Fic: Two Summers, 2-15
Grief leaves him resigned. It leaves him exhausted. It leaves his mind going in tired circles over tired questions that he knows no one has the answer to. Things like what is the point. What the fuck is the point.
What is the point of this disciplinary hearing they’re going through because some engineer switched up the circuitry for the control panels. Does it matter if he did it with malicious intent. Does it matter if they came two seconds close to blowing themselves up. Why the fuck does it all matter. The ceremony, the procedure, the evidence Scotty’s putting up, the jargon Chekov’s babbling, the security feeds Sulu’s showing. He’ll make a decision, engineer will be charged with whatever he’s being charged with, Uhura’ll notify Starfleet’s legal department, the Enterprise keeps flying. Bones keeps giving him worried looks. Jim ignores him.
Because what the fuck is the point.
He’s been upholding his duty because there was nothing left to keep him together. He’s been doing his best as captain because that’s nothing less than the crew deserves, and it feels like a desecration to the memory of Spock to do a half-assed job. But some days, he just doesn’t want to deal with it. Doesn’t care about the consequences. Knows it’s unfair to the people serving under him but he can’t muster enough energy to give two shits about it. Because Spock isn’t there. Spock isn’t there.
He feels like he should be used to this knowledge, but it washes over him again and leaves him feeling numb. Not the kind of suppressing the crap out of his emotions kind of numb, but the numbness where there’s really nothing left. No sadness, no rage, no thought, no feeling. Nothing. No denial about the fact that Spock’s dead, no bitterness about the unfairness of it. Simply nothing. Suddenly he feels like there’s no use for emotions because what difference does it make. What difference does it make.
What difference does it make whether he decides to take an engineer to task for endangering their lives-what difference does it make whether he wins or loses a firefight-what’s the point of gaining all these battlefield decorations-why should he care about efficiency ratings of his crew-what does it matter that they’re all falling apart at the seams in one way or another-why should he care about developments between Orions and Cardassians on the Septillian border-why should he care? In some ways it seems like this phase of his grief-why is he keeping track of the phases-should’ve come earlier, like it should’ve hit him faster that he feels like there’s no point to anything he does now that Spock’s gone. But Jim was too busy trying to survive the grief and reclaim something of his life, try and return to some sense of normalcy or piece together the shattered parts, and now he finds his energy is gone. Grief’s sapped everything from him. Happiness, hope, sorrow, frustration. Annoyance, anxiety, exasperation, triumph. What is the point.
And there is no answer.
He asks Spock, the one he’s constructed in his head. The one whose voice he simulates in his mind because he can’t carry this alone. He needs someone, and that someone needs to be Spock, even if it’s Spock’s death he’s pushing through. He feels like he’s stuck in mud and he’s been trying to get out of the pit for so long but the only place he’s going is down deeper and the only thing that’s been accomplished is wasted energy. Why did he try to get out in the first place when the end result will be the same-and probably quicker, not so excruciatingly drawn out. But the Spock who was alive and the Spock in his head-they’re the same now, and Jim hates that fact-Spock would be there telling Jim to hang on, telling Jim what to do in that calm, rational manner, telling Jim that Spock expects him to stay alive, and not give up.
Sometimes he remembers missions when the only reason why Jim felt like he bothered to stay was because he knew Spock was coordinating rescue operations for him. Jim didn’t want to let Spock down. Sometimes in his nightmares he dreamed that he’d died and Spock was reaching for him on the transporter pad and when he realized that Jim wasn’t there, was gone, dead and silent and beyond his reach, his face shattered and heart exploded in pain. Jim’d wake up from those dreams sweating, chest aching, and every single time the first thing he’d do was feel the presence of Spock under his hands. In the darkness, Spock would submit to that touch because he knew how much Jim needed it, Spock would watch him with dark eyes and sit up to kiss Jim’s eyebrows and whisper meaningless Vulcan words as he ran his fingers through Jim’s hair. They never talked about it-Jim never wanted to talk about it, never brought it up in the light of day as though it could never be realized if he never spoke of it when he could see Spock’s face. In the darkness it was something else. In the darkness he could tell his wordless fears to Spock, touching him and letting bare skin and the sound of Spock’s breathing become his only reality.
Spock’s dead. The only reality Jim has is the cold darkness of his quarters and it used to terrify him, it used to comfort him, because he could pretend, because he could not pretend. Now, he doesn’t know what the point of it all was. Why is he talking to a dead Spock in his head when Spock is dead. Why is he trying at all. Why does he care.
And Spock tells him that James Tiberius Kirk cares because there are other people to whom he has a responsibility, there are other people who he cares about and who care about him. That even when he can’t muster the emotional energy, somehow he gets through the shifts and does his duty because he is not capable of giving any less. It’s who he is. Grief has stripped him down to the bare bones of his character and he’s finding out exactly what kind of man he is, what kind of material he’s made of. James Tiberius Kirk is made of brilliance and arrogance and trauma, he’s made of homelessness and hopelessness and choices. The choice of his father to die for his mother, of his mother to live for her sons, of Bones to stick to him faster than burr, of Spock to join the Enterprise as first officer-of Spock to love him and name him t’hy’la.
