No Dawn, No Day

by xiaq

Summary:

“I will not apologize for speaking the truth,” the child says. “However, I regret if that truth has offended you.”

“Jesus Christ, kid,” Jim mutters.

“I am not offended,” Spock responds, as blandly as he is able. “I was remiss in casting such hasty judgment upon your guardian.”

”Father,” she corrects.

”Your father,” he agrees.

*****

An academy AU + Tarsus aftermath fic in which James T. Kirk ends up accidentally parentally bonded to an orphaned Vulcan child. When the father/daughter duo enroll in Star Fleet, hijinks ensue (mostly at the expense of Spock’s previously immaculate but quickly deteriorating self-control).

A Philon 2025 Nominee

Chapter 1

Summary:

For clarity: Jim is 15/16 years old in the flashback chapters (odd numbers) and 21 years old in the present-day chapters (even numbers). Spock is 23 years old in the present-day chapters.

Tarsus IV 

Research Station 8

Stardate 100160.4

 

It was a last ditch effort.

Then again, everything Jim tried at that point was a last ditch effort.

The Tarsus 4 central colony had twelve satellite research stations that were accessible only via four wheel drive, and only during favorable conditions. For the last two weeks, Jim had been canvasing them in the hopes that maybe one had been remote enough, inaccessible enough, that it was missed during Kodos’ raids. That something, anything, would be left for him to find.

He’d searched the first seven outposts with little to show for his efforts aside from a growing desperation that gnawed worse than the hunger in his gut.

The first two stations were empty save the corpses of their prior occupants and the detritus left by Kodos’ army. The third produced seeds that wouldn’t germinate; the fourth a wasteland of mostly-burned agricultural samples.The fifth was so blanketed in one of the nastier mutations of the fungus that he didn’t dare enter the gates at all. The sixth had water left in the neglected hydroponics system, but water wasn’t what they desperately needed. 

They needed food.

A still-working deep space broadcasting satellite at the seventh station delayed Jim’s journey. He spent too long siphoning gas from a mired, sun-bleached tractor to fill the empty tank of the generator. He sat in the dark of the communication bunker, hunched over the microphone, eyes desperate on the holo-screen’s readings. He repeated a distress message to a void that didn’t answer until he had no voice left.

Objectively, he knew the ion field surrounding the planet was too dense for signals to permeate except for rare occasions. But he’d thought, maybe, if he just tried once more, just once more, he’d hoped––

He should have known by then not to hope.

After too many fruitless attempts, he coded a final message to repeat every ten minutes on the deepest subspace frequency he could find. He filled the generator’s tank to overflowing, knowing it wouldn’t be enough for more than a few days. He cried, fogging his helmet with humid tears, as he set out for the next station.

And then, he arrived at the eighth.

He’d visited the eighth station almost two years before when the top performing students from each high school class had been offered the opportunity to spend a month doing actual agricultural science.

 The Vulcan couple manning the station, mated scientists with a young daughter, were hybridizing drought-resistant strains of plants by splicing them with similar desert-dwelling Vulcan species. The time Jim spent assisting with their research, and attempting to elicit an emotional response from their bemused, stoic child, had been, and still was, the highlight of his tenure on Tarsus.

When he arrived this time, the station was half-covered in sand. The solar panels were broken. The wind and sun screens torn down. The once prolific garden, barren and spotted with fungi-blooming decaying plants, was half-submerged in an encroaching sand dune in the absence of its destroyed bio-shields. 

Jim circled the compound twice on his quad bike, noting the two poorly-constructed graves in the center of the garden. The tilled earth over the mounds of the graves was dry and cracked in the heat. Weeks, then, since they’d been created. Possibly even months.

But Kodos’ execution squad did not bury bodies.

He parked the bike under the porch and slid inside the front door that hung only by the top hinge–– a knife in one hand and a phaser in the other. The house was empty, hallways slowly filling with sand through broken windows, wind whistling through the ransacked kitchen where, years before, Jim had laughingly tried to teach the little girl––T’Mara––to dance.

Two graves. Two adult-sized graves.

His suspicions were confirmed when he found the child in a listing meditation pose against the far wall of her parents’ bedroom. 

She was too thin but too thin was about the best anyone could hope for at that point. Especially considering the two shallow graves in the ravaged garden outside.

At first, Jim thought T’Mara might be recently dead herself, but then, as he watched from the doorway, her chest moved with a slow inhale. 

Jim crept closer. For a Human, the cadence of breaths would indicate dire straits. But Jim knew that Vulcans were capable of entering a form of mediation that slowed all their bodily functions, including respiration. If he were a starving Vulcan, that’s what he would do.

“Hey,” Jim said, tucking the knife into his boot as he knelt beside her.

The kid’s eyes opened. Her chapped mouth parted, but she made no sound. Her tongue moved to wet her lips, but it was equally dry. Her eyes were dark and sunken and frightened in a way that Vulcan eyes shouldn’t be.

Jim almost stood again to leave. He didn’t want to watch another kid die.

Except the girl raised her hand, less feeble than he might have expected, and extended two fingers.

He’d seen her parents caress each other's hands–– soft, domestic, touches that were incongruous with their emotionless facial expressions, but he’d also been told in no uncertain terms that he should never touch a Vulcan, not even a handshake, lest he offend.

Then again, this was the end of the world, and the kid was asking.

Jim extended his own hand and the girl’s fingers slid, inelegant, along the line of his palm.

I am incapable of speech due to dehydration.

Jim jerked back when the words coalesced, quiet but firm, in his mind. He knew that Vulcans were touch-telepaths but the reality of it was jarring.

She blinked at him, arm beginning to waver, and he moved forward again, taking her hand.

I apologize for the invasion, I have no other method of communication.

“No, it’s fine. Just surprised me. Are you—how long have you been without water?”

Eight days.

“Jesus. How long can you go?”

A Vulcan in optimum health can survive two weeks without water. I am not in optimum health.

No kidding.

Her hand felt too light in his. Like paper-mache. Like a hollow-boned bird. She met his eyes and despite the difference in their species and age and all the space and time of their lived experiences, Jim felt a terrible understanding settle between them.

When Jim was 12, a sophomore in high school and bored out of his mind despite the “advanced” classes in which he was enrolled, he’d convinced one of his exhausted teachers to nominate him for a Fleet preparatory course. The emergency field medicine module included a triage simulation that was explicitly advertised as suitable only for ages sixteen-and-up. But between his test scores and cocksure attitude, no one stopped him from taking it.

In the simulation, Jim led an away team who had beamed aboard a badly damaged ship. He was meant to triage the survivors and tag them: green for minor injuries, red for severe injuries that needed immediate attention, and black for injuries that would mean certain death. The red tags would receive treatment first, the greens second, and the blacks not at all.

The first time he took the test, he failed. Because Jim refused to tag anyone as black. Not when they met his eyes. Not when they pleaded. Not when they were children.

But part of the simulation was watching the results of his actions. In spreading his medical team’s resources too thin, he condemned several people to death. People who might have survived if they’d received attention that went to those he should have black-tagged as inevitable fatalities. He watched them all die—the inevitable fatalities as well as the people that he could have saved if he’d performed his duty with rational thought rather than emotional impulse.

The second time he took the test, he didn’t look at the patients’ faces or speak to them. He assessed them. Tagged them by the book. And received a perfect score. Afterward, he raided his step-father’s liquor cabinet for the first time.

But he’d learned the lesson he was meant to. You don’t waste resources on people who won’t live. Not if treating them will steal a chance at life from someone more likely to survive.

“How long do you have?” Jim asked T’Mara bluntly.

Perhaps two or three days. Shame colored the tone of the words in Jim’s head. I cannot be more accurate at this time.

“Are you—“ he paused. He knew Vulcans, even Vulcan children, were meant to be the height of logic, and to all appearances she was, but she was also just a kid. She couldn’t be more than six Terran years old.

He asked anyway. “By your internal assessment, would it be a waste of resources for me to provide you aid?”

She closed her eyes, too slow to be a blink, before opening them again.

Yes.

Her expression was almost human in its despair. 

Despite this, the words in his head were measured: My motor and neurological functions are already severely impacted. Water would improve my condition but without food I will succumb to system failure within a week.

That’s about what Jim suspected.

It was not logical to remain alive after rationing failed and with no method of transport. But I cannot—I am not…brave enough. To do what should be done.

“Your parents are dead?”

Her hand spasmed in his. Yes. Two months and four days, now. 

And then, Jim was on his knees, his eyes sightless, head heavy to bursting with a wash of memories that weren’t his own but felt as if they were. 

Dying plants that should not be dying and––

Shriveled leaves and white-spotted stems and bulbous, sweet-rot smelling growths. Red-blooming petri dishes. Slides beneath bright microscope lights that his parents murmur quietly over and––

A hydroponics system failure. Urgent communications to the primary colony that go unanswered. He has never seen his parents so worried and––

A distress call from station seven—screaming and phaser fire before the radio goes static. His parents, grim, leaking helpless anger as they pack rations and water into empty biohazard containers, placing Jim—no, not Jim—these aren’t his memories, they just feel like they are, and he thought that Vulcans didn’t feel at all but they must, they do, because he is terrified as he’s placed in a container and given a knife and told not to emerge, no matter what he hears, until he is certain he is safe. His parents touch his face. Angerloveanguishfearlove. They leave him.

He can see nothing but darkness; he hears the rumbling diesel engines of a convoy, shouting and phaser fire, broken glass, slammed cabinet doors. He smells blood and smoke. 

And then, the engines. 

And then, silence.

He finds his parents dead. Their home ransacked. Their research burned. The only thing Kodos’ squad didn’t touch was the waste storage facility where his parents hid him. He has a month of water and rations. Two if he goes hungry.

He goes hungry. 

Days of hypervigilance and fear that the guards will return slowly transforms to fear that no one will return, that he will die there, alone. 

Out of food. Out of water.

He considers suicide. He enters a deep meditation instead. His senses are blunted. The hunger and thirst are only distant aches. It will hurt less, this way, when the end comes.

And then…his own face, looking back at him.

Jim fell back into reality and the cognitive dissonance of his own hands, his own heartbeat in his chest, was so jarring he had to do nothing but breathe for several seconds, steadying himself.

I apologize. T’Mara told him. Emotional transference is a byproduct of memory transmissions and I am not skilled. I have not yet had training.

Jim realized, belatedly, he was crying. He smeared the tears with the back of his free wrist. 

“There’s no food here?” Jim asked. He knew the answer. He’s seen it in T’Mara’s memory. But he had to ask.

No, she confirmed.

“Your name is T’Mara, right?”

Yes.

“Do you remember me? I’m Jim.”

Will you kill me, Jim? she asked.

He considered it.

No one would know. He wouldn’t have to tell the kids when he returned to them. He didn’t tell them about most of the things he had to do.

It would likely be kinder.

It would certainly be easier.

But he didn’t.

Even with the raw memory of the simulation in the back of his mind––the helpless rage he’d felt as he watched people die because he couldn’t apply the damn black tag––he couldn’t lift his phaser and fire it. He couldn’t do the simple, reasonable thing. Not when T’Mara was so small and the warmth of her thoughts were leaving chemtrails across his consciousness.

Instead, he unslung his canteen and held it to her mouth until he was certain she could hold it steady herself. He searched the station, just to be sure, but found it just as barren as T’Mara’s memories indicated. He lifted her, too easily considering his own weakened state, and carried her to the bike.

And instead of leaving with food, he left Station Eight with another mouth to feed.

 

Chapter 2

Earth 

Fort Baker, California

 Star Date 105074.9

“So the rumors are true.”

Spock turns fifty-two degrees left to view his former Captain, Christopher Pike, who has come to stand beside him at his work bench. Spock straightens from the microscope and the slide that had previously engaged his attention.

“As I am uncertain regarding the content of the rumors, I can neither confirm nor deny them,” Spock says.

Pike grins at him. “I’ve missed you.”

"I am…gratified to hear it.”

Pike is attractive by Human standards: well-muscled, fair-haired, and with an ebullient manner that endeared him to most of the beings they encountered in space. He is the prototypical extrovert. Despite initial reservations, Spock found the past year spent under Pike’s command pleasing. While regret was unbecoming, Spock will admit, at least privately, that he has also ‘missed’ the man’s company since their parting at the space dock three weeks and two days prior.

Pike hitches his hip against the counter, crossing his arms, and surveys the line of Petri dishes––the greens and yellows and reds––spread across Spock’s workbench. 

“Archer told me you’ve accepted a year-long teaching and research stint here rather than heading back to the black as the Farragut’s chief science officer.”

 “If that is the rumor to which you refer, then yes,” Spock agrees. “You are correct. I would not be permitted access to this laboratory without instructor credentials.”

“Are you waiting on the Enterprise?” Pike asks. “Is that your end goal? Because I can’t promise you a position seeing as she’s not officially mine yet, but if she is and it’s within my power, I’ll give it to you next year.”

Spock is, as his human mother might say, “banking” on that.

“I ascertained that my current research would be better continued at the facilities here,” Spock demures. “As my parents are currently on-planet, and unlikely to be so in the future, it was logical to accept the teaching position for a short duration for both professional and personal purposes. The fact that my contract will end shortly before the Enterprise's maiden voyage is merely a coincidence.”

"I’m sure.” Pike is still smiling at him. Spock had noted, during their time in space, that when they were not engaged in combat, Pike spent 73% of his time, on average, smiling. Spock had wondered, more than once, if the man’s facial muscles ever grew tired.

"So, speaking of teaching,” Pike continues. “The reason I was talking to Archer—there’s an incoming Vulcan student who I’ll probably put in your Introduction to Scientific Ethics class, if you’re alright with it. She’s a special case, which is why I ask.”

The information is surprising, though Spock does not permit his reaction to show.

"I was not aware of any Vulcans in the incoming class. Surely, my father would have conveyed to me the presence of a cadet on the transport ship with him when he made the journey from Vulcan last week.”

Subsequent transport will not occur for twenty-three days, which will be after term begins.

"They didn’t come from Vulcan,” Pike explains. “They came from Georgia.”

Spock finds himself in an usual position: uncertain how he should respond. While Vulcans living on Earth aren’t unheard of, his circumstances being an apt example, the practice is not common. And when Vulcans did take up Earth residences, they tended to congregate in Fleet hub cities for research purposes. Georgia was not such a locale.

“They?” he repeats faintly.

“The student and her father, who is also enrolled. He’s tested out of nearly all the first-year classes, though. So he’ll be functionally a second-year.”

"How old is the child?”

"Twelve by our calendar, and she already possesses two Terran undergraduate degrees. She and her father applied last year, but the board rejected her for being too young.”

Spock privately thought an eleven-year-old Vulcan would outperform most of the Human first-years, but he knew stating such a belief would be considered rude. His beliefs also did not change the matter.

"You refused the father’s acceptance based upon the child’s candidacy?” he asks instead. That was not standard protocol.

"Oh no, we begged him to come.” 

Spock nods. Vulcans are prized in the fleet for both their mental and physical acumen. The Admiralty regularly checked in with Spock to make sure he was ‘happy’  regardless of the now thirteen times he’d conveyed to various representatives that happiness was not one of his professional objectives.

“…he just wouldn’t start without her,” Pike finishes.

On the surface, the statement makes little sense. To refuse enrollment was highly illogical when Starfleet had an excellent school district and childcare curated to cater to a wide range of species’ needs. Spock had to posit that there was information he was missing. Nonetheless, the reason for the father’s deferment was not a priority. 

"Why would you need my permission before assigning the child to my course?”

Pike grimaces while somehow maintaining his smile. “She’s precocious. And while I think you’d be the best instructor for her, she may present more of a challenge for you than she would for Professor Ling, who’s teaching the other section this semester.”

“Human culture typically views Vulcan children as precocious,” Spock points out. As a child, he’d been dubbed a ‘know it all’ in addition to more unsavory things when interacting with Human cousins. “I am better equipped to handle Vulcan youth than a Human instructor.”

"Yeah, but she wasn’t raised on Vulcan. She’s––picture all the Vulcan smarts and curiosity but with a Human penchant for questioning authority and making her feelings known.”

"I do not follow, Captain.”

"She’s scary smart, frank to the point of rudeness, and she emotes. Intentionally.”

That gives Spock pause. Even as a half-Human the concept is…uncomfortable.

"And,” Pike sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “She’s deeply distrustful of most Vulcans. I can’t tell you why––and don’t go looking for her file, it’s all redacted to hell anyway. But I can tell you she has good reasons.”

“I’m curious as to your motives for placing her in my class, then, if you know she will respond adversely to me.”

"Mostly because she’s brilliant and her father is brilliant and someday I want them both on my ship, where, ideally, you will also be.”

“Ah,” Spock understands. “You want me to…“ he considers how his mother would term it, “‘make nice’ with the child. In an effort to facilitate a future working relationship.”

"That’s the selfish reason, sure. But more than that, we’ve got a traumatized kid with few positive influences in her life from her own culture. I want to add you to that list, and, if possible, engineer an opportunity for her to meet your parents and help her find a more accepting community here.”

Pike drums his fingers on the counter. “Forgive me if this is too forward, but if anyone can understand the perspective of a Vulcan who feels a division between themselves and their people, I think it’s you, Spock. Maybe you can help her navigate that space in a way others can’t.”

Spock thinks about the conflict of his youth. The anger. The confusion. The deep, abiding, loneliness of being a species unto himself. Never Vulcan enough for Vulcans nor Human enough for Humans. Only Other. Always Other.

“Your assessment has merit,” Spock allows.

"Excellent.” Pike claps a hand to his shoulder, careful not to let his fingers traverse the collar to touch the skin of Spock’s neck. “I’ll let Archer know.”

“Captain,” Spock calls, as Pike exits the laboratory. “What is the child’s name?”

"T’Mara,” he answers, leaning back around the door jam, smile widening. “T’Mara Kirk.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

:D

Thanks for such a positive reception to chapter 1! You see how I responded to all the comments on the previous chapter before posting this one? Very demure. Very mindful.

If you’ve been following me for a while you might be interested to hear that it is Deacon’s 12th (!!) birthday next week. If anyone has a good dog-friendly cake recipe please share it. I found a cute tin at goodwill and want to make him something special but am having decision fatigue in the face of all the internet’s suggestions.

@DTKokoro made a compelling argument for a Tuesday update schedule, so unless someone has a MORE compelling argument, we’ll be sticking with Tuesdays for now.

Ok, love y’all! See you next week.

Chapter 3

Tarsus IV.

Research Station 10

Stardate 100165.9

They hit pay dirt at Station Ten.

It was the smallest station, and one Jim hadn’t previously visited during his time on the planet. According to the log he’d found along with the map of coordinates, the station was dedicated not to agricultural study but rather to skincare and cosmetics research. He nearly skipped it, but then reconsidered for that exact reason. Maybe Kodos’ troops had skipped it too. Or been less thorough in their destruction. It was also one of two stations that had a dedicated on-site well and didn’t rely on water-truck deliveries from the hub colony.

 Maybe there was someone still alive who was better equipped to take care of a bunch of kids than Jim. Maybe there was food.

Jim’s life was a series of ever-increasingly-desperate ‘maybes.’

The log noted that three researchers manned the station—two Orion, one Human. Jim didn’t know much about Orions, but he knew that, like Vulcans, they could survive in harsh conditions for far longer than a Human. 

As usual, he circled the station twice before parking under the porch. His hope that Kodos’ troops hadn’t made the trip were quickly quelled by the disrepair of the station–– the destroyed fences and screens; the decay; the sweet rot smell in the air. The only remaining structures aside from the buildings were an array of solar panels on the northern hill that had likely been deemed too treacherous to reach by Kodos’ army. Banded cables from the panels traversed the rocky slope like a black snake before disappearing into the encroaching sand that mired the research station buildings. If the conduits still worked, they could maybe have power in the main sleeping quarters that night. It was a small comfort.

Jim took off his helmet and armed himself.

“Stay here,” he told T’Mara.

She reached out to touch the sunburned skin at his collar. I will accompany you. My motor function is much improved.

"Even so, it could be dangerous. And there will probably be bodies.”

I buried my parents, she reminded him. The words felt cold, somehow, but Jim could also sense sadness, deep, like a well, beneath them. It wasn’t the sort of sadness that someone her age should know. But then, none of his kids were really afforded the ability to be kids anymore.

Jim lifted T’Mara from the bike and she withdrew a knife—the knife in her memories––from the pocket of her too-large pants. She positioned herself, logically, at his right flank and touched his wrist. I am ready.

Jim raised his phaser and they moved forward together. There was nothing but dust and shattered glass in the kitchen. The pantry was empty save ripped boxes that had once held freeze-dried meals. The bedrooms were full of light and sand from broken windows.

They continued to the laboratory, a separate building several yards away from the domicile. Unlike the other stations, these facilities had not been set on fire. Jim imagined it was because of the nature of their research. The other stations had all been studying the fungus, at the end. This station was not equipped to do so.

Nonetheless, it had been equipped with scientists, and Jim had more faith in them than any god. 

T’Mara knocked her knuckles against his wrist as they cleared the main room full of vials and pots and jars—pretty, colorful, useless, things.

 I hear a hydroponics system, she told him. 

That shouldn’t be possible, but he trusted the kid’s hearing better than his own.

”Where?” he asked.

She ducked under his elbow to lead them toward what looked like a cold room door that was pock-marked with the product of futile gun-fire. The lock was engaged. 

When T’Mara touched the pad, it lit up.

I have not learned to navigate such a lock, she told him. It sounded sulky enough that he had to suppress a smile.

“I can probably hack it,” he murmured, handing her the phaser, “give me a minute.”

Even after finding the correct cable in his backpack and booting up his pad, it took several minutes for Jim’s brain and his fingers to remember the process. The hack took twenty-six minutes and forty-two seconds by T’Mara’s count. His thirteen-year-old self would be deeply embarrassed.

 But once the solenoid locks thunked open and they pulled back the door, there was, indeed, a hydroponics system inside.

With plants.

Plants.

What had once been a cold storage room had been reconstructed into a grow-room with water conduits and light panels and timers. There was a web of hoses attached to a slow-dripping sink spigot and electrical cords taped haphazardly to the corner and ceiling where they disappeared through a hole drilled in the cement. The system had to be connected to the surviving solar array outside, spared from the destruction by its remote, rocky, location.

The wall to the left was stacked with boxed and labeled cosmetics products. The walls directly ahead and to the right were dripping with plants.

They were overgrown and ill-tended, vine-fresh fruits sitting in the decay of their rotting older brethren. But they were vibrant and healthy and showed no sign of the fungus.

Jim could hardly believe it. He could hardly let himself believe it.

Lettuce. Tomatoes. Green carrot tops and squash vines that spilled out onto the floor and—produce he didn’t recognize that were likely native or planted from imported Orion fruits or—who cared, really. It was food. 

Jim realized, too late, that T’Mara was no longer beside him.

Her fingers dug into the soil of one lower container with single-minded tenacity. A mushroom was in her mouth before he could stop her.

"Shit, no, wait,” Jim yelled, surging forward, “those are poisonous.”

Of all the safe options, she had to reach for the thing that could kill her.

T’Mara disregarded his staying hand around her wrist as she reached for a second mushroom and Jim was reminded that, despite her size, Vulcans were three times as strong as Humans.

Not poison. For Vulcans and Orions they are a delicacy, she told him. They give a warmth.

She sent him a memory, of tilled earth, the smell of fertilizer and damp, her mother, carefully digging up identical mushrooms to add to their dinner. She projected the flavor to him and it was––

“Huh,” he said aloud, “it’s like a pepper. I guess for Vulcans the poison is similar to the capsaicin in a jalepeño. Spicy. But not dangerous.”

Spicy, she agreed as she chewed. And then, with palpable pleasure. Good.

Jim pulled a carrot. It hurt his teeth when he bit into it and he didn’t care.

Moderation, he told himself as he tried to remember how to chew. Moderation. He selected a tomato next, biting into it like an apple, chasing the juice that sluiced down his chin with his tongue. Moderation was hard when he was so, so, hungry.

He made himself stop after a second tomato, stomach clenching and uncomfortably full despite the small amount within it.

"Slow down,” he told T’Mara, who was on her second carrot, “You’ll make yourself sick. And we need to save as much as we can to share with the others.”

She returned to his side so she could curl a finger around his tomato-sticky thumb. 

There was a hum of embarrassment in the back of his mind that didn’t quite consolidate into words as she used the hem of her shirt to wipe her mouth.

The other children in your care.

"Yeah.”

Jim had tried to explain the night before that there were eleven kids waiting for him to return, depending on him, hiding in a cave system outside Tarsus Colony proper. That he’d left them with dehydrated meal packs he’d stolen from the colony’s storage facility and told them he was going to find food that didn’t require the risk of theft––and a potential death sentence if he was caught.

His explanation was poor, mostly because he didn’t know how to explain why a 15-year-old was caring for a bunch of other teenagers and their younger siblings. How do you tell a child that Kodos had condemned eighty-six kids to death and that Jim had only been able to save twenty of them. That despite his best efforts, the number had dwindled over the past two months to only eleven.

He didn’t know how to tell T’Mara that the deaths had all been children her age. Kids who were too young and too weak and too bereft to survive the conditions, the restrictions, that were needed for the larger group’s survival.

“I think we’ll have to bring them here,” Jim says. “I can’t move the system or the panels with my bike and we probably couldn’t recreate the setup there anyway even if we could get all the pieces transported. We’ll be more exposed here, and colder at night, and it would be a farther trek if I need to try another raid for protein. But we’d have power and running water and fresh produce.”

He thought about the deep space frequency and his repeating distress signal broadcast from Station Seven: every ten minutes. A plea for help. A chance at permeating the ion field.

If they continued to cultivate the plants, if he continued occasional raids without capture, if he could make the trek to Station Seven once a week to refill the generator, to keep the distress signal pinging—or maybe spend the time to try and fix a solar panel—

There were a lot of ‘ifs.’

But maybe, he thought, they could actually survive this.

Station Ten wouldn’t save them, but it might keep them alive long enough to be saved.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

So sorry for the delay, real life interfered so you get this chapter a day late.

I have not had a chance to respond to comments from last chapter but I’ll do so this weekend, I promise. I’ve read and cherished them all as they came rolling in via email and I appreciate them endlessly. Also someone pointed out the star dates indicated 14 years had passed between the story lines. That’s down to me using a poor calculator, if that’s the case! we’re looking at a little under 5 years difference between the two—Jim is 15/16 and T’Mara 7 on Tarsus, and they’re 21/12 at Star Fleet.

I’ve had multiple custom demos to present this week (I’m a tech bro by day, if you’re new) and two more still to go––the one tomorrow was giving me hell until just a few minutes ago. But the Q4 madness will be over in another two weeks and then it’s smooth sailing into mid-January.

Deacon says thanks for the birthday wishes and I’ll see you next week (when Spock, Jim, and T’Mara all meet!) :)

Chapter 4

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105076.2

Spock is teaching two courses during the fall semester, 0900-1030 and 1100-1230 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The first course is an Advanced Mycology section for Science-track upper-classmen, the second, as required by his contract, is a freshman Introduction to Scientific Ethics section.

On the first day of classes, Spock arrives at 0855 to the lecture hall and connects his pad to the projector. He has thirty-six students enrolled but has yet to study their profiles. The exam he will proctor during the first meeting will decrease the number and until he has a clear understanding of actual participation, he will not familiarize himself with the roster.

While the students have all taken Introductory Mycology or tested out of the course to enroll in Spock’s advanced section, he finds it likely that his high expectations will not entirely match the department’s assessment of students’ academic preparedness. 

When he begins passing out blue books and pencils, a chorus of groans arises from those present. He quells it with a single look, waiting until they each have a booklet and writing implement.

“I do not wish to waste your time or mine,” Spock says, turning on the holo projector. “While you may have achieved the prerequisites for this class, this exam will ensure you are adequately prepared to undertake the rigors of the course as I intend to teach it. You will have fifty minutes to provide answers to the twelve questions you see here.”

He shares the content of his pad and gestures to the words, equations, and three-dimensional models that have become visible. 

“Your time begins now.”

A hush falls as booklets open and pencils begin to move.

Twenty-three minutes later, one of the students in the front row stands and makes his way to Spock’s desk, sliding his exam across the polished surface.

Initially, Spock assumes the student has realized that his existing knowledge base is insufficient and is thus… ‘giving up’ as Spock’s mother would say. But after flipping over the cover, a cursory glance at the first page causes him to pause.

“Cadet,” Spock says. “Please wait.”

The boy retraces his steps and moves to stand at Spock’s desk for further instruction.

As Spock reads the first page with more intention, he feels one of his eyebrows lift. He does not subdue it. Humans prefer indications of emotion. He has been told his lack thereof is disconcerting and has therefore made an effort to provide minor visible indications of his thoughts when pertinent.

This cadet has earned his surprise.

He reads the second and third pages before looking up again with new interest at the boy before him. He is wearing Cadet Reds like the rest of his classmates and while he is not particularly tall, the fit accentuates his narrow waist and broad shoulders; his facial proportions are pleasingly symmetrical; his hair is reminiscent of the wind-tousled sunflowers in Spock’s mother’s garden. 

The thought alone gives him cause for gentle alarm.

Spock is not one typically prone to similes.

He glances again at the exam in his hands. “Whose section of Introductory Mycology did you take?” He would like to commend them.

“Oh, I didn’t take the introductory course. I’m a first year. I tested out.”

”Fascinating,” Spock says. “What is your name, cadet?”

”Jim,” the boy says. He smiles and Spock is reminded of Pike.

”Jim,” Spock repeats. While it is standard for Humans to give their surname, Spock does not press at the omission. “This is quite satisfactory work.”

”Oh man, satisfactory, happy to hear it.”

There is a lilt to Jim’s voice that Spock assesses as teasing. Or perhaps it is sarcasm. Paired with the smile, Spock interprets the tone as friendly.

“Quite satisfactory,” Spock corrects, attempting to match Jim’s inflection.

“My bad, quite satisfactory,” Jim agrees, smile growing.

His fingers are splayed on Spock’s desk, weight pressed into his palms. There are scars on his knuckles that Spock should find off-putting, but while scars on his own hands would be distasteful, he imagines that touching them on another’s hands—fighter’s hands––would not, necessarily, be displeasing.

He violently suppresses the flush that begins to creep up his neck. He is also not prone to fantasizing and should not be looking at a cadet’s hands at all.

He sets the exam aside.

“I am eager to see your progress in class this semester.” It is perhaps more effusive than he would prefer, but in the face of the cadet’s obvious intellect and his blue, blue eyes, and his knuckles that speak of violence, the statement is, nonetheless, true.

“Excited to be here,” Jim answers. And with a playful salute that does not at all meet the strictures of regulation, he’s gone.

***

When Spock enters the lecture hall for his second course fifty-two minutes later, he is still reeling from his entirely unexpected response to the cadet called Jim. He has committed Jim’s student number to memory and intends to peruse his file that afternoon. He is curious.

First, however, he must teach his introductory freshman class.

He recognizes the girl Captain Pike discussed with him immediately. She is already seated in the front row with her pad and water bottle within easy reach, hands folded, not fidgeting or speaking with friends like her mostly Human classmates already in attendance. 

While she is certainly Vulcan, the small, glittering studs that line both her ears are distinctly Human, as is her hair which is coiffed in what Spock believes is called an “undercut.” The sides are shaved nearly to the skin, while the top is mussed in a way that Spock knows is both intentional and requires product to achieve, considering his identical hair texture.

On Vulcan, going to such lengths for self-expression would be considered a waste of time and energy. But they are not on Vulcan. And Spock admits he finds the child’s hair…charming. He does not admit, even internally, that this charm may result from the style’s resemblance to another cadet’s, far more naturally disheveled, hair.

Since Spock is not permitted to weed any students out of an introductory class, he instead reviews the syllabus, takes questions therein, and uses the final eighteen minutes of the period to give a brief overview on the key tenets of scientific ethics that will be explored in depth over the proceeding semester.

As the students are packing up to leave, he approaches the Vulcan child.

“Cadet,” Spock says, performing the T’al. 

“T’Mara Kirk,” she offers him, repaying the gesture in kind.

“Cadet Kirk,” Spock agrees. “Shaya tonat. Nam-tor na'shaya. Nash-veh sanoi k' ish-veh atten.” Welcome. I am pleased by your attendance.

She responds, “Nemaiyo, nash-veh sanoi tor atten’k.” My thanks; I am pleased to attend.

Her pronunciation is flawless.

“As your only Vulcan instructor, and the son of the Ambassador, I wished to extend a personal welcome,” Spock says in Standard.

“I know who you are, S’chn T’gai Spock,” she answers, blunt, but not rude. “Your welcome is unnecessary, but appreciated. If I may make a personal query?”

”Proceed,” he agrees.

”You were accepted to the Vulcan Science Academy four-point-three years ago, yet chose to enroll in Star Fleet instead. Why?”

She is, indeed, aware of who he is.

”It was a logical decision. My research interests were better suited for Star Fleet’s multi-planetary, multi-discipline purview than the more niche foci of the VSA’s exploratory vessels.”

The statement is true, but it is not the entire truth. Spock recalls Pike’s desire for him to make a connection with the child and begins again. ”I also…” he pauses. 

Intentional vulnerability has never come easy to him.

“Upon offering me enrollment, the VSA asserted my Human mother’s contribution to my genetics was a weakness that I had to overcome. I did not agree with this perception, nor did I wish to commit to an institution with such beliefs.”

“Did you tell them to ‘fuck off,’” T’Mara inquires, “when you turned down their offer?”

He stifles his amusement. “Not as such. But it was…implied.”

“Heard,” she says, nodding approvingly. The word, and the inflection, is clearly copied from someone else.

Spock finds himself yet again charmed.

“Do you play chess, Professor Spock?” T’Mara asks.

The question is unexpected, but not unwelcome. “I do.”

“Are you familiar with the open tables at Seville Park?“

“I am.”

“My father and I intend to curate a habit of playing there on Sunday mornings between 0900 and 1000 hours. You are welcome to join us, if you wish.”

“That would be pleasing,” he agrees.

He welcomes the opportunity to spend more time in the child’s presence and the chance to meet her father, the man who produced such a child, is…

Exciting.

It leaves Spock with the uncomfortable, and largely unpracticed, sensation of wanting to make a ’good impression.’

***

Spock does not make a good impression.

And he has only himself to blame.

He sees T’Mara only thirty-six minutes after class in the mess hall as he is navigating the crowded seating area to return his empty lunch tray. 

Her back is to him and she is sitting with a Human male, also in Cadet Reds, though his jacket is slung over the back of his chair. Their position is what causes Spock alarm. They are close even by Human standards, but by Vulcan standards, the man’s arm around T’Mara’s shoulders, the inside skin of his elbow pressed to the back of her bare neck, is highly inappropriate.

Especially as T’Mara is a minor. 

Perhaps the Human does not know her age, or the implications of his touch, but that T’Mara would allow it—even an upbringing on Earth would not negate physiology. Perhaps, Spock thinks with distaste, there is coercion at play. As such, he is unable to pass them by without comment.

After discarding his tray, he approaches their table from the front and is dismayed to see that the Human cadet is none other than Jim from his Advanced Mycology section. Disappointment, illogical as it is, curls in his gut.

“Cadets,” he says quietly upon gaining their attention, “your behavior is inappropriate. Desist immediately.”

“Professor Spock?” Jim says. The elevated tone at the end of his greeting indicates confusion. His arm, at least, loses contact with T’Mara’s neck as he straightens.

Spock addressed Jim first, as he is the adult and the offending party. “If you are unaware of Vulcan physiology, I suggest you familiarize yourself before you continue fraternization. If you are aware and have undertaken such contact knowingly, particularly with a minor, your actions violate the student code of conduct.”

To T’Mara he says. “Are you here of your own volition?”

”Hold on,” Jim says, voice going hard. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

Spock doesn’t have a chance to respond, because T’Mara stands, hands braced on the table, leaning forward with a posture that can only be called combative.

”T'nash-veh sa-mekh’s esta nam-tor aitlu aishan u' ish-veh opin ri,” she snarls. The blatant emotion in both her face and her tone is nearly as shocking as the words themselves: My father’s touch is welcomed by me in the same way your opinion is not.

“Father,” Spock says faintly in Standard, feeling suddenly off-balance. 

Spock is the only Vulcan-Human hybrid in existence; he is certain. T’Mara shares no physical traits with Jim. And yet, the truth of her statement, the assurance in her voice, is undeniable.

“Father,” she repeats, also in Standard.

”How is this possible?” he asks. Jim is little more than an adolescent himself. And while a parental relationship somewhat explains the contact between the two it also demonstrates the irresponsibility of a Vulcan child being raised by those outside their race. T’Mara’s adoption by a Human is nearly as unbelievable as another hybrid existing without Spock’s knowledge.

“Surely a more suitable guardian––“

“Hey,” Jim says. “You don’t know anything about me. Or us.”

“Logic dictates that a Vulcan child should be raised by those equipped to do so. No Human, regardless of good intention, is a substitute for––“

“You will desist.” T’Mara interrupts him.

Her face is so mobile, so full of feeling, that Spock falls silent.

“In deeming Jim an unfit parent without requisite evidence,” she says, “nor the inclination to gather it, you not only insult my judgment in selecting a suitable guardian but demonstrate that Vulcan ‘logic’ is little more than a farce, employed not for the pursuit of truth but rather to support existing biases.”

The girl’s fury is palpable as she inhales.

“I would have expected better from a professor of ethics,” she continues. “Particularly one with a Human mother. Had your father perished in your youth, would you have allowed your maternal bond to be broken so you could be raised by those ‘better equipped?’”

The question is as fair as it is cutting.

Even unprepared as his mother would have been to raise a hybrid son alone, Spock would never have wanted anyone but her to try. If the Council had attempted to destroy their bond—to allocate his upbringing to others purely based upon his genetics, he would have––

The child’s anger is understandable, if she has such a bond with Jim.

Spock has made an error.

“T’Mara,” Jim says quietly. He circles his hand around her wrist—an uncomfortably demonstrative gesture—but her eyes flick up to Jim’s and she goes silent, almost as if the two of them are arguing without words.

Spock realizes they likely are.

It should not be possible for a psi-null being to converse via skin-contact. Even his mother, married for nearly thirty years to a Vulcan, can only share thoughts with her husband under a full meld, and when Spock was an infant she struggled to interpret his desires expressed through non-verbal contact.

But Jim and T’Mara are, indisputably, speaking without words.

T’Mara’s posture slackens, as does her expression. 

Until her attention returns to Spock. 

“I will not apologize for speaking the truth,” she says, shoulders stiff once more. “However, I regret if that truth has offended you.”

“Jesus Christ, kid,” Jim mutters.

“I am not offended,” Spock responds, as blandly as he is able. “You are correct that I was remiss in casting such hasty judgment upon your guardian.” 

“Father,” she corrects.

“Your father,” he agrees. “However, you must understand that for one such as I, raised on Vulcan, your behavior is most shocking, even were you to share similar biological markers that indicated Jim’s paternal relationship to you. I was concerned for your safety.” He turns to address Jim directly, “Nonetheless, I apologize for my assumption.”

He thinks about the disappointed facial expression Pike will make when Spock conveys this conversation to him later. He wonders if the interaction can yet be salvaged.

”Perhaps,” Spock begins,“I may make amends in the traditional fashion.”

”…which is?” T’Mara asks suspiciously.

”A meal, prepared at my residence, according to your preference.”

”Sorry, you’re inviting us to dinner?” Jim asks.

“Affirmative.”

T’Mara considers him through narrowed eyes. “We accept your invitation. 1800 Friday evening. I will send you a list of our preferences and my father’s dietary restrictions within the hour. You will send me your address.”

Spock nods solemnly, offering them the T’al. “I will see you in class, cadets. Peace and long life.”

T’Mara does not give him the customary response, but Kirk does, raising his own hand in a flawless salute. “Live long and prosper.”

Spock returns to his office, ostensibly to complete his grading, and thinks that, if he were fully Human, he would crave an alcoholic beverage. 

Instead of grading, or locating alcohol, he meditates until his pad pings with an incoming message from T’Mara.

It is a thorough menu of both Human and Vulcan foods ranked by preference, with one attached addendum document. The attachment is a list of Jim’s allergies. It is extensive. Looking at the documents in conjunction, Spock is struck by uncertainty. 

After several minutes of ramping concern regarding his ability to produce a palatable meal with the restrictions placed upon him, he does what any self-respecting individual would do in such an unprecedented situation: he calls his mother.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Pike: Lol. Spock clearly thinks the kid’s parent is Vulcan…Should I tell him? Nah. It’ll be funnier if I don’t.

Spock: blue screening in the cafeteria

Thanks for all the comments! I’m caught up on responding to Chpt 2 but still working on Chpt 3’s comments. And I’ve now got thirteen chapters written and popped the final chapter count up a bit. Targeting 18-20. But. You know. Might be more.

Stay hydrated! Love y’all!

Chapter 5

Tarsus IV. 

Research Station 10. 

Stardate 100165.9

Jim and T’Mara spent their first night at Station Ten boarding up windows and sweeping sand out of hallways. The following day, they took full stock of the facilities and began the necessary preparations to move the rest of the kids into the space. They pruned the garden, removed rotten detritus, planted additional seeds in empty sprouting boxes, and shifted overgrown plants into new containers. They replaced burned out grow lights and duct-taped hose leaks and spoke, with hesitant optimism, about the future.

They’d found enough materials in one of the utility sheds to create additional hydroponics booths, and after a brief break midday in which he slowly savored four overripe strawberries, Jim began the arduous task of moving out the racks filled with skincare products to make room for an expansion.

T’Mara approached when he was half-way through, hand extended in what had become a customary indication that she had something to say. Despite several days of water and food, T’Mara still hadn’t spoken aloud. Jim wasn’t sure why and he didn’t ask. He had plenty of eccentricities; he figured she was allowed hers as well.

Orion skincare products are primarily derived from plant oils and are colored with food-grade vegetable dyes. She told him. Many of these serums should be edible unless they include perfumes. We could use them as cooking oil. The high fat content would be beneficial.

Jim blinked at the lines of pretty floral boxes. “Are you serious?”

I am always serious.

He opened the nearest box and unscrewed the dropper-bottle inside, bringing it to his nose. It smelled like…not much of anything.

T’Mara extended her free hand. My olfactory senses are superior to yours.

He wouldn’t argue that point. 

Jim passed the bottle over, hovering anxiously as she considered it. After only a moment, however, T’Mara paused and Jim was beset with a distinct impression of embarrassment.

“What?”

She set aside the serum and instead held up the box from which it came. Perhaps it would be more effective to read the list of ingredients.

Which, yeah. That was embarrassing.

But they were both in rough shape, operating on a severe calorie deficit and poor sleep. Even tucked together in Jim’s sleeping bag, sheltered from the wind inside the domicile, he’d spent most of the night too cold for actual rest. He figured they deserved a little leeway if their cognitive function was diminished 

Once they had identified several products that appeared safe, Jim went through what had become his standard procedure for eating something that may or may not try to kill him: he sat in the living room on the fresh-swept floor and laid out his pad, EpiPen, a cup of water, and his follow-up prescription bottle on the coffee table. He recorded the name and ingredients of the serum in a workbook and only hesitated for a moment after drawing liquid into the dropper. There were still plenty of steroid pills in the cracked orange container next to his pad, but he was down to two injectors, which was concerning.

What are you doing? T’Mara asked, fingertips pressed to the back of his neck.

“I’m the canary in the coal mine. If I can eat something, typically it's okay for the others.”

She blinked at him. You intend to use yourself as a test subject?

“Yep.”

She pointed to the injector. What is the purpose of that device?”

“It’s called an EpiPen. Some Humans have allergies to certain foods. I’ve got a bunch of them. The body views the food as a contaminate, overreacts and creates way too many histamines, which causes something called anaphylactic shock. My airways close and if I don’t receive medicine to counteract the histamines, I’ll suffocate.”

T’Mara’s thoughts took on a distinctly alarmed feel.

She knelt beside him, her free hand drifting over the injector. This is the life-saving medication?

“Yeah, it’s Epinephrine. Adrenaline, basically.”

Fascinating. Can you show me a memory of the medication’s application process so I may assist you if you are incapacitated?

“If you mean the way you’ve been sharing memories with me, I don’t know how to do that. Humans are psi-null.”

You are not, T’Mara said. It wasn’t an argument. It was an undeniable assertion that she was right and Jim was wrong.

I will provide assistance. Focus on the memory you wish to share and I will attempt to observe it.

She reached for his face and he ducked to accommodate her, closing his eyes as her fingers pressed to his temples.

Jim chose the least-scary memory he could think of––when he’d been eleven and his brother Sam had taken him to a carnival. He’d eaten a funnel cake that should have been safe, but there must have been some cross-contamination with peanut oil or something because only a few bites in, his throat started to close up. Sam was in the bathroom, so Jim dug out the injector from his fanny pack, popped the cap, screwed his eyes shut in an anticipatory wince, and stabbed himself in the thigh.

By the time Sam returned, Jim was already breathing easier and paramedics were on the way.

You were frightened, yet you remained calm. T’Mara observed.

“It wasn’t the first time.”

Even so. Your emotional control was better than I would have anticipated.

“Well, I do love to set low expectations.”

She ignored his sarcasm. Your memory was also clear, I had to do very little to stabilize it.

“Thanks? I think?”

Are you entirely human?

The question was unexpected. “I’m pretty sure,” Jim answered. “There are family rumors about my grandmother being part Betazoid, but nothing substantive. I didn’t ever figure there was any truth to them.”

Interesting.

Her palms slid from his face to his shoulders before losing contact all together.

“Okay,” Jim said, opening one of the serums. “You ready?”

She settled against his side, her right hand wrapped around his free wrist, thumb against his pulse.

Ready.

Jim emptied a full dropper of amber liquid onto his tongue. After holding it in his mouth for a sixty-second count and feeling no tell-tale itchiness or heat, he swallowed. It was sort of like olive oil, but earthier. Not bad. He could imagine frying potatoes in it.

Your pulse is elevated, T’Mara noted five minutes later. She was staring at him intently, like he was a research specimen in need of close observation. He supposed he was, in a way.

“Just a fear response,” Jim admitted. “Anxiety, you know?”

Can you not suppress such a reaction?

“Maybe some humans can. But generally we’re not like Vulcans. We just…feel all our emotions as they happen. I do, at least.”

An adverse reaction likely would have occurred by now, she pointed out.

Jim exhaled and reached for his pad, adding a little green check mark in the empty column labeled “Initial Assessment.”

Do you have documentation of all your known allergens?  T’Mara asked.

“I do.”

I would like to commit the items to memory.

He retrieved the list from his files and handed it over, helping her brace the pad on her folded legs so she could maintain contact with him.

Over the past three days, Jim had grown used to T’Mara’s ubiquitous presence––the near-constant warmth of her hands and her thoughts, the entitled way she reached for him, and the utter confidence she had that he wouldn’t deny her. When they weren’t in contact, he felt oddly bereft. 

For some people in his situation, the sudden, encompassing, attachment that had grown between them after so much loneliness would be a comfort, and it was. But it was also the exact thing Jim had been trying to avoid since the morning he’d heard the execution order. 

Despite the grudging responsibility he’d undertaken, Jim had maintained a distance from the other kids. When the younger ones died, he’d grieved. But it was an expected, prepared for, grief. Two months with twenty Human and Orion kids and he’d managed to avoid any deep attachments. Yet after three days with a single Vulcan–– 

Jim was self-aware enough to know that if something happened to T’Mara, which was likely, practically guaranteed, he would be devastated in a way that would far eclipse his response to any of the other deaths he’d experienced on Tarsus.

He didn’t understand how he’d become compromised so fast. How she’d gone from a distant acquaintance he couldn’t quite bring himself to kill to arguably the most important person on the literal, actual, planet.

Three days.

Maybe it was the circumstances. The necessary closeness. He hadn’t allowed any of the other children to sleep within touching distance, certainly not tucked to the hollow of his chest, breathing his second-hand air. He hadn’t allowed the other kids to hold his hand, or use his pulse as a comfort. And he hadn’t made room for them in his mind.

Maybe it was that. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Regardless, Jim looked at T’Mara’s small hand wrapped around his last two fingers and realized that if––no. He needed to start preparing himself––when T’Mara died, he wouldn’t recover.

He swallowed down the recognition and forced it away, lest his dire thoughts bleed into T’Mara’s awareness, and focused instead on opening a second serum box.

“So I’ve been thinking.” Jim’s throat hurt with suppressed dread and it made his voice rough. “It’ll probably take three trips to get the others all back here. But if the weather is good, I can do all three trips over the next two days. Will you be alright if I leave you here alone?”

She glanced up at him, her placid expression only betrayed by the tightening of her hand around his fingers, accompanied by a pale, indistinct, wave of discontent in Jim’s hindbrain.

I was alone for sixty-four days before your arrival, she reminded him.

He didn’t like the reminder.

“You’re avoiding the question,” he pointed out.

She didn’t say anything for several seconds, her dark eyes steady on his. She wet her lips with her tongue before looking away, back down at the pad in her lap.

I will note your absence, she said finally. But it would be illogical for me to accompany you when space is a priority.

Jim squeezed her knee and unscrewed the next dropper bottle’s lid.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ll miss you too, kid.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

At some point I’ll figure out how to fix the star dates but until then just know that Tarsus timeline is about 5 years prior to the Fleet timeline.

This chapter brought to you by the kindness and technical acumen of Daniel with Linktree and not at all from the technical “support” at Xfinity or Netgear. Because after FOUR DAYS of no internet, hours of debug calls, and “no available techs,” I told Xfinity I’d just like to cancel my service. Suddenly, they had a tech who could come in an hour. Tech said the modem was toast and I could use an Xfinity modem for an extra SIXTY-FIVE dollars PER MONTH, or I could go to Best Buy, get a new one, take it over to the Xfinity store to get it authorized, and hope that fixed the problem. [insert SpongeBob 7 Hrs later screen] I finally get home (having not been able to work all day, because the work I do has to be over a secure connection, I can’t just use a coffee shop) and set up the new fancy modem. It does not work. I sit with Xfinity support for another hour on the phone in which they try to upsell me for services I don’t need without actually fixing my problem with the existing service I’m paying for. Eventually, they tell me the issue is with the brand new modem. So I call Netgear. Who after an hour of reinstallation and debug tells me the modem is perfect, so the issue must be with my router. So I call Linktree, nearly in tears, and this saint of a man is like. Okay. Obviously the problem is not with the router but walk me through your architecture here. AND THEN. He says, “oh! I might know the problem, disconnect everything and instead of following the standard setup instructions (that Netgear guy just made me do from scratch), and do it in this different order instead. Sometimes the Netgear modems get weird and won’t connect to Xfinity unless you do it in this very particular and not documented anywhere order.” (This is not a Netgear specialist. Keep that in mind). Within MINUTES, my internet is working. Because the Linktree guy knew more about the Netgear/Xfinity architecture than EITHER the representatives did.

Anyway. You didn’t need to know all that. Point is, I now have internet again. All hail Linktree Daniel. Hallowed be thy name. Large be thy holiday bonus.

See you next week, in which Spock continues to be very Thirsty and very confused about it, we meet Bones, and Pike is both apologetic and entertained. I think I’ll just stay a chapter behind at responding to comments/questions, but I’ll get to them, I promise! Thank you!!

Chapter 6

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105077.1

“Captain Pike,” Spock says upon entering the man’s office.

Pike swivels in his chair to face Spock and whistles. “Well, that’s barely suppressed Vulcan rage if I ever saw it. Come in. Take a seat. Or stand there and loom, if you’d prefer.”

“I do not ‘loom.’”

Pike laughs like Spock has made a joke.

He has not.

“So,” Pike says. “I take it you’ve met Jim Kirk?”

“Why did you not warn me about T’Mara’s atypical parentage?”

“Wanted to keep you on your toes, mostly.”

“Vulcans are not a digitigrade species,” Spock says, “we are plantigrade, just as Humans are. You should know this.”

“It’s an expression, Spock. You want to tell me what happened?”

“I have offended both Jim and T’Mara and now must make amends.”

Pike winces. “Alright. Walk me through it.”

Spock does. “While they were in attendance for each of their classes this morning,” he finishes, “neither of them offered opinions on the subject matter, and I believe Jim was avoiding eye contact while T’Mara, conversely, engaged in what I can only term ‘aggressive’ staring for 92.5% of the period.”

Pike hitches one knee on his desk, arms crossed, and worries his bottom lip between his teeth for several seconds.

“Well,” he says finally, offering Spock a grin, “Jim will probably forgive you through the course of your dinner. The kid though, she might hold a grudge for a few decades, so good luck with that. She’s…protective of Jim.”

“So I have ascertained.”

Pike is still smiling, but it’s strained, now. “I’ll admit I hadn’t fully considered what would happen if you saw them together before knowing their relationship. I let my desire to surprise you color my judgment, and now you’re dealing with the consequences. I apologize for that.”

Spock knows the appropriate response is to accept Pike’s apology, but he remains silent. T’Mara is not the only Vulcan capable of holding a grudge.

“In any case, I recommend adding a dessert to your menu for Jim and general groveling for T’Mara.”

Spock has never in his life groveled, nor does he intend to start.

“There was no mention of dessert in the extensive document that T’Mara provided.”

“That’s because she’s trying to get Jim to eat healthier. But I promise, he’d appreciate a dessert. Jim’s got a sweet tooth a mile wide.”

Human phrasing continues to confound Spock.

“Your suggestion presents a conundrum,” he points out. “If I were to cater to Jim’s ‘sweet tooth,’ I will no doubt also provoke T’Mara’s ire in encouraging Jim’s poor dietary choices.”

“Fair enough,” Pike agrees easily, “do with the information what you will.”

Spock resists the unbecoming urge to sigh.

”Anyway,” Pike rocks back in his chair, and then uses his ensuing forward momentum to rise, “you’re probably wondering why I asked you to drop by. Your ID was flagged in the list of faculty who have yet to complete their required physical.”

“I am in optimum health,” Spock says.

“I’m delighted to hear it.” Pike reaches for the pad on his desk, gesturing generally to the door with his free hand, “go get a doctor to sign off on their agreement with that statement and we’ll be good to go.” 

“I will schedule an appointment shortly.”

It is not logical to procrastinate such a thing, but neither is it logical to enforce invasive medical appointments upon beings who are fully capable of monitoring their own health status.

Pike holds up his pad. “I took the liberty of booking you a slot at the health center with M’Benga at 1500. You should make it in time if you head over now. And don’t say you’re otherwise engaged, the meeting I scheduled with you lasts the duration of the hour and you committed to that just fine.”

Spock will admit that Pike has bested him.

“I will go now, Captain,” he says blandly. “Thank you for your assistance.”

He presents the phrase in the same spirit as the “live long and prosper” that he conveyed to the VSA committee upon rejecting their offer of enrollment.

Pike grins back at him as if he’s well aware.

“Good luck with dinner tomorrow.”

***

Spock checks into the non-emergency wing of the medical facility with one minute to spare before his appointment. A nurse directs him to a bed cordoned off with curtains hanging from the ceiling and he sits on the edge, hands clasped, while he waits.

Footsteps approach and Spock observes two pairs of legs, one in scrubs, the other in Cadet Reds, enter the cubical to his left.

“Four days!” a man’s voice says, nearly a shout. “Four days you’ve been here and already you end up bleeding. Hold still.”

“Oh come on, Bones,” a second voice answers, and Spock feels his fight or flight response engage. He resists the entirely juvenile impulse to pull up his feet lest they somehow be recognized. 

The voice belongs to Jim Kirk.

“It’s hardly anything,” Jim continues, tone placating. “Just slap a regen patch on me, sign the paperwork that says I can return to work, and I’ll be good to go. I don’t need all this concussion protocol shit. It was barely anything.”

“Stop being an infant, or I’ll sedate you,” the other man’s voice growls.

“Ow, would you––hey, stop, you’re hurting me,”

Spock pulls aside the curtain separating them before realizing he intends to take such an action.

One moment, he is listening to Jim express discomfort and the next he is standing, one hand wrapped around the open curtain, and both Jim and the doctor, a taller man with a truly impressive scowl, have turned to face him in surprise. 

His behavior is inappropriate.

Such a lapse in control is…concerning.

The doctor releases Jim’s arm and Jim takes the opportunity to dart away from him, using the bed as a blockade between them.

“Cadet Kirk,” Spock says. “Are you well?”

It is an inane thing to ask. Jim is clearly not well, as is evidenced by the bruise forming around his bleeding bottom lip and the contusion on his left cheekbone.

“Professor Spock.” Jim leans away from the tricorder in the doctor’s hand as the man approaches him again. “I’m totally fine. Comes with the territory.”

“I am unfamiliar with the ‘territory’ to which you refer.”

“Oh, just,” he takes another two steps around the head of the bed and toward Spock in a further attempt to avoid the doctor. “I’m the TA for an introductory combat section. Not the first time I’ve been caught by a wayward knee to the face and it won’t be the last.”

“As a Freshman, you should not be permitted to TA any courses,” Spock observes.

Jim’s expression goes blank. “Okay. Well, I tested out of all the combat courses and then Archer offered––look I didn’t know that was a rule. I’m not trying to cheat the system or anything.”

How is it that Spock so quickly mishandles every interaction he has with this man? 

“My observation was not an indictment,” Spock hastens to clarify. “I was merely surprised. Your abilities must be impressive, indeed, to warrant such an exception.”

“Should I leave you two alone to flirt,” the doctor says, “or can I get back to doing my job, here?”

“What,” Jim splutters, “we’re not––“

“Yeah, yeah, move.”

The doctor pulls the curtain out of Spock’s suddenly lax fingers and Spock finds himself staring at floral-patterned fabric.

He moves back to the bed and sits down again, listening as Jim mutters under his breath and the doctor mutters back. Their rapport is evident from their ongoing interaction––an affinity that far exceeds that of a doctor and a patient. Spock wonders, for an uncomfortable moment, if they are engaged in a romantic relationship, but the cadence of their speech appears familial rather than––

“Good afternoon.”

Spock has been so focused on eavesdropping that he entirely missed the arrival of his own practitioner. Perhaps he is in ill health after all, to be so unaware of his surroundings.

He turns to face the man. “Doctor M’Benga.”

“Here for your physical?”

“As necessitated by Command.”

“Of course. Any functional issues to report?”

Spock elects not to mention his recent lapses in control nor the fact that they appear to be induced by the cadet in the adjacent exam area. “No.”

M’Benga is a competent physician, and the only Human doctor on staff who spent a year of his residency on Vulcan. Spock has entrusted his care to the man since his first year as a cadet and has had no complaints thus far. He is efficient. And he does not engage in the idle practice of ‘chit chat.’

”Well then,” M’Benga says. ”Let’s get you scanned and sent over to the lab for bloodwork.”

Most efficient, indeed.

***

When Spock returns to the waiting room fourteen minutes later, Jim is sitting in a chair by the door, thumbing at his pad.

Spock has not prepared for this potentiality.

He slows his pace as he approaches the exit. Jim looks up, startles, drops his pad, and then scrambles to retrieve it. The injuries on his face, at least, appear greatly improved.

“Do you have an additional appointment?” Spock asks.

Jim tucks the pad into his satchel as he stands. “No, just waiting for Bones––uh, Doctor McCoy. It’s pizza night.”

Jim must infer Spock’s confusion because he further explains: “Doctor McCoy is T’Mara’s uncle. She talked him into having pizza with us every Thursday night. And since his shift is over, I’m waiting for him to get his stuff so we can walk back to the dorm together.”

“I see.” There isn’t a graceful way to redirect the conversation to their prior subject matter, so Spock does not attempt to be graceful. “You are enrolled in a twenty-two credit hour course load which is a significant undertaking. Why have you elected to TA as well?”

“You went through my file, huh?” Jim says, looking askance at him.

“I familiarized myself with all the students on my rosters last night, as is logical.”

While the statement is true, it is not fully accurate. Spock spent far more time puzzling over Jim Kirk’s heavily redacted file than any other student’s. The majority of Jim’s teenage years are obfuscated with a note that higher clearance is required for viewing. 

Jim gives Spock a wry smirk that implies Jim does not fully believe Spock’s statement. “I’m TA’ing because I need the stipend. We’ve got housing and a meal plan and school costs all covered through our scholarships, but we still gotta pay for other things. Clothes, toiletries, books. Which T’Mara reads like a fiend. Dunno if that’s a Vulcan thing or a her thing, but I want her to be able to buy whatever and not have to worry about the cost, you know? I’m just… trying to be a good parent.”

Jim’s tone is not one of implication, but the words inspire latent guilt, nonetheless.

“Upon reflection,” Spock says, “I feel I should reiterate my apology. T’Mara was correct. I know better than most that a Human can be an exemplary parent for a Vulcan child.”

Jim blinks his blue, blue eyes. He pins his still-swollen bottom lip beneath his top teeth. He doesn’t say anything as the lip slides slowly back into view again; wet.

“Well,” he says, “second apology accepted, I guess.” 

He scrubs one hand through the back of his hair in a gesture that is somehow both bashful and compelling. Compelling, perhaps, because the movement draws particular attention to Jim’s well-formed tricep muscle.

“I do appreciate that you were willing to go to bat for her.” He drops his arm and Spock wills his attention away from it; he certainly does not let his gaze trail down the vein-mapped pale skin of Jim’s inner-elbow to his wrist. Nor does he allow his eyes to linger on those scarred knuckles.

“When you initially approached us, I mean.” Jim tucks his hands out of view in his pockets and Spock nearly objects. “If anybody other than me were touching T’Mara like that, I would have wanted someone to intervene. So thanks for the thought, I guess.”

Spock blinks. His response is several seconds delayed.

“Of course,” he answers. “I would have done the same for any student. While we are on the topic of apologies, I have prepared a menu that I hope will be to your liking for tomorrow evening. Are you and T’Mara still able to attend?”

“Yeah, sure. And look, you really don’t have to go through any trouble. I’m not picky. I can’t afford to be.”

“The purpose of the meal is to provide a suitable apology for my poor behavior; only a positive dining experience will meet that goal. As such, I have consulted both my mother and the chef at the embassy to ensure your enjoyment despite your dietary limitations.” 

Jim stares at Spock hard for a full six seconds before his face creases with a pleased, potentially bemused, smile.

“Well, shit,” he says. “I’ve got high expectations now.”

“I shall endeavor to meet them,” Spock answers.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Spock: Either this man has the prettiest hands in the entire Human race or Something Is Up with me.
Spock: …I am sure it is the former.

Bones: (whacking Jim with his pad) Stop. Hitting. On. The. Vulcan.
Jim: I WASNT.
Bones: Actually, weirdly, you’re right. The Vulcan was hitting on you. Clearly there’s a reason he’s in the hospital. Something is seriously wrong with him.

Hello friends! My fourth published book came out last week, which is very exciting. But see, I made a google form that would allow 100 people to request signed books for the occasion. The form hit 100 responses in less than an hour and I did not anticipate that over half of those respondents would ask for ALL FOUR (or more) BOOKS (many to multiple address as holiday gifts). So now I have nearly 500 books headed my way and I’m spending all my free time folding shipping boxes and getting them labeled so I can get books signed and headed to their people as soon as they arrive.

All that to say, I have good excuse for why I’m still behind on answering comments. Sorry! I appreciate every single one.

It’s a winter wonderland in Colorado and I’m currently listening to a 1940’s Christmas record with our Christmas tree lights reflecting out the window on the growing snowbank in our yard. Delightful.

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable December, and if you’re in academia, I wish you good sleep, good health, and strength through final exams (both taking them and grading them!).

Chapter 7

Tarsus 4

Research Station 10

Stardate 100165.9

When Jim left the kids, there were eleven.

When he returned, there were nine.

“They just got sick,” Kevin said, eyes hollow, voice numb, as he showed Jim the fresh graves. “They just….” His hand reached out, wavered, dropped. “Nothing helped.”

‘Graves’ was a generous word. They didn’t have shovels. All they had was hands and a stretch of soft sand to the east of the caves. Each time someone died, they all pitched in to dig, Jim carried the body, and then they all helped bury. This time, Kevin carried the bodies.

Kevin was fourteen. Jim had left him and Gaila, also fourteen, in charge while he checked the research stations. Now, the eight-year-old twins who had been thin but hardy when he left were rotting in the ground.

“I let them play in the rain,” Kevin’s voice was wretched. “They were whining so much and I figured it would distract them for a while, but then it got cold and the fevers started the next day and I didn’t have any meds to give them and––”

“Hey,” Jim interrupted. “It’s not your fault. Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Playing in rain doesn’t kill kids.”

“You wouldn’t have let them do it, though,” Kevin said. And he was right, but that didn’t make the twins any less dead. “You would have told them to conserve their energy. But I was so tired of arguing, and I just…” His bottom lip quivered before he pinned it with his teeth. “I’m sorry, JT. I’m so fucking sorry.”

It was good they were leaving. There were too many bodies there.

“Stop,” Jim insisted. “It’s not your fault. Go get your stuff packed and then help the younger ones.”

Kevin’s eyes were wet as he nodded. He smeared an angry hand over them, looking at the graves one last time, and Jim was adrift in a wake of furious helplessness, watching as a kid cried over the kids he’d had to bury. Over a responsibility he never should have had in the first place.

He was so young. They were all so young.

“Hey, come on,” Jim said around the ache in his throat. “What’s the motto?”

Kevin swallowed back a half-sob half-laugh, and answered with a watery smile, “The horrors persist, but so do I.”

Jim clapped him on the shoulder. “Yes, you do.”

***

It still took three trips to get all the kids to Station Ten, even with the twins gone, because Gaila insisted on bringing the entire collection of rocks she’d accrued over their two months in the caves.

“Gaila,” Jim said tiredly. “I get it, they’re cool. But the bag is enormous and has gotta weigh fifty pounds.”

“They’re the only things that make me happy, now,” she’d argued. “They’re the only beautiful things I have left.”

Gaila, like Jim, was one of the Chosen. She could have been alive and clean and well-fed within the colony’s walls, rather than slowly starving in a muddy cave a mile away. She’d left safety for the chance to save her best friend’s little sister. She’d been too late for her friend. But the child, Tilly, bright-eyed, four-year-old Tilly, Gaila had managed to save. 

Tilly died three weeks later. 

And Jim never wanted to hear that kind of grief again.

Maybe it would have been better if we’d done nothing from the start, she’d said, when Jim tried, badly, to comfort her. A bullet would have been faster. What was the point? What did we accomplish aside from extending her pain?

It was a question Jim didn’t like thinking about. Especially as the number of child-sized graves grew.

So. The rocks came with them. And they were lovingly arranged in shiny, precise, lines down each of the window sills of the station. And Jim was glad for them, for the absent, rare, smile Gaila would wear as she ran her fingertips over them, humming quietly.

If Jim had any worries about the group’s reception of T’Mara, they were quickly extinguished. He introduced them one by one and she touched each of their wrists and their eyes widened and they responded, gentle and polite, with their names. They quickly adapted to offering her their arms any time they were within touching distance, an open invitation that became habitual. T’Mara still didn’t speak aloud, but within a week, she’d been fully absorbed into their odd little family as if she’d always been a part of it.

Jim was still far and away T’Mara’s favorite, and he knew it was obvious she was his favorite as well. He couldn’t help it. He’d stopped trying to resist, if he’d ever resisted to begin with. She was his in a messy, possessive, unexplainable way that he could only equate to parenthood, because he imagined that was the most all-consuming need to protect that a person could have. Then again, maybe parenthood wasn’t the right thing to compare it to. After all, his own mother certainly felt none of the instincts for him that he felt for T’Mara. If she had, Jim wouldn’t have been on Tarsus. He never would have found himself in the circumstances that got him sent there. His mom would have believed him when he––

But she didn’t. And he was sent to Tarsus. And now, he had a child he was terribly beholden to, who crawled into his lap each night, leaned back against his chest, and tucked her fingers to his pulse, her small body growing steadily more lax as he told bedtime stories to the other kids.

 Even so, it was easy to forget that T’Mara was the youngest of them.

She helped Jim enforce a regular schedule of mealtimes, hygiene, light exercise, and work rotations. She was the most rational, the most calm, among them. She did not complain or cry or beg. 

Which was what made the nightmares so much worse.

They’d created a communal sleeping space in the livingroom to take advantage of their combined body heat and the electric fireplace Gaila had rigged to work with the single remaining generator. 

The room was a cozy amalgamation of puzzle-pieced mattresses and piled blankets. Upon Jim’s first return visit to Station Eight to ensure his distress message was still broadcasting, he’d bagged all the quilts and pillows and cushions from the station’s bedrooms and strapped them to the quad bike. Aftward, with a heater running and enough blankets to go around, they all finally started sleeping through the night.

Except T’Mara.

T’Mara slept tucked under the same blanket with Jim each night, always close enough to touch.

Which was how Jim knew.

Because T’Mara’s nightmares were soundless. They’d start with small twitched movements that grew to spasms. Her face contorted, her hands clenched, but she never made a single noise. It was almost as if her subconscious was telling her she had to be quiet, even in her fear. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why that might be.

Perhaps more terrible than her verbal silence, was how loud her mind was when Jim initiated skin contact. 

Unlike her typical ordered thoughts and curated memories, T’Mara’s nightmares were an oppressive, overwhelming deluge of physical sensation and emotional turmoil. Jim couldn’t believe that so many people went around thinking that Vulcans didn’t feel. She felt so much. She felt more than he thought was possible.

The first time it happened, Jim had no idea what to do. Giving comfort was nearly as foreign to him as receiving it.

Gaila typically navigated the empathetic trials of dealing with the kids and Jim was relieved to let her, but the moment he shifted, thinking he’d go get her, T’Mara’s grip on his wrist tightened painfully, her frantic half-awake thoughts interspersed with the desperate request that he not leave, not tell, stay, please.

So he’d tried to keep his head above the waves of her terror and project his own thoughts back: memories of warmth and contentment and safety.

He didn’t have many of those, but most of his childhood he’d had vivid dreams of a desert alien planet. It wasn’t a barren, hopeless desert like Tarsus; it was full of life—of low-growing flowering plants with sweet-juiced fruits and warm bioluminescent lakes; a red-hued sky brightened by two enormous stars and shadowed by a twin planet. Jim had explored the dream-terrain with a magnificent, gentle, bear-like creature who kept him safe from snakes and the nighttime cold.

Jim had been excited to sleep, as a kid. He was always the first to lay out his mat at nap time and the most resistant to rise afterward.

Even when he’d started high school at eleven, he’d gone to bed every night promptly at eight. It was the single thing Jim made easy, he’d heard his mom repeat to friends. “At least he fucking sleeps,” she’d say.

Until Frank happened.

And the dreams were replaced with nightmares.

And he had no refuge left.

But Jim didn’t think of that—would never think of that when T’Mara might see.

Instead, he focused not only on the dreams but the feelings they inspired. The joy of exploration. The satisfaction of climbing a particularly rugged piece of terrain. He thought about the sensations that had always felt so real: the warmth of his bear-friend’s thick double-coat, the sandpaper rasp of a tongue against Jim’s hair and the sour smell of his breath on Jim’s face.

T’Mara calmed, tucking her thoughts back into a place where they no longer threatened to overwhelm.

Finally, after several minutes of breathing together, T’Mara asked: When did you live on Vulcan?

What? Never.

But your memories of the fauna and the night sky are distinct. As is your Sehlat companion. 

Those weren’t memories. Jim tried to explain. They were dreams. And I don’t know what a Sehlat is.

T’Mara’s confusion permeated their connection.

It is a creature indigenous to Vulcan, and disallowed transport off-planet. Some high-ranking families keep domesticated lines as pets and protectors for their children. A domesticated Sehlat is the animal from your memories.

Jim allowed himself several seconds to process that. So I didn’t make it up? My childhood dream-space was Vulcan?

So it would appear.

Weird.

Yes, she agreed. Weird.

So, do you want to talk about––

No. Please share more of your Vulcan dreams.

It wasn’t until several hours later, when dawn awoke him, that Jim realized he’d neglected to speak aloud through the entire nighttime exchange, yet T’Mara had, nonetheless, understood him perfectly.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

;)

Yeah, that sure is ‘weird,’ Jim.

Up next: The Dinner

In IRL news, I’m wrapping up work stuff this week and will be headed to Sedona this weekend with B, Deacon, my parents, and B’s mom for a week of holiday family hiking. I will be posting pics on Tumblr (Xiaq) and IG (el_massey) if you’d like to follow along, though they will likely be 90% pictures of Deacon. I’m planning to only bring my iPad for writing and reading books (no work laptop) so I may very well finish this story while we’re there! I currently have 18 chapters completed and am thinking it will be 22 complete now.

If you’re in academia, hang in there! See you next week!

Chapter 8

Earth

Fort Baker, California.

Stardate 105078.1

Spock messages Jim after completing his grading on Friday afternoon and inquires if he can drop something off at the dorm before leaving campus.

You’re going to see us in two hours at your place, Jim says.

Spock understands the statement is also a question.

The item is solely for you, Spock responds. And according to her schedule, T’Mara will not return home for 1.2 hours.

Alright, knock yourself out. We’re 321 in Hampton Hall.

After briefly consulting the net and confirming that “knock yourself out” is a colloquialism for “yes,” Spock packs his bag and makes the eleven-minute trek across campus. It is raining, a phenomenon that is quickly becoming more of a nuisance than a novelty.

When the door to 321 Hampton Hall opens, the first thing Spock notes is the heat––it rolls like a wave into the hallway, encompassing him in a welcome reprieve from the damp chill of his walk.

The second thing Spock notices is Jim’s attire. Or lack thereof. He’s wearing athletic shorts and nothing else; the significant, unexpected, amount of skin on display is shocking after only having viewed Jim previously in his Cadet Reds.

“Hey, sorry,” Jim says, ushering him inside, “I got caught up trying to fix this damn light and didn’t have a chance to––oh, hold on, yeah, that’s––here, you can leave the umbrella there and–– let me just––”

Despite the number of sentence fragments, Spock understands he is welcome inside and leaves his coat and umbrella by the door before further entering the small living space that flows naturally into the kitchen. The windows are the sole source of light, which is likely due to the fact that a partially-wired lighting fixture is hanging from the ceiling above the table.

Jim scrambles up onto the table in a move that Spock deems highly unsafe.

“Give me two seconds, I’m almost done with this.”

“May I assist you?”

“No, no, I’m good—well, actually, if you could hand me that drill?”

Spock proffers the drill in question, holding it from the bottom battery pack, while Jim reaches down to grasp it from the head. There is no opportunity for their fingers to brush, which is good and proper and not a thing to be mourned.

“Your thermostat is set to mimic a Vulcan environment,” Spock observes.

“Yeah, hot during the day, cold as hell at night. We found out the hard way that if we keep it more temperate T’Mara’s adrenals and circadian rhythm get all wonky, so.”

“While comfortable for T’Mara, I assume it is not so for you.”

He shrugs. “Eh, what can you do? Small price to pay for my kid to be healthy. Just means I look like a slutty lifeguard during the day and an arctic explorer at night.”

Spock has no complaints about Jim’s daytime state.

Except…there are measures that can be taken. Spock isn’t certain how to suggest them in a way that will not offend, however. He does not wish to further imply Jim’s parenting is lacking.

He recollects one childhood Christmas spent on Earth in which Spock’s mother gave him tips for communicating suggestions to his Human cousins.

If you make it about you, not about them, Humans will be more receptive to advice. They might even ask you for it.

It had not been an effective approach then, but one failed experiment does not necessarily mean the technique as a whole should be discarded.

“I experienced similar negative impacts to my health when I first enrolled in Starfleet,” Spock says. 

”Yeah?” Jim pauses in his efforts to screw in the light bulb so he can face Spock. “Did you find a way around it?”

Perhaps his mother’s advice is more effective when applied to adults rather than juveniles.

“There is a certain form of meditation developed for Vulcans who inhabit non-native locales. The express purpose is internal temperature regulation when one cannot depend upon external forces.”

“Huh,” Jim uses the toes of one foot to hook the lamp’s shade from the tabletop next to him, then balances on his opposite leg to take the shade in his hands from his raised foot. He snaps it into place with a degree of forceful competence that Spock finds compelling.

“I would not want to overstep,” Spock says carefully, “but I am happy to provide her training, or refer her to an adept at the embassy.”

Jim exhales hard—something like a hybrid of a sigh and a laugh. “I mean, I’d support that, but it’s up to her.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll suggest it and see what she says.” He jumps down off the table, and moves to flip a switch in the open electrical box in the kitchen. He returns to press the toggle for the fixture; nodding approvingly when it comes to life.

He redirects his attention to Spock. “I might wait to bring it up until after you’ve charmed your way back into her good graces at dinner tonight, though.”

Spock is uncertain of his ability to ‘charm.’ He conveys his apprehension.

“Nah, you’ll be fine,” Jim says. “Just know she's gonna be––listen, I love her, but she can be stone cold when she wants to. Don’t take it personally, you brought up some bad memories that'll take her some time to get over. But she doesn’t hold grudges forever.”

Jim rests both palms on his sweat-slick hips, fingers overlapping his iliac furrow. The skin on his scarred hands is a dark contrast to the paler gold of his belly and Spock is struck by the inexplicable desire to ascertain if the difference is discernible by touch.

It is a highly inappropriate impulse. 

“Speaking of T’Mara, what did you want to give me?” Jim asks. “I’m really curious about what this thing could be if it wouldn’t be appropriate to hand it over in front of a twelve-year-old.”

“It is not a question of appropriateness,” Spock says, retrieving the item in question from his satchel. “I am given to understand you have a ‘sweet tooth,’ yet T’Mara did not include any such items in her list. In an effort to ensure you both have the best possible dining experience, I have procured you a sweet that you may consume independent of our time spent together this evening.”

Jim accepts the chocolate bar that Spock offers him. It is Spock’s mother’s favorite: 75% cocoa with caramel in the center.

”You brought me a dessert?” Jim asks blankly.

Spock feels confirmation should be unnecessary, considering the evidence is in Jim’s hands, but he gives it nonetheless.

“Yes. It is shelf-stable so you may store it in your room, if desired.”

”You brought me a dessert I can hide from my overprotective daughter.”

Even with a lifetime spent in his Human mother’s company, Spock has no hope of interpreting Jim’s facial expression.

”Have I offended you?“ he asks.

”No, not all. I just––” Jim huffs a small laugh. “It’s thoughtful. Thanks.” 

He tucks the bar in his shorts pocket and reaches one hand up to scratch at the back of his head, simultaneously ducking to avoid Spock’s eyes. It is the same bashful gesture he employed at the health center which Spock found so distracting. Only, this time, Jim’s level of undress means that Spock can view not only the movement of the musculature in Jim’s arm, but also his torso; the way the skin of his flank draws taught, further accentuating his obliques.

Spock’s mouth is dry. Perhaps it is the heat of the room.

“And you said you didn’t know how to be charming,” Jim murmurs.

“Yes,” Spock agrees. He had, indeed, said that.

Jim’s smile widens. ”I’m looking forward to tonight.”

“As am I.”

***

Jim and T’Mara arrive at precisely 1800.

“So this doesn’t disobey fraternization regs or anything, does it?” Jim asks as they remove their coats. “You, having us over for dinner, I mean.” 

“It does not,” T’Mara says. “Which you would know if you had read the welcome packet in its entirety.”

“Interpersonal relationships between students and faculty are permitted,” Spock agrees. “The age, education level, and prior lived experience of cadets varies greatly in Starfleet. It would not be tenable to expect the degree of separation between faculty and staff as is standard at more traditional universities.”

“So Command just trusts that professors will be unbiased when they’re grading their friends’ work?” Jim asks. 

“This information was also reviewed in the welcome packet,” T’Mara advises him.

Jim ignores the obvious judgment in her tone so Spock does as well.

“On the contrary,” Spock answers. “If an instructor feels their judgment is impaired by their familiarity with a student, they may submit for an external grader for the student’s assignments, while retaining them in the course. Many instructors do so even without believing themselves biased purely so there are no accusations of favoritism.”

“Neat.”

“Thus,” Spock continues, pleased with the natural opening. “I encourage you to speak to me tonight not as an instructor but as a…friend.”

The word sits uncomfortably on his tongue. If Pike were to observe him say such a thing Spock would never ‘hear the end of it’ considering how many times Spock has assured the man in the past that Vulcans do not have friends. However, the colloquialism both indicates his repentance and goodwill.

Also, he thinks it would not be such a bad thing for Jim Kirk to consider him a friend. Even if Spock himself does not, by definition of his Vulcan heritage, believe in such a construct.

“Dangerous thing to offer, but ok.” Jim looks around Spock’s living area, situated off the entryway of the apartment. “Just to confirm, you’re not feeling compromised by us at all? You’ll keep grading our work?”

Spock makes a conscious effort to keep his attention on Jim’s face. He does not think about his scarred hands or his lean waist.

“I do not currently have concerns therein.”

“Hey, Spock,” Jim says cajolingly, “have you ever tried using contractions? T’Mara sometimes does. Mostly to shock people, I think. ”

“I am capable of utilizing contractions. I merely choose not to.”

“Uh huh. So in my next paper, if I say that I’m capable of proving my hypothesis, I just merely chose not to…”

“I don’t recommend that course of action.”

Jim claps his hands together. “Hot diggity dog.”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps I am not one who should be performing conscious adjustments to his language practices.”

T’Mara makes an abrupt exhalation through her nose that Spock optimistically interprets as a suppressed laugh.

Jim grins at him, crossing his arms. “God, Vulcan bitchiness really is universal. I love it. Wait, am I allowed to say that? You told me to address you like a friend.”

Spock does not dignify the statement with a response. Nor does he dignify the flush of warmth that threatens to creep up his throat at Jim’s use of the word love in relation to Spock’s perceived personality attributes, negative as the assessment may be.

”Shall we move to the dining room?” Spock offers. “The food is prepared.”

***

The dinner proceeds in a positive fashion. Jim appears to enjoy each course, as does T’Mara, though she studies each bite she takes with a degree of care that inspires in Spock an anxiety reminiscent of examination days in his youth.

T’Mara says very little, but Jim is a bright and engaging conversational partner. While Spock often finds conversing with humans tiring, he is instead stimulated by the additional insights he gains into Jim’s mind. Moreover, Jim does not seek to quell his human nature—his broad gestures, his laughter and smiles and use of idioms. It is a refreshing divergence from students and peers who attempt, badly, to make themselves more palatable to Spock and instead create awkwardness. Jim reminds Spock of Pike, in this way. Though Spock has certainly never examined Pike’s hands with the detail in which he has scrutinized Jim’s.

By the end of the second course, Spock is certain he has gained Jim’s forgiveness. He does not, however, think he has made much progress in the objective of ‘charming’ T’Mara.

He makes the mistake of attempting to engage her in the conversation when Jim brings up a thought experiment in Surakian tradition that is reminiscent of the Ship of Theseus dilemma in human philosophy.

“What are your thoughts?” Spock asks T’Mara.

“I cannot comment on the matter, as I do not prescribe to Surakian Logic.”

The cavalierity with which she says the words is alarming. “Eschewing logic is a dangerous—“

“I do not eschew logic, as a practice,” she interrupts him. ”Someone regularly grading my assignments should be aware of my rational approach to all subjects.”

Her statement is true, albeit conveyed in a less than polite tone.

“T’Mara,” Jim starts.

“I eschew Vulcan logic,” she continues, “which I find…lacking. Ineffective. Flawed.”

“Oh my god,” Jim mutters. “We talked about this.”

Spock takes a steadying breath before responding to such an egregious slight.

Once again, he employs his mother’s suggested tactic of relating the topic in question to his own experiences.

“When I was a child, I endured…I believe humans would term it ‘bullying,’ from my Vulcan peers.”

Jim’s eyes, previously downcast in an exaggerated expression of dismay, snap immediately up to his. They are, somehow, more blue than the last time Spock studied them 4.5 minutes prior. Perhaps the phenomenon is due to the light of sunset which now falls upon him from the window.

“Bullying is illogical.” T’Mara says.

“Indeed.”

“So you agree with my assessment?”

“I admit to grappling with similar thoughts, though I certainly never said them aloud.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “Or so boldly.”

She stares unapologetically back at him.

Jim presses the heel of his palm to his forehead with a muttered explicative.

“What was the result of your grappling?” she inquires.

“I found that the…failures in the logic of my peers were easier to conceptualize if I viewed Vulcan logic as an ideal to be sought after, rather than a natural embodiment of our species. In this manner, every Vulcan is striving to meet the Surakian ideal, a task in which some are more successful than others. The ideology is not at fault for the inadequacies of the practitioners.”

She purses her lips, a deeply human gesture and one Spock has seen Jim enact many times in their short acquaintance.

“An interesting perspective,” she says finally.

Spock supposes that is the best response he could have hoped for. 

Judging by Jim's surprised look at his daughter, it is a better response than Jim expected as well.

“You live in evidence of this practice,” she continues. “As you follow Surakian tradition and, after your misstep on the day of our meeting, you have made efforts to ameliorate your unreasonable initial impulse. Admittedly, I have found your logic since to be beyond reproach.”

That is more than he could have hoped for.

“I am gratified by your assessment.”

She gives him a look that is pure Jim Kirk. The look says, yeah, you should be.

He allows himself a small smile.

After a visible initial surprise, T’Mara returns it.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

If you celebrate, Merry Christmas! If not, happy Tuesday.

Due to a last minute medical situation, we are not in Sedona but instead wintering here in CO (not a hardship). Which is good because there were shipping delays and some of my author copies didn’t even get to me until yesterday. They definitely would have been stolen (maybe? Actually, I don’t know if someone would steal boxes that heavy) before we got home.

Thanks for all the comments! I’ll catch up on answering them next week :) Please hang in there if you’ve got stressful family business going on and give your pets a kiss from me (Or if they’re not into that, give them compliments from a distance).

Ok love y’all! Bye!

 

(Oh and if you got one of those signed author copies, I’ve sent out about 2/3 of them and will send out the rest on Thursday/Friday)

Chapter 9

Tarsus IV. 

Research Station 10. 

Stardate 100165.9

They stayed hungry.

The garden and the remains of Jim’s last raid weren’t enough to feed them well, but it was enough to keep them alive, and healthier than they’d been before.

The young ones got five to eight hundred calories a day.

Jim, Gaila, and Kevin averaged a thousand.

Hope made the hunger easier to deal with. 

Worst case, at that point, the Federation’s annual check-in was only six weeks out. Best case, since Jim was making regular trips to keep up the distress signal, someone would come sooner. After two months of abject, desperate, starvation, the idea of waiting another six weeks wasn’t so terrible. Especially now that their small meals consisted of potatoes and carrots and zucchini cooked in oil. Especially now that they had one strawberry apiece before they went to bed each night.

So, they stayed hungry, but they stayed alive.

Until the rain came again.

Rain on Tarsus was a rare phenomenon. There was no fresh water on the surface; the entire planet’s supply was underground in caves and aquifers and deep reservoirs that, unlike Earth and every other naturally habitable planet, never touched the surface. Tarsus’ single ocean was so saline-rich that very little in terms of plant or aquatic life inhabited it. The planet was classed as functionally inhospitable before the Federation voted to attempt terraforming––drilling wells into the aquifers, importing soil, attempting to create, from sandy, rocky, nothing, an ecosystem that could eventually support a self-sufficient colony.

In thirty years, the goal hadn’t been fully realized, though it provided enough in the way of scientific advancement, and alternatives for incarceration on Earth, that the Federation was willing to keep it on the payroll. 

When Jim arrived, he’d been warned by some of the older Human kids that the rain wasn’t like the rain back home, even if it looked similar. Nonetheless, he’d needed to find out for himself. He’d played in it exactly once, his first year on the planet, with other first-years wanting to test their luck. It was fun, running around in the quickly-muddying schoolyard, throwing a Terran football with his friends. The cool water was a relief after months of oppressively hot days and he returned to class feeling cheerful for the first time since his arrival. But afterward, when his damp clothes dried, his skin felt itchy and too tight; his hair rough and dry and brittle. Overnight, his knuckles cracked and bled and it was only after he was permitted an extra bottle of lotion, and several days of careful full-body application, that he felt normal again.

Most kids only went out voluntarily in the rain once, but there were a select few, mostly Orions, who didn’t seem to mind it.

Amaila and Daina, both nine years old, insisted they belonged to the latter group.

“Come on, please?” Daina begged. “I’ve done it before. It’s way better than the acid rain on Orion. And we’ll moisturize with the scented oils that we can’t eat as soon as we get back inside.”

Against his better judgment, Jim gave them permission.

They weren’t at risk of being seen so far from the colony proper. And as Orions, they did have thicker skin, quite literally, than Humans did.

Gaila made resigned noises about having to clean their clothes afterward so the girls stripped down to their underwear and ran shrieking outside as she yelled, “that was not my objective!” after them.

An hour later, the rain stopped, and the girls, tired but pleased, slathered themselves in floral-smelling face serums, much to the gagging boys’ disdain. They did their chores, picked a bowl of bedtime strawberries for the group, and were the first to fall asleep during Jim’s story. 

In the morning, though, neither would wake up.

When Gaila attempted to roust them, she found they were both running high fevers. The skin around their mouths and noses were dry and red and cracked. Amaila’s nose was bleeding.

“It’s the same,” Kevin said, when she called him and Jim over, “it’s the exact same as the twins.”

Gaila clutched one of her rocks in her left hand. The other gently pet Amaila’s fever-tangled hair. “He’s right,” she murmured. “The boys’ mucus membranes became inflamed first. They developed fevers and wouldn’t wake up. Then they couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t this fast.”

“It has to be the rain,” Kevin said. “It has to, right?”

Correlation didn’t equal causation, but there was coincidence and then there was this.

Even so, Jim moved the girls into the far bedroom and left them under Gaila’s watch. He washed his hands, changed his clothes, washed his hands again, and went to find T’Mara.

Don’t touch them, he told her. Don’t––I don’t even want you in the same room with them, you understand?

She did. Of course she did. His feelings, his fear, spilled directly into her mind and he could do nothing to stop it. It was a terrible thing to recognize his selfishness and even more terrible to share with her, but it was true. He could handle losing those children. He could not handle losing T’Mara.

She promised him.

And then he went to tell the others.

Daina’s older sister, Kalara, was the only one who wanted to risk entering the room. They’d all watched the twins die. Jim didn’t blame them for leaving; for suddenly finding things to do away from the living quarters. They needed no urging to complete their chores in the laboratory or around the property; meticulously cleaning solar panels, doing long-procrastinated laundry.

Meanwhile, Jim, Gaila, Kevin, and Kalara took shifts–– sitting with the girls, trying and failing to get them to drink water. 

Jim thought there was nothing quite like the helplessness of holding a dying child’s hand. What could you tell them, when their bleary, frightened, eyes met yours? What reassurances could you offer when you knew there was nothing you could do to save them?

The best thing that could be said for their deaths was that they were fast.

By nightfall, their breathing was rasped and terrible.

By sunrise, they were gone.

Jim and Kevin spent most of the following day digging graves for them in the hard earth of the garden that the rain hadn’t softened. Gaila left one of her rocks on each of their graves and then, with the half-sobbed help of Kalara, brought everyone out to say goodbye, and taught them a traditional Orion funeral song.

It was a tremulous thing, full of long, drawn out, aching vowels. Even though Jim didn’t understand all the words, he could feel them, and from the steady, mournful, pulse of T’Mara’s consciousness in the back of his mind, he knew she could too. She held his hand throughout their sad little service despite the fact that his calluses were torn and bleeding. 

