Archive of Our Own

Sometimes I wish for falling

Wish for the release

Wish for falling through the air

To give me some relief

Because falling's not the problem

When I'm falling I'm at peace

It's only when I hit the ground

It causes all the grief.

Florence and the Machine

Prologue

This is what he knows.  

He knows how to gentle a horse with his hands, and how to steer a shuttlecraft though an ion storm with his fingertips.  

He knows every intermix formula in Mister Scott's repertoire (plus a few more purely theoretical options he's boned up on, just in case). He knows the sweet spot on deck six where he can hear through the soles of his boots when they've got it just right.  

He knows how to spot the ensign who's about to have a crisis of confidence, and push them just far enough to spark, but not so far the light dies. 

He has learned how to detect when a Tellarite is uncomfortable (the nostrils being the window to the soul in this case) and how to wrap a gift for a Deltan so the recipient can delight in the unwrapping (fur is preferred, silk acceptable).  

He knows three ways to cook Katarian eggs, he knows he doesn't have the patience to meditate and that he'll never understand the concept of a hobby.  

He knows that when you're attacked by a larger opponent the secret is to make yourself small, to use their sense of superiority against them, to trust your body, not your brain. He knows how to take the pain from a well placed blow and bury it away so it becomes a thing apart.  

All this he knows.  

But he doesn't know how he's going to get through this. He doesn't know how to wake another morning to the thud, the punch in the gut, the knowledge that Spock's gone. He doesn't know if he can ever step onto the bridge of a starship again and see that empty spot and command a crew with the better half of him missing.  

He has a lifetime ahead without Spock and he doesn't know how he's going to get through the next week. Hell, he doesn't know how he's going to get through the next five minutes.

-oOo-

He is running. The darkness hunts him. 

Feet pound through wet leaves, arms pump in relentless rhythm. His breathing is harsh in his ears, agony in his chest, so loud the thump of his heart is not sound but vibration. 

As the path grows steeper he thinks he might explode with effort. Yet still he runs, through the dark trees that bend ever closer to the path, through the rain that sheets off his skin in streams that could be tears but are not. Pushing the limits of his endurance, embracing the pain as an old friend. 

Friendship and pain. He hasn't always thought of them as connected. He'd spent so long looking for the subtleties he'd missed the obvious; open is just another word for vulnerable. 

He has reached the ridge where the path turns abruptly sideways into the trees. The pain is almost enough now, it almost outweighs, but the darkness is still closing fast. 

He can't stop, won't stop while he has a choice. 

-oOo-

"You have a choice, Captain."  

The Klingon commander stares from the viewscreen with the complacency of someone who not only holds all the cards, but has bought up the entire casino.

The memory is old now, years old. The second mission. Post V'ger. Those were the years he'd begun to listen to his First officer's flawlessly logical arguments, when he didn't lead every landing party. Even as he gazes calmly at his adversary, inwardly he's cursing Vulcan risk assessments. He should be down there.

"Leave now and we will keep your people hostage. I give you my word as a fellow warrior they will not be harmed. Stay in orbit, persist in your pathetic rescue attempts, and we will still keep our hostages. But we will reduce their numbers. And the means of reduction will not be...pleasant."  

Choices. Decisions. Yes or no. Life or death. Just another day at the office when you command a starship.

Sometimes there's no such thing as the right choice. There's just a choice and a deadline and two and a half stripes on your sleeve.  

Sometimes there's really only one question -- are you in command or aren't you?  

-oOo-

The trees are gone. 

For a moment he is weightless. He is falling. 

There is no fear as he falls. Surprise, yes, but faint and far off. It is someone else's surprise, not his.  

And then there is nothing but earth. Earth in his mouth, his nose, his ears. Planet and soil and nullified electrical charge. He is grounded. 

He welcomes it -- this burial, this smothering and suffocation. He will not fight it. There is comfort in passivity. The hunt is over. 

Why did he ever think he could cheat death? "I don't believe in a no win scenario." He does not recognise the man who said those words. This is the man he is now -- a man drowning in dirt and darkness. 

The stars have gone out.

-oOo-

He'd be the first to admit the plan lacked finesse, but the clock is ticking. A whispered three way conversation with McCoy and Uhura, orders buried among louder panicked phrases, and the wheels are in motion.  

"Time's up, Captain."  

"Okay, Commander. You win." Kirk tries to inject just the right note of wounded pride and  indignation. "We'll leave but if you touch a hair on the heads of my crew..."  

He prides himself he does bluff and bluster pretty well and he keeps it going long enough to make sure McCoy has time to do what is needed.  

It almost doesn't work.  

The Klingon crew are so busy celebrating their victory, rejoicing that they've sent the great Captain James T Kirk scurrying away with his tail between his legs, that they nearly miss it. But fortunately their comms officer is the suspicious type.  

As the Enterpriseprepares to leave orbit, his station intercepts a brief burst of uncoded data direct from the starship’s sickbay to the library computer -- a request for incubation information following the entire crew's recent exposure to the Nagus 5 virus, a nasty little mutation known to be debilitating to humans and fatal to Klingons. Rapid interrogation of the hostages is now inevitable. 

-oOo- 

Time passes. A few minutes. An eternity. He cannot tell. But he is still here to experience it. It sits heavy on his chest, weights his arms, binds his legs. He is a prisoner of time, and of the earth. The earth he can feel on his eyelids, between his teeth, coating his tongue with mud. 

He can feel. 

And suddenly he's furious. The cry rises beneath him, from under the soil. It is too deep seated in him, this need to escape, this refusal to accept defeat. 

The cry is a thing apart, an alien sound of pain too long compressed, of tears not shed. It pushes him, this cry, up and out, from the horizontal to the vertical, exploding from the mud as if he's being born even as he wishes he could die. 

And now there is one star in all that black. A star that wavers -- that blinks and flickers and will not stay constant. A star that grows and glows until it blinds him and he flings up his mud coated fingers to protect his eyes. And he hears a voice say the name of the man he does not remember. 

"Admiral Kirk. Thank God."  

-oOo-

"Warp speed, Mr Sulu." How often had he said those words? But long before Cochrane, in the days when the Enterprise had sails not nacelles, warp had a different meaning. One he's now pondering as they head out on a boomerang course beyond the range of the Klingon sensor array. 

Warp and weft. The warp is the thread stretched over the loom, the weft is the thread that weaves and fills in the holes. He's not sure which of them is warp, which is weft. But he knows Spock is tightly woven into the fabric of his existence. And he's relying on that meshing of minds now to make his plan work.  

-oOo-

 She does not recognise him, although the tracking unit that has traced his path here from the cabin insists the search is over. He is coated head to toe in black. The rain continues to pour down making white streaks through the dirt on his cheeks. At least she thinks it's the rain. 

He is sitting in a sea of soil and broken branches and he offers no resistance as she grasps his mud slicked fingers and tries to take his pulse, to examine him for injuries. She curses her absent medkit still sitting on the seat of the aircar. Is he concussed? He's looking at her as if she's a stranger. 

"Sir, it's me, Chapel." 

"Chapel?" He's frowning. She can't blame him -- it's been years, and a hillside in Idaho is the last place he would expect to run across his former ship’s doctor. She moves the light closer. Eyes focused. Pupils reactive. 

"How's your vision, Admiral? Can you follow my finger?" 

He makes a sudden movement and, before she can stop him, he's up on his feet, blinking through the raindrops, taking in his surroundings. 

"Hang on, sir. You need to let me take a look at you." 

He pulls his arm from her grip. Turns his head away from the light but not before she sees the blood on his face. 

"I'm fine. I can manage." 

His voice is harsh, hoarse perhaps from that shout. She finds it hard to believe the sound she'd heard in the mud came from the man she knew. 

He wasn't far from the trail, but she cannot understand what would possess anyone to venture out at sunset in the worst downpour of the year. Hell of a time to go for a run. The rain had been falling for days, flooding the valley, soaking and softening the hillside until a landslip was almost inevitable. He is lucky to be alive. And yet, as he ignores her plea and sets off towards the lights of the waiting aircar, he seems unhurt. Only James T Kirk could walk away from half a collapsing hillside. 

But then he's lucky, isn't he? To those outside, those who had never served with him, this man had been the luckiest CO in Starfleet. Only his crew knew their captain made his own luck -- that his legendary reputation was built on fierce intelligence and command instincts so sharp his triumphs seemed easily won, even inevitable. But now he's lost everything that ever mattered to him. That's another reason she doesn't recognise him. The man who always wins looks defeated.

-oOo-

The Nagus 5 virus. As he'd hoped, as he'd known really, when the Klingons start talking about the obscure training scenario he and Spock had designed between them, it's enough of a clue for his First Officer. No further communication is needed. And when the guards discover their prized hostages unconscious, the result of a Vulcan nerve pinch in five cases and deep meditation in a sixth, it is predictable they are hastily transferred from the heavily shielded facility to an isolation ward for further investigation. And that gives Mister Scott the window of opportunity he needs.  

-oOo- 

He watches the muddy water pooling on the floor of the shower. He's so tired that even to step from the cubicle seems too much effort, so he continues to stand, the scalding water pounding his skin. How did he get here? The last few hours are a monochrome blur, the days before have fractured into a series of fragmented, poorly linked sequences. 

He remembers their ignominious return. No reception, no fanfare. A seldom used transporter pad in the bowels of Starfleet Command and a march through cleared corridors. A stormygalactic conference swirling above their heads and a stormier galactic controversy raging behind closed doors. 

If Genesis was about creating new life, he thought with the part of his brain still able to appreciate the irony, it had certainly succeeded in one respect; it had reinvigorated some of Starfleet's dinosaurs.

He'd kept his answers short and to the point. Clamped down hard on his anger as admirals who hadn't logged a star hour in decades churned out their smooth 'forgive me for asking' questions. They started by revisiting ancient history in the form of the logs of his first encounter with Khan 16 years and a lifetime ago. Why had he allowed access to the Enterprise's technical manuals before he knew the true identity of his 'guest'?  Why release the man who'd tried to suffocate him and the entire bridge crew to a new life? 

In retrospect it's easy to scoff at his naive determination to approach every new encounter with an optimism his older battle hardened self doesn't recognise. 

But then, the panel reminded him ("Just for the record, Admiral. No-one's suggesting..."), he'd performed little better when he ran into Khan again, at least not at first. Why hadn't he seen the warning signs? Why had he ignored General Order 12 and failed to raise his shields when the mute Reliant approached? 

Why indeed? The same questions haunt him every waking hour of every too long day. But he's paid the price, hasn't he? He faces his punishment in the first seconds of consciousness as each day begins and in the dreams that haunt him when fatigue forces him into grudging sleep. The 'what ifs' sit breathing stale air on his shoulder right next to the 'if onlys'; he barely has to turn his head to inhale regret. 

Of course, the panel weren't really interested in his answers. This wasn't a disciplinary hearing; this was about political point-scoring between command cliques with their own agendas. And even the hardest eyed among them knew how close the Federation had come to losing Genesis to a madman, and gave him credit he felt ill-deserved. 

Worse than the questions were the manly squeezes of his shoulder and the meaningful looks. He hated it. Hated the sympathy from the few he counted as friends, the veiled glances from the many he didn't, and the 'how do you feel' from the bereavement counsellor who was waiting for him outside the debrief and had been sent away with his over-reaction ringing in her ears. 

How did he feel? He'd told McCoy he felt young. But a more accurate word would have been numb. Alone was a good word too. And, when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he thought he looked hunted; he has to resist the tap tap of temptation to look over his shoulder at the darkness he will not name. 

-oOo-

Mister Scott was unequivocal. The newly repaired transporter could only handle five of the six hostages. Take all six and lose all six. Take five and they would survive.  

So, who to leave behind while the coils recharged? How do you weigh one life against another? Remove the emotion and it's an equation -- the life which is more valuable to Starfleet, and to you, versus the odds of survival for the one left behind. If he were a Vulcan he would assign numerical values -- use percentages and probabilities.  

He is not a Vulcan. He is the Captain and he cannot attach a value to friendship -- unless, in this situation, that value is preceded by a minus sign.  

"You made the logical decision, Captain. It is the decision I would have made had I been in your place." His friend's eyes are gentle staring up from biobed, the darker green of bruises already fading under the ministrations of the regenerator.  

But he knows the truth. And he fears that next time he will not be able to bring himself to use the minus sign.  

-oOo-

Morrow, in the same breath as pronouncing time of death on his starship, had promised them all extended shore leave and for once Kirk had decided to take it. He could sense the numbness wearing off and he could not be at Starfleet when that happened. 

He had barely stopped at his apartment to strip off his uniform and pack a small kit bag before heading off to Idaho and his brother Sam's old cabin. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to take McCoy with him. But the doctor seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown. 

He'd tried. On his way to the transporter station, he'd tried to reach out to the one person in the universe who might name that hunting darkness. If ever they had an excuse to demolish a bottle of Romulan ale in an evening this was it. But his friend had poured himself a glass of water and sat in unnerving silence. And when he did speak it was in riddles and in an accent far removed from Georgia -- the voice of a ghost. He can't believe McCoy, a physician to his eponymous bones, intended to tear open such raw wounds. But neither could he stand to be in the same room. 

So alone then. As he was meant to be. This is his default condition. He should never have allowed himself to believe it could be any different, that he'd found friendship to last a lifetime. He'd always known he would die alone. It's about time he realised he is destined to live alone too. 

But he's not alone now. At least he doesn't think he is. Did he imagine it or is Chapel sitting by the fire now waiting for him? Perhaps he's dreaming again. But the dreams don’t usually end in a shower tray full of grit with the water suddenly going cold. 

Reluctantly he waves his hand over the controls and steps out, groping for a towel. There's blood as he blots his face and rubs himself down, but he doesn't bother to investigate where it's coming from. He's suddenly keen to distinguish the blur from reality, to find out if Christine Chapel really is just a few feet away. 

He opens the door just a crack, intending to survey the scene surreptitiously, and sure enough, there she is. She doesn't look comfortable, and it's not just the way she's sitting, on the edge of a lumpy old couch that's seen better days. But then she spots the steam and looks up. 

"Hi. Are you all right in there? I was wondering whether to send in a search team...again." 

He mumbles something and shuts the door firmly. No, he hadn't imagined it, but he wishes he had. He doesn't want company; he doesn't want anyone to see him like this. That was the point of coming here, a thousand miles from Starfleet and counsellors and questions. He'd lay good money she's here as an embodiment of all three. He supposes she thinks he owes her one after pulling him from the mud. But he doesn't need rescuing. He's fine. The sooner she sees that the sooner she'll leave him in peace. 

-oOo- 

The chess game has dragged on much longer than usual. It is well past midnight and each knows they should be telling the other to rest. But, for once, Spock does not produce his disturbingly accurate computations of how few hours his Captain has slept in the past week, and, for once, Kirk does not nag his first officer to retire to his quarters and at least attempt meditation in view of his newly healed injuries. He is enjoying himself too much and he has reason to believe the Vulcan opposite is too, although possibly only someone who knows Spock as well as he does would see the signs.

They are heading towards a stalemate on the board but neither of them has moved a piece in the last ten minutes, and neither seems inclined to point out the futility of continuing since that would bring their evening to an end. Their discussion has already covered the implications of the latest Klingon incursion on Starfleet strategy and deployment in this sector, the wisdom of promotion to lieutenant for Ensign Santisikui after a sterling performance in engineering, and the strange but persistent aroma of onions currently accompanying the synthesised results of every request for ice cream. They've now returned to a subject that is a regular late evening debating point.  

"But that makes no sense, Spock. You seem to be suggesting Surak's philosophy and methods are transformative, that they eradicate emotion."  

"At no point, Captain, did I make such a suggestion. Your extrapolation is in error."  

It is a decision they both made some time early in their friendship. The subject of emotion is one that can only be discussed in the context of Vulcan culture and history. It is unthinkable that this would become personal. Completely unthinkable. Which is, presumably, why he is thinking about it.  

Spock continues. "What I was attempting to explain, apparently without success, is that if Surak's methods are employed correctly and to their full extent, as they can only be by those who undergo the disciplines of Gol, they are so effective that, for practical purposes, the difference between the full control of existing emotions and the complete absence of those emotions is negligible."  

"For practical purposes, Mister Spock?" Kirk can't resist. "Is that an admission that in some situations emotions can have a practical purpose?"  

Spock regards him gravely. "Clearly in your case, Captain, the employment of emotional strategies is among your command tactics. And I observe that, despite your reputation, your employment of said strategies is, on occasion, remarkably scientific. And that you are yourself adept at concealing emotional response."  

And so it goes on. The light in the cabin glows in a protective circle. It is another hour before the stalemate is agreed.  

-oOo-

He's looking at her now. Hair still damp from the shower, hands careful on the steaming mug of coffee she'd coaxed out of the ancient synthesiser in the kitchen. Two hands, she notices. She might be in Emergency Ops now but she hasn't lost her medical observation skills. He's using two hands to stop the shaking. 

He looks oddly smaller out of uniform, sitting in crumpled civvies that have seen better days. He has a split lip and a nasty cut above his eye but he waved away the med kit with a gesture and a glower she recognises from a former life. She'd feel better if she was convinced those were his only injuries, but he's hardly in the mood to agree to a full exam. And, despite the clothes and the cut lip, he still has that...presence, that indefinable aura of command which means she's not about to push it. 

She doesn't like the way he's looking at her. And she doesn't like the silence. Silence was Spock's thing; he wasn't a great one for small talk. But Kirk was always able to turn on the charm, fill in the gaps, make conversation with everyone from the Andorian ambassador to the newest of stammering recruits. He's never without words in her experience. But he has no words now. 

She doesn't know what she was expecting. Pretence perhaps. Clipped phrases, a hard command exterior. She'd seen that often enough when the Enterprise took casualties, even though she'd also eavesdropped on enough conversations with McCoy to know how much every loss hit home. She'd thought she might find him battling the twin demons of grief and guilt, perhaps drowning his sorrows. (God, she needs a drink). But she didn't expect this. Not this...distant silence. 

