fic: "Still Life" (Star Trek XI, K/S, pg13, pt 1/3)
Title: Still Life (pt. 1/3)
Rating: pg13
Wordcount: ~10,000 / 31,203
Warnings: major character death and all the baggage that comes with it
Disclaimer: don't own, etc.
Summary: Jim has died and Spock struggles to learn how to live without him.
A/N: written for ksrelativity . My prompt was: New Vulcan, notebook, birthday, fireworks.
Jim had been gone for four months when remaining at their home in New Vulcan became more than Spock could bear. The house was all but a prison, with every corner filled with lingering memories of him, and try as he might Spock could not stop the tightness in his chest and the dull ache of the severed bond with each reminder. The bond was more than enough to keep him constantly aware of his bondmate's absence - he didn't need the physical reminders. He would never forget.
They had built their lives on New Vulcan when they had retired from Starfleet. But now - now, he was alone, and he did not know how to be alone on New Vulcan.
So, quietly, he packed up his possessions into four boxes, packed a few of Jim's things he couldn't bear to leave behind into another two boxes, and announced to the New Vulcan Science Academy that he was retiring and leaving New Vulcan. He expected to be met with opposition - but all that answered him were words of understanding, condolences, and glances full of pity. He did not know whether to be grateful or furious - so he was neither. Like that it was done, and he had his belongings sent ahead on a cargo ship before catching the next shuttle to Earth.
When he arrived in San Francisco after a long and uneventful shuttle trip, there was no one to greet him. He had secured a small apartment, courtesy of Starfleet's Veteran Department, before his departure, and his belongings were waiting for him there. He hailed a taxi and spoke for the first time since boarding the shuttle.
“Quiet Creek Apartments, please.”
“Confirmed,” the computer murmured back at him.
He arrived at his new apartment and for a long moment stood in the middle of the room that the door opened into. The six boxes were stacked neatly in a corner. The apartment had only the most basic of furnishings and the walls and the carpet were a stark white that made the room seem much brighter than it really was. Spock stood there for two minutes and eight seconds before moving towards the boxes. He pulled the ones labeled “Spock” to the center of the room. The ones labeled “Jim” he left where they were.
When all of his belongings were unpacked and put in their place, Spock sat down at the chair by the window, through which he could see tall buildings rising up against a sky turned pink and orange with the sunset. Jim's boxes remained untouched.
He was alone.
* * *
Of the original command crew of the Enterprise, only Nyota Uhura, Pavel Chekov, and himself were still alive. Spock knew he would outlive the human crew by far, but it still was not a pleasant thought that most of the few friends he had from his time in Starfleet were dead.
For two days he puttered about his apartment with little productive activities to partake in. It was late October on Earth and the weather was beginning to cool, the infamous San Francisco fog greeting him in the mornings and lingering for much of the day. For Spock, it was easier to stay indoors than bundle up and brave the cold outside. It had been a very long time since he had had to deal with weather cooler than that on New Vulcan. And, after all, what would he even do outdoors?
On the second day he received a call from Uhura herself, as if she had known somehow that he had been thinking of her.
“I've heard you're in San Francisco,” she said, smiling at him from his computer screen. If he looked hard enough he could still see her soft, pretty features hidden behind wrinkled skin and gray hair.
“I am,” he replied, his voice gravelly with disuse.
“I don't suppose you could make a trip out to Africa for me?” she teased, still smiling. “You do owe me a visit, after all.”
“Certainly,” he answered, and that was how he ended up packing to leave again after two days in his apartment. He packed most of his belongings back into the boxes labeled “Spock”. He stood looking at the boxes labeled “Jim” for a long time, then finally decided to send them along as well. Only one box stayed at the apartment - five went with him, for he would be in Africa for at least a month.
He was grateful for the excuse and for the chance of company. He did not know how to be alone anymore.
