human side.”

“Did they stop bullying you after that?” Jim thinks the words and hopes that’s the right way to ask Spock the question.

“No,” Spock answers, but he doesn’t show him any more memories with the Vulcan boys. Jim still feels the hatred for them that Spock feels though, repressed but simmering.

Something inside of him tells him to show Spock his own thoughts: Frank and what had come to be known as the 'Car Incident', his mother being off planet most of his childhood. The thoughts from Tarsus IV would be the most private thing he could share with Spock. But it feels to intimate. He’s not ready to share that with anyone.

“To use the words that you used previously, do not share anything with me that you are uncomfortable sharing,” Spock’s voice tells him, resonating in a way that feels soothing.

Jim can’t answer, and after what feels like a few seconds, Spock projects another memory.

First, Amanda’s acceptance. Warmth flits through him and he feels like he can do anything, and feels like anything that he did would be accepted by his mother. She kisses Spock’s cheek and he leaves.

Second, a meeting with the council for the Vulcan Science Academy. Spock’s father sits in one of the seats. This time, the Vulcans are talking in Terran Standard, and Jim fully understands the meaning of the words that they speak, meaning he understands Spock’s anger as they call his human mother a weakness. Vulcans so noble and yet they forget the IDIC every time, judge Spock because of a biological difference. When Spock rejects the offer from the VSA in favour of studying at Starfleet, he can feel Sarek’s rejection and, again, Spock’s anger. Spock’s feelings of inadequacy and failure are close to the surface but they’re repressed.

When Spock takes the shuttle to Earth, his mother is there to say goodbye. She hugs him and he hugs her back, defiant of Vulcan social norms now that he’s leaving. She kisses his cheek again and smiles at him. Accepting, proud, and worried. Spock hugs her again, reassures her that he’ll contact her at least once a week, before he boards the shuttle. Even though he can’t see her out of the windows as the shuttle departs, he doesn’t doubt that she’s waving as he leaves the planet.

There’s no pause in the flow of memories. Spock’s at Starfleet and this time it doesn’t feel like bullying the way it was on Vulcan, but it’s definitely teasing. Human students teasing him about his name (“Hey! Spock! Guess what your name rhymes with!”), teasing him about his ears (“Pointy.” “Elf.” “Goblin.”), teasing him about his eyebrows, his haircut, his facial expression, the way he speaks, acts, walks, his vegetarianism. Vulcan children were harsh but Human students are relentless. Plus, there are a lot more Humans attending Starfleet Academy in San Francisco than there were Vulcans attending his school in Shi’Kahr. The comments don’t stop.

He attends classes and a couple of extra curricular clubs (chess and languages) but any time Spock has free, he spends in his dorm room. He skips meals in the cafeteria, instead getting food either very early in the morning or as late as possible in the evenings and taking it back to his dorm room if he could. All this to avoid unnecessary contact with the other students at Starfleet. It’s lonely. Spock does want to meet people he can talk to yet it seems that the only thing humans want to focus on is his Vulcan heritage, usually in a covertly offensive way. As the only Vulcan student at Starfleet, everybody knows who he is and yet he knows no one.

Eventually, the novelty of him being the only Vulcan at Starfleet wears off, but instead of improving the situation it only seems to make it worse. At least before people interacted with him somewhat, even if it was to make derogatory references to his ears. Now, he is ignored. Over his past year at the Academy, Spock built up a reputation of being exclusive, dismissive, and reasonably blunt. People have realised that Vulcans are, in a word, undesirable. He is undesirable. And so, he is alone.

A complete memory manifests itself instead of being presented to Jim in fragments of pictures and emotions. Spock is in the cafeteria, sitting at a table off to a corner of the large hall space with a textbook and a smoothie. A man sits in one of the unoccupied chairs at the table and Jim instantly recognises him.

“S’chn T’gai Spock, right?” Pike asks, crossing one leg over the other as he leans back in his chair. Spock feels some amount of surprise at a human being able to correctly pronounce his name but other than that he is unmoved.

“Unless you know of any other Vulcans who attend Starfleet, I am sure you know the answer to your own question,” Spock replies, one eyebrow precisely arched. He turns the page of the textbook, drinks some of his smoothie.

“I can’t tell if you’re being dismissive or badly attempting humour, so I’m going to assume you’re being whichever is less offensive,” Pike grins. “I’m Christopher Pike. current Captain of the USS Enterprise.”

Spock says nothing, instead electing to continue reading his textbook. Pike shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, I say current Captain but it’s not due to launch for another five years, so I’m stuck here teaching,” Pike itches his neck. “And looking for a first officer. I asked Number One but she was offered another First Officer position on a ship that’s already launched - we served together for a while on another ship - and she recommended I check out the cadets. Get some young blood.”

Spock looks up at him, eyebrow arched. “You are asking for me to be your First Officer?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I am,” Pike says, and tries for a smile. “From what I hear, you’ll graduate with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. A couple years of teaching will increase that to Commander, which is more than good enough for me. 

“I accept your offer,” Spock answers and Pike grins in full.

“Awesome,” he states, standing up and slapping Spock’s shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

As Pike walks away, Spock furrows his eyebrows and rubs his arm. He’ll never understand the human need to initiate painful physical contact. 

----

The meld ends suddenly and the first thing Jim becomes aware of is the tears on his cheeks and his lack of sufficient breath. He breathes in, then out, steadying his breathing a little bit at a time. There’s white noise in his head and a burning in the backs of his eyes that is likely left over from all memories except the last one with Pike. After a few moments, his hearing returns to him and he becomes aware of someone banging on his door and his PADD flashing. He checks the PADD first, his hands shaking as he picks it up and exits the lock screen.

The first reads, “Δ L.McCoy: hey jim. i’m going to come over. fair warning so you can finish up whatever you’re doing. ‘whatever’ you’re doing. wow." 

The second message is from Spock and it rather uselessly says, “Δ I apologise for the sudden termination of the meld but it appears that someone is at your door.”

Jim pulls his sleeve down over his hand and uses the fabric to wipe at his eyes as he stands up and crosses the room. When he’s sure he looks at least somewhat normal, he presses his hand against the door panel and it opens to reveal a somewhat flustered McCoy.

“Dammit, Jim! What took you so long to answer,” McCoy demands, scowling as he pushes past Jim into the room. 

“I didn’t get your message until now,” Jim answers, folding his arms across his chest. “I was...busy.” 

McCoy stares at him for a moment, before rolling his eyes. “Y’know, that could allude to many things, but if it’s alluding to masturbation then I really just don’t want to know,” McCoy says, throwing himself down into the chair at Jim’s desk. Jim chokes on his words, spewing some half-garbled sentence that McCoy stops by holding up a hand. “It’s okay, Jim. It’s perfectly normal for a kid your age. Now, where’s that ghost.”

“Spock?” Jim asks.

“Yeah. Where’s Spock?” he answers, leaning back in the desk chair.

For some inexplicable reason, Jim feels suddenly protective of the his poltergeist sidekick. “Why?” he questions McCoy. “Is it scientific curiosity or something else?”

“Purely scientific,” Leonard says, placing his hand on his heart. “Y’know me. I just, I just kind of want an explanation for him, okay?”

Jim’s about to reply when his PADD beeps from the bed. He’s walking over to check it when McCoy picks it up instead and Jim really should have used a PIN or a password of some sort but no, he chose a swipe lock like the moron he is. McCoy’s eyebrows furrow, drawing together as his lips turn down in a scowl.

“What does it say?” Jim asks, curiosity getting the better of him. 

“What does it say?” Leonard parrots. He stands up, taking two steps to cross the distance between himself and Jim before holding the PADD up, inches from Jim’s nose. “It says ‘tell him to leave’ is what it says, Jim. Your asshole Vulcan ghost boyfriend is telling you to tell me to leave.”

“Well it is a dorm rule,” Jim shrugs.

“A dorm rule,” McCoy repeats, shocked. Apparently he hadn’t got over the fact that the whole ‘dorm rule’ thing wasn’t a joke.

“Yeah, I’m not allowed to let anybody into the dorm unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Jim answers, taking his PADD back now that Leonard has loosened his grip on the device.

“So you don’t...?” Leonard raises an eyebrow and gives him a look that implies he’s supposed to decipher the rest of the statement by himself. Jim stares at him blankly and McCoy throws in some hand gestures. “You don’t--” one hand waves while the other makes a vague thrusting movement “--do the, you know. Do the... do?”

“You’re thirty-five.”

“You shut your whore mouth right now, Jim-boy.”

“And since when have you ever seen me ‘do the do’ anyway?” Jim asks but before McCoy can respond he’s cut off when the PADD buzzes so violently Jim almost drops it. When he checks the messages they’re from Spock, seven of them, all consisting of a singular exclamation mark. “Okay, you need to leave, Bones,” Jim says, though he’s not all together happy about it. 

“Excuse me? I’ve been here, what, maybe five minutes?” McCoy tries to defend himself.

“You’re making Spock uncomfortable,” Jim says, lowering his voice.

“Oh, I’m making your little ghost friend uncomfortable, am I?” McCoy questions, incredulous. “I’m not the one going around haunting people!”

Jim gives him a look that hopefully says ‘please stop before you offend the ghost and the ghost kills me in my sleep’ (although he’s sure Spock wouldn’t kill him, probably). The older man just huffs a sigh and slaps Jim on the arm. It tingles, a memory of a similar feeling from when he experienced it from Spock’s point of view in the meld overlapping with what he feels in real life as it happens.

“Fine, I’ll c’ya ‘round, Jim. Drinks tomorrow then?” McCoy asks, leaning against the frame of the now open door. “And I’m going to find out an explanation for your ghostie, I promise you that.”

“Sure thing,” Jim answers, giving his friend a soft smile. McCoy gives a little wave goodbye and walks away, the doors sliding shut behind him. Turning back to the room, Jim throws his arms up. “Was that really necessary, Spock? Was it?” 

Spock doesn’t show any signs that he intends to reply so Jim throws the PADD at his bed and goes to shower.

----

Uhura throws he tray down on the table, following it up by throwing herself into the chair opposite Jim. It tilts to one side dangerously before dropping down onto all four legs as she grins at him from across the table. Jim pauses, sandwich halfway to his mouth.

“What is it?” he asks, because she looks excited and vaguely smug.

“Okay, so I figured something out about your poltergeist and his katra,” Uhura begins. Jim looks at her skeptically, putting his sandwich down completely. “And I figured out a way you could bring him back to the world of the living. How good am I?” 

To say the least, he’s shocked and all he can think of to say is, “But he committed suicide.”

Uhura’s eyes soften a little bit, her body language calming. “A lot of people do a lot of things that they regret.”

She’s right. Even Spock had said he was unsure if he regretted killing himself or not, so Jim concedes. “So what’s this about his katra?” he asks, putting the conversation back on track.

“Right, you know how I was saying katras are basically a Vulcan’s soul?” she asks and Jim nods to show he’s following. “I did some research and it turns out that a Vulcan’s katra can stick around after death if it becomes attached to an object or person. There are cases where Vulcans would put their katra into the mind of their bondmate so that they could continue to be with them even after death.”

“So Spock’s attached to something in the room?” Jim ventures.

“I’d guess so. It could be some kind of unresolved conflict he has with the dorm room itself, or even just the Academy in general. Like,” Uhura waves her hand as she tries to think of the right example. When she has it, she snaps her fingers, triumphant. “You know how ghosts in films tend to stick around and be unable to move on because of unresolved conflict? It’s like that, but as far as I could translate, only a Vulcan mind adept can help resolve the conflict faced by the katra of a deceased person.”

“So how could this bring Spock back to life?” Jim questions, a little bit confused at where this was going to go and eager to get to the point.

“I found a story dating back to the pre-Surakian era,” Uhura answers, straightening in her chair and clasping her hands together on the tabletop. “It told of two bondmates. When one, the warrior, went to war with a rival clan, she put her katra in the mind of her t’hy’la, I think the word was. Anyway, she effectively transferred her soul to her bondmate. When she died, her bondmate felt her death through the mental link that they shared, so she and the other Vulcans of the clan went out to find the body of the warrior bondmate. When they found her, the clan doctor said that she’d been choked out by one of her rivals, so no part of her body had sustained fatal injury. Just a death because she couldn’t breathe. The bondmate reveals that her warrior transferred her katra to her mind before the battle so they call on the most esteemed mind adept in the clan to attempt to transfer the katra back into the warrior’s body.”

“And it worked?” Jim asks, taken aback.

“Of course it worked! The warrior and her bondmate continued their lived happily together, t’hy’la ‘til the end,” Uhura smiles, leaning her chin in the palms of her hands. “Anyone who thinks Vulcans don’t feel needs to get a hold of themselves and read some pre-Surakian literature. I swear to God, they’re all soppy on the inside. There are so many stories about these t’hy’la couples. It’s actually kind of cute.” 

Though he has his doubts about whether Vulcans are soppy at heart of not, Jim is still caught up on the possibility of bringing Spock back to life. “But I’m not Spock’s t’hy’la or whatever. He’s not attached to me; he’s attached to the room. He was haunting the place before I moved in.”

“Hmm,” Uhura takes a moment to think. “Have you melded with him? Or, rather, can he meld with you while he’s a ghost?”

“Yeah,” Jim starts but hesitates for some reason. “He melded with me to show me some of his memories about his past.”

Uhura simply nods. “Then it’s possible he could transfer the link for his katra from the room to your mind. After that, a mind adept could transfer the katra from your head back to Spock’s body.”

There are flaws in what Uhura is suggesting and Jim can see them, bright as sunlight. “That’s all well and good, but I can see two, no, three main problems with this. One, I’m not his t’hy’la like those bondmates in the story were. Those women spent their lives together and I’ve only known Spock for a few months. Two, it’s only one story. It could be completely fictional or it could be an extremely rare occurrence. It might not work at all. And three, does Spock even have a body to put his katra back in to? He died last year.”

“I can answer the third one,” Uhura says, leaning back in her chair. “Spock is, was, the only Vulcan-Human hybrid in the Universe. Starfleet kept his body for research purposes, with the permission of his parents, who laid out strict guidelines for how the body was to be treated. It’s being preserved as perfectly as it can so they can run tests on it. Chances are, everything is still in working order or, if that isn’t the case, it could be made to work again.” 

“Right,” Jim says, then sighs. “There’s still the other two problems though, and probably a ton of problems I can’t think of right now. That, and Spock might not--” he pauses, swallows, unsure of himself “--he might not want to be alive again. He might prefer that the mind adept move him on so he can finally be at peace.” 

Uhura stares at him for a few seconds before reaching across the tabling and placing both of her hands over one of his own. “But it’s worth a try, Jim. He’s talking to you even though he’s dead. From what I’ve heard from students and teachers, he never spoke to anyone except Pike. He likes you Jim. If he didn’t, he’d avoid you at all costs.” 

He turns his hand over so he can squeeze one of hers, her other hand cupping the back of his own. Her skin is soft, warm, grounding - a silent support.

“Yeah,” he says, giving her hand another squeeze before he pulls it back and she lets it slide from her touch. “You’re right. It’s worth a shot. I’ll talk it over tomorrow with him.”

“Good,” Uhura says, finally righting her tray and stabbing a fork into a fry. “Even if he doesn’t want to be alive again, at least he’ll be able to move on with the help of the mind adept.”

Losing Spock isn’t an option that Jim wants to consider but she has a point. As long as Spock has peace, Jim will be happy for him. He’ll have his memories of the poltergeist he shared a room with at the Academy and, though it won’t be as good as introducing Spock to people as an ex-ghost, it will still make for an excellent story. Besides that, it’s important to cherish the time you get to spend with people, and Jim’s lucky he got to spend any time with Spock at all.

It’s when he’s finally managed to take a bite out of his sandwich that Pike decides to walk past, pausing to lay a heavy hand on Jim’s shoulder, squeezing threateningly.

“I think you and I need to talk, son,” Pike says, formal enough to make the threatening air he’s giving off straight up frightening. “My office, as soon as you finish class. Got it?”

Jim can barely respond with some spluttered half garbled sentence as he forms words around a mouthful of half-chewed food. He hopes it was something along the lines of “yes, sir” or “of course, Chris”, but even if it wasn’t something terribly embarrassing, to his own ears it sounded like it came out as unintelligible. As Pike walks away, Jim swallows the mouthful of sandwich that got caught in his throat.

