Work Text:
Kirk answered the buzz at his door with a curt "Come," not turning his gaze from the viewscreen. The door slid open... and then the sense of some familiar presence, some warmth in his mind, intensified to conscious awareness. He lifted his head.
Spock was standing there, a large tan case held securely beneath one arm, a questioning look on his face.
Kirk shoved the stack of unscanned tapes next to the terminal with a distinct sigh of relief.
"If you would prefer that I return at a later hour...?"
"No, Spock, I'm glad you came now." He rose and stretched, muscles welcoming the change of position. "You know my opinion on paperwork - even though this is more welcome than most."
Spock glanced at the rows of print filling the screen. "The new duty roster?"
"I'm nearly through all the reassignments, but haven't had the chance to review new personnel. More returned than I thought would."
"Given the relatively small number of ships in Starfleet, that is not unexpected. Most of the crew remain oriented to actual field work, not to star base assignments."
Star base assignments. Kirk flicked the screen off and considered briefly the last three busy, near-empty years. Not totally wasted. He'd learned, at least, what he didn't want. Rather, relearned. What had once seemed clear had clouded toward the end of the five-year mission. Choices no longer clear-cut. The realization of the strength of his dependence upon another had been a blow he had tried to deny. All caused by a certain resignation tape.
Then. Not now. The present was his to shape. (Or permit to shape him.) He indicated the chair on the opposite side of his desk. Spock slid into it gracefully, laying the case flat upon the desk.
"It feels good to be back."
Spock inclined his head. "Yes," he said simply.
"I understand there are several Vulcan crewmembers now," Kirk remarked. A more diversified crew than he had ever commanded before.... Bones must be going crazy with the medical files. "Do you know any of them?"
"Not personally, although T'Chejri and Semoth are highly regarded in their field. As to the other four, I am unacquainted with them beyond the fact that they are members of the smvn'ethxiv clan."
"Have you ever served with other Vulcans before, Spock?" The question was a distillation of all he was curious about and meant not to ask: How will you act when confronted by both sides of your heritage? And, what -- if anything -- will you feel the need to prove? Most important -- what will this mean to us? And, finally: What is your definition of ‘us’?
"No, sir." Their gazes locked. The "sir" was all the answer Kirk needed.
"I'll review their files later." That danger zone, Kirk knew, was only tabled. It would be dealt with, like the files. Later. He smiled. "I suppose you're going to tell me you've caught up with all your paperwork."
The momentary, barely discernable tension in Spock's body eased. "There is yet the correlation of the new inverse-ratio study of the matter/antimatter units that I must familiarize myself with, as well as--" Spock stopped at the sight of the sunny, patient smile on Kirk's face. "No, Captain, I have not."
"What have you got there?" Kirk indicated the case.
For an answer, Spock deactivated the magnetic lock, opened the case, and withdrew a collapsible chess set. "I thought perhaps you might enjoy a game."
"I would. I haven't had much chance to practice lately. You might not find me much of a challenge."
"I have the utmost confidence in your abilities." He assembled the set with long, sure fingers.
Awed, Kirk reached to touch one of the pieces, which was of a slightly different configuration from the rest. Was it seven years ago -- eight? -- when Charlie Evans had melted the original? "The same set?"
Spock nodded, a smile in his eyes.
Kirk settled back in his chair, studying the board. "First move, Spock?" he invited.
Spock's gaze flitted over the tiers. He selected a piece and moved it to a higher level. "Do you find the differences on the Enterprise to your liking, Captain?"
Kirk's gaze shifted from the delicate tracery of the mock battle field to the intent dark eyes opposite him. He made his opening gambit, the familiar feel of the tiny figure bringing a sense of pleasurable nostalgia, the presence of reawakened dreams. "She's a stronger ship, Spock. Better, faster. But there's still something unique about her. Something I recognized the instant I came aboard." He grinned. "Don't tell anyone, but I got lost that first time. They'd moved the turbolift on me." He looked up from where he'd been studying Spock's latest move, surprised to find an understanding half-smile on the other man's lips.
"There have, indeed, been many changes." Spock brought down a rook to an unexpected position. "I have found most to be highly beneficial. Your move, Captain."
Kirk studied the board, making an educated guess on Spock's strategy. He countered with a move of his own. "The first thing I looked for when I began reviewing the records was your file. I wanted to see it in writing -- a Human failing, you understand." One of his pawns became a casualty.
"Human attributes are quite intriguing." One of Spock's rooks left the board in defeat. He contemplated the positioning of the remaining pieces, extrapolated the outcome of several possible sequences of play, and selected an unlikely one. His hand closed around his bishop.
Kirk sat for a moment in surprise at the unorthodox move Spock had just made, then began to chuckle. "I think my methods of playing chess are rubbing off on you."
"I have learned much," Spock admitted, sitting back and waiting for Kirk's next move.
Kirk ignored the chessboard. "I'm glad you decided to stay."
"I'm glad I have reason to."
Kirk felt a warm glow at the Human choice of words Spock had made. "We haven't really talked about this." He leaned forward, attention no longer on the game, but on the man beyond it. "There's a lot that hasn't been said. There's a lot that needs to be. I have... sensed... something I can't describe well. I don't think there are any Human words for it. There is a mental link between us." It was no question.
Spock bowed his head. "It is why I left the ship."
"I know that now." He paused, searching out and finding the minimal trace of Spock's presence in his mind. How easy to recognize, now that he understood what he was looking for. "This is something beyond my experience."
"I did not want you to feel an... obligation... to me for a matter in which you were given no choice," Spock said, too quickly. "I did not want you to be... forced... into a situation you might find distasteful. I knew there would come a time when I would... need... you. It was this I sought to avoid."
"By leaving."
"Distance has proven an acceptable way of weakening a bond. The studies I undertook at Gol were for the intention of severing it entirely."
"I do understand, Spock." Kirk's hazel eyes were darkened with remembered conflicts. "I don't know when it changed -- when I began to want more from you than friendship. What I felt surprised me at first. We all find a certain pattern for our lives, and follow it.... It was a shock to find my own assumptions were -- not wrong, just inadequate. But I did not know how to approach you -- wasn't even sure I should. Vulcan reticence on certain matters...." He shrugged. "I thought our friendship was too valuable to test in that manner. And I was afraid that, even if you did agree, it would be out of some sense of duty -- and not because you wanted it as well."
"It was indeed presumptuous of me to deny the link." Spock's gaze was level with Kirk's own. The dark eyes were unguarded, and what Kirk saw there made him proud, humble, and deliriously excited all at once. "The link could not have been formed if it had been my feeling alone," Spock continued. "Forgive me if I do not have the proper words to express myself." A small smile touched his lips. "I once thought if I remained ignorant of Human terms for emotion, I would remain ignorant of their reality." ...but it is illogical to deny reality, Jim....
"You... didn't speak that last." There was wonder in Kirk's face.
"It is the link. You can perceive its strength."
Kirk remembered that occasion on Earth, just before the V'ger mission, when he had sensed Spock's thoughts from light-years away; remembered also that it had been years since Spock had last melded with him, in some emergency on some planet, a means to an end, a tool for their rescue.
"This is most unusual, Jim," Spock was going on. "Almost unheard of, without any formal bonding meld."
"I sensed your thoughts before. When you were on Vulcan."
"And I yours. When you were on Earth."
"This sharing of thoughts…. I never thought to ask before." Never thought about a lot of things, Kirk, for better or worse. "What is its meaning for Vulcans?"
"It is prized as the most complete, the purest form of communication."
"How often does this type of link occur?"
"A link this deep and enduring... even after separation, distance.... In most cases, it develops after the initiation of the marriage bond." Something shy, reticent, showed in Spock's ascetic features, and a faint tinge of green warmed his skin as he continued, "But it rarely reaches this level of intensity until after the first shared pon farr. The majority of the other occurrences of such a bond, though qualitatively different, are between close kin: parent to child; brothers; sisters; cousins. It serves as a means of unifying the clan. Most kin are first introduced to each other with a light mindmeld, so that we may know our common heritage."
"How often does something spontaneous occur?"
"It is quite rare, but not entirely unknown. I have had other personal experience of it."
It took Kirk a moment to realize. "Stonn and T'Pring."
Spock nodded.