But you’re dead. You’re dead. None of that matters anymore.
It matters because death does not undo the choices that were made. Death ended their relationship, but it never ended the fact that Jim Kirk survived Nero’s attacks, saved the world, became captain, fell in love. It matters because he needs to distinguish between the things that death touches and the things that death cannot take away.
But what about us? What happens to us? You’re dead-that changes us completely. We’re not anymore. We’re not. You’re dead and we’re left with me, and I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep trying anymore. You took everything we had when you died and I can’t do this anymore. I want to do this anymore. I don’t care anymore. What’s the point. What’s the point.
What happens to us, Jim, are two summers. Two summers, and you will not have answers, but it will be enough. Time passes. Wait two summers, Jim, and you will know what we are.
I can’t wait that long. I don’t know what two summers are anymore. I don’t know what I am without you, I don’t know why I’m still standing, why I didn’t follow you into the dark. I don’t know why I’m still standing in the light and why I’m talking to you in my head when you don’t exist. Spock, you don’t exist. Why does it matter anymore, two summers or fifteen summers. Give me a reason why.
You already know my answer to that.
Give me a reason why.
Jim, you know there is no reason I can give you. The only reason why you continue is because you create one, independently of whatever others may do or say. This has always been your way, and you would not accept any reason that I offered.
Give me a reason why, Spock. I don’t know anymore. It’s not enough. It’s not enough for me to remember, it’s not enough for life to exist. It’s not enough anymore.
It has always been enough, Jim, and it always will be. Your question is analogous to asking me why I love you.
Loved. Past tense. You’re not here.
Love. Present tense. You protest that this is not correct because I am no longer alive, but I assert that love does transcend the boundaries of life and death. So long as our love is remembered, it lives.
Fuck you. Fuck you. That’s bullshit. Memory isn’t life. I’ve been breathing all these fucking memories and it’s not life. It’s nothing compared to what we had. Nothing.
But Jim, life is binary. One is either alive or dead-biologically speaking there is no state in between. Granted, we can certainly disagree on the quality of that life, we might assert that a creature in a vegetative state is as good as dead, but that is altogether different from the question of life and death.
I’m not going to settle for a life of reminiscing, Spock.
I was not suggesting that you do so. I am simply saying that our love is strong enough that the memory will sustain you for the duration of two summers. After two summers, you will find your situation changed.
What if I don’t want that change. I don’t want that change.
If you had not wanted that change, you would not have chosen grief.
I didn’t choose this. No one would ever choose this.
Life is binary, Jim. Given the choice between life and death, you chose to live-and so you chose to grieve.
I thought you always said I had a third option.
Your third option lies in the quality of life you decided to pursue. Some never let go of death-it defines them and hangs over them as they are living. You chose to live-and so you chose to grieve.
You already said that. I hate it when you repeat yourself. If you don’t have a better argument, just admit you’re wrong.
I am never wrong, and that is my best argument. It is insuperable, as evinced by the fact that you could not provide an adequate counterargument. Furthermore, it bore repeating because you seldom understand my point the first time I state it.
He laughs. For two seconds, it feels like Spock’s there again. Alive. Maybe in body, maybe in memory. Jim doesn’t care about the difference for two seconds. The feeling fades fast. Leaves him drained, empty. With that question still gnawing at him-why. He doesn’t even know what the question’s about anymore, only that it’s “why.”
I miss you.
This will pass, Jim.
I miss you.
Two summers.
I don’t want two summers. I miss you.
You chose to live, Jim.
I don’t have to keep choosing. I could stop.
You won’t.
How do you know, Spock? How the fuck do you know?
He’s so fucking tired. Resigned that the best answer he’ll get isn’t from Spock, but from his imagination of who Spock was. This whole conversation in his mind is crazy and completely made up. He doesn’t care. Jim feels his body uncoil and sink into the mattress. Feels his mind drifting to oblivion. Has some absent thought about how Spock’s always right, always was and always will be, even in death, even in memory.
How do you know, Spock? How do you know?
Vague recollections of Spock’s dark eyes and fingers running through his hair, steadying his heartbeat, kissing his pulse. Of skin enclosing him, of body and heat and breath becoming his only reality, in the darkness, chasing away his fears.
How do you know, Spock? Why?
Memories of Spock smiling, whispering, dark eyes and sharp joints, soft touches and a kiss.
Because
Because, he was saying, in Vulcan, almost inaudible, that incomprehensible pre-Surak variant that no one but people like Spock ever knew or bothered to study. Because, he was saying, and in that word seemed to be emptiness of meaning, waiting for completion, for a subordinate clause, for a reason.
How do you know, Spock. How will I know?
Because
And he never heard the rest, he’d fall asleep like a stone, nestled in Spock’s body, feeling all the emotions drain away like muddy water and nightmares, like desert heat and binary, the passage of time counted by circadian rhythms, circadian rhythms irrelevant by exhaustion, exhaustion marking seasons between summers.
But life is binary-you remember or you don’t, and deep inside him, he feels the words
Because
(I love you)