“What was that about?” Uhura asks, pointing her fork after Pike’s retreating. 

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say it’s about me hacking into Spock’s private Starfleet files.”

Uhura gives an amused huff of breath and stabs her fork into another fry. Absolutely no sympathy. 

----

It is undeniably, absolutely about Jim hacking Spock’s files. He’d had a feeling that it was going to come back and bite him on the ass, and he was absolutely right. It was eating his ass, irrevocably devouring it. His ass was being destroyed, right now, all because he just had to hack something instead of just asking Spock about it in the first place. Well fucking done, Jim.

“So,” Pike starts, gesturing for Jim to sit in the seat in front of his desk as he circles around it himself. He sits in his chair, clasps his hands on top of the table, and leans his body towards Jim. “Do you want to tell me just why you hacked into private Starfleet files?”

“I don’t but I have the feeling you’re going to make me tell you anyway,” Jim answers. Pike sighs.

“Look, Jim. I don’t want any smart-ass bullshit. I want you to tell me why you did it. Maybe then I won’t have to write you up on a report, which may or may not get you kicked out of the Academy,” Pike pinches the bridge of his nose between a forefinger and thumb.

Jim shrugs, trying to play it off as nonchalant. “Curious, I guess.”

“Curious? About what?” Pikes staring at him, slightly incredulous.

“Curious about Spock,” it’s not a lie. He was. That’s actually why he hacked them in the first place. But Pike’s not buying it or, if he is somehow buying it, he’s not happy with Jim’s answer.

“And why Spock? As far as I know, you and Spock didn’t know each other, or rather, you couldn’t have considering he was here in San Francisco and you were way out in Iowa,” Pike’s fists are clenched slightly, skin turning white at the knuckles.

“Woo, yeah. Me and Spock knew each other,” Jim nods, folding his arms over his chest and looking wistfully at the ceiling. “Just one night, though. He came to my bar, got drunk. Man, do you know how wild Vulcans are? Because, wow, let me tell you it is insane--”

“Kirk, I swear to God,” Pike bites out the words, genuinely angry. “If you don’t tell me the truth right now I’m going to write a report to the head of the Academy telling them to put you on academic suspension.”

Jim stares at Pike for a few seconds before looking away. It’s the whole incident where he wasn’t sure if Uhura would believe him or not again, though that was solved when Uhura did believe him when given evidence that she couldn’t argue with. Jim needs to give Pike evidence so he’ll believe him. At least then Pike won’t think he’s trying to mess with him or have a joke. Besides, Starfleet finds a new alien species every week; is something like a ghost really going to be that big of a deal? 

He breathes in, then out, readying himself. Then, “I think Spock is haunting my dorm room.”

Pike stares at him, for a long time. Jim can’t tell if he’s angry or not, he just looks sort of shocked instead, his eyebrows drawn together. Eventually, he leans back in his chair and lets out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Jim, if you’re just going to keep lying then I don’t think Starfleet’s for you. If you can’t tell the truth, I can’t just ignore that you hacked into private Starfleet records. I’ll have to report you,” Pike says, and he sounds pained to say it.

“No, no. No, Chris, hear me out,” and Jim never calls him Chris so Pike looks up at him, serious. “I know he’s haunting my room. I have evidence, okay. I have essays that he’s written extra paragraphs onto the ends of - you’d be able to recognise his handwriting considering you worked with him. I have post-it notes, also his handwriting.” 

“Jim--” Pike tries, sounding exasperated.

Instead of relenting, Jim dives for his bag, shoving a hand into it and pulling out his PADD. He exits the lock screen, pulls up the messages from Spock. “He sends me messages on my PADD. I’m willing to bet that if you trace the ID number that it’ll be Spock’s from when he worked here.”

“Look, Jim--”

“Uhura and, and Bones - McCoy - they both know about it too. McCoy has witnessed it first hand, the messages being sent to my PADD, okay? If you asked him he’d be able to tell you about it and--” Jim’s desperate but Pike cuts him off.

“Jim,” Pike says, somewhere between annoyed and sympathetic. “Okay, I get it. You hacked into Spock’s files for God knows what reason. Personal, whatever. I still have to write you up.”

He’s not even looked at the messages, and Jim tries to point that out, placing a hand on his PADD but Pike shakes his head at him, sighing again. Pike has opened a screen on his computer, pulling up a window and typing on the keyboard. He’s silent and Jim really doesn’t want to go on academic suspension for something so stupid.

“When you and Spock met he was drinking a smoothie and reading a textbook. You pronounced his full name correctly but he didn’t say anything about it even though you thought he’d be impressed. You asked him to be your first officer because Number One had got a better offer on a ship that went on it’s mission sooner and told you to try asking new cadets,” Jim’s frantic, trying to recount what he remembered of the memories that Spock showed him in the meld. “Spock was going to graduate as Lieutenant Commander and a couple years of teaching would make him a Commander and that was good enough for you. He accepted your offer and when you left you slapped his shoulder and he’s so confused as to why people do that he doesn’t understand it...”

Jim trails off and he’s pretty sure he’s red in the face, spewing out words in as few breaths as possible and probably so quickly that some parts were incoherent. But he’s clearly got the point across because Pike is staring at him, eyes wide, fingers not on his keyboard any more. Jim tries to explain.

“He, he melded with me. He knew that I hacked the files and he, um, he sent me a message,” Jim reaches for the PADD, taking a few seconds to scroll to it. “He offered to discuss his past and said I should have asked him instead of hacking his files. So I took him up on it.”

Pike properly looks through the messages now and maybe he knows that the ID is Spock’s or not. It doesn’t matter. When Pike places Jim’s PADD gingerly back down on the table he looks confused, shaken - face pallid and hands wavering slightly. He runs his hand through his hair and opens his mouth, probably to knock Jim down again, deny any of the information, but he closes his mouth, pressing his hand over it instead. He spends long moments staring at Jim before he finally speaks.

“I’m halfway caught between believing you and saying you somehow got into surveillance records for the mess hall,” Pike sighs. “But why you’d do that is beyond me.”

“Because I wouldn’t do that, Chris,” Jim insists. “Let’s be reasonable, weirder things have happened in Starfleet than a ghost haunting one of the dorm rooms.”

“Ghost,” Pike repeats, disbelieving.

“Uhura has a pretty good explanation for it and McCoy is trying to figure out his own 'scientific' explanation,” Jim explains. “Uhura says Spock’s katra is trapped in the dorm room and haunting it because my room used to be Spock’s room.”

Pike just nods, nods along with what he’s saying, looking like he doesn’t quite believe that what’s happening is really happening. “Right, get back to me on that,” he says, distant.

“So...” Jim fiddles with his PADD settings, adjusting and readjusting irrelevant brightness settings. “You’re not going to write me up, right?”

“No, Jim. But I think it’s best if we keep this between you and me,” Pike answers. “And Uhura and McCoy seeing as they’re insane enough to believe you too.”

“And Spock. Spock knows,” Jim adds.

Pike breathes out through his nose, closing his eyes briefly in frustration. “Yes. And Spock.”

“Okay,” Jim nods in agreement. “Can I go now? Because I really do need to talk to Spock about something Uhura said.”

Pike waves him off and Jim exits his office. Chances are that Pike will react even worse when it comes to telling him the plan to bring Spock back to life. But for now it’s the decision Spock chooses to make that matters most.

----

Chapter Text

The room is cold, which Jim has learnt is a sign that Spock is in a bad mood. It’s probably because of the way Jim shouted at him about what happened with McCoy. They haven’t communicated with each other since then but Jim can feel Spock’s presence in the room. It’s a strange feeling, like they’re some how linked or connected to one another. Jim manages to convince himself that it's probably just residual affects from the meld. 

“Okay, so Uhura--” Jim starts, but his PADD beeps as soon as he’s stepped fully over the threshold into the room, the door sliding shut behind him.

Δ Do you wish to engage in a meld again?

He stares at the message for a few seconds. The room hasn’t warmed up at all, meaning that Spock’s mood hasn’t improved since Jim’s arrival, not that Jim expected it to.

“If that’s what you need then sure, Spock. Yeah,” Jim answers, then smiles slightly. “Hey, maybe I’ll get to share some of my memories this time ‘round.”

Jim sits on the bed, shuffling back until he presses up against the wall like last time. He rests his PADD on his crossed legs, looking at Spock’s message when it beeps.

Δ Your mind is comforting. I apologise if that sounds strange.

The message surprises a small laugh out of him. Someone finding his mind comforting in any way is a hard concept for Jim to entertain. It feels like his head never shuts up some days, brain always thinking about something, or just replaying embarrassing memories he really didn’t need to be reminded of at inopportune moments.

“How my mind is a comfort to you is beyond me,” Jim says, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall behind him. “To someone as logical as you are, being a Vulcan and all, it must seem all over the place. I’d have thought that’d be annoying, not comforting.”

His PADD beeps and he tilts his head down to read the message.

Δ I believe someone, most likely an Earthling, is responsible for saying “there is order in chaos”. I believe that, perhaps, applies here, to your mind.

Jim hums his mind agreement and returns the back of his head to the wall. “I guess so but we can argue about that later. Meld with me,” Jim grins to himself somewhat stupidly. “Let my mind comfort you.”

It’s strange, feeling those cold fingertips on his face again. They feel like they’re tracing the small laugh lines, the barely there wrinkles, to the side of his mouth and eyes. It’s the faintest touch, more like a brush than a press, almost not even there but he can feel it even if he doesn’t say anything about it to Spock. He’s contemplating bringing his hand up, seeing if he can feel Spock’s skin underneath his own touch, when Spock initiates the meld, their minds meeting and coming together.

His mind narrows to a singular white point, once again dissipating into darkness and then faint colour as Spock introduces him to a new memory. Well, it should be one memory but it feels like several at once, images of Pike sitting down opposite Spock as often as possible. Spock pretending to be annoyed about it but being inwardly pleased with the interactions. A ghost of a smile on Spock’s lips as Pike grins back at him. And Jim notices something about how Pike looks, maybe it’s the time difference between Spock knowing him and Jim knowing him, but he looks a lot younger - he lacks a significant number of wrinkles and the greying hair that Jim recalls. It’s slightly off-putting, and then Jim realises that - considering how close Spock and Pike seem to be in Spock’s memories - Pike probably aged considerably after Spock’s death due to grief and stress.

The memories recede, the images in his mind fading rapidly back to black, and Spock’s voice echoes in his head. “My apologies. My mind is cluttered. I am at fault if that was too overwhelming,” he sounds distracted, somehow, despite being in the middle of a meld.

“It’s okay, Spock. Just show me what you--”

“What I am comfortable with,” Spock completes the sentence for him and Jim feels a sense of sheepishness at how predictable he apparently is.

“Yeah, that,” Jim replies, somewhat uselessly.

Spock says nothing in return, but Jim gets a sense of him trying to focus on what he wants to show him. The blackness narrows again, and the memory comes forward much slower than the memories with Pike, like Spock’s trying very hard to present them to him one by one.

The setting of the memory is what Jim recalls being the large main hall that the Academy uses for important assemblies and announcements. And, apparently, graduations. Images are clipped together, of Spock sitting nervously (although he would of course never admit to being nervous to anyone out loud) in his seat, not talking to any of the other students around him as they wait for each of their names to be called so they can collect their degrees in the subjects of their specialities. Images of Spock walking up to collect the physical copies, representations, of his achievements in the last four years he has spent at Starfleet Academy - a representation of his academic achievements but his social failures. He has not spoken to anyone other than Pike in a friend-like fashion. As he clutches the certificates in his hand, what he feels is not success, but instead failure. He feels alone.

When he looks up, standing with the rest of his classmates on the Science track (he knows the names of maybe five or six of them, other students that he was required to work with on group projects) for their graduation photograph, Spock sees his mother on the upper level of the hall, leaning on the railing and grinning down at him. She’s proud, he can feel it through the parent-child bond between them. She’s so proud of him, even when he feels like a failure to himself. The picture for the graduates of the Science track is taken and he moves over to the graduates from the Command track so he is present for that photograph too.

The crowds disperse and, somehow - the memory is not presented clearly to Jim - Amanda and Spock meet outside in front of the Academy building. She places her hands on his arms, smiling at him for a moment, before pulling him into an earnest hug. Thoughts of pushing her away pass through Spock’s mind, embarrassment at being hugged by his mother in front of the other students at the Academy. Only, he remembers that he doesn’t care, that the other students don’t care about him either, that it doesn’t matter so he wraps his arms around her shoulders and hugs her back, face pressed against her shoulder.

“I am so proud of you,” Amanda says, voice muffled slightly. Spock finds, to his own surprise, that he believes her.

“Thank you,” he answers, and she seems to take that as the sign to end the hug. She retreats and so does he, hands behind his back and his fingers clutching at themselves and his graduation papers.

“You father is sorry he couldn’t be here,” she tells him, and though she sounds apologetic there’s also something in her voice that sounds annoyed at Sarek. “He’s around, in the city, but some important diplomatic business came up. He told me he’d be occupied for the entirety of our stay.”

“I understand,” Spock says, and he does. To his father he is a failure for not attending the VSA, it’s as simple as that. To indulge any part of his human side is an insult to Sarek as a Vulcan regardless of the fact that he married and fell in love with a human. IDIC indeed.

“I’m glad you do because I don’t,” Amanda frowns. “Quite frankly, I find it straight up unacceptable and he should be ashamed of himself, missing his own son’s graduation when you’ve achieved so much. Science and Command track. It’s incredible.”

There’s a sense of pride followed immediately by a sense of shame at feeling pride in himself. “He rejects me because I rejected the Vulcan Science Academy. I rejected the Vulcan way,” Spock tries, but Amanda grips his arm tightly.

“You rejected nothing. Embracing your human side is not a rejection of your Vulcan side. It’s a step towards them being able to co-exist rather than being at conflict. He’ll learn that eventually, I just wish he’d learn sooner rather than later,” Amanda sighs and releases her hold on his arm. She straightens her dress, adjusts her head scarf. “Now, I’m going to take you out for dinner.”

“Mother...”

“No, Spock. I know what the Academy is like. When you’re studying, you forget to eat, and I’m willing to bet you haven’t eaten properly in a while,” she says, and it hits closer to the truth of skipped meals than she realises. In the memory, Spock goes tense but he follows after her as she walks away from the Academy building. “Now, we’re on Earth together, in San Francisco. It’s a rare circumstance. My favourite pizza place from when I was a student is just down the road. I'm not passing up the opportunity to have you try pizza.”

“Mother, no,” it sounds like an exasperated plea but Spock remembers this part fondly, along with the fondness that his mother feels when they eat pizza together and he refuses to eat it with his hands, using a knife and fork instead. The memory fades and Jim feels the conflict of the residual emotions that still linger within him from the memory.

As far as Jim can tell, Sarek didn’t meet Spock once during the time that he and Amanda were in San Francisco, but Spock did manage to spend a lot of time with his mother. There are happy memories there (Amanda taking him to the beach and Spock enjoying it despite despising the feeling of water on his skin, Amanda taking him shopping, Amanda taking him out for various meals that he can’t quite finish, a particularly prominent memory of Amanda making Spock play an old Earth board game and Spock losing terribly), and that brings him a sense of peace, to know that Spock enjoyed himself at least sometimes during his too-short life.

The next memory is Pike again. They’re in his office - smaller than the one that Pike has now - and Spock is sat in a chair in front of a desk, Pike waving his hands animatedly as he circles around the room.

“Five years! They bumped the voyage date forwards Spock. Five years and I’m on a starship again, Captain, and you’re on one for the first time as a First Officer,” Pike grins. “It’s gonna be great, trust me. I can see it now, me in the Captain’s seat, you on the bridge at the science station.”

“The science station on the bridge is usually reserved for the Science Officer,” Spock points out, and while his posture is tight with one leg crossed over the other and his hands clasped in his lap, through the meld Jim gets the sense of bemusement that Spock felt at the time.

“Well, you can do both right?” Pike asks, both hands on his hips now, not in confidence or to be assertive, just naturally resting there. “You’re more than capable. Probably more competent than other members of the crew that will already have experience with serving on a starship.”