When he told the landlord that he would be leaving for an indefinite amount of time, the Human looked very obviously surprised, but told him it was no problem, no problem at all, so long as he continued to pay rent. The landlord was fair of hair and skin and when he smiled his blue eyes crinkled in the corners, very much like Jim.
He boarded another shuttle, but this time the shuttle ride was just a few hours instead of two days. When he arrived in Africa, Nyota was there to meet him, looking small and fragile against the hustle and bustle of the shuttle bay, but she smiled brightly when she saw him. He walked up to her and she touched his arm.
“Oh, Spock,” she said. “It's so good to see you.”
“Likewise,” he replied. “I am pleased to see you are well.”
“Are you ready to go?” she asked, and he nodded once, then they set out. She walked much slower than he did, but he did not mind keeping pace with her, and thankfully they only had to walk out into the parking lot where Nyota's grandson was waiting for them in a hovercar.
“Mr. Spock,” the man said simply in greeting, and Spock nodded at him. He was rather fond of Nyota's grandson, whose name was Ikinya, because his mannerisms were very Vulcanesque - he was quiet and serious and thoughtful, never speaking more than he needed to.
“We're so glad to have you. It's been years since anyone's used the guest room. We cleaned it all up for you, though, of course,” Nyota said. “I think I'm most happy to see you, though. It gets tiring having to live with my children and their children and their children's children! The young all move so fast, and things are always so busy. It's hard to keep up. It'll be a nice change to have someone around going the same pace as me for once.”
“I am gratified to be here,” Spock said simply in reply, and she smiled at him.
When they arrived at Nyota's family's home, Ikinya opened the hovercar doors for Nyota and Spock and took Spock's suitcase out from the trunk, carrying it for him.
“Come, we'll show you to the guest room,” Nyota said as she led him into the house, but it was very slow progress as the entire household had to stop and greet him as they went, from Nyota's eldest son to her small great-grandchildren who were running merrily about with their toys. Many of them recognized Spock by sight and even those who did not still knew who he was, and they were all pleased to see him and anxious to tell him so. He greeted each of them politely with Nyota smiling fondly at the exchange before they could move on another ten feet before being greeted by someone else. It was indeed a very busy household.
Finally they made it to the guest room, which was on the third floor of the house. Ikinya, who had barreled right through the house ahead of them, had set down Spock's suitcase in front of the door, and so he picked it up and carried it into the room, Nyota following him. He glanced about, first searching for the boxes he had sent ahead before absorbing any other details of the room. The boxes were stacked neatly in the corner and showed no signs of having been opened or disturbed, which was a relief. It was not that he was suspicious of Nyota's family, but the boxes were his most precious physical belongings.
“I'll leave you to settle in,” Nyota said softly, touching his arm. “Dinner will be in an hour or so.” Spock simply nodded, and quietly Nyota left the room.
She had said nothing of Jim but it was painfully obvious to Spock that she knew that the only reason he was here was because he could not yet be alone. Her soft words and looks and everything that she meant to comfort him with made him equal parts grateful and ashamed.
He did not know what to do first, so he simply sat down in the single chair in the room and studied his surroundings. The chair he sat in was upholstered in a green and brown patterned fabric and was in the corner furthest from the door, turned to face the window. The bed, which was in a matching print, was pushed up against the opposite wall, a small bedside table stood between his chair and the bed, and across from his chair there was a small desk, and across from the bed there was a holoscreen set up on the wall. The boxes with his belongings were stacked next to the holoscreen.
He sat and looked at the boxes for a little while before finally standing back up and unpacking them.
He placed his clothes in the closet, his toiletries in the bathroom, and left the other miscellaneous items in their boxes. The boxes at the bottom of the stack were labeled “Jim”. For a moment he just looked at them, uncertain, then he reached for one and carefully opened it.