As the song ended and the sun dipped behind the horizon, T’Mara looked up at him and said with an aggressive ferventness: Jim. You are not permitted to die.

He couldn’t give her any reassurance. Their continued existence was a delicate, uncertain thing. T’Mara understood that. She knew such a demand was illogical. She made him promise anyway.

There was no talk at dinner.

They went to sleep without stories.

The next morning, weary and stiff, and trying not to look at the graves in the garden, Jim walked barefoot across the not-yet-scalding early-morning sand to the laboratory. He washed his hands in the sink, put in his code to open the cold room door, and stretched, yawning in his approach to the first booth.

Then he stopped.

All of him.

His arms in their descent, his legs in their movement, his breath in his lungs and his heart in the cage of his ribs.

He stopped.

Because the leaves on the strawberry plants were speckled with white fungus.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

I’d just like to say, I’m sorry. But because this is so short and so sad, I’ll update the next chapter in two days on Thursday! In which, Spock will: talk to his mom, play chess in the park with Jim and T’Mara, and receive a VERY interesting phone call.

Happy new year! We’re going to a party that starts at 5pm and will be in bed and asleep by midnight because we are old and boring. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my list of favorite books+fic I read this year, so keep an eye on my Tumblr (Xiaq) or Substack (Elmassey.substack.com) if you’re interested in that. I hope everyone is recovering from the holidays/end of semester and feeling rejuvenated. Love y’all!

Chapter 10

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

As is his regular practice, Spock calls his mother on Sunday morning whilst eating his breakfast.

“Something is troubling you,” she points out, after he has given her a succinct overview of A. The weather, B. His health, and C. His level of contentment with his employment. 

His mother has always been perceptive to his emotional state in a way that his father has not.

Spock folds his hands. “I am not troubled,” he denies, “merely uncertain how to proceed.”

She performs a gesture Spock is familiar with: it indicates he should share his conundrum.

“I unintentionally offended a new acquaintance,” he explains. ”Before my infraction, the new acquaintance extended an invitation to play chess in the park this morning. Now, I am conflicted as to if I should attend.”

“Did you apologize for the offense?” She asks.

“Yes, Mother.”

“With the actual words I’m sorry?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Wait, does this have anything to do with your frantic call last week about preparing a dinner for someone with food allergies?”

“I was not frantic,” Spock objects.

“Of course you weren’t, darling. How did the dinner go? Did they accept your apology?”

“I believe so.”

“Then you should assume the invitation still stands. If it didn’t, they probably would have said so.”

This is logical. T’Mara does not, after all, have any qualms about sharing her opinions.

“Thank you for the advice,” Spock says. “As always, I am pleased to see you in good health.” He offers her the T’al. 

“Wait, I want to hear about this new acquaintance.”

“Perhaps later, I must prepare to meet them.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “You’re still joining me for tea on Wednesday?”

“Of course.”

“I suppose I can wait until then. Good luck!”

He does not tell her that luck is illogical. 

He has told her on so many other occasions that she must know by now.

***

Spock does not own many Terran clothes, but the items that do populate his closet were purchased by his mother. As she is often touted in tabloids for her exceptional stylistic taste, Spock assumes the outfits she has curated for him are acceptable.

He will admit he prefers his Academy wardrobe purely because there can be no accidental missteps. More than once, during his childhood, his clothing choices when visiting Earth incited teasing from Human children. While he doubts Jim or T’Mara would ‘make fun’ of him, he likewise does not wish to appear unkept. 

The day is warm by Earth standards, but pleasantly cool by Vulcan’s. He selects from his mother’s offerings a charcoal sweater that he tucks into high-waisted brown trousers. The accompanying leather belt and boots feel unnecessary since the trousers are well-tailored and his Starfleet issue footwear is perfectly serviceable, but his mother insisted that he wear the outfits as she curated them and not make substitutions. 

The sunglasses—an ‘aviator’ frame––are welcome, as the day is particularly sunny.

He leaves his home five minutes before 0900 so as to arrive a suitable ten minutes after Jim and T’Mara’s playing time.

He locates them immediately as Jim’s gold hair is something of a beacon, to say nothing of T’Mara’s rainbow fleece sweater. The pair are sitting across from each other at one of the multiple tables situated in a gravel offshoot of the park’s walking path. They appear to be only a few moves into their game.

Spock approaches the table at a moderate rate of speed, and, focused as they are on the board in front of them, neither notes his arrival until he stops.

“Greetings,” Spock says. “I was uncertain if my invitation was still valid. If it is not, I will continue on my walk.”

Jim blinks up at him. “Whoa,” he says, for no reason that Spock can determine. 

In the early morning light, Jim’s eyes are a color that poets would spend a lifetime trying and failing to describe.

Spock is troubled by his thoughts. He has never previously considered the actions of poets.

“You’re, uh, hi,” Jim continues. “Hello. Sorry, T’Mara invited you to join us for chess?” He turns to T’Mara, “You invited Spock to join us?”

“Affirmative.”

T’Mara’s hair is unstyled and the top portion falls into her eyes. She pushes it back with a practiced gesture that makes her look softer. Younger.

“However,” Spock says, “the invitation was extended after our first class period last week. It was prior to my…misstep in the cafeteria. I understand if the invitation has since been rescinded.”

“I think we’re past that, now,” Jim says, nudging T’Mara’s elbow with his own. “After the apology dinner and all that. Right?”

“…affirmative,” she repeats, but only after a period of silence that casts doubt upon the validity of her response.

“I have also invited a friend,” she says, studying the board before she moves a rook.

The unapologetic way she says ‘friend,’ as if she did not have to consider the implications of such an admission, leaves Spock feeling strangely unmoored.

“The Russian kid?” Jim asks. 

“His name is Pavel Andreievich Chekov,” T’Mara answers. “As I have told you.”

“Cadet Chekov is also in my introductory scientific ethics course,” Spock says. “His work is—”

”Quite satisfactory?” Jim supplies. 

Vulcans do not have dimples. Perhaps that is the reason Spock finds the divot in Jim’s cheek so diverting.

“I was going to say ‘exemplary,’” Spock responds with a raised eyebrow.

Jim, incomprehensibly, mimes stabbing himself with an invisible object in the chest. “Beaten by the Russian wiz kid,” he says.

“You will soon be beaten by me if you do not attend to the board,” T’Mara advises him.

Jim redirects his attention. “Pull up a chair,” he suggests to Spock. “You can play winner.”

It should not come as a surprise that Jim is an adept chess player, but it is both frustrating and pleasurable to observe his illogical yet effective manner of play.

It is less pleasurable when it results in Spock losing their round in eight minutes, thirteen seconds.

“Your style is…unusual,” Spock allows as Jim resets the board. Spock can find no intentionality or pattern to Jim’s play, and yet he has won against both T’Mara and himself.

“That’s maybe the nicest way someone has said I play like a lucky monkey.”

“Luck is a fallacy,” T’Mara starts, at the same moment that Spock argues: “You bear no resemblance to a Cercopithecidae.”

“This is fun,” Jim says, grinning at them both. “Isn’t this fun?”

Spock clasps his hands in his lap and surveys the park. Jim’s smile is somehow too bright. 

“You wanna know why I won?” Jim asks.

“Please, enlighten me,” Spock agrees, returning his attention to the table.

“Because. You guys play like Vulcans.”

“Insults are unnecessary,” T’Mara says. 

“Indeed,” Spock says sharply.

T’Mara does not look cowed when she meets his eyes. 

Spock feels out of his depth.

Jim reaches over to brush hair out of T’Mara’s eyes. His thumb lingers on her temple, something that would look like an incidental touch to anyone but a Vulcan, and her attention abruptly moves to Jim’s face.

When he withdraws his hand, T’Mara makes eye contact with Spock again.

“I apologize,” she says stiffly, for once the epitome of placid stoicism. “My comment was unnecessary.”

“You are forgiven.”

Jim sighs. “My point is that you’re both predictable, and you look for predictable patterns in your opponents. Which is a detriment when your opponent is being intentionally unpredictable.”

“Fascinating,” Spock allows. It sounds grudging even to his own ears.

“Welcome to my life,” T’Mara mutters. The inflection is distinctly Jim’s.

“Another game?” Jim asks, but neither of them have a chance to respond as Cadet Chekov appears quite suddenly, stumbling through the hedge rather than arriving by the path, as would be typical.

“T’Mara!” he calls, brushing leaf detritus from his shirt, “Mr. Kirk, sir, good morning. Oh, and Professor Spock. Hello.” He salutes.

“At ease, Cadet,” Spock says. “We are off campus and meeting as…friends.”

Cadet Chekov appears delighted by his use of the word. “Of course, sir.”

“Pavel.” T’Mara moves to an adjacent table several feet away. “Please, join me for a game.”

He throws himself into the offered chair with typical teenage Human exuberance, and the two immediately fall into a conversation about an article they had previously been discussing via text messaging.

Jim, with his left elbow on the table, chin propped in his hand, offers Spock a hesitant smile.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “She’s––we had a rough night so she’s being a little extra difficult today.”

“I have encountered far more difficult beings than a twelve-year-old child,” Spock responds, voice equally low.

“Fair enough. Still. She shouldn’t be actively antagonizing her Professors. Or our…new friends.”

Spock does not blush because Vulcans do not blush.

“And, believe it or not,” Jim continues, rocking a pawn back and forth between his fore and pointer fingers, “I talked to her about the meditation thing last night. She said she’d be willing to let you coach her.”

“Indeed?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. I thought I’d have to do a lot more convincing but she agreed immediately. I’m a little suspicious, I won’t lie.”

Spock cannot help but agree that perhaps T’Mara is ‘up to something.’ Nonetheless….

“I am pleased to offer assistance.”

Jim’s smile widens. His eyes crinkle, and his face tips further into his braced hand. When he straightens again, his pinky finger slips from the dimple in his cheek into the corner of his mouth, the tip resting on the swell of his bottom lip like the worst kind of enticement.

Spock finds he needs to direct his attention elsewhere.

He retrieves his pad from his satchel, intending to use it as a brief reprieve from the suggestive display before him, only there is a message marked urgent from Doctor M’Benga on his Home screen. When he brings up the message’s contents, it includes only one line of text: Spock, call me at your earliest convenience regarding your most recent test results.

“Forgive me,” Spock says, standing. “I have received an urgent communication.”

“Oh.” Jim’s brows furrow. He traps the slender finger between his teeth; the point of his bottom left canine indents the skin.

Spock has never invoked a god’s mercy before but he finds himself considering doing so, now.

“Indeed,” he nearly stumbles over his chair. “I apologize for my hasty departure. I will message you later.”

“Sure.” Jim, blessedly, removes his hand from his face to proffer the T’al. “Peace and long life.”

“Live long and prosper,” Spock answers.

He waits until he is several yards away before retrieving his ear piece from his pocket and calling Doctor M’Benga. If Spock was prone to anxiety, such a message on a weekend would induce worry. 

“Spock,” M’Benga answers. “Thank you for responding so quickly.”

“Your communication was marked urgent.”

“It was. Your bloodwork came back and it significantly differs from the labs we’ve done over the last several years.”

“Differs,” Spock repeats.

“Your hormone panel, to be precise.”

Spock suddenly wishes that he’d waited to call the doctor until he was home. He resists the urge to cup a hand over his mouth, eyeing the other pedestrians nearby, when he responds.

“What do the results of the hormone panel indicate?”

“As I understand,” M’Benga says, “Vulcans essentially have three stages to puberty.”

Spock closes his eyes against the indignity of the conversation that is about to commence. Then he opens them again because he is walking.

“The first stage,” M’Benga continues, “occurs between the ages of ten and fifteen years, in which secondary sexual characteristics develop; the second stage occurs  between fifteen and twenty in which hormone levels increase and sexual organs fully develop. Finally, the third stage occurs between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, when an individual experiences their first Pon––”

“Yes, Doctor,” Spock interrupts, walking faster. “I am familiar. Are you saying that the panel indicates I may––that my time is approaching? It is far too early. And the healers on Vulcan were uncertain if I would ever––”

“Peace,” M’Benga interrupts. “I don’t believe it’s Pon Farr. The levels are not so extremely elevated, nor do you display any additional symptoms. As I was going to say, outside of the standard puberty process, there are more rare, situational, changes that may occur. Tell me, were you bonded as a child?“

Spock is forced to wait at an intersection with a mother and her toddler. The boy is looking up at him.

“Why is this information pertinent?” he asks.

“Because I’ve seen similar readings in those who have lost their childhood bondmate and later take another. A new bond, even the intent to bond, if individuals are particularly suited, can invoke a sort of…imitation Pon Farr in adults. The symptoms are similar but much less severe.”

The crosswalk sign illuminates and Spock exhales sharply, stepping off the curb in relief. “I was not bonded as a child,” he admits. “I was meant to, but at the appointed place, the Adept said I already had a latent bond, a T’hy’la bond, that prevented any other.”

It had been an illogical comfort to him, as a child. One, that he was Vulcan enough to possess such a bond, two, that there existed, somewhere, a partner who was predetermined to suit him, despite his hybrid nature. Someone who would not look upon him as weak or defective or something to be endured.

“I understand such a bond is rare,” M’Benga says.

“Indeed.” Spock slows his pace so as to avoid overtaking a group of men speaking loudly about a sporting event.

“You have a bondmate, then? They are not recorded in your file.”

“No,” Spock further drops his voice. “The bond remains latent and has not been completed. I have yet to ascertain their identity.”

“I’m having difficulty hearing you,” M’Bega says.

Spock does not make a guttural noise of frustration in the back of his throat. Such a response would be unbecoming. He slows further and repeats his prior statement.

“How does that process typically work? I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a patient who had a T’hy’la bond.”

He turns into an alley, stopping, relieved, between two dumpsters. The smell is not optimum; however, the seclusion is.

“The bond strengthens with age, and the pair will be naturally drawn to one another. However, as a child, the bond was…a detriment, to me.”

“How so?”

“My T’hy’la experienced hardship in our youth. Our connection was not yet strong enough to allow me to locate and assist them, but it was, unfortunately, strong enough for the feedback to severely impact my health. My parents consulted an Adept who isolated the bond––blocked me from feeling its effects.”

“How, then, are you meant to locate your intended?”

“I am scheduled for a revision at the beginning of the summer when I next return to Vulcan. Ideally, we will both be of such an age that the bond is fully developed, and I will have the time and resources necessary to locate them.”

“So, even if you were to meet them now, before that procedure, you’d have no idea?”

“I am uncertain. If I were to touch them, skin to skin, it could supersede the barrier. But the techniques used have never been attempted on T’hy’la before. Only arranged bonds. And, of course, never on a hybrid. As is often the case for me, I have no prior evidence upon which to draw.”

“Well,” M’Benga says. “As fascinating as this is, it doesn’t explain your recent lab work unless you’ve been interacting with your T’hy’la without knowing.”

“That is impossible,” Spock says. “The only Vulcans I have spent any measure of time with in the last year are my father and a student who is a minor.”

“In that case, I suggest you schedule a consultation with the healer at the embassy as I’m uncertain how to proceed aside from continuing to monitor you.”

Spock inhales deeply, thinks better of such an action considering his surroundings, and resumes his walk home.

“I will do so. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Spock, hiding behind a dumpster like a raccoon so no one will hear him [gasp] talking about his hormones: This is a very strange development, Doctor. I cannot fathom what might have caused this change.

Did this make up for the last chapter??

I hope everyone had a happy new year! We left the party at 7 and then spent the evening cuddling and reading. It was a delight. Our friends/neighbors who hosted the party just got a 12wk old labradoodle puppy and she is the scruffiest, cutest little thing. Deacon badly wants to be friends with her but she’s a little intimidated by…everything right now. However! B and I are both traveling for work soon, and Deacon will be staying with them while we’re gone, so maybe by the time we get back he’ll have won her over.

In other IRL news, Tantor Media purchased the audio rights for my book series, which is pretty wild, considering how niche it is. I can’t decide if listening to my writing on audiobook will super cool or akin to like… the small agony of listening to my voice on a recording. Hard to say which. I’ll let you know.

Thanks for all the comments! See you next week!

Chapter 11

Tarsus IV

Research Station 10

Stardate 100166.1

It was the rain.

Jim had a genius level IQ and it’d taken him six months to figure out that it was the fucking rain.

There had been a lot of conjecture at the dorms as the crops started dying and rationing began. 

It was an airborne pathogen.

It was an aggressive Orion fungi accidentally brought on-planet.

It was a hybridization that occurred due to terraforming.

It was a purposeful contaminant introduced via fertilizing drones.

No one actually knew. And no one would tell the kids anything, even if they did. The boys in Jim’s dorm hall had made up wilder and wilder theories after lights out, talking about the likelihood of being allowed to leave—maybe even having their sentences suspended— if the fungus required a planet-wide evacuation. 

They’d likely thought, when the headmaster had called them all to the gymnasium, that they were going home.

Jim stared at the fungi-spotted plants, leaves drooping and already turning yellow, and considered crying. 

He was so tired.

He had nothing left.

He couldn’t—

Except there was no other option.

He had to.

He took several minutes to breathe in the hallway: fingers laced on his head, elbows out like wings, chest open.

When he thought he could tell them without losing his mind, he went to find Gaila and Kevin.

“It’s the rain,” Gaila realized, just like Jim had. “The girls picked the strawberries that night—it’s the fucking rain.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. It was too late for them to get any value from the knowledge.

So they did what they had to: 

They harvested everything.

They knew that waiting, that hoping some small portion of their garden would be spared, would only result in disappointment. They all had seen what happened to the fields outside the youth barracks. The fields outside the science center. Their own kitchen bucket-garden at the dorm.

Once it started, the fungus didn’t stop. 

So they harvested everything— half-size potatoes and delicate baby carrots, seedling sprouts and pale green tomatoes.

None of them want to voice the realization they all had; as usual, the responsibility fell to Jim.

“Even if we start from scratch, it’ll take months to get plants producing again,” he murmured. “And that’s assuming anything will grow now that the room has been contaminated. We could try and move the grow space but the equipment—”

“We don’t have months,” Gaila said. “The Fleet will be here by the time there’s anything edible.”

“And we’ll be dead by the time the Fleet gets here,” Kevin added.

“Unless I go back for a raid,” Jim finished.

They both objected, but he talked over them.

“I was probably going to have to do one more run anyway, the timetable just changed is all.”

“We can wait,” Kevin argued. “We could probably make it another two weeks if we stretch what we have now. Maybe someone will come by then.”

“I’ll barely have the energy to make it there and back as it is, I sure as hell won’t be able to if I go when we’re out of food completely.”

“You went the last three times,” Gaila said. “I’ll go this time.”

“No.”

“They’ll kill you,” Gaila insisted, “if you’re captured, they’ll absolutely kill you. They might not kill me.”

No, they’d do worse.

There was a reason there were no bodies at the station manned by female Orion scientists.

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s five weeks,” she pressed. ”I can survive five weeks. I have survived five weeks, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if––“

“You think I’d be able to forgive myself if I lived only because you’d––“

“I’ll go,” Kevin interrupted.

“No,” Gaila and Jim both answered.

“This is stupid,” Jim said. “I’ve done it before. You two haven’t. I know what to do. Just––don’t tell anyone. I’ll go now and be back before the kids even have a chance to worry.”

“You’re not going to tell T’Mara,” Gaila realized. It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“If something happens to you––“

“You’ll have to take care of her. You will, won’t you?”

“Of course, but Jim––“

“I’m going. Now. By the time the kids realize something is up, I’ll be back.” He paused, halfway to the door. “But one of you needs to come with me to the caves. The bike is the only transportation we have. Someone will need to bring it back if––”

“I’ll go,” Gaila said.

“I don’t like this,” Kevin muttered.

None of them did.

“Get your stuff,” Jim told Gaila. “Kev, if anyone asks, we’re going to check the distress message.” He was due to go anyway. It would be hours before anyone suspected something was wrong.

Minutes later, they were on the bike, throwing sand in their wake, Gaila warm against his back, the sun hot overhead, and poisoned soil embedded under his nails.

Jim tried not to think about the fact that T’Mara, standing on the shoulders of another kid to reach the solar panels with a cleaning brush, had waved cheerfully to him as they left the station.

He hoped it wasn’t the last time he saw her.

But then, he knew better than to hope.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

I know, I know. Another short, sad, “past” chapter—but I’ll do a double-post again this week so you don’t have to wait before a longer “present” chapter. Come back Thursday for Spock beginning to put 2 + 2 together, T’Mara being sassy (standard) and Bones being resigned (also standard).

In IRL news, we’re currently in the middle of snowstorm and I am delighted, as is Deacon. We spent an hour walking around the neighborhood and frolicking at the park this morning (both of us in our snowsuits and boots, lol). I’m hoping it sticks around through the weekend and we can head to the mountains and get some snowshoeing in.

Also, work is picking up again as the Q1 ramp begins, and I do actually need to finish writing my actual novel, so I might start cherry-picking the comments I respond to. My “free” time is shrinking and I’d like to spend every bit I have outdoors (snowshoeing) and writing. But please know I appreciate every single comment, even just a little heart or “extra kudos.” <3

Ok, stay warm! See you Thursday!

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

Spock finds his morning meditations unsatisfactory over the following week.

As a child, he often struggled to meditate because emptying his mind––finding the end of all his concerns and questions––seemed an impossible task.

Now, once again, his mind has never felt so full.

His thoughts are occupied with his students and course work and grants. His upcoming certifications and convention invitations and plans for future research.

Of the often charming and occasionally challenging enigma that is T’Mara Kirk.

And of Jim.

Mostly of Jim. Although Spock does not want to admit it, even within the privacy of his own mind.

He has a T’hy’la.

His attention should not stray elsewhere—he should not even have the inclination to look at others with desire, especially not a human. Not even one so admirable as––

No.

He feels like a child again, failing at that which should come naturally. Perhaps there is something medically wrong with him. Perhaps his impending appointment with a healer at the embassy will expose a reason for his inappropriate fascination.

It would, perhaps, be easier if Jim was not kind, and funny, and patient. If he was a poor student. If he did not care for T’Mara like he would lay down his very life for her if asked. If his eyes were not quite so blue.

But they are. And Jim is kind and funny and patient. And his work is impeccable; his papers well formatted and adeptly argued. He regularly logs the most time spent in the laboratory of all the students in Spock’s Advanced Mycology course. 

If Spock didn’t know Jim was ‘dead set’ on Command track, and that Pike would object, Spock would attempt to coerce him to Science track. Jim is an exceptional student.

Just as he is a proficient father. Spock sees this evidenced when he meets with T’Mara for meditation sessions, or sits with the pair to eat lunch.

In a moment of weakness one evening, Spock pulls up the laboratory cameras from earlier that day, scans for the time frame when Jim logged his work hours, and watches, with an odd sort of bereavement, as Jim sets T’Mara up with her own station and microscope. He talks her through his experiment, handing her slides, answering her questions, adjusting their equipment and even arguing with her in friendly, teasing, tones about his hypothesis.

It is the kind of simple domesticity Spock has always hoped to have one day with his own child. His own partner. Scientific inquiry and gentle familiarity. Time spent for the sake of time spent.

And Spock aches. There is no other word for it. He has never wanted the way he wants to be a part of Jim and T’Mara’s life. And while he is ashamed at the betrayal of his T’hy’la, he cannot stop the wanting.

He is still dwelling on his failures the following morning when T’Mara enters his office for their scheduled meditation session.

Her hair is spiked in an aggressive crest. Her expression is sour.

“You are troubled,“ he notes, as she slings her bag onto the chair in the corner.

“Jim has expressed a desire that we apply for a study abroad summer course with the VSA,” she says, as if this explains her palpable mood.

“You do not wish to attend?”

“I do not.”

“For what reason?”

“I have no inclination to return to Vulcan at all, for any purpose.“

He pours them each a glass of water from the carafe on his desk.

“May I ask a personal query?” 

“You may,“ she responds, accepting the proffered glass. “Though I may elect not to answer.” 

“As is your right,” Spock agrees. “Why do you eschew the company of your own kind?”

 “Putting aside the assumptions in your wording,” she says, lifting a judgmental eyebrow, “The last time I was on Vulcan, they attempted to break my bond with my father.”

Spock does not wince at the confirmation of his suspicions, but it is a near thing.

“You fear if you were to return they may be successful?”

“No. Jim was eventually granted citizenship and adoptive rights. I simply have no desire to return to a place that would attempt to separate a child from their parent based upon prejudice.”

“Grudges are illogical,” he points out.

“When was the last time you visited Vulcan,” she asks.

Spock suspects he should not have begun this line of questioning. “My research has required my presence elsewhere,” he answers.

“Ah, your research,” she agrees.

Her tone makes him feel as if he has fallen into a trap. 

“In the last three point two five years, every paper you have published has argued against findings or methodologies put forward by researchers representing the VSA.”

He says nothing. He has no defense.

“Disproving one or two VSA sponsored hypotheses in the course of your work could be excused as coincidence. Six in a single year can not.” She takes a sip of water.  “Would you say vendettas are more or less illogical than grudges?”

He elects not to respond, but instead, raises his own glass in a subtle toast before drinking himself.

She smiles.

He returns it.

Part of his Jim problem, he muses, is that T’Mara is an intrinsic part of Jim. And together they are…irresistible.

***

Spock has found no resolution when he enters the lecture hall for his freshman course on Thursday morning feeling unusually tired. The subject matter is not assistive––discussing genocide is never particularly restful. Unfortunately, it is a necessary component of an ethics course.

As he pulls up the introductory slide for the Tarsus Colony unit, and waits for the students to finish arriving, he notes that T’Mara is not present. Typically, she is one of the first to arrive, often before Spock himself.

When T’Mara does enter the lecture hall, she looks…furtive. She does not sit in her typical place in the front row, but rather at the far end of the seating area—a location that is not visible from the doorway.

When he attempts to meet her eyes, she intentionally avoids his attention.

Strange.

Stranger still, rather than sitting with her fingers linked on the table top, as is her usual practice, she retrieves her pad and stylus and, as he begins the lesson, she…takes notes.

Fifteen point two-five minutes into the lecture, the door opens abruptly with something Spock intuits as barely restrained fury.

It is Jim.

His skin is flushed with exertion or anger or both and his hair is in significant disarray.

“Hey, sorry,” he says. “Please excuse the interruption. I need Cadet Kirk. Urgent personal matter.”

“Sa’mekh,” she starts.

“Now.”

Spock has never seen Jim’s face so serious. Or so angry. His tone brooks no argument.

The class waits in awkward silence as T’Mara gathers her things.

Jim’s eyes slide to the holo screen just once, then flinch away––a nearly visceral response––from the aerial photograph of the Tarsus research station where seven of the Tarsus Nine were recovered; where two graves are identifiable in the desiccated garden.

The moment T’Mara is within touching distance, Jim has his hand cupped around the back of her neck, leading her out into the hall. No further words are verbally said between them. The door closes with their departure.

Spock glances at the holo screen again. He thinks, with slowly dawning horror, about the dates that coincide with the redacted portions of Jim and T’Mara’s files. He thinks about the careful way T’Mara had held her stylus for the first fourteen point seven-five minutes of class, eyes on her pad and not the screen, taking impeccable notes despite the fact that Vulcans have eidetic memories. 

He thinks of Jim. Of a Command Track student enrolled in Advanced Mycology coursework, who completes assignments with a single-minded, nearly aggressive, academic vigor.

Spock is not prone to conjecture.

But he wonders.

***

Spock continues to wonder when he enters the dining hall with his lunch tray the following day. He notes that Jim, T’Mara, and Doctor McCoy are seated at a corner table.

Jim is messily eating a hamburger with his hands. T’Mara, an empty bowl in front of her, is occupied with a Rubik’s cube. Doctor McCoy has neither plate nor tray and is only half-sitting at the table, leaned across it to point at something on his pad, proffered for Jim’s attention.

Jim waves away whatever the doctor’s concern is and Spock finds himself changing course so he can approach the table.

“Jim, come on,” McCoy is saying as Spock enters hearing range.

“Bones, come on,” Jim repeats back to him. His voice is pitched in a whine—likely mocking.

“I’m serious, kid, this is dangerous. And especially with your history––”

“Please, my history makes me the perfect candidate. It’s a week. A week is nothing.” 

“A week is plenty to send your system back into apocalypse mode, and I spent a long fucking time getting it to something like a normal equilibrium.”

“Don’t worry, Bones, I won’t mess up the pretty, pretty, body you made for me.”

“Don’t you have objections to this?” McCoy asks T’Mara.

“Jim is more than capable of surviving for a week in the Terran wilderness.” She sounds bored.

“And they’ll have a tracker monitoring my vitals the whole time,” Jim adds. ”What could go wrong?”

“If you’re involved, all manner of things. Besides. You know some of the upperclassmen have it out for you, this would be the perfect opportunity for someone to––”

They both glance at Spock as he comes to a standstill at the table.

“Doctor,” Spock says. “Cadets, greetings.”

”Hey, Spock,” Jim smiles.

T’Mara briefly removes a hand from her Rubik’s cube to offer him a lazy T’al without looking up.

“Professor,” McCoy sighs.

“You want to join us?” Jim asks, sliding closer to T’Mara along the bench.

Spock accepts the invitation. “What were you discussing upon my arrival?”

“Jim sweet-talked his way onto Toro’s fall survival cert roster,” Doctor McCoy says.

“That certification is reserved for Seniors,” Spock notes.

“You mean like half the classes Jim’s enrolled in right now?”

It is a fair point.

“Hey, at least I’m not building a bomb for my engineering midterm,” Jim says defensively.

“We are not building a bomb,” T’Mara objects. “Pavel and I are ascertaining if it is possible to build a bomb with the materials available in––”

“Ok,” Jim interrupts, “but you’re doing that by building a bomb.”

“We do not intend to use it. ”

Jim rolls his eyes at her.

She, with perfectly mimicked form, rolls her eyes back at him.

“Are you taking appropriate safety measures?” Spock asks.

“Pavel is in charge of safety measures,” T’Mara says dismissively.

The information does not alleviate his concern.

Nor do the additional references to Jim’s past.

Spock is a scientist; he does not ‘jump to conclusions.’ But he also will not ignore evidence because it supports a displeasurable verdict. 

He teaches the Tarsus curriculum. He knows all the publicly available information about the massacre as well as details only available to Starfleet officers. While he does not know the names of the Tarsus Nine––they were all minors, and any identifying information is redacted from the Fleet reports––Spock does have access to other resources. Like the knowledge that the Tarsus Nine ranged in age from seven to sixteen. The oldest subject was a Human male. The youngest was a Vulcan female.

When he returns home that evening, he logs on to the private server for Fleet instructors and locates the audio file of Subject 1’s distress call. It is the call that was intercepted by the communications officer aboard the USS Antares––the first ship Pike ever commanded. It is the call that instigated an emergency mission to Tarsus IV. It is the call that exposed one of the most heinous crimes committed in the last century.

Spock sets the audio file to play on his living room speakers and the sudden crackle of distorted sound is percussive in the nighttime silence.

Subject 1’s voice on the recording is painfully young and softened by static.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is [redacted silence] of Tarsus Colony Four, requesting immediate evacuation for myself and ten other juveniles at Research Station Ten. Latitude 39.7348 degrees North. Longitude 104.9653 degrees West. We are survivors of a genocide. Repeat, we are survivors of a genocide. General Kodos has enacted martial law and half the population is dead. The colony is experiencing a planet-wide famine. Repeat, I am located with ten other juveniles at Research Station 10. We have no food and require immediate medical attention. We will be killed if we are discovered. Please send help.

There is a weighty, terrible, pause, made more terrible now that Spock believes he may be listening to Jim.

Please, the boy says again, voice cracking. Please help us. And then: Over.

The recording ends.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

:I

I’ll be on a rather important work trip next week in which my days are fully scheduled, so fair warning that Tuesday’s update will likely occur late in the evening once I’m back to the hotel for the night and I probably will entirely ignore comments until the weekend.

I’m at a point professionally where I’m confident enough in my skill set that I’m being as flamboyant with my outfits as I please (boring black pantsuits are out. Velvet and pink and florals are in), so if you’d like to see the lovely thrifted looks I’ll be unapologetically rocking in a mostly-male space (along with the moody pink Trek-themed laptop case I made) I shall be posting them on IG (el_massey) and Tumblr (Xiaq).

Thanks for all the comments and I’ll see you next week!

Chapter 13

Tarsus IV

Tarsus City

Stardate 100166.1

Jim had never considered himself particularly brave. 

He did what he had to do. He did what needed to be done. If others didn’t, that made them weak. But it didn’t make Jim brave.

He didn’t feel brave, when he hugged Gaila goodbye at the caves. When he made her promise that if he wasn’t back by dawn, she’d leave. When he walked the mile to the colony’s border alone as the sun set, two empty bags strapped to his back and chest. 

Jim had liked apocalypse movies when he was a kid. He liked to see the age-bleached highway signs and vine-consumed buildings and imagine, as he stared out car windows, what his world might look like, after it ended.

Walking through the outskirts of Tarsus colony’s city proper, hungry and tired and afraid, shoes too small and clothes too big, the memory of his apocalyptic childhood musings were…not funny. Not really. Something darker than funny.

He skirted the decimated remains of vehicles and scrambled over debris, shading his eyes to look at the houses half-swallowed by sand dunes. 

The city center was surrounded by a wall—a hastily erected barrier that was initially enforced by firepower and later had no need of reinforcement at all. There were only four remaining guard stations, likely not even manned, and Jim’s approach was masked by the blinding slant of the sun as it set behind him.

Tucked in the shadow of the wall, he followed its metal, brick, and razor-wire sides for another quarter mile to the access point he’d used before: a barely large enough crack between mortar and stone married messily to chain-link. He was skinnier, the last time he’d done this. More desperate as he clawed his way through to the other side. 

He didn’t fully emerge, though, not yet. He had to wait until full dark to move about what remained of the city streets. Unlike an adult, who might have had a chance of blending in with the chosen survivors, Jim was noticeable for his age.

The majority of kids who had been on the planet were either part of the Terran juvenile detention project, like Jim, or they were the children of adult felons similarly serving their sentences as colony grunts rather than in on-planet prisons. Thus, when Kodos made his rosters, they were nearly all marked as undesirables. 

Marked as expendable. 

Jim and Gaila were two of a dozen juveniles from the prison barracks who’d made the list of the living. Who’d been spared. 

Well. Jim and Gaila would have been spared. They could have been here, all along, Jim thought, watching from his hiding place as the Chosen went about their evening routines. They walked together in groups, laughing, as solar lights turned on and nighttime announcements filtered over the staticy speaker system.

They looked happy. They looked healthy.

The cognitive dissonance was jarring.

In his head, he saw his kids’ sharp jaws and ropey arm muscles and sunburned narrow shoulders. Their too-lean thighs and rounded knees beneath the frayed bottoms of their shorts. Their eyes when they ate whatever small portion was offered to them. Everything about them was hungry.

He thought of the two graves in the garden of Station Ten. Of the grit under his bleeding fingernails and the nine sandy holes that were all he could offer the others.

And here––all the while, as he buried kids one agony at a time––here, the people lived like it didn’t happen. Like they didn’t know it was happening.

Men passed by him in their clean, well-fitting clothes, talking about dinner plans and the musical production that weekend and how they looked forward to their Saturday chocolate ration and––

It made Jim crave violence in a way he never had before. 

He wanted to hurt them. 

How dare they pretend that their lives hadn’t come at the price of others. How dare they act as if they were blameless when their complacency meant murder. How dare they not try to fight back because they were safe.

He killed them a dozen ways in his head—imagined them begging–– while he waited for night to settle. And when the lights in the nearby windows went dark, Jim emerged from his hiding place.

The storage facility had once been a laboratory beside the governor’s house. When rationing started, Kodos had turned it into the single location where food was stored and allocated. Even what remained of fungus-crawling kitchen gardens hadn’t been spared when Kodos’ troops first started their rounds. 

Like the previous times Jim had stolen food, he waited until dark. He followed the interior wall to the radio station from which colony-wide notices were broadcast, and then moved by way of the manufacturing buildings in the non-residential area, staying out of sight of windows. 

The front storage facility doors were guarded at all times, but there were trash heaps around the back—heaps that had only grown once the colony was walled off and they were no longer sending waste to rot in the desert. No one guarded the trash. Which meant, if you could stand the smell, you could scale the brick back side of the building to the roof. And then, if you picked the lock on the access hatch–

Well. Then you were inside.

And the inside wasn’t guarded at all. Likely, Kodos didn’t trust his own militia not to filch extra food for themselves or their families. So Jim was free to wander the racks of ration packets and plastic barrels of grains, flashlight clenched between his teeth, and choose the highest calorie options he could find.

Seeing the abundance—so much food still left with so little time until Starfleet’s scheduled check-in, didn’t help Jim’s anger. Kodos had said that halving the population was the only way any of them would survive. Jim had suspected he was lying then, as he’d spoken so softly, so condescendingly, into Jim’s ear; a facsimile of comfort. Now, Jim knew he’d been lying. 

Jim didn’t dwell on it. The knowledge wouldn’t help him. He shoved his bags to bursting, climbed back up the ladder to the roof hatch. Rechained the lock. Climbed down, slow, and awkward, the fabric of the bag on his chest catching against the rough texture of the brick. And then he rested, hands on his knees, breathing in the rancid scent of rot, trying to blink away the stars in his vision. When he was recovered, he skirted street lamps back through the sleeping city to the wall. 

He’d thought, each time he used this method before, that it was too easy. That surely someone would encounter him inside or see him on the roof or call for a patrol after noticing him outside their window. And each time, heart beating loud in his ears, breath over-loud in the nighttime silence, he’d made it back to the crevice in the wall, shoved the bags through, shimmied after them, and ran. He’d run at least for the first quarter-mile, because he felt like he had to, like someone must be chasing him. Except no one ever was.

This time, he got to the exit point and unstrapped the bag from his chest, thinking, yet again, that it was too simple. But before he could push the bag into the crack in the wall, the hairs raised on the back of his neck. And he knew that, this time at least, it had been too easy.

He didn’t have a chance to turn. The night lit up bright around him, throwing the chain link and the fingers of his one hand twisted in it for balance into sharp, ominous, relief, before a heavy weight crashed into his back. He recognized immediately the material of a military jacket under his scrambling hands as he twisted and shoved, but the man pushed him to the ground and then––

He fought. Of course he fought. He’d spent his whole life fighting, he wasn’t about to end it with compliance. He writhed and kicked and bucked and clawed.

Until a hammer cocked in his ear and the cold metal of a gun barrel was shoved into the soft flesh of his neck. He closed his eyes against the blinding glare of a flashlight and the pain of his attacker’s weight on his chest and the utter hopelessness that enveloped him. The knowledge that it had all been for nothing. All the suffering and the despair. And the kids. That realization was more agonizing than the knee in his gut. The kids would all die. Gaila would return without him. They would waste away to nothing. It would be slow and it would be terrible and it would be all his fault.

Jim swallowed against the press of the barrel to his throat and for the first time in his life, Jim gave up.

He went limp. He let his hands fall, knuckles against dirt, chest to the sky, and he tried not to sob on what was probably his last exhale. He kept his teeth gritted and his eyes shut, everything pink-red and abhorrent behind his flashlight-lit eyelids.

T’Mara, he thought. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.

“Stop,” someone said, and the pressure on his throat lightened just enough that he could gasp in an unwieldy breath. “That’s the Kirk boy,” a man continued. “You know our orders.”

Jim opened his eyes, breathing and thankless about it as they zip-tied his hands and hauled him upright. They all but carried him back the way he came––back to the governor’s house––their arms linked through his bent elbows, his feet barely touching the ground. He knew exactly where they were taking him. And he knew why.

Of course Kodos wanted him alive.

Jim had always been his favorite pet.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Hello from Las Vegas! I’m posting this from the balcony of my 40th floor swanky suite that has its own sitting room and jacuzzi tub. My job has perks! It has been a long few days, and I still have a few days to go on this particular trip, but I’m enjoying my time here and have been drowning in validation that A. I’m good at this, actually, and B. I look fabulous (my pink floral pants go SO many compliments. See Tumblr for details). Apologies for the late posting but, as expected, this was the first break I’ve had since 7am this morning. Technically I should be going to dinner too, but since I was slightly glutened at some point today (if you’re new, I have celiac disease) I have an acceptable excuse to stay in my room for the rest of the night and eat safe prepackaged food. Anyway.

See you next week for: Drama (with an extra large capital “D”) during Jim’s survival cert attempt, Spock behaving in a quite un-Vulcan-like manner, and Bones, as usual, wishing he could shout “I fucking told you so.”

Thanks for all the comments and I promise I’ll get to answering (some) of them during my airport downtime on Friday :)

Chapter 14

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

Spock’s mother often refers to her intuition, illogical as the concept is. She talks of her ‘gut impulses’ and reports she ‘feels things in her bones.’ Spock does not encourage her belief in a ‘sixth sense,’ however, he cannot deny that sometimes her premonitions are accurate.

As a child, she often knew when Spock was getting sick before he did. She can typically predict when rain will fall. And once, when she insisted she needed to walk to the city center instead of taking the train, the train derailed, resulting in eleven injuries and two deaths.

While neither Spock nor his father have a scientific belief in such a phenomenon, they have learned to indulge her if she insists they take a different route or bring an umbrella. And Spock has never experienced such a sensation himself. 

Until he wakes on the Thursday of what students term ‘hell week’––the week prior to midterms––with the distinct knowledge that something is wrong. Or, perhaps more accurately, something will be wrong.

Spock’s internal time-keeping mechanism is impeccable. And yet, he awakes a full hour and thirteen minutes early. He cannot fall back asleep. Meditation proves equally fruitless and, becoming concerned at his altered state, Spock attempts to take better stock of his mental landscape. There is a sense of foreboding that taints the entirety of his mind space like a sepia filter on a camera lens. And his bond, isolated, walled away, and typically little more than a distant awareness, feels present in a way it should not. It feels…sore.

No, sore is not the correct word but he can think of no term in Vulcan nor English that is an appropriate descriptor. He is unsettled.

After several hours of attempting to find elusive equilibrium, Spock readies himself for the day.

Jim is not present in the morning Advanced Mycology section, but his absence is expected. All students undertaking the fall survival certification received class participation exemptions for the duration of the week-long period. The trial ends on Saturday, giving students only one day to recover before they undertake exams, which seems, even to Spock, needlessly demanding.

T’Mara, who has been staying with her ‘Uncle Bones’ in Jim’s absence, is already seated when Spock later enters his Freshmen seminar.

T’Mara appears pale, her typically sharp and discerning gaze unfocused.

She does not greet him, as is her practice, when he enters the lecture hall.

“Are you well, Cadet Kirk?” he asks.

She flinches, as if she had not heard him enter, and hesitates before responding. “I am uncertain,” she admits. “I feel––uneasy. Yet I can give no explanation as to why.”

It is uncanny, Spock thinks, that she would describe her status thusly. It is exactly how he would describe his own current state.

Duty denies the continuation of the conversation when several other students arrive, one of whom approaches Spock to ask questions about the study guide. However, even as the period begins and Spock begins to lecture, he pays 25% more attention to T’Mara than he typically would. 

Vulcans do not ‘worry,’ but Vulcans also do not experience foreboding, and when a prior constant becomes a variable, such a phenomenon requires particular care.

It is due to his increased awareness of T’Mara’s presence that he notices immediately when something is wrong.

T’Mara goes rigid in his peripheral vision as Spock begins to review the study guide and by the time he has rounded the podium, she has collapsed forward over her pad, one arm in a protective wing over her head.

He has seen such a reaction only once before. When one of the children in his primary school class felt the feedback from her mother’s bond when the mother was fatally injured in a shuttle accident. The woman had lost the ability to shield in her final moments and thus, her daughter felt all her pain.

“Cadet Kirk,” Spock says, leaning over her, hands useless as they hover above her flinching form, “what ails you?”

She is utterly silent despite the contortion of her face and the claw of her fingers where they dig into the back of her skull.

“T’Mara,” he says instead, “can you hear me?”

Her eyes open and they are nearly all pupil, wide and horrified and Spock knows she’s not seeing him when she whispers, ”Sa’mekh.”

Father.

Something has happened to Jim. 

After three seconds of intense internal debate, he performs an action that is only permissible due to the outstanding circumstances: he touches T’Mara’s wrist.

He cannot––

It is––

She is in agony.

No.

Jim.

Jim is in agony.

Spock has never felt such pain before. It threatens to overwhelm him, heightened as it is by T’Mara’s panic. It is only due to the extensive training of his childhood, months spent attempting to shield before the adept blocked his bond entirely, that Spock is able to contain T’Mara’s terror, to press it back to a manageable size, to shore up her shields enough with his own that she can regain the cognizance to hold the referred pain at bay herself.

Something has happened to Jim, she tells him, the moment she is able to think anything at all. We must––

Yes, he agrees. Can you walk?

I am uncertain.

May I––

Yes.

Spock picks her up and her arms link around his neck; her head rests against his shoulder, like a habitual thing. Her seatmate has helpfully placed her pad and water bottle in her bag and he slings it over one arm before hitching her closer.

Her skin is warm where it touches his. Her thoughts are somehow both frightened and reassured where they hum against his shields.

“Class is dismissed,” he says.

He collects his own pad on the way out of the lecture hall and passes it to T’Mara, who inputs the passkey he wordlessly shares with her. By the time they enter the elevator, she has contacted Doctor McCoy. He directs T’Mara to send an urgent message to Spock’s father at the embassy as well. She does not ask why and he does not tell her. It is possible Sarek’s assistance will not be necessary, but if it is, they will waste no additional time in only contacting him when that assistance is needed.

Spock carries T’Mara directly to Pike’s office and does not slow down when he reaches the door. There are few if any meetings that would be more important than the issue at hand.

“Jim Kirk is badly injured,” Spock says when Pike stands, understandably shocked, at their appearance. “We must locate him immediately.”