Spock stares at Pike for a long while, contemplating the offer. There’s a conflict between his emotions: pride at Pike’s faith in his abilities, shame in feeling pride, a slight hint of disbelief as Spock thinks Pike may be playing a joke on him that he does not understand. Finally, pressure. A pressure that tells him he won’t be able to cope with the dual position. But he handled the dual Command and Science courses with an ease that had never been seen at the Academy before. He can do this too.

“I will attempt to do my best,” Spock answers to Pike’s offer and Pike grins at him.

In the grin that Pike gives him he can tell it’s not a joke, can gauge the sincerity of the offer that Pike made. His to-be Captain has full faith in his abilities and so Spock will have faith in himself too. It’s going to be three years before the ship launches on its maiden voyage anyway. He has a long time to revise his knowledge and prepare for their five-year mission.

Then there are memories of whispers in the lecture halls when he’s teaching classes, students who think they’re talking to each other quietly enough that he can’t hear them. A human wouldn’t be able to hear them, but he’s not wholly human - Vulcan genetics have leant to him increased hearing abilities. Spock hears every whisper, every off-handed quiet comment, in every class that he teaches. Students who are supposed to represent the Federation when they graduate and join their own starships or starbases on their own missions, commenting on aspects of his appearance (the same ones that students used to comment on when he was a student himself).

Strangely enough, now that he’s a professor and not just a student, derogatory comments extend to the topic of his sexuality. Jim gets a distinct feeling of something that shouldn’t be talked about by Vulcans and, even though Spock’s dead now and even though he rejected aspects of his Vulcan heritage, Spock doesn’t expand on it. Spock doesn’t define his own sexuality to Jim either, just conveys to him the comments of the students, wondering how he’d fuck, if he’d fuck, if he’d already fucked; surprising levels of heteronormativity and hypersexualisation paired with insults towards the suggestion of asexuality. He hears all of it when the students whispering at the back of the lecture hall think he can’t.

And one day, Spock decides to confront them.

“If you wish to share something with the class, feel free to do so,” he announces, comment directed to a cluster of four or five students in the back corner of the lecture hall, giggling quietly to themselves.

“No, sir. Nothing,” one student answers back for the group, cocky smile plastered across his face and body language oozing arrogance. Something about him - maybe the smile and the arrogance combined - reminds Jim of how he was, how he sometimes still is.

“As you would know if you listened during these classes, Vulcans have superior hearing abilities compared to humans,” Spock says, and Jim gathers this must be a Xenobiology class. “I can hear everything you’re saying and I hope you’re assured by the knowledge that I will be writing reports about all of you to the Academy board.”

The students around the boy settle down but the student who spoke before still grins. Leaning back and folding his arms across his chest, he says, “What, Vulcans too prude to have us discussing them having sex?”

“I do not believe it’s a suitable topic of discussion--” Spock tries, but the student cuts him off.

“This is Xenobiology though, that covers sexual reproduction. When are we going to learn about how Vulcans get it on?”

“The Academy lacks resource materials from Vulcan therefore the syllabus does not include information about Vulcan reproduction, however we have ample material on the reproductive behaviours of other species such as Andorians, Klingons--” he’s cut off again.

“But you’re Vulcan! You could just tell us yourself,” the boy exclaims, leaning forward. “Or-- you’re half human right? Yeah. Or maybe because of that you’ve got trouble, if you know what I mean."

“I, I’m--” Spock stutters. He never stutters. Vulcans don’t stutter.

“Maybe your dick doesn’t know where it belongs,” the boy laughs. “Like, you don't belong either, do you? You're just some mutt hybrid.”

And it feels like the first memory with the children on Vulcan again, and although Jim couldn’t understand what they were saying then as they spoke solely in Vulcan he gets the feeling that it’s very similar to what’s being said here, barring the comments about Spock’s mother. In the memory with the boy, Spock’s lost for words, staring at the student. He feels lost.

“One thing’s for sure, and it’s that kids like you sure as hell don’t belong in Starfleet,” a voice says at the very back of the lecture hall and when Spock looks up, looks away from the student, he sees Pike. “Class dismissed and you--” he directs it to the boy, finger pointed at him in a way that seems threatening “--you go wait in my office because we’re going to have a very long talk about what Starfleet stands for and how you should respect your professors instead of acting like an ass.”

The students slink out of the lecture hall as quietly as students can. Spock listens to the rustling of textbooks and PADDs being shoved into bags as Pike waits for them all to leave before he walks down the stairs to where Spock is stood in front of now empty chairs. He’s rigid, absolutely still and completely tense. It’s only when Pike places a gentle hand on his arm that Spock’s head snaps up to look at him.

“Are you alright?” Pike asks and the concern painting his voice makes Spock feel sick in a way that doesn’t make sense.

“I am fine,” Spock replies.

Pike doesn’t seem convinced because he frowns at Spock, his other hand coming up to rest on Spock’s other arm. Both hands squeeze and Spock feels an unfamiliar sense of being grounded. “I thought you said Vulcans couldn’t lie.”

“Perhaps one who is half-Human can,” Spock says and it almost sounds like a joke, might have been if he didn’t feel so... infinitesimal, perhaps. Small.

Gentle hands on his arms guide Spock back so he’s sitting on his desk. Like this, he’s even taller than Pike but he feels like a child. Maybe it's because the way Pike is acting reminds him of his mother, gentle and knowing what to do even when he himself feels completely lost.

“Do you need a hug?” Pike asks, and it could also be a joke but something in Pike’s eyes makes it seem like a genuine offer.

Spock doesn’t say anything in reply but apparently he doesn’t need to because Pike’s arms are wrapping around him anyway, pulling him close. He hesitates for a long time before he hugs him back, hands tentatively splaying over Pike’s shoulder blades before his fingers dig into the fabric of the other man’s uniform. Even if he is rejected by all others, Spock feels as though if even this one man is here for him then maybe it will be okay. The next lesson, the student has been removed from his register and Spock decides not to question it futher. 

Jim gets a distinct sense of uneasiness as the memory fades and Spock stops projecting memories into the meld.

“That is as much as I am comfortable sharing right now,” Spock’s voice says inside Jim’s head. “If the meld is too long we run the risk of my mind becoming attached to yours. If you wish to show memories to me we can do it now or we can initiate another meld again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow seems good,” Jim answers, because if he’s honest he’s not ready to share his worst moments with Spock just yet. “And I need to talk to you about something but we can do that outside of the meld.”

Spock doesn’t answer him after that, instead withdrawing from the meld and withdrawing his mind from Jim’s own. His head aches, the white noise louder than it had been the first time. There’s a distance that he feels from his body, like he’s not in it any more, unaware of the positioning of his limbs. Cold fingertips ghost his cheeks and he remembers to breathe in, letting the breath out in a shuddering sob. That must be the emotional transference from the meld again, enhanced repressed Vulcan emotions colliding with outwards human emotionalism.

He breathes in and out a few more times, the first few breaths continuing to be sobs but the ones after that coming to him easier. Just as he gets his breathing under control, there’s a knock at his door and he remembers the deal he made with McCoy about drinks. Hastily, he wipes his eyes and slaps his hand against the control panel besides the door to open them and let McCoy in.

“Jesus, you look terrible. What happened?” McCoy’s hands are on his arms, like Pike’s were on Spock’s in the memory and Jim finds himself fighting the surge of emotion that he feels, a remnant of the meld. “Shit, Jim. Are you crying?”

“No, no. Bones, I’m fine,” but his voice breaks and his cheeks are wet and McCoy is having none of it.

“Jim, and when I say this I mean it in the nicest of all possible ways, you look like shit,” McCoy tells him as he shoves Jim down into the chair at his desk. He pulls a pack of tissues out of his pocket and passes one to Jim, watching him like the mother hen he secretly is as Jim uses the tissue to wipe at his eyes. “Tell me what happened, and I want it to be the absolute truth. If someone did something I'll sort it out, and then I'll sort them out.”

“Bones, really, I’m fine. I promise,” Jim says, but McCoy still stands in front of him, one hand on his arm as Jim wipes at his eyes. McCoy doesn’t look like he believes him at all. “It’s, uh, it’s just residual effects from the mind meld.”

“Mind meld,” McCoy asks, pulling his hands back to fold them over his chest.

“Vulcans are touch telepaths so they can do this thing called a mind meld--” Jim starts to explain but McCoy just lets out a frustrated sigh.

“I know what a mind meld is, Jim. I’m a doctor, of course I know what a mind meld is,” McCoy looks calm, but that’s dangerous, because if he’s calm that means he’s going to explode. “What I trying to fathom is why, why you would want to meld with a god damn ghost!”

“He was showing me his past,” Jim tries to defend himself but McCoy just glares down at him.

“I don’t care if he was giving you the gosh dang secret to immortality, Jim! It is not safe, under any circumstances, for an emotionally compromised Vulcan to initiate a meld with anyone, never mind a human!” McCoy is in full medical rant mode now, waving his hands around. “You noticed how he’s not messaged you on the damn PADD yet? You know why? It’s because he knows I’m fucking right, Jim! He could have seriously messed with your brain if he wasn’t careful, without even meaning to!”

“Yeah, but he didn’t,” Jim says and it’s not the right thing to say, it’s absolutely the wrong thing to say if anything, because McCoy’s glare increases in intensity, so much so that Jim winces.

“But he could have, Jim, and that’s what fucking matters,” McCoy leans his hip on the desk, his voice low now, not shouting any more. “There are complications that Vulcans face when melding with species other than Vulcans. Because humans are a generally psi null species they can sometimes come out of melds with headaches or - in worst case scenarios - minor brain damage. And that’s with a Vulcan who isn’t compromised. If a Vulcan melds with anyone when they’re emotionally compromised then you could come out of a meld like you’d come out of a lobotomy.”

The PADD beeps and McCoy looks like he wants to snap it in half. Jim picks it up and opens up the message.

Δ I took all possible precautions before initiating the meld. However, the doctor is right in that I could have caused you undue harm. If you wish we can cease our melds and continue the sharing of our pasts in words at a later date.

“What does it say?” McCoy demands, arms folded across his chest again.

“He said he was being careful but that he’s going to stop melding with me because you’re right,” Jim frowns and throws the PADD down onto his desk. He scrunches up the tissue McCoy gave him and stands up, throwing it in the bin on the way over to his wardrobe.

“Good, because I don’t want him to hurt you without realising he’s hurting you,” McCoy sighs, turning to keep his eyes on Jim.

“I understand, but I can make my own decisions, y’know,” Jim says, stripping his uniform shirt and jumper off and pulling a new, more casual one on in its place. “I’m perfectly capable of assessing risk and weighing up choices."

McCoy gives a huff of breath that might be a laugh. “Oh yeah? That what they told you when they took Command track, huh? ‘Cause when I signed up to Medical and Science they told us to ignore everything that our senior officers said about their health if we thought they were lying, because chances are if you’ve got a medical degree then you know what’s best for them better than they do.”

“So you see me as your senior officer one day?” Jim grins at McCoy as he pulls on a fresh pair of jeans.

“Hey, you told me you aimed to get Captain status as soon as possible. I’m just assumin’ I’m gonna have to pander to your needs way after we leave the Academy,” McCoy says and he’s smiling back, which is good. “I bet you love getting hurt as much as humanly possible.”

“Oh, you’d better count on it,” Jim grins even wider and McCoy stands and waits as he pulls on his boots.

“How drunk y’wanna get, kiddo?” McCoy asks, ruffling Jim’s hair as he walks past him on the way to the door.

“I dunno. Very?” Jim answers and McCoy laughs at him.

“Bye, bye, ghostie!” McCoy calls back to Spock as they leave the room.

“His name is Spock,” Jim protests but he mumbles his own fairwell as the doors close too. It’s as he’s leaving the Academy building all together, following behind McCoy as he’s lead towards the city lights, that he remembers that he never spoke to Spock about what Uhura said.

----

‘Very’ is a pretty good qualifier for how drunk they get. It’s 1AM and they’ve just finished playing air hockey (McCoy using his shoe instead of the mallet because “it’s more familiar, Jim. I don’t know that mallet but I sure as hell know m’shoe”) when the bar staff kick them out. McCoy leans on Jim heavily, so heavily that they almost fall over in the middle of the street. Almost.

“’Member last time I interrupted you n’Spock?” McCoy asks, trying to time his steps with Jim. What happens is they end up walking in a way that’s reminiscent of the scene where they’re off the see the wizard the wonderful wizard of Oz.

“Mm,” Jim replies, trying very hard not to stand on his friend’s feet.

“Y'said y’didn’t do the thing,” McCoy says with a conviction, like he believes the words make sense.

“The thing?”

“Yeah, thing wi’ ya hoo ha,” Leonard expands and God his accent is thick when he’s drunk.

“You sound like a drunken southern hillbilly, Bones,” Jim laughs, butting his head against Leonard’s shoulder as they trip off the sidewalk but somehow manage not to fall flat on their faces.

“I dunno how long y’ve known me, Jim-boy, but if there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that I am absolutely a drunken southern hillbilly,” Leonard replies with a sloppy grin and Jim laughs, too loud and too high pitched. “So y’don’t do the hoo ha.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jim says. “Don’t ever really feel like that towards people. Kissing's nice though.”

“Y’wanna kiss,” Leonard asks. “Nothin’ but kissin’. I can do that.”

“You’ve done nothing but kissing since your divorce, Bones,” Jim points out, wrapping an arm around Leonard’s waist to help get his balance again.

“Not even that,” he answers, forlorn.

Jim snickers and shoves Leonard up the steps outside the front of the Academy building. The main building is locked up for the night, so they stagger their way around the campus trying to remember which way the dorm buildings are. At some point they lay down in the grass, next to the railing that looks out at San Francisco bay, and stare at the stars for a long time. They get up after Jim starts pulling up handfuls of grass and shoving them down McCoy’s shirt.

As they trip into Jim’s dorm together, his PADD beeps on his desk. He ignores it in favour of throwing himself onto the bed, face pressed against the pillow so firmly that he has trouble breathing. When he lifts his face, he sees Leonard shaking the left over grass out of his shirt, right onto Jim’s once pristine dorm room floor. While Leonard is unlacing his shoes, Jim uses his toes to wriggle his heels out of his boots, kicking his legs to see if he can hit Leonard in the face with one of them. One smacks against Leonard’s hands as he fumbles with his laces and Jim giggles, high pitched and gleeful, as Leonard swears and swears and swears beautifully.

McCoy doesn’t so much as get into the bed next to him as he does collapse on top of him, pressing his face into Jim’s ribs as he shifts around on the bed. Jim shuffles down as Leonard pushes himself up and their heads gracelessly smack together.

“So, kissing,” Jim reminds him as he rubs at his own jaw, Leonard running fingers through his own hair over the spot where Jim’s chin had collided with his skull.

“Yeah, kissin’,” McCoy mumbles.

He presses one hand gently against he side of Jim’s neck before following through with his lips and Jim feels a sensation similar to what melting must feel like. The PADD beeps violently on his desk, like several messages have been sent at once, and Leonard pulls back briefly to knock it onto the floor with a clumsy hand, accomplishing absolutely nothing other than knocking a PADD onto the floor. Still, Jim pulls him back down again and they continue kissing, open mouthed and lazy.

It’s so lazy, in fact, that Jim falls asleep at some point, his mouth slowing gradually and then all together. McCoy must have fallen asleep soon afterwards too, because when Jim wakes up he’s spooned up behind Leonard on top of the covers, his hands on the other man’s chest underneath his shirt. It’s a Saturday and even as his PADD gives a quiet little beep, he closes his eyes again and presses his face against Leonard’s shoulder blades, ignoring it in favour of sleeping off as much as he can of what’s likely to be an awful hangover.

----

“You're such a shithead,” McCoy says as he jabs Jim in the side of the neck with a hypo full of the best hangover cure on campus, Leonard’s own special recipe. “I can’t believe you feel asleep while I was kissing you, you asshole.”

Jim doesn’t say anything, just grins at him even as his neck aches from where the hypo was administered. It's probably not even really the hypo that hurts so much, more like the force at which it's shoved into someone's skin. 

“Am I a boring kisser? Am I not good at it or somethin’? ‘Cause last time I checked I thought I was pretty good at it,” the look on McCoy’s face would best be described as a pout if the face that the look was on wasn’t the face of Leonard McCoy. “I know we were both drunk but people don’t just fall asleep while other people are kissing them.”