Inside this box there were several small cases containing the many medals and certificates Jim had earned throughout his time in Starfleet, plus the smaller awards he had been given after he had left Starfleet and had taught at the University of New Vulcan (because the New Vulcan Science Academy did not allow non-Vulcans to serve as faculty, even non-Vulcans who were Jim Kirk). Spock glanced over each of them, remembering each award ceremony where they had been bestowed. The Badge of Honor from when he had defeated the Narada and saved the Earth, the Award of Diplomatic Excellence which was given to him after he successfully negotiated a ceasefire treaty with the Romulans which was integral in ending the Two-Year War, the Purple Heart he received after nearly losing his leg in a battle against a Klingon armada (he never quite walked the same after that). Spock could name all of them. He looked over them, a soft sigh escaped his lungs, and then he closed that box, put it aside, and pulled up the other.
This one he hesitated over before opening, but finally he pulled it open. It was a rather large box, approximately four times the size of the box that had held Jim's various medals and awards. Inside of it was a stack of notebooks, in two rows with the faces up. They had been placed in the box according to size, so he could only see the smallest of them on the top row; the largest ones were at the bottom of the box, though they were all relatively small. Though he could not see them all, he knew that there were eighty-two notebooks in the box. Spock looked at them, and reminisced.
When he and Jim first began courting, Jim had showed him a small bookshelf he had in his quarters that housed seventeen such notebooks. He had begun keeping a journal at the age of eight, he explained, and had never stopped. When he had shown him the journals, Jim gave Spock one and only one rule about the journals: if he wished to, he could read only completed journals, not the one Jim was currently writing in, as long as he asked first. That was all.
Spock had never read them. He had never felt a need to - and after they were bonded, they could not have told him anything he did not already know.
“I don't know why I write in them,” Jim had said, looking over at the bookshelf that housed them. “I just do. I don't think I could stop if I tried.” Then he had looked over at Spock and laughed a bit. “I guess they'll make pretty decent historical artifacts in a hundred years or so, since I'm a hero now and all.”
Spock looked at the eighty-two journals stacked neatly according to size in the box, and thought about how all that remained of his t'hy'la's life and legacy was sitting in front of him, simply ink that would fade on paper that would deteriorate - and thought how these fragile elements had outlasted the man himself.
* * *
The pleasant thing about Africa was that it was warm, and therefore much closer to the New Vulcan climate Spock was used to than San Francisco had been. Even in the morning hours, when it was relatively cool, Spock only needed to put a light robe on over his clothing to feel comfortable before stepping outside for a walk. He was not so old yet that he did not benefit from daily exercise.
He walked around the quiet suburban neighborhood where Nyota's family lived, thinking and remembering.
The last time Spock had been in Africa was twelve years ago when Jim had wanted to visit their friends on Earth. Their visit to Earth previous to that one had been for Dr. McCoy's funeral, so Jim declared he wanted a “happy” trip that time around. He had not yet been hoverchair-bound when they had made that visit, and on the first day of their trip they had gone to see Nyota and Scotty in Africa, where they stayed for a week, then to San Francisco to see Chekov and Sulu.
Their visit to Africa had been pleasant, though Jim complained often of the heat, and he had wanted to go on a “safari”, which they did, and Jim had been quite impressed with the lions and giraffes and said he was sad there weren't any African elephants, which had gone extinct in his youth. Jim and Scotty were both old for Humans and so Spock often had to slow his pace to walk with them, or take breaks for them to catch their breath, or cut outings short because they were tired or aching, and he had tried very hard not to let it bother him but at one point towards the end of their Africa visit he had gotten rather frustrated with Jim because he had wanted to go for a walk but was having to stop to catch his breath approximately every four point three minutes.
“I do not understand why you wished to walk about when it is such a difficulty for you,” Spock had finally snapped after they had stopped for the sixth time.
“I just wanted to be outdoors,” Jim replied defensively. “I'm sorry I can't keep up with you. But you knew it would be like this.”
“I wish it were not,” Spock said, and Jim did not reply. His only response was a deep melancholy sinking through their bond, and immediately Spock regretted having said anything at all.
They had made their way slowly back to their hotel in silence. Jim settled quietly into a chair in front of the holoscreen and Spock went to the small kitchenette to replicate a small dinner and when he went back to the front room the holoscreen was still turned off and Jim was sitting there with tears leaking out of his eyes. Spock quickly forgot about the food and went to kneel in front of Jim, taking his gnarled wrinkled hands into his own.
“I am sorry,” he had said fervently. “I am sorry for what I said, t'hy'la. You know I did not mean anything, you know I love you. I love you.”
“It's not that,” Jim said between sniffles, his voice hoarse and gravelly. “It's - It's just - Spock, I'm old and I'm dying and you - you've still got so much life to live and I don't and - I'm sorry, Spock. I'm sorry.” His fingers had curled around Spock's as his voice broke and his sniffles turned into quiet sobs and Spock felt his heart clench and his eyes sting.
“Do not be sorry,” he said. “Jim. T'hy'la. Do not ever be sorry. I would not trade you for anyone, I would not trade our lives together for anything. Do not be sorry for being my t'hy'la.” He pulled Jim closer to him and the Human pressed his face into Spock's shoulder.
They stayed this way for a long time - Spock did not keep track of just how long. But even when his knees began to protest in pain he did not move and just held Jim close, saying nothing, projecting only a sense of calmness and love and devotion through the bond, and after a while Jim's tears turned into sniffles, then into hiccups, then he pulled away and managed a weary smile at Spock.
“Human emotionalism at its finest for you, there,” he murmured wryly, and Spock gently squeezed his hand and kissed him before they both went back to the kitchen to replicate another meal, for the food Spock had replicated had long since gone cold.
“Spock!” Nyota called, breaking him from his thoughts. He looked up and realized he had made his way through the neighborhood and back to Nyota's home, and he was now standing in the front yard and staring vacantly at the various plants in the yard. “There you are. You're back just in time. Breakfast is ready if you're interested.”
“I will be inside shortly,” Spock replied, a medium-sized flowering plant near him catching his eye.
“All right. I'll make sure a place at the table is set for you,” Nyota said, but he hardly heard her. When he had last been in Africa, Jim had stood in front of this plant, gripping one of the flowers between two fingers as he studied it.
“It's lovely,” he had said. “Look at the color, Spock. Nyota, can we get a few clippings of this? Do you think we could get it to grow in the yard, Spock?”
“Possibly,” he had said, and they had brought a few buds of the plant back to New Vulcan with them but they had died.
He stared at the plant a moment longer, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it the way Jim had, before turning and walking up to Nyota who was still standing in the doorway watching him. She touched his arm softly when he reached her, and they walked into the house together.
* * *
For a normal Vulcan, meditation involved emptying the mind sufficiently enough that the subconscious could be sorted through and processed, similar to the way Humans processed their subconscious in their sleep, but with conscious control of how the contents of the subconscious were sorted. For the vast majority of Spock's life he had meditated in the same way as any other Vulcan - the thought of meditation was inseparable from the thought of mental silence and emptiness followed by careful sorting and consideration.
But since Jim had been gone, meditation had become less of Spock emptying his mind and more of him remembering. Instead of focusing on nothing he remembered as hard as he could, until the memory seemed almost real, until he could describe the feel of the clothes (or lack thereof) he was wearing on his skin, the scents in the air, the ambient sounds around them, just as accurately as if he were really there, as if the memory was really happening. It was the closest thing he had to Jim anymore.
The only thing keeping it from being completely and truly realistic was the bond that still cried out for its other half, wounded and alone.
As counter-intuitive as it seemed, meditation came a little easier when he was remembering. Most of what his subconscious was dredging up had to do with Jim anyway, which he suspected had something to do with it, but he could not explain why it was so. He found he did not wish to explain it.
He had been with Nyota for four days when he rose out of meditation with the memory of the day Jim had shown him his journals fresh in his mind. He could still almost hear the background hum of the Enterprise's engines in Jim's quarters.
Jim had grinned sheepishly as he had explained his journals to Spock. A slight embarrassed flush had risen in his face, casting his cheeks with a ruddy hue that gave Spock a strange but not unpleasant sensation in his abdomen.
Now, as he opened his eyes in the middle of Nyota's guest room, he looked over at the box with all eighty-two of Jim's journals and stared, pondering, at them for a long while.
He had never read the journals because he had never needed to. But now Jim was gone, and the journals were all he had left behind. He had never read them, but perhaps, he thought, perhaps now was the time to finally do so.
After only a moment more of uncertainty, Spock stood slowly and reached for the box, opening it carefully. The notebooks were still stacked inside just as untouched as they had been the last time he had looked at them. It took a moment before he could muster the courage to reach into the box and begin pulling them out.
He handled them gingerly as he took them out of the box and placed them on the floor, grouping them together by roughly how old they appeared to be. When they were all out of the box, all eighty-two of them, he looked upon the journals grouped in neat stacks around him and allowed himself only a moment to feel melancholy before going about sorting them by date, so that they went in perfect chronological order.
This was made relatively easy because Jim had dated almost every entry, and most journals had a starting date and an ending date written in the front page. He placed them in chronological order in the small bookshelf he had emptied (the bookshelf had, in his defense, contained very few actual books, all of which were easily relocated to other shelves or into the closet, and the other decorative paraphernalia on the bookshelf was also easy to place elsewhere), with the oldest journals starting in the upper left hand corner, ending with the most recent halfway through the third shelf.
When his handiwork was done, he straightened up and looked at the bookshelf for a long moment, then reached for the first journal and carefully, reverently opened it.
He did not start reading it right away, but instead leafed through a few pages, simply glancing at them and catching a few words as he carefully flipped through the pages, previewing it. From what he could see, almost every entry started with “Dear Journal”. This was usually followed by something along the lines of “Hi, it's Jimmy again.”
Spock had glanced through approximately half of the journal before turning back to the beginning and reading the first entry.
“Dear Journal,” the journal began. “Mom sent me this notebook because she thinks I talk too much. She told me to start writting my thoughts down insted of saying them out loud. I think it bugs her. I think she is a little bit crazy but I will do it anyway. Anyways so my name is Jimmy and I am 8 yrs old and I am the smartest kid in my class. I have a mom and a brother but not a dad and there is Frank who mom is gonna marry but hes not my dad. I also have some friends at school their names are Jake, Citlali, Brenton and Hanna. I have blond hair and blue eyes and I am not the shortest kid in my class but Iam not tallest either. Anyways that is all for now. Bye Journal. Sinceerly, Jimmy”.
Spock sighed softly and turned the page.
“Dear Journal, hi, it's Jimmy. Today was a Thursday so I had to go to school. School is ok. Its kind of boring most of the time because I already know half the stuff we learn. My teacher Miss Cruz yells at me alot because I dont pay attention very much. But I am still the smartest kid in the class. Today when I got home I did my homework real fast so that I could play shooting games with Sam before he went to soccer practice. Mom is off planet so Frank had to look after me when Sam left. I dont like Frank very much and I dont think he likes me either. But hes not my dad so I dont care. He made spagetty for dinner but I am allergic to tomatos so I had to eat mine without any sauce because Frank forgot I am allergic. If I hadnt reminded him he woulda made me eat it and then I would have an allergic reaction and have to go to the hospital and probably die. I think Frank is stupider than half the kids in my class which is saying a lot because Taylor is in my class and he is the stupidest kid I have ever met. Anyway Im gonna go to bed now. Bye Journal. Sinceerly, Jimmy”.
The childlike accounts of a young Jim's daily life were more amusing than comforting, as Jim had been a rather precocious child, to put it lightly, and for Spock, reading about Jim's life long before he had entered it was surreal at best. But even so, he could still recognize Jim's sharp wit and often scathing sense of humor even in the early entries written in the messy scrawl of an eight-year-old boy. A tiny smile brought a slight crinkle to the corners of Spock's eyes and he looked fondly at the journal entries before moving on to the next page.
* * *
Spock and Jim had decided, even before they were bonded, that they would never have children.
At the time it had been the logical choice - and throughout their lives it had remained the most logical choice to make, for a myriad of reasons. A starship was no place to raise a child. Neither wanted to sacrifice their careers to start a family. And because they were both men incapable of carrying children, as well as Spock's infertility caused by his own mixed heritage, any child they had through a surrogate would be Jim and someone else's child, not Jim and Spock's. They considered adopting a Vulcan child for a brief period of time, as many Vulcan children still remained orphans years after the Narada Massacre, but they decided against it in the end.
They had been happy in their child-free lives together. They enjoyed watching their friends' children grow up, but at the end of the day it was a relief to come home to quiet quarters, or, later in life, a quiet house, have a relaxed evening meal together, make love if they wanted to or sit together reading in bed if they didn't. There was enough stress in their careers - they did not need any more from a family.
“Besides,” Jim had said wearily, once, “I've never had a strong father figure, I don't know what it's like to have a dad. I wouldn't know the first thing about being a parent. I'd be a horrible father.”
“I am sure you would not,” Spock had protested, the confession causing him to feel uncomfortable, but he could not convince Jim otherwise and after that one time they rarely spoke of the matter again.
But they were happy without children. They had never been struck with the desire to have any and were content with their family of two. Spock had never second-guessed their decision or wondered if they had made the right one.
Well, he hadn't until now, at least.
Nyota had a large family, the complete opposite of he and Jim. She and Scotty had had two children together before they were married and three more after, and each of those children had had children, and several of those children now had children of their own, and even one of those children had recently had a child as well - and as was normal in that region of Earth, families lived together in the same house, or at least in very close vicinity to each other. As such, they had a very large house to hold in a very, very large family.
While the hustle and bustle and sheer noise of a full house was completely foreign to Spock, after he had spent two weeks with Nyota, it had become comfortable - comforting, even. After having been alone and isolated for months, even Spock was glad to be surrounded by people who, even if they did not interact with him all the time, still cared about him on some level and made sure he knew it.
Between the sense of comfort it brought him, watching Nyota interact with the members of her family, and reading the journal of an eight-year-old Jim, Spock was suddenly struck with the thought of what his life might be like now if he and Jim had decided to have children after all.
Once the thought hit him it was difficult to push it away. He wondered what their child would have been like, had it existed. He wondered if he would have a family as extensive as Nyota's now if he and Jim had even just had one child. He wondered whether the child would have taken after him or Jim or neither of them, if it would have been male or female or neither, what it would have done with its life, if it would have joined Starfleet to follow in its fathers' footsteps or chosen a different path entirely. He wondered if the child would have been an artist or a doctor or a musician or a scientist or a businessperson, if it would have turned out to live a good life or a bad one.
Spock was not normally one for what-ifs, but he found that he could not stop wondering how things could be different now. If they had had a child it would be taking care of him now. He would not have been alone when Jim passed away, would not have had to grieve alone. They might even have grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
But they did not. For all his wishing and wondering, the fact remained that they had decided not to have children and had never changed that decision. He did not have children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren. He did not have a family to be looking after him - he was alone. The thought had never bothered him before, but now it filled him with a deep despair - it seemed as though all of a sudden he was second-guessing all the things he had been comfortable with and certain of in his life.
He did not know what to do, so he spent most of his time sitting out in the sun watching the children play, or in his room reading Jim's journals, and wondering.
* * *
Spock had been at Nyota's home for three weeks and three days when he realized that it was Thanksgiving. As it was not a holiday in the United States of Africa, no one had said anything of it - but it was a holiday where Jim had grown up and they had celebrated it every year.
The fact that Spock was vegetarian and Jim was not had been the subject of many heated arguments throughout their lives, but especially so around Thanksgiving.
“You have to have a turkey for Thanksgiving, Spock,” Jim insisted, the first year they planned to celebrate it together. “Or at least a ham! It's tradition! It's what the holiday is known for!”
“I am sure that vegetarian humans have come up with an adequate replacement,” Spock replied.
“We are not having tofu turkey for Thanksgiving.”
“We will not, but I will. Jim, Vulcans do not eat meat and we make very few exceptions to that rule. This holiday is not one of them.” Jim had huffed and grumbled and finally muttered,
“Well, you had better look up how to make tofu turkey for yourself, then, because I'm not going to make it.”
That had been their first Thanksgiving. At their last, and for many Thanksgivings before it, they had not had a real turkey but imitation. It was curious, the way things changed over time, and how one didn't even notice the change until they took the time to look back.
Spock leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, out in the yard, and thought that he no longer had a reason to celebrate the North American holiday of Thanksgiving. It was not a particularly happy thought.
When he went back inside forty-three minutes later, he went up to his room and pulled out the journal he was reading. He had finished the first and the second, and was making his way through the third now, but instead of opening it up to the page he had read last, he flipped through the pages until he found the entries dated in November, then looked through them to see if there had been an entry on Thanksgiving that year.
Finally he found an entry about Thanksgiving, and Spock settled into his reading chair.
“Dear Journal,
Today is Thanksgiving which is a very old holiday that is about being thankful for things in your life. This year Mom was on Earth for Thanksgiving but only Papa could come for dinner and not my other grampa who is Grampa Tiberius, and I am named after both of them. So it was me, Mom, Sam, Papa and Frank. Before dinner we talked about things we are thankful for. Here is my list of things I am thankful for.
1. My family which is Mom and Sam and Papa and Grampa Tiberius and my aunts and uncles and cousins except I've only ever met a few of them. I am not thankful for Frank because he is not my family
2. My friends at school who are Jake, Brenton, Citlali, and Hanna.
3. video games
4. books
Thanksgiving dinner was yummy because Mom made most of it from scratch which means she didn't use the replicator but she used food from the store. But the rest of the day was boring.”
Spock read the entry a few more times with a faint smile on his face. Reading from a now nine-year-old Jim's point of view had become an often heartwarming experience, as the childlike honesty combined with Jim's own recognizable personality permeated every page. Spock liked to think that if they had ever had a son, he would be very much like Jim.
He read over the small list of things Jim was thankful for, and found himself wondering how that list had changed over the years. He supposed he would find out soon enough as long as he continued reading the journals, which he planned on doing.
Finally he closed the journal and placed it carefully back on the bedside table where it had been before. He no longer had a reason to celebrate Thanksgiving, but he did not stop himself from making a mental list of things he was thankful for, the same way Jim had listed off what he was thankful for every year before starting on their Thanksgiving dinner.
More than anything, Spock was thankful for Jim. He did not know that he would be the same person he was now had Jim not been in his life.
Second, he was thankful for the friends he had made and kept throughout his life. Nyota especially, for being kind to him now and opening her home to him even as he mourned still. He was thankful for all his friends from the Enterprise - who had all taught him there was no shame in the word friend, a word he had been loathe to use before his time in Starfleet. But they were his friends, and he had no shame in it now. Of those friends, only he, Nyota, and Pavel Chekov remained. All the rest had succumbed to old age, a feat in and of itself for Starfleet officers who had served in times of both peace and war. He was thankful that they had all lived long, happy lives.
He paused suddenly, thinking. He had not spoken to Pavel Chekov in a long while. Perhaps, he thought - perhaps, when he left Nyota's, he could visit Pavel in Russia.
Pavel was very similar to Spock in that he was now alone. Hikaru Sulu had died approximately one year before Jim, and they, