mr_enterprise | You Can't Go Home Again [for primelogic]

"You were gone. I could feel it, as sure as I feel you here now."

The bond does not lie. The brilliant blue light that was James Tiberius Kirk's flawless mind was simply gone. No matter how many hours Spock meditated, no matter how thorough his soul searching. He had merely assumed Jim was deceased.

Though he never found out how or where or why.

It wasn't until the younger Kirk actually died that Spock knew it was different somehow. He was not the same, not Spock's T'hy'la, but Spock still felt it. A pain he had put this man through before him now many many years ago.

"Have you been here, all this time?" Though 'all this time' may be relative. The Nexus works differently than the worlds it touches. Spock has seen evidence of that first hand.

"Not exactly." Jim takes a moment, trying to figure out how to best explain what happened. It's bad enough that both places share the same name, never mind telling someone else about it. "At least I don't think so. The energy ribbon that damaged the ship was some kind of temporal nexus." His lips twitch, not quite a smile. "It wasn't like it is here. It was..." Words fail him, and he struggles to find the vocabulary to describe the sheer happiness that enveloped him at the moment of his entry into the ribbon.

"It was like being inside of the best dream I've ever had," he decides, the words still so inadequate, but they're the only ones he has. "Like it was the happiest I could ever be, a paradise created just for me. I didn't know anything was wrong until another 'dreamer' came to visit, seemingly minutes after I got there, from seventy-eight years in the future. The captain of the Enterprise, come to ask for my help." That part still blows his mind a little. Not that Starfleet would continue naming ships after their most famous and successful flagship, but the part where by sheer coincidence, the captain of that ship would end up in the exact same situation as himself, nearly eight decades later.

"I thought about not going," he confesses, after several long moments' debate. "Just... staying there forever. I thought that if I found you, if I could experience the ideal of everything I've ever wanted, then that would be happiness enough for the rest of my life. But it wouldn't have really been you."

"The happiest you could ever be, and that was...not on the ship?"

Though Jim seemed to have little to no control over the dream he's speaking of. Nor did it seem he had been able to fabricate a replacement for Spock in such a place. Not that it would have mattered if he had. It would be illogical to be jealous of a dream and besides--Jim was stuck in a strange place for decades. Ageless. He could have existed there forever insofar as the word could describe such things.

"I am gratified to know...you were happy there. And, when it was over, you found yourself here instead?"

"No." That actually genuinely bothers him, now that he's not in the dream. Why wasn't it the Enterprise? "Nothing in that nexus was real. Not even how it made me feel. It was a gilded cage, Spock. I just couldn't see it until I wasn't there anymore."

Yes, he was happy while he was in the nexus. But he doesn't believe for one moment that his happiness was real, uninfluenced by the nature of the temporal rift. For all that he thought he was content, he was alone. But he certainly hadn't suffered, at least.

To the second question, he nods, cradling his warm mug between both hands. "After we defeated Soren, I ended up here. I looked for the door back, but I never found it. That was about a year ago; I've been here ever since."

"Eighty years and yet you've not aged a day."

Spock bows his head, shakes it solemnly. He hadn't waited that long to determine Jim was dead and gone. While Jim was trapped in that place, in the cage he spoke of, Spock did nothing to help him. He gave up trying to find Jim again.

He failed Jim just as he did the Romulans. Just as he did his own people.

"This place. These people. They are real, Jim. I am real." The Ambassador sets down his mug and reaches over to gently rest his hand on Kirk's arm. The cloth between them muffles the bond but it can still be felt. A constant presence.

"I am not worthy to be able to spend time with you again."

He hadn't mentioned his fears that perhaps this, too, is some kind of false reality, but of course Spock would know. And the reassuring touch on his arm, the answering pulse through their bond... even the other nexus couldn't fake that. It just never let him realize it wasn't there.

He frees one of his hands, moving it to touch Spock's, as much to reassure the Vulcan as himself. After all this time, all these years, it's an easy guess what Spock is thinking, seeing the guilt etched into those deep lines on his aged face. "You had no way of knowing. If it wasn't for the nexus, I would have actually been dead."

shameguiltfailurelonlinesspainpainlovedevotionrelief

After so many years unshielded Spock doesn't think to do so now and the same rush of emotions Jim would have sensed from the old Vulcan before when they were holding hands at the party are making themselves aware again. He won't be able to know what causes them--not without a proper mind meld--but the bond unshielded gives even the psiblind Kirk insight into Spock's emotional state when they hold hands.