Jim must be infuriating because he just widens his grin. The noise McCoy makes is close to a growl, but more grumpy.

“Y’know what, fuck you too, kid,” McCoy says as he stabs himself in the neck with a hypo before throwing both of the empty containers into a medical bag that Jim has no idea how they managed to keep track of throughout the night.

Jim places a hand on McCoy’s arm. “No more kissing?” he asks.

“Maybe,” McCoy says, not grumpy anymore so much as he is conflicted. “But not as a relationship thing, y'know. I like you but I’m not prepared to like you like that.”

“I understand, Bones,” Jim says.

McCoy gives him a vague smile instead of a reply and slaps Jim on the shoulder. He mumbles a quiet “take care, kiddo” before he leaves.

He lets himself fall back on the bed, throwing his arms out to either side of him. He could go back to sleep, has half a mind to do so really, to sleep off the remnants of the hangover that McCoy’s cure can’t get rid of, or to just catch up on sleep that he’s missed out on because he’s been studying. But it’s then, as he’s staring up at the ceiling, that Jim’s PADD beeps, quieter than usual, and Jim’s reminded that he’s been ignoring Spock. He bends over, nearly falls off the bed, as he scoops the PADD up from off the floor, swiping across the screen to unlock it and check the messages.

Δ Welcome back. I trust you had a pleasant time getting inebriated.

Δ Please refrain.

Δ I do believe that your current actions are against one of our previously agreed upon rules.

Δ Jim.

Δ I am incredibly uncomfortable with your actions.

Δ Are you awake?

Δ Evidently not.

Δ Hello.

“I am so sorry, Spock,” Jim says, simple and sincere. “I was drunk and I absolutely didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Δ I am, as humans would say, over it.

“And I’m still sorry. I broke our rules,” Jim replies. He lays back against his pillows, holding his PADD against his chest, tilted so he can read the messages as they arrive. “And I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Δ I am ‘all ears’.

That was probably a joke, but Jim ignores it in favour of getting to the point. “Uhura was telling me about something, stuff about you. Not your past or anything, just to do with how you are now, as like, a ghost, I guess,” Jim tries to explain, hyperaware of how clumsy his own wording is. “She said that the best theory for why you’re still trapped here is that your katra has some unresolved conflict with the Academy. Does that make sense?”

Δ In an abstract way, I believe it does make sense in some contexts.

“Right,” Jim runs a hand through his hair and gets up off the bed, walking around the room as he tries to explain what Uhura had told him. “Uhura found this story from pre-Surak times about this t’hy’la couple where one of them transferred her katra to the mind of the other one before going into battle. She died so her bondmate got a mind adept to transfer the katra back into her body. She came back to life and they were able to live happily ever after, blah blah blah. Uhura thinks it’s possible that if you meld with me, you could transfer your katra to me and--” Jim rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly as he comes to a standstill in the middle of the room “--she thinks we’d be able to bring you back to life again that way. But, you, uh... you committed suicide so I’d understand if you didn’t want to do that but a mind adept could resolve the conflict with your katra and you’d be able to move on instead of haunting your dorm room. Or, or you could stay. Stay in purgatory, I guess. I dunno, it’s up to you. But that’s just what we, um...”

Jim swallows. This is all hard to say for some reason and he doesn’t know why. “That’s just what we found out,” he finishes, a little bit lamely.

Unsurprisingly, Spock is quiet for a long time. No messages, no signs that he’s even there for at least five minutes. It’s getting to the point where Jim thinks he’s scared him off for good and he feels a little bit stupid as he stands stationary in the middle of the room, seemingly having spoken to himself. Eventually though, the PADD beeps and he picks it up from where he had left it on the bed.

Δ I will think about it.

“Okay, okay, yeah,” Jim rambles as he ruffles his own hair. “Cool. Is there anything you wanted to talk about?”

Δ I wish to further test the limits of my abilities.

“We know you can meld with people, and send me short messages while I’m out of the room,” Jim lists off what they already know. “Maybe you could try to like, use me as an anchor? I guess that’s the word. Just so you can go out of the room and stuff. I don’t doubt it gets boring in here when you’re on your own.”

Δ While that is a reasonable suggestion, if I engage my mind with your mind for too long I will run the risk of forming a weak bond with you.

“Hey, we’ll just take it in baby steps then,” Jim replies with a shrug. “You build up your resistance to my mind or whatever.”

Jim tucks the PADD under his arm and moves over to the door, hitting a button on the control panel and waiting as it slides open. He positions himself on the threshold, half in and half out of the room.

“We’ll try now,” he says, voice down in case anyone is in the hallway. “You do whatever you need to do and message me on the PADD if there’s a problem.”

Spock doesn’t reply on the PADD but Jim can feel coolness spreading over the skin of his right arm, sapping the warmth from him in a way that seems both foreign and familiar given that he’s somewhat used to the feeling of cold fingertips instead. If he closed his eyes then maybe he’d feel the individual fingers wrapped around his arm.

Δ I am, as they say, ready as I will ever be.

With a nod, Jim steps out of the room, just over the threshold. Carefully, he takes steps back until the door sensors no longer detect him and the doors to his dorm room slide shut in front of him. Warmth keeps leaving his arm but he tries to ignore it as his skin starts to feel vaguely numb. “You okay?” he asks, looking over to where he assumes Spock is.

Δ I was not prepared for it to be this simple, I must admit. I am finding it easier than expected. The room is not pulling me back to it as it was when I attempted to leave previously.

“Good,” Jim says with a smile. “That’s good, more than good actually. It’s great. Do you want to walk around a bit? It’s been a year or so since you saw everything and stuff.”

Δ It would be a welcome change of scenery.

Jim scoffs. “Yeah, I don’t doubt that,” he answers, tucking his PADD under his arm again. By this point his arm is unbearably cold, goosebumps have risen on his skin and his bicep is almost fully numb. “Oh, and Spock? Could you change arms because I think I’m gonna get frostbite.”

There’s not an answer on the PADD but he feels the shift as soon as it happens, both arms cold before the warmth starts to seep back into his right arm even as it starts to leave his left. They make it all the way down the hallway without anything eventful happening and, judging by how his left arm is still getting colder, Jim assumes that Spock is holding up just fine. It’s a Saturday so most students are either out in the city or held up in their rooms. Those who aren’t are attending extra curricular clubs or they’re outside in the sunshine. Seeing as Spock’s from Vulcan and judging from how he used to turn the thermostat up as high as it would go, Jim thinks Spock probably misses the sun so he heads towards the doors that lead outside.

“This okay?” he asks, quietly so as not to attract the attention of a group of students sitting on the steps outside of the Academy building. His PADD beeps and he slips it out from under his arm, holding it in both hands.

Δ More than.

“Awesome,” Jim breathes and keeps the PADD in one hand, hyperaware that something could go wrong. It probably won’t but just in case, he wants to have the PADD to hand and ready.

He strolls down the steps, leisurely and resisting the urge to jog so as not to lose Spock by moving too quickly. The bay is to his left and the city is to his right, so he turns left and follows the paths down to where the railing is. He leans against it and breathes in the sea air.

Δ It’s a strange feeling, being able to feel air pass through you while occupying what I believe is a semi-physical form.

“Strange how? Strange unpleasant?” Jim asks. He focuses on the feeling of the breeze against his skin but he can’t possibly comprehend what it would feel like for it to pass through him.

Δ Not unpleasant, but I would not say it is enjoyable either. It is vaguely uncomfortable and yet preferable to not being able to feel anything.

Jim bends down and scoops up a fist full of pebbles, precariously balancing his PADD as he throws each stone into the bay, one by one. “What can you feel?” Jim asks. “When you meld with me, can you feel my skin?”

Δ The first time I could feel it faintly, the second time I could feel it fully. Right now, it would be very possible for me to misjudge the placement of my hand and accidentally place it inside of your arm instead of on the surface.

He can’t stop himself from huffing a laugh at the message. If he could see Spock he’d probably throw a pebble at him. Instead, he tips them out of his hand, watching the splashes they create in the water below the railing, lost in the waves.

“Do you want to go anywhere in particular? And how long do you think you can stay out of the room for?” Jim asks, moving away from the railing, two hands firmly back on his PADD. “Because I don’t want to accidentally mess up this ghost thing you’ve got going on.”

Δ I have no preference. I’m not sure if the presence of the Academy building is comforting or disconcerting. I do believe I will be able leave the room for indefinite amounts of time as long as I remain in contact with you.

“See, I was totally right about the whole anchor thing,” Jim replies and grins, to his right hand side (Spock has swapped arms again). “We’ll stick to the campus for now. I don’t want something to go wrong because we’ve walked too far away.”

There’s a patch of grass next to a couple of rose bushes and a flower patch and Jim finds himself compelled to lay in the grass there so he does, grass tickling the nape of his neck in a way that reminds him of when he was five or six, sitting in fields with his brother. Or when he was twelve or thirteen, sleeping in the grass on Tarsus IV because there was nowhere else for him to go, but that’s not important right now.

Δ Your reasoning is sound.

That’s all Spock says and Jim leans his head back, closes his eyes. The silence feels comfortable, and the fact that he can still feel Spock’s hand on his bicep means that the Vulcan is sitting in the grass next to him, an image that makes Jim grin to himself.

“What do ghosts look like anyway?” he asks. “I saw you in the mirror that one time but you were barely there and all blurry.”

His PADD beeps and he holds it in the air above his head to read the message.

Δ I believe I am somewhat transparent.

First he’s grinning, then he’s got one hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh even though it’s pointless. “Oh yeah?” he says with a grin, turning his head to squint at where Spock should be, trying to see past the glare of the sun above him. “Are you wearing anything? Or do ghosts walk around naked?”

Δ I am wearing what I wore at the time of my death.

Jim stops smiling. “Oh,” he breathes, a bit shocked. He uses his elbows to push himself up into a sitting position. “I’m sorry.”

Δ You were unaware.

It takes a long time for Jim to decide whether he’s going to ask about Spock’s suicide or not but eventually he decides to ask because really, what has he got to lose. “So do you want to talk about how you died at some point or is that off limits?” Jim asks, then adds on because he thinks it sounds a bit dismissive. “Because if you’re not comfortable talking about it then I absolutely understand.”

Δ In the absence of being able to conduct a meld, I would at least prefer to discuss it in a more private setting.

Jim swallows, nervously running his fingers around the edges of his PADD. “You know, we could meld again like we planned to. Bones doesn’t have to know about it,” he says slowly. “I mean, it’s gone fine both times so far.”

Δ Both times you were reduced to tears.

He instinctively turns to where Spock is, shooting him a self-assured grin. “There’s nothing shameful about crying, Spock.”

Δ Nothing shameful for humans.

“Hey now, that’s a really problematic attitude,” Jim counters with a frown. “I know Vulcans suppress their emotions because otherwise they’d express them at a level that could be dangerous, but bottling it all up inside and not telling anyone is not good for you, no matter what people like Surak said. There’s no shame in feeling, Spock, and that’s what I disagree on. Suppress it because of safety reasons, but don’t be ashamed of it.”

He realises the words might have hit too close to home as soon as they’ve come out of his mouth, a view that’s reaffirmed by Spock not answering with a message. Jim just sighs, running a hand through his hair before pulling his knees together to sit cross-legged. He occupies his hands by threading his fingers through strands of grass.

“When I said I understood before I meant I understood because I’ve kind of being in the same situation but for different reasons,” he starts, a little bit unsure of himself. “I, uh, tried once. Only once though. Tried driving my dad’s - my dead dad’s - antique car off a cliff because Uncle Frank used to use it as this whole punishment thing. Guy had a real bad power complex. It wasn’t even the original plan, I originally just wanted to joy-ride it around a bit, maybe mess it up with some scratches. Anyway, I was going full speed and when I say this is an antique car I mean it was properly antique, rubber tires and everything. I could feel it jolt under me as the tires ran over rubble and stones and all those kinds of things. Some police officer showed up so I tried to ditch them, realised I was heading for cliff.”

He has to pause, steadies himself around a tightening in his throat that makes it hard to speak. The fingers he has in the grass aren’t threading through it any more, they’re clenched and Jim can feel the dirt that’s wedged itself under his fingernails. He tries to focus on that instead, working past the lump in his throat.

“And I thought about how my brother had just run away from home, how my mom was out off on some away mission, how Frank would beat my ass even if I did bring the car back as spotless as it had been when I took it out. So I floored it, headed right for the cliff with every intention of going off with the car,” he pauses again, loosening his grip on the strands of grass as his knuckles begin to ache. “I bailed out at the last second, obviously or else I wouldn’t be here. Thing is, even though I’m glad I did I still don’t know why I did. Because I pretty much had nothing going for me, ‘least that’s what I thought then. So yeah, when I say I understand I mean it. Like, even if I don’t understand completely, I at least kind of understand what you were feeling at the time.”

It takes Spock a few moments to reply, but eventually he does.

Δ What happened? Afterwards, that is.

“Uh, they called my mom back planetside and she was less than impressed. Though it seems she didn’t get the whole story, probably because Frank was the one who told her, because when I explained she was hugging me and saying she was sorry she had to leave me and Sam alone and stuff,” Jim explains as he picks the dirt out from underneath his fingernails. “Sam was long gone by then and even though mom tried as hard as she could to contact him, she couldn’t. So she thought it’d be best if she, uh, if she sent me...”

This is harder to talk about than what had been dubbed as the ‘Car Incident’ because at least he was in control of the car, it was his decision. Tarsus IV? Absolutely out of his control and there were times then that he’d thought about taking his own life but he had other kids relying on him. He was the eldest child on the colony at fourteen and there were people that he had to be strong for on Tarsus. So he stuck through the hunger pains and the cold nights and the deaths of the kids that he was supposed to protect. Only now is not the time to talk about it. Maybe at some other time, but not right now.

“She sent me to live with my Aunt and Uncle on her side off on some Starfleet outpost colony planet,” Jim says instead, carrying on like there hadn’t been a significant gap. Maybe if he acts uncomfortable enough about it then Spock will ignore that it ever happened. He pushes himself to his feet, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “Do you want to head back now or do you want to hang out here some more?”

Δ I believe heading back would be a wise choice.

Δ Thank you. For sharing.

The pause between the messages is a couple of seconds long, like Spock hesitated before sending the second one. Jim tucks the PADD underneath his arm again as he walks towards one of the rose bushes.

“It’s cool. You’ve already shared so much with me, it’s about time I returned the favour,” he says, shrugging slightly. Carefully, he plucks one of the roses from the bush, peeling off the thorns left on the stem. There’s a student in some of his Command classes who is way too passionate about plants who would go insane about him ripping the stem instead of cutting it with scissors or something. Regardless, he tucks it behind his ear. “Do I look cute? Actually, don’t answer that.”

Spock doesn’t answer it, which he shouldn’t take as a blow to the ego. Either way, they head back to the dorm building and it takes him a while afterwards to notice that his arms had stopped getting cold to the point of frostbite, that Spock seemed to have literally warmed up while they were sat together on the grass.

----

Jim spends the rest of the day studying, but casual studying. The kind where you’re on your bed with your textbook on your chest and chances are that you’ve dozed off several times already, but beds are infinitely more comfortable than desk chairs. He must have dozed off properly at some point because he wakes up in the middle of the night and his textbook isn’t on his chest any more. A quick look around the room shows it’s on his desk. He also becomes aware that his sheets have been pulled on top of him. Additionally, he doesn’t remember putting the rose that he picked in a small glass of water.

He looks around the room, still feeling half asleep and still lying in the bed, curling his hands into the blanket. On the far side of the room, near his wardrobe, he can see a figure sat on the ground cross-legged. They’re glowing faintly, all soft lines and ambient blue glow. It takes Jim a few moments to realise that it’s Spock. Yawning, he presses half his face against the pillow and looks directly over at where Spock is.

“Thanks, Spock,” he mumbles, eyes staying open just long enough for Spock to look up at him in shock. His expression is surprisingly open for a Vulcan, but maybe that’s because he thinks Jim can’t see him. Regardless, Jim closes his eyes again and goes back to sleep.