Pike reaches for his desk phone. “Marshal,” he says, “I need you to pick up one of the J techs from Edgar Hall and come to my office right now. I want you here in five minutes.”

Pike hangs up. “Tell me,” he says.

Spock has very little to tell. He recounts what occurred moments before in the classroom, but when he looks to T’Mara for additional information, she says nothing. He sits on the bench beneath the window with her still in his arms and her left hand slides from his shoulder to his wrist, thumb finding his pulse with a level of desperation he has never before felt himself. Her fear is beginning to grow again where it presses, urgent and writhing against his shields; only barely contained. 

Jim has never been this badly injured before, she tells him. Even when he was shot, the pain did not overwhelm me as such.

Shot, Spock repeats. Jim has previously been shot? With a phaser?

A gun, she answers. Nine millimeters. Once in the shoulder and once in the abdomen. The damage was extensive; however, he recovered fully.

When did this occur?

She does not respond for several seconds. I am uncertain if Jim would want me to answer your query.

Understood. I shall ask him myself upon his safe return.

T’Mara leans harder against his side and he gladly takes her weight. In this, at least, he can be useful.

Six point nine minutes later, the gray-haired marshal pushes a twitchy tech, clutching several pads to his chest, inside the room. They are immediately followed by Doctor McCoy.

“What the hell is going on?” McCoy demands, sinking to his knees beside Spock, hands reaching for T’Mara. 

Surprisingly, she does not allow herself to be transferred into the doctor’s embrace, but rather she maintains her attachment to Spock while pulling Doctor McCoy onto the couch beside them. The small bench is not intended for such a number of occupants, but Spock does not note his concerns about structural integrity given the circumstances.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Len,” Pike says. “T’Mara collapsed from referred pain a few minutes ago. Jim is injured, we’re finding out where. You––” he points at the tech. “Where is he? James Kirk.”

The tech shrugs, holding up a pad. “In the desert. But the tracker says he’s fine, sir.”

“Put it on screen,” McCoy says.

The tech glances at Pike who makes an irritated gesture that Spock has often seen the captain make, occasionally accompanied by the words “well, go on.”

The holo screen on the wall fills with data.

“Those aren’t Jim’s vitals,” McCoy says. “You sure you’ve got the right one?”

The tech points to the name at the top of the screen, James Tiberius Kirk.

“Well, I don’t know who that tracker’s tracking,” McCoy insists, “but it’s not Jim. He’s got a heart murmur. Harmless thing, but––can you show the readout from some time yesterday? Or earlier in the––”

The data shifts.

“Perfect. Now, this. This is Jim.” McCoy stands and strides forward to drag his finger along the holo screen. “Look here, after the beat, when the heart is repolarizing, see this little blip? It happens every time. Go back to the current readings and––see?” he pokes the screen. “It’s not there. That isn’t Jim’s heart.”

Pike crosses his arms. “Was feedback from the tracker ever lost?” He asks the tech.

The tech makes a few keystrokes, opening an error log on screen.

“Yeah,” he says, “looks like there was a…twenty-eight second loss of contact where it went dark early this morning.”

“Show me,” McCoy demands, and then, hardly before the screen has loaded: “There, I knew it. It’s Jim before the loss of contact but not after. Some son of a bitch took off Jim’s tracker and put it on someone else.’

“Send these details to the marshal’s pad,” Pike tells the tech. “Marshal, go to these coordinates, find out who does have that tracker and impress upon them the importance of sharing Kirk’s actual location with us.”

The man salutes and leaves the room.

T’Mara’s grip on Spock’s wrist is tight to the point of pain.

“Captain,” Spock says, speaking for both him and T’Mara. “Jim may not have the privilege of time.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“It is possible for Vulcan bonds to be used in a similar fashion to a tracking device.”

T’Mara pulls Spock’s hand urgently to her temple. What are you waiting for? FIND him.

“I cannot,” he answers aloud for the benefit of the others. “I do not have the training. But my father does. I have already contacted him and as the embassy is within walking distance, I assume––”

Spock’s pad vibrates on the table. Spock only looks at it for a moment. “He is in the lobby.”

Pike picks up his phone again, demanding that the admin desk immediately give Sarek a full access pass and personal accompaniment to the elevator with directions to Pike’s office. When he hangs up, he paces to the window. Then back to the desk. And the window again.

Spock redirects his attention to T’Mara, still tucked under his arm, her hand a vise around his wrist. “The procedure is invasive,” he warns her. “He will only proceed with your permission.”

“He has it,” T’Mara says.

Spock suspected that would be her response.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

The plot thickens!! (Friendly reminder that there will be a happy ending and no one else is going to die from here on out).

My work trip has concluded and I am in high spirits. If you’re not familiar with the tech world, there’s this thing called “President’s Club” where companies send their top performing folks to some fancy location to celebrate for a week with the C suite in recognition of their accomplishments. I was invited to club this year, with a +1, so B and I will be headed to Monte Carlo for an all expenses paid trip. One of my favorite coworkers was also invited and I’m so looking forward to enjoying that part of the world with B, them, and their spouse. The imposter syndrome is still real but this had toned it down bit. I should have left academia sooner, my friends.

See you next week for: The Rescue.

Also, please mind the updated tags. None of the abuse will be explicit, or referenced in detail, but it will be referenced.

Ok, love y’all, bye!

Chapter 15

Notes:

CW: please note the updated tags!

Tarsus IV

Tarsus City

Stardate 100166.1

Kodos never touched Jim.

Well, that wasn’t true. Kodos touched him plenty—a hand curled around Jim’s bicep, the back of his neck, his wrist. Shoulder pats and demeaning hair ruffles and heavy arms slung over hunched shoulders.

But he never never touched him like that.

Not in public. And even behind closed doors, even when Kodos’ tone became an oil slick; when his voice got low and violent and his words explicit; when he told Jim to sit and watch and listen and learn. He never touched Jim.

But he told Jim he could. 

And the truth of it was paralyzing.

Kodos was a king in everything but name and Jim was little more than a prisoner ID number. Even if Jim were to complain, who would he tell? Who would believe him? And even if they did believe him, no one would do anything with that knowledge aside from bury it. The certainty of his own helplessness, the necessity of his subjugation, was a terrible, nauseating, thing. And Kodos revelled in Jim’s understanding of their dynamic.

Jim knew that for men like Kodos, sex wasn’t just about sex––it was about power. Building it. Displaying it. Enforcing it. Jim, for whatever reason, seemed to attract those kinds of men, and knowing the reason behind the behavior did nothing to mitigate the horror of being an unwilling participant in it.

Jim had been flattered by Kodos’ attention, at first. Naive despite knowing better. Jim had only been at the colony for a few months when the governor came to the detention center’s school. He was there to announce the academic award winners, to bestow ribbons and tell the victors their assigned research station. He’d shaken Jim’s hand, handsome and ebullient, and told Jim he was special. He had potential. He would go so far. 

The first invitation came three days later via Jim’s delighted headmaster. She gave Jim a pass from morning class and afternoon work so he could visit the capitol. It was nice, if boring, following Kodos from city planning to military meetings, to inspections and budgetary sessions. But Kodos asked Jim’s opinion between meetings and listened to his answers and told Jim he was wise beyond his years. And Jim believed him. 

He was invited back twice for similar day-trips before his research study started and he’d spent those near-idyllic months with T’Mara and her parents. 

When he returned, though. The visits continued. And they changed.They became multi-day trips. His time at the capitol with Kodos was excused by Jim’s admittance into an exclusive youth leadership program. He got a certificate on thick embossed paper. Gold ink. Except Jim was pretty sure he was the only one in the program, if it existed at all. 

After his second overnight trip, he burned the certificate. After the third, he faked sick when his escort arrived to pick him up for the fourth. Jim watched from the lip of his barred dorm window as the escort made a radio call, his free hand resting on the gun strapped to the front of his tac vest. 

The escort took Kevin instead.

Kevin. Grinning, innocent, thirteen-year-old Kevin who was only there because he’d been stupid enough to play lookout while his older brother stole a felony's worth of pads from an electronics shop back on Earth. Kevin’s brother went to prison. Kevin went to Tarsus.

Kevin returned from the governor’s house two days later looking haunted. Jim didn’t ask and Kevin didn’t volunteer any information. But every time after that, when the escort came for Jim, Kevin met Jim’s eyes and his expression was full of too much—a furious combination of relief and disgust and helplessness as Jim was led away. When Jim would return, Kevin would wait until the other boys were asleep. He’d slide into Jim’s bunk and lay on his back, shoulder to shoulder with Jim for an hour or two before leaving again. He never said anything. He didn’t have to. Neither of them were equipped to talk about the precarious nature of their existence, but they understood each other just fine anyway.

Jim never played sick again. Because Kevin wasn’t like Jim. He didn’t know how to handle—

Whatever.

Jim did know how to handle it.

It was fine.

And Kodos’ supposed favor ensured his continued survival. Jim was there, in the Governor’s house, when the rosters were created. He was there, in Kodos’ self-proclaimed ‘war room’ when the troops were deployed. He’d had just enough warning, just enough leeway, to slip out between meetings and run for the wall. 

He’d met Gaila in the hallway. Also running. They’d seen each other before, in passing, but never shared more than commiserating eye contact. Gaila was a favorite of Kodos’ general. She was at the Capitol nearly as often as Jim was. Though he suspected, from the bruises on her wrists, that unlike Kodos, the general did not limit his exploitation to psychological assault.

They weren’t fast enough to warn the older barracks. But they got Kevin from the infirmary and the younger ones from the daycare and a handful of kids who’d been on a field trip and were changing their clothes before heading to the gymnasium. Jim stole a truck that survived its use as a battering ram and got them half-way to the caves before it got stuck. 

They had to walk the remaining distance through a sandstorm that turned the kid’s tear-streaked faces into mud slicks, but the storm also covered their tracks. Less than 24 hours later, Jim performed his first raid. A month after that, a second. Then a third. But he never saw Kodos again.

Until now.

Until the guards dragged him up the stone steps to the governor’s house and down the incongruously plush hallway rug and into the sitting room where they dropped him, wheezing, to his knees.

The house was warm and a record was playing on the sideboard. Jim could smell basil and garlic––pesto sauce, maybe. Chicken. It was like stepping into another world, another reality; one where Jim didn’t fit with his ripped dust-bleached pants scattering sand on the wine-red rug.

Between one blink and the next, Kodos was there.

He looked the same: a deceptively easy smile and tidy facial hair. He was wearing what he typically did at night––a brocade dressing gown over much less ostentatious pinstripe lounge pants. No shirt. 

“Oh James,” he sighed. He reached out to cradle Jim’s chin, tipped it one way and then the other. “Look at you. So thin.”

He let go, wiping his fingers on the thick cuff of his opposite sleeve.

“Though I suppose it speaks to your ingenuity that you’re merely thin and not dead. Tell me, of the children you stole, how many are still alive?”

Jim said nothing.

“Are you the last of them?”

Jim said nothing.

Kodos moved to the sideboard, pouring whisky––whisky always was his favorite—into a crystal glass. He swirled it twice before taking a sip, and Jim thought, a little hysterically, that he played the villain too well. If this was a film or a book, Jim would think the caricature of it all, the opulence and the airs, it would have been too on-the-nose.

“What did you think would happen, when you made your grand escape?” Kodos murmured. “You only prolonged their suffering. And yours.”

“What did you think would happen?” Jim said. “Sure, you got to play god for a while, but you’re going to prison for the rest of your life when Starfleet shows up and finds out what you’ve done.”

“James,” his tone, if possible, was even more condescending than the Kodos that haunted Jim’s memory. “I had such high hopes for you.”

“Well, that was your first mistake.”

“Starfleet isn’t coming,” Kodos said gently. “We contacted them months ago and alerted them to the virus that had swept the colony. It was too late to send help—the disease was so lethal.”

“Virus,” Jim repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“The virus,” Kodos continued placidly. “That killed nearly half the population. The general and I met with Starfleet via video call just last month when they beamed down additional supplies. They should last us another year, if we’re careful. By then, it should be safe, but the entire planet is under quarantine for the next six months.”

“But that’s not—everyone here knows. Everyone knows what you did.”

“Everyone on the colony knows there was a violent uprising from the prison sector in response to rationing after crops failed. And that my actions were necessary.”

“There wasn’t,” Jim argued. 

“And, I’m not sure if you looked in the windows of any of the hydroponics buildings we’ve set up, as you snuck in last night,” Kodos said over him, “but our indoor growth is substantial, since you left us.”

“You knew,” Jim realized. “You engineered this from the start.”

“Oh, I wish I had engineered it. However, I cannot control the changing chemical composition of rainfall on a planet undergoing terraforming. I was merely…an opportunist.”

“But why?”

“Because I can. By the time Starfleet sets foot on this planet again, I’ll be celebrated as a hero. I kept the colony alive through a crisis. And even if no one puts it in print, they’ll be relieved that the majority of deaths were a few thousand prisoners who were nothing but a societal drain. I’ll be offered my pick of new settlement assignments on more opulent planets, with more resources, and less oversight.”

Kodos bent at the waist, leaned close enough that Jim could smell the liquor on his breath. “I’m not playing god,” Kodos whispered. “I am god.”

The heavy door to the room creaked open to admit the general. The man responsible for Gaila’s bruises. The man responsible for the way she flinched when anything touched her neck.

“Sir,” the general said. “We have a situation.”

And while Kodos was distracted, Jim lunged.

He didn’t have a plan. His hands were still zip-tied behind him and he was dehydrated and starving and half Kodos’ size, and the room was full of men with guns, but none of that mattered. He wanted Kodos to hurt, he needed Kodos to hurt. And that need mattered more than rational thought. 

Jim managed to knock him over, to bring Kodos to the ground in a wake of shattered glass and spilled whisky. He got his teeth into Kodos’ neck because it was the only weapon Jim had, and the blood on his tongue felt like victory even as Kodos‘ hands wrenched at his hair, even as he screamed and his fingers moved to Jim’s throat instead. Tight. Restrictive.

Jim didn’t let go.

Until a gunshot.

And the pain.

And then he had no choice.

Kodos pushed him to the side, swearing, and the gun sounded again. It took several seconds for Jim to realize the pain was different. Once you got to a certain threshold of agony, one gunshot didn’t feel all that different than two. For a moment, Jim could have sworn he could hear T’Mara’s voice in his head, shouting his name.

“What the fuck,” Kodos snarled, lurching to his feet, one hand clamped to his bleeding neck. 

Jim was on his side, hands still bound behind his back, head listing awkwardly against his shoulder. His fingers felt cold, where they were cupped around each other and he could almost––he could nearly feel T’Mara’s hand wrapped around his wrist instead, her thumb to his pulse. The pain was so bad he was surprised he was still conscious. Breathing was difficult, but he managed.

“I told you I wanted him alive,” Kodos was yelling; Jim assumed at the guard who’d shot him.

“But he attacked you.”

“Governor,” the general insisted from the door. 

“Fine,” Kodos said. “Let’s go.”

“What about the boy?” the guard asked.

“Leave him. You can deal with this mess later.”

They left him.

They left him there on the rug, with the music playing and the smell of hot food and the pain. Eventually, the record stopped and all Jim could hear was the gentle, repetitive thunk, thunk, thunk, of the turntable waiting for the vinyl to be flipped over.

Until the shouting started outside.

He thought he was imagining it, at first. Like he was imagining T’Mara, screaming his name. Except the windows suddenly glowed with artificial light and the front door burst open and heavy footsteps fanned down the hall and through the house and up the stairs, voices calling “clear!” to one another.

A pair of boots moved into the sitting room.

“Jesus Christ,” a woman muttered, kneeling beside Jim. “Commander!” She pulled at a Velcro fastener on her tac vest, shouting to someone in the hall. “We’re gonna need a doctor!” 

She withdrew a knife and cut through the zip tie around Jim’s wrists, helping him roll onto his back. Moving hurt. Everything hurt. 

”Hey, kid,” she said urgently, “you with me?”

He was. Especially now that he could see her and not just her boots.

“Yeah,” he managed.

He grinned through bloody teeth at her.

She was wearing a Starfleet uniform.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Hurray! Finally, they’re rescued (and we get to see several “current” characters in the next “past” chapter; I wonder who they might be??)

Work is ramping up pretty hard core and I am, actually, working on my novel, and also engaging in political activism whenever possible so I shall salute you and be on my way. If you’re an American like me and could use a very long, reassuring hug about the state of our country, consider yourself hugged. Or high-fived. Or just like. Sat with quietly in the same room. Whatever form of solidarity you’d prefer.

Thanks for all the comments! Love you! See you next week (in which Spock Finds Out in a suitably dramatic way).

Chapter 16

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

Locating Jim via T’Mara’s bond is simple.

When Sarek arrives, T’Mara’s shields falter and Spock is inundated with a deluge of feelings: Recognition. Familiarity. Relief. Something deeper and far more complex––vindication layered on top of anger on top of grief.

The recognition is unexpected. Spock and his parents maintain regular communication and Sarek has made no mention of interacting with a Vulcan child adopted by a human parent. Such an occurrence would have been noteworthy enough to share. And yet, Sarek moves directly to the bench upon which they sit, and kneels before T’Mara, extending his arm, as if offering––

She rests the fingers of her free hand on his wrist.

S’chn T’gai Sarek T’Mara thinks, and Spock, his own wrist still held in her opposite hand, hears them both as Sarek answers, T’Mara Kirk. May I?

She pulls Sarek’s hand to her face and closes her eyes as his fingers splay to find her meld points. She releases Spock, but does not move away from him, and Spock finds himself unsettled by the lack of skin contact––the lack of mental contact after such a sustained duration. Objectively, he knows his father can assist T’Mara with maintaining her shields while also performing the necessary procedure to locate Jim, but Spock finds his ability to be objective failing. He also fails to generate the appropriate concern over this recognition. There are far more important matters at hand.

“Father,” Spock says, when his Sarek’s eyes open once more. “Do you know where Jim is?” 

“I do,” he answers. “Captain Pike, contact the nearest beaming technician.”

Except they find, over the next six point five minutes, that while locating Jim via T’Mara’s bond is simple, getting to him will not be. Because none of the beaming terminals on campus are working. 

Spock does not believe in coincidences. And he does not enjoy the implication of Jim’s injury occurring in such close proximity to an inexplicable campus-wide technological failure.

After wasting precious minutes attempting to troubleshoot the issue, Pike uses his communicator to call a contact who takes three long rings to answer. 

“Estimated launch readiness date is still the same, Captain,” a man with a Scottish accent says upon answering.

“Scotty, are you on the Enterprise?” Pike is pacing. Spock would likely join him if it would not disturb T’Mara, who is once again pressed close to Spock’s side. Only now, she has a firm grip on both his and his father’s wrists.

“Where else would I be?” The man answers.

“Are the beaming capabilities functional?” Pike presses.

The man’s tone changes, likely in response to Pike’s. “Ay, sir, should be.”

“I’m going to need you to beam multiple people from my current location to a location eighty miles away, as soon as possible. I have the coordinates when you’re ready.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to get up to the transport bay, but I’m on my way now.” His breath puffs through the speakers on the communicator, as if he is running.

“Hurry, if you would,” Pike urges. “It’s a life or death situation.”

“Innit always. Give me a tick. I’ll call you back when I’m there.”

Pike hangs up.

Why can we not beam Jim directly to us? T’Mara asks.

It is protocol. Spock answers. We must ascertain it is safe to remove Jim before doing so.

T’Mara feels distinctly unimpressed with this knowledge.

“Who else is part of this simulation?” McCoy asks from the floor at Spock’s feet. He’s got one of his hands on T’Mara’s knee, the other rifling through a bag of medical supplies––taking inventory, he said, just in case.

Pike gestures at the tech who nearly drops his pad in his haste to pull up the list before handing it over. Pike begins reading it out loud. Spock is most concerned with helping T’Mara maintain her quickly deteriorating shields and does not pay particular attention to the names until he feels a wave of disgust from T’Mara at the same time that McCoy says, “Oh fuck no. Gary is out there?”

“Gary Mitchell,” Pike repeats, “yes.”

“You know this Cadet?” Spock asks.

“You could say that,” McCoy mutters. “He and Jim had a thing last summer. Briefly. Very briefly.”

“They were ‘friends with benefits,’” T’Mara supplies. It is the first thing she’s said aloud since her collapse in class.

“More like friends with detriments,” McCoy says. “Jim ended it pretty much as soon as it started, but Gary took it bad. Jim thought he’d have to get a restraining order there for a while before he backed off.”

I did not like him, T’Mara adds. 

Spock and his father share a considering look.

“Do you believe he may be responsible for Jim’s injury?” Spock asks.

McCoy makes an uncertain noise. “He was a squirrely kid. Clingy. Entitled. But not ever violent. And there’s no way he could have overpowered Jim without help. Or a weapon. And they weren’t allowed to bring weapons to the simulation.”

“Sure is a hell of a coincidence, though,” Pike murmurs. “Along with all the rest of this.”

“That it is,” McCoy agrees. 

“Spock,” Pike says. “You and I will beam in first and assess the situation. I’ve got a security squad on standby to assist if needed.”

”I will accompany you,” T’Mara says.

”No you will not,” Pike answers. “And it’s not up for negotiation. Even Cadets who are of age aren’t permitted to beam into hostile situations without special dispensation. You’ll stay here with the Ambassador.”

Pike’s communicator trills. “Scotty,” he answers, “you got us?” 

Spock stands, T’Mara’s fingers slipping down his knuckles and away. Her last thought lingers: please bring him back alive.

“Yessir,” Scotty says. “I’ve got you, Mr. Spock, and Doctor McCoy along with three unknown signatures. What are the destination coordinates?”

Sarek conveys them.

“Scotty,” Pike says, pausing in his pacing to lean on his desk with one hand, “what are the life signs in that area?”

“Looks like just the one, sir. Though there’s a half-dozen more about a quarter mile away..”

“Perfect. You let me know if any of the others start heading for us once we get down there, ok?”

“Will do, Captain.”

“Send me and Spock now.”

“Yessir,” Scotty answers. “Brace yourselves.”

Pike’s office melts away and Spock finds himself instead in a dimly lit concrete bunker of some kind. The smell is distasteful. When he turns to take in his full surroundings, however, he sees Jim.

Jim is––

Shackled.

Shackled. As if he is a prisoner in the brig of an antiquated enemy ship. His arms are chained above his head, his feet barely maintaining contact with the floor. As a result, his breathing is labored through his compressed diaphragm; terrible and rasping and wet. Slow. Too slow.

Spock has seen victims of torture before. He rescued them during his tenure with Captain Pike on the USS Antares. Spock was not emotionally compromised by those prisoners’ states. However, the cognitive dissonance of the victim being Jim nearly causes him to stumble.

Just days before, Spock sat across from Jim at a chess table in the park; the sunlight bright in his hair; his eyes the blue of poets; his skin golden in the sun. Now, Jim’s hair is lank and dark with sweat. His eyes are an unfocused grey. And his skin is the color of bone. Jim is the kind of pale that is indicative of significant blood loss. Spock knows from experience that a Human with such a corpse-like complexion will quickly become one without immediate medical intervention.

“Jim,” Spock says, and lurches forward.

“Oh, fuck,” Pike mutters, scrambling to follow him.

Jim’s dessert fatigues are a mess of red-brown, stiff beneath Spock’s hands as he helps Pike stabilize Jim. Pike holds Jim up, taking pressure off his lungs, while Spock twists the chains apart. He does not have the time nor inclination to find a key and he does not need one.

The floor beneath Jim is a mire of half-dried, tacky blood, and as they lay him flat, Spock isn’t certain where the blood is coming from because it appears to be coming from everywhere.

“Scotty,” Pike says, “Get the three of us to the nearest trauma center with working beaming capabilities and then send McCoy there as well.”

“Ten-four captain.”

As he waits in the silence for their transport, Spock realizes it is too silent.

Jim is no longer breathing.

Spock feels nothing at all––he does not allow himself to––as he folds his hands in the appropriate shape and he presses them hard to Jim’s chest. Again. And again. And again.

Pike’s com pings. Scotty says, “Captain, I’m only seeing you and Mr. Spock. The third life sign has disappeared. I cannae get a lock to beam.”

Spock stops listening. He checks for a pulse and does not find it. He resumes compressions. After twenty-four, he feels one of Jim’s ribs break. He lessens his force by twelve percent and continues.

Spock only knows the doctor arrives because suddenly there is a body beside him–– a cursing, competent body with hands that apply hyposprays before pushing Spock aside. McCoy rips open Jim’s uniform and applies wire-trailing electrodes down a chest that is littered with wounds, blocking Spock from reaching Jim again with his arm, shouting “clear.”

Jim’s body lurches––a visceral, terrible, thing.

But then. Then Spock can hear Jim's heart: sluggish at first and growing stronger.

”Alright,” McCoy breathes. “We’ve got him back. Tell Scotty to get us to the hospital, now.” McCoy applies additional hyposprays and begins running a tricorder down Jim’s prone body, muttering to himself.

Spock takes advantage of the Doctor’s distraction to shift forward again. His uniform pants are wet where he kneels in Jim’s blood and Jim’s eyes are wide where they meet his and Spock has never felt such a need to give comfort.

“Jim,” he says. “Do not fear. You are safe.”

Spock touches his face, despite the impropriety, because he is uncertain where else is safe to touch without exacerbating Jim’s many wounds. He presses his thumb beneath one blue, blue, eye, and–– 

Oh.

Oh.

Spock is lost.

His fingers drift like a forgotten habit to Jim’s meld points, feels Jim’s breath and heartbeat and deeper, beneath the mundane necessity of muscle and bone, the intrinsic rightness of the bond. Their bond.

No.

Spock is not lost.

Spock is found.

Notes:

Captain’s log:

:D
It it even an Xiaq fic if there’s not an Oh. OH. Moment?

Also, please feast your eyes upon this magnificent piece of T’Mara art: https://www.tumblr.com/xiaq/774416933398380544?source=share

In IRL news, I remain very concerned about the state of [gestures broadly but also pretty pointedly in the direction of the white house]. It is truly a terrible paradox, wanting to see the US burn to the ground in a fire of its own making while also being an American whose preferred state is not-on-fire. Alas.

Also, I made a bluesky account because apparently that’s where people are going instead of the-app-that-was-formerly-Twitter, now. I don’t know. I’m tired. I’d prefer to only communicate via letters delivered to my mossy cave, but as that’s not currently an option, here you go. https://bsky.app/profile/elmassey.bsky.social

See you next week! In which: The Rescue has a bit of a false start, present-day characters make an appearance, and Jim takes his unwanted but firmly embraced parental duties seriously.

Chapter 17

Federation Space

Starship USS ANTARES

Stardate 105078.9

Jim awoke to pain and a child screaming his name.

He didn’t know who it was, which was weird because he knew his kids. And whoever it was wasn’t any of them.

There were hands pressing him back flat to a bed as he tried to sit up, and bright lights overhead and voices shouting and God, his entire body ached.

And some girl was screaming his name.

No, he realized, as consciousness settled further, his brain feeling slow and cumbersome as he tried to keep his eyes open, to focus on the blur of moving shapes around him––it wasn’t some girl.

It was T’Mara.

Hoarse and desperate and terrified but undoubtedly her because he could hear the echo of her in his head––

Jim. Sa’mekh. Please.

“Jim!”

To hear her voice first like that was a tragedy.

He bucked against the hands that were restraining him. “Let me go. T’Mara?”

“JT?” Kevin shouted somewhere to his left, “JT, what do we do? They’re trying to take the kids––”

“Jim,” T’Mara screamed, “Sa’mekh,”

Gaila was snarling something in Orion and the younger ones had to be there too—they all joined the chorus T’Mara started while adult voices shouted back at them. 

JIM.

“JIM.”

Jim thrashed, trying to get visibility through the cluster of bodies around him. He wanted to kill them; he didn’t even care that they were Starfleet, that they were the rescuers he’d wished so desperately for over the last three months. He wanted to destroy them for making this the first memory he’d ever have of T’Mara speaking his name aloud.

“Let him go.”

Kevin’s voice was suddenly closer, as was the sound of growing alarm from the people around him. He wrenched one arm free, clawed the second one from the restraint they were trying to buckle it into, kicked and writhed and bit his way out of the cage of reaching bodies. He made it off the bed and onto the floor, put his back to the corner and reached for something, anything, he could use as a weapon, trying to force his useless, swimming, vision to focus––

And then T’Mara crashed into him and his arms were around her and he was not going to let go. Not without a fucking fight. Gaila appeared a moment later, as a blur of green skin and red hair, pressing her left shoulder to his right, holding something––maybe a scalpel? And seconds after that, Kevin shoved his way forward to join them, wielding an IV stand like a weapon. The top was bent, indicating he’d used it several times already.

“Let them go!” A man’s voice called urgently. “Have I taught you nothing of de-escalation? Let them go.”

The nurses drew back as the rest of his kids scrambled forward, clustering around Jim with their own makeshift weapons, voices high and scared and wanting to know what to do, except, beneath the onslaught of T’Mara’s fear and his own pounding head, he didn’t know what to do––

A piercing whistle cut through the uproar of voices around him and everything went quiet.

“Everybody out, now. Except you, M’Benga. What the hell is going on?”

The newcomer, while still fuzzy in Jim’s unstable vision, was dressed in command gold.

He could whistle really loud.

“I’m Captain Pike,” the command-gold figure said, arms crossed as he made eye-contact with Jim. “And I guess I don’t have to ask who’s in charge, here. What’s your name, kid?”

“James Tiberius Kirk.” Jim said it like an expletive.

“You’re the one who made the distress call.”

“That’s me.”

“Kirk. As in––George and Winona’s son?”

“That’s me,” he repeated, harsher, shifting T’Mara in his arms. She was quietly sobbing, something he didn’t think was possible for Vulcans. There had been so many hands touching her. So much horror and pity and disgust and they wanted to take her away, away from Jim, away from safety. It was difficult to separate the inky terror in his hindbrain from the real world bathed in white medical lights before him.

“Jesus,” Pike said. “Okay. You want to tell me why you and your child army are trying to kill my medical staff, James? After we just rescued you, like you asked us to?”

“They were taking the kids away,” Jim answered hoarsely. “And they put their bare hands on T’Mara without her permission and didn’t stop when she told them to. She’s a touch telepath. That’s assault. Which your medical staff should know. ”

“I think they were a little more worried about getting you all away from the brink of death.”

“Kids are owed the same autonomy as any other patient,” Jim snarled. “And autonomy should never be of secondary importance.” It’s hard to separate his own thoughts from T’Mara’s. His anger from hers.

“Alright, fair enough. Stand down, okay? Everyone relax. Give me a second to talk to my CMO.”

Captain Pike grabbed the shoulder of the doctor––M’Benga––and dragged him around the corner. Jim’s hearing wasn’t good enough to listen in, but T’Mara’s was and they were basically sharing the same brain at that point.

“Start from the top,” Pike demanded.

“Kirk was beamed in first. We treated his gunshot wounds––archaic weapons–– and were getting a drip started on him in recovery when the rest of the kids were brought in. I was at the transport bay triaging and my staff, unfortunately, attempted to separate the three oldest children from the six younger children for treatment in different rooms. When I arrived, only moments before you did, I found the patients had all violently taken exception to such an action.”

“Tell me about the Vulcan kid,” Pike asked, “what’s with the blood all over her face?”

“It’s not hers,” M’Benga said tiredly. “She bit one of the nurses trying to hold her down.”

Good girl, Jim thought.

“She’s claiming her name is T’Mara Kirk and that James is her father.”

That should have freaked Jim out, but it didn’t. It just felt true.

“I thought Vulcans didn’t lie,” Pike murmured.

“I don’t believe she is lying.”

“Except that Jim is a human and can’t be more than five years older than her.”

“Probably closer to ten,” M’Benga disagreed. “And it’s not uncommon for Vulcan children who have lost their parents to create spontaneous familial bonds with caregivers or those in close proximity after trauma. It’s their mind’s way of self-preservation and healing what is, to all effects, a mental wound. In such cases, the bond is the equivalent to adoption.”

“And you think they have one of these bonds?”

“All signs point to yes.”

“Of course,” Pike exhaled loudly. “Goddamn. So what do we do?”

“Don’t attempt to separate them.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

 “Not just Jim and T’Mara,” M’Benga clarified, “but any of them. From what we know, they likely have extreme distrust of authority figures. Having James on our side will benefit us when treating the younger ones. They all look to him for guidance.”

“I also got that. Okay. So how do we overcome the poor first impression your overeager staff has left?”

“That, I do not know, sir.”

“Do any of them need immediate treatment?”

“All of them need immediate treatment,” M’Benga responded. “Look at them.”

“I mean, will any of them drop dead if we take another hour or two to start treating them?”

“...No.

Pike made a considering noise. “When is McCoy back on shift?”

“Not for another three hours.”

“Tell him to come now. He’ll be a new face and I think he has just the right personality to handle Jim.”

There was a weighty silence, and then: “...I have concerns with this course of action.”

“Noted,” Pike said. “Do it anyway. And from this point forward, no one touches any of those kids without their express permission unless they’re actively dying, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goddamn,” Pike exhaled. ”So much for an easy first mission as Captain. Get McCoy down here.”

”Yes, sir.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

:D Young Bones, my beloved.

After several days of T-shirt weather, we are once again bracing for a snowstorm. I think Deacon can tell because he’s been as spry and energetic as a puppy all day. My snow shoes are ready, as is my fireplace in the library for our return. :) I hope everyone else impacted by this weather is staying safe and warm.

Thanks for all the comments! I treasure every one.

See you next week for: Jim and Spock finally having The Talk (and Bones being like “Well shit, I’m stuck with this Vulcan guy for the rest of my life now, aren’t I?”)

Chapter 18

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

While he understands their purpose, Spock develops an irrational dislike of waiting rooms over the next three point six hours.

T’Mara has fallen asleep in his lap, her arms linked around his neck, her face tucked to his throat. He keeps his shared thoughts calm and soothing. He projects to her memories of his nighttime childhood walks through the bioluminescent desert fauna of Vulcan. Of his pet Sehlat. Of the star-bright sky.

After such turmoil, such mental agony, T’Mara’s body has forced her to rest. Spock hopes that if he remains still she will sleep until they have news of Jim’s imminent recovery.

Cadet Vro, Gaila, sits to the left of them.

She told the nurse who tried to deny her admittance that she is Jim’s sister with a finality that brooked no argument and Spock supposes that if Jim can have a Vulcan daughter, he can also have an Orion sister. Sarek is meditating where he sits to the right of them. Pike is once again pacing.

Cadet Vro stands as McCoy enters through the sliding bay doors, wearing scrubs and exhaustion like a tangible thing.

“He’s alive,” McCoy says, catching Cadet Vro in what appears to be a hug but is also the most aggressive form of the gesture Spock has ever seen. “He’s alive and he’ll stay that way. Should be up on his feet in a few days, even.”

“What happened?” She demands.

“Far as we can tell, he was electrocuted first, then beat to hell and cut with a pretty sizable blade. This wasn’t––it was personal. Whoever did this.”

“Gary?” she asks from the vicinity of McCoy’s chest.

“I can’t picture him doing this. And he woulda had to have help. One person didn’t––there’s no way.”

Pike exhales heavily. “They’re still questioning the cadets that were picked up nearby. Gary Mitchell was among them, but we don’t know anything else yet. We’ll need to hear from Jim what happened.”

“I would like to see him,” Spock says. “As would T’Mara, I am certain.”

“Look,” McCoy starts.

“You cannot prohibit me,” Spock says. “And I would not recommend attempting to do so when the Vulcan Ambassador himself is present to observe such an infraction.” 

“Jesus Christ,” McCoy mutters, “Don’t get your panties in a twist. I was just going to say I’ll let you go back with some stipulations.”

“I am not wearing––“ Spock stops before completing the sentence. He does not wish to say the word ‘panties’ aloud. 

“Okay, what?” Cadet Vro asks, releasing McCoy so she can glance between him and Spock. ”Am I missing something here?”

“Yeah,” McCoy crosses his arms and glares at Spock as if he has made some unpardonable infraction. “Pretty big thing you missed, actually. Apparently Jim’s some kind of Vulcan catnip because the minute Spock touched him they developed a bond just like he and T’Mara did.” He sounds vaguely hysterical, but then, Spock has ascertained he often sounds as such. 

“Better be careful, sir,” McCoy adds, directing the words to Sarek. “Or you’ll get added to the collection.”

“I have touched James Kirk and no such bond developed,” Sarek says placidly.

Spock has never considered patricide until this moment.

“...please fucking clarify that statement,” McCoy says.

Spock could not agree more.

Sarek lifts a perfunctory eyebrow. “As you well know, Doctor McCoy, I performed a meld with James four point two five years ago as part of my duties on the Vulcan council.”

Spock has questions, though McCoy and Cadet Vro do not, judging by their expressions.

”Oh!” Cadet Vro says. “You’re the one who––oh, how nice. And Spock is your son?”

“He is,” Sarek agrees.

“Well, that’s just perfect, isn’t it.”

“Indeed,” Sarek agrees.

“I fail to see––“ Spock starts, but McCoy speaks over him.

“You’re gonna have to leave T’Mara here if you go back. I can only let one person in at a time until his treatment is complete, which won’t be for a few more hours.”

Spock is…torn.

He has never before felt a desire so strong to ascertain the wellness of another being. But so too is his desire to keep T’Mara content––asleep and dreaming where fear cannot touch her.

“I will take her,” Sarek murmurs. “I will maintain her rest until you have returned.”

His father’s offer is logical, and while Spock has not always agreed with Sarek’s parenting methods, he has never doubted his father’s compassion. Spock transfers T’Mara carefully into his arms and stands, following McCoy through the bay doors and down the bright-lit hospital hallway.

Jim is in a treatment room attached to a variety of monitors and machines. He appears to be asleep, but is breathing without assistance, and his exposed torso, while covered in the shiny pink-red skin that signifies recent healing in Humans, is in drastically better condition than when Spock last saw him. Jim’s hips and legs are still wrapped in an assortment of bulky regenerative bandages. His face looks as it always does, now warm and golden again from blood transfusions. The relief of it––of seeing Jim look as he should with flushed lips and the dusting of a sunburn at the crest of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose—makes Spock feel nearly light-headed.

Spock moves the chair in the corner to the bedside and sits, continuing to study Jim’s still form. His hands were largely spared the damage inflicted to the rest of his body, but as such they have clearly not been the doctor’s priority. Spock is dismayed to find that Jim’s skin is chapped and raw around the joints, his knuckles abraded. 

Spock looks at his own hands with uncertainty. These are the hands that kept Jim’s heart beating. But they are violent hands. Hands that broke Jim’s ribs in their efforts. He knows that touching Jim is his right, is his honor, however…he does not know if he can be as gentle as Jim deserves. 

Nevertheless, his T’hy’la needs care and it is Spock’s duty to provide it.

He steps into the hallway to ask Doctor McCoy for sanitary wipes and ointment. After a surfeit of grumbling, the doctor acquiesces, muttering about “no funny business.” Spock finds nothing about the circumstances amusing, and says so. Unsurprisingly, this leads to more muttering. While Spock must admit that McCoy is a skilled physician, his ‘bedside manner’ is in need of refinement.

Back in Jim’s room, Spock washes his hands and then carefully tends to Jim’s, cleaning them of blood and small debris, spending perhaps too long ensuring that his cuticles and the spaces beneath his nails are free from any reminder of the day’s events.

The first step complete, he tips the bottle of healing ointment into the cup of one palm and warms it between his hands before applying it first to Jim’s left hand and then his right. Asleep as Jim is, Spock can only feel vague surface-level emotions through their skin contact—but Jim’s unconstituted thoughts are nevertheless warm and comforted as Spock uses broad strokes of his thumbs against Jim’s palm to encourage absorption of the oil. He treats each of Jim’s fingers with the careful reverence they deserve. 

Jim’s mental state shifts, becoming more aware, and then sparks with something like pleased recognition. 

“Thought hand-touching was for family only,” Jim mutters hazily.

Spock stills, glancing up to meet Jim’s barely-open eyes, and then continues his ministrations. “It is permitted in these circumstances, though if you would prefer I desist––”

“No, it’s nice. Under what circumstances are––ow, fuck.”

“Please do not move the bottom half of your body, as you are still healing. While your torso has been fully treated, your legs require additional time.”

“No shit,” Jim hisses. “How did you find me?”

“My father assisted T’Mara in using your bond to ascertain your location. Jim, will you share your memories with me? I wish to alert the authorities to the nature of your injuries and the perpetrators therein at the earliest convenient time.”

“Uh,” Jim blinks, slow and uncertain, at him. “Sure.”

And then, Spock is in the desert.

It is discomfiting, to be so quickly and seamlessly immersed in a mind that is so tangibly not Vulcan. Jim is human. And yet, he is clearly skilled at sharing his mind with others. It should not come as a surprise, knowing what he does about Jim’s and T’Mara’s relationship. But the reality of Jim’s mental abilities is nonetheless shocking.

He is in the desert.

Confident. He is hot and tired and hungry but not––not a hunger that hurts. Not the familiar hunger of desperation that––

It is sunset.

He finds a small copse of trees and creates a makeshift camp for the night, drinking a careful ration of water and eating one-half of a nutrition bar before finding the stars above and sleep below.

He awakes to hands holding him down in pre-dawn light––too many bodies to fight, though he tries––and then there’s a hypo in his neck and he can’t fight back at all anymore. A woman he doesn’t recognize pulls his shirt collar low enough to get her fingernails under the adhesive of the monitor on his chest as his vision starts to get blurry. His unfocused eyes land on Gary—fucking Gary––still holding down one of his arms and then–– 

He regains consciousness to pain. 

It’s a kind of pain he’s never experienced before because it is everywhere, all at once. He realizes that he’s being electrocuted but the knowledge does nothing to help him. There is no piece of him that is not in agony. There is no promise that it will end. And it doesn’t. For the longest time.

When he loses consciousness again, the encroaching black at the edge of his vision is a relief.

The next time he wakes, the overwhelming, spasming, pain has ended, but now he’s being beaten. Cut. He doesn’t recognize the woman or the man who inflict the injuries to him and his receptors are so fucked up he barely feels the abuse, which should be another kind of relief only he knows that he won’t get out of this, whatever ‘this’ is, and he’s going to die here––

He’s going to die.

And he doesn’t understand why.

He doesn’t know who these people are or why the woman keeps talking about justice for her father and then––

Then he’s alone. Hanging. And he can hear T’Mara in his head, begging for him to live, to hold on, because they are coming for him. But breathing is so hard and he hurts––

Spock takes a step back. He only barely remains in contact with Jim as his anger flares before he can subdue it. 

“What the––”Jim mutters. “Is that you in my head?“

“Yes,” Spock manages.

Jim blinks at him. “This isn’t just touch-telepathy, though. You’re like. You’re here. All over.”

“While performing life-saving measures, my bare hands came into contact with your skin,” Spock says. “A bond developed spontaneously upon that contact.”

“No kidding. It’s not—it doesn’t feel like the one I have with T’Mara, though. It’s—” He laboriously raises the arm not in Spock’s grasp and wiggles a finger in his ear. “What is this?”

Most humans would take the news that they had been married without their consent poorly. And ‘this’ as Jim so eloquently put it, is far more than a marriage. Spock does not know how to best explain.

“Ok,” Jim says, “your face is kinda freaking me out, what’s going on?”

“You researched Vulcan bonds when you discovered the link shared between T’Mara and yourself,” Spock posits.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Did you come across mention of the T’hy’la bond?”

Jim says nothing for several seconds and then, faintly: “Are you fucking serious?”

“Jim—”

“I’m human. And you’re half human. Is that even possible? Isn’t that like…cultural appropriation, or something?”

“Jim. You must breathe. Tell me what you know of T’hy’la bonds.”

“Sure. Right. They’re, uh, well, they were warrior bonds before y’all got all logical and stopped fighting everything that moved. It means more than a friend, a brother, or lover. Two parts of a whole. Most people who have them are born with them like some kind of…predetermined soul mate, but it’s really rare. And kind of hilarious, actually, because all documented T’hyla have been same-sex pairings so like. Congratulations, you’ve been assigned gay at birth.” He blinks. “But. You’re saying we have one of those?”

“Indeed.”

“Stop touching me.”

The feeling is something akin to being doused with cold water. Spock releases Jim immediately, taking several steps back from the bed. He is aware he is emoting and entirely unable to prevent it.

“No, wait. I don’t—I don’t want you to go away, I just want to test if—”

Oh, Jim thinks. You’re still here.

The gentle, inquiring press of Jim’s thoughts is a comfort. I am.

And you can hear me still?

I can.

This is…pretty cool, actually. I can hear T’Mara even when we’re not touching, but she can’t hear me. Wait. How much in my head can you see?

In this manner, only active thoughts and feelings; nothing deeper unless you intentionally think of them.

There’s a sudden flash of sand, dirt-caked fingers resting on bent knees and the oppressive weight of heat and––

A dark bedroom, the sound of a refrigerator opening and closing, the clink of bottles, a light from the hallway and––

A torn shirt, too-big hands against bare skin, and tangled sheets, and fear and––

Pink elephant!

Pink elephant!

Pink elephant!

“Please desist,” Spock says, flinching away from the mentally shouted image. “I can shield for us both until I have taught you to do so.”

“Jesus. Sorry. Thanks.”

Jim takes a moment to breathe. As does Spock.

Can you still hear me? Jim asks.

I can.

Is there a distance limitation?

There should not be.

Even if I was on a different planet?

Even then.

A grin lights up his face

“What?” Spock asks aloud.

“I was just thinking we’d make a seriously kickass command team. This is like…a built in communicator only it’s immune to sabotage. God, can you imagine? We’d be legendary.”

“If you so desire,” Spock says.

Jim tips his head, considering. “If I so desire,” he repeats.

“Yes.”

Jim’s features settle into something uncertain. Something probing. “What about, uh, what do you desire?”

“My only present desire is your health and happiness,” Spock answers. And then, quieter, “I imagine that will continue indefinitely.”

“Holy shit. Okay. This is––fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“I do not understand your apology. A T’hy’la bond is something to be celebrated; and while I understand this is a shock to you, I have known of your existence since childhood and I have been…anxious to meet you.”

“Yeah, but it’s me. There must be some mistake or—”

“There is no mistake,” Spock says sharply. “Nor would I wish there to be.”

“Oh please. I’ve got to be the least logical choice for a Vulcan probably ever.”

I was attracted to you from the moment I read your first exam, Spock tells him honestly. Perhaps due to the latent bond, perhaps not. But regardless of the reason, I find you beautiful, intelligent, hardworking, an admirable father, and a kind, patient, friend.

“I can think of no better person for a bondmate,” he says aloud, “Human or Vulcan, and I am eager to prove myself worthy of your returned affection.”

“I’m––” Jim’s eyes are wide. He swallows with a click. “I think I’m too high on pain meds to have this conversation.”

“Would you prefer I leave?”

Spock does not, in fact, know if he is capable of leaving Jim’s side, but he will attempt it, if––

“No. No, I want you to stay. Actually, I––it’s probably the bond, right? That’s making me want to climb you like a tree? Well. I wanted to do that before, but in like a sex way. Now I just want to be close to you. As close as possible.”

Spock takes a conscious inhale. “The bond may amplify certain feelings but it cannot create them. I am…amenable. To. Being close with you. In whatever fashion you prefer.”

“Do Vulcans cuddle?” Jim asks. His blue eyes are bright and appear amused despite the serious slant of his mouth.

“Whatever you desire,” Spock reminds him.

“I desire,” Jim says imperiously, “to be the little spoon.”

Spock is familiar with this terminology.

It will be simple enough to acquiesce Jim’s request provided it is safe to do so.

“Doctor,” Spock says, stepping into the hallway. “Jim has stated a desire to ‘spoon.’ Can you confirm that such an activity will not adversely affect the trajectory of his recovery?”

“This is the best day of my life,” Jim says from inside.

“Lord have mercy,” McCoy mutters. 

Spock does not understand why the doctor is making supplications to a deity, but then human religious practice has always eluded him.

“Spooning is fine,” McCoy scowls, pointing at Spock with his stylus. “Just no forking.”

“I am unfamiliar with other cutlery-related metaphors,” Spock starts, before realizing the similarity in word choice. “Ah,” he observes, “you are making a sexual pun.”

McCoy blinks at him and then shakes his head in what Spock interprets as resignation. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life. Go cuddle and leave me to my existential crisis, please.”

Spock is happy to follow the doctor’s orders.

He helps Jim onto his side, arranging his legs so they do not dislodge the regenerative pads wrapped around them and then, carefully, so very carefully, Spock slides into the space he has created. 

Jim is warm and smells of copper blood and stringent antiseptic and sweat and Jim, beneath all the rest. He focuses on the latter. It is a pleasing smell.

Jim exhales, wiggling in a way that appears to signify comfort. “Is T’Mara okay? I could hear her yelling at me through the bond earlier. Gave me a hell of headache.” 

“She is resting,” Spock says. “My father is ensuring her rest is untroubled. When your treatment is complete she will be permitted to see you.”

“Thanks. I hate she had to deal with this shit again. You know I got shot once? She had to feel that too. It’s gotta suck, being stuck with a Human who can’t shield for shit. You sure you want to be bonded to me?”

“I am certain.”

Spock finds Jim’s wrist with his outermost hand and cups Jim’s lax fingers in his own. Spock’s mouth is a mere one point three inches from the nape of Jim’s neck, where fine blonde hair whorls at the base of his hairline. Spock should not find their position so gratifying considering the circumstances that created it. And yet.

“Mmm,” Jim says, after several minutes have passed. “This’s nice.”

“To what do you refer?”

“Never been held like this before,” Jim smears the words against Spock’s bicep, upon which his head rests. “I’m always the one doing the holding, you know?”

The words, so cavalierly offered, are devastating.

“I will hold you whenever you wish from this point forward.”

“Dangerous offer,” Jim murmurs, but he sounds pleased.

With his bondmate in his arms, Spock certainly is.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

:D

Later, when Jim offhand mentions the bond developing while Spock performed “life saving measures”––
McCoy: ‘life saving measures’ my ass. It developed when he was gently stroking your cheek and gazing deeply into your pretty blue eyes.
Jim: Aw, Bones, you think my eyes are pretty? And Spock! Is this true?
Spock: I have no comment on the matter.
T’Mara: That means ’yes.’

 

In not-so-great IRL news, Deacon is having some health issues and we’re headed to a specialist tomorrow to try and figure out why his liver has gone on strike. Please send good vibes/prayers the old man’s way. As usual, thanks for all the comments (I’m going to resist reading any new ones today and save them all for the vet office tomorrow, so if you leave a comment please picture me reading it with the full weight of a 65lb Belgian Malinois in my lap) (he’s a big baby at the vet).

Love y’all. See you next week!

Chapter 19

Federation Space

Starship USS ANTARES

Stardate 105078.9

Dr. McCoy liked to cuss, which inclined Jim to like McCoy immediately. He was young, and handsome, and his hands were a shockingly gentle contrast to the roughness of his words.

The first thing McCoy had done upon his arrival to sickbay was clear out one of the larger exam rooms, dim the lights, and set up a bunch of mattresses on the floor. He requisitioned a starry night projector for the ceiling and a white noise machine to hide the sounds of the sickbay outside. Then he moved their huddled, apprehensive group inside, closed the curtain across the glass windows, and asked Jim how he wanted to proceed.

Jim, Gaila, and Kevin got the kids situated on the beds like it was nighttime at Research Station Ten and McCoy brought cups of broth for them all to sip and then, only then, when everyone had a warm mug in their hands and blankets pooled on their laps, did he start examining them. And he never touched without asking.

By the time McCoy finished with the others—IVs and blood tests and regen patches and a lot of cursing over Gaila’s badly-healed broken arm—Jim’s adrenaline had faded to uncertain exhaustion. Between the low light, the warmth of a full belly, and the cautious hope of being rescued, nearly everyone else was asleep, and he was ready to follow them.

McCoy knelt beside the mattress Jim had claimed as his own; T’Mara was still mostly wrapped around him.

“You don’t have to wake her,” the doctor murmured, slipping his hands into gloves. “Unless you think she’d be more comfortable giving active consent.”

Jim shifted T’Mara so she was laying beside him rather than on him, but let her keep his wrist trapped in the circle of one insistent hand. Her indistinct dream-thoughts were a hazy mix of relief-caution-comfort. 

“You’re fine,” Jim murmured. “Just don’t touch her skin-to-skin.”

T’Mara didn’t wake as McCoy examined her, even when he started an IV in her opposite arm, his gloved hands quick and efficient as he found a vein.

Jim liked watching him work, the confident way he approached each step in the diagnostic process; the ease with which he manipulated appendages and calibrated devices; even the way he muttered under his breath while recording information on his pad. 

“Well,” McCoy said finally, taking off the gloves and setting aside the pad. “Can I give you a look, now?”

Jim cast a careful eye over the rest of the bodies in the room. Most everyone was asleep, including Gaila who had a kid tucked on either side of her. Kevin was trying hard not to nod off, where he was sitting against the wall, still staring distrustfully at the door. 

“Yeah,” Jim said. “Alright.”

McCoy spent a long while dragging a tricorder up and down Jim’s chest and then even longer with his bare hands prodding the not-quite-healed bullet wound in Jim’s belly. But despite a surfeit of grumbling, he didn’t insist that Jim be moved to a surgical suite as Jim feared. Instead, he wheeled in a more advanced regenerative machine from outside, wrapped Jim’s torso and told him to hold still as the machine hummed to life.

“Any other potentially life-threatening injuries to report?” McCoy asked. 

“Not that I know of,” Jim answered. He could feel the exhausted curve of his shoulders but was too tired to care about his posture.

 “Forgive me if I don’t take your word on that.” McCoy moved on to examining Jim’s extremities, making grumpy noises as Jim extended first one leg, then the other, for scrutiny.

“Can I touch your knee, here?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, tipping Jim’s leg to examine the scar on his upper shin, “how old is this? Two years or thereabouts?” 

“Yeah.”

 He made a disgusted noise. “Between this and the mess of Gaila’s arm I'd’ve thought we picked you up from years on a wilderness planet, not a colony with perfectly functional medical facilities.”

“Even before the cull, kids in the prison program were a low priority. They didn’t expend resources on us if they could help it. As long as we didn’t have a life-threatening injury, Headmaster wouldn’t send us to the doctor.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered. “This’s got permanent scar tissue now. Not much I can do about it.”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.” 

“Looks ugly as sin, though.”

One of the kids made a soft whining noise in their sleep but Gaila shifted to reach for them before Jim could even attempt to stand. After a moment, the white noise machine, glowing with slowly changing light in the corner of the room, took back over. The steady hush made Jim think of rain.

Rain.

“I need to speak to the chief science officer,” Jim realized.

”Dammit Jim, you need to hold still is what you need to do,” McCoy said, his hand trailing down to Jim’s ankle. His thumb probed another, older, scar. “What is this?” 

“That’s from before Tarsus. And I’m serious; I’ve got information they need to know about the planet. Terraforming changed the chemical composition of the rain, and the fungus that destroyed all the crops––Kodos’ army destroyed most of the evidence but we took samples at the station. If you get someone to take me back, I can––”

“Yeah, that dog won’t hunt,” McCoy muttered. “I’ll tell you what, you let me finish treating you, I’ll com the chief nerd, and you two can chat over another mug of soup. No going down to the surface.”

“Fine,” Jim allowed.

McCoy tapped Jim’s foot, his fingertips a barely-there sensation. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

“It's from a handcuff. One of those old metal ones.”

“What was it doing around your ankle?” 

“Restraining me.”

”Alright smartass, I mean why.”

Jim shrugged. “I was a flight risk.”

McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “Say, what gets a thirteen-year-old sentenced to an off-planet juvenile detention center, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I totaled a classic car by way of cliffside launch,” Jim said brightly.

McCoy looked him up and down with obvious disbelief. 

Jim rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t still in it when the car went over.”

“What’d you have against the guy who owned it?”

Jim’s smile faded. “It was my car. It was my dad’s first but––it was mine.”

“Okay. So why’d you total your own car then?”

“Because my mom’s shitstain of new husband was going to sell it and my mom was off planet in deep space. By the time a message would’ve got to her it would’ve been too late to stop him.”

“So your first thought was to destroy it?”

“No, my first thought was to take it and run but I’d already tried that once before and it didn’t work out for me.” He nodded to the cuff scar on his ankle, raising an eyebrow.

“Your stepfather sounds like a peach.” 

“You don’t know the half of it.” 

“Is he the one we’ll be sending you back to?” McCoy asked. “Frank Inman is the emergency contact in your file.” It was an innocent question, or at least he tried to make it sound innocent, but Jim––

Stopped.

He hadn’t thought about the after. Hadn’t let himself think about what came next. All those months of trying to keep them alive and he’d never considered what it would mean, what it would look like, if he succeeded. Jim had forgotten, after so long maintaining responsibility he didn’t want, that back on Earth he wouldn’t even be considered an adult. That if the powers that be commuted his sentence for time served he’d be right back with Frank again. And T’Mara––

He moved her hand away from his wrist, leaving it slack, fingers sleep-curled on the comforter. He didn’t want her to feel––

“Hey,” McCoy’s palm slid up his arm to cup his shoulder. “Breathe, kid.”

Jim found that was good advice.

“I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay,” McCoy said. “Because you’re not and I wouldn’t expect you to be after the shit you’ve been through. But you’re not alone, now. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. You tell me what you need and I’ll damn well give it to you if it’s in my power, you understand?”

He didn’t. Because in Jim’s experience, no one offered favors without expecting something in return. But the doctor’s eyes were dark and entreating and the hand on his shoulder was firm without enforcing restraint.

Jim swallowed. He tried not to lean into the warmth of McCoy’s touch and probably failed.

“Can you get me emancipation paperwork? I’m old enough now, right?” 

“What about your mom?” McCoy asked. “Want to try and contact her first?” 

“No.” He didn’t know what his face was doing, but judging by the way McCoy’s thumb moved in a slow circle over his collarbone, it wasn’t good. “No, just the paperwork.”

“Sure thing,” McCoy said. “I’ll sort out what you need to do while you talk to the science nerds. Let me look at your hands and then I’ll call the geek squad.”

McCoy’s expression got darker the longer he spent with his tricorder drifting from Jim’s fingers to knuckles to wrist.

“Dare I ask?” he said eventually, glancing up from the readout screen.

Jim trotted out the party line: “I got in a lot of fights.” 

“Sure you did.” He checked Jim’s range of movement, one finger at a time, and exhaled out his nose. “Most of these weren’t treated.” 

“We had splints. And Frank said quick healing wouldn’t teach me consequences.”

“You know,” McCoy said conversationally. “I was almost kicked out of residency my first year as a doctor.” 

“For your bedside manner?” Jim guessed. 

“For punching a five-year-old patient’s father in his stupid fucking face.” 

“Did he deserve it?” 

“He deserved a whole hell of a lot more than the orbital floor fracture I gave him. Eventually he went to prison, but that weren’t enough either, in my humble opinion.”

“So you don’t just fix bones, you break ‘em too?”

“If they need breaking, sure.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m just…” McCoy set the tricorder aside. “There are certain things I won’t stand for. One of those things is people abusing the power they have over kids. So I’m telling you that––I’m saying if there are sides to be taking, I’ll be taking yours.”

And Jim––

Jim couldn’t breathe.

All of the air in his lungs was trapped behind the words. The simple, mundane words that landed like a physical blow, winding him. 

If there are sides to be taking, I’ll be taking yours.

That’s all he wanted.

That’s all Jim ever wanted and something his own mother wouldn't give him, even when he begged, even when––

His mother.

Tremors started in Jim’s chest.

Because there, beneath an aurora borealis ceiling in a fleet ship med bay, a doctor who’d known him for a handful of hours was making declarations like he was ready to go to war for Jim when even his mom––

Jim made a noise that he would be embarrassed about later: a terrible, unwieldy, thing that burst out of him despite his best efforts to restrain it. He tried to cover it with a laugh but that sound followed the first, veering wildly off course and landing somewhere else entirely.

“Sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry, I don’t––“

And then he was crying, crying like he’d wanted to, needed to, for the last three years but hadn’t permitted himself. And once he started, he had no power to stop.

“Ah, fuck,” McCoy said, reaching for Jim with far too much understanding, “hey, come here, kid, I’ve got you.” 

And Jim let him.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Um. Sorry? (But this is good! Cathartic, even!)

In IRL news, we still don’t know what caused Deacon’s liver to throw a fit, but he is back to normal behavior-wise and his values continue to improve with each round of bloodwork we do. Very much a head-scratcher (and an expensive one at that!) but we’re happy that he’s back to normal with no scary diagnosis.

Thanks for all the lovely comments (and Deacon says thanks for all the well-wishes and head-scritches).

See you next week!

Chapter 20

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

Jim waking is a warm and languid thing. Squinted eyes and indistinct mumbled noises that turn into—

“Hey. You’re still here.”

As if Spock would be anywhere else. 

In the prior quiet hours of Jim’s rest, Spock had hardly changed position at all. His only movements were those necessary to apprise Captain Pike via text message of the knowledge he had obtained from their meld.

Now, Jim blinks with sleepy pleasure at him.

The blue of Jim’s eyes is a well. If he is not cautious, Spock may fall into them and never emerge. The absurdity of the thought registers on the heels of the thought itself and Spock is dismayed to find that Jim has turned him into a poor poet. He will need to address this unfortunate development during his next meditation session. 

But he cannot muster the proper amount of concern now when Jim is contentedly lethargic in his arms, stretching as he rolls to face Spock, butting his nose into the space between Spock’s neck and jaw. It is not quite a kiss, but perhaps a predecessor. Spock can be patient.

“Your treatment is complete,” Spock tells him. “While Doctor McCoy insists you stay for observation overnight, I can bring T’Mara to see you now, if you so wish.”

“Yeah, please.”

Spock removes himself with quiet displeasure from the bed; his fingers linger on Jim’s bare shoulder before slipping away entirely. He wonders if the bond will…settle, in some fashion, or if Spock will be pursued by this new relentless desire for Jim’s touch the remainder of his living days. There is a possessiveness that sits in his chest––a devotion––that he cannot quantify. It is utterly distracting.

He clasps his hands behind his back so he will not reach for Jim again.

“T’Mara,” he says, a reminder for himself more than anything else.

He goes to collect her.

•••

“Jim,” T’Mara says upon entering the room, climbing onto the bed with a level of entitlement only reserved for a parent’s child. “I have pertinent information to convey.”

Jim accepts her beneath one arm, then lifts his other arm to accept Gaila, who similarly plasters herself to his side.

 “Let me guess,” Jim says, “you want to express displeasure with me putting my stupid human ass in danger again and make some sort of threat therin.”

“A fair assumption,” T’Mara responds, “and not inaccurate, however that is not the information I wish to share as a priority.”

“Ok, I’m stumped then.”

“Your dreams of Vulcan, the dreams from your childhood that you often share as a mechanism for comfort. I do not believe they are dreams.”

“Okay…what are they then?”

“Memories. When Tomasu Spock––” Spock is so briefly overwhelmed by pleasure at the honorific that he nearly misses her following statement–– “comforted me earlier, he shared memories of his childhood— nighttime explorations of the bioluminescent flora and fauna on Vulcan and his sehlat companion who accompanied him.”

“Memories,” Jim repeats faintly.

“They are identical to your dreams,” she tells him, glancing at Spock as if for confirmation. “I can only assume this means you share a bond. Likely a T’hy’la bond that has been strengthening since your mutual youth.”

Jim’s eyes find Spock’s and hold. “Memories,” he says again.

“Dream-sharing is not uncommon among T’hy’la,” Spock says.

T’Mara glances between them. “Ah. You are already aware of the bond, then.”

“We are,” Spock confirms.

Gaila makes a high-pitched noise, bouncing in place, but T’Mara merely relaxes further, situating Jim’s arm around her to her liking. “Good.”

“Good?” Spock asks. Surely her approval will not be so simple.

“Of course. A Vulcan prioritizes their T’hy’la’s health and happiness above all else. A human paramour’s attention to Jim’s needs would be suboptimal in comparison to your innate instincts. A Vulcan’s superior diligence is only what he deserves.”

“I am pleased we are in agreement,” Spock says.

She nods imperiously, then returns her focus to Jim who is still staring at Spock as if he’s attempting to process something and struggling to do so.

“Sa’mekh,” T’Mara says. “You are pleased as well. Have you conveyed your pleasure? Tomasu Spock appears in need of reassurance.”

Gaila stifles a laugh.

“Yeah,” Jim says, a little strangled.

“I am not in need of reassurance,” Spock objects. “I am merely concerned at the abruptness of the revelation. Particularly for a human with…inconsistent encounters with Vulcans in the past,” he nods to T’Mara, “his bond with you notwithstanding.”

“I mean, it’s true I haven’t had the best experience with most psi-individuals,” Jim starts.

“Because the Vulcan council attempted to sever your bond with T’Mara,” Spock posits.

“Sure, that was part of it.”

Gaila’s hand reaches for Jim’s; squeezing.

Spock wants to ask for clarity, but Jim’s facial expression is guarded and his full lips are pressed thin and Gaila is looking at Spock with a warning in her eyes.

“Despite this, you have no apprehension of me?” Spock asks instead.

Jim does not. Spock could feel before that Jim is happy about, even hesitantly grateful for, their connection and harbors no resentment or fear.

“Could be the drugs,” Jim jokes. “Could be the nature of the bond, I don’t know.” Quieter, he says. “It could just be you. The fact that you snuck me chocolate. The way your face gets soft when you talk about your mom.”

Spock’s impulse is to argue that his face does not get soft, but such an argument would not be assistive.

“He snuck you chocolate?” T’Mara says.

There is a small commotion in the hallway and Spock has never been so relieved to see his mother as she pushes open the door to the room.

“Oh, my darling,” Amanda says, moving inside to press a kiss to Spock’s cheek. She squeezes his bicep before flitting over to the bed, clasping her hands together as if physical restraint is needed to prohibit her from reaching for Jim. Spock empathizes.

“And you must be the Jim and T’Mara Kirks I’ve heard so much about.” She glances at Gaila, “though I don’t believe I’m familiar with you, miss–?” 

“Gaila,” Gaila says. “Jim’s sister.”

“And you are Lady Amanda,” T’Mara interjects, straightening. “What have you heard about Jim and me?” 

“Mother,” Spock says warningly.

Amanda waves him away. “Well, let’s see. Spock’s told me that you’re both competent, hard-working, students. Jim has an aptitude for the sciences, despite his desire to follow Command track, and demonstrates a maturity that is uncommon in humans,” Amanda grins, lowering her voice as if sharing a secret with T’Mara and Gaila, “particularly human males, his age.”

Gaila nods in dramatic agreement.

“He is an exemplary father,” she continues, beginning to tick attributes off of her fingers. “A delightfully frustrating chess player. He holds advanced combat certifications, is handy with home-maintenance, has a sweet tooth and an unfortunate number of food allergies. Hm, what else…oh and I supposed Spock has mentioned he’s pretty, but that really didn’t do him justice.”

Spock turns to look out the window. There is a bird.

T’Mara makes a considering noise. “I believe most people would term Jim ‘handsome.’”

Most people are idiots, Spock thinks but does not say aloud. Semantics are important and ‘pretty’ is a far more accurate descriptor for the pleasant symmetry of Jim’s face.

Gaila is looking at him in a way that is far too knowing.

“What about T’Mara?” Jim asks. He sounds a little strangled. Spock pours him a cup of water while his mother answers. 

“Oh, T’Mara is the most delightful enigma, by Spock’s description. I’m not sure if you’re aware of how stingy he typically is with compliments but he has no shortage of them for T’Mara––she has a ‘dynamic mind,’ a ‘fascinating perspective,’ a ‘meditative practice that is unlike any Vulcan methodology, yet imminently effective.’”

Jim extricates his hand from Gaila’s to reach for the cup and his fingers intentionally overlap Spock’s as he takes it. Jim smiles, nearly bashful, before redirecting his attention to Amanda. 

T’Mara makes a huffing noise.

“He hasn’t said it explicitly,” Amanda continues, directing her words to T’Mara, “but I get the feeling that my son greatly admires your ability to embrace both the needs of your Vulcan physiology and the cultural preferences you may have related to your human parentage.”

“An accurate supposition,” Spock says stiffly.

“And from what Sarek has told me,” she continues, voice soft and serious, “you’re both very, very brave.”

Jim squeezes T’Mara closer to him, touching his lips to her forehead, while still maintaining eye contact with Amanda. “That means a lot,” he says finally, “coming from him.”

Amanda nods, and Spock has the distinct feeling they’re communicating without words, despite the impossibility of such an action. 

“I’ve been badgering Spock to introduce us for weeks now, so I couldn’t resist coming up to do it myself. It’s really so lovely to meet you both in person. And you as well, Gaila.” 

“Lady Amanda,” T’Mara says, “I have need of sustenance and Jim wishes to further touch Tomasu Spock’s hands, which I would prefer not to witness. Would you like to accompany me to the cafeteria?”

“Jesus Christ,” Jim mutters, setting the cup on the side table with a clatter.

“I’ll join you as well,” Gaila says, giving Spock another look.

“Well that sounds just perfect,” Amanda answers. She moves to kiss Spock’s cheek again. “Darling, Sarek was going to meet me here once he’s finished a call, so if you could direct him to find me, I’d appreciate it. I’ll text him, but you know how he is about checking his messages.”

“Of course, Mother.”

T’Mara slides elegantly off the bed, followed by Gaila, and they accompany Amanda into the hallway. When the door has closed after their exit, Jim exhales hard, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes

”You’re going to need to teach me to shield sooner rather than later,” Jim says ruefully. “T’Mara got way more information than she needed when you handed me that cup.”

Spock places himself in the space vacated by Gaila. “I am happy to assist. And to…further touch your hands, if you so desire.”

Jim groans but extends the hands in question and Spock is suddenly awash in pleasure tempered by embarrassment.

“Your mom calls you darling,” Jim points out.

“Indeed,” Spock agrees, resigned. “She also occasionally refers to my father as… honey. Why he does not prevent such behavior, I cannot fathom.”

“So you don’t like pet names?”

“They are illogical.”

“Says the Vulcan magically soul-bonded to a super illogical human”

“It is not—“

Ah. Jim is ‘teasing’ him. Spock huffs and Jim smiles back: bright, unapologetic, beautiful.

“So, if I were to call you…” Jim drags his thumb over the ridge of Spock’s knuckles, following the swell of bone to the dip of soft skin, to bone again, “…baby,” Jim says. “You’d object to that?” 

“I––” Spock says. He blinks. “What?”

“Or maybe,” Jim turns one of Spock’s hands in his, both thumbs pressed to the center of Spock’s palm. “Maybe sweetheart, or,” he drags his thumbs, firm, up to Spock’s wrist and back. “Beloved.”

“I see,” Spock says. His face has never felt so warm. Not even standing in the midday light of Vulcan during summer solstice.

“Yeah?”

Spock swallows. ”I believe there are aspects to pet names I had not fully considered. However, I do not wish to further consider them within the context of my parents.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. How ‘bout you consider them in the context of cuddling me again?”

“That is an amenable course of action,” Spock agrees gravely. “However, as my father is in the hallway, I request that we wait until a more suitable time.”

Jim jerks his hands away from Spock’s, face coloring, as the door slides open to admit Sarek.

Despite many hours in a waiting room, his dark robes are creaseless, his countenance sharp and his posture untired.

“Sir,” Jim says. There is a continent of feeling in the word, so much subtext in the way Jim’s eyes meet Sarek’s. Spock wishes to reopen the bond but will not betray Jim’s trust.

“James,” Sarek answers. “I am pleased to see you, despite the circumstances.”

“Spock says you helped T‘Mara find me through the bond.”

“Indeed.”

“Thank you,” he swallows. “Again. Not sure how I’ll ever pay you back if you keep this up.”

Spock does not understand, but clearly his father does.

“Doing that which is necessary incurs no debt,” Sarek murmurs. His voice is soft, gentle, gentler than Spock can ever recall—even in his childhood. And Sarek looks at Jim like he is…something precious, yet feral. An endangered animal that ought to be treated with both care and reverence.

Spock does not understand.

Jim takes a studied breath. “There are…a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he murmurs, eyes moving back to Spock. And it is clear that Jim does not wish to share them, now. 

So, despite Spock’s curiosity, he says, “There is time.”

The look his father gives him is approving.

 “I do not wish to further impose,” Sarek says, “however, I was meant to meet my wife here. She was most anxious to see you.” 

“You just missed her,” Jim says. “She’s headed to the cafeteria with T’Mara and Gaila.”

“Very well. I shall join them.” Sarek nods, offering Jim the T’al with his departure.

“One moment, Ashayam,” Spock says quietly to Jim, and follows Sarek into the hall.

He waits until they are several paces from the door before speaking.

“Father.”

“Son,” Sarek agrees.

“You have met Jim and T’Mara Kirk before.” It is not a question.

“I have.”

“In what capacity?”

“The circumstances are sensitive in nature. I believe your mother would say it is…not my story to tell.”

“I have already intuited––”

“Spock,” Sarek interrupts. “I do not speak of that which may be obvious. And I will discuss James Kirk’s history no further. Though if I may provide a piece of advice?”

“Always.”

“Treat him carefully.”

“With caution?” Spock clarifies.

“No. With kindness.”

Spock is briefly shocked into silence. He does not think he can ever recall his father suggesting kindness as a course of action.

“Father,” he says. “Jim is my T’hy’la.”

It is not new information. Their connection was not something he could hide when he carried Jim off the transporter pad in the hospital and then had to be physically escorted to the waiting room. It was only the combination of his father’s steadying presence and his need to comfort T’Mara that permitted Spock to submit to the security personnel's demands that he leave his bondmate in such a vulnerable state.

For any other, Sarek’s face may appear to maintain its neutrality. But Spock knows his father. And he knows how to interpret the microexpressions that flit from his brow to his jaw to his throat as he swallows. He wears resignation. Joy. Anger. Hope. Sadness. 

“Indeed,” Sarek agrees. “As such, you will also need to treat yourself with kindness. And…restraint.”

“I do not understand,” Spock says, finally aloud.

“You will,” Sarek says. “When you do, I hope you will consider me a confidant.” He looks at his hands, folds them together, and then meets Spock’s eyes again. “Nash-veh istaya tor thresh ish-veh kusut.” I would share your pain.

Spock does not like the implication of his father’s words, nor the naked grief on his face.

“Return to your bondmate,” Sarek says gently, and Spock can do nothing but obey.

Notes:

*IMPORTANT READER POLL TIME*
I might actually write a sex scene for once in my life but because this is a Trek fic I have to approach the eternal question of What Spock is Working With. Please submit your preferences, if you have them. I will tally the results and abide by majority rule (it’ll be a standalone chapter at the end in case you’d rather skip that bit, too). (Also lol @ the fact that the first explicit thing I write might be xeno. Nice.)

 

Captain’s Log:

In IRL news, I was invited to Romance Con as a featured author this year, which is neat. I just finished submitting all my paperwork and will make an official announcement on socials about it once they’ve got my page up on the website, but if anyone is planning to attend (Milwaukee, Sept. 5-6) let me know! We can hang. Provided Deacon stays in good health, he’ll be there too.

Speaking of, Deacon is entirely back to normal. His blood levels are now just as happy as he is and the vet says he’s cleared to resume any and all work/activities. We hiked 6 miles yesterday and Deacon was ready for more when we got back to the car. We still have no idea why his liver temporarily went on strike, so we’ll keep an eye on it over the next few months. The current assumption is that he ate something he shouldn’t have when we were doing an off-leash hike so he has lost leaving-my-sight-in-the-woods privileges, for now.

For the Americans: Hang in there. Do what you can, but also take care of yourself.
For everyone else: Jesus. I don’t even know. I’m sorry? Please don’t think the orange bastard and his gremlin advisor at all represents a large percentage of us currently trapped beneath their ugly representation.

Anyway. See you next week!

Chapter 21

Federation Space

Starship USS ANTARES

Stardate 105078.9

The following three days were, more or less, chaos.

More Fleet ships arrived to evacuate the planet. The general was apprehended and taken into Starfleet custody, as were the majority of Kodos’ cabinet members and all the military officers.

Kodos, though. Kodos was missing. Presumed dead.

Or at least that’s how they labeled his status on the reports Jim hacked and then kept refreshing with near-obsessive urgency on McCoy’s stolen pad.

Missing, presumed dead.

Jim did not presume he was dead. Jim was, in fact, quite certain he was alive. Because men like Kodos didn’t just die. That would be too easy.

But there was nothing Jim could do when even the full power of Starfleet couldn’t locate the man. 

To make matters worse, Jim needed a revision surgery because, shockingly, fighting off anesthesia to engage in a physical altercation with medical staff only shortly after his initial surgery did not have particularly healing effects.

Jim made them wait three days for him to get the kids settled before they put him under again. Even so, the kids all guarded the doors of the surgical suite when McCoy took him inside. As the haze of anesthesia pulled Jim under, he blinked at their small shadows in a line outside the frosted windows. It made his chest hurt. But in a good way.

***

Jim came out of anesthesia to T’Mara holding one of his hands and a rock in the other hand. Captain Pike’s Number One (Jim still had yet to get an actual name from her) had returned to Research Station 10 for Gaila’s rock collection the day before. As a result, Gaila had a bad case of hero-worship and there were now stones decorating most of sickbay.

He held up the rock that had been left to aid his healing and after several slow blinks decided he liked it. Geodes had always been his favorite. And this one was pretty—a polished slice of purple that looked like candy. Objectively he knew he should not put it in his mouth. And yet, the desire remained.

No, T’Mara told him firmly, and then, aloud, “Doctor McCoy, Jim has awakened.”

Jim was still getting used to hearing T’Mara’s voice spoken aloud, but she appeared to have no lingering ill effects of their traumatic arrival to the ship.

“I will warn you,” T’Mara said gravely as both McCoy and Captain Pike entered the room. “Jim’s thoughts are…disorganized.”

“All hail Leonard of House McCoy,” Jim caroled, “purveyor of curses, breaker of bones.” Jim paused, considering. “But also, like. Fixer of bones.”

“Do I want to know?” Pike asked.

“No,” McCoy said.

“I’m high as a kite,” Jim informed them proudly.

“I got that,” Pike agreed. “Great to see you two getting along, though.”

“Hey Bones,” Jim said.

“Oh, is that my name now?”

“Yeah, I’ve decided.” Jim wrinkled his nose. “‘Leonard’ is awful.”

“I’ll let my mother know.” 

“Bones, I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, kid, I know.” There was something off about his voice but Jim didn’t care because he suddenly realized he could feel his teeth with his tongue. Which wasn’t unusual, exactly, but was, for some reason, imminently noteworthy.

“Is he ok?” Pike murmured. 

“Depends on how you qualify ‘ok’,” Bones muttered back, “but probably not.”

He wasn’t wrong. Jim still appreciated the indignant rude from T’Mara, though.

“Captain,” Jim said, squinting. “Don’t you have important things to do? Like… Captaining. Or practicing your whistle. Hey, can you teach me how to whistle?”

“Maybe later,” Pike said. “I just wanted to see how our celebrity patient was doing. And let you know we’ll be starting the trip back to Earth tonight.”

“Oh.” That was sobering. Despite the situation with his teeth and, more broadly, the narcotics in his system, Jim tried to focus. This was important. “You still haven’t found him, have you?” 

“No,” Pike said. “We just completed a final pass. There are no life signs left on the planet and all the prisoners and refugees have been screened. He has to be dead. His body will be recovered during the forensic sweep in the coming weeks.” 

“He’s not, and it won’t,” Jim argued. But it wasn’t with the same vehemence he’d embodied the past few times they had this conversation. Jim was resigned. He was too tired to be anything else. 

“Have you managed to contact all the kids’ families, at least?”

“Yes. They’ll be waiting for us on Earth. And Gaila’s aunts are anxious enough to see her that they’ll meet us there rather than waiting for a successive trip to Orion.” 

“Good. That’s good.”

Bones and Pike shared a look that Jim didn’t like at all. 

They are keeping something from us, T’Mara agreed.

“We’ll come back and chat with you and T’Mara about your situation when you’ve had more time to recover,” Pike says. “Sleep tight, okay?”

And Jim knew he should be worried. He knew the reason was lurking just at the edge of his consciousness. But his brain was warm and slow and having been reminded that sleep was an option, he couldn’t resist the draw of closing his eyes.

***

When he woke again, T’Mara was gone, but Bones––that really was a way better name than Leonard––was sitting in a chair by his bed, fiddling with a pad.

“Feeling less high?” He asked.

“Unfortunately.”

“Jim, I wanted to ask you about your plans once we’re dirtside.” 

Jim blinked. “I mean. They’ve already announced our sentences are commuted. And you helped me submit the forms for emancipation. Depends on that, right? Worst case, I figure we have to deal with foster care for a while. Best case I can start working immediately. Get T’Mara into one of those advanced school programs.”

Jim didn’t like the look on Bone’s face. “What?” 

“There’s not a good way to say this.” 

Jim braced himself. He was accustomed to the gesture. “Then use a bad way.”

“Captain Pike has contacted the Vulcan council. Standard procedure, considering the the circumstances.”

Jim went still. The kind of stillness usually reserved for cornered prey animals. His heart rate spiked rabbit-fast.

“They can’t take her from me.”

“Pretty sure they can. Even if the emancipation goes through, you’re not even eighteen. Not to mention Human. And a felon.”

“No, that’s––they can’t. T’Mara said––even M’Benga said that Vulcan bonds count as equal to adoption. That breaking them can be hugely damaging. They can’t do that.”

“They can, Jim. The council is going to meet with you but I wanted to warn you that it’s probably a fool’s errand. They seem to have already made up their minds.”

“But you don’t understand,” Jim insisted. His voice was embarrassingly thready and he didn’t care. “She’s part of me, now. Even if I don’t understand why, she chose me. And she already lost her parents. If they cut out this bond too––she’s already so fucking traumatized she has nightmares, I don’t know what it would do to her if they––”

“Hey, breathe.”

Bones’ hand was warm where it cupped his shoulder but, for once, Jim shrugged it off.

“I need a pad.”

“What?”

“I need a pad. To research. There has to be a precedent.” 

“A precedent for a sixteen-year-old being granted an inter-species adoption?”

Jim started to cry. He couldn’t seem to help it.

“You said that you were on my side,” Jim said, wiping furiously at his eyes. “Did you mean it or not?”

“Jesus Christ,” Bones muttered. “You really want to be a parent?”

“I’ve already been one for the last six months.”

Bones deflated like a popped balloon.

“Fuck,” Bones muttered. “Fine.” He retrieved not one but two pads from his workstation. “Budge over.”

***

When Jim next awoke, the lights in the room were dimmed and the regenerative bandages previously wrapped around his waist were gone.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but it didn’t surprise him, considering the exhaustion that still sat on his shoulders like a tangible thing. T’Mara was tucked against his left side again, eyes closed, breathing slow and Gaila was on his right, Bones’ lit pad in her hand, reading what appeared to be a particularly lewd romance novel. Between the hacking and their reading proclivities, Jim made a note to “accidentally” destroy the pad lest Bones end up under review. Or court-martialed. For the hacking, not the porn.

She set the pad in her lap when she noticed Jim was awake. “Doctor McCoy has apprised me of your research. And the reason for it.”

He shook his head, looking down at T’Mara. He knew he wouldn’t be able to shield from her if he started thinking about it again and while she needed to know, he wanted her to have one last night of moderately easy rest first.

“Please talk to me about something else,” Jim said tightly.

Gaila reached for the rock on the bedside table.

“The General is on this ship.”

It wasn’t the lighthearted subject-change Jim wanted, but it might be what Gaila needed. Jim wasn’t the only one with ghosts.

“Yeah?”

“It’s strange to know he’s here, somewhere. That I could find him, if I really wanted to.” She spun the geode in nimble fingers. “They’re going to transfer him to a prisoner transport ship with the other cabinet members and military officers tomorrow.” 

“I realize it’s laughable advice coming from me,” Jim said. “But don’t do anything stupid.” 

“Why do you think I’m here,” Gaila murmured.

“You know,” Jim said, “I’ve been tracking the General’s tag on the net. Someone leaked a shit ton of evidence of his crimes. Documents. Video. Text correspondence.”

She gave him a wry smile that faded as fast as it appeared. “How lucky,” she agreed, a combination of faux innocence and fury that made Jim’s chest ache.

“There’s no way the brass can bury this now,” Jim continued. “They’ll have to convict him if only for optics.”

“I don’t want him convicted,” she said. “I want him dead.”

Jim reached for her hand because he had nothing else to offer and she squeezed it like a lifeline, like she needed him to hold her there, and maybe she did.

“You know, Bones has been teaching me the art of hugging,” Jim said. “You wanna see what I’ve learned?” 

“Practice is the most important element of sustaining knowledge,” Gaila agreed gravely. 

“For science, then,” Jim said, and pulled her into his arms.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Ah, Jim. Ah, Bones. Ah, Gaila.

Thanks for all the comments! I greatly appreciate them (and often screenshot my favorites to scroll through when I’m having Bad Anxiety Nights).

In IRL news, Deacon is entirely recovered and reveling in the gorgeous weather. His favorite things right now are sunbathing and rolling like a maniac in the yard.

My company is sending me and B to Club, which if you’re not familiar with the tech world, is just an all-expense-paid trip for folks who did a good job the prior year. I’ll be heading to Nice and Monaco (Monte Carlo) next month for almost two weeks, and we only have a few company-required events to attend during that time. If anyone has advice re things to do/see while we’re there, I’d be delighted to hear them! (And if, by chance, someone lives in the area, we’d be happy to say hi. I love meeting strangers from the internet).

Okay enough about that. See you next week for some (much needed) domesticity, fluff, and banter (will I ever write a fic that doesn’t include gentle assistance bathing after injury/illness? Likely not.) Love you! Go drink some water!

Chapter 22

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.3

When Spock’s parents return with T’Mara and Gaila, T’Mara is deep in conversation with Sarek about a newly discovered bioluminescent fungi on Vulcan with unique regenerative properties. She insists Jim join their discussion, as he had originally brought the discovery to her attention during his extracurricular reading. 

Spock takes this opportunity to pull his mother into the hallway. 

“You might have undersold how lovely she is,” Amanda murmurs, looking through the window at T’Mara with an expression Spock has felt internally but yet disallowed to surface. 

“She is distinct,” he agrees. “As is Jim.”

His mother’s attention shifts to his face and goes pensive as the silence grows between them. “I‘ve never seen you as such,” she says finally.

“I have never been as such,” he answers.

Her expression remains sombre in a way that Spock finds…concerning. His mother has made no secret of her wishes regarding his interpersonal relationships and her desire for grandchildren. Indeed, it was his mother who coordinated his, now unnecessary, summer appointment with the mind adept to once more open his bond. By all accounts, she should be effusive with joy. Not only has he found his T’hy’la—a human, like his mother—but his T’hy’la has a Vulcan child who embraces her mixed heritage. A task at which Spock has never been proficient. Indeed, he fears his ineptness therein has caused his mother undue hurt over the years.  

And yet, something now tempers her excitement.

“Mother,” he says.

She sighs. “I’m assuming you have questions. And your father won’t answer them.” 

“Your assumption is correct. I am aware of Jim’s history related to Tarsus, but Father implied this history is…incomplete. In some fashion.”

“I can’t tell you what you want to know,” she says. “But I will give you a warning.”

It appears that is all anyone will offer him. “As always, I appreciate any insight you wish to convey.”

Despite the invitation, she does not respond for several seconds.

“Do you recall,” she says finally, “shortly before you left for Star Fleet, when your father took a leave of absence.”

Spock has an eidetic memory. He does not remind her. 

“Yes. Father was…deeply impacted by a closed council session.” It was the only time in Spock’s recollection that his father admitted to being emotionally compromised. His father and mother had left the day after the session, ostensibly to visit their clan’s Matriarch, T’Pau, at her country home. They had remained for nearly a month before returning.

Spock understands what his mother does not say. That was the council session in which Jim was deemed a fit guardian. That was the council session in which, Spock can surmise, Sarek had melded with Jim as part of the proceedings.

Spock remembers the night his father returned, pale and pensive as he stood in the kitchen and stared, unseeing, out the window, his hands flat to the countertop.

When Spock enquired after his health, Sarek had said nothing for several moments and then, as if from a daze:

“I have occasion to wonder if Vulcans would benefit from the act of crying.”

Spock had no idea how to respond to such an admission.

“Tears are cathartic, for your mother,” Sarek had mused. “I find myself…envious of the relief she experiences through them.”

“Father––” Spock had started, uncertain how he would finish, but then Sarek blinked, seemed to fully recognize Spock, and withdrew. “Forgive me,” he said, “It has been a taxing day.” 

And then he was gone.

Spock has often wondered, even years later, when recalling the memory, what could have affected his father as such.

Now, he understands, it was melding with Jim.

“Has Jim told you why he was on Tarsus?” His mother asks.

Spock doesn’t understand.

And then, he does.

“Father was not thus impacted by Jim’s memories of Tarsus,” Spock realizes, “but rather by Jim’s recollection of events that predated his time there?”

His mother does not respond. Nor does she need to. Her eyes, so full of feeling, confirm his assumption. 

What could be worse than Tarsus? Spock wonders. What could be so terrible that it made his father, a paragon of Vulcan dispassion, wish for the catharsis of tears?

He feels lost.

“What do I do?” He asks.

“Oh Spock,” she says. “I wish I could make this easy for you. But I have no idea. Just. Let him come to you when he’s ready. And love him in the meantime.”

It is a frustratingly simplistic solution. But it is all he has.

***

While Spock is pleased that his intended has a devoted ‘support system,’ as is necessary for optimum Human wellness, the sheer number of people Spock must metaphorically combat for the right to care for his bondmate is…irksome.

When Doctor McCoy declares that Jim can be released under the supervision of another adult, it is only after arguments with Cadet Vro, McCoy himself, Captain Pike, and Spock’s own father (a betrayal he will not soon forget) that Spock is permitted to take Jim and T’Mara home.

And while it is clear from the bond that Jim prefers this course of action, he even argues against it, citing a fear of inconveniencing Spock.  

“I’ve only got a full size bed,” Jim tries to argue.

“At what point have I indicated displeasure at the prospect of close proximity to you?”

“Uh. Never?”

“Indeed,” Spock says severely.

So, after discharge paperwork, an unnecessary amount of glaring from Doctor McCoy, and a brief ride to the dorms in an embassy car, Spock finally finds himself alone with his T’hy’la and his…T’Mara. 

He will need to speak with her privately about her wishes regarding their continuing relationship considering the changed nature of Spock’s relationship with Jim. Spock is not particularly looking forward to the conversation; the majority of his dialogues with T’Mara result in either embarrassment or necessitate an apology afterward. Often, both. Likely, he should consult with his mother before attempting such a thing.

“I am in need of rest,” T’Mara declares before she has even finished removing her shoes. “I will retire to my room and remain there for the next four-point-five hours.” She gives Spock a significant, if quelling, look, before striding purposefully across the living area to her room. 

Jim hums, sounding amused, before leaning in to speak against Spock’s ear. “She really does approve if she’s intentionally giving us alone time. Guess she didn’t hear Bones’ moratorium on ‘forking,’ huh?”

Spock is uncertain what his facial response is, but Jim laughs, pressing further into the supportive hold Spock has around his waist.

“Sorry. I’ll stop teasing you. Can you help me into the shower?”

“Teasing is not unwelcome,” Spock answers as he all but carries Jim into the bathroom, “provided it comes from you.”

Jim huffs at him, but the noise appears to indicate fondness. “On second thought, a bath is probably a better idea. You wanna––oh. Okay.”

It is simple work to assist Jim in removing the sweat pants and zippered hoodie that Doctor McCoy provided Jim at the hospital. He leaves Jim sitting on the closed toilet seat, looking bemused, as Spock fills the tub with water heated to a Human’s level of comfort. 

“You know,” Jim says, once Spock has carefully deposited Jim into the basin. “I thought the doting and caretaking and all was a T’Mara-specific thing, but I’m starting to think that Vulcans are just secret mother hens.” 

“Neither T’Mara nor myself bear any resemblance to a female bird in the order Galliformes,” Spock says stoically. He kneels on the tile, rolling up his sleeves.

Jim grins. “Sure you do. You get all puffed up when you’re indignant. You’ve got limited facial expressions but you use them very effectively to communicate judgement. And you’re surprisingly nice to cuddle despite the first two things.”

Spock elects against responding and instead lathers shampoo in his hands. “I am not ‘doting,’” he says after several seconds have elapsed, “I am merely ensuring you follow post-operative procedures. You cannot lift your hands above your head nor bend at the waist for forty-eight hours.”

“Which means you need to gently wash my hair.”

“I can perform the service in an aggressive fashion, if you prefer.” Despite his words, Spock keeps his touch light as he drags his fingers back and forth against Jim’s scalp. 

“Mmm,” Jim says, eyes sliding closed. “Probably shouldn’t start any hair-pulling until Bones okays forking.”

Despite making no movements that he can recall, Spock manages to bang his knee against the side of the tub.

“Besides,” Jim continues, nodding in the general direction of his lap, “the big guy is already confused about what’s happening here, sorry about that.”

“The ‘big guy’?” Spock repeats. 

Jim slants one eye open, and from the gentle pulse of embarrassed arousal coming from the bond, Spock gleans understanding.

“Ah, you refer to your erection. Is personification of the human phallus common?” 

Jim’s grin widens and he allows Spock to assist him in leaning back so they can rinse the suds from his hair. The movement provides additional visibility to the erection in question. It is proportional—and if Spock engages in personification of his own, it does appear confused regarding the nature of the exercise they are currently undertaking. He finds himself tempted to touch, despite knowing at least six reasons that would not be a recommended course of action.

 “I’m curious as to your adjective use,” Spock says instead, reaching for the conditioner so his hands do not stray elsewhere.

“Spock.” The bond conveys Jim’s amusement. “Are you saying you disagree with my ‘big’ descriptor?”

“Your penis appears to be within the standard parameters for length and girth.”

“What every man wants to hear from his paramour.”

“I mean no offense.”

“I know. Though, hey, maybe you could call it my ‘cock’ or my ‘dick’ so I don’t feel like a diagram in an anatomy textbook?” 

“Your cock,” Spock says. “Is very pleasing.”

Jim laughs, then winces, one hand moving to his belly. “Perfect. A+ work. Let’s revisit this conversation in a few days.”

“As you wish.”

No one has ever accused Spock of being tender before but perhaps they would if they witnessed the subsequent several minutes as he works conditioner into Jim’s hair, carefully cleans the minefield of sensitive pink-skin scars on Jim’s body, and then drys him with the softest towel Spock can find in the cabinet.

After such sustained skin contact with his bondmate, Spock’s body is also in danger of confusing their purpose as they move into the dim bedroom. However, this issue immediately subsides once Spock has settled Jim on the bed and Jim says, as if bracing himself, “So. We should talk about the elephant in the room. How much have you guessed?” 

Spock takes his time situating himself against the headboard. “Of your past?” He clarifies. 

“Yeah.”

“The current evidence I possess suggests that you and T’Mara were two of the Tarsus Nine. You had a relationship with Kodos that allowed you inside information about the atrocities he committed. You developed a parental bond with T’Mara while fulfilling the role of her caretaker. Your relationship with Captain Pike and Doctor McCoy likely began as a result of your rescue, as they were assigned to the USS Antares. After your rescue, however, I assume the Vulcan Council deemed you an…”

 He struggles with the words, recalling the last time he used them.

“…unfit guardian. As such they attempted to break your bond and allocate new Vulcan parents for T’Mara.”

“Pristine detective work so far,” Jim says. His face is uncomfortably blank. Behind it, the bond roils with pain-fear-anger.

“Further, my father was on the council that saw your case, and he performed a meld with you in that capacity. The results of this meld cemented your ability to formally adopt T’Mara and granted you Vulcan citizenship. Though I find it unlikely they permitted adoption upon the meld’s assurance alone.”

Jim exhales sharply. Perhaps Jim intends the sound to be a laugh, but, if so, he fails.

“Well, that made this conversation a lot easier than I thought it would be. You’re right. On all of the above. And it was definitely a more involved process than that because they required that we’d find another guardian who’d take responsibility for both of us until I was eighteen, which was…yeah.”

Spock does not get a chance to ask for clarity because Jim continues:

“I should probably tell you that it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill meld your dad performed on me. It was a Tu’ash meld that the council required, mostly, I think, because they figured I wouldn’t consent to it.”

Spock nearly chokes on his next breath. A Tu’ash meld is…invasive. It is an all-encompassing connection which requires opening one's entire self, one’s entire history of memory and thought to the scrutiny of another. It is a level of vulnerability Spock would never willingly submit to himself.

His horror is quickly followed by illogical jealousy. Because if Spock’s father has performed such a meld, he knows Jim in a way that Spock does not and likely never will. The intimacy of Sarek’s knowledge is––

“So, you’re having feelings,” Jim says guardedly, “but the mish-mash I’m getting from the bond is pretty confusing. Do you, uh, want to talk about them?”

Spock’s first instinct is denial, but it would not be the truth and it is, in many ways, a relief that he cannot hide the truth from Jim, even if he wanted to.

“I have many feelings,” he admits, “chief among them being anger, and…envy.”

“Envy?”

“My father knows your mind completely. While I understand the procedure is invasive and was likely traumatic, I would wish to know you thusly.”

“That’s not happening. Ever,” Jim says. And there is an undercurrent to the words that Spock does not like at all. “There are things that happened to me that I wouldn’t want anyone––well, anyone else–– to experience, even secondhand. Especially not you.”

“I understand,” Spock says. Because he does. “It is an irrational response. I know. But I wished to be honest.” 

“I appreciate that. I’d probably jump at the chance to crawl inside your head and poke around, too.” 

“You may,” Spock says, before he can think to restrain himself. “Though perhaps we should consult an adept before any attempts to deepen the bond.”

“Yeah, probably smart.” Jim lets out a slow breath, eyes on the ceiling, and then straightens, just enough to reach for his bedside table drawer.

“You know,” he murmurs, retrieving a familiar foil-wrapped chocolate bar. “I was saving this for something special. I think narrowly escaping death and finding out we’re T’hy’la qualifies. You want to share it?”

”You are aware that chocolate, for Vulcans, is a neurotransmitter inhibitor and an aphrodisiac.”

“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’ sound. He’s not smiling, but the dark slant of his thoughts in the bond has lightened. “I figure then we can both be a little high and turned on. Level the playing field.” 

“A fair request,” Spock agrees.

As he accepts the first square of chocolate and places it on his tongue, he finds himself conflicted. His concerns about the nature of Jim’s past bleed into worry about the future—about Jim’s attacker and their motivations––all of which is tempered by his pleasure in the moment: of Jim’s warmth beside him and the smell of his damp hair and the touch of their hands, the pleased hum of the bond, as Jim passes him a second and third piece of chocolate.

With the shades drawn on the single window, Spock cannot note the blueness of Jim’s eyes as he would prefer, but Spock can note the swell of his cheek, the slope of his throat, the cut of his jaw and the delicate curve of his ear. Aside from all his internal brilliance, Jim’s external features are worthy of museum spotlights. He has the sort of profile that ought to be sealed beneath varnish; his body should be captured in marble by only the most talented hands so it might be shared with generations to come. Jim is a masterpiece. Yet, to his continued bafflement, Spock is permitted to touch.

This, he thinks, is not a matter of poetry, merely a statement of fact. 

“The sheer adoration coming through the bond right now is super flattering but also not at all helping with my pants situation,” Jim points out.

He is beautiful. He is so, so, beautiful. 

“You have chocolate on your fingers,” Spock says despairingly.

Jim licks them and smiles. 

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Hey friends. It’s been a rough week. Between a sudden surge in work stuff and some personal stuff (B and Deacon are fine!), I am hanging on to what’s left of my sanity by a thread (I think being an American with health issues trying to navigate the minefield of healthcare probably exacerbates the original health issues). So my sincerest apologies for not responding to the comments on the last chapter yet. Hopefully life with get a little easier next week and I’ll find some time for that (and the growing list of nonessentials that sits at the bottom of my daily to-do lists). Sigh. Anyway, I’ll set aside my tiny violin now.

See you next week for one of my favorite chapters in this story: in which past Jim goes before the Vulcan council. And is…very Jim about his approach to confronting their biases.

Chapter 23

Vulcan

ShiKahr

Stardate 105079.1

Leaving the kids on Earth was hard.

Going to Vulcan was harder.

Even armed with everyone’s new com information and standing call agreements and a near-constant stream of texts from Gaila, Jim felt adrift in the room that he and T’Mara had been assigned. It was too quiet. Too empty. He was used to constant headcounts and noise and playing intermediator; patching up wounds and reading bedtime stories, and enforcing rules. There were no plants to tend, no solar panels to fix or generators to fill. No gas to siphon or laundry to hang or poorly-executed school-lessons to teach.

Now, he had nothing but T’Mara and himself to worry about. Though, admittedly, that did consume plenty of his time during the six days it took for them to travel to Vulcan.

T’Mara’s appointment before the council was in the morning the second day they entered orbit. Jim was not allowed to attend, though Pike did go with her. Jim’s appointment directly followed after a brief recess; they did not permit him to see T’Mara in the interim. 

Bones had offered to accompany him but Jim turned him down. Something he regretted almost immediately as he shifted back and forth, feet pinched in new boots, waiting for what felt like a guillotine. The high collar of the robe he’d been provided chafed at his neck.

He’d only been on the planet’s surface for ten minutes and already he was sweating, fidgeting, as passing Vulcans talked about him like he couldn’t hear them. Granted, they probably didn’t know Jim could understand them, but one of the perks of being bonded to a Vulcan was an inexplicable yet thorough knowledge of the language.

Only, Vulcans were so bitchy. And it was a lot less cute when it was coming from adults rather than his angelic child who could do no wrong.

Case in point, as he was standing in the atrium of the Vulcan Council Chambers, two young people passed him by, making no effort to lower their voices.

“What is a Human doing here?” the girl said with a level of derision that was kind of impressive considering her facial expression didn’t change and Vulcan wasn’t a language known for its tonal range.

Jim couldn’t help himself.

“I am experiencing micro aggressions on a truly exorbitant scale,” he answered in Vulcan. “You?”

The two paused, visibly surprised.

The girl considered him for several additional seconds before answering. “I am T’Pring.” She gestured to her companion. “This is Stonn.”

“Jim.” 

“Where did you study Vulcan? Your accent is nearly native.” 

“I did not,” he grinned as obnoxiously as possible.

“What is your purpose here?” Stonn asked.

“I am here to argue my case for remaining parentally bonded to my daughter.”

“You have a trauma bond?” T’Pring said. “With a Vulcan child?”

Jim inclined his head.

“You will fail,” Stonn said.

“Yes, well. I survived a genocide, so I do not believe in no-win scenarios.”

“You are one of the Tarsus Nine?” T’Pring’s inflection changed considerably. “The oldest human. The boy who made the distress call. Who kept the other children alive.”

He saluted sarcastically at her. “I am.” 

T’Pring only barely pursed her lips, but it felt like a landslide of emotion on her otherwise blank features. “I grieve with thee.”

“Gee thanks.” There wasn’t a way to say ‘gee’ in Vulcan, so he swapped back to Standard so his sarcasm was clear.

“The council will not like your attitude,” Stonn told him, also in Standard.

“It’s the only one I’ve got and I’m not a fan of their attitude either, so.”

“You are emotional,” T’Pring said.

“What part of ‘survived a genocide and now they’re trying to slice up my head and take away my kid’ are you not getting?” 

“We are students of the law,” she said.

“Good for you.” He took more pleasure than he should in her annoyed eyebrow raise. 

“I am offering advice.”

“I haven’t heard any so far.” 

“Jim,” she said firmly. “Do you have family who will assist you with the child’s upbringing?”

He considered just…ending the conversation. But it was a solid distraction from his impending panic attack, so. 

“Nope. Just us.” 

“Do you have a home and a method for providing, monetarily, for the child?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Are you prepared for the nuance of raising a Vulcan child with psionic and touch-telepathy needs, particularly a child who has endured trauma?”

“I’ve tried to do research. Read most everything that’s available on the public net. Though I gotta say y’all aren’t super into sharing about your child raising practices or how your brains work.” He crossed his arms. “Any other questions?”

T’Pring tipped her head. Her eyes were dark and assessing.

“Do you love her?” she asked finally.

Jim wasn’t expecting that. But the answer was easy. “Yeah. More than I thought was possible.”

T’Pring and Stonn shared a look. “If you go before the council and declare you are a suitable guardian and need no assistance,” T’Pring started, “the untrue nature of your claims will demonstrate immaturity. Within the context of Tarsus, perhaps you were an effective parent when your duties hinged upon survival, but here or on Earth you are a juvenile, yourself processing trauma, you have no home, no job, and no community of support.” 

“What’s your point?” 

“Perhaps if you ask the council for help rather than asserting you need none, they may be more willing to hear your case.”

It was an interesting approach. Probably better than his current plan which sat somewhere between raging and begging.

“While I….admire your tenacity,” T’Pring continued, “you must know that arrogance will merely ensure a fast and, for you, displeasing ruling.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jim said.

The massive council door slid open.

“James Kirk,” called a woman from within. 

“Live long and prosper,” T’Pring said. 

Jim returned the salute she and Stonn offered, squared his shoulders, and walked inside.

***

The council was composed of seven severe-looking ministers—all with nearly identical bowl-cuts and dark robes which made them difficult to tell apart. 

There was one younger man whose hair had yet to go grey on the far right, and a particularly disproving woman in the middle who had a permanent case of lemon-sucking-face. Other than that, Jim wouldn’t have been able to tell who was who in a lineup. He memorized their names as they were given according to order and hoped musical chairs wasn’t a part of typical Vulcan council sessions. 

“James Kirk,” the lemon-sucking woman—T’Po–– said. “You are brought before the council to state your case regarding bond retainment. You will have the floor for…” she consulted the pad on the table in front her. “The equivalent of ten Terran minutes. Your time begins now.”

Jim had no idea what to say other than: “that’s it? You let me talk for ten minutes and then decide our whole fucking future?”

“The time allocation is a benevolent offering, considering the circumstances,” she said. “Any rational being can judge that a human child cannot care for a child himself, regardless of the extenuating circumstances. However, in recognition of your efforts to keep T’Mara alive, and in deference to Starfleet’s request, we have agreed to give you ten minutes.” 

And Jim—

Jim was nearly blinded by fury.

“Show of fucking hands,” he snapped. “How many of you have children?”

Every single one of them raised a hand.

“Alright. How many of you have fed your kids at the expense of your own hunger––have had to make the choice to put food in their mouths rather than yours?”

All of the lifted hands descended.

“How many of you have had to rock your kid while they cried themself to sleep from hunger, or hold back their hair while they vomited up the fucking leaves they tried to eat because there wasn’t anything else and they were too desperate to listen to you when you told them it’d make them sick?”

He paced six steps to the left, arms crossed hard around his chest, hands squeezing his too-lean biceps like that might keep the shaking in, like maybe if he pressed hard enough the sobs building in his chest wouldn’t surface.

“How many of you have had to hold your kids as they died? Have lied to them and told them that after they go to sleep they’ll wake up feeling better knowing they won’t––knowing they won’t wake up at all.”

He took a steadying breath. It didn’t help the raw crack in his voice or the tears on his face, but it stopped the black from encroaching on his vision. “I saved them. I did everything I could to keep them alive and when I failed I buried them. I––”

He paced back. “I buried eleven kids with my hands. We didn’t have a shovel, so I dug their graves with my hands and you have the audacity to––”

He sucked in another breath and smeared the back of his wrist under his leaking nose. “I’ve been a parent for the last six months in ways I hope you never have to understand. And that was for kids I wasn’t bonded to. That was for kids I chose to try and save, without any kind of biological imperative or psychic compulsion, when I could have been sitting pretty at the capital instead. But I am bonded to T’Mara. She chose me. And I’m––I love her in a way that…” He gestured helplessly. “Do you know what I would do for her? Do you know what I’d––God, I don’t even know what I’d do for her. Anything, probably.”

He laughed. Just at the ridiculousness of it all.

He pressed his palms to his eyes and breathed, trying to center himself. He thought of T’Pring’s advice as he turned to face the council again.

“I understand I’m young and I’m Human. I’m scared as hell at the very idea of being responsible for a Vulcan kid in addition to myself when I have no support system to help me. But don’t you dare fucking dismiss me because of those things when it means overlooking everything I have done. The only reason T’Mara is alive right now is because of me. So if you want her to have a good parent then help me be one.” He exhaled, slow and shuddering and horrifically embarrassing. “Please.”

The council chamber was silent.

“A compelling, if emotional, speech,” the younger man on the end—Sarek–– finally said.

“But how are we to determine what he says is true?” T’Sana, the woman beside him, murmured. “Humans lie. It is known.”

Jim thrust his hand in her direction. “I’d be delighted to show you, if you think you can stomach it.”

”A simple meld will not be enough in this case,” T’Sana responded.

“Perhaps a Tu’ash meld,” T’Po suggested.

That felt like a trap, just the slimy way she said it, but it caused the rest of the council members to pause. 

“Sure,” Jim said, grabbing at the opportunity. “Let’s do that.”

Vulcans wouldn’t show anything so unseemly as surprise but all the ministers wore something close upon his response.  

“Do the ministers present agree to a Tu’ash meld as a next step in the proceedings?” T’Po inquired of the bench.

They all showed her their palms, some slower than others, and she nodded decisively. 

“Very well. James Kirk, you are free to leave. You will be recalled upon––” 

“Wait, hold on. Why can’t you do it now?”

T’Po did not appear pleased at his interruption. 

“It is customary to allow a period of preparation.”

“I don’t require preparation.” 

“Nevertheless, the council does. We must select who among us will—

“I volunteer,” Sarek said. “I hold the highest adept certifications among us and I regularly meld with my half-Human son; I am the logical choice for such an undertaking and I am prepared to perform my duty at this juncture.”

T’Po’s face got even lemon-suckier, but several other council-members nodded in agreement. 

“Minister Sarek,” she said finally. “If you will take the floor with James Kirk.”

Sarek rose and descended down the stairs with a level of grace that Jim found a little unfair. He knelt with equal grace, sweeping his robe to one side in a gesture that spoke to practice. Jim just sort of lurched down to join him until their knees were nearly abutting.

“How much will you see?” Jim asked quietly.

Sarek blinked, as if confused. “Everything. Your past from the point that memory begins. But intense feelings will be highlighted. Your fears, your exaltations, your pain and your pride. Moments that mattered most to you, negative or positive––that formed you as you are today.“

Jim sucked in an unsteady breath.

“Can you—do you have to go back prior to Tarsus? Can you just…start from my first day there or something? That’s three years, that’s got to be enough, right?”

“No. A Tu’ash meld is the opening of one’s entire self, entire history, for scrutiny. It is the most vulnerable, honest, and telling of connections. It requires complete transparency. I thought you were aware.”

He met Sarek’s eyes and they offered no comfort, but nor did he press Jim to continue. He waited.

“You’re going to see things,” Jim started, and he didn’t know how to finish. “I understand,” he managed around the hot constriction of his throat, “if the things you see…if what happened before Tarsus make you think I’ll be a poor guardian, but I need you to know I’d never––I’d never––even though I know what the statistics say or whatever, I wouldn’t. I swear.”

Sarek’s expression remained placid, but a fine crease appeared between his brows. “James,” he said. “If you do not wish––“ 

“No. It’s this or you won’t even consider helping me, right?”

“Your autonomy is––“

“Fuck. Okay. No. We’ve got to. Just. I’m sorry. In advance.” 

Sarek considered him gravely for several silent seconds. “I am curious why you feel the need to apologize.”

“When T’Mara shares memories with me, I get…she calls it ‘emotional transference.’ Whatever she was feeling in the memory, I feel. Will it be the same for you, when you look at my memories? Will it be like you’re there, experiencing them with me?”

“Indeed.”

“Okay, so. That’s why.”

The pinch between Sarek’s brows deepened. “Your wish to spare me the pain you have experienced is noble, but misplaced. My shields are impeccable.” 

“Well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Sarek reached for his face.

And Jim braced himself.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

The horrors persist, but so do I.

Thanks for all the comments! Deacon is back in optimum health and appreciates all the well-wishes. I continue to…live. Which is good. I’ll be posting about a giveaway of Free From Falling (for the trans rights read-a-thon!) on IG tomorrow, so if you’d like a free book with trans rep, keep an eye out: @el_massey

Ok. I must return to work, but I’ll see you next week for a fun interlude in which there is Domesticity and then Pike finds out that Jim and Spock are uh, sort of, kind of, married. Whoops?

Love y’all!

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105078.5

Jim smells best in the morning, when his scent is heightened by warmth––due partly to a natural internal increase in his core temperature at the waking cycle of his circadian rhythm, and partly to the external influence of Spock’s shared heat beside him. Jim also smells best in the morning because, after a night spent in close proximity, he smells of Spock as well.

Spock has never been one to delay leaving his bed until now.

On Monday, after two quiet days of domesticity with Jim and T’Mara, Spock finds he is loath to return to work. While Jim is much improved, and McCoy has cleared him to stay alone in the dorm while Spock and T’Mara attend classes, Spock finds himself fiddling—fiddling—with his communication earpiece in his pocket, reaching out to their bond for reassurance, as he walks to campus. His thoughts are shamefully scattered.

“It is difficult,” T’Mara says, walking beside him. “Loving a Human.”

Spock does not argue. 

“They are breakable to begin with. Even when they are not self-sacrificing. Or targeted with violence.”

Spock still says nothing. 

“Having him is worth the constant fear of losing him, though.” Her tone has become severe in a way that implies she does not believe Spock shares her assessment.

 He must respond. But he does not know how to verbalize that he agrees with her but has not yet managed to process the notion that this will be his state of being for the rest of his life. That he is so filled with combating feelings of joy and adoration, anxiety and terror, that even two hours of meditation that morning had not quieted his mind. He is afraid his mind may never be quiet again.

Because there is only one of Jim. This knowledge is both a gift and a curse.

It occurs to Spock that perhaps he does not need to find a way to verbalize his feelings. Instead, he slows his steps and offers T’Mara his arm, tugging his uniform sleeve up at the elbow to expose his wrist.

After a moment of visible surprise, she allows her fingers to rest on the offered skin. Her understanding is as immediate as it is decisive. And Spock’s relief at her empathy is all-encompassing.

Their bonds with Jim are not the same, but the prospect of his loss is a burden that can be shared.

***

After the completion of Spock’s teaching duties, he checks Captain Pike’s calendar and, finding him available, makes the journey to his office.

The man is hunched over a pad at his desk, and the dark circles beneath his eyes indicate that his weekend was not restful in the way that Spock’s was. 

“They’re still not saying anything about the investigation,” Pike mutters as he enters. “Military police were arguing with local police about juristiction and now Federation Police are involved for some goddamn reason, but the one thing they all seem to agree on is that they should keep me in the fucking dark. There’s a briefing at 1600, but until then I’ve got nothing new for you.”

“I appreciate the update, sir,” Spock says, falling into parade rest in front of Pike’s desk. “However, that was not my purpose in seeking you out.” 

“Oh.” Pike glances up at him, winces, and straightens, rubbing a cupped hand to the back of his neck. “What’s up?”

Spock clears his throat, not out of necessity, but as an indicator of seriousness. “Captain, I have submitted the requisite alternate grader paperwork for Jim and T’Mara. I would also like to formally register my bond. As such, I will no longer be available for duty off-planet until my T’hy’la graduates or is permitted to continue their education aboard the ship to which I am assigned in deference to Vulcan Amendment 43.1B in the Starfleet Accommodations Manual. ”

“…what?” Pike says blankly.

Spock is uncertain what part of the information he has conveyed has resulted in confusion. In light of Pike’s obvious fatigue, he elects to review the details point-by-point as a courtesy.

“I have submitted alternate grader requests for Jim and T’Mara’s coursework.” 

“…you don’t think you can be objective when grading their work?” Pike sounds understandably perturbed by this news. 

“Negative,” Spock answers. “I merely wish to pre-empt any claims of favoritism once news of our bonding becomes public.”

Pike’s face demonstrates no further understanding. Rather, his features twist with additional confusion. “I don’t––you bonded with T’Mara? Like Jim did? Was it the trauma or––?”

Spock realizes several things in quick succession.

The first is that, while Pike was present when Spock recognized the bond, he did not verbalize what had occurred. He was past verbal abilities at all.

The second is that Pike did not accompany Spock and McCoy to the hospital; he remained to secure the scene, and take the nearby cadets into custody. So he did not see Spock’s initial aggressive reaction to being separated from Jim, nor Sarek’s intercession, nor hear Sarek’s explanation for Spock’s behavior.

The third is that, when Pike finally did arrive at the hospital to check on Jim in person, Spock was not present. He had gone in search of a wheelchair to replace the squeaky-wheeled sub-standard option that was initially provided for Jim’s discharge. Spock can surmise that no one present told Captain Pike about…them. He can also surmise this was an intentional exclusion on McCoy’s part.

The fourth is that Captain Pike is likely the closest thing Jim has to a father. Which has certain connotations on Earth. Even when the father in question is not a Starfleet captain and even when the child in question is not the traumatized survivor of a genocide.

The fifth is that Spock is utterly unprepared for the conversation he must now have. 

“I apologize,” Spock says, after a too long pause, judging by Pike’s expression. “I thought you were aware. I am not parentally bonded to T’Mara. I am…marriage-bonded to Jim.” The phrasing is imprecise, but necessarily awkward considering that there is no Human equivalent to T’hy’la and Pike only speaks enough Vulcan so as to greet diplomats without causing offense.

“What.” Pike says. 

“Jim and I are––”

“You’re married to Jim? My Jim?”

“It is a T’hy’la bond. But ‘marriage’ is the nearest Human term, yes.”

“Jesus Christ. When did you even have time? I thought he was bedridden the last two days. And you’ve only known each other for––you’re both barely into your twenties, what on Earth possessed you to––”

“Sir, a T’hy’la bond forms at birth and is cemented with physical touch. You might equate it to a ‘soul bond.’ When I touched Jim skin-to-skin in the bunker, that which was latent spontaneously became binding. Neither of us had any choice in the matter, though, to be clear, if I were given a choice I would select Jim over all others with no hesitation.”

Pike, who had half-way stood during Spock’s explanation, slowly sinks back down into his chair. 

“But Jim isn’t Vulcan. How can he have a Vulcan soul bond?” 

“I cannot say,” Spock answers. “Though if I may provide a hypothesis, I believe it is my fault. As I am not fully Vulcan, perhaps a Vulcan T’hy’la would not have…met my needs in the way that a Human, that Jim uniquely can.”

It is something he never would have admitted, even just weeks before. But now, knowing indisputably that Jim is his T’hy’la, he is unashamed.

Pike, while still looking bewildered, knows Spock well enough to recognize the vulnerability of the admission.

“Well, shit,” he says. “And Jim. How does he feel about this?”

“He is––” Spock recalls their lazy morning: limbs tangled, Jim’s happiness seeping into his skin at all their points of contact. Spock can feel his ears flush. “—pleased.”

“Guess he would be,” Pike mutters. “Considering.”

”I am uncertain what you mean.”

Pike runs a hand through his hair. He appears deep in thought for 8.5 seconds before exhaling in a way that verges on laughter.

“You know we fucking fought over who got to adopt him? McCoy and I. Not legally, I mean. He got emancipated. But the Vulcan council required that if Jim wanted to keep T’Mara he had to have a documented surrogate family that would meet certain criteria. Eventually McCoy and I agreed to split the responsibility. But even after I all but went to war with Winona—Jim’s mom––over him. Even after all the hoops I had to jump through to keep him and T’Mara on the ship with me until the end of my first Captain run. The fact that I took a year-long sabbatical after that so I could get them set up for life dirtside before I accepted any more assignments. None of it mattered. Jim has never believed I really wanted him.”

Spock is fairly reeling from this information. He knew, from his time serving under Pike, that the man had close family ties on Earth. That he had standing vid-call appointments every week with his son and was constantly sending pictures of their research and explorations to his family. Spock knew that Pike spent every shore leave, every unexpected maintenance period, on Earth. The fact that it was Jim, all this time, that Pike returned to, winds him.

“And don’t get me started about McCoy, McCoy’s whole family, even. As soon as McCoy told his parents about Jim they called me up and insisted on helping. I bought a little place just down the road from his folks in Georgia. And they’ve acted as Jim’s backup parents and T’Mara’s Grandparents ever since. After my year was up and I was back in the black they checked in on them near daily, had them over for dinner a few times a week. And McCoy was there every minute he could be between short-term missions and certifications. But Jim has always acted like it was all for T’Mara. Like she was the only one deserving of the effort. He never once accepted all that love like it was meant for him too.”

Pike leans back in his chair, fingers linked behind his head, elbows out like wings.

“He’ll call McCoy T’Mara’s uncle, but he won’t call McCoy his brother. He’ll call me T’Mara’s grandfather, but he won’t––“

Pike stops. He swallows and starts again, only now his voice is significantly subdued.

“You know what I’d give for the kid to call me ‘dad’? Meanwhile, he’s over here thinking I did it all because I felt duty-bound or some shit. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I love him, I don’t think he’ll ever believe it.” 

Spock’s throat feels hot. Too tight.

“Sir,” he says. “While I am aware of Jim’s bafflingly low self-esteem, I am uncertain how our T’hy’la bond relates. My affection for and devotion to Jim is undeniable.”

Pike offers him a sad smile.

“That’s my point, Spock. He can’t argue with a soul bond. When you say you love him, he has to believe it. Even if he doesn’t want to. I’m guessing he can probably feel it.”

Spock has not yet said the words, but Pike’s assertion is true. 

“Indeed,” he agrees.

”Good,” Pike sounds exhausted. “That’s good.”

His face suddenly brightens. “And what are T’Mara’s thoughts?” 

“She has expressed approval. She knows a Vulcan will prioritize their T’hy’la’s health and happiness above all else.”

“Good,” he says again, and then, with sudden urgency, “hold on, what was that amendment you said earlier—some Vulcan-specific accommodation?”

“Bondmates must not be separated for any duration exceeding that of what regular duties require. In the event that a bonded pair includes an active duty individual and cadet, the cadet may complete their curriculum aboard the vessel to which their partner has been assigned, provided resources are available to do so.”

Pike seems…very pleased with this knowledge. “And I’m assuming Fleet would be required to assign you to the same ship once you’re both active duty.”

“Affirmative.”

Pike’s eyes narrow. ”This bond of yours. Does it allow for non-verbal communication?”

“Yes.” Recalling Jim’s similar line of questioning, Spock provides additional context: “We can both send and receive thoughts, images, and even memories at will, with or without the conduit of touch. There are no distance or circumstantial limitations of which I am aware.”

Spock can only term Pike’s facial expression as ‘gleeful.’

“Hot damn,” Pike says. 

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Pike: YOU VULCAN MARRIED MY KID??
Pike (considering the sundry benefits of this union): You…Vulcan married my kid. Hm. Interesting.

 

Real life continues to be trying in terms of my health, but we’re making progress. Apologies again for falling behind on answering comments—we leave for Nice (followed by Monaco) in one more day so I’m scrambling a bit to get all my work stuff buttoned up beforehand. We likely won’t be able to do all the adventuring I’d hoped for considering we still haven’t fixed me, but perhaps a change of scenery will be assistive. Related, there will NOT be an update next week as I’ll still be out of the country and have decided not to take my laptop with me or do any writing/editing. I’ll be focused on reading and napping and wandering and giving B my undivided attention, so please forgive a brief hiatus and I’ll see you in two weeks. Hopefully my return after a little break will see me in better health and spirits.

Until then, thank you for all the comments! Love y’all!

In two weeks time, you can expect: Sarek being humbled and having his own little “I’ve known James Kirk for a day and a half but if anything were to happen to him I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself” moment. But in like. A Vulcan way.

Chapter 25

Summary:

CW for references to child abuse

Chapter 25

Vulcan

ShiKahr

Stardate 105079.1

Jim was drowning.

And he wasn’t sure if it made things better or worse that someone was drowning with him.

He was six. He was eight. He was ten. 

Twelve and thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

Broken bones and bloodied knuckles and hunger and fear and an abject, all-consuming loneliness.

Sarek had said that the meld would reveal his most intense feelings, negative or positive, that made him who he was. What did it say about his life, about him, that so much of the most noteworthy moments were associated with pain?

There was, perhaps, a more healthy mix of happy and sad memories until he hit twelve. But afterward it was mostly just fear and hate and revulsion, tempered occasionally by hope, always ending in despair. And even after Jim left Earth, Frank followed him in his dreams. On Tarsus, the other kids could escape in their sleep, but Jim was not afforded that luxury.

Jim had never been tortured before—well, not exactly, not with the usual intent of torture, with the objective of extracting information or maliciously disassembling a person until there was nothing left of them. But he imagined this—the Tu’ash meld––would be a very effective method for getting Jim to promise to do just about anything, if only someone would make the memories stop. 

Because it was an exercise in torment, made worse by the fact that the memories weren’t all bad. It was like Jim was swimming in a cold, endless ocean, only as hypothermia started to set in, someone would pull him out and gently place him in a warm bath, but before he could acclimate to that, he’d be dumped right back in the frigid water again.

He could never go numb, never retreat enough from the pain to catch his breath, because just as he started to disassociate, a happy memory would fill his chest with warmth—laying on Station 10’s roof, T’Mara’s hand pointed upward, telling him about the constellations above them, showing him, through her other hand on his wrist, the same constellations from the viewpoint of Vulcan.

But then, just as abruptly––

The girls. The rain. Their fevered skin and scared eyes and tears. Torn calluses on his hands. Two graves as the sun set, colored red-gold and stark in the swath of desiccated sand-blown garden dirt. T’Mara’s demands and his empty promises and a well of sadness he struggled to contain lest it spill over and ruin T’Mara too.

The cognitive dissonance: the brief moments of reprieve, were nearly worse than reliving the bad memories themselves.

Nearly, of course, because nothing was as bad as the memories of Frank. And they weren’t entirely sequential, either. So Jim couldn’t brace himself, knowing what would come next, nor could he be certain that, after the Tarsus flashbacks began, a prior nighttime memory from Riverside wouldn’t sneak in. It was unending. It was torment. It was––well, he felt like it was killing him, but it probably wasn’t. And if this is what he had to endure for a chance at keeping T’Mara, then he would. Though he couldn’t imagine this would cast him in a particularly good parental light.

He could feel Sarek with him, a presence which might have been a comfort if not for the guilt, the horror of allowing someone to see and feel the confluence of that which was done to him and that which, in response, he did to himself.

The memories started to slow as they neared the present, and Jim felt like he could breathe for the first time in maybe hours as his head was filled with Bones and Pike and Number One, the galaxy ceiling of their sickbay room, laughing kids jumping from mattress to mattress and soups and smoothies and card games and safety.

There were a dozen happy recollections in a row which lulled him into false complacency, making it so much worse when another Frank memory cut through the contented ease in his chest like a knife. And then he was right back to the black of his childhood bedroom. The light under the door in the hall, the sound of the refrigerator opening, a glass bottle clinking, hissing. Jim watched the light change, the door open.

George, Frank would say. Low and gentle and terrible. I missed you.

I’m not him, Jim wanted to say. He would hate you for this, he wanted to say.

But that didn’t matter, because his dad was dead and his mom was gone and Jim was trouble, Jim was a liar, Jim was attention-seeking and needed discipline. It was almost a relief, when Frank’s hand would find his bare skin and Jim’s mind would go hazy and complacent.

And then the bedroom was gone, thank god, and––

He was thirteen and he was in the car. His dad’s car. His car. Their car. Going 125mph headed straight for the edge of the quarry. Slowing only when the pavement turned to gravel. Wondering if maybe he shouldn’t jump at all. Wondering if it would be better to just go over the edge with it––

And he was suddenly, inexplicably, furious. A fury that was inhuman, animal, in its incandescence. It was an anger that felt too big for his ribs to contain which didn’t make any sense because Jim didn’t remember being angry during that moment. Sure, he was mad, but the most overwhelming emotion he’d felt, with wind pulling the tears directly from his squinted eyes as he approached the cliff edge, was despair. Hopelessness. A knowledge that this wouldn’t fix anything but he didn’t know what else to do and he had to do something.

He realised that maybe the anger wasn’t his at all.

Jim gasped back to the present, falling backward as Sarek’s contact with him ended. He scrambled away, feet kicking near-uselessly against the polished stone floor, because if anyone touched him he might just…die, maybe. He kept choking on air, unable to combat the black spots in his vision, which made him wonder if he would die anyway. After everything. Maybe this, his own history, would kill him.

“James,” Sarek said. The name was more exhalation than sound.

“Don’t,” he tried to say, “don’t touch me.”

And then Bones was there.

And everything got loud.

That happened a lot when Bones was around.

“Beaming directly into a closed council session is against regulations,” a woman’s voice—T’Po, probably—said.

“You can shove your regulations up your ass,” Bones answered, and Jim wished he wasn’t about to pass out so he could sit up and see her response to that. 

“My patient is in acute distress and I’m guessing it’s your fault,” Bones continued, going to his knees and dumping his medical away bag in a landslide of hyposprays and diagnostic tools by Jim’s head. “I’ve also got heart rate data from the monitor Jim’s wearing to back up justifiable cause and I’d love to feature in an intergalactic incident if you try to remove me.”

Jim continued to gasp uselessly like a particularly awkward fish.

“Not gonna touch you kid,” Bones muttered, “just gonna get close, okay?”

The tricorder positively shrieked when Bones ran it down Jim’s chest, and Jim could hear the overlapping voices of multiple ministers in the background. He couldn't focus on any of them though because T’Mara was shouting in his head again. He wondered absently, as his vision faded in and out, if there was some sort of bond-meter that went off on T’Mara’s end when he got close to death. That probably sucked. Whatever it was, he’d never been so grateful that, when they weren’t touching, the bond only went one way. She couldn’t ever know about Frank. Not ever.

Bones jabbed a hypospray into Jim’s neck, then a second one when the tricorder’s shrieking didn’t stop.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Bones demanded.

“He consented to the meld,” T’Po said. She must have come down the stairs because her voice was way closer than it’d been before.

“Did he know it would do this to him? You can’t consent to something you don’t understand, goddammit.”

The tricorder continued to wail. 

“Alright, listen,” Bones started, and Jim hoped they did. That was Bones’ serious voice. “Jim’s heart rate can’t stay this high for much longer before it starts doing damage, but he’s not responding to sedatives even though I gave him enough to down a horse. So someone needs tell me what you did to fuck him up so I can unfuck him, right fucking now.”

“It is my fault,” Sarek said. His voice was unsteady. “I was ill-prepared for the memories I encountered and my own response has likely heightened Jim’s psionic levels. His body is not capable of self-regulating in this state, nor will chemical intervention succeed.”

“So how do we fix it?”

“James,” Sarek said. “Allow me to alleviate the distress I have caused.”

“No,” Jim said. His limbs were too weak to move. He wasn’t sure if the word was even interpretable as he gasped it between half-numb lips.

“It will not be as before. I will not enter your mind, merely give you access to mine.” Sarek sounded shockingly desperate, for a Vulcan. Jim must be in bad shape. “Please, allow me to provide you comfort.”

“Can’t you just send him to sleep?” Bones asked.

“Yes,” Sarek agreed, “but only with James’ permission.”

“Hey,” Bones’ face was suddenly right there in front of Jim’s leaking, ineffective, eyes. “I like the look of this guy. Less pointy than the others. Let him help you go to sleep, okay, kid?”

Sleep sounded good, Jim supposed. Anything was better than this. And if what he was feeling, what was overwhelming him, was some sort of spillover from Sarek’s anger, that was a good thing. Someone should be angry. Jim was angry, even. He just didn’t want to feel it anymore.

“Okay.”

Sarek’s fingers were cool against the heated skin of his face and Jim closed his eyes at the relief that accompanied them. The tricorder’s shrill noise finally faded and the ensuing silence was nearly as nice as the loosening of his chest, the slowing of his heart rate.

God, he’d never appreciated the concept of air so much; never been so aware of his own diaphragm. 

“Good job,” Bones said, and Jim wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or at Sarek. “That’s perfect.”

Sarek wasn’t in his head, but he could feel Sarek’s projected calm, his…affection, maybe, like a thing that was available for the taking. Jim imagined he was walking on a beach, the relief of Sarek’s calm thoughts rolling, just within reach, like soft tidal waves. He stood in place and let them come to him, lapping at his ankles. When the tide retreated, he followed it deeper. His eyes felt heavy. 

“Damn,” Bones muttered. “Let me know if you ever want to make a career change. You’d be all kinds of handy in a battlefield scenario.” And, then, “Two to beam up, me and Jim, send us directly to sickbay.”

Sarek’s touch on his face withdrew and Jim, suddenly alone in a sandy expanse, no ocean in sight, whined at the loss.

“I will accompany you,” Sarek said, his hand instead closing around Jim’s wrist. The water returned and Jim went to his knees in the silt, letting the warmth envelop him again.

Bones didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Fine, three to beam up, grab the Vulcan closest to Jim’s signature too.”

“Wait,” Jim realized, fighting against the lull pulling him under, “wait, you can’t let T’Mara touch me. Not now. I can’t shield for shit and she’ll see––”

“Hey, easy, kid,” Bones said, “your heart rate is climbing again.”

“No, listen, she can’t––” he flopped his head over to meet Sarek’s eyes because Bones didn’t understand but…Sarek did. The realization that someone else knew––that he wasn’t alone in this anymore because the truth of what they’d shared was undeniable––was a nearly overwhelming relief.

She can’t see, okay? Don’t let her touch me. Please. It’s all right here at the front now and if she touches me…

“James,” Sarek interrupted, his thumb moving, almost like an attempted caress, on his wrist. I will ensure your secrets remain yours. I swear it. I can shield for you, if you wish. So your daughter may embrace you without fear of any knowledge transfer.

Jim could feel the steady, if still furious, truth in Sarek’s promise.

”Okay,” Jim relaxed, “Okay that's good. Let’s do that.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Bones muttered, as Jim felt the beam engage. “Are you two doing that hobgoblin shit?”

“I want to sleep now,” Jim said. Sickbay materialized in his peripheral vision. He met Sarek’s eyes again. 

Can you make sure I don’t dream? It didn’t feel embarrassing to beg. Not really. Not when Sarek had already seen everything else and had chosen to stay anyway.

I can.

Beneath Sarek’s reassuring hold on his wrist and the bright lights of Bones’ sickbay, for the first time in nearly four years, Jim closed his eyes without fear.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

I have returned to the states (alas) but naturally I was home for a grand total of one (1) day before I got sick. Which also now postpones the additional testing I was supposed to do for the ongoing health issues I’ve got going on. So, I’m going to take my grumpy, feverish self back to bed now (metaphorically, that is. I’ve been in bed all day and only just remembered it was Tuesday and I needed to post a chapter, sorry about that). Goodnight! Thanks for all the comments and I’ll see you next week, in which there will be kissing (!!), the plot will thicken, and Spock and his dad will bond over the fact that they now both belong to the Protect Jim At All Costs club.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105079.2

For someone who has eschewed physical touch for the majority of his life, Spock finds himself quickly and happily immersed in it, as a practice. While he could claim his actions are solely for Jim’s benefit, Spock is not in the practice of lying, even within his own mind. He likes touching Jim, not only for the enhanced insight it gives him into Jim’s mental state, but purely for the act itself. The closeness. The tactile reassurance that his bondmate is there, safe, within his arms and his protection.

Initial comforting touches—Spock’s hand to Jim’s neck, his back, his arm––have become something else over the past few days. Now, they often awaken tangled in the bed together, legs intertwined, hands clasped, in a feedback loop of lazy pleasure that Spock never wants to end, even knowing the impossibility of such a desire. Now, when Spock arrives at the dorm after classes, Jim pulls him inside and directly onto the couch to engage in a practice that Spock refuses to term ‘cuddling’ while also having no other name for it.

“Is this the equivalent of kissing, for Vulcans?” Jim asks sleepily one afternoon. He’s sprawled mostly on top of Spock, running his fingertips down the back of Spock’s hand where it rests between them.

Spock swallows. “It is…rather more than that.”

“Yeah? Are we making out right now?”

He considers giving a more nuanced answer but finds his ability for nuance is rapidly deteriorating. “Yes.”

“What are your thoughts on the Human method?”

“The Human method,” Spock repeats faintly.

Jim brings their hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to Spock’s palm before dragging it down to cup his chin, letting the pads of Spock’s fingers rest on Jim’s full lower lip.

Kissing with mouths rather than hands, he supplies. “Thoughts?”

It is difficult for Spock to maintain any thoughts at all.

“My oral sensory receptors are equal to that of a human,” he manages. He considers, briefly, a time in his childhood that cemented the importance of knocking on closed doors in their household. “I am also, unfortunately, privy to the knowledge that some full-blooded Vulcans appear to derive pleasure from the action regardless of their anatomical differences.”

“But you’ve never…” Jim murmurs. The brush of his mouth against Spock’s fingers is an exercise in restraint.

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

Yes, he thinks. He does not recall ever feeling quite so desperate, in fact, to try anything.

“As a scientist,” he says, “I am always amenable to experimentation.”

“Spock,” Jim is smiling. He nips one of Spock’s fingertips and Spock shudders.

“Yes, Jim?”

“Kiss me.”

“Yes, Jim.”

***

Spock has yet to find an activity of which he does not enjoy partaking in Jim’s company. However, the introduction of Spock’s mouth to Jim’s skin is a revelation. 

In the past, arousal was a conceptual state that did not plague him as it did his seemingly constantly preoccupied Human peers. Considering he possessed a largely Vulcan reproductive system, he never imagined he would allocate any significant amount of his time for sex. Nor did he feel the need to “experiment” as his cohort did during his undergraduate studies. However, now acquainted to the sensation of Jim’s tongue pressed to his, of Spock’s mouth pressed, open and hot to the pulse of Jim's throat––Spock is quickly reassessing his prior assumptions.

If Jim’s scent is an enticement, his taste is something else entirely.

Spock is dangerously close to empathizing with Human love songs.

Jim’s com buzzes in the kitchen and when Spock attempts to separate them to retrieve it, Jim makes his opinion on the matter clear—fingers clenched in Spock’s hair, holding him in place.

Don’t even fucking think about it.

Spock finds himself smiling against Jim’s mouth, biting gently at his bottom lip, which elicits a soft, repressed noise from the back of Jim’s throat. Spock endeavors to recreate it at higher volume. 

Only, after three point five seconds, interrupted only by the elevated cadence of their breathing, Spock’s com pings with an incoming call. It is Captain Pike’s distinctive ringtone, which he conveys to Jim with an aggrieved exhale, separating their mouths and reaching with a regretful hand to his pocket for his earpiece. His pants are unfastened, though he does not recall unfastening them himself.

Jim projects innocence through the bond.

“Captain,” Spock answers tersely.

“Do you have eyes on Jim?” Pike asks urgently. “He’s not answering his com.”

Spock flexes the fingers of his opposite hand where they still rest beneath the waistband of Jim’s boxers on the swell of his hip. Spock has considerably more than his eyes on Jim.

Jim must hear the thought through the bond because he bursts into badly muffled laughter.

Pike sighs. “I see.”

“Indeed.” 

“Are you two at Jim’s place? I finally spoke to the lead investigator and––I’d like to come over. Now.”

Jim’s laughter fades.

That’s not good. Jim thinks. But yeah. Tell him to come now.

Spock and Jim agree that Pike’s insistence on meeting at 1800, rather than relaying any pertinent information verbally, is not a positive indicator. Pike’s expression, upon stepping into the foyer 15.25 minutes later, only lends credence to this assumption. Through the bond, Spock recognizes and confirm’s Jim’s relief that T’Mara is not present and has elected to join an evening study-group working on an extra-credit assignment. Whatever news he has is surely troubling.

“We should sit down,” Pike says.

The small living area barely has room for them, but it is not a hardship for Spock to squeeze onto the loveseat with Jim while Pike drags a chair from the kitchen to face them. He cups his hands to his knees, fingers white where they clench over the uniform fabric. 

“So. I’ve finally spoken with the Federation Police. They officially took over the investigation last night. Gary Mitchell and the other cadets have been released and will return to classes tomorrow.”

Pike holds up a hand as they both begin to respond. 

“They found that all of the cadets in question had been victimized by someone with psionic abilities. And whoever it was covered their tracks. None of them had any memory of the events as they occurred, nor could they identify the assailant.”

“Do you have evidence to confirm this?” Spock asks. 

“Yeah,” Pike says wryly. “From your dad. He volunteered his services the first night, it just took until today for his credentials as an Adept to be verified. He said whoever it was had an extremely high psi-rating to coerce such behavior from multiple people and then leave no trace as to their identity. He also said they had to be damn near sociopathic.”

Jim, whose knee had been bouncing anxiously beside Spock, goes still.

“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Jim says, voice soft yet insistent, “but Kodos wasn’t psi-null. I wouldn’t have thought he could do this, but—he could do things. In your head. Make you see things you didn’t. Feel things you didn’t.”

Spock feels sick

“And I know you think he’s dead––”

”Jim,” Pike tries to interrupt, but Jim talks over him. 

“And any time I bring him up you remind me that the odds of him getting off the planet were basically nil, but––”

”Jim,” Pike tries again. 

“Rationally, he and Frank are the only people with those kinds of abilities and the kind of vendetta against me to pull this shit and Frank is still incarcerated at ADX. I checked. And he––Frank has to touch people. To compel them. The minute he stops, your mind is yours again. Kodos doesn’t need touch.”

Frank, Spock thinks. Who is Frank?

He pushes the thought toward Jim but, alas, Jim has taken to Spock’s recent mental instruction too well and, right now, Jim’s shields are firm as iron. 

“Jim,” Pike says. “I don’t think Kodos is dead.”

Jim sucks in a breath. “What?” 

“There’s something else you should know. Something I was only informed about an hour ago. It’s––maybe take a deep breath, kid.”

Jim meets Spock’s eyes and reaches for his hand. 

Spock does not know what Pike is about to convey but he does know that he will want to protect Jim from the fallout, judging by the captain’s expression. 

“Three months ago, Kodos was discovered living on Cygnia Minor and was extradited back to Earth,” Pike says, the words intentionally slow. “He’s being held in maximum security solitary confinement under an alias while the federation prepares for his trial. And the inevitable media fallout from the revelation that he’s still alive.”

“He’s alive,” Jim repeats.

“He’s alive.” Pike agrees.

“I fucking knew it.” Jim’s words are more breath than sound. 

Spock tries to press against the bond again, but Jim shakes his head, eyes wet when they meet Spock’s, and he draws back immediately. 

“But it couldn’t have been him,” Jim says. “If he’s been locked up all this time. There’s no way the timing is coincidental, though. Especially with the beaming tech all failing. No way.” 

“We don’t believe it is a coincidence,” Pike murmurs.

He’s wearing an expression that makes Spock defensive. That makes Spock want to shut Jim in his room and escort Pike out the door before he says whatever it is that makes him look so apologetic. 

“Jim,” Pike starts, gentle. “The Federation intends to call you to testify. You’re the only person alive who wasn’t part of his inner circle but was present for many of their meetings. You’ll be the primary witness for the prosecution.”

Jim’s shields fail.

And Spock is––

Spock is inundated. 

Mostly with fury. Because how dare they. How dare they force him to relive the agony of Tarsus when he is only just beginning to move past it? How dare they have Kodos in custody for three fucking months without telling him? Without allowing him the kindness, the decency, of preparing himself? Protecting himself. How dare they leave him vulnerable while simultaneously assuming he’ll give himself over to their cause regardless of the agony it would inflict upon him. Regardless of the media attention. The disturbance to his life. To T’Mara’s life.

“Do I have a choice?” Jim rasps.

“Kodos is claiming that after he instituted martial law in response to the famine, his generals staged a coup, held him hostage, and forced his hand. He’s saying he wasn’t responsible for the cull. That he was a victim, not a perpetrator.”

Jim’s anger is incandescent. “You know that isn’t true.“

“Only because you told me,” Pike says quietly.

And that’s the crux of it.

The resignation hits Jim like a wave, nearly pulling Spock under with him.

He is not an Adept like his father, but he does his best to siphon enough feeling away from Jim that his T’hy’la does not drown beneath the dread that threatens to overwhelm them.

“Does Kodos have a daughter?” Spock asks.

Jim’s fingers twitch in his. 

“What?” Pike asks.

“The woman in your memory,” he murmurs to Jim, “the only one unaccounted for amongst the cadets that were apprehended, did she not claim that she acted on behalf of her father? To provide him justice?”

Pike stands abruptly before immediately sitting back down. Spock is familiar with the gesture after spending a year in his close company. It means that he has had a ‘revelation.’ 

“The MPs said when Kodos was apprehended he was in the company of a young woman,” Pike agrees. “Blonde. Pretty. Late teens or early twenties. She was only briefly questioned before she was released.” 

“That matches the description of the woman in Jim’s memory,” Spock says.

“I’m—” Pike stands again and this time remains standing. “I need to go call the lead investigator.” 

“Yes,” Spock agrees.

Pike starts toward the door and then stops, pivoting. He takes in Jim, curled like a child into Spock’s chest. He pauses. His teeth are clenched so hard that Spock can see the muscles in his jaw bunch and flex.

“Are you––“ Pike swallows, meeting Spock’s eyes. “Do you have him?” 

“Yes,” Spock repeats. His free hand comes up to cup Jim’s neck, and something passes between Spock and Pike: a sort of understanding that does not require communication. Spock will always ‘have’ Jim.

As is his duty.

As is his privilege.

Pike inclines his head and leaves.

Spock attends to his bondmate.

•••

It is only several hours later, after Jim has fallen asleep, that Spock carefully extracts himself from Jim’s hold, palms his earpiece from the bedside table, and quietly retreats to the kitchen where his pad is charging.

Despite the lateness of the hour, Sarek answers after only the third ring.

“Father,” Spock says.

“Son,” Sarek agrees. 

“Has Captain Pike apprised you of the details of Jim’s case related to Kodos the Executioner?”

Sarek’s initial surprised silence is answer enough. “Indeed not,” he says. “As a consultant, I am not afforded insight into the investigation as a whole, only the part in which I provide assistance. Are you permitted to share the details you have learned with me?”

Spock does not know. He also does not care.

The under-counter lighting illuminates his fisted hand where it rests on the age-faded butcherblock. He slackens his fingers with intention, spreading them across the pock-marked, knife-abused surface. He thinks about Jim's scarred knuckles, such a contrast to his own. 

“I will tell you what I know, however…”

Spock studies the flex of his tendons as he invokes a traditional phrase he never thought he would have occasion to use: “Nash-veh eit'jae t' du wuh torai.” I must beg of you a favor.

Sarek is, understandably, quiet for 4.5 seconds. “You have not once begged under any circumstances that I recall. In fact, in your youth, you insisted you would never ask anything of me or my station that you could not provide for yourself.”

The claim is true. Though admittedly Spock’s impetus for making the assertion had more to do with teenage angst than any noble aspirations of self-sufficiency. 

“Indeed,” Spock agrees. “As such, you understand, then, the gravity of my request.” 

“I see,” Sarek is quiet for several seconds. “Is this a favor in regards to James or T’Mara Kirk? Perhaps both?” 

“Jim.” 

“I see,” Sarek repeats. 

Spock imagines he does. Better than anyone. 

“In that case,” Sarek murmurs, “you may forgo any begging. What is it James requires?” 

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Instead of improving, my flu has turned into a sinus infection, so I’m generally miserable and just not up for writing/editing. Since antibiotics do terrible things to me, they’re treating me with everything but unless it gets worse, which means a very slow recovery. Ah, autoimmune diseases. Such fun.

No chapter next week as I attempt to sleep every spare moment I have (unfortunately, I can’t take off work as I’ve got a Big Important Project but the nice thing about working from home is that I can do the majority of my work in bed, at least).

Thanks for all the comments and I’ll see you in 2 weeks for a gentle interlude in which Past Jim gets to spend some quality time with his future father-in-law.

Ok bye. Everyone please take a moment to appreciate the fact that you can breathe through your nostrils right now. I’m so jealous.

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Vulcan

ShiKahr

Stardate 105079.1

When Jim awoke next, he felt like he’d been through a war.

Which, depending on a person’s definition, might be accurate.

He was in a private room, the lights dimmed as was typical at night-time. What was unexpected was his position—sandwiched between Sarek and T’Mara on a biobed that was absolutely not intended for three occupants, even when one of them was a malnourished teenager and one of them was a child.

His right arm was tucked around the curve of T’Mara’s back, her knees were jammed uncomfortably into his ribs, and her face was in his neck. Her breathing was sleep-slow.

Sarek, reclined on Jim’s left side, was propped upright on several pillows, a pad in his hands, fingers moving over the screen. Jim’s left wrist was pinned between Sarek’s forearm and his bicep, the sleeve of his robe pushed up so that Jim’s palm maintained contact with his skin, despite Sarek’s hands being occupied. Jim could feel a steady stream of comfort projected from him, tempered slightly by T’Mara’s uneasy sleep where she pressed against his other side. It was a strange sensation, to feel both of them at once. But his mind, at least, was quiet. His memories were no longer pressed close to the forefront of his thoughts, the horrors of his past tucked safely away again. He imagined that was Sarek’s doing.

Sarek’s fingers stilled on his pad.

“Your daughter was quite vexed with me.” His voice was quiet. Gentler than Jim thought was possible for a Vulcan. “Her loyalty is a force with which to be reckoned.”

“She doesn’t like it when I’m hurt,” Jim said inanely, and then, in case it wasn’t clear, “But I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I could feel it.”

“Nonetheless, I owe you an apology. You attempted to warn me of the nature of your past experiences and I was blinded by my own hubris. I am a prodigy, among Vulcan Mind Adepts and competence creates complacency. I failed to consider that my typical aptitude may not apply with you, and for that, you suffered.”

“What was it about my brain that broke you? Just that I’m Human?”

“It was not you,” he insisted, and then, glancing at T’Mara, shifted instead to thought-speak.

Jim, you should know that the abuse you suffered is not an infraction that occurs on Vulcan. The very concept that a caregiver would do such a thing to a child is anathema. While I was aware that such behavior occurred on other planets, I was…ill-prepared to confront the reality of it. 

Oh. That was sort of nice, actually, that the problem wasn’t Jim, for once, but rather the circumstances he found himself in.

Not your fault Frank was so fucked up. I’m glad shit like that doesn’t happen here.

Mental crimes are amongst the most reviled on Vulcan. For an adult to use mental coercion upon a child to––

He paused and Jim could feel Sarek’s anger trying to cross the point of contact between them. Despite Sarek shielding in a way that T’Mara did not, Jim had the distinct impression that he wanted to convey something he considered sensitive in nature.

Just tell me. I think you know I can handle it.

Sarek’s amusement was clear for a moment before it faded. You should also know that your mind—prior to your bond with T’Mara––was likely uniquely compelling for those who might wish to abuse telepathic abilities in a predatory fashion. Your loneliness, your desire for connection, your––

He actively stopped a thought from transferring and Jim managed to reach out and mentally grab it—a word he didn’t recognize. Thyla? Something related to a bond? 

Your mind, Sarek said, somehow swatting the word out of Jim’s brain’s grabby hands, was left vulnerable. Allowing men like Frank, like Kodos, to target you.

So you’re saying that I was so lonely my brain was basically shouting to people with telepathic abilities that I would make a good victim?

Sarek did not respond for several seconds, and then. Your caregivers were neglectful to allow such a state to occur.

Hey, Jim said, trying to joke, my mom always fed me.

Sustenance does not meet the minimum requirements of care. Sarek’s anger was back with a vengeance and Jim could feel it like a pulsing, angry beast, prowling across the bridge of their skin. Sarek pulled the animal back yet again.

On Vulcan, if parents allowed a child to descend into such a mental state, it would legally count as abuse. 

Oh. Jim’s eyes were suddenly hot with the quiet absolution of validation or maybe the aching sadness that it had taken so long for him to receive it. Perhaps some combination of both.

I grieve with thee.

Grief. Maybe that’s what Jim was feeling.

“I can convey good news,” Sarek said aloud. “Based upon the results of the meld, as well as testimony from T’Mara, I have submitted my recommendation to the council that you will be a suitable guardian provided certain additional requirements are met.”

Did you have to tell them about—

I did not share the extent of your experiences, only that your primary caretaker was abusive. However, our laws require that I report your step-father’s infractions to the Federation authorities.

Jim’s exhale was shaky.

He’ll deny it—he’s. You saw. What he’s like. The two times I tried to tell someone, he convinced them I was lying. And then things just got worse. Even my mom––

His throat closed, despite the fact that he wasn’t speaking aloud. Sarek handed him a cup of water from the side table and he took a moment to sip it slowly, to watch T’Mara sleep, tucked safely against him.

Your legal system on Earth has permitted psionic evidence for decades. As an Adept, my recollection of the events as I saw them will be evidence enough for a conviction.

Sarek’s certainty was such that even Jim could not doubt it.

And, suddenly, he was crying again.

With Bones, his tears had come as an unwelcome surprise, an embarrassment that he tried to fight. But here, with Sarek, who had seen the worst of him, had experienced the same horrors Jim had, and told him it wasn’t his fault, Jim was not ashamed. 

“James,” Sarek murmured, setting aside his pad, taking the cup from Jim’s shaking hand. “When my wife cries, she finds a ‘hug’ to be the most effective method for emotional support. May I provide you such comfort?”

A Vulcan Minister offering him a hug. Who would have thought?

Jim’s yes was a formless sound that got caught somewhere between his breaking heart and his teeth; his breath became unwieldy. 

But Sarek shifted him like he weighed nothing, pulling Jim firmly into an embrace that, despite feeling mechanical, was still an embrace, and one offered with honest compassion, with respect, that Jim could feel through their continued contact.

T’Mara, jostled awake with the movement, clambered imperiously over Sarek’s legs to tuck herself against Jim’s front where his head rested on Sarek’s chest and Sarek easily permitted her bullying, opening his arm to include her before dropping it again.

Jim didn’t know what their conversation consisted of while he was sleeping, but if T’Mara was comfortable using Sarek as a climbing structure, and wasn't objecting to Sarek manhandling Jim, they clearly came to some sort of agreement.

“Jim,” she murmured. “What troubles you?” 

Jim met Sarek’s eyes; his desperation was likely apparent.

Help? He asked.

“Prior to Tarsus, James’s step-father hurt him,” Sarek said. “In a fashion that was…most reprehensible. And his mother did not protect him from that cruelty as she should have. When he tried to alert others to the abuse, they did not believe him because of his step-father’s telepathic abilities. I, however, have seen the mistreatment through the meld, and will take appropriate action. James is feeling understandable emotion upon realizing that his abuser will finally receive punishment.”

T’Mara reached for Jim’s face, wiping away his tears. This, unfortunately, increased their production. 

“Why would a parent intentionally hurt their child?” T’Mara asked. “A parent’s purpose is protection of their progeny.”

Her innocence made Jim want to cry even harder.

”Should be, yeah,” he agreed. “But sometimes that’s just not what happens.”

“Perhaps we can find you new parents,” T’Mara suggested, employing her full hand for tear-wiping. “Of a high caliber.”

”I believe,” Sarek said, “that is exactly the course of action the council will recommend.”

“I have an excellent track record in this regard,” T’Mara said imperiously. “I will help you.”

“I welcome your assistance,” Sarek agreed with equal gravity.

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

I am finally starting to feel better and should, perhaps, be fully recovered in another week or so. Until then I’m trying to take it easy and mostly failing (Gardening! Home renovations! Work! Writing! Planning for Romance Con! Planning cosplays for next year’s comic con!) (I did put the powered paragliding pilot training on hold for a bit since A. I simply don’t have the time if I’m ever going to finish my next novel and B. running is not an option right now if I want to keep living, lol) (I will still fly one day. Just. Maybe not until the end of the year).

Anyway. Thanks for all the comments! I uh. Might have ooched up the final chapter count again. Don’t mind me. See you next week, in which Jim must contend with the emotional blowback of accepting unconditional love and his Vulcans are there to assist.

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105079.2

Jim is permitted to return to classes sooner than Spock would prefer, but Doctor McCoy’s supposition that Jim’s recovery will be positively impacted by social integration is immediately validated. Jim thrives amongst his friends; his family, even if he won’t admit that such a relationship exists. 

Spock has spent two days meditating on Captain Pike’s troubling but likely accurate assertion that Jim does not believe he is loved. Spock struggles to understand how such an intrinsically loveable person could be in doubt of affection explicitly stated. But then, Spock cannot empathize with the horrors Jim has experienced. And he is only party to knowledge of some of those horrors, perhaps not even the worst of them, unfathomable as such a prospect is.

Using telepathy to share memories of conversations ostensibly held in confidence is…frowned upon, on Vulcan. But Spock is not on Vulcan and he may need to make an exception, in this case.

Jim must know he is loved.

It is imperative.

Spock is considering the best approach for such action when T’Mara enters his office for their planned meditation meeting. As has become her regular practice, T’Mara does not bother with a traditional greeting as she places herself in the chair across from him

“I have a query,” T’Mara says, reaching for the carafe on his desk. 

“You may proceed.”

 “Would you consider yourself a ‘mama’s boy’?”

Spock does not respond for 3.5 seconds and two blinks. ”…please clarify.” 

“While often used in a derogatory fashion, Uncle Bones self-identifies as such and holds his mother in a similar high regard that you hold lady Amanda.”

”That is not terminology I would self-elect,” Spock says.

”I see.” She sips her water.  “I have a second query. Uncle Bones’ mother prefers that I call her ‘Grandmother.’ Do you think Lady Amanda would approve if I also termed her thusly? Or used a similar Terran term?”

Spock continues to be unprepared for the emotional responses that T’Mara is wont to elicit in him.

“I believe,” he says steadily, despite the sudden warmth in his throat, “that would bring her the utmost happiness.”

“And your father?”

“While he is unlikely to show his approval as…enthusiastically as my mother, I can assure you he would be equally pleased were you to adopt such nomenclature.”

“And,” she says, voice quieting, becoming uncertain, “you?”

“I––”

It is rare that Spock finds himself at a loss for words. 

“You should call me whatever you prefer. However, I would be proud to call you my daughter, if not now then at some point in the future, would you permit it.”

It is also rare that Spock finds himself qualifying his statements, and yet. 

“I am amenable to this course of action,” she says stoically, but her mouth is quirked to the right in a gesture that is so intrinsically Jim that Spock feels briefly winded. 

“Thank you,” he says, equally serious, offering her a gentle smile of his own.

She sets aside her water. “You appeared ‘deep in thought’ upon my arrival.”

“Indeed. I was debating the merits of sharing a memory with Jim. The memory is of a conversation that was assumed to be private, yet I believe the benefits of sharing it would outweigh the impropriety of doing so.”

She tips her head and the sun from the window glints off the gold studs lining her left ear.

“Would the other conversant object to the moment being shared?” 

“I do not believe so.”

“Can you not ask the other participant, then? If you have permission, there is no marked impropriety.”

Spock feels embarrassingly flustered. This is an apt, and obvious, solution to his conundrum.

He clears his throat beneath T’Mara’s amused gaze. “We should begin our meditation.” 

“We should,” she agrees solemnly.

***

Spock walks T’Mara to the library to meet with her study group, then picks up dinner for himself and Jim before returning to Jim and T’Mara’s domicile. 

He would like to broach the topic of Jim and T’Mara moving into his home as it is larger, quieter, and the appliances are less likely to unexpectedly electrocute their users, but he is given to understand that by Human measures such a conversation would be premature. 

Spock’s com pings with a call as he unlocks the door and he has to awkwardly shuffle the takeaway bags to one hand so he can locate his ear piece.

“Father?”

“Son,” Sarek says. “My petition was accepted. I will meet with the prosecution’s council next week as preliminary trial measures begin.”

While not typically one to engage in physical displays, Spock finds himself slumping back against the closed door in relief.

“Thank you for informing me. And for…interceding on Jim’s behalf.”

“I am far better suited for the emotional exertion that testimony will require. It  was a logical request and one I am glad to endure on James’ behalf.”

“Nonetheless, it will not be an easy task for you. I am in your debt.”

“You are not.”

“Hey Spock!” Jim calls from the bedroom, “you notice how not-sweltering it is? Your sessions with T’Mara must be working because she said––oh,” he pauses in the doorway, recognizing that Spock is mid-conversation. “Sorry,” he whispers with a grimace.

“Convey my greetings to your bondmate,” Sarek says, sounding amused. “I will speak to you further when I have additional information. Live long and prosper.”

“Live long and prosper,” Spock agrees, ending the call as he carries the food into the kitchen. To Jim, he dutifully reports, “my father says ‘hello’.”

Jim grins. Bright. Beautiful. “Did you know he and T’Mara have been playing com-chess for the last few days? She says he’s a much less vexing opponent than I am. Though it sounds like he’s won pretty much all their games. Understandably. She does like a challenge, though.”

Spock was not aware. But the knowledge brings him happiness. 

Jim moves into Spock’s personal space, confident that he needs no invitation, hands slipping beneath Spock’s uniform shirt, palms spread on his belly before he clasps his own forearms–squeezing. His mouth finds the back of Spock’s neck; his breath is damp and warm and lovely.

“Hey,” he says. I missed you.

Spock finds it suddenly difficult to concentrate on opening the takeaway containers, simplistic as the job is.

As did I. He responds. And then.You are very distracting.

Jim laughs, releasing him with a final kiss to his hairline, and instead leans on the counter, helping to unfold the cardboard box lids.

“Are you familiar with the Psionic Testimony Act of 2225?” Spock asks.

“Sure,” he cocks his hip against the butcher block, reaching to steal an olive from the salad box. “It allows Vulcan Adepts to use memories as evidence in court. The law treats Vulcan testimony as beyond refute.”

“Indeed. Do you know the inciting event for the act’s adoption?” 

“Mm,” he tosses the olive, catching it in his mouth. “There was this court case, Staltler versus…I think it was Oberon Corp? And the prosecution’s primary witness was the victim of an assasination attempt that left him hospitalized with a TBI, unable to communicate. Rather than push the court date, a Vulcan Adept melded with the witness and testified in his place. The defense tried to petition for a retrial on the basis that the Adept’s testimony shouldn’t have been permitted. Which then kicked off the whole—” he gestures vaguely. “Thing.” 

“Your knowledge on the subject is impressive.”

“Yeah, well, I did a lot of research on Vulcan-Human history when we first got back to Earth after Tarsus,” he says, “and hey, eidetic memory, so.” His tone is, bafflingly, self-deprecating. 

“Jim, I asked about your familiarity because I have good news to impart. My father has volunteered to testify in your stead at Kodos’ trial.”

Jim goes still and then abruptly straightens, all the warm laxness of his prior stance sharpening to something that Spock cannot name and does not like.

“What?” Jim says.

“You no longer will be required to testify at Governor Kodos’ trial, as my father will testify in your stead.”

“That’s not—no.”

Spock is uncertain how to proceed. He presses against the bond, hoping for clarity as to why Jim’s tone is flat and furious, but Jim’s shields are impeccable. His face is unreadable.

“My father’s petition was already approved,” Spock says tentatively. “He meets with prosecutorial counsel next week. It is done. I…thought you would be pleased.”

”Did you ask him to do that?” Jim demands. There is a flush building at the base of neck, creeping up to his jaw.

“…I did.” Despite the truth of the statement, it feels like the wrong answer to give.

“You had no right.”

Spock does not say I have every right.

Spock does not say The other option I was considering was extrajudicial homicide.

Instead, he says, “I will always act on your best interests, as is my obligation and privilege as your bondmate.”

“But I ––I mean, yeah, I didn’t want to testify, but that’s not–– I didn’t ask you to do that.” 

“You did not have to.” Spock is baffled. “Jim. We are T’hy’la. Would you not have done the same for me, were our roles reversed?”

“Of course I would have,” he says, throwing his hands up, then letting them fall to rest on his head. “But that’s not the same as––”

“How is it different?” Spock insists.

“Because you deserve that,” Jim shouts, fingers knotted in his hair. 

Spock finds he has difficulty keeping his voice level. “You think you do not?”

“No. I mean. I don’t know. It’s just…it’d be different if it was you. And your dad is way too important to deal with the shit show that trial is going to be. It’ll drag on forever. And he’ll be wasting so much fucking time just because I––”

“Jim,” Spock interrupts. “Ashayam. Please.”

He reaches for Jim’s face, palms to his jaw, thumbs to the crests of his cheekbones, and is relieved that Jim permits it. Jim’s own hands descend to wrap around Spock’s wrists, not pushing him away, but clinging with an edge of desperation that Spock finds intolerable.

“You are,” Spock says slowly, with as much feeling as he can infuse both into the words and the bond, “worthy of every kindness life has to offer. And I understand that historically you have not received that which you are owed, but now I am here and I will ensure you are loved in the way you deserve, whether you ask that of me or not.”

And Jim’s face…buckles. 

Spock did not think it was possible for Jim’s eyes to become more blue, but beneath the magnifying effect of tears, it is, indeed, possible. Spock wishes he was not party to this knowledge as he watches Jim’s mouth twist, as the tears fall to wet Spock’s fingers, as his jaw clenches and his expression crumples like a discarded exam sheet.

Spock tries to pull him closer and Jim––

Jim rebuffs him.

“Sorry.” Jim takes a step back, running into the refrigerator handle, dragging his forearm over his eyes. “Sorry, I just need a minute.” He takes another step. “Alone. Sorry.”

And then he turns.

And he’s gone.

Spock looks helplessly around the kitchen: the open takeout containers on the counter; Jim’s pad charging at the port beside the half-dead succulent in the window; T’Mara’s fleece jacket hooked on the cabinet knob by the microwave.

He takes a step toward Jim’s closed bedroom door but immediately stops. How is he meant to console his bondmate when he is not permitted to––

His earpiece pings with T’Mara’s ringtone and Spock answers it with shaking fingers.

“What did you do?” she demands. 

“I am uncertain,” Spock responds. 

“Whatever it is, fix it,” she insists. “I can tell that Jim is crying. I do not like it when he is crying.”

“No,” Spock agrees. 

“Is he safe?”

“Yes.”

“Can you handle this or shall I return home?”

“No, I will fix it.”

“See that you do so quickly.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “I must go.”

Spock ends the call and immediately begins another.

“Spock,” his father says. “I have no further––”

“Father,” Spock interrupts. “I require counsel.“ 

The line is quiet for three point five seconds. “I am at your disposal,” Sarek says.

“Jim responded negatively to the news that you would testify in his stead. He does not believe he is deserving of such an intercession. When I further impressed upon him my affection and desire for his happiness, I believe I made the situation worse. I am uncertain how to proceed.”

“Ah,” Sarek says. “I believe it was a human psychologist who said that often unconditional love reveals the conditions under which one was unloved in the past—thus causing a sort of delayed-onset anguish.’”

Spock huffs. It is an unbecoming noise, but one that adequately encapsulates his frustration. “Did this psychologist recommend a method for ameliorating the resultant malaise?” 

Sarek makes a soft, considering sound. “I may be uniquely suited to assist in this matter. Would you permit me to join you this evening?”

Spock has no better options. Beneath his own growing panic and the knowledge of T’Mara’s judgement, he shares Jim’s address with his father.

Spock is pacing when Sarek rings the bell 13.25 minutes later and he opens it with a degree of desperation that he will likely be embarrassed by later.

Sarek, perhaps sensing Spock’s turbulent emotional state, engages in a rare instance of physical contact: his hand to Spock’s shoulder, squeezing in a way that is likely meant to be reassuring.

While Spock is not reassured, he appreciates the gesture.

Sarek glances around the small living area, raising an eyebrow in question at the closed door behind which Jim has barricaded himself.

Spock nods.

And Sarek knocks.

“James,” Sarek says. “I believe it would be beneficial to finish the conversation we began on the USS Antares.”

“You don’t understand,” Jim says from within. His voice sounds thick and terrible with emotion.

“On the contrary,” Sarek murmurs, “I believe I am the only one who can understand. May I come in?”

Spock pushes down the sudden, visceral, jealousy that rises in his chest. His feelings are not of import. Jim’s health is the priority. The eight seconds that follow Sarek’s request causes Spock to doubt the immutability of time. 

The door clicks open.

Spock exhales.

“Well,” Jim says. He doesn’t look at Spock, but he meets Sarek’s eyes with an expression that may be a reluctant cousin of relief. “You’re already here, so I guess you may as well.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Sneaking in posting this on my lunch break. Don’t mind the chapter count. It’s fine. Ok love yall! See you next week! Bye!

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Earth

San Francisco, California

Stardate 105079.5

Returning to Earth should have felt like a homecoming.

Jim should have reveled in grass under his feet and wind in his hair and air that carried neither the acrid scent of Tarsus’ salinated sand, nor the difficult to describe but distinctly recycled smell of a Starship.

The sun on his face should have felt like relief.

It didn’t.

For the last six months, he’d had an unwanted degree of autonomy not only over himself, but the rest of the kids. He’d often wished, on sleepless nights, that someone would just tell him what to do. Now, of course, that wish had been granted, and he felt ironically stifled beneath the weight of expectations and scheduling and—

He should be grateful. He was grateful. He knew that statistically speaking he and T’Mara should be dead, and if not dead, separated, and if not separated, then scrounging to put together a semblance of a life for themselves. Instead, they were surrounded by people that cared, people who were overwhelmingly invested in getting them appointments with nutritional and allergy and psychological specialists; with fulfilling the familial requirements set by the Vulcan council for T’Mara’s health. For setting up meetings with educational assessors and proctors of placement exams and real estate agents in Georgia of all places because Pike was going to buy a goddamn house for them within walking distance of Bones’ family which was too much, it was unbelievable, but—

T’Mara was worth that. And it was charity Jim could accept on her behalf, as much as it chafed. Because of their bond, they were a package deal, so he grit his teeth through the conversations about the future and he answered the specialist’s questions with only minimal sarcasm and he did his best on the entrance exams because his pride wasn’t going to interfere with T’Mara’s future. He’d be the best version of himself if it meant she was safe and happy and had all the opportunities she deserved.

Only he was so tired. 

And there was still so much to be done. 

Jim was eating almond-butter toast (T’Mara made Pike throw out his peanut butter with the rest of Jim’s allergens their first night in his San Francisco apartment) when Bones and T’Mara returned from a shopping trip. Bones was carrying a small mountain of bags and boxes. T’Mara was carrying nothing but a smoothie and was wearing an entirely new and evidently self-selected outfit that included a holographic shirt, camouflage pants, pink heart-shaped sunglasses, and––

Jim stumbled off the bar stool. “Did you pierce your ears?”

Bones froze, halfway through depositing their purchases on the couch, and met Jim’s eyes. “She said—“ He whirled to face T’Mara. “You said he was fine with it!”

T’Mara looked back at him, unapologetic, and took a long, loud, slurp from the smoothie’s straw.

“Oh my god,” Jim said faintly, going down on his knees in front of her, tipping her head first one way and then the other. “You let them put holes in your ears. Your tiny, adorable, perfect ears. Why would you do that?”

“She said––” Bones repeated, voice going high as he dumped the packages on the floor. “She said y’all talked about it last night. I thought Vulcans didn’t lie.”

“Oh they absolutely do and they also get grounded,” Jim said. And then, in case it wasn’t clear: “You’re grounded.”

“That is a reasonable course of action, given my deception,” T’Mara agreed. “What are the parameters of my punishment?

“Uh,” Jim glanced a little desperately at Bones. “No com privileges for…a week?”

Bones gave him a thumbs up.

“Except to contact the other kids. Because. Mental health.”

T’Mara nodded solemnly, but the gravity of the gesture was somewhat offset by the heart-shaped sunglasses and the fact that her smoothie had dyed both her mouth and a good portion of the surrounding skin bright purple.

“I will be in our room, meditating on my poor behavior,” she said. She offered them the T’al with her free hand, and, selecting two bags from the landslide of them on the carpet, retreated to Pike’s guest bedroom, where she and Jim had been sleeping.

When the door closed, Jim pushed himself upright slowly, feeling unstable.

“Swear to god,” Bones said, “I thought you knew. And I didn’t take her to a boutique with those shitty guns, I took her to a tattoo shop. They had all their health certs. I checked.”

“It’s fine,” Jim said faintly. He collapsed on the couch, heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. “Jesus. I shouldn’t have to deal with teenage rebellion when I’m still a teenager. What the fuck.”

“If it makes you feel any better, she tried to talk me into letting her dye her hair, too.”

“That does not make me feel better,” Jim said. “Where is this coming from?”

“Yeah,” Bones muttered. “Can’t imagine where she’d get the desire to express her individuality. Completely unrelated: you wanna see the inspiration picture she showed me for her blue-hair aspirations?” 

He dug out his pad and swiped through it before tossing it into Jim’s lap. The photograph was one of Jim, eleven, with a neon-blue mohawk.

“Goddammit,” Jim muttered. “Where did she even get this?”

The front door unlatched and Pike slipped through, juggling his gym bag and an empty protein shaker cup. 

“Wow, OK,” he said, glancing between them. “What happened?”

“T’Mara convinced Bones to take her to get her ears pierced,” Jim said despondently. “By lying and saying I was cool with it. So now, a week after I became the first ever Human to adopt a Vulcan, I now have the first ever Vulcan kid with holes in her ears.”

“Ah,” Pike grinned. “Parenting woes. You know, the majority of Human females already have their ears pierced by her age. The lying isn’t great. But the piercings themselves aren’t really a big deal.”

“This is,” Jim said trenchantly, “a disaster.”

Pike laughed, but his smile faded as he dug his pad and earpiece out of his pocket, placing them on the kitchen island.

“I have some news. You want it now, or after you’ve had a minute to switch gears?”

“Might as well distract me,” Jim said.

“You know we expedited Frank’s trial,” Pike started.

Bones immediately sat on the couch. He clasped his hands between his legs so his left knee nudged incidentally against Jim’s. The contact could have been an accident. Jim was pretty sure it wasn’t.

“The case was heard this morning,” Pike said. “Sarek testified, along with an independent psionic assessor with the Federation’s Bureau of Investigation. Frank was found guilty of all indictments and remanded into custody. He won’t be sentenced for another sixty days, but he’ll be in high security lockup with psionic inhibitors until then and he’s looking at fifty years minimum.”

Now that.

That was a relief.

Jim pressed his knee back into Bones’.

“My mom?” Jim asked.

There had been uncertainty if Winona would be charged with any crimes due to the nature of Frank’s abilities. She was, objectively, a victim in this as well, despite the fact that she was also an accessory.

“I haven’t spoken with the lead investigator since last week,” Pike said. “But it still looks like there’s not enough evidence to arrest her.”

Jim wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“The good news,” Pike continued, “Aside from that bastard going away, is that the coast should be clear if you want to go get some stuff from your house while we’re dirtside.”

It took Jim a moment to compute the phrase “your house.” His mother’s home, Frank’s home, hadn’t felt like his in a long time.

“Do you know if any of my stuff is still there?”

He wouldn’t have put it past Frank to sell it all when he was shipped off to Tarsus. Or maybe burn it.

“He said he left your room as it was.”

Jim also wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He glanced between Pike and Bones, who was trying very hard, and failing spectacularly, at looking impartial and not like he wanted to murder someone.

“Will you go with me?” He asked.

“We wouldn’t let you go alone, kid,” Bones said. 

“No way in hell,” Pike agreed.

Notes:

Captain’s log:

Just a short little chapter this week as we prepare for the emotional bomb of chapter 31.

I have FINALLY finished the book I’m supposed to be writing (and what’s truly shocking is that it was only 7k words and 5 chapters longer than my outline/estimate. Wild, right?) (Looks at original 15 chapters estimate for this fic and sighs heavily).

I’m going to take a week or two off from writing to work on home reno and cosplay stuff—don’t worry, my chapter buffer for this fic will see us through weekly updates until then—and I’ve just got a couple more chapters to finish before this one is done. Probably 33 is the final count. Maybe 34. I’m going to try and write a spicy epilogue for the first time in my life. We’ll see how that pans out.

I’ve also already started outlining an Arcane Viktor/Jayce, Vi/Cait fic even though I keep telling myself I need to…not. Do that. For sanity reasons. Ah well. I’ll keep you posted re if that comes to fruition.

Ok thanks for all the comments! Love you! Bye!

See you next week for some more of that good ol’ hurt/comfort!

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105079.2

Spock does not pace because Vulcans do not pace.

He does not obsessively check the time on his pad, despite his excellent mental time-keeping abilities, nor does he draft and discard a dozen messages to his mother. Twenty-three minutes after Sarek arrived, when the bedroom door finally opens, Spock is sitting on the sofa reading the news logs, as if he has been there the entire duration of his father’s conversation with Jim. 

He consciously does not move, but tracks them with his eyes as Jim walks Sarek to the front door, quietly thanks him, and sees him out. Spock only stands when Jim locks the door and leans back against it, arms crossed, and meets Spock’s eyes.

“So. Your dad’s hugs are pretty terrible,” Jim says, an intentional lilt to his voice. “Like, endearingly bad. But still. So bad.”

Spock blinks. “I…would not know.”

“Oh man. Should I tell him you’d like one? Or—maybe we could work out a group-hug situation. T’Mara would probably want in on that.”

“Please do not.”

“Your hugs are much better,” Jim says leadingly.

Spock does not need to be led. 

It is a distinct relief to take Jim into his arms; so much so that Spock must make a conscious effort to modulate his own strength so he does not hold him too tightly. But such is the state of Spock’s, frankly decimated, mental fortitude. 

He must also carefully shield this state from their bond lest Jim be forced to contend with Spock’s riotous emotions as well as his own.

In a moment of wry self-reflection, he imagines his prior self––even just six months prior––admitting to “riotous emotions” and nearly smiles.

Jim has changed him.

“Sorry,” Jim says into his neck. “I didn’t mean to freak out on you.”

“You are permitted.”

“I’m still sorry. I, uh. I worked with a therapist for a couple years but I hated it. I stopped a while back. Pike and Bones have been on me to start again but your dad said maybe meditation––like, Vulcan meditation––might be…a better approach. For me.”

“I am happy to––” Spock starts, but Jim opens his shields, just enough, that Spock cuts himself off.

Sarek volunteered. I think I’ll take him up on it. Jim’s internal voice is apologetic, but firm. “If it was you, I don’t think I could ever––” he lapses into silence again, falling back to the link between them. He already knows. Everything. It would be simpler. With him.

Spock takes a slow breath to center himself. To remind himself that this is a positive development. That meditation, regardless of the proctor, will benefit Jim, and guided meditation by an Adept of Sarek’s caliber is a boon that many would cherish. Spock reminds himself that he is grateful for his father’s willingness to––

He is still jealous.

Spock sighs.

Up until Jim’s arrival in his life, he was not given to jealousy. Or sighing.

“You know,” Jim says, recognizing Spock’s internal sulk with a mental laugh. “Sarek said you guys used to meditate together, when you were younger. He enjoyed it. Misses it, now.”

In his shock, Spock briefly forgets his prior turmoil.

“My father said he misses our shared meditations?”

“Well, I mean. It was more that he found spending time with you ‘satisfactory’ and ‘regrets that distance and age has discontinued the practice’ but like, the gist was the same.”

Jim is correct. The words are…nearly as effusive as admitting to missing spending time with Spock. It would be nice, Spock thinks peevishly, if his father might say such things to him.

“He said it to me knowing I’d probably share it with you,” Jim says, picking up on the thought. 

Regardless. Spock makes a mental note to verbally express his happiness in spending time with T’Mara on a regular basis. He should also regularly and explicitly state his affection for her. Perhaps weekly. On Tuesdays.

Jim laughs, aloud this time, for no particular reason that Spock can identify. But he sobers quickly, propping his chin on Spock’s shoulder.

“We should talk.”

It occurs to Spock that they are still standing in the entryway, wrapped around each other, and while he has no complaints, he suggests they relocate to a more comfortable location. Jim agrees, tugging him into the bedroom and bullying him into his favorite position–Spock propped against the headboard, Jim leaned back against his chest, their fingers intertwined on Jim’s belly.

“There are things I should tell you,” Jim says, his inflection implying he would rather do anything but. “So you know. What you’re getting yourself into.”

Spock does not like Jim’s pensive expression nor the implication of his words 

“I have no concerns therein. However, if you would like to share…”

“I don’t, honestly. But it seems pretty shitty that Bones and T’Mara and Gaila and Pike and your dad and I’m assuming your mom all know shit about me that you don’t. And you’re my husband. Sort of.”

Spock struggles not to correct him. ‘Husband’ is a woefully trite term that far from encompasses what Jim is to him. Nonetheless, he finds himself illogically pleased to be called such.

“Also I’m really hoping we can move past the heavy petting and get to the sex at some point––” Jim continues.

“I am amenable to this course of action,” Spock agrees stoically.

Jim grins. Then breathes deep, smile fading. “But there’s some stuff we can’t do cuz it’ll freak me out. Not now. Maybe not ever. And I’m—you deserve to know why.”

Even the slow stroke of Jim’s thumbs on his knuckles cannot distract Spock from the cool horror that briefly paralyzes his diaphragm. In all of his imaginings of what Jim’s trauma might have entailed, he had, perhaps naively, not factored sexual abuse into his abstractions. After all, his mother all but told him that the trauma occurred before Tarsus and Jim was sent to Tarsus at only thirteen which meant––

Jim has shored up his side of the bond. Spock can read nothing from him as his fingers curl into fists.

“Would it be easier to show me––”

“No,” Jim says. “Absolutely not. It’ll be hard enough to give you the high-level overview.”

Spock swallows. He lets Jim fit his fingertips to the divots between Spock’s knuckles, pressed tight to the skin, without speaking.

“Actually,” Jim says, sounding rueful, “I don’t think I can say it if you can see my face. Can we, like,” he straightens and gestures for Spock to turn until they’re sitting, back to back, on top of the bedspread, legs crossed like they’re meditating.

“Yeah. This should work. Tell me if you need a break, okay? I’m just gonna sort of…power through otherwise.”

Jim exhales and Spock can feel it down the entire length of his spine.

”Alright. You ready?”

He is not. He will never be.

“Yes,” Spock says tightly.

“Okay. So. Let me tell you about Frank.”

•••

T’Mara returns home at 8:23pm. They should likely institute some sort of curfew for her, but considering she was late due to a study group and, as a Vulcan, only needs a few hours of rest per night, it is not a pressing concern. 

Jim is asleep.

Spock is in the living room, grading, but in such a position that he can monitor Jim’s still form through the open bedroom door.

T’Mara offers him a lazy T’al while discarding her coat and boots, slips inside Jim’s room to check on him, and then comes to sit beside Spock on the couch.

She raises a single eyebrow at him, then leans closer, her hand moving to his face. Her thumb presses just below his left eye, pulling down the lid.

“The blood vessels in your eyes are dilated,” she observes. He can feel the question in her skin contact.

“Indeed,” Spock agrees. “I discovered this evening that, despite my physiology primarily being Vulcan, I am capable of producing tears.”

“Ah.” Her palm flattens to his cheek. Her thoughts are a reassuring blur of comfort. “I have often wondered. What is it like, crying?”

He recalls his father’s words, years before, and borrows them. “While the experience was cathartic, I do not believe I would like to repeat it.”

“Did Jim tell you about his unhappy childhood?” she posits, head tipped, hair falling into her face.

“He did. It was…most distressing.”

“Jim will not tell me the specifics of what occurred,” she says. “I only know that his step-father inflicted grievous harm. While the trial and sentencing are matters of public record, I have not sought them out at Jim’s request.”

“Please do not,” Spock says sharply. 

“Of course,” she agrees. “Jim’s autonomy is paramount to me, particularly because it was not always respected by others in the past.” She glances toward the bedroom, and then, fingers still cool on Spock’s cheek, says, Occasionally, Jim dreams. I have accidentally seen…flashes. Enough for conjecture. It is best to shield for him, if his sleeping is agitated, lest you similarly eavesdrop on a memory. 

They share a moment of knowing. Of grief. Of anger.

I appreciate the advice. Spock says.

Her hand drops to her lap. She glances at Jim again, still asleep, before meeting Spock’s eyes. “Jim is an excellent caretaker, but he does not often allow others to care for him. I am pleased to know I now have an ally in this regard.”

”I am pleased to fulfill the role, Ko-fu.” Daughter.

She smiles, an open, honest, thing that nearly makes Spock want to return the gesture. Instead, he picks up his arm in invitation, as he has often seen Jim do, and T’Mara tucks herself beneath it. The warmth of her presence, both physical and mental, feels like an anchor. 

He never thought he was lonely, before. 

He was content. And, given his lived experience up until that point, he thought contententedness was an acceptable, if not laudable, state of being. He had his work. His research. His parents. His limited yet effusive social circle.

But now, with T’Mara pressed to his side and his bondmate sleeping within their attentive eyeline, he recognizes how lacking his life truly was before. 

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

I’m a bit overwhelmed with work after the long weekend, so I shall just leave this here with minimal commentary. If you want to see pics of our adventures, consult Tumblr. Thanks for the comments! See you next week for past-Jim’s trip home and some Emotions.

Chapter 31

Notes:

Mind the tags! CW for references to child abuse in this one.

Chapter 31 

Earth

Riverside, Iowa

Stardate 105079.6

They beamed directly into the front yard of the Riverside house because Pike wasn’t above using his Starship Captain privileges to get around pesky things like dirtside transport protocols. 

The cognitive dissonance, though, was jarring.

Jim took an unsteady step, then another, through the overgrown lawn to the sagging porch. Paint peeled off the wood siding. The windchimes had fallen and lay, broken, in the dirt with what remained of the weed-choked flowers.

The air smelled the same.

Jim hesitated, one foot on the first porch step, and looked back.

Bones and Pike were only a few paces behind him, Pike with his hands locked in parade rest, Bones with his arms crossed. They’d left T’Mara in San Francisco with Gaila and her aunts for a girl’s day (with strict instructions that no body modifications were permitted). 

Jim didn’t want her here. It felt like a poisonous place, so full of bad memories they might leech into T’Mara if she stepped inside. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his thoughts under control. He couldn’t risk her touching him, here; seeing.

He glanced at the front door. Then back at Bones and Pike again.

“You don’t have to,” Bones reminded him quietly.

But he did.

Except before he could reach for the biometrics panel by the door, it opened.

And––

His mother.

His mother was there.

“Winona?” Pike said. Which was good, because Jim wasn’t capable of speaking.

 “What the fuck are you doing here?” Pike continued. “You’re supposed to be in the Navarian sector. You didn’t even come back for the trial.”

“I requested leave last week,” she said. “The transport ship I was on was delayed. I just got in last night. What are you doing here?”

She was looking at Jim.

Jim didn’t like it.

He shouldered his way past her and it was easy. Easier than he thought it would be.

“I’m just here to pack up some of my stuff,” he managed, hand to the banister, pulling himself up the stairs to his room before she could object. Maybe it was better, this way. To do things fast. In and out. No time for the memories to swallow him whole.

“Jim,” she called after him, and then, lower, clearly to Pike, “why the hell hasn’t anyone answered my coms? I’ve been trying to get in touch with him for weeks.”

“I won’t force him to speak to you if he doesn’t want to,” Jim heard Pike say as he turned the corner.

Jim didn’t think about it. He just turned the knob and pushed open the door. He didn’t look at the bedspread or the half-disassembled vintage radio on his desk, exactly as he’d left it, or the line of sports medals hanging above his dresser. He wrenched open the closet door, pulled down the duffle bag and suitcase from the top shelf, and started shoving books into them.

He heard his mom’s footsteps on the stairs. He still recognized them, after all this time.

“Why haven’t you answered any of my messages,” she said from the doorway.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

The cajoling tone dropped, like it always did. “You owe me your life. I’m your mother.”

Jim straightened as she approached. “No. You’re not.”

He was taller than her, now, and it was strange to look down at her. To see the grey in her hair.

“James,” she said sharply. “You will be respectful in my home. I didn’t know. You can’t blame me for––”

“No,” Jim interrupted, “you don’t get to demand my attention now when you barely bothered to look at me for years. When you looked the other way while Frank was—when he––”

The therapist had been trying to get Jim to say the word out loud. He still hadn’t managed yet. He could barely think it without feeling nauseous. 

“Because,” he continued doggedly, nastilly––she knew the word even if he couldn’t say it–– “ignoring it was easier than admitting that your boyfriend was using your kid as some fucked up stand-in for your dead husband. Because it was easier than admitting that he never wanted you. You were just a means to an end and the end was me—someone with his best friend’s face who couldn’t fight back.”

He caught her hand when she tried to slap him and threw it aside. He wasn’t finished yet. And he wasn’t a child anymore to be cowed by the fear of her disappointment.

“And then when I told you, instead of stopping him you fucking married him. And left me with him.”

He knew that wasn’t completely true. He knew that Frank had worked whatever psionic magic he had to convince her Jim was lying. But that didn’t mean Jim could forgive her. Because if T’Mara came to him and said someone was hurting her, he didn’t think there was any force in the world that would stop him from killing that person, regardless of their telepathic abilities. And maybe that wasn’t fair, because Jim hadn’t ever been in that position, but Jim didn’t have to be fair.

“I can absolutely blame you. And I will. I do. You’re not my fucking mother.”

Winona took a step back like she was the one who’d been slapped, then surged forward again. Only this time, it was Captain Pike who caught her wrist. He didn’t let her go.

Instead, he dragged her away with a degree of force, of fury, that Jim hadn’t, frankly, thought was possible from the man.

“You touch him,” Pike said, “and I won’t wait for the MPs; I’ll handle you myself and you can rot with your husband in prison. Give me a reason to put you where you belong.”

“Chris,” her tone dropped to pleading.

“Only my friends get to call me that.”

“Chris, I didn’t know,” she insisted. “Please, I swear. Frank messed with my head. And–Jim was difficult. He was always difficult. He lied all the time, how was I supposed to—”

“Stop,” Pike pulled her into the hall. “Go downstairs. Go somewhere Jim won’t have to see you when he brings his things down. We’re done here unless you want me to have you arrested for attempted assault.” He raised his voice. “McCoy, come up here and help Jim pack. And try to resist punching Winona, if you can. I know it’ll be difficult.”

Time moved in a funny little lurch because only a second later, Bones’ palm was on the back of Jim’s neck, hesitant, but warm.

“Hey kid. You solid?”

Jim looked at the suncatcher hanging in the window; a remnant of a once happy––or, at least, happier, childhood. “Solid,” he repeated. “Can you get that down?” he pointed at it. “I think the chain has a clasp.”

A few minutes later, Bones passed him the suncatcher wrapped in a pillowcase.

Jim wrenched the pillowcase off, wadding it into a ball before throwing it, unnecessarily violently, at the bed. He wasn’t bringing that shit back with him.

“Fuck,” Bones muttered, looking at the bed and then at Jim in a way that Jim loathed. “Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have––you want me to––”

“Just use a shirt or something from the closet.”

Bones obeyed.

“I’m guessing none of these clothes will fit you anymore, but do you want any of them?” he asked a moment later, rattling hangers on the rod.

“No.” Jim paused. Reconsidered. “Wait. Is there still a drycleaning bag in the back right hand side?”

“Uh…yeah. Looks like an old Fleet cadet uniform?”
His dad’s.

“Just that,” Jim said. “That’s all I want.”

***

Jim called Sarek on his pad that night.

He didn’t actually think the man would answer; he anticipated getting vidmail, leaving a short thank you recording, and then––

Except Sarek did answer.

“Jim,” Sarek said. “I am pleased to see you again. Are you in good health?”

“Not really. But it’s improving, I guess. Bones is doing his best,” Jim said. “I didn’t expect you’d answer, actually, and I won’t bother you long, I just wanted to say thank you for testifying this morning. Or. Yesterday night? I guess it was night for you. Anyway. Thanks.”

“Jim,” Sarek said gravely. “You are not ‘a bother.’ And as I have told you, doing what is necessary does not require thanks. I only regret that I could not have done more to assist you prior.”

“Right. Well. I appreciate it anyway.”

Jim didn’t know what else to say when confronted with Sarek’s slightly pixelated emotionless face. It was so much easier to talk to him when Jim’s hand was in the crook of his elbow and Jim knew that the blankness of his expression was a facade. 

“I understand that I am likely a figure associated with negative memories, for you,” Sarek said after a brief silence. “As such, I will not endeavor to remain in contact. However, Captain Pike informed me that you are considering Star Fleet as a future career choice.”

“I––yes?” Jim said.

“My son,” Sarek paused and the uncertainty of the gesture, the Human-ness was such a relief he wondered if Sarek did it on purpose, “is entering the academy this year. If you would like, I can share his contact information. So you might,” he paused again. “Acquaint yourself. And see if that path is an amenable one.”

“Oh,” Jim said. “Sure. I mean, that’s really nice of you. Thanks.”

When he hung up a minute later after an equally awkward round of goodbyes, Jim looked at the com details Sarek had sent him, bemused, and didn’t save S’chn T’gai Spock to his contacts.

There was no way he would ever use the information. What sort of message would he even send to introduce himself?

Hi, my name is Jim. Your dad rummaged around in my head, saw all my trauma, helped me out of the worst panic attack of my life, and sent my abusive shitstain of a stepdad to jail. He thought I might need a friend and gave me your deets. Whataya say?

No way.

It was still a nice gesture, though. 

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

Ok, I promise, the angst is now over! Only happy stuff from here on out.

Apologies for the late post. I’m at Snowflake Summit and very busy with work stuff. I’m also behind on answering comments, but I promise I’ll get to those soon.

Ok, that’s it for today. Thanks for all the comments! Love you!

EDIT: Just realized I posted this a day early. So much has happened in the last 24 hrs I thought it was Tuesday already. lol.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105079.6

“You’ve gotta stop,” Jim says.

Spock pauses, fork half-way to his mouth. He sets the utensil back on his plate and glances at the clock. “You wish to cease eating?” he queries.

It is a Saturday. T’Mara has left to meet with Pavel, but Spock and Jim do not have plans for the day; there is no reason for haste.

“No, I mean,” Jim makes a hand movement that provides no further clarity, “you have to stop this.”

“You have…gestured to all of me,” Spock points out.

“You gotta stop looking at me like I’m going to shatter at any moment,” Jim presses. “I’m not some breakable––”

“Comparatively speaking––”

“Spock.”

Spock falls silent. 

Jim’s eyes are so blue; his expression sad, but when Spock presses against the bond, for explanation, for comfort, he finds Jim has walled himself off, as he is wont to do when he is in a heightened emotional state. His voice is rough when he speaks next, his eyes on his own half-eaten omelette.

“I just. I fucking hate the way you look at me sometimes now, like you’re imagining all the shit he did to me.”

It pains Spock that he cannot argue with that statement. Jim is not wrong. But––

“I apologize,” Spock says. “Only it plagues me that I was not able to help you. That the bond was not strong enough for me to find you. That when your pain was unbearable, yet inescapable, I did escape. I blocked our connection rather than––”

”Rather than what?” Jim laughs disbelievingly. “Suffering with me for no reason? You did the right thing.”

“It does not feel like the right thing.”

He presses at the bond again, plaintive, and Jim sighs, standing from his chair so he can walk behind Spock’s. So he can drop his hands to Spock’s shoulders and squeeze. Jim’s fingers are cold. Spock captures them, pulls them forward to tuck inside the collar of his sweater, to warm them against his skin. And if the action forces Jim closer, well, the position is surely incidental.

Jim huffs, but allows it, pressing his cheek to the top of Spock’s head.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I know I come with a lot of baggage, I just hate being pitied. And hovering. I really hate hovering.”

Spock opens his mouth and Jim cuts him off. “Metaphorical hovering, asshole.”

Spock closes his mouth.

He is inordinately pleased by Jim’s premonition of his response. It is good to be known. 

“Perhaps,” Spock suggests hesitantly, “I should consult my father regarding meditative practice to address the guilt I feel. However,” he pauses, letting his hands circle Jim’s wrists. “You must understand that I look at you thusly because I ache for you. Because I love you. And Vulcans are protective lovers by nature; no amount of meditation will change that.”

Spock feels Jim swallow, stiffening, but he doesn’t try to pull away and Spock presses further, asking for Jim to open the bond, not quite begging, but close. 

Jim relents, cautious, wary, as he lets the walls in his mind thin. And then—

Ah.

Disbelief. Joy. Returned affection that is made melancholy in its combined hopefulness and fear.

Spock recalls his conversation with Captain Pike and lets the memory of it linger in the front of his mind for both his and Jim’s benefit––

Pike’s downcast gaze and wry smile and the way his voice went soft when he said: You know what I’d give for the kid to call me ‘dad’? Meanwhile, he’s over here thinking I did it all because I felt duty-bound or some shit. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I love him, I don’t think he’ll ever believe it.

Jim goes slack against Spock’s back, his fingers slipping out of Spock’s sweater so he can wrap his arms around Spock’s neck and bury his face in the pocket of warm space between his bicep and Spock’s throat.

His breath turns shuddery.

May I stand to embrace you? Spock asks.

Jim laughs wetly against his skin, fisting a hand in the collar of Spock’s collar to pull him upright, kicking the chair from between them so he can move precisely where he fits, where he belongs: his body pressed entirely to the line of Spock’s, safe within the circle of his arms.

For once, Spock does not feel the need to track the passage of time as they stand in the small dormitory kitchen, striped in early-morning light, backgrounded by the hum of the refrigerator, the chair toppled on its side at their feet.

I love you, Spock repeats, knowing Jim knows the truth of it. And I am hardly the only one.

Jim sobs, and Spock lets him, swaying with the occasional hitches of Jim’s shoulders until he makes space between them again, wiping his nose on the back of wrist with an abrupt urgency.

I need my––

Spock hands him his pad from the counter and Jim sniffs inelegantly, jamming his fingertip impatiently against the screen.

The video call only rings twice before Pike answers. 

“Hey kid,” Pike says, “what’s up?”

“Hey Dad,” Jim says quietly.

•••

McCoy arrives at the Kirk’s door shortly after lunch when Jim is half-asleep on the couch, his head in Spock’s lap, Spock’s fingers in his hair. Their position is demonstrative in a way that would be utterly uncouth on Vulcan.

But they are not on Vulcan.

Spock does not move as the doctor enters, using his key. While Spock shows no outward indication of his amusement, he finds the doctor’s reaction to their arrangement humorous.

“So should I just expect to find him here all the time now?” McCoy asks. It is clear that the ‘him’ in question is Spock.

“Yup,” Jim says pleasantly. 

Spock does not voice his hopeful premonition that Jim and T’Mara will soon reside with Spock at his residence and that McCoy will have to ask him for a key. Spock looks forward to that conversation. 

“I need to go get T’Mara a birthday gift,” McCoy says. “You up for a trip to the mall? There’s a new hydraulic Lego set she’s been pretending she doesn’t want and I figured we could go halvsies on it.” 

“Oh good call,” Jim says, voice slightly muffled because he’s turned his face into Spock’s belly. “Yeah, just give me a second to wake up.”

“A Saturday is not the ideal time for such a venture,” Spock points out. “The mall will be quite crowded.”

“You think maybe we can leave him here?” Doctor McCoy mutters to Jim.

“Hey watch yourself,” Jim objects, “that’s my husband you’re talking about.”

McCoy makes an aggrieved noise.

“Perhaps,” Spock says, considering Jim’s earlier request for less ‘hovering,’ “you ought to go without me.”

Jim’s eyes open fully. You sure? I thought you said we needed to stay in close proximity for the first couple months while the bond settles down.

Spock assists him in sitting up. The bond will be fine for a few hours. Go. Have ‘fun.’

Jim grins. Bones likes you, even if he pretends like he doesn’t. You know you’re always welcome.

I do. But I also have plenty of reading to keep me occupied here. In fact, I am behind in my research of Bavarru fungi due to recent…distractions.

Spock recalls, in detail, an assortment of those distractions featuring Jim and Jim’s hands. And Jim’s fingers. And Jim’s fingers entwined in Spock’s fingers.

Jim’s smile widens. “Okay.”

“Y’all are creepy as hell when you do that,” McCoy says, “I hope you know.”

“Don’t be racist, Bones,” Jim says, pressing an absent-minded kiss to the corner of Spock’s mouth. “I’ll pick up dinner on our way back, okay? Thai?”

“Be safe,” Spock says.

Jim throws him a salute that is not at all regulation. “Aren’t I always?”

“You are not,” Spock says, but he says it with fondness that is likely apparent in his tone judging by McCoy’s simulated retching noises.

***

Spock is never letting Jim out of his sight again.

Jim has been gone only 45 minutes and 13 seconds when the bond—typically a comforting, lax warmth in the back of Spock’s head––suddenly becomes…tight. There is no other way Spock can think to describe it. It is as if the bond is a string connecting their minds and Jim has suddenly taken hold of it and pulled. Hard.

Don’t freak out, Jim tells him.

Which is not, Spock notes, reassuring in the least. 

It is good that Spock’s first instinct is to note Jim’s location, because only 1.5 seconds later, Jim continues with some urgency: the girl from before is here, the one we think is Kodos’ daughter––

And then: oh, fucking shit––

Which is even less reassuring.

Followed by: we might need some help––

Before the bond goes entirely silent.

Spock calls Montgomery Scott.

“Don’t imagine this is a social call?” Mr. Scott says upon answering.

Spock does not take valuable time engaging in pleasantries. “Are you aboard the Enterprise?” he asks.

“Aye, when am I not?” 

“I need you to beam me to the coordinates I have just sent to your pad.”

There is a tremor to his hands that he is entirely unable to suppress as he stows his communication device and moves into the kitchen.

Mr. Scott huffs. “You realize I cannae do my job if I’m playing chauffeur for you numpties any time you encounter a wee transportation inconvenience? Have the trains stopped working, dirtside?” 

“This is a matter of extreme urgency,” Spock says, withdrawing a knife from the butcher block on the counter.

“Keep your heid, I’m nearly there,” he grumbles, “should work on me cardio if this is gonna be a habit.” 

Spock selects a second knife for his other hand and presses anxiously at the bond while he waits, but it’s almost as if Jim is in a deep and dreamless sleep. Their connection is whole, yet…inert. Even when Spock becomes insistent with his prodding. The only thing that could interfere with a bond as such is the influence of a Psion. 

While the investigation has retrieved little information about the whereabouts of the woman assumed to be Kodos’ daughter, the authorities had been able to confirm that Lenore received markedly high psionic ratings for a Human when tested in childhood. She also had a concerning record of suspected but never proven mental crime infractions leading into adulthood before she’d abruptly gone missing eight months prior.

“Alright then,” Mr. Scott says, “Appears to be three humans at the immediate location you’ve sent. Several hundred in the vicinity. Is it just you who’ll be joining them, Mr. Spock?” 

“Yes, energize.”

Spock crouches, his improvised weapons at the ready, and takes a steadying breath.

I am coming, Jim.

He thinks, later, that his intercession is rather anticlimactic. 

He expects to arrive to fighting, to a struggle. He expects to use the too-blunt  knives pilfered from the Kirk’s kitchen in defense of his bondmate and has mentally prepared during the scant time permitted to do so. 

However, when he materializes in a back hallway of the shopping mall it is to Dr. McCoy seemingly asleep, sitting on the floor with his back propped against the wall beside the bathroom entrance, and the girl—Lenore––sitting on a bench next to Jim, holding his hand as if they are lovers. Jim’s expression is blank, his eyes sightless; empty.

Lenore only has a moment to recognize Spock’s arrival before he is upon her.

He does not give her the chance to speak, nor to touch his mind, though she tries. But a Vulcan mind—even a half-Vulcan mind––is nothing like a Human’s and her hubris, her confidence that she cannot fail, is her downfall.

Spock is his father’s son, and he will not be made a victim.

He pushes aside her mental attack like swatting an irritating fly and, almost unexpectedly, he finds his hand around her throat, one of the knives clattering to the tiled floor. He lifts her from the bench, wrenches her away from Jim so she no longer can reach that which she has no permission to touch. Her hands scrabble at his fingers, her legs kick—weak, laughable, if he were one to laugh.

It would be easy to kill her.

It would be his right. Under Vulcan law, murder is permitted in defense of one’s bondmate for certain crimes, and a mental attack falls within acceptable parameters. However, the Human judicial system would likely require his temporary incarceration while they completed an investigation and likely extradited him to Vulcan for a trial there, and he does not wish to be parted from Jim and T’Mara for any space of time. And Captain Pike would be very angry with him as Pike would likely be the one responsible for finding a stand-in to replace him in an immediate professorial fashion, and then to reinstate him to his Starfleet position upon his return. He knows doing so will require a significant amount of paperwork. Pike hates paperwork.

Spock has also never killed another thinking being in close quarters like this. Never with his hand around their throat, meeting their eyes. 

Don’t, Jim says, California doesn’t allow conjugal visits.

He’s joking but he is also not.

Are you well? Spock asks.

I’m good. She was trying to fuck with my head, but I was doing a pretty good job blocking her. Had a great teacher. Don’t kill her, please. Pike would––

Paperwork. Spock agrees.

Reluctantly, he drops the second knife and brings his other hand up to Lenore’s throat, pinching just beneath his current hold. He pinches perhaps harder than is strictly necessary. She goes limp. Spock considers gently placing her on the ground but instead elects to drop her.

Jim warbles out a noise that might be a laugh. 

“Are you well?” Spock asks again, reaching for his bondmate. Jim’s mind appears uninjured, as does his physical being, but––

Jim allows Spock to pull him to his feet and into Spock’s arms.

I’m fantastic, Jim says.

“Christ almighty,” McCoy pushes himself up onto his knees, then crawls the few feet between himself and the girl, checking her pulse before pulling a tricorder from his bag. “The fuck happened while I was out?”

“When I arrived, she was engaged in a psionic attack on Jim. I rendered her unconscious using a Vulcan acupressure technique,” Spock answers.

 “I think you broke her collarbone,” Dr. McCoy says. He sounds approving. 

“Occasionally an unfortunate side effect of the maneuver,” Spock agrees solemnly.

McCoy nods. “I think I’ve heard that.” He falls back on his heels. “Did you call the MPs?”

Spock did not. An oversight. “I shall do so now.”

“Better call T’Mara too,” Jim says into Spock’s neck. “She’s freaking out right now. Poor kid.” He huffs a gust of warm air and then tips his head, leaning far enough to the side to meet Spock’s eyes. “You’re probably never going to let me out of your sight again, now, are you?”

“Please ask at a later time,“ Spock says tightly. 

“Sure. And I get this must have been really stressful for you, I do, but I also, hey, come here,” Jim pulls at his face until their noses are touching.

“I am already….here,” Spocks says. It is not physically possible for them to be much closer.

“Spock,” Jim says seriously. “That was really fucking hot, you know that?”

“The temperature is––”

Spock is not able to finish the statement because his mouth is otherwise occupied.

Notes:

Captain's Log:

We're one chapter away from the end! But I will also need to take a brief hiatus (I know, I know) because I'm out of chapters and I simply will not have time to produce anything fic-related this week between work stuff, author stuff, flying lessons, and Social Commitments (As in, multiple. I know. Very wild).

The final chapter is currently titled SEX EPILOGUE in my working doc. So. Look forward to that when I do get a chance to write it, I suppose. I'll tentatively say I'll have the final chapter up in 2 weeks but it might be 3 if I find myself being overly critical because it's the first time I've written such a thing. Wish me luck! See you soon!

(Also if you're looking for published stories about queer people in space, I HIGHLY recommend Everina Maxwell's Ocean's Echo and Winter's Orbit. They work as standalones in the same universe and while they're both good, Ocean's Echo really scratched my "two characters forced to share a brain and reluctantly falling in love about it" itch. The audiobooks are fab too--shoutout to Libby).

Chapter 33

Summary:

Don’t read this one, mom.

Welcome to the Sex Epilogue! And my first time writing anything explicit (so naturally I chose a fic with alien anatomy and telepathy. Go big or go home, I guess.)

Spicy time starts after the 5 asterisks (*****) if you’d like to skip it (not three, three is just a scene break).

(Sex) Epilogue

Earth

Fort Baker, California

Stardate 105079.8

“Spock,” T’Mara says at breakfast on Monday morning, “your living quarters are larger and better appointed than ours, yet you only return to them for clothing and personal items every three days on average for intervals of less than an hour at a time.”

Spock, having grown accustomed to T’Mara’s non sequiturs and particular brand of self-confidence, is not particularly surprised by her line of questioning.

“I find the company here more agreeable,” he responds easily.

She nods as if that is a given. “Would you find our company in your quarters equally agreeable?” 

“I would,” Spock says over Jim’s sudden spluttering. 

“Are you aware,” she continues, also ignoring Jim, “that under Amendment 23, subsection 4, student housing leases may be broken without repercussion due to bonding or marriage equivalent?” 

“I am.” 

“Are you apprehensive about formally cohabitating with us, or were you deferring to Human norms regarding the timing of such an invitation for Jim’s benefit?”

“The latter.” 

T’Mara raises an eyebrow. “Jim is more accustomed to Vulcan practice than most Humans.” 

“You are correct.” Spock clears his throat and turns to face Jim. “Ashayam, your presence in my home—you and T’Mara’s presence–– would please me greatly, though I understand if you prefer to maintain your own domicile for a time.” When Jim doesn’t immediately respond, he adds, “If my home is not to your liking, I am also amenable to selecting a new residence that is.”

Jim huffs out a laugh that Spock perceives as positive. “I mean. We’re already married, right? And basically living together. Might as well make it official. You sure you want a loud, messy Human and a too-smart-for-her-own-good kid destroying your nice, organized fortress of solitude? ”  

“Tidiness is a skill that can be learned,” Spock says pointedly, and then, more gently, “and I find solitude far less desirable now than I did previously.”

Jim’s eyes crinkle; Spock becomes briefly immobile in the face of his bondmate’s smile. Thankfully, Jim turns his attention to T’Mara. 

“And I’m assuming you’re okay with this, considering the ambush?”

“Of course. Spock’s residence is closer to the science building and the park. The air filtration system is superior and there are individual temperature controls in each room.” She purses her lips, “Also, if you intend to add a sexual element to your relationship, as I suspect you will, the structural integrity of the apartment’s walls and distance between bedrooms will be preferable to that of our current housing.” 

Jim’s ears go pink. “Yeah, good call,” he says faintly. 

“It is decided, then,” T’Mara says. She briefly turns her attention to her pad and after a few finger-swipes continues: “I have sent you the necessary paperwork to end our lease. Uncle Bones is available to help us relocate this weekend, as are Pavel and several acquaintances from our engineering course.”

Jim tips to the side and Spock catches him, alarmed, before realizing that Jim is laughing, his breath warm and pleasing against the bare skin of Spock’s neck.

T’Mara continues eating, but she meets Spock’s eyes and, when he inclines his head in a subtle thank you, she smiles.

***

The Human method of moving house is highly illogical, but the group of volunteers who assist with boxing and transporting the Kirks’ belongings appear to enjoy the endeavor and depart in the early evening after a dinner of pizza, which, Jim assures him, is an important Human tradition.

Jim, fresh from the shower, collapses onto the couch where Spock is sorting through a bin of scholastic medals and ribbons with T’Mara’s name on them. He finds himself strangely pensive as he looks at the dates and achievements— moments for which he was not present. He consoles himself with the knowledge that he will be present for all future moments.

Stop being so cute, Jim tells him. I can’t handle it.

I am merely being myself, Spock responds dryly. If my natural state is ‘cute’ there is hardly anything I can do to change it.

Jim squirms his way between Spock’s thigh and his arm, pressing his face to Spock’s belly.

I love you.

The thought is shy.

Spock’s response is not.

As I love you.

“Uncle Bones has promised to take me to the orthopedic robotics symposium this evening followed by sorbet,” T’Mara announces as she enters the room. Her hair is spiked into a crest and she is wearing new platform boots she convinced Gaila to purchase for her.

“I said maybe sorbet,” McCoy objects, close behind.

“We will be occupied for the next several hours,” T’Mara continues, as if she has not heard him. “I anticipate we will return after eight PM.” 

“The last panel ends at seven,” Bones says. 

“Sorbet,” T’Mara counters. “Eight PM.”

Everyone present knows she will get her way. 

“I will message you thirty minutes before we return,” she continues. “To ensure you are prepared for my arrival.”

McCoy looks at her, looks at Jim and Spock in quick succession, and then makes a moue of distaste. “Gross. Fine. Let’s go, kid.”

They go.

“So,” Jim says as the door closes, sitting up only to further invade Spock‘s space. “Pretty sure our kid just vacated the premises so we can have sex.”

Spock receives a subtle frisson of pleasure from the phrase our kid.

The frisson of pleasure related to the prospect of sex with Jim is less subtle.

 “Your hypothesis has merit,” he agrees, shifting the bin to the floor.

Jim’s left hand moves. It cups the back of Spock’s skull, nails scratching down to his neck before trailing back up, fingers pausing at the crown of his head to muss his hair; to pull. The traction is pleasing.

It occurs to Spock that Jim is, for all intents and purposes, sitting in Spock’s lap, even if the configuration isn’t entirely standard. It would only take a slight adjustment for him to straddle Spock properly. Spock would like Jim to straddle him properly. 

Yeah? Jim says.

Ah. Spock had not intended to share that thought.

Jim tilts his head to one side, thumb still moving absently on Spock’s cheek. He leans in, nose dragging with maddening languidness beneath Spock’s jaw. He exhales damp warmth. He breathes in through his mouth. 

If you want me to move, you should move me.

Spock’s hands slide down the wings of Jim’s shoulders to his waist, his hips, his legs, repositioning them in exactly the configuration he imagined moments before; knees splayed around thighs, bellies pressed together. 

“If you are amenable,” Spock says conversationally, like one of his palms is not fitted proprietarily to the curve of Jim’s ass. “I would like to…find pleasure with you. In whatever way you prefer.”

Jim grins into the kiss he presses to Spock’s mouth and Spock allows Jim to lead, to test the boundaries of lips and teeth and tongue. It is only after Jim’s initial pursuit has slackened into familiarity that Spock becomes the aggressor. He revels in the soft, aborted noise Jim makes in the back of his throat. In the way his spine arches beneath Spock’s hand and his fingers fist into his hair.

Spock has never been ‘high’ before, but he imagines it feels something like this. Elevated respiration and heart rate. A near-overwhelming awareness of tactile input. Mild euphoria.

Be careful, he tells himself. Be gentle. 

But it is hard to be careful when confronted with Jim’s mussed hair and parted, swollen lips and wide eyes. With his fingers splayed on Spock’s chest. With his Human-fast heartbeat and iron-blood-pinked skin. And the smell of him–

Every other kiss they have shared felt like the beginning of something. This kiss does not. This kiss feels like the end of everything. The end of his solitude, his quietly-borne uncertainty, his fears of inadequacy and peculiarity. His loneliness.

Spock loses himself in Jim’s clinging hands and ragged breathing; in the aborted hitches of Jim’s hips, like he’s trying to hold still but can’t quite help himself.

He forgets, for a while, that he is meant to be gentle.

“No,” Spock says, when Jim muffles a noise in Spock’s shoulder, “allow me to hear your pleasure, Ashayam.” And Jim groans, loud and lovely in response, movements urgent as he pulls his shirt over his head and reaches for Spock’s with clumsy, fervent, fingers.

“Peace,” he says, more to himself than Jim. “We are not in any hurry.”

“Maybe you aren’t,” Jim argues, voice raspy. He tugs insistently at Spock’s shirt, which is now so overstretched it will likely never be the same. “Come back.”

Jim’s voice is plaintive. Whiny. It should not be endearing. And yet.

“Slowly,” Spock insists, and then, because it is pertinent, “Jim. You should know that while I understand the mechanics of coupling in theory, in practice I am not,” his throat clicks, embarrassingly audible, when he swallows, “…practiced.”

Jim stills. “Wait. Are you saying—what are you saying?” 

“I had little opportunity to explore sexual interests in my youth. Or,” he admits, “adulthood.” 

“Okay. I’m not one of those weirdos who’s obsessed with virginity, I swear, but I need to know if I’m—if I’ll be the first person to ever touch you like this.” 

“Yes,” he says.

Jim exhales sharply. His cock is pressed, obviously hard, between them when he tips forward to hide his face in Spock’s throat. Even with his superior hearing, Spock is not capable of interpreting the next words Jim smears against his skin. 

“I cannot understand you,” Spock notes.

“I said, ‘maybe I am one of those weirdos,’” Jim repeats wryly, sitting back up. “But I’ll try not to be terrible about it. I can do slow. Do you—do I need to back off, or––?”

“I will not judge you for your preferences,” Spock starts. “And while I have not had a partner, I am familiar with the workings of my own body. I do not require a gradual introduction, nor would I prefer it. However, I do not wish to rush.” 

“Cool,” Jim says. “Cool cool. So. When you say you’re familiar with your own body…”

Spock understands Jim’s tone is leading, but is uncertain what it is leading to.

“You wanna give us a recap?” Jim clarifies.

“Of my masturbatory practices?” 

Jim grins. “Yes, please.”

Objectively, he knows there should be no shame in such a conversation, but he cannot prevent the flush that suffuses his cheeks.

“Initially,” Spock says, “it was merely an exercise born of necessity. In post-pubescence, due to my Human heritage, I could not will away inconvenient and often baseless arousal as my Vulcan peers did. More recently, however,” Spock pauses. The pause turns into a lull.

“More recently?” Jim presses. 

“You have lovely hands,” Spock says, and then has to actively prevent himself from covering his face. 

Jim looks delighted. “Oh?” he holds up the hands in question. “These guys?”

Spock averts his gaze. “Your face also has pleasing symmetry and the musculature in your arms and torso is––compelling. Which,” he hastens to add, “in no way limits my appreciation of your intellect, but rather––”

Jim laughs. “Hey, Spock. It’s okay. Please, tell me how pretty I am.”

“Excessively. Distractingly.”

Jim’s grin fades into something quietly fond. “Yeah? You’re pretty distracting yourself.”

And then, Spock is inundated with memories. Of him.

 Standing at parade rest, one eyebrow raised. The sharp relief of his jawline in profile. His mouth, infinitesimally curved in a smile. His eyes as they meet Jim’s. His ears, flushed with a compliment. And then, his naked torso stretched in a meditative stance, his arms gleaming with sweat as he moves through his morning Lirpa forms. The way he touches Jim at night like Jim is a holy, precious, thing. A thing to be treasured. 

The appreciation that overlays the memories like an all-encompassing hum is gratifying in a way that diminishes Spock’s remaining anxiety and instead heightens his anticipation. He, in turn, projects his anticipation, his wanting across the bond.

“I think,” Jim says, “we should go to the bedroom and get naked now.”

“I defer to your expertise,” Spock agrees gravely.

*****

Their expedience in disrobing is adversely impacted by Jim’s insistence that he ‘help’ remove Spock’s clothing. Spock estimates that Jim’s ‘help’ adds an additional 6.5 minutes to the process, though he cannot deny they are minutes enjoyably spent.

“Okay, so,” Jim says, when they’re finally reclined on the bed. “I’m not saying I studied or anything but I spent some quality time with a couple Vulcan anatomy textbooks over the last few weeks and,” he nods to Spock’s bare form, “you sure look Vulcan, but I don’t want to make assumptions and there aren’t any other Vulcan-Human hybrids so––” He drags an admiring hand down Spock’s flank, fingers spread, calluses rough, “…you want to give me the rundown of what we’re working with?”

Spock swallows, eyes lingering on Jim’s tanned, capable fingers where they rest, warm on Spock’s pale belly, thumb stroking just beside his sheath.

“My genitalia is largely Vulcan,” he says, relieved by the necessity of facts. “The testes are internal and the phallus remains within its sheath unless—” Spock sucks in a breath as Jim runs two knuckles (his lovely, scarred, knuckles) up the distended skin “—stimulated.”

Spock closes his eyes as the slick head emerges, the full length pressing up into Jim’s waiting hand with an eagerness that some might consider mortifying. 

“Whoa.” 

Spock is gratified he can feel the enthusiasm behind the word that Jim exhales, reverent, in the heated space between them.

Spock’s voice is an imitation of itself. “As I said, largely Vulcan in appearance.”

“Double ridges, huh,” Jim traces them before using his thumb to collect pre-seminal fluid from the head, dragging it back down the shaft. “Cool.”

“As you say,” Spock manages.

“And you’re already so wet,” Jim continues, because he just…says such things. Aloud. “Like more so than the average Human, probably. I thought the whole desert species thing meant that––” 

“I differ in this way from my Vulcan peers,” he admits.

In his younger years, the anomaly was a source of embarrassment. It does not feel so embarrassing now, with Jim’s heated gaze on his hand as it moves with intention, as his tongue emerges to touch his lips, as he says, almost reflective, “yeah, I’m definitely gonna need this inside me.”

Spock closes his eyes.

“I mean,” Jim adds, “if you––“

Yes. Please.

Jim falls into silence and when Spock opens his eyes again, Jim is smiling at him, thoughts hazy with amusement.

What?

“Nothing. I just still can’t believe you look like this under your perfect pressed uniform.” 

He bends to mouth at Spock’s hipbone. 

“I think,” he says resolutely, “I’m going to kiss every inch of your skin.”

“That is highly impractical,” Spock manages.

It appears Jim is not overly concerned with practicality and Spock has difficulty objecting due to the proximity of Jim’s mouth to his—

His—

‘Phallus’ feels too clinical a word in such an amorous context but ‘cock’ is grievously similar to his name and, knowing Jim, may incite alliterative assonance, while ‘dick’ is—

“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a really pretty dick?” Jim murmurs.

Spock determines that ‘dick,’ particularly said in Jim’s voice, is, in fact, acceptable.

“Indeed not,” he says.

“So maybe we table the kissing thing,” Jim crawls over him,“and instead I just––” he stretches forward, pressing his mouth to the center of Spock’s chest before slotting them together in a way that prompts Spock to arch upward, unprompted, with a noise he refuses to term as a whine.

 Jim rocks for a moment and a near-overwhelming surge of arousal filters through the bond. Oh yeah, he thinks. That’s even better than I thought it’d be. Can’t get over how good your cock feels. Holy shit.

Spock decides ‘cock’ is equally acceptable terminology.

“Jim,” he prompts, voice thready. 

“Uh,” Jim shifts his hips, sitting up so that Spock’s cock slides, slick and aching, between his buttocks. When he leans forward again, the movement wrenches paired groans from them both. 

“Jim,” Spock insists. You were saying?

“Right,” he pants. “I was thinking I might grind on you a little while I finger myself, and then you can––”

“I would prefer,” Spock interjects, that is, if you do not mind, I would—I can––

He can hardly think the words, much less say them aloud, but Jim understands.

“Oh, sure. Knock yourself out.” He lurches forward, digging beneath the pillow for something and, confronted with the expanse of Jim’s chest, Spock must resist leaning forward to taste. It occurs to him he does not have to resist.

His mouth finds heated skin; his tongue presses flat to a pebbled nipple.

The sound Jim makes in response is gratifying.

Jesus, Jim resumes his former position. You catch on fast. Here.

A tube of lubricant is pressed into his right palm and Spock allows Jim to direct him with words and hands, to slick two fingers and press—

—inside. 

Inside Jim.

Spock focuses on his breathing.

Oh. Jim realizes, catching Spock’s free hand with his, tangling their fingers together. This probably feels nice for you too, huh?

The understatement is nearly laughable.

Yes.

“What are your thoughts—oh god,” on biting? Jim asks, breathless. He does not appear aware that he is communicating half with spoken word and half with thought. 

“Vulcans do not––“

“I didn’t ask about Vulcans, I asked about”— fuck, right there––“you.”

“I do not know. I am…open to experimentation.”

Jim resumes his thrusts, mouth hot on Spock’s neck, teeth catching skin, and Spock is undone.

Jim is everywhere. Jim is everything. The confluence of mental and physical stimuli, the press of Jim’s teeth so possessive and claiming is–– 

“You like that?” Jim laves the bite he’s left on Spock’s throat with his tongue and saves him from the indignity of a response by answering for him, soft and reverent, “yeah, you do.” 

“Jim,” Spock says. And then, far more desperately than he would prefer. Jim.

Need is unspooling, quick and urgent in his gut in a way that is utterly unfamiliar. His former forays into sexual gratification were careful, controlled, undertakings. There is nothing controlled about how he feels now.

What do you need?

Spock is entirely beyond speech. Kiss me. Jim, kiss me, please.

Jim does. Exactly as Spock wants. Exactly as he needs. The press of his tongue in sequence with the press of their fingers, the press of their bodies, is—

Catharsis. Quintessence. Apotheosis. 

Spock’s abdomen tightens, his back bows, and he clings to Jim, breath stuttering, heat suffusing his face as he comes in a series of graceless hitches and an embarrassing spillover of emotional transference.

 “Holy shit,” Jim pants against his mouth, still rocking them together, his cock now slick with Spock’s spend, “I can’t believe you came just from kissing me.”

Jim is inordinately pleased with himself.

Spock will later blame the disinhibition of orgasm for his response, which is to reach across the bond to feed Jim the unadulterated sensations he’d just experienced—the heat in his gut, the furor of Jim sucking on his tongue, calloused fingers pressed to knuckles, the maddening clench of Jim’s body and the exigence of his desire.

And Jim’s spine is abruptly curving, his arms shaking where his elbows are braced, muscles taught, hips jerking up desperately against nothing as he spills between them, adding to the mess on Spock’s belly.

“Okay, touché,” Jim gasps, falling forward, forehead to Spock’s. “I deserved that.”

He sags further, laughing, trembling with aftershocks, and Spock frees one hand to drag it contritely down the expanse of Jim sweat-damp back. He feels…sheepish. 

“I apologize if I overstepped,” Spock murmurs. His voice does not sound like his own. 

“Are you kidding? You just gave me the best orgasm of my life with your brain. That was amazing.” He sits up abruptly. “Oh my god. And I can’t even tell anyone. Gaila wouldn’t keep it to herself. Bones would kill me. Pike might kill you.”

Spock shudders at the thought. “Please do not speak of Captain Pike when we are engaged in amorous activities.”

“I mean. I think activities are over for the moment, which is a bummer because I was really looking forward to you fucking me. I know Vulcans have stupid fast refractory periods but I’m going to need––”

Jim. Spock interrupts.

“Hm?”

May I?

“Sure, whatever you want,” he mumbles, the words underpinned with sated confusion.

Spock touches the bond again, traverses it just enough to stroke the pleasure center of Jim’s mind. Not so much to overwhelm. But enough to––

Spock watches Jim’s abdominal muscles clench. Watches as his cock firms and flexes, as his eyes dilate, as his thighs quiver with renewed desire.

“Oh,” Jim says. “Oh man, we’re going to have so much fun with this, huh?”

Spock rolls Jim with gentle movements, and then, at Jim’s mental urging, presses inside of him with less gentleness. 

“Yes, Ashayam,” he agrees. “We will.”

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

The end.

Thanks for coming along on this ride (pun absolutely intended) with me! I’ll catch up on responding to comments…sometime. As usual, work, author stuff, life, poor health, etc. loves to encroach on my fic/fic-adjacent time. But I will be chilling in an airport next week for several hours, so I promise I’ll get to them soon! Thank you so much for the encouragement. I’d like to say I write purely for my enjoyment but I do crave that sweet, sweet validation.

To keep up with what I’m writing next in term of fic (Arcane, my beloved), I’m also Xiaq on tumblr. To keep up with what I’m writing next in terms of original fiction (a queer, polyamorous, Romantasy duology!), my IG is el_massey.

Ok, love y'all!

Notes:

Captain’s Log:

No one tell my publisher I’m writing Star Trek fanfic instead of working on my novel.

Okay friends, this story is fully outlined, I have 8 chapters written, and I expect it will be somewhere around 15 chapters complete. Then again, my history provides ample evidence of my complete inability to adequately predict story length. So take that estimate with a grain of salt.

I’ll edit/post one chapter per week. I’m thinking Thursdays unless anyone has a compelling argument for a different day.

Thanks to my betas Nautilicious & iamthetrainedcormorant & MissMinnow, any new folks for giving this story a chance, and everyone else for jumping to yet another fandom with me (technically, Star Trek was one of my first fandoms, it just preceded my time on AO3).

Alright. Here we go!