He seems to be waiting for her to start. But now she's here, facing the man she's come so far to see, she doesn't know what to say. And in the end it is, of course, Kirk who speaks. 

"So, Chapel, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" There's a bitterness behind his words which is entirely new. He's a stranger. 

"Leonard told me where to find you." Among other things. But this doesn't seem the right time to start that conversation. "I waited at the cabin and when you didn't turn up I went looking. The tracker --" 

He interrupts, his voice harsh. "Okay, I'll rephrase. I wasn't asking how you found me. I'm asking why you're here." 

Okay, so this is that Kirk. The one they didn't see very often in Sickbay although she knows the controlled, angry, 'go to hell' Kirk made regular appearances on the bridge and was a familiar figure on landing parties. This is the voice he uses on unreasonable aliens threatening his crew or his ship. So who's he protecting now? She has to remind herself what he's been through, to keep her voice level and gentle. 

"I'm sorry, Admiral. I didn't intend to impose. But when I heard...when I got the news I felt I had to see you. To tell you how sorry I am. You weren't answering your comms and --" 

"So you couldn't send a condolence card? Drop me a line about shared memories. Remind me he was the best first officer in the fleet, and generations of cadets in training will feel his loss." There's something off about the way he's sitting, lounging back in his chair. The body language doesn't match the anger simmering just beneath the surface. "If you're stuck for words I can give you chapter and verse. Just open my comms queue." 

God, this is vicious. She sucks in a breath, furious to find tears prickling behind her eyelids. Swallows them down hard. And is pleased to discover the swallow makes an effective wobble antidote. 

"I can find my own words, sir." She decides to cut the social niceties. The direct approach always worked best with the Kirk she used to know. "You're not the only one who loved him, you know." 

He raises his head sharply at that. 

"Yes, I loved him." 

He's listening now, sitting straighter. His eyes have lost some of that hardness. 

"I knew you had feelings for him," he says. "But that was a long time ago, the first mission. And you left. I'd assumed--" 

She can't quite meet his eyes.  She doesn't like thinking about the old Christine -- on duty nurse, off duty emotional doormat. 

"You assumed it was just a crush. Yes, you and everyone else... And I didn't exactly go out of my way to challenge everyone's assumptions. It was just easier"-- she looks at him then -- "for both of us." 

He sits back, draws a breath. She can't tell what he's thinking. 

"For both of you. You and Spock. You were...?" He pauses, frowning. 

She can't bear to see him search for the word to describe what she and Spock were. She's been searching for it for years and she still hasn't found an answer. 

"Briefly, yes. It didn't last. Either time." 

He raises his eyebrows. "Either time?" She has to suppress a sudden slightly hysterical urge to laugh. He's thinking, recalibrating. "Well, that's... unexpected."  He takes a deep gulp of his coffee. 

She wonders if it's unwelcome too. It must be something of a shock to discover your best friend managed to have a clandestine love affair right under your nose. And there may be something else. Certainly Spock had seemed adamant, to a point way beyond a reasonable demand for privacy, that no-one on board should discover his visits to her cabin, and especially not the Captain. It had felt remarkably like conducting an affair, which was one of the reasons for the 'briefly.' 

"So when...?" he asks. 

He wants details then. This isn't the way she expected this conversation to go. 

"The first time? After his pon farr." She feels uncomfortable talking about this; it feels like a betrayal even now, even though Spock is...God, she can't say it, can't even think the word. "He needed... well, he needed somebody. It wasn't just the Vulcan biology thing, although that played its part. After...what happened...he was a mess. I'm not sure you realised just how much of a mess. And, of course, you were the last person he was going to tell." 

His eyes are dark, remembering. "I guessed as much. I tried to get him to talk about it. But he withdrew. Kept blaming himself no matter how much I tried to tell him I bore no grudge. It was...difficult for a while. But then he seemed to turn a corner." He stops. Looks at her. "That was you?" 

She shrugs. He turns his head back to the fire. "That was you...And I thought I'd charmed him into submission." She sees his lips twist in self-deprecation. It lacks the warmth of the mega watt grins she remembers but it's a relief to see at least an echo of the man she used to know. 

"It didn't last," she says. "We both got what we thought we wanted. And, as it turned out what we both wanted was...short-lived. It was a bit of a watershed moment for me, actually. Made me move on from the whole Roger thing. That's when I started thinking about going back to med school." 

He continues to stare into the flames as if they can answer some of his questions. "And the second time...?" She opens her mouth but he stops her with a raised finger. "No, let me guess. After V'ger, right?" 

She laughs. "Bingo. That lasted slightly longer. We were...together...a couple of months." She thinks back to those bright weeks now as if they happened to someone else. They seem unreal, but then they were unreal as it turned out. "He was a mess then too, although I didn't realise it at first. He'd swung too fast from one extreme to the other, from Gol discipline to post V'ger emotional meltdown. I thought I could help him, show him a balance. But I guess that balance didn't tip in my favour." She knows in whose favour the balance tipped. And she's not bitter. Not anymore anyway. 

There was something inevitable about Spock's choice and it all worked out didn't it? In retrospect transferring off the Enterprise was a career turning point for her. The start of an upward trajectory which had culminated in her promotion to Commander. And she'd assumed it had worked out for the man sitting opposite her too. Looking at him now though, face grim in the firelight, she's not so sure. She still a medic at heart; she can recognise pain when she sees it.  

"Admiral, I'm so sorry. Really I am. But at least you were there. You were with him when he died. That must count for something. He would have wanted --" 

"What the hell do you know about what he wanted?" 

Someone just poured ice water down her back. She appears to have said exactly the wrong thing. The suppressed anger is back. "You think he ever wanted that? Death by radiation burns?" 

She winces and he sees it but he doesn't stop. "You're a doctor, Chapel. You know what radiation does at that intensity. It burns inside and out. You lose vision. Your organs literally cook beneath your skin, your tissues blister and split, inside your throat, your mouth... We can't even begin to imagine the agony." Kirk's voice cracks.   His lips tremble, the tiniest of movements, before he brings himself back under rigid control. "I saw...I read the post mortem report. All of it." 

She can't look at him. She is a coward in the face of such grief and fury. Of course he read the report. He wouldn't spare himself that. 

"And you know what he did while all that was going on?" he continues. "He straightened his godamned uniform and he stood and he walked across to request one last status report. Even then, even at the end, all he could think about was the ship, the 'needs of the many', and me..." 

His eyes are dry and black with memory, his words like punishment. She's not sure which one of them is on the receiving end. It would be easier if he was crying. He should be crying. This dark emptiness is somehow so much worse. 

"...and I couldn't touch him. We were separated. He couldn't even see me at the end. He was blind." 

She stands and crosses the room, not sure what she's doing but it's instinctive, this need to offer comfort. "Jim..." 

He bats away her outstretched hand. "What the hell do you know, Christine? You hadn't seen him in years. And you say you loved him? You didn't know anything about him. How can you love someone you didn't know?" 

The unfairness of it takes her breath away. She knows he's hurting, lashing out, but she's not the right person to deal with this. He needs a friend and she was never that. Where the hell was McCoy? She knows the answer; he's hurting too and absent, absent even when she sat beside him in his San Francisco apartment and tried to have a similar conversation. She'd wanted to tell Kirk, discuss what she'd seen and heard, but that's not going to happen. 

"I can see I've made a mistake. I shouldn't have come," she says quietly. 

He says nothing. Just looks away and closes his eyes. 

"I'll leave you in peace." 

And she turns towards the door. It's pitch black outside, it's still raining and by the time she returns the rented aircar and gets a standby slot in the transporter queue it will be so late it will actually be early. But she doesn't have to put up with this. This isn't what she came for.  As she picks up her bag and looks for her med kit, she takes one more look at the hunched figure in the chair, eyes closed, and something jars. He's still, too still. His hand clenched on the arm of the chair is white; his fingers even whiter. And the fingernails...

"Admiral." Her voice is sharp. He doesn't move. "Jim, can you hear me?" A few strides and she's across the room -- just in time because he's slumping from his chair and she has to catch him before he hits the floor. 

-oOo-

He's back in the Genesis cave. The smell of growing things, life in all its abundance, as far as he can see. The air is warm and quiet, the grass damp beneath his boots. He knows instinctively he doesn't have to wear the mantle of command, can relax and let his guard down. But he is not alone. There is a figure below him, tricorder raised, scanning the vegetation. A familiar figure. The joy rises in a wave so powerful that for a moment he cannot speak, can only whisper.  

"Spock..." Then the whisper turns into a shout. "Spock!"  

The figure turns, raises a hand in greeting. He's wearing blue -- back in the uniform of their first mission. Kirk doesn't question it. It seems right.  

He cannot remember why he is so pleased to see his first officer. Only knows he must reach him.  He begins to scramble down the steep hillside, heart pounding.  

"Spock -- stay there. Don't move."  