----

Chapter Text

Before classes on the Monday, Pike corners him in the corridor and drags him to his office, directing Jim to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. Jim does so, vaguely confused as Pike circles the desk a few times before finally decided on what to say.

“I spoke to Uhura about what you said, seeing as you told me she had the clearest explanation so far as to this whole Spock thing you’ve got going on,” Pike tells him, leaning a hip against his desk and folding his arms over his chest defensively. “Is that really true? Putting someone’s katra back in their body?”

“Uhura’s the Vulcan expert as far as I’m concerned and Spock said it was plausible,” Jim answers with an uncertain shrug of his shoulders.

“So, theoretically, we could bring Spock back to life,” Pike asks, giving Jim a look that irks him somewhat.

“Yeah, theoretically."

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Pike demands with a frown. “And why aren’t we putting Spock back in his body again? If you know how to do it then why aren’t you doing it?”

“Three main reasons,” Kirk says, holding up a finger to signify each point as they came. “One, the women in the story that Uhura probably told you to explain had a t’hy’la bond. That’s a super strong, super rare bond as far as I know. Two, it would require transferring Spock’s katra to someone’s head which is dangerous because it runs a high risk of forming a bond between Spock and whoever holds his katra in their head. And three, Spock hasn’t decided whether he wants to do it yet.”

“What do you mean he hasn’t decided yet?” Pike demands, pushing himself away from the desk and pacing around the office again. “Of course he wants to come back--”

“All due respect, Chris, but Spock killed himself.”

Pike stops walking, ending up stood behind his desk. After a few seconds he seems to deflate a little bit, taking a seat in his desk chair and heaving a sigh. He looks tired and Jim remembers the memory of Spock’s that he’d seen of Pike, the one with less wrinkles and less grey hairs. Then it dawns on him that Pike probably misses Spock a lot, and here Jim is with Pike’s ex-First Officer haunting his dorm room. Add to that the fact that, as far as Jim knows, Spock hasn’t attempted to contact Pike at all, then you can begin to see where Pike is coming from with his frustration.

“You think I don’t know that, kid?” Pike frowns. “Hell, I was probably the reason he did it in the first place.”

“Okay, I’ve been in his head basically and I can reassure you that you’re not the reason Spock killed himself,” Jim says, as supportive as he can muster the willingness to be. “It was a build up that started since he was a kid and everything kept piling up on him. It was not your fault.”

Pike looks a little bit skeptical but he nods his understanding of what Jim is saying anyway. “You said McCoy interacted with him?” Pike asks, lacing his fingers together somewhat nervously. “If it’s alright with Spock, I’d like to talk to him in any way that's possible. If he doesn’t want to talk to me then I’ll understand. Just, just tell him...”

“I’ll tell him you said hi,” Jim suggests and Pike nods in agreement.

“Sure, sure that works,” Pike nods and then waves his hand in Jim’s direction. “Now shoo, you’ve probably got classes to go to, you ‘four years in three’ masochist.”

Jim just grins. “See you around,” he says as he leaves, the doors closing behind him.

----

Somehow McCoy manages to catch him after his last class of the day, probably because the man is absolutely insane and likely spent a significant amount of time standing outside of the door to Jim’s lecture. Only it’s not just McCoy because next to him stands a blonde haired woman dressed in the same medical scrubs that McCoy is wearing. She must be from his doctoring courses, although Jim doesn’t have any idea why she’s here.

“Jim, Christine. Christine, Jim,” McCoy introduces them to each other. “I was talking to Chris about your little ghost problem--”

“What do you mean you were talking to her about my ghost problem?” Jim interrupts. He didn’t exactly tell Leonard to keep it secret but he definitely didn’t expect him to go around discussing the fact that he has a ghost haunting his dorm with other people. Mainly because if he did then everyone would think that Jim was insane.

“Just to reassure you, I don’t think you’re insane or anything,” Christine speaks up from McCoy’s side, as if she'd read Jim's mind. “People used to think aliens didn’t exist so I think it’s a bit silly to doubt the existence of unexplained paranormal phenomena too.”

“That is, well, it actually is a little bit reassuring to hear someone say that,” Jim replies a little bit sheepishly. “And I’m not annoyed at you, I’m annoyed at him.” He points a finger at McCoy just to make it perfectly clear who the target of his annoyance is.

“Oh, you’re annoyed at me?” McCoy asks, incredulous. “I’m not the one who fell asleep when someone was kissing him.”

Jim splutters for a moment, shocked. “I thought we dropped that!”

“And I thought we were gonna kiss but seems not.”

“Oh, you are such an asshole, Bones. I swear to God--” Jim is about to reel off into an incredible string on insults when Christine coughs pointedly from next to them. She seems amused, but also unimpressed.

“If you’re done, I’ve got a way to help you out,” she levels him a look that Jim can’t quite decipher. “Have you ever seen the ghost? It might not look wholly humanoid and might instead appear more like mist, at least from what I’ve read.”

“I, uh, actually have,” Jim confirms. “Twice.”

“Under what circumstances and how did he manifest?” she asks, clearly interested now.

“The first time I was brushing my teeth in the mirror and I saw him behind me but he was really faint, mostly transparent. I could just about make out his face but everything else was a sort of misty blur,” Jim stares at a wall as he recalls the memory. “He disappeared as soon as I turned around to look at him though. The second time was last night. I was half asleep so it might have been a dream. He was sat against the wall opposite my bed and he sort of glowed? I could see his face but, again, everything else was sort of hazy.”

“That’s great,” Christine says with a smile. “That means he has some sort of set form, which means we can observe him objectively.”

“What do you mean?” Jim asks.

McCoy smirks. “Thermal imaging camera, Jim.”

“Oh,” Jim breathes. “That’s... kind of cool, actually.”

“Well, I’m hoping your ghost is the ‘cool’ one,” Christine says. “As far as I’m aware, ghosts are supposed to be colder than their surroundings.”

“When he touches me he feels cold, if that’s any help,” Jim shrugs.

“It helps to reassure me that maybe he’ll actually show up on the camera,” Christine answers. “If you want, we could do it now. My roommate has a thermal imaging camera from some of the experiments she’s been conducting and said I could borrow it if I needed it for anything.”

"Yeah," Jim says. "Yeah, I guess now is good. I'll go warn Spock, you go get your camera."

"Will do," Christine grins and turns away. McCoy follows after her with a shrug and a wave goodbye to Jim.

Jim walks back to his dorm room as he had originally intended to do. He opens the door and throws his bag on the ground in a way that feels like a routine by now. The room isn’t cold, which is a good sign. The temperature inside is about the same as it is outside, which is a comfortable average San Francisco spring day. He looks around the room, like maybe he can see Spock with his eyes again. He can’t, but he gets the feeling that Spock is sitting the the desk chair so he directs his attention to there.

“This might seem like a strange thing to ask, but McCoy has a friend who wants to come over and point a thermal imaging camera at you to see if you’ll show up in the name of science,” Jim tells the chair as casually as he can, but the request is strange and he’ll understand completely if Spock would prefer not to partake in the sort-of-experiment.

His PADD beeps just as he’s pulling it out of his bag.

Δ While the presence of more people would make me uncomfortable, I see no logic in declining if such an experiment would bring to light additional information about the current form I am taking.

“If you do feel like you’re too uncomfortable though, tell me and I’ll tell them to leave. Okay?” Jim really doesn’t want to put Spock in situations where he’s not comfortable, and yes, maybe he is getting a little bit protective over his poltergeist friend, but that’s not anything to be ashamed of.

Δ I understand. Although I have two additional questions, both unrelated to the current topic.

Jim takes a seat on the bed opposite the desk chair. Strangely enough, it swivels to face him. Seeing Spock manipulate objects in the environment hasn’t been something that Jim has seen before despite knowing that Spock could do it. It’s impressive, and a little bit creepy. “Fire away,” he says, and Spock does.

Δ My first question pertains to melding. Do you still wish to partake in a meld today despite what Dr. McCoy said?

“Of course,” Jim answers and shrugs at the chair. “I don’t see anything harmful about it, despite breaking down into tears. Don’t tell him and we’re good. Besides, I’ve only seen so many of your memories. Seems a shame to leave parts unseen.”

Δ Agreed. My second question: are you able to see me? I only ask due to the events of last night and due to your uncanny ability to direct your attention to areas I am occupying.

“Well,” Jim starts, trying to get his words together because it’s hard to explain. “I can’t so much see where you are as I can feel where you are? Although last night, if I definitely wasn’t dreaming, I could sort of see you sat over by the wall. You looked surprised when I thanked you.”

Δ Fascinating.

"Oh, and Christopher Pike says 'hi'," Jim adds on.

Δ I would return his greeting however it seems that he is absent.

Jim shakes his head, mumbling something under his breath in reaction to the message. He hears someone knocking at his door and, assuming it’s Christine and Leonard, he goes to open it. Sure enough, he’s right.

“Hey, we got the camera,” Christine says, holding the hand held device triumphantly above her head. McCoy enters behind her, holding a tripod.

“That’s the thermal imaging camera?” Jim asks, looking at it in slight disbelief. It’s small, about the same size as one of those old fashioned hand held video cameras and built in a similar way. “It looks a bit... small.”

“It’s the twenty third century,” Christine shrugs, directing McCoy to place the tripod down in the centre of the room. “And I’m a nurse. I’m not surprised by technology being what it is any more. I just deal with being amazed by it. Like, have you ever really thought about how a tricorder works?”

He has thought about it, but hadn’t been brave enough to look into the engineering and knowledge behind it much more than reading a Wikipedia article and the ‘about’ section on the main tricorder manufacturer’s website. It had been complicated to say the least, though he was thrown more by the medical jargon than he was the engineering processes. In the end, Jim had decided that it was best to let the medical professionals and scientists deal with tricorders, secure in the knowledge that his strengths lay in computer science, astronomy, diplomacy (as much as he loathed it), and advanced battle tactics.

“If you’re amazed by technology because you’re a nurse, why is Bones terrified of it?” Jim questions with mock seriousness.

McCoy rolls his eyes as he finishes setting up the tripod. “Oh, ha ha. Mock the technophobe and his aviophobia. Real nice’a you, Jim.”

“You won’t even go near transporters though!” Jim argues.

“Jim, they ain’t natural, I’m telling you. If you were meant to break apart into millions of tiny particles and whizz around in subspace before being rebuilt on an atomic level then you’d be able to do it naturally.”

Christine scoffs as she goes about fixing the camera to the top of the tripod. “Yeah, so naturally we built something that could do it for us. If it wasn’t supposed to happen then we wouldn’t be able to do it, it’s as simple as that.”

McCoy grumbles but isn’t defeated. “Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should do it. I could eat several gallons of ice-cream if I wanted, doesn’t mean I should actually do it.”

“Oh, you absolutely should. Might actually cheer you up a bit,” Christine smirks, then cuts of McCoy’s sigh as she redirects her attention to Jim. “So where’s your ghost friend?”

He’s about to look around and guess when a cooling sensation on his left arm stops him. “To my left,” he answers and presumably Spock removes his hand, warmth returning to his arm.

Christine turns the thermal imaging camera on and then aims it towards where Jim had pointed. She spends a few moments adjusting settings before her eyes widen and she looks away from the camera, to the empty space next to Jim, and then back at the camera again.

“Is he... is he showing up?” Jim asks hesitantly.

McCoy takes the initiative of looking over Christine’s shoulder at the viewscreen of the camera. “Oh, he’s showing up alright.”

“That’s incredible,” Christine says as she flips the viewscreen around so Jim can see it. “He’s much colder than the environment around him, looks like he’s unaffected by it. But look at this--” she points her finger to Spock’s right side “--he’s affected by you and your temperature. The side closest to you is significantly warmer than the rest of him.”

“Maybe he’s just affected by humans,” Jim speculates.

“True. Though, there’s only one way to find out,” Christine says, then looks over at McCoy. “Go stand at Spock’s other side. Use the viewscreen to guide you so you don’t accidentally step inside of him.”

Mumbling a under his breath, McCoy does as he’s told, taking his place next to Spock as Christine flips the viewscreen back around so she can see it. She hums, waiting a few seconds before calling it. “Doesn’t seem like McCoy has any effect on how warm or cool Spock is. Just you.”

“What does that mean?” Jim asks, confused by the information.

Christine shrugs. “The beauty of science is that I have no idea. We have the results of the observation, but we don’t have all the information we need to form a conclusion.”

“Right,” Jim says, not any less confused by it all.

Christine snaps the viewfinder back to the side of the camera and collapses the tripod, tucking it under her arm. They talk for a few minutes, McCoy reminding him not to meld with Spock if he ‘knows what’s good for him’, which usually means that McCoy will stick him with a hypo if he ever finds out and Jim is adamant that he won’t so he doesn’t have to worry about it. Then they leave and Jim’s alone in the room with Spock again.

“Weird, huh?” he says, slightly embarrassed for reasons he can’t ascertain. “I’ve gotta do a few things, then we’ll meld.”

----

This time when Spock initiates the meld, it feels familiar but significantly more awkward, like Spock is hesitating for some reason. Maybe it’s to shield his emotions so that Jim doesn’t come out of this meld as much of a wreck as he’d come out of the last two. Eventually, the darkness pinpricks into light like it usually does and the feeling of Spock’s mind coming together with Jim’s to project memories and emotions is some kind of a comfort. Phantom whispers flit through his head as the memory manifests. Pike’s office again.

Spock is sitting in the chair opposite Pike’s desk, more tense than the other memory of Pike’s office from before. Pike looks slightly awkward, probably due to how much more emotionally withdrawn Spock seems to be, even though he is a Vulcan.

“I’m doing to be gone for the rest of this term and the holidays,” Pike says, sheepish as he looks at Spock over the top of the desk. Spock in turn tenses more (if that's possible) at the news, withdrawing more into himself mentally, his posture ramrod straight and physically perfect. “Are you going to be okay with that? I know you’ve not been in the best state of mind recently.”

“I will be fine,” Spock answers, although Jim gets the feeling that he hasn’t been ‘fine’ for a long time, never mind recently.

“Are you sure, because I could stall it a little longer. I mean, I definitely have to go at some point--” Pike tries, rambling, but Spock gives him a look that causes him to go quiet.

“Even if you wished to delay your visit to the Enterprise, you would be unable to delay the diplomatic meetings that are taking place over the course of the following month. I remind you that your attendance at these meetings is mandatory as an upcoming Starfleet Captain,” Spock inundates, more monotone than Jim has ever witnessed him be in any of these memories. “A visit to the ship is also imperative as you rarely check in with the builders, designers, and engineers. Additionally, as you will be in the area, it is logical for you to head the programme attracting new recruits and collecting current recruits in Iowa before directing the shuttle programme that is to send them back to San Francisco.”

“You could come with me if you want,” Pike offers, the look of concern on his face growing. Even then, it seems to be an empty offer at best.

“As I am currently ranked at Lieutenant Commander, my presence at the diplomatic meetings would be unnecessary and likely not allowed. Even if I were to be ranked as a Commander, I would have no place at the diplomatic meetings as I have never served aboard a starship before,” Spock says, logical to a point. He will be ranked as a Commander during the holidays, ready for his third year of teaching.

“Yeah, I get it, Spock,” Pike sighs. He quirks his lips in a half smile. “Hey, I’ll bring you back a souvenir to make up for it.”

“I hardly think there’s much in Iowa worth bringing back as a souvenir,” Spock replies.

Pike snorts and stands from his chair and makes his way over to the door, a signal that Spock picks up on, standing from his own chair and following him. “I’ll be back before you know it,” Pike says with a smile.

“I have no doubt that you will,” Spock answers with a raised eyebrow.

Pike opens the door and Spock moves to exit. He’s got both feet over the threshold when Pike grabs one of his arms loosely, stopping him. “Look, just don’t...” he starts, but closes his mouth, rethinking his words. “Just be here when I get back.”

“I do not require your presence to function, Christopher,” Spock answers, and Pike lets go of his arm. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Spock leaves and Pike watches after him. The door closes when Spock’s halfway down the corridor and Spock keeps walking. Two weeks later, at the end of the term, Pike leaves for the diplomatic meetings in a shuttle. Spock doesn’t say goodbye. Spock doesn’t talk to him at all. Spock teaches his lessons and stays in his apartment and is reminded of how it felt to be a student again. Alone. He knows he’s not being anything close to rational but that’s not something that he can control.