"I too...have been displaced into another universe before coming here to the Nexus."

Spock's admission is quiet, barely more than a breath.

After all this time, it's hard to tell if Spock's deeply hidden emotions have become stronger with the passage of time, or if the turmoil he's been through since their separation is worse than ever before. But either way, it hardly matters. Spock's relief at seeing him again is shadowed by a great darkness of loss and guilt, and Jim must scramble to brace himself against the tide, so powerful that only a mind-meld has ever struck him so strongly.

Searching eyes seek out Spock's face, surprised by the confession and concerned by what he feels lurking behind it, a great weight that the Vulcan still carries despite the joy of their reunion. "What happened?"

"I failed, Jim. I failed and cost the lives of millions. Rerouted the destiny of an entire universe."

The words come slowly, rotting teeth ripped out of an infected socket. He cannot keep the sorrow from his voice. No matter how many years pass the pain doesn't go away. The shame and regret stain his hands and squeeze his old heart painfully in his side.

"We were trying to save Romulus from destruction. It's sun had become unstable. It took considerable effort and the development of red matter into a stable usable form, but we engineered a solution. I learned well from you never to give up. I took our fastest ship but I was too late. Romulus and everyone on it...all gone."

The Romulans are not Spock's people but so great a failure resulting in so many lives lost affects him as if it were his own. If only that were the end of it all.

"A Romulan ship prevented me from escaping the black hole I caused to cease the spread of the dying sun. We were both pulled in. They first, and then myself. Exiting the wormhole had brought us back in time but again, Jim, I was too late. Nero destroyed the Kelvin and waited twenty five years for me to appear after him, though it was only minutes for myself. I didn't know."

Spock shakes his head again.

"I didn't know. He captured me and stranded me on Delta Vega. Alive only so I could understand his pain. Vulcan is gone, Jim. I watched him destroy it with the very red matter I had developed to try and save Romulus in my time."

He has so many questions from the very start, but he doesn't interrupt, letting Spock gather his thoughts and lay them out as... logically as possible. All he can do is set his mug down on the low table near the couch, all his attention on the Vulcan, one hand still held in his own.

Hearing of the loss of Romulus is sad, but somehow, Jim doesn't think that it's responsible for the devastation he can feel echoing through the bond. The destruction of the Kelvin... he doesn't know the exact timeline, but the name of the starship is more than familiar, one of his own parents' assignments before he was born. But it must have been after that, surely, if Spock's remarks about one of the other partygoers meant what he thinks it does. "Spock," he murmurs, sad for the loss of the ship and her crew, whoever they were, but even more for Spock, already reeling from the loss of a planet he tried to save.

But then comes the finishing blow, and it all makes horrible sense. Not just Romulus. Not just a starship. Vulcan itself. All that history, all those people, gone. Destroyed with a superweapon he's never heard of, a tool that Spock had developed to save lives, not end them. It's a staggering loss, and all Jim can do is hold on, knowing Spock's pain is far deeper than his own, no less raw and fresh than it must have been the day it occurred. "I grieve with thee," he says, once he can think of something to say. And he does. Earth's oldest friend and ally, centuries upon centuries of civilization and advancement, and some of the noblest people that Jim has ever known. Spock's home, his very heart.

"There are so few left now. I began immediately to find a suitable planet to begin a Vulcan colony on. The terraforming is going well and it keeps my counterpart on the Enterprise, knowing he can be on two places at once."

Spock couldn't let his younger self miss out on the Enterprise and her crew. Not knowing how much they mean to him all these years later. Miss out on the friendships to be created and cultivated.

"There is no way back to my own time, Jim. So I stay on New Vulcan and I help where I can. And whenever possible, I check in with the you in that time. His crew. It is the least I can do after causing so much turmoil and suffering."

His voice trembles with barely kept in check emotion. An old man near tears gripping Jim's hands tight enough to nearly be painful as he is threatened to be swallowed up in that grief. To most others, it would look as though Spock had merely found a picture hanging slightly askew and was annoyed but Jim has known the man long enough to categorize each of those subtle changes in his expression.

No wonder Spock feels such intense loneliness. Not only at the loss of his homeworld and the vast majority of his people, but in having a constant reminder of the second home he used to have, brothers and sisters bound not by blood but in duty and love all the same. Having to look upon a young James Kirk who would never share the same love and devotion with this Spock, a constant ache to remind him of what he could never have again.

The pain in his own hands is a small price to pay for what little comfort he can give, his own touch not nearly enough to soothe this kind of pain, but he doesn't hesitate a moment to give it, to give everything he has. He's never seen Spock so distraught, never felt such anguish through the connection they share. The loss of millions, perhaps billions, is such a staggering void for a human alone to contemplate, without even taking into account the network of family bonds that must have been so harshly severed for all the survivors.

"Spock, I'm so sorry."

"It is no one's fault but my own."

No one person can take on that kind of weight in lives, human nor Vulcan. The staggering scope of it all crushes until there's nothing left. Inch by inch, day by day the Ambassador's back bows a bit further underneath it's mass. He can't keep living like this.

"You would have done better." Such conviction in his voice when Spock says so. He loosens the grip of his hands. Murmurs a quiet apology for squeezing too hard.

He does not pull away.

Spock never wants to pull away again.

Even if he had tried, Jim would not have let him. Vulcan propriety or no, he has never been one to resist giving physical comfort through touch, for his own sake as well as Spock's human half, so long neglected until their latter years together in Starfleet, after he'd had to rebuild himself from the blank slate after the fal-tor-pan. Humans need each other, and Spock... Jim has always needed him, and vice versa.

That hasn't changed one bit.

It feels like there is so much still unsaid, so many questions to ask, but Jim can understand why Spock does not volunteer to say any more. The weight of what he's already revealed is a heavy enough blow, his punishing feelings of guilt so clear that even the psiblind human can easily see it. And what's worse, there is nothing that Jim can say or do to make it right, or ease the burden. What's done is long since done, and Spock has been living with this knowledge for all this time already. There's no undoing that.

He can't quite smile at Spock's faith in him, unwavering even after all this time, the seriousness of what he's just been told too severe to respond otherwise. "I'm not sure I would have. I know you, Spock. I don't believe for a moment that your choices weren't the most logical ones you could make. But... I am so sorry I wasn't there for you."

Edited 2017-11-20 03:15 (UTC)

"So many things in this time are different. They're all so young, Jim. Too young to have faced some of the worst we ever did. Starfleet's ranks have been culled because of Nero and worse."

Spock bows his head forward, unable to meet Jim's gaze. His greatest shame he cannot bear to see Jim's reaction to.

"I felt you die, Jim. Your young counterpart. And I knew you had not all those years ago. In that moment. I knew it was different and I had abandoned you."

"What?" Jim is both confused and alarmed by this turn of events. "Spock, you aren't making any sense." If the Jim Kirk of that universe is dead, then who is the Vulcan watching over? A decimated Starfleet, facing some of the worst... just how badly has the timeline been altered?

If the temporal nexus was a gilded cage, then it seems Spock has experienced its exact opposite, some sort of hell almost tailored to him.

There are so many moments where one small choice might have led to his own death, but he can think of only one that led to Spock's. But events can't have repeated themselves that accurately, especially not so much earlier, not with such a large ripple in the pond of time. Could it? "What happened?" he asks, dreading the answer.

"Of all the dangers we and Starfleet have faced...Yes, it is as you fear. The moment my counterpart called me and mentioned Khan's name, I knew the risk of complete annihilation was high. He waged war on Starfleet and on the Enterprise. Wiped out most of the admiralty which was only just reforming itself after the attack that destroyed Vulcan."

The only thing Spock is grateful for in all of this is that he was not present for the attack. Did not have to watch the destruction and the fear on those children's faces. He swallows.

"He made the logical choice necessary to save the ship. The recovery was different from my own. Dr. McCoy saved his life through enough grueling hours of work that I feared he'd collapse. I stayed at his side while he was in hospital. I was determined not to abandon him as I had you."

None of this has been what Jim had expected. Any one of those events alone would have been a major struggle, but all of them combined... it's almost overwhelming. And he is only getting this story second-hand, his imagination filling in the gaps from what he reads on Spock's face, the tight grip on his hands, that quavering note in his voice that speaks volumes of just how bad this has been for him.

Would any of this have happened if he'd been there, as Spock suggested? Did he make a mistake in not choosing a better time to exit the other nexus, given any point in time and space to emerge? Who really abandoned who? Sympathy, guilt, regret. "You're the most loyal man I've ever known."

Spock doesn't know how much longer he can keep walking this path.

Surrounded by the reminders of his failure and the guilt of all those lives lost, isolated in a time he does not belong in. The calls he would get from the young Captain Kirk asking for advice, looking for someone to talk to...they were fulfilling and yet also painful. The Ambassador is tired.

"I have caused you pain, as I knew I would." His words are so quiet now but he finally raises his face to meet Jim's gaze again.

"I apologize for this. That was not my intention."

There is nothing to forgive, but Jim knows damn well just how stubborn Spock is. That hasn’t changed with age, it seems. “You’ve shared your pain, not inflicted it,” he replies, gently squeezing the withered hands held in his own. This simple feeling... “You've helped carry my own burdens as long as I can remember. Whatever I can do, let me help.”

He doesn’t have the first idea what he can do, other than be a listening ear. But perhaps if there’s one path open to him, it’s reassurance. Love. And all that filters through his touch, unconditional and unwavering faith in Spock, no matter his mistakes and his regrets. James Kirk thinks no less of him for anything he did or didn’t do, no matter how he sees fit to punish himself.

"You are here. That is enough."

More than enough.

It is every wish Spock has had since the day James T. Kirk disappeared from the Enterprise-B. That brilliant blue light wrapping his mind in a security blanket of warmth, love, and faith. Shushing his anxieties and turning away his doubts.

This.

He has missed this dearly. Spock gets up then, only retracting his hands when he absolutely has to and carefully removes his cloaks so that he might properly sit and enjoy the tea Jim has brewed for him. Careful to move at least one hand back to his lap in case Jim wants to take it again.

"If I might continue to intrude upon you I would find that agreeable."

Spock need not have been self-conscious, because Jim is just pleased that Spock is warm enough, and comfortable enough, to shed the last vestiges of the shell he's built around himself. For the moment, he's content to sit side by side, one knee brushing up against the Vulcan's, picking up his own tea to drink before their conversation lets it cool too much. Knowing what he does now, he certainly would not want to waste what must surely be a scarce resource these days.

"You're always welcome wherever I am," he replies, and despite the tragic events that Spock has described tonight, he can't deny the feelings of happiness, of things finally being right, that come along with Spock's presence. This apartment may not be much of a home, but maybe it feels a little more like one now, with him there.

"I did not want to presume."

The prim reply is perhaps the first beginnings of humor to have leaked out of this older Vulcan since Jim ran into him. It's certainly a very familiar response from Spock. Pretending to be proper and dignified to cover up being unsure or confused about something yet too proud to admit it.

And they say Vulcans don't have feelings.

The tea is warm and as familiar as the presence sitting next to him. The turmoil is still there in Spock's heart but there exists something else now that hasn't before.

Belonging. Love.

"Where abouts in this place did you come across a shop selling Vulcan spiced tea?"

"Of course," Jim murmurs into his tea, a gentle smile touching at his lips, a familiar response that comes to him as easy as breathing. Letting Spock save face, knowing full well that beneath that seemingly serene Vulcan exterior beats an emotional heart to match his own.

He'd been expecting this question since the moment it truly sank in what had happened to Vulcan. Is it strange to find a piece of a lost world in a place such as this, he wonders, or inevitable? Whatever the case, if he can offer some small comforts of home, he will do that and more. "It's a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place, deep in the markets, called Shom-Sfek." His pronunciation of the Vulcan language is rusty from long disuse, but Spock should be able to easily interpret the meaning. A resting place at the side of the road, meant for only a brief refuge during a long journey.

"They don't have much, but they carry tea and incense," he continues, "and some cooking spices."

"Is it now?"

A Vulcan shop all the way out here? Fascinating. And a travel store, at that. He has to wonder how often the shop is frequented and what sort of journeys it's patrons are on. With so many different worlds at their fingertips it could very well be anywhere or anywhen.

He nods slowly.

"This was once common. Not many federation shops cater to Vulcan cuisine as most species are not strictly vegetarian. They were designed to provide small remnants of home to those travelling off world. As space is something of a premium on ships, it makes sense that their selection would be limited and kept to small items easily packed into one's effects."

Such stores are not common in his time now, for obvious reasons.

"I would like to visit there some time, if you are amenable."

The brief overview is both welcome and familiar, not necessarily in its content so much as the person giving it, as if they were on the Enterprise conducting a briefing about local customs before beaming down for a visit. Jim finds himself smiling as Spock describes the history of such places. Sentimental, yet logical. How... very Vulcan.

"I'm more than amenable," he answers, glad that he can at least offer this one thing. So small, not nearly enough to balance the immense depth of loss that Spock must feel, but a light in darkness is a light nonetheless, and worth kindling. "I haven't had much to do besides explore. Old habits die hard."

"I suspect there is nothing that would keep you from your true nature, Jim."

Nor would Spock wish to keep him from it either. James Tiberius Kirk lives to see sights no one has seen before. To seek out the new and undiscovered. The bar may have to be lowered slightly to account for their age and new surroundings, but there's nothing saying that exploration is no longer a viable hobby.

"Please, tell me about your exploration here." He wants to hear Jim talk. See the man get lost in his own memories and exploits. Watch him light up and come to life when he speaks of things he's passionate about. They have shared enough sadness for now. Better to appreciate their reunion for what it is.

He smiles slightly, a little bittersweet. Yes, you can take James T. Kirk out of Starfleet, but you can't take the Starfleet out of James T. Kirk. He has no ship, no crew, only himself and his own drive to investigate and learn. It's been lonely work, doing it on his own. But there's little else he'd rather be doing.

And now... now he has someone to share the experience with.

"If we'd found this place on our first five-year mission, we could've spent the entire time here and never even scratched the surface. I've lost count of the number of new species I've met just in the last few months alone." He's missed this, sharing his memories and discoveries with Spock as if he'd just come home from a particularly interesting shore leave on a new planet. "I spent a few hours listening to a singing grove of trees about a week ago. Didn't understand a word of it, but they didn't seem to mind, and it was a beautiful performance. I was thinking about bringing them a recording of something from Earth, if I can find something they'd like."

Spock watches Jim's hands move when he starts to talk. Takes in the way the weight that sits on his shoulders lifts when he gets into it and begins to speak more and more animatedly. He's softer than the young man Spock's been looking after. Smiles easier, with less inclination to defend why he likes what he does as though he's got to earn a right to have his own opinions.

They are so very similar and yet...

The Ambassador sets down his now-empty cup before folding his hands back in his lap primly. Doesn't even realize the small smile that's warming his face as he nods along.

Spock has missed this. The one picture he has was never enough. Nothing compared to the man himself sitting next to him brushing Spock's knee with his own to make sure they're touching even when he's got his hands full making those gestures of his.

"I think they would find that a lovely gesture, Jim." So thoughtful and warm with everyone.

Seeing that look on Spock's face makes it all the more worth it, those regal Vulcan features softened ever so slightly by the smile pulling at his lips, the fondness in all-too-human eyes as he watches Jim speak. It's all that he's missed and more, a warmth that even the temporal nexus couldn't or wouldn't fake for him.

This. This is what's real. And it does not compare for one moment to the smothering, all-consuming happiness that the nexus tried to give him. Despite the pain and the sorrow that have made their mark in those aged features, this is home. They're things we carry with us, the things that make us who were are... if we lose them, we lose ourselves. His own words, as true now as they were then.

"Maybe you could come along with me," he suggests, and while he knows damn well that things can never be what they were - never captain and first officer, beaming down once again to explore strange new worlds - that does not mean the road has to come to an end. "Infinite diversity, Spock. That's what this place truly is."

Jim wouldn't mind a doddering old half Vulcan at his side? Such self doubts are illogical of him. Jim would not offer if he did not feel so, and Spock can sense nothing but love and cautious optimism from the bond they share. He takes a long moment to gather his thoughts before offering out his right hand between them for Jim to take once more.

Contentjoybelonginglove--

He sends his emotions through the touch to his t'hy'la and enjoys feeling Jim's mind accept them as it has not been able to in so many years.

"That would be most agreeable." Spock's done his part in rebuilding New Vulcan. The aged Ambassador is no longer of much use to them now. It would be trivially easy to leave there and make a new home for himself here in the Nexus for as long as he has left. "I would need to find a place here of course but once that is accomplished I could accompany you anywhere you liked."

How could he ever mind being in Spock's company, no matter his age? Jim's affections have not changed, except perhaps in that absence makes the heart grow fonder. To find the Vulcan here, of all places... he's never really been one to believe in destiny, or fate. But maybe just this once.

"I'm sure we can find you a place here," he answers, making no attempt to hide the loving smile on his own face, nor through the simple touch of their fingers, sharing in that contentment. It isn't perfect. It never was, and it never will be. But it's theirs.

You Can't Go Home Again [for primelogic]

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