The figure is saying something but he can't quite make it out; he has to get closer.  

"Hang on a minute. I'll be right there." He can't wait to tell him. "I've had the most godawful dream..." He can already imagine his friend's reaction.  

"Indeed, Captain. That must have been disconcerting. I am fortunate. Vulcans rarely dream." And Spock will raise his eyebrow, and give that small tick of the lips he's learned over the years to recognise as both smile and affection.  

His boots slip and slide through the greenery. He can still see Spock's lips moving but his voice is drowned out by the rising noise of the waterfall and he still can't make out the words. The figure seems as far away as ever. Relief turns to frustration, frustration sinks towards dread.  

"Spock, I can't hear you."  

He has so much he needs to say, so many things he meant to say.  I never told you. Do you realise how much I..? How much you...? The sentences are tumbling over in his head, scrambling his thoughts, pushing him down and down.  

Then suddenly he's there, on the valley floor, the noise of the waterfall muffled by the wall of vegetation growing ever higher around them. The Vulcan has his back to him and he reaches to touch his shoulder. "Spock. God I've missed you, old friend." But his fingers miss their target, hit something smooth and cool and transparent. He draws his hand back, then pounds his palm against the barrier, shouting but his voice makes no sound. And when the figure in blue turns it's not Spock.  

"I have been and always shall be your friend."  

The face is achingly familiar, but the voice and eyes are not Spock's and for a moment he hates with an intensity he can taste. He spits the words. "McCoy -- what the hell?"  

And then, as it always does, the glass shatters.  

-oOo-

She curses the tricorder. It's part of the emergency ops field kit and doesn't have the finesse of the medical version she's used to. She's hit the emergency call button on her communicator. Medics are on their way. Now she has Kirk in the recovery position and she's scanning, looking for the internal injury she'd feared earlier. Why the hell had she chickened out of doing a full scan when they first got back to the cabin? She can hear McCoy's voice in her ear. "You'll never make a doctor unless you're prepared to stand up to your patients, no matter how many stripes they got shining on their sleeve. Never met a CO yet who'll volunteer to hop on a biobed." 

Her patient is very pale, his blood sugar's as low as she's ever seen a reading and stress hormones are at the top of the scale. But she's not detecting any internal bleeding in the abdomen or cranium. Trusting her hands and instincts more than technology she lifts his shirt and sucks in a breath. The bruising runs from shoulder to hip, the cuts are red raw and angry -- and it's only getting started. He's going to be all colours of the rainbow in a few hours. No wonder he'd kept her at arm's length -- if she'd seen this she would have insisted on treatment and painkillers and she knows he hates both. 

Even as she scans again he's stirring. He starts to groan then bites it back. This is familiar territory for them both. She's lost track of the number of times she's seen him regain consciousness in sickbay.  Lying on the floor on cushions she'd hastily grabbed from the couch, he suddenly looks much younger than his years. His eyes are still closed and his lips move. She knows the name he's saying even though he makes no sound. 

But then his eyes open. As they start to clear and focus, she can see his face change. The years and the pain are back. She wonders if, from now on, this will always be his first thought on waking. What the hell can she say confronted by this...dark despair? 

"Twice in one evening, Admiral. We must stop meeting like this." Something completely inappropriate apparently. Where did that come from? 

But, surprisingly, it works. It offers him an out. And he actually smiles. 

"This angle on your profile is starting to seem pretty familiar." He makes an attempt to sit up. "Sorry, about that. Just feeling little dizzy. If I can only get --" 

She puts a restraining hand on this shoulder. "Lie still, sir. Medics are on their way." 

"You called medics?" The smile is erased as if it never existed. "What the hell, Chapel? Call them off now." 

"Sir, you've been injured. There could some internal bleeding I'm not picking up here, and I don't like the look of some of these readings --" 

"That's an order, Chapel. Call them off or so help me--" He's back in command mode. She recognises the steeliness that's sent better crew than her scurrying to act without question. But she hasn't spent the last 18 months in Emergency Ops without growing a backbone. And she hasn't forgotten her earlier mistake. 

"You're not my commanding officer, sir. And you are not in a position to give orders." 

He's furious. She can see it in the glare and in the muscles working in his jaw. But he's not about to give up. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again his tone is eminently reasonable. 

"Look, Chapel, I appreciate you're only trying to help. But you just said it -- you're not picking up any internal bleeding. I'll lay bets your readings are showing a few bumps and bruises and the fact that I may have forgotten to have lunch." 

She raises an eyebrow and he purses his lips. "Okay," he says, "So I may have forgotten to have breakfast too." 

She waves the tricorder. He holds his hands up in surrender. "All right -- to be honest, I don't remember eating much since planetfall. But there's nothing wrong with me that a decent meal and a good night's sleep won't solve." He's turning on the legendary charm that up to now has been conspicuous by its absence. But there's something else. He's almost pleading. "Look you're a doctor. If you're worried then stick around, stay the night and keep an eye on me. I promise I won't run off. Just call off the medics." 

She hesitates. His colour's back and the readings on the tricorder are far less alarming than they were a few minutes ago, but the stress levels are climbing again and she wouldn't be much of a diagnostician if she couldn't see why. 

"Chris, please. I can't face..."  He swallows and turns away. 

The first name and the admission of weakness does it. Cursing herself for being a grade one softie she stands up and moves away. 

"Okay. Just give me a minute." 

She turns her back, pulls out her communicator and dials up dispatch. But she's too late. She can hear the medivac landing outside, and so can he. 

"Chris..." He's warning her now and starting to pull himself to his feet; he looks ready to run. She shushes him with her hand and heads out the door. 

It doesn't take long to persuade the crew she's made a mistake. It takes a little longer to convince them that, despite that, she still needs to borrow their medical tricorder, a high end regenerator and some supplies. But in the end the Emergency Ops ID works its usual magic and grudgingly they hand over what she needs and depart muttering about wasted journeys. 

When she comes back he's disappeared and, for a moment, she's convinced he's escaped through the back door. But she finds him in the bedroom sitting on the edge of the bed, barefoot and grimacing. He looks up and the relief at seeing her alone is palpable. 

"Have they gone?" 

"They've gone. But I'm going to hold you to your word, Admiral. First things first, you're going to eat something and then you're going to take some meds and let me treat those bruises." 

He waves his hand wearily. "Whatever you say, Doctor. And for god's sake, call me Jim." He looks up and she detects a reassuring glimmer of the old spark. "Apparently command ranks don't mean much around here anyway." 

He's attempting to swing his legs round onto the bed but it's a struggle. 

"Here, let me give you a hand." She lifts his legs and starts to unbutton his shirt.

"Why, Christine. I didn't know you cared." It's a weak attempt but at least he's trying. He stops her hand with his. "I thought you wanted me to eat something." 

She realises he doesn't know she's already seen what's under the buttons. 

"Fine, I'll get you some food. But don't think you can escape that easily. When I come back I want you out of that shirt and taking your meds like a good boy." 

"OK, Doc. You've got a deal." 

He waggles his eyebrows and she laughs in spite of herself. 

But, of course, when she comes back, plate in hand, he's already flat out and fast asleep, shirt firmly buttoned and hand flung over his eyes palm upwards to protect them from the light. Even in sleep he is defending himself.

-oOo-

There are hundreds of regulations on a starship, thousands of them in the Service, along with General Orders, protocols, directives and guidelines. Even Spock cannot count exactly how many because he is not always party to the redrafting, addenda and appendices which arrive thickly woven into Kirk's comms queue on an almost daily basis.

Despite his reputation as a maverick, the Enterprise's Captain sticks to the spirit if not the letter of most of the rules and regulations most of the time. His First Officer adheres rigidly to the rules 98.4 per cent of the time. The missing percentage is the focus of much Vulcan soul searching. They are both uncomfortably aware that when the other is in danger they each have a tendency to interpret the rules governing safety and behaviour of the command crew somewhat flexibly.

It is a recurring problem.

"May I remind you, Captain, that your participation in the landing party was not required, and that you exposed yourself to unnecessary risk when --"

"And may I remind you, Mister Spock that had I remained on the bridge it is likely you and Lieutenant Fernandez would still be trapped in the Si'uleth energy field."

"I had calculated the energy resonance some 45 seconds before you re-appeared, Captain. It was only a matter of recalibrating the bandwidth on the tricorder and I am 97 per cent certain that --"

"Well, in my view it was a lot more efficient to...persuade Her Excellency that it was not in her interest to continue the Si'uleth alliance and switch the whole thing off at source."

"Captain, while the efficacy of your 'persuasive' methods is not in dispute, I would submit that the deception exposed you to unwarranted danger from multiple sources, and that as your First Officer it is my duty to ensure the ship's captain..."

And so on.

-oOo-

For a moment he doesn't know where he is.  And for a blissful interval of several seconds he can't remember who he is either, or why a part of him is missing.

But, when the truth dawns with the light through his eyelids, it's gentler this time. A slow seep of sorrow that aches in his throat, rather than stabs at his gut.

Something is different.

Oh god, he's slept. He's actually slept.

The air smells alive, the room is quiet, and he is not alone.

Christine Chapel sleeps untidily on the other side of the room. One arm emerges sprawling from a pile of blankets and cushions on the floor.  The other is crooked, elbow up, across her eyes. The tricorder has fallen sideways on the rug beside her. She's been as good as her word; she has watched him through the night. He, on the other hand, completely failed to live up to his end of the bargain. And then left the woman, who was only trying to help him, to sleep on the floor.

He should wake her and persuade her to move to the bed. But he can't face a conversation right now. The rain has stopped at last. He has a sudden urge to walk on wet grass, to hear birdsong. And he's ravenous.

He picks up his muddy boots from outside the shower where he'd kicked them off the night before and steps silently into the next room. On the kitchen counter is a large pile of what appear to be peanut butter sandwiches and a scribbled note in large letters: 'We had a deal. Eat.'

He smiles. And, glory be, in the fridge is a quart of cold milk. Somehow she's sourced non-synthesised milk and brought it to Idaho. Feeling even more guilty about leaving his Good Samaritan on the floor, he grabs the plate and a full glass and heads out onto the porch.

Sandwiches have never tasted so good. Feeling all of about five years old, he demolishes almost the entire plateful in minutes, and drains the milk in a few gulps. As he stands stiffly to brush off the crumbs, he can feel his shirt sticking to the dried blood on his skin, the bruises protesting, and he knows he should go back inside. He did make a deal after all.

But the deal is already broken, the woods are still calling him, and the early summer sun is warm on his face. With the last sandwich clutched in his hand, he steps off the porch and heads up the hill.

-oOo-

There were two suns on Fortuna. Two suns and no moon. But at night the asteroid belt hung close enough to produce its own reflected illumination, a shimmering pale pink rainbow of light that arched from hill to horizon.

It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. Low risk, mundane, and his least favourite part of the job. He's a soldier not a diplomat, at least that's how he prefers to think of himself. Unfortunately Starfleet has noticed his track record of pulling irons out of fires and these endless bargaining sessions are beginning to take up a disproportionate amount of his time and of the Enterprise's mission logs.

Despite exhaustive computer searches, almost entirely originating from the science station, there was no apparent reason for him not to lead the mediation on Fortuna, no detectable danger to the ship's commanding officer that would provoke yet another wearisome discussion about the wisdom of leaving the bridge, and not even a hint that his First officer should accompany him.

It was late when they concluded negotiations. He can still remember the quiet satisfaction of a job well done -- a deal which had taken all his reserves of empathy, charm and what McCoy calls sheer sneakiness. But the end justified the means. The factions had been warring for three long-lived generations. Now they had a workable treaty and an equitable division of both mineral wealth and habitable land. The glow from the sky seemed to give even the superficial diplomatic niceties an added warmth; rose-tinted glasses were lifted in solemn sealing of accord.

Later he had time to reflect on how often the ugliest landing party experiences started on the most beautiful planets. To wonder, in an idle moment, if he should ask Spock to do the math.

But there was no time then. There was barely a beat between the familiar lurch of rematerialisation  and the agony of the weapon which froze him as he stood. And, even as he fought to master the white pain that spiked through every nerve ending, he could see the stone hewed cell bore little resemblance to the council courtyard he thought he'd left behind.

But, as the rebel leader stepped forward from behind the console that had hijacked his pattern, he did have time for the fleeting thought that Spock would be furious.

-oOo-

The air is sharp as peppermint at the back of his throat. In space you soon stop noticing that every recycled breath tastes faintly of plastic and ozone. You forget you're inhaling a chemical compromise, the perfect balance of oxygen, nitrogen and trace gases designed to produce optimal performance from a disproportionately  human crew.

This air, washed clean by the rain, tastes alive; it even feels alive as it washes over him, runs cool fingers through his hair. Such a simple thing to feel a breeze. As he reaches the top of the small hill overlooking the cabin Kirk gasps it by the lungful.

Yes. This is what he came for. This clean reality. He has to let it cut through, to reach deep. He has to find a way to think in the quiet space beyond a grief that swamps and an anger that burns through his defences to the flood.

At least the anger is familiar, and the fact that the anger is self-directed even more so. He's used to harnessing anger, turning it to his advantage. But paired with this ache, this alien sapping grief, he has no idea how to deal with the familiar. He is consumed.

The quiet space recedes, always out of reach.

Because always he sees that text from the post-mortem report, read once and remembered forever; the shapes are burned deep into his synapses in letters and numbers. The numbers are the worst.

Now he's breathing in shuddering gasps. He finds he has to put a hand out to steady himself on the nearest tree.

It would be so easy to sob. But he won't allow himself that. The darkness waits and watches. A sob, even one sob, would be enough for it to move forward, to restart its pursuit.

There is a sound behind him. And he knows without turning who it is. He straightens his shoulders.

"Your tracking skills are impressive, Doctor," he says to the empty air in front of him.

"Not really, sir." And he does turn then and finds he has to smile. Behind her his path up the hill, footsteps through wet grass, is as clear as navigation lights.

"I guess I wouldn't make much of a fugitive. I'd better learn how to cover my tracks if I want solitude."

She looks different under Terran sunlight, out of uniform, and gazing up at him, assessing him with what he suspects is a medical eye. But she's uncomfortable; he can tell she's got the 'keep away from me' message and he's suddenly ashamed of himself.

"You're not the only one who loved him." That's what she'd said. Since when did he have the monopoly on grief? And where does he get off thinking he knew his First officer so well? There were whole areas of Spock's life he apparently did not want to share, even with his best friend.

"Listen, I'm sorry about last night," he says. "I don't know what came over me. And I'm sorry you ended up on the floor. You should have kicked me onto the couch."

"You looked like you'd been kicked about enough for one night." She squints into the sun behind him. "And I've slept in worse places."

He believes her. Emergency Ops is no posting for those who like their home comforts.

"Thank you for the sandwiches."

She nods. "That was only the first part of the deal, Admiral."

She steps up beside him and, for the first time, he notices she's carrying that damned tricorder. And a medkit.

"Oh damnit, Chapel." But he doesn't have the energy to fight this battle again. How can he explain that he does not care about the physical pain of a few scrapes, that he welcomes it even. Physical pain is something he learned to deal with a long time ago. It is both distraction and yes, perhaps in this case, penance.

"If the officer won't come to sickbay, then sickbay must go to the officer. That's something Leonard taught me a long time ago. Sit down, sir. This won't take long."

He waves his hand in surrender and sinks down, his back against the trunk of the oak tree he'd been using to support himself.

"Shirt off, please." She keeps her eyes on her tricorder readings and, with a sigh, he unbuttons the front of his shirt.  But he won't take it off; he rebels at that.

She doesn't push. Apparently satisfied with her readings, she puts the tricorder down on the grass, produces the sterilight from the med kit and gently runs it over the exposed skin.

"You've managed to get dirt deep into these cuts," she says disapprovingly. "If I had you in sickbay I'd debride some of these areas.'

"If you had me in sickbay I'd be unconscious, Doctor Chapel. Because that's the only way you'd get me in there with a few grazes. I had worse falling off my bike when I was 12."

"I doubt that, sir. This time you fell off a cliff. Or had you forgotten? Lean forward, please."

Another sigh and he obeys. She lifts the fabric and, although she's gentle, he stiffens slightly as the material sticks to the cuts beneath. She stops, reaches down to the med kit and then begins to soak the shirt with warm liquid.

"So what were you doing out there in the middle of the night, if you don't mind me asking?"

He can feel himself bristle. "Not that it's any of your business, but I went out for a run. I wasn't expecting visitors." That came out sharper then he'd intended. He tries to lighten his tone."I thought you medics would approve. Bones is always on at me to get more exercise."

Her hands are careful as she lifts the loosened shirt and examines his back. "I doubt he'd have advised jogging up flooded hillsides in the dark. Sorry, this will feel a little cold."

She's spreading on some gel now with gentle, practised fingers. Kirk suddenly can't remember the last time anyone touched him, the last time he allowed it. His reaction is a shock but she doesn't seem to notice, just continues. "By the way, did you ever notice our friend the doctor is a whole lot better at offering advice on the subject of exercise than actually taking any himself? How often have you actually seen him at the gym?"

He laughs in spite of himself. "Well, now you come to mention it -- "

"And he eats like a bird. I know for a fact he relies on supplements to keep his blood tests within Starfleet parameters. Even though he was the one that set the guidelines in the first place. I'll leave you some of this to use later." She wipes her fingers, pulls out the regenerator and starts to work on his chest.

He finds himself missing the soothing touch of her fingers. He'd begun to relax. The hum of the regenerator is warm vibration against his skin. He closes his eyes for a moment, leans his head back against the bark.

"Well, he seems to thrive on the McCoy diet," he says. "I can't remember the last time he fell ill. Maybe he makes up the missing calories in liquor."

There's a pause in the hum and he opens his eyes. She's frowning. "Well, that's the odd thing. When I saw him in San Francisco he wasn't drinking."

He lifts his head. "That is odd. He was on water when I saw him too. Maybe it's something to do with the pills they put him on after --" He stops. Of course, she doesn't know about what happened as they headed into spacedock. "After we came back."

She raises her eyebrows, but he doesn't want to go into detail. "He had a bit of an...episode on board ship. Broke into Spock's cabin. Then couldn't remember anything about it. I asked the psych team to have a look at him." They'd tried to have a look at Kirk too, but he'd seen right through their oh-so-subtle questions. His reaction had been anything but subtle.

She resumes the hum. "Can you turn a bit and lift your arm? An episode, eh? That might explain--" She stops, concentrating on the sticky gash that runs down his side.

"Explain what? That's really itchy by the way."

"Good, that means it's healing. I should have treated this last night. You might have a scar here. To add to your collection."

He shrugs and leans back again. "You were saying..."

She's thoughtful. "He was really funny with me, Jim. Not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar, damned peculiar. He said things, he knew things--" She stops again. "I can't reach. Will you just take off the damned shirt?"

He hesitates. It's not the half naked thing. She's seen him stripped off before in sickbay although, thank god, he was usually unconscious at the time. It's the vulnerability thing. And he's not a pretty sight if his memory of last night's shower is accurate.

Oh what the hell. He starts to pull his arms from the sleeves. She has to help him. And, judging by the way she takes a sharp intake of breath, his memory was spot on. But she doesn't comment, just pulls out the gel again and starts to work it into his shoulders. He has to admit the stuff works.

"So what did McCoy say that was so peculiar?"

"It wasn't just what he said, it was the way he said it. He held my arm -- too tight. I've never thought of him as particularly strong. He talked...about me. Actually he talked about 'us'. There was never an 'us', Jim. And his voice... he didn't sound like him, if you know what I mean."

He does know. He remembers. "Lost his southern gentleman charm, had he?"

"Lost his southern gentleman accent too. And he knew things, things I've never told him. He reminded me of --" She's behind him, he can't see her face, but suddenly he doesn't want to hear her say the name. He interrupts.

"--well, we should cut him some slack. He's been through a hell of a lot."

Hell is a good word for what he saw when the sickbay doors opened. The memory is fixed and bloody like that handprint on his uniform.

"I heard it was bad. I wish I could have been there. But he's been through battles before. That first mission--"

"Not like this."

His voice is sharp. She pauses for a moment then continues, and although she doesn't say anything he can feel the question in her fingers on his skin. It's suddenly important for her to understand.

"They were just kids, Chris, on their first training cruise. They drew lots to get on board. Everyone wanted the Enterprise, of course they did. They thought they'd won the lottery."

He hasn't talked about this to anyone. Hasn't allowed himself to think about those glowing faces on that first inspection.

He forces himself to continue. "It was supposed to be a quick jaunt around the backyard to give them their spacelegs, get them to inhale some stardust. They'd never seen combat. Hell, most of them had never seen a Constitution class starship before, not up close."

He watches as his fingernails bite deep into the palm of his hand. It's as if as fast as she removes his pain he has to reinstate it.

"We took a lot of casualties in that first strike. Engineering was hit worst. We didn't have enough biobeds. Bones had to treat them on the floor. Burns, smoke inhalation. We weren't battle ready, didn't have a full team of medics. He couldn't treat them fast enough." He has to stop then. He doesn't trust his voice.

Eleven of them had died, five would never return to active service, because of him. Because he'd made a mistake a first year cadet could have seen coming. When they died he hadn't even known their names.

He knows them now, could recite them in his sleep. Names, ages, grades and aspirations. He knows the names of their families too. That was one job he'd made sure was done before he'd fled Starfleet.

He moves impatiently. "Are you nearly done, doctor?" There's a shadow in the corner of his vision. A dark shadow.

"Nearly. Hold still."  The hum of the regenerator deepens. Her voice is careful. "He was a madman, Jim. You couldn't have known." She touches his arm with warm fingers. "And if you hadn't stopped him he'd be a madman with power that doesn't bear thinking about. None of us would be here."

He stiffens. The information on Genesis is classified. "I wasn't aware that was in the press release, doctor."

"It wasn't. But I have a day job, Admiral. Emergency Ops, remember? I only patch up Starfleet officers in my spare time now. There..." She hands him his shirt. "All done. Well, as done as I can do without access to the proper equipment. You should get checked out with the med techs when you get back to Starfleet but I suppose I'm wasting my breath."

He needs to move. He stands up abruptly and shrugs on the damp shirt.

"Thank you. You haven't lost your touch." The sun has gone behind a cloud. He shivers and she sees it.

"I've got some reports to write up," she says. "Doesn't really matter where I do it. Do you mind if I stick around for a few hours? Thought I might cook something. You can't live on sandwiches."

He shrugs. Not sure how he feels about company, but he can hardly tell her to leave now. "Help yourself but don't go to any trouble on my account. And I wouldn't trust that synthesiser. It was old when Sam and I were young. There are pans, chopping boards," he waves vaguely back in the direction of the cabin. "I'm just going to... I think I'll walk for a while."

He thinks she says something as he sets off down the hill, away from the cabin, away from words. He doesn't hear what she says. And when he looks back to the crest of the hill she's already gone.

-oOo-

Spock was furious.

The fury would not be detectable by anyone but Kirk. But he could see it even through the static on the flickering screen. Could see the violence barely suppressed beneath the stillness of his stance, hear it in the harsh undertone of his voice. His first officer, usually so full of grace and poise, lost fluidity when he lost his temper, became stiff and uber-Vulcan.

But Matthias, the leader of the rebel splinter group, the man who now pulled his head up by the hair, was blissfully unaware he'd stirred a Vulcan hornets' nest. He seemed oblivious that producing the Enterprise's blood-stained and immobilised captain for further torture in sight of the bridge crew was not going to improve his chances of either living long or prospering.  But, as he blustered on about his plans for an unsullied genetically pure homeland, as he gave his ultimatum, he looked down and, for a moment, his voice faltered. He could not understand why the captain of the Enterprise would smile at him with such pity.

-oOo-

She's always found something soothing about chopping vegetables.

Of course she could have ordered them ready chopped from the synthesiser but, in her experience, hand chopped unevenness beats computer precision any day of the week.

And she could have ordered the soup ready made but giving her hands something to do allows her mind space to think.

She's not quite sure why she's still here. Her offer to stay was unplanned, the result of mouth in gear before brain engaged. He's made it clear he doesn't want company. But something in her rebels at the thought of leaving him alone.

She's no touch telepath, but Spock taught her a thing or two about picking up emotional vibrations. And she's still struggling to understand the abrupt shift in her perspective on the man she thought she knew after years under his command.

She's seen Kirk in extremis before. But she's never seen him like this. His moods are mercurial, swinging from fury to sorrow in a sentence, from authoritarian to defenceless in seconds. He's...unbalanced. Yes, that's the word. He's lost something that kept him anchored. So what does it say about her that she finds herself strangely drawn to this newly vulnerable Kirk as she never had been on board ship?

There's a noise, a series of musical beeps she can't place. At first she thinks it's coming from the ancient range she's managed to coax into life and which is now doing a half-hearted job of simmering her soup. She looks down and around. Has she managed to set some sort of timer?  But then she realises it's not coming from the kitchen.

She pushes open the door to the lounge. More beeps. It doesn't sound like any sort of Starfleet device and it's not her communicator. It's coming from the corner of the lounge where there is a patchwork cloth covering a table under a lamp.

Puzzled, she crosses the room. The beeping is louder here. And she realises the table isn't a table at all. It's a chest -- a wooden chest under the cloth -- and the noise is coming from inside.

-oOo-

Yet another awakening in Sickbay. The low thrum of the biobed, the faint whiff of chemical cleanser, and something else. A tang of spiced tea, a hint of warm metal. Spock is here, beside him. He decides he won't open his eyes. Not yet. Not for a few more minutes.

The doors swish open.

"Spock, you still here? I thought you'd be needed on the bridge by now."

"Mister Sulu is perfectly capable of plotting a course to Starbase 5 without my assistance, Doctor."

"I'm sure he is. You might want to be careful, though, Spock. All this hanging around Sickbay. It's doing nothing for your reputation."

"I fail to see how my reputation may be impaired because I choose to ascertain the medical condition of this ship's Captain."

"Well, Spock, seems to me you've been ascertainin' on the hour every hour for the last day and a half. Guess that'll be the Vulcan pedant in you, checking and rechecking my data."

"Indeed. Although I notice that your shift ended some four point three hours ago and yet you seem reluctant to return to your quarters."

"I got plenty to do here, Spock. You made sure of that. Paperwork's a bitch. Somehow I've got to explain to Starfleet exactly how Matthias and his cronies got those particular injuries before they came over all sweetness and light and 'we surrender'. Most of 'em were bleeding from their ears by the time the security team reached them."

"I am sure you will think of something, Doctor."

"So what exactly is an infra-whatsit acoustic beam anyway?"

"Such a weapon is a theoretical construct only. And may I remind you, Doctor, that even that information is classified."

-oOo-

The tree is still there, canted at an impossible angle across the stream, still alive and growing despite the exposed roots torn up by that storm more than three decades ago. His feet have brought them here as he knew they would, although he could not have given directions to save his life.

It was a day like today that he and Sam had found the tree, the air renewed by hours of rain, the rocks slippery beneath their boots. They were so young, but they didn't feel it. Even then they needed a place to escape.

The tree became a place they visited often, a place to talk, to sit, legs dangling in the cooling water when the summer sun scorched and the cabin air suffocated.

Sam Kirk had bought the cabin on a whim with the credits he'd inherited from their great-uncle and he'd never bothered to install an air conditioner. The cabin was an escape from modern life and, according to Sam, that included forgoing modern comforts. Jim Kirk approved. It was one of the reasons he loved to visit. He loved the wilderness, the chance to switch off, to hike and climb.

But the visits had grown fewer as their lives had fallen further apart. Academy life and study swallowed him whole, first his brain, then his social life. Within three months of plebes' week he'd been fast tracked for command. And George Samuel Kirk lost himself in a world of scientific research, two degrees, a doctorate, and a series of short lived attachments to various research laboratories.

Sam never went too far though. Because somehow, amid all that academic pressure, he had managed to sustain a life beyond academia.

He and Aurelan had met at a lecture on their first day on campus and they'd been inseparable ever since. Kirk envied their ease, the teasing, their ability to finish each other's sentences, even as he accepted he would never have that for himself. There was no room for long term romance on the bridge of a starship, and he knew the bridge was where he belonged, where he could finally find what he was looking for.

The last time they'd visited the cabin together the brothers were both glowing with suppressed news. News neither of them felt like sharing until they got to the tree.

"You're going to be an uncle, Jimmy. Aurelan's pregnant. We're having a baby."

"I got the Farragut, Sam. Under Garrovick. They made me a lieutenant."

It was the first time they'd hugged since they were kids. And, of course, to cover their embarrassment they'd ended up pushing each other into the water.

They'd seen each other only briefly after that, twice in San Francisco, once at Earth research station II where a brief supply stop meant he'd finally had a chance to spend some time with his nephew Peter, a freckled five year old with a solemn expression, his mother's eyes, and his uncle's obsession with the stars. Aurelan was pregnant with twins and he'd marvelled at her calm serenity.

The two brothers had finally married the same month of the same year. Sam and Aurelan tied the knot in a simple ceremony on a brief furlough home with their three boys, a week after Kirk pledged his troth to the Enterprise. The youngest captain in Starfleet's history was not about to plead a family commitment when the date came through for taking command.  He wasn't at the wedding.

After that they'd drifted even further apart. Neither had much use for stilted conversations over sub space channels; both spent too long writing reports to have the energy for personal mail.

The twins were among the first victims of the epidemic on Rigel IV, a virus which attacked the youngest humans first and which his brother's team conquered just in time to save his remaining family and half a million colonists. Kirk was half a quadrant away and the sub space static and delay made that conversation even more painful. It was the last time they spoke although they'd sent increasingly infrequent messages.

The last time he saw Sam was on Deneva. 

Later Kirk wondered whether it was the new moustache that made it so hard to reconcile the image of his dead brother with his memories, as if Sam had donned a disguise.

Aurelan died in his sickbay, from the same parasites that had killed her husband. Spock almost died too. But Peter survived.

He'd begged to be allowed to stay with his uncle. But Starfleet doesn't allow twelve-year olds on a frontline starship. Kirk sent him back to Earth to live with Aurelan's sister.

He'd buried the grief and his closest family and told himself he'd moved on; he'd listened to himself long enough that he almost believed it.

It must be more than a quarter of a century since he sat on this tree.

And still the tree grows, a solid leafy bridge across the water. He supposes it has re-rooted itself in the bank, found a way to continue against the odds. Twisted, unbalanced, forced away from the vertical and its inbuilt search for sky, it still somehow survives.

If Sam were here he's sure one of them would have been crass enough to point out the analogy.

-oOo-

The starship is buried in blue silk.

It's a woman's scarf, iridescent as a humming bird, and the toy is wrapped tenderly in its folds, beeping and chiming away merrily. There are more toys around and underneath the scarf, a stuffed rabbit, some unidentifiable bits of plastic and a holo-game, but they're all lying quietly behaving themselves. It's the starship that's lit up and demanding attention and, as she lifts it up to examine it, she can see it's a replica of the Enterprise NX-01, a tribute to a craft decommissioned more than a hundred years ago. She remembers seeing something similar on sale at the Starfleet gift shop.

She puzzling over the toy looking for an off switch when she realises a shadow has fallen across the room.

"It's under the starboard nacelle," he says from behind her.

"Oh." She's not sure why she's reacting as if she's been caught stealing the family silver, but her heart is suddenly thumping in her throat. "I didn't hear you come in."

He's looking at her, standing barefoot, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Here." He takes the toy from her and presses his finger to the switch. "It's powered by kinetic energy. I guess it absorbed the vibration of us walking around and fired up."

The toy looks tiny in his hand as he turns it around and holds it up to the light.

"Is it yours?" she asks.

"No, it was my nephew's. I gave it to him for his fifth birthday. Peter must have brought it here when they came back on leave." His voice is thoughtful. "I didn't know he'd kept it all this time."

He looks around at the other toys scattered on the rug. He seems lost somehow, but less wound up than he'd been when he left her up on the hill.

"I made soup. Would you like some?"

He doesn't seem to hear her. He's still gazing down at the toys and, as he kneels to pick them up, he spots the scarf.

"I gave this to Aurelan. It was an attempt at an apology." He brings it up to his face, then wrinkles his nose. "Smells musty. I'm not sure she ever wore it. Not sure she ever accepted the apology either. I don't blame her. I was always missing those family get togethers. Something always seemed to come up."

He seems a long way away. She's at a loss; she's not sure how long this mood will last. So she does what mother hens have done for generations. She gets the soup.

They eat in silence. Beyond a murmured, "Thank you, this is good," Kirk says nothing. He seems as distant as he was when she arrived, although with a good deal less tension in the set of his shoulders. He accepts a second portion and empties his bowl. She counts that a victory. And he insists on washing up -- the cabin doesn't run to recycled crockery. So she goes off to make a few calls.

When she returns he's sitting on the rug, his back against the couch, the tiny starship perched on one knee. He doesn't look up.

"So where's Peter now?" It's an attempt to bring him back into the room, and it half succeeds. At least he replies, although his focus isn't on her.

"Last I heard he was assigned to the research labs on the Feynman."

He balances the ship on the tip of his finger. It's perfectly engineered so the centre of gravity matches the centre point of its mass. "I promised him I'd keep in touch. I haven't. I can't remember the last time we spoke."

Then he does look at her. "I'm never there, you know. Never where I'm supposed to be. Absentee uncle, absentee father -- did you hear I have a son?"

Of course she'd heard. You don't keep news like that quiet in the Fleet.

"David, isn't it? It must be quite something to meet him at last."

"Yeah, quite something." He pushes the toy around so it swivels on his fingertip. "I don't think he was that impressed though. First thing he did when he saw me was come at me with a knife." He sees her reaction. "Can you blame him? He'd just seen his entire research team tortured to death." The ship wobbles and drops onto the rug. He looks away. "I got there too late to stop that too. I told you, I'm never there when I'm needed."

"Apart from when you're there just in time to save us all from a psychopath with a device that destroys planets you mean. Or doesn't that count?"

"I wasn't there when Sam died. I wasn't there when..."

He stops. His gaze is bleak.

"When..." she prompts gently.

"Never mind. Sorry, Chris. You've got better things to do than listen to me wallowing in self-pity." He rests his forehead on his hands.

She sits beside him. "You know, it's actually more comfortable down here than it is on the couch."

He doesn't reply. She bumps his knee with hers. "I don't suppose you have anything to drink, do you? I could kill for something medicinal right now."

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes then lifts his head. "Sam always used to keep liquor in that cupboard by the fire. But I doubt it's been restocked. The couple that look after this place only give it the occasional clean."

But she's already crawled over and opened the door. "Oh ye of little faith." There's Scotch, a bottle of Tequila and something unidentifiable that looks as if it may predate the restocking. "What's your poison?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Well, I do and I'm a doctor, remember? Glasses?"

"Other side." He seems oddly passive as she grabs a cloth from the table and wipes the dust from two tumblers.

"Scotch, I think. Although this is a blend. Mister Scott wouldn't approve." She's aware her voice is too bright but she can't seem to stop herself filling the gaps as she fills the glasses and presses one into his hand. "I'm a Highland Park girl myself. But blended scotch beats tequila any day of the week in my humble opinion. Cheers."

He lifts his glass in mirrored salute and takes a small sip, then a bigger one. Purses his lips.

"I think I like your prescription, Doctor."

"Rarely fails, in my experience. And I got my experience with the best doctor in the fleet."

He gives a small smile.  Then takes a deep breath and another swallow.

"I need to go back. I can't just leave Bones like that. He's in trouble. I don't know what I was thinking. And the others -- Uhura, Sulu, Chekov -- we're all supposed to be getting together. I promised...I told them I'd find out what was happening." He frowns. "I just couldn't face another conversation with Morrow right then...went storming off."

"And when you do go back, what do you think will happen? To the Enterprise?" To you? is what she doesn't say.

He leans his head back against the couch cushions. "They're decommissioning her, Chris. There's nothing I can say that will make a difference. All those years I dreamed of getting her back. Three days with me in charge and she's broken beyond economic repair.And you know the weirdest thing?"

"No, what?"

"I don't really care. It doesn't seem to matter any more." He drains his glass and holds it out for a refill.

She can't seem to hold the bottle straight; it clinks as she pours. "Jim, it's all right to grieve. You know better than anyone. You've given the talk enough times. And he was your best friend."

"Yes. He was. My best friend. He saved my life more times than I can remember. Saved all our lives in the end."

He takes a deep swallow.

"So...what?" What is he fighting? Why won't he just --

His face hardens. She's seen that look before. James Kirk just made a decision. He puts the glass down on the floor beside him.

"Okay. So you want to know what I did to my best friend? At the end...at the moment when he needed me most?"

The room seems suddenly much smaller than it did five minutes ago.

"Jim --"

"I ran out on him."

This makes no sense. "But you didn't. You were there. There was nothing you could do. And I know he couldn't see you but he knew you were there."

He turns to her then and what she sees in his eyes is chilling. But not as chilling as what she hears in his voice, calm and empty and as emotionless as any Vulcan. "But you see I wasn't. I wasn't there when he died, Chris. I walked away and left him."  And she does see. Sees with a sudden dreadful clarity.

He read the post mortem report.

-oOo-

Kirk doesn't like psychologists. But in more than thirty years with Starfleet he's had more opportunity than most to come to terms with neuroses -- his own and other people's. And he knows you need more than a well developed sense of empathy to understand the human mind. So, as a means to an end, he has studied psychology -- sifted out the useful, discarded the superfluous.

Psychologists will tell you that the memories of trauma are not stored in the same way as your day to day experiences. Within hours, usually overnight, the mundane memories and the non-traumatic events of the day are sifted, catalogued and stored in an orderly fashion in your memory's rear filing cabinet where they can be retrieved if necessary, and will likely fade to gentle sepia or invisibility depending on whether the file contains yesterday's breakfast or your first kiss.

Traumatic memory though will remain uncatalogued and chaotic in the frontal lobe. So when someone tells you that it feels as if their crash/amputation/loss of closest friend happened yesterday they aren't being poetic. It genuinely feels as if it happened yesterday. And, for the most traumatic experiences, that can be true even twenty years later.

This happened yesterday.

"I have never taken the Kobyashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?"

A joke. With a punch line. The line of the punch is directly into his solar plexus. He's forgotten everything he ever learned about burying pain. It robs him of the breath to speak. Seven words is all he manages; one of those is his friend's name. His friend who, even as he burns to ashes from the inside, delivers poetry and a farewell. His friend, who reveals a deeper understanding of emotion than anyone standing, or in his case falling, on the other side of the glass. Spock knows his next words will be his last.

"I have been and always shall be..."

"Live long and..."

Then the psychological theory breaks down. Because after that he doesn't remember anything much.

And this is a problem. Because Starfleet demands a record of events in engineering that evening, the evening when the fleet lost a legendary officer and came within a few seconds of losing its flagship and nearly three hundred of its brightest cadets. It requires a record because Starfleet requires meticulous records of everything occurring on a starship and events leading up to the death of Captain (temporarily acting First Officer) Spock must be scrutinised by at least three separate branches of the Service with oversight, and the log, as a matter of courtesy, must be sent to the Vulcan Science Academy.

Bones, Scotty, Sulu -- all of them offer to write what must be written. But James Kirk writes his own ship's logs, even this log; even if it is delayed by several days and even if he must supplement a failing memory with the ship's timecoded recordings and other documents.

This log, however, is briefer than his usual entries since the accompanying chronology contains the most relevant information.

2127 First officer Spock observed entering radiation flooded mains compartment (Commander Scott's log attached, appendix B)

2128-30 First Officer observed making essential repairs to intermix core of warp drive (see detail attached, engineering, appendix C)

2130 Warp drive restored. Activated from bridge (see detail attached, helm, appendix F)

2138 Admiral Kirk enters engineering. First officer observed in conversation with Admiral Kirk. First officer requests status update. Remaining conversation of a personal nature.

2140 First officer lapses into unconsciousness.

2142 Commander Scott initiates radiation decontamination procedures (engineering, ibid)

2156 Admiral Kirk appears unwell. Ship's doctor McCoy and Commander Scott assist Admiral from engineering.

0127 Decontamination complete. Ship's medical team remove First officer Spock from compartment.

0316 Post mortem examination completed. (Medical log attached, appendix D) Time of death established as approximately 2300.

-oOo-

The darkness has caught him at last.

He can stop running. It had always felt wrong to be running. Not his usual modus operandi.

He is out on the porch, leaning on the wooden rail and staring at the hill ahead. He had to move. He couldn't stay in that room.

She comes up beside him and he looks sideways at her expecting...what? Judgment, pity, shock?

But she is thoughtful. Her eyes are warm.

She reaches out and it is the most natural thing in the world to lean in, to be held, just for a moment. He is suddenly very tired.

Her voice is quiet. "You know what he would say, don't you?"

"Something about it not being logical."

She nods. "Yes, and he'd point out that Vulcan metabolism is, of course, far superior to human frailty.  We saw evidence of that in sickbay countless times. But he'd said his goodbyes, Jim. You told me."

"I felt him go. At least I thought I did. We'd melded so often -- I've always been able to sense...and then, he just wasn't there. But I should have stayed. What if he was still aware, deep down? I should have known."

She doesn't argue and he's grateful. She just squeezes his shoulder and it almost undoes him.

He draws a long, shuddering breath and steps forward and away so he can stand straight against the rail.

"He told me not to grieve. Easy for him to say." He curls his fingers around the warm wood.  "You know, I always thought I'd go first, given Vulcan life expectancy. I'd always felt a bit smug about that -- that he'd be the one left behind. That I wouldn't have to face this. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"No. But for what it's worth I think it would have been even harder for him than it is for you. If you had gone first. Despite his best efforts, you did come pretty close a couple of times."

That brings him up short. But he knows she's right. Spock would have struggled to cope with this level of grief. For all his facade of control, for all his shielding, he was more in touch with his emotions than just about anyone else he knew. He had to be.

He bows his head over the rail, arms outstretched.

"I had to do a eulogy you know?  When we...when..." No, he doesn't want to revisit that memory. His spine aches in sympathy with remembered rigidity.

He swallows hard and clears his throat. "I can't really remember what I said but I think I insulted him. Something about his soul being human. I know what I meant -- but it wasn't really -- it was uniquely him, uniquely Spock."

He's not sure why he's able to talk about this now, to her. It's been years since they served together, a lifetime since a meeting in sickbay and "don't you think you'd better check with me first?", since V'ger and "this simple feeling." She was there.

And she doesn't flinch, she doesn't fill the space with empty platitudes, and she doesn't pity. Sometimes it's not the time that's gone, it's the trust that remains.

"I can't believe he's gone," she says. "It doesn't feel real to me. I suppose because I wasn't there. I can still pretend he's just away on another mission."

He nods. But he’s done with pretending. He stares out at the lengthening shadows beneath the trees.

"I never told him, Chris. That's the hardest thing... that's what I keep coming back to. I never told him how I felt. What his friendship meant to me. All those years on board ship, all those away missions, then, back here, long evenings in San Francisco -- it's not as if I didn't have the chance. But I've always been a coward about that stuff." 

And how could he say it? How could he tell Spock what he was to him? More than the brother he never saw, more than the son he never fought to see, more than the lover he denied himself to stay married to his ship.

He gives a short humourless laugh. "McCoy loved giving him a hard time, all that teasing about Vulcan stoicism, and he never noticed. It was me...it was me burying my feelings."

Her voice is gentle but firm. "I think you're being a bit hard on yourself, Jim. It's not that complicated. He loved you, you loved him. We all knew it. He knew it too. Some things don't need words.  He made that clear when he chose you a long time ago."

Choices, decisions, life and death. He sees it now. They come round more often when you're a starship captain, but that doesn't make you special. Everyone faces the same dilemmas. Vulnerable is just another word for open.

"What will you do now?" she asks.

"I'll go back to San Francisco. Meet up with the others. And then...I think I'll go to Vulcan. I owe Amanda that much. She'll want to know what happened."

But he won't go now, not right now. He'll take a lungful of Idaho air and then another. He'll find that quiet space beyond the grief, behind the anger, and then he thinks he'll sit there for a while.

The sun is going down behind the cabin, throwing a distorted shadow of the roofline forward onto the grass. The hillside is turning from moss green to deep pink.

It will be dark soon. And dark is fine. Darkmeans you can see the stars.

FIN