During the two weeks before Pike left, Spock’s students had taken their final exams. He makes the decision that if he’s going to ‘go away’ that it should jeopardise as few people as possible, which means he supports his students and he makes sure that the test papers have been sent off to the administration board to be marked. Something in him wants to stay around until his students get their results, but mostly he wants to get this over with as soon as possible, with as few people who know him around to see it as there can be. When Pike leaves, Spock makes preparations.

He writes a will. Everything of value that he owns he leaves to his mother, his body he leaves to Starfleet science on the condition that his mother approves of it and does not wish to bury him instead. He answers all his emails and responds to all his calls; he does not encourage them to message him back. A part of him wants to send his mother a message, a long one, explaining why he’s doing (did) what he is (has) but he ties that down to his human side being overly emotional. Too sentimental. Instead, Spock sets an email to be sent to her at the date that he has set himself. It’s short, reading only: "Mother, I am sorry."

As he saves it, Spock feels sick in his stomach. He assumes it’s a combination of anticipation and dread, but in later reflection Spock reveals he believes it was actually hesitation. He’s not sure. The memory of his past self lacks colour, almost a black and white but Jim can still get a sense of colours, though it’s like they’ve all been desaturated to the point of being unnoticeable.

Time skips and Spock is in his apartment, in his bedroom sorting through his wardrobe. He has sorted his few clothing items into boxes (trousers, tops, coats, other). The lone thing left hanging in his wardrobe are his old cadet’s uniform and his more current instructor’s uniform. A memory that stands out is the feel of fabric on Spock’s fingers as he runs his hands down them for a last time before he closes his door and sets to stacking the boxes in a corner of the living room, all labelled and organised.

The only clothing he has left out of the boxes is what he wears and a sweater that he has placed on the bed. His mother made it for him, had given it to him while visiting one of the few times she was able to while he was a cadet (she had only been able to visit him twice as an officer and when he had introduced her to Pike she had shown him photographs of Spock as a child, which was embarrassing even for a Vulcan). He lets his control lapse, his control being a laughable façade at this point anyway, and he picks it up before pressing his face against it.

When he breathes in it smells like the detergent he uses to wash his clothes. Perhaps some distant part of his mind wishes it would smell like his mother’s perfume, or the sands of Vulcan, perhaps the sands of San Francisco bay. It doesn’t. He pulls it over his head, notes that the sleeves are as he remembered them, meaning they’re too long for his arms and instead dangle around an inch past his knuckles. It makes him feel too small, like a child, like someone to be looked after. It’s a comfortable feeling. He’s at peace now.

No doubts in his mind, Spock takes a boxcutter from a drawer in his kitchen (sharper than most knives and smaller, easier to hold). Despite intending to kill himself with it, he still sterilises it, a habit he must have gained at some point through being a scientist. It’s not a bad habit all things considered. He places it on the stand next to his bed, metal clinking against the opaque glass top. Earlier he had placed folded towels next to his bed, and now Spock unfolds them and spreads them one by one over the centre of the bed on top of the duvet. This way, even if his blood soaks through the towels, it will not soak through into the mattress and stain it.

He takes a few minutes to position himself, cross legged in the centre of the bed. He rolls up the sleeves of his jumper neatly: he does not wish to stain the fabric although perhaps that is an inevitability. It would be over quicker if he cut the artery in his throat but if his mother wishes to bury him he does not wish for her to see that. The arteries in his arms are more concealable; his mother won’t have to see the evidence of what he is about to do to himself.

Spock picks the boxcutter up with his non-dominant hand - his left - and holds it above his right arm. This way, when he is bleeding, at least he will have the dominance of his right hand on his side when he attempts to cut his left. Cutting both wrists is more of a technicality: if he is bleeding more he dies faster. Simple. Taking a deep breath in, Spock attempts to centre himself, or at least calm himself. Vulcan hearts beat quicker so he will naturally bleed out faster than a human would, but the adrenaline is making his hands shake.

He breathes in once and drives the boxcutter into the centre of his wrist before pulling vertically upwards until about halfway to his elbow. It doesn’t spurt like you might expect it to, instead taking a moment to bleed as the artery contracts. The blood wells up but it’s not until he’s sucking in another breath and passing the boxcutter over from a shaking hand to the other that the blood trickles down to his elbow and the gash begins to bleed in earnest. When he cuts the other arm he’s only able to get about half as far, his hand too weak to draw the blade much more than a quarter of the way towards his elbow. Struggling to grasp the handle of the boxcutter with weak, slippery fingers, Spock eventually manages to extract it from his arm and drops it onto the towels beside him. Without having much of a choice, he leans back against his pillows and headboard, too dizzy to stay upright although it doesn’t make much difference. 

He bleeds and he bleeds and he bleeds, bleeds for so long that he’s not sure if he feels cold because of the loss of blood or because he’s laid in it. He’s heard the temperature of Vulcan blood described as ice-water before. He’s not in a position to disagree. When he looks at his arms they’re green. The towels are green. Unfortunately, the bedspread he had spent a considerable number of credits on was also green. It's a disgusting colour.

Spock stares at his slowly bleeding arms until his vision goes dark, and when it threatens to turn black he closes his eyes and leans his head against his pillows. He breathes in, and then out, and then in, and then he doesn’t.

----

The meld breaks, doesn't stop so much as it staggers. When Jim falls out of it he's sobbing so hard that it’s difficult for him to breathe. He tries to suck in air but it gets caught in his throat and he chokes, coughing even as he keeps crying. It can’t be pretty and it must be bad because even in the state he’s in Jim is more than aware of the amount of snot that his nose is leaking. When he tries to wipe his face, his hands are shaking so bad that he almost punches himself. He closes his eyes and just sobs, cries so hard his eyes are burning and his throat is raw. It feels like he’s hyperventilating.

With his eyes closed, Jim becomes aware of a cool pressure on his limbs, directing his legs off the bed, his feet planted firmly on the carpeted ground. His head is guided between his knees and he digs his fingers into the fabric of his cadet uniform trousers as he sobs and coughs in equal amounts.

There are hands in his hair, fingers ghosting through the strands. He tries to focus on it, centre himself around it, but it reminds him of a time he was on Tarsus IV with one of the children he was supposed to look after, supposed to save, his own fingers in her hair as they both starved, telling her that she was going to be okay, that they were going to get out of it together. She was the last kid to die under his care. Help came four days later. Spock’s shared his death with Jim but Jim doesn’t think he can share Tarsus with Spock. The Vulcan feels bad enough, felt bad enough to kill himself, and Jim doesn’t need or want to make him feel even worse.

A few minutes later and Jim can breathe but he’s still crying, the tears coming in a steady, almost silent stream that he wouldn’t be able to stop if he tried. Instead he tries to breathe as well as he can, tries to focus on cold fingers in his hair. He’ll get through this. These aren’t wholly his emotions. They’re residual. They’ll wear off. He can’t even gasp out a “why?” to ask Spock why he’d do it because he’s seen the man’s memories, he knows why. He understands why.

He hears his PADD beep, a gentle sound, several times next to him on the bed. He’s still got his eyes closed in an attempt to stop both the flow of tears and the burning at the back of his eye sockets (although he’s positive that’s where tear ducts aren’t). The fingers ground him and he unclenches a hand from the fabric of his trousers and reaches up, believes fully that it’ll connect with something solid. It does, or at least it feels like it does. The fingers are still in his hair but he grips the wrist that he’s grabbed as hard as he can, focuses on skin that’s colder than his own, on the fabric that brushes against his hand.

Eventually, he gets his breathing under control and he lets go of the wrist before opening his eyes. The fingers slide from his hair as he lifts his head up. Jim still can’t see Spock but he can definitely sense him, can almost feel the resonance of his presence as he stands in front of Jim. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth and it’s either due to how sore his throat is or it’s him picking up on Spock’s emotions. If he had to name it, he’d say it was concern.

Jim reaches for his PADD at the same time that he uses the sleeve of his cadet sweater to wipe as much dampness off his face as he can, making a note to throw it in the wash as soon as he changes out of it. He exits the lock screen and opens his messages from Spock.

Δ I am sorry I did not know that my memory of such an experience would have such a severe impact on you.

Δ In hindsight, I should have considered such a possibility due to the effects of lesser memories on you during the past two melds we have shared.

Δ I was unaware that I could touch you solidly enough to impact your movements.

Δ I am able to pick up on your memories by touch. I was unaware I would be able to do this as there are not any sentient beings other than yourself that I am able to touch. I apologise if you consider this a breach of privacy.

Δ You are able to touch me.

Δ I fear we may have developed a bond.

He doesn’t know how to react to the messages so he laughs, laughs himself into oblivion, laughs so hard he’s almost crying again, the exhausting burn sprouting up behind his eyes again. Jim laughs so hard his stomach hurts and he can feel as Spock’s concern increases tenfold.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he croaks, his voice hoarser than he’d expected it to be, coming out sounding somewhat broken. “It’s okay. I asked for the meld and you killed yourself, I should have expected it to be that emotional. To be honest, my reaction is about what I thought it would be, though I didn’t expect the almost hyperventilation. That was new, well, new to experience outside of allergic reactions.”

Δ You are not concerned about the bond.

“I think we both knew that was going to happen at some point,” Jim answers. He feels exhausted and it’s only just coming up to 5PM.

Spock doesn’t answer so Jim gets up and goes to wash his face instead.

----

The next day when Jim goes to lunch, he begins running through a number of worst case scenarios of what could take place as soon as he sees Uhura, McCoy, and Christine sat clustered together on one table. He could sit at another table and avoid what’s he doubts is going to be anything other than a slew of questions, but they’re his friends (or at least two of them are, though something makes him think that Christine is going to become a permanent part of their little group). Also, they’re sat at a four person table and are clearly saving that last seat for him. Besides, he’s pretty sure that - if not all of them - at least McCoy has seen him.

As he approaches, he catches ear of the conversation going on between Uhura and Christine.

“I can’t believe you managed to get your hands on one of those,” Uhura exclaims, and it’s one of the only times that Jim has seen her excited about something.

Christine nods at her with a small smirk. “My roommate was using it for experiments and said I could borrow it for anything I wanted, so naturally I decided to use it to get more information about this ghost that Leonard was telling me about during our dissection.”

“Spock?” Uhura asks. She spares Jim a nod as he sits down in the spare seat next to her. McCoy just spares him a raised eyebrow and Christine doesn’t seem to notice he’s there at all because she just continues with the conversation.

“Yes, Spock,” she answers Uhura with a nod. “When we filmed him stood next to Jim we found that although the environment around Spock had no effect on him, Jim--” she points at him and he gives her a little half grin “--managed to influence him physically. We put Leonard next to Spock too and nothing happened. He was only affected by Jim’s presence.”

“You’re kidding me?” Uhura gapes at Christine for a second before looking at Jim, shocked. “You?”

Jim just shrugs and grins at her. McCoy snorts.

“I say it’s all those melds you’ve been doin’ with him,” McCoy says, then waves a forkful of salad at Jim either to emphasise what he’s about to say or as an intimidation tactic. “I don’t trust any alien species who can see inside another person’s head.”

“That’s just a little bit xenophobic, don’t you think?” Uhura asks with a raised eyebrow.

“No, it’s absolutely justified,” McCoy answers stubbornly. “Humans are mostly psi-null, they’re not built to deal with that kind of thing. Vulcans melding with humans can turn our brains into the organ equivalent of scrambled eggs. Not smart.”

“Spock’s mom was human though,” Jim interjects. “Her and Spock’s dad were bonded and to do that you need to meld to create a telepathic link.”

“And when did you become resident Vulcan expert,” McCoy scoffs.

“Well, the melds and... yeah,” Jim mumbles and stuffs a sandwich half into his mouth as an excuse to stop talking.

“So you saw his mom and dad in the melds?” Uhura asks.

Jim swallows what’s in his mouth. “His mom, mostly. His dad was an asshole. Like, a major dick to him. Though, for someone like Amanda to be bonded to him, there must have been something there, I guess,” he shrugs in lieu of something to say.

“How does that even work?” Christine asks, suddenly. “You being able to meld with him, that is. He doesn’t have a brain to connect to yours, and as far as I know Vulcans use their brains to do melds.”

Jim just shrugs again and Christine seems very unsatisfied with the answer but doesn’t push on it. McCoy, on the other hand, seems to have been stuck on something Jim said earlier.

“You said that his mom melded with his dad to, what? Help secure their bond?” McCoy asks and he seems suspicious in a way that makes Jim nervous of what he’s going to ask next.

“Yeah, I guess,” he answers, albeit hesitantly.

“So you melding with him risks you being bonded to him,” McCoy says slowly and Jim simultaneously feels his cheeks heat and his body go cold. They stare at each other for a few moments, then Uhura looks at him with wide eyes.

“You didn’t.”

Instead of denying it he just says nothing and avoids eye contact with everyone at all costs, staring at the table with an intensity that could be rivalled by a select few. Across from him, he hears a distinctly southern growl.

“You can’t be bonded to some Vulcan’s free floatin’ katra, Jim!” McCoy exclaims and he must be worried or angry or a combination of both because he’s dropping ‘g’s as his accent becomes thicker.

Jim’s very tempted to say something stupid, something cocky, like the old Earth term ‘yolo’ just to annoy McCoy more but he refrains himself, an admirable trait in a Starfleet captain. “It was an accident,” he says, although it lacks a considerable amount of conviction and he still can’t meet McCoy’s eyes.

“Accident, my ass! Dammit, kid. I swear to God you’re the most reckless idiot--” McCoy seems ready to descend into a full on rant but Uhura cuts him off.

“You could get the bond dissolved,” she says, then smirks. “Although you’d have to explain to a logical Vulcan mind adept just how you got bonded to a lost katra.”

Christine laughs at that, even as McCoy continues to mumble what are sure to be various horrifying swears under his breath, though it sounds like he’s just saying ‘dang’ over and over again.

“But if he’s bonded to me now, that means he’s not connected to the room any more,” Jim says as the conclusion comes to his mind. “If the bond gets dissolved, that means he moves on.”

“Either way, you’ve got to get your hands on a mind adept,” Uhura tells him. “You can’t go around with a katra connected to you. Without a physical body to connect to, it could just fully end up in your head. Despite that story about the t’hy’la couple, if you didn’t have a close bond with them while they were alive then having a katra in your head could kind of mess you up.”

“Not to mention, you’ve got a human brain,” Christine adds, before McCoy can say it. “Maybe you can talk to his mom, see if she knows any adepts.”

“An adept from his clan would probably be the best option,” Uhura concurs, and Jim feels a sense of dread filling him from the toes up. “Talk to Pike. Spock was supposed to be his First Officer, so he’ll have next of kin contacts, which I’m guessing will be his mom.”

“I’ll have to explain what’s happened to her then,” Jim says it like a question. Uhura puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes. “How am I going to explain this to her? She’ll think it’s some kind of joke. I don’t want to do that to her.”

McCoy is incredibly unsympathetic because he just snorts and says, “Shoulda thought about that before you bonded to a dead Vulcan.”

----

And so Jim finds himself waiting outside of Pike’s office, sat in a chair outside the door and waiting for Pike to finish talking to whoever he’s talking to, probably some instructor from the Academy. He kicks his legs, feeling like a teenager again, like he’s waiting to be told off by his principal back in high school. Not that his old principal wasn’t completely justified in telling him off, if anything she went easy on him. Some point between resorting to rocking back in his chair and when he starts staring at his ceiling, his PADD beeps and he pulls it out of his bag.

Δ Upon further reflection, I wish to discuss with you the implications of us sharing a bond.

Spock’s not near him, he knows that much. If Spock was there he’d be able to feel him, no doubt about it. Although Jim’s uncertain if Spock will get the message if he sends one back on the PADD, it seems rude not to reply so he taps out a quick “whatever you want” just as the doors to Pike’s office slide open. He hastily shoves his PADD back into his bag and stands as Pike shakes the woman’s hand and she leaves his office, her own PADD tucked under her arm. Pike turns to him, looking a mix of unsurprised and unimpressed.

“I can only guess what you’re here for,” he sighs, then turns back around to walk into his office. Jim follows in after him and they both take their respective seats on either side of Pike’s desk. “So, what do you want, cadet?”

“I, uh... this is going to sound really suspicious, but I need the contact information for Spock’s mother,” he says, not making eye contact. Pike doesn’t say anything and after a few moments of awkward silence, Jim is forced to look up at him. Seconds pass while they stare at each other, Pike with his mouth open in disbelief. A minute must pass before Pike shakes his head and breathes out slowly through his nose.

“No,” is all he says.

“But--” Jim starts, but he’s cut off.

“No, Kirk. I’m not putting a poor woman through you talking to her about her ghost son,” Pike says. “I’m not letting you do that to her.”

“Okay,” Jim accepts it, runs a hand through his hair. To be honest, he doesn’t want to be the one who has to do the explaining. “I’m just asking because I need to get a hold of the mind adept from his clan. If I can’t do that, a normal Vulcan mind adept will do. I-- I, um, may have accidentally, wholly accidentally, we absolutely didn’t mean to do it but, yeah, I accidentally got bonded to Spock somehow.”

Pike’s staring at him again. He looks tired, like he wants to go home, like he’s too old for kids these days and their ghost stories.

“Right. Explain to me just how you bonded with a dead Vulcan,” Pike says. He probably wants to pour himself a drink. When people are stressed they usually do. Jim would if he were in Pike’s position, that’s for sure.

“Turns out if you meld with a Vulcan who likes you too many times or for too long then you get bonded,” Jim explains.

“So what would a mind adept do about it?” Pike asks, actually listening.

“Well, they’d dissolve it,” Jim shrugs. “But that means either Spock moves on, like, stops being a katra in this world and moves on to wherever katras go. Or, um... or we could put his katra back in his body. I wasn’t sure if it would work before but it might now that we’re bonded.”

“Of course you can put a ghost back in someone’s body,” Pike sighs, then rubs his hands over his face. He stares at Jim heavily for a few moments. “Spock killed himself, Jim. He did serious damage do the arteries in his wrists. Even if you can get his katra back in his body, it doesn’t change the fact that his body died for a reason.”

“There’s technology, dermal regenerators. We can stitch arteries and skin back together now, get someone’s heart beating again,” Jim tries, but Pike cuts him off by raising a hand.

“And then what? Spock kills himself again?” Pike asks, and Jim grits his teeth to stop himself from saying something. It's the argument that Jim presented before; Pike's evidently been thinking it over. “He didn’t want to be here, that’s why he did it. Even if we could bring him back, Starfleet higher-ups would either stop him from serving on a starship ever in his renewed life, would dismiss him altogether from the ‘Fleet, or they’d subject him to so many psych texts that he’ll probably want to kill somebody else, never mind himself, by the time he’s done with them. Is it really worth it for all that?”

“Yes,” Jim answers, no hesitation. “If Spock wants to be put back in his body then yes, it’s worth it.”

Pike stares at him in shock, his mouth opening and closing a few times. He looks away from Jim, looks at his computer terminal instead. Something seems to come to his mind because Pike starts tapping at the keys, opening pages on the screen. After a few minutes, he rubs at his jaw, staring at the screen and contemplating something before looking over to Jim.

“Sarek’s here in four days for Ambassador business. I’ll send her a comm, invite her to do some lessons,” Pike says. “But it’s your responsibility to seek her out and talk to her, not mine. Don’t associate me with this."

“What about if Spock does want to go back in his body?” Jim asks.

“Amanda still has the rights to the body, it’s more like she’s lending it to Starfleet science. She said we couldn’t do any dissections so we didn’t, no opening him up, no amputations. What she says goes as far as Spock’s body is concerned,” Pike tells him as he taps out the message to Amanda. “Now off with you. I have a meeting in ten minutes that I need to get to.”

“Right,” Jim says as he stands up, waiting for a moment in front of Pike’s desk. “Thanks, Chris.”

That gets the man to look up at him, somewhat shocked. “You’re welcome, Jim. As long as you’re not losing it. Weirder things than ghosts have happened at Starfleet, right?”

“Of course,” Jim grins, and leaves the room.

----

Chapter Text

He closes the door gently behind him, Pike’s tap tap tap on the keyboard getting blocked out in the process. While walking down the corridor he decides to head to the library to pick up some datapads and a couple of old textbooks that had been recommended as extended reading to before returning to his dorm. Jim’s PADD beeps as soon as he steps over the threshold, but he can already guess what it says. He puts his bag and books on the desk and sits down in the chair, spinning to face where he instinctively knows Spock is standing in the middle of the room.

Unsure of how to approach the subject, Jim frowns for a few moments but eventually settles on being blunt and to the point. He leans back in the chair, crosses one leg over the other, and levels a look at where he guesses Spock’s eyes are.

“Your mom’s been invited to visit Starfleet. I’m going to ask her about the mind adept from your clan, which means I’m going to have to tell her about you and... you know, how you’re kind of a ghost,” Jim runs a hand through his hair, can sense Spock’s anxiety through whatever weak bond they have. “I need to know two things. How is she going to act when I tell her? And do you--” he swallows, throat dry “--d’you want to be put back in your body or not?”

He grabs his PADD, resting it on his thigh, waiting for the message to appear on the screen. The reply is long, but it makes sense for it to be.

Δ She will likely be disbelieving until faced with evidence. It would be wise to obtain the footage from the thermal imaging camera and to show her these messages. She will perhaps be irrationally protective of me even in death, but she is a woman of science and will be unable to reject solid proof. If possible, I will send a message detailing an experience that only I would know the details of.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jim answers, spinning from side to side in the chair a little bit anxiously. “She sounds like a great mom. I don’t really talk to mine much, mainly because she’s way off planet and the messages take too long to send back and forth. It’ll be nice to meet her, though she’ll probably think I've lost my mind as soon as I start talking about ghosts.”

Δ You are similar to her in terms of personality. Just as she was stubborn enough to continue romantically pursuing a Vulcan ambassador, you were stubborn enough to continue contacting a ghost.

Jim grins at the PADD. “Do you want to go outside?” he asks on a whim.

Δ I would not object to it.

“Awesome,” Jim replies simply, tucking his PADD under his arm and heading out of the door.

He no longer has any worries about Spock getting lost forever because he’s not connected to anything. Now he’s connected to Jim and, although the bond might not be the smartest thing, he’s determined to make the most of it. It seems like Spock no longer needs to touch his arm to stay grounded so Jim is spared the sensation of being drained of heat as he makes his way out of the Academy building.

The patch of grass they sat on last time near the rose bushes is occupied by a small group of students. Jim heads over to the bench that overlooks the bay instead, preferring the way it's slightly more set apart from the Academy than the grass is anyway. He sits down, looks at the sea, and feels calmer than he was before. When he rests his PADD on his thighs he receives a message from Spock.

Δ You asked me if I wished to be put back in my own body.

There’s no question mark, but it reads like a question anyway, supported by the fact that it hasn't been answered. Jim nods at seemingly nothing. “Do you?” he asks. “I mean, it’s fine if you don’t.”

Δ I believe I do.

Jim lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. “That’s great,” he says, genuinely pleased even though he can practically hear the ‘but’.

Δ However, I am unsure what I would do when alive again.

“You could continue working here as an instructor like you did before. Or you could get an assignment to a starship, or a science vessel,” Jim suggests, shrugging. “You could do anything you want to do, Spock.”

Δ While optimism is a desirable characteristic in a human, realism is more genuinely helpful. Due to the circumstances of my death, I would likely be removed from Starfleet as I am psychologically unsound.

“Or you could go through psych tests, prove you’re okay now,” Jim says because, like Spock had pointed out, he was painfully optimistic. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios. Somehow, there would be a way for Spock to stay in Starfleet if that's what he wanted to do.

Δ Such a situation is rare. Extensive psychiatric tests are both expensive and lengthy. Additionally, I am not certain that I would be able to pass them as I am not ‘okay’, not in terms of being Vulcan. The psychiatric tests that would be conducted on me would judge me in terms of how Vulcan mentality is supposed to work.

“But you’re half human,” Jim objects. “They've got to take that into account too.”

Δ My genetics are predominantly Vulcan. Additionally, because of my human side, it is wise that I adhere to Vulcan mentalities, otherwise my emotional controls may slip again. I doubt that I would be resurrected a second time.

“No, I suppose you wouldn't,” Jim replies because even though it’s probably just Spock attempting to make a joke, really, what else can he say.

They’re silent for a few moments and Jim spends the time looking out across the bay, watching the ripples of the waves off at a distance. He’d heard whales had been kept here once, though they've been extinct for a long time now, a lot of animals are as a result of how brutal humans were with wildlife before the Eugenics Wars, which drove a lot of that activity to a grinding halt until society developed again. They've been better about the conservation of animals and habitats now than they had but that doesn't change the fact that, as a direct result of the actions of the human race, living things as big as whales no longer existed. He would have loved to have seen them, out at sea. Happy.

The PADD beeps, Spock’s message breaking the silence.

Δ I could undergo Kolinahr after being resurrected.

“What’s Kolinahr?” Jim asks, ignorant.

Δ Kolinahr is a Vulcan ritual designed to make an individual’s mind as focused and logical as possible by removing all features that could cause emotional compromise. Shortly, it is a purging of all emotion. An average Vulcan feels and controls, whereas a Vulcan who has undergone Kolinahr is unburdened by their emotions.

“That’s stupid,” Jim frowns. “No, really, that’s the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.”

Δ Jim, the ritual removes the aspect of the mind that Vulcans are most ashamed of. Those who complete the rituals are highly respected due to their inability to become emotionally compromised.

“That doesn't mean it’s not stupid,” Jim answers, feeling a rant building up inside of him. “And extreme. Like, could they not just synthesise some anti-depressants and have you go on your way? That's what they do with humans who have depression on starships. I mean, with Vulcans it might be a pride thing, I don't know.”

Δ Some forms of anti-depressants do exist for Vulcans, though they are only typically used in extreme circumstances, such as the death of a family member or someone with whom an individual is bonded. Additionally, because of my dual genetic heritage, my brain chemistry falls between human and Vulcan and so it is considerably more difficult to synthesise biochemical medication for me.

“Ah,” Jim answers, frowning slightly. “Still, a removal of all emotion seems a bit drastic.”

Δ Having no emotions seems better than having too many emotions, especially negative emotions.

“On Earth, people who can’t feel emotions are typically referred to as psychopaths,” Jim points out, though he regrets saying it almost immediately.

Δ To associate negativity with a personality type is an illogical and outdated notion.

“True, but it doesn't change the fact that if you lack emotion then you lack empathy,” Jim says. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to dampen his own frustration. “I'm not a psychologist so I'm nowhere near qualified to talk about personality types but what I do know as a human being is that emotions are positive. Sometimes they’re hard to control and yeah, maybe some training could help you keep your cool. But purging emotions entirely? That’s stupid. You’ll never experience the--” he holds up his fingers to make air quotation marks “-- 'bad’ emotions, but you’ll never experience the good ones either. They equal each other out.”

Δ Both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotions are capable of causing someone to be emotionally compromised, therefore by Vulcan logic both are deemed to be a hindrance to logical thinking.

“Life isn't about logic. Sometimes life is just about being able to feel,” Jim looks out over the bay, feels the salt water breeze on his face. “It’s not even about happiness, it’s about those emotions you can’t name. Like when you feel the sand between your toes, or a cool breeze, or getting into some place warm after being cold all day. Without emotions those are just sensations, you can't associate anything with them. You feel but you don't feel.”

Spock doesn't reply. Jim considers standing up, grabbing a handful of stones, and throwing them into the bay like the first time they had come out here. Instead, he leans back into the curve of the bench and stares at the sky. After a few minutes of watching clouds it seems like Spock’s not going to reply to what he’s said so Jim starts talking again.

“If you didn't have emotions you wouldn't be able to love people, wouldn't be able to love your mom, wouldn't be able to fall in love with other people and form whatever bond Vulcans form for romantic relationships or loving friendships,” his face feels warm but he pushes the feeling down. “Hell, your dad is an ambassador and even he didn't go through Kolinahr, probably because he loves your mom too much to let that go.”

He pushes himself up from off the bench, bouncing on his toes slightly as he stands and spins to face the bench again. Instinctively, he looks at where Spock is, seeking out something that isn't visibly there.

“If you can’t feel, you can’t really react. Everything unique about you is gone and you’re stripped down to something that isn't happy, that isn't sad, isn't surprised, content, depressed, or in love,” Jim grips the PADD with both hands purely just to anchor them to something. “The world moves without you and you feel empty, separated. It’s lonely.”

The PADD beeps.

Δ You sound as though you’re talking from experience.

Jim winces slightly and makes a drawn out 'ehh' sound. “Kind of. I can’t pretend to know what Kolinahr is like, but I know what it’s like to feel empty,” he answers. It would be easy to tell Spock about Tarsus IV right now, not everything but at least some things, but even after how much Spock has shared with him he feels hesitant. He doesn't want Spock to feel sorry for him like everyone else did. “After what, um... I was on Tarsus IV, so, uh. Yeah.”

Δ Do not feel as though you need to tell me more. I understand that it may be difficult to talk about from what I studied of the events that happened.

“Right, right,” Jim rubs the back of his neck, awkward. “Maybe another time? I mean, a lot of stuff happened. Lots of stuff. We could go back now if you want.”

Δ I am agreeable to returning to the dorm.

“Great,” he tucks his PADD under his arm again and turns on his heel, heading back down the paths towards the Academy dorms. When they pass the rose bushes he has to fight down the urge to pick one of the flowers again, the one from last time having died a couple of days ago. He wishes he had time to join the botany club, just to satisfy his underdeveloped green thumb but alas.

Later that night, when Jim’s in bed and he can’t sleep, he grabs his PADD from the bedside table and turns it on. Then he turns to the room and seeks out Spock before asking a question.

“What do you do when I'm sleeping?” he questions, rolling onto his back and holding the PADD in the air above his face, the faint blue glow of it lighting up the room. “Do you sleep as well?”

Δ I am unable to sleep in this state.

“Do you not get bored? Like, I’d get bored if I had nothing to do for eight hours and then all that time I'm not here,” he says, appalled. “I'm not saying I'm the greatest company in the world and it’s kind of stupid that I've never thought of this before but... what do ghosts even do?”

Δ Float around 2 inches from the ground.

“Nice one, but do you want me to get anything for you? You could watch tv or anime or discovery channel, whatever Vulcans watch, on my PADD if you want. I don’t mind.”

Δ I am a Vulcan, as such I do not experience states such as boredom.

Jim snorts a sound through his nose that could be interpreted as a laugh. “Sure, whatever you say. I know for a fact that humans get bored, so you must be like, what, fifty percent bored?” he opens up an internet browser on his PADD and leans over, placing it on his desk in front of the chair. “Watch Netflix or something. Night, Spock.”

If his PADD beeps it’s too far out of his reach to bother reading it now. He falls asleep, face pressed against the fabric of the pillow, and when he wakes up the next morning he finds Spock’s watched three documentaries and an obscure anime he's never even heard of. Rifling around in his desk drawers, he manages to find an older model PADD (he'd bought it at a charity store as a back-up) and swaps it, placing it where his own had been on the desk.

“Have a nice day, Spock,” Jim says with a grin as he heads out to his class.

----

Amanda Grayson arrives at the Academy. Jim knows when this happens not only because he receives a from a comm call from Pike, but also because he's sent a schedule of optional lectures that she’ll be holding while she’s at the Academy. It’s mostly to do with the universal translator, but some of the classes are about understanding Vulcan culture and she’s a guest speaker at an ethics seminar. Jim circles the ones that he’s interested in, ones that he’d have gone to without needing to speak to her, and plans what he’s going to say to her.

When he goes back to his dorm with the schedule open on his PADD, he makes sure to show it to Spock. Poltergeists apparently aren't always so chatty so he fills Spock in on his plans without any prompting.

“Okay, so for one of these classes you’re going to have to come to it with me. You think you can do that?” he asks.

Δ Based on our previous forays outside of the dorm room I believe I will be able to.

“Good, because for your mom to believe me you’re going to have to do that thing you suggested. Sending a message to my PADD for her to read with information that only you could know.”

Unfortunately, after sending a message to Christine requesting the footage from when they'd filmed Spock, she'd replied that she couldn't get a hold of it. The message was vague but judging from the words 'chemical incident' Jim assumed that the experiment Christine's room mate had needed the camera for in the first place had gone spectacularly wrong.

Δ Understood.

“Cool,” Jim grins. He points to the classes he’s circled on the PADD, which is most of them. “Okay, so these are the ones I want to and am able to attend. Pick one and that’s when we’ll do it.”

Spock has a wide choice for the classes, especially considering he’s got the very first and the very last of the classes that Amanda is teaching circled. If Spock picks the first then they can get it over with as soon as possible, but if he picks the last then Jim doesn't have to feel embarrassed every time he sees Amanda on campus if she rejects what he says. If this doesn't work he really doesn't know how he’d contact a mind adept. He doesn't have ties to Vulcan, nor does he know anyone with ties to Vulcan. He’s lost in a train of thought about alternate options when Spock finally makes a decision.

Δ The first lesson on the universal translator. This way my mother will have a reasonable amount of time to react, be it positively or negatively. I believe the human saying is ‘better sooner than later’.

“I thought it was ‘better late than never’,” Jim says with a shrug. “Either way, sure, we’ll do it then.”

Using the stylus that goes with the PADD instead of his fingers for once in his life, Jim highlights the class. All this planning makes him feel like he’s undergoing some secret mission for some government agency that likely no longer exists. It sends a pang of anxiety straight through to the pit of his stomach.

----

The lecture that Amanda gives is interesting, though he’d expected nothing less from someone like her. He’s unsurprised also to find Uhura there and he sits next to her in one of the middle rows of the auditorium, though - for obvious reasons - they don’t talk much past saying hello to each other. He listens to Amanda speak, takes notes, and tries to ignore the steadily growing feeling of dread he can feel sprouting somewhere between his stomach and his lungs, anxiety lodged in his chest.

It’s strange because he hadn't felt nervous like this when telling Pike, although originally he hadn't planned to tell anyone. Maybe that’s it, maybe it’s because it’s planned that he’s able to have second thoughts about potentially embarrassing himself in front of someone so intelligent. It makes him feel stupid.

Briefly, Jim wonders what Spock is thinking about all of this. He can sense him to his left where there’s a gap between himself and the next person along, Uhura sat to his right. He wonders what Spock is thinking as he listens to his mother give a lecture about something she’s studied for such a long time. He wonders if Spock feels proud, or if he feels sad, if he misses her (of course he misses her), if he would talk to her if he could (of course he would).

After an hour and a half, the lecture finishes and a few students head up to Amanda to ask her some questions about the translator and the technology behind it. Uhura is one of those people, holding a conversation with Amanda while Jim stands slightly away from the group and waits for everyone to leave so he can reduce the amount of embarrassment that he’s going to cause himself.

Eventually everyone leaves, and Amanda turns to him as the last student exits the doors, smiling at him. God, he feels stupid about what he’s about to do.

“This uh, this isn't actually a question about the universal translator,” Jim says, feeling like something is lodged in his throat. He’s pretty sure his voice breaks but Amanda doesn't say anything about it. She just tilts her head slightly, curious.

“Oh? Is it about something else I'm giving a lecture on this week?” she asks.

“No, it’s... it’s about Spock,” he says, hesitant, and for a good reason. As soon as he mentions Spock, Amanda’s eyes harden, narrowing as she stares at him.

She folds her arms over her chest, leans her body weight on one leg. “What about Spock?”

He tries his best to sound sincere because he really doesn't want to make her mad or hurt her or seem so, so insensitive. “This is going to sound so stupid and I'm really sorry if it seems insensitive, and it will, but I swear to god it’s the truth,” he can feel the way his mouth is going to run away from him, the same way it did when he was trying to justify Spock’s existence to Pike. “You don’t know me and I only know you from reputation so I can totally understand if you don’t believe me but please believe me.”

She’s staring at him like she doesn't know whether to be shocked, angry, or amused. Jim’s not sure which he’d prefer, but he knows he doesn't want her to be angry.

Amanda arches an eyebrow at him and straightens a little bit. “Alright, I’ll bite. Go ahead, what is it about Spock?”

“He’s...” he can’t say it. He feels the warmth seep out of his arm, probably Spock’s way of trying to reassure him. He really hadn't expected Amanda to be so intimidating. “He’s haunting my dorm room.”

It comes out as one breath, rushed, and Amanda stares at him like she can’t believe what he’s said. All Jim hopes is that he doesn't get punched in the face. She’s still staring at him, likely too shocked to say anything, and he takes advantage of the moment to pull his PADD out of his bag and open it to the messages from Spock before passing it over to her. She takes it from him, her hands resolutely steady.

“It sounds stupid, I know it does, but weirder things than ghosts have happened at Starfleet, right?” he tries, saying the same thing Pike had said to him. She looks up from the PADD, stares at him for a few moments.

“What am I looking at here?” she asks, her voice betraying some of her disbelief and a little bit of annoyance.

“Messages from Spock to me. We, uh, we talk through the PADD. He can sort of possess it, I guess,” Jim explains, then feels coolness on his arm again and is reminded of the reason that he gave her the PADD in the first place. “Actually he’s standing here--” he points to his right “--and he’s going to send you a message, something that only he could know, because we discussed it and you not believing me was a very real possibility.”

The PADD beeps in Amanda’s hand and she goes from staring at him in disbelief to staring at the PADD in disbelief. Jim watches as her eyes scan over the message, reading the words and taking them in. He won’t read the message. If Spock didn't show it to him in the meld then it’s not something for him to see. It’s between Spock and his mother and Jim is no part of that.

Tears well in her eyes, something that he knew was a possibility but also something that he hadn't expected. Fumbling for a moment, he manages to find a pack of tissues in his pocket and he hands one to her, looking away as she wipes at her eyes.

“So it’s really Spock?” she asks, voice a bit croaky and she crumples the tissue in her hand. She hands the PADD back to Jim, hand shaking the tiniest bit as she does.

Jim nods. “It’s Spock. I swear, it’s definitely Spock.”

She nods back, wiping at her eyes one last time before throwing the tissue into a bin next to the desk. “Why did you tell me?” she asks. “Is it because you wanted me to know or because I have to do something?”

Jim really should have expected her to be smart enough to figure out that he needed something. Well, that Spock needed something. “You know Spock’s clan on Vulcan, right? You were accepted as a part of it?” he asks and she nods in reply. “We need to get in contact with the mind adept for your clan.”

“Why?” Amanda asks, worry in her voice. “Is something wrong? I can’t imagine what could go wrong seeing as he’s already a ghost, but I guess there’s always a possibility.”

“Nothing is wrong,” Jim reassures her, fiddling nervously with the PADD. “Well, not wrong wrong. We need the mind adept for two reasons. First, Spock and I accidentally formed a weak bond through mind melding. Second, we figured out a way we could be able to put Spock’s katra back into his body again.”

“You mean Spock could be brought back to life?” she questions, eyes suddenly widening. Amanda stares intently at Jim as she awaits an answer; for some reason, it makes him a bit nervous.

“With your permission, of course. You and Sarek have the rights to the body seeing as you're his parents,” Jim answers, trying for a small smile.

Amanda looks around for a moment, appearing to be lost in a way before she grabs her comm unit from the desk in the middle of the auditorium stage. “I’ll call Sarek, get him to contact the mind adept,” she says, pressing buttons on the device. “You and me, mister...”

“Kirk. Jim Kirk,” he supplies. Amanda nods.

“Jim. We’re going to discuss my son being a ghost and how that works over some coffee,” she says, holding the communicator in front of her mouth as it connects. “I’ll need the caffeine. Yes, hello, Sarek?”

Jim takes the hint and steps away from her, leaning against the desk at the front of the lecture hall and fiddling with the PADD as she talks to her husband through the communicator. He opens up his messages and adamantly does not look at the message that Spock had sent his mother, instead hitting space and enter with his thumbs in quick succession to clear the message from the screen. He’s curious about it, but he’s not going to read it without Spock’s permission.

Δ J.Kirk: you ok?

He types the message instead of saying it out loud, both not wanting to disrupt Amanda while she’s talking over the comm to Sarek, but also because he doesn't want to talk out loud to Spock with someone nearby because it feels awkward. Also, Amanda might think of him as stranger than he already likely appears to be. Although, Amanda appears to be convinced that Spock’s a ghost, that he’s haunting Jim’s room, and that Jim’s not actually losing his mind so maybe it’s just some thread of self-consciousness that Jim is suffering from instead.

Δ I am fine.

Jim frowns.

Δ J.Kirk: fine has variable meanings.

Δ I recall both myself and my mother saying something similar in the past.

Δ J.Kirk: so are you actually alright or not? seeing your mom and stuff, now that you’re sort of dead.

Δ  I'm  not sure I understand what you’re asking me.

Δ J.Kirk: you know what? never mind. it’s none of my business. Sorry.

It’s really not. Jim closes the window on his PADD and shuts the device off, shoving it into his bag just as Amanda shuts her communicator with a quiet click. She turns to him and gives him a faint smile.

“So, about that coffee.”

----

They go to a coffee shop that’s close to the Academy grounds because Jim knows from personal experience that, although the coffee on campus is caffeine rich, it tastes like mud. It’s not rush hour so they manage to get a four-seat table in a quiet corner of the shop. Jim takes his coffee white with two sugars, Amanda takes hers black with one sugar. When they sit down, Jim pulls his PADD from his bag and places it in the middle of the table in case Spock wants to contribute to the conversation at all.

There are a few awkward moments while they sit opposite each other, both unsure of how to start the conversation and both of their coffees too hot to even try and drink. Amanda starts first.

“So, why don’t you start by explaining how Spock being a ghost works,” she says, curling her fingers around her cup.

Jim nods and makes some vague gestures as he recounts everything relevant, most of it what Uhura had figured out or surmised. He explains how they’d figured out how Spock’s katra was likely trapped in some kind of purgatory because of Spock’s unresolved emotions about either the Academy in general or just his old dorm room. He also explains about how Spock can use the PADD to communicate, how Spock can manipulate certain objects around him but that nothing in his surroundings affects him (though he doesn't mention that he’s the exception to that rule).

When he’s done explaining, Amanda nods in understanding. Thank God she’s following him, because Pike had been a bit lost when he’d tried to explain anything to him. At least she gets it.

“So he can meld with people as well? And for a substantial amount of time considering you both melded with each other long enough and often enough to form a weak bond,” Amanda grins, although she hides the expression well by sipping coffee that’s now cool enough to drink.

“Well,” Jim starts, but he can feel how warm his face is. “We only melded three times but I guess you could say they were long melds. And, uh, emotional ones, if that adds to forming a bond? I don’t know. But, yeah, yeah, Spock can meld with people.”

Amanda just smirks, placing her cup down on the saucer again. “The mind adept will be able to dissolve the bond,” she says, then eyes Jim for a moment. “If that’s what you want.”

“Whatever is best for Spock,” Jim tries to shrug nonchalantly but he can feel his face heating up again with a kind of embarrassment that only parents - your own or somebody else’s, it doesn't matter - can make you feel. “Even if Spock wants to keep the bond, which I doubt he will, won’t the mind adept have to dissolve it anyway in order to put his katra back in his body?”

“It’s a weak bond, so that’s probably the wisest move,” Amanda confirms. “Although people don’t tend to be able to bond with dead Vulcans. They’ll probably take note of it.”

“They... they won’t want to study it will they?” Jim asks.

“They almost definitely will, but they won’t be able to without your permission. Besides, Vulcan bonding isn't an exact science. The initial bond just sort of happens,” she says with a nostalgic smile. “If it was a marriage bond I honestly don’t know what the mind adept would do.”

Jim gives her a small smile, taking a drink from his own coffee. “What did you tell Sarek? I didn't want to eavesdrop.”

“I told him to contact the mind adept. He said that 'on such short notice it would take them approximately a week to arrive',” she tells him, voice changing as she imitates Sarek, a mocking of the monotonous way Vulcans are known to speak. “He’s an ambassador and even though Vulcans say that everyone is equal, they still have a hierarchy. A week is quicker than I would have hoped, quicker than it takes to see other Vulcans who are actually on Vulcan.” She frowns at her coffee. “You know, Spock would have technically been a prince.”

“I've seen what he looks like and I don’t think he’d suit a crown,” he says with a slight smirk. Amanda levels him with a very serious look, then announces:

“He might have suited a cape.”

Jim snorts, unprepared, and struggles to keep coffee inside of his mouth as Amanda muffles her own laughs across the table from him. There’s a beeping sound that Jim thinks is the PADD for a moment, but Amanda fumbles in her pockets for a moment before pulling out her smartphone. Jim hasn't seen one of those in a long time, PADDs and communicators being a more popular combination. She swipes her thumb over the screen and downs the last of her coffee.

“I've got to go, I've got a lecture scheduled in about ten minutes,” she tells him as she stands up, straightening her dress. “I’ll sort out everything with the mind adept, and I'll take care of the whole deal with Spock's body.”

“Okay,” he nods, not quite knowing that else to say.

“I’ll comm you when the adept gets here, she’ll want to see your mind in order to remove the bond, or maybe transfer Spock’s katra to your head and then into his body? I'm not quite sure,” belatedly, she shoves her smartphone back into her pocket. “Anyway. Goodbye, Jim, it’s been a pleasure meeting you even under the current circumstances. Goodbye, Spock, we’ll talk more when we can.”

Then she turns and leaves the coffee shop with a hasty but unhurried stride. Jim leans back in his seat and focuses on drinking his coffee as he stares at the wall behind where Amanda had been sat. The PADD beeps.

Δ I get the distinct feeling that I was being mocked. It would be illogical to wear a cape or a crown, especially with San Francisco’s current weather.

Jim grins so wide his face hurts.

----

Back in the dorm room, Jim’s laying on his bed, browsing the internet on his PADD when he feels the heat seep out of his legs. He looks down at them in the dark and if he squints maybe he can see a faint glow, maybe it’s ambient light from the device in his hands. Either way, he’s pretty sure that Spock is sat on the bed.

“You okay?” he asks, directing the question into the dark but looking back to his PADD and awaiting a response.

Δ Do you wish to have the bond reinstated once I am in my body again? It will have to be dissolved in order to cut the tethers my katra has to anything other than my body. But I would not mind it being reformed if you so wish.

“Why, Mister Spock, are you asking me to date you?” Jim questions.

Δ If that is the human term. I believe we are well suited to each other, both in mind and in the contrasts of our personalities. I find that I do not mind spending time with you.

“That’s nice, like, I'm really flattered, Spock,” Jim says, pushing himself up so he’s sat up straight on the bed. “But, and let’s be oh so Vulcan and logical here, the only person you've really spoken to while in your ghost state, or whatever you want to call it, is me. You've not spoken to anyone else as much as you've spoken to me. Being in close quarters with someone like that, it can build up emotions and make you think things about someone that you might not have thought if you hadn't been in that situation.”

Δ A rejection.  I'm  sorry I asked, I should not have overstepped my boundaries.

“No, Spock,” he reaches out on a limb is surprised when his hand makes contact with something solid, something that he assumes is his wrist. He pushes down Spock’s memories, still in his head, of his suicide and instead squeezes gently, reassuringly, and hopes ghosts can’t feel pain. “That’s not what I meant. I just, I think we should get to know each other again, better, when we’re both in, y'know, physical forms. When I can touch you without feeling like I'm just going to pass through you.”

Δ I understand.

Jim lets go of Spock’s wrist, fingers cold, and grips the PADD with two hands instead of just one. “Good, because I do like you, Spock.”

Δ And I you.

Δ Jim, hold your hand out, forefinger and middle finger pointed outwards, other fingers curled to you palm.

He does as he’s told, forming his fingers into the kind of shape that children use when imitating a gun with their hands. After a few seconds of waiting with his hand outstretched in the gesture he’d been directed to make, he feels two cold fingertips press briefly against his own, smooth down the length of the two pointed fingers, and then retreat. Jim looks up to where Spock is supposedly sat, confused.

Δ What is colloquially referred to as a ‘Vulcan kiss’, a gesture primarily exchanged between two individuals to show affection.

“Smooth, Spock. Real smooth,” Jim says, but he’s smiling. He pulls his hand back, turns his PADD off. The heat seeps back into his legs. “Goodnight, buddy.”

----