"I hated her for hurting you."
"It would have been worse had I accepted her. She closed her mind to me. She would have none of me. I sensed... you would call it contempt." He paused, and Kirk remembered to breathe out again, to share and relieve the unexpressed pain. "I am grateful now that she chose the Challenge, although it has caused me some difficulties. It is rare to be fully adult and unbonded, and to remain that way for any extended length of time. Another difference in me from my people." The brief sensation Kirk caught along the link, before that thread of communication was cut back, was of a long-held, enduring pain. Spock's hands moved abruptly to a meditative position.
Kirk slid the chess set to one side and reached further over. After a moment, Spock unsteepled his fingers and rested his hands on the surface of the desk, inches away from Kirk's.
"My heritage is yours as well," Kirk offered. Not the time... not just yet....
Spock nodded. "Perhaps I would have been better occupied with the study of Humanity the last three years."
"If you had stayed on Vulcan, completed your training -- what would have happened afterward?" …the image of T'Pring (impossible/inhuman) replaced by the image of himself (IMPOSSIBLE/unVulcan) replaced by…?
The face and name were instantly in Kirk's mind. Ice-cold beauty, and a deep and abiding calm behind the dark eyes, so perfect, so ordered that no hint of fire could ever intrude. T'Vel.
The images flickered down, dispelled in patches until there was nothing to interfere with Spock's soft words. "A bondmate had already been selected for me."
Kirk was surprised by a sudden, irrational stab of jealousy. It obviously hadn't happened that way; he had more than enough memories himself… Lori; Spock was here with him, and they were about to....
"What happened?"
"She was an initiate. Our bonding was contingent upon my completion of the training."
"I'm sorry you had to go through all that."
Spock smiled. "You have often said that goals must be striven for, that nothing which comes easily is worthwhile."
"It hasn't been easy for either of us -- admitting what we need."
"No. We have indeed worked at cross purposes. I thought I understood you perfectly. I did not." There was a faint sheen of pain in his eyes. "Had I truly understood you, I would not have left."
"It doesn't matter. You're here now," Kirk said quickly, knowing the impossibility of erasing three years with a few words, sounds hovering at the edge of a bypassed vacuum.
"It is far past the time I admitted the truth to myself." The long fingers knotted together. "I have." His voice was near silence, near drowned by the background hum of the Enterprise's engines. "It was an easier task than this."
"It frightens you?" Kirk said, his own stomach clenched, heart racing....why so hard, Spock? We both know what we want...
Spock inclined his head, but Kirk wasn't sure if it was in answer to his words, or to the unspoken thoughts accompanying them.
"Commitments always are," Kirk said. He knew as well as any. "But there is nothing more rewarding."
"It would be foolish to avoid something of value."
"'Indeed,'" Kirk said, and was rewarded by a smile.
It was Spock who reached toward him across the desk, barely grazing his fingertips with his first and second fingers. The tiny contact sent a thrill all out of proportion through Kirk; he drew in a quick breath.
"I am sure of this, Spock." The eyes regarding him so closely were huge in the semidarkness. "I know that you are, too."
"You are that part of me I never knew I needed. How could our desires be different?" …and how long have I, illogically, denied this?
...that is the past.... "T'hy'la," Kirk said, his pronunciation flawless.
"I can say the words." There was a defiant wonder in Spock's face. "It is a good thing, after all. Jim… I love you."
The words, like some energy field, warm and special and protective, surrounded them. For an instant Kirk, caught up in the reverberations and echoes in his soul, didn't realize Spock had not stopped speaking. Then the words assumed form again and made more sense than anything he had ever heard. ·
"You have given me the meaning of an alien word. You have taught me to acknowledge what I am and be unashamed. And beyond that" -- joy lit in the dark eyes -- "proud of what I feel. I love you. I can love you. I do love you." The defiance was gone. The wonder, complete.
Their hands closed together. The last impediment dropped. Without a word they rose, each moving past the barrier of the desk until only the space of its width separated them.
Spock took one glance at the chess game, then turned his gaze back to Kirk. We didn't finish.
Doesn't matter. They stepped together; Kirk seeking, finding his lips; Spock's hand settling over his temples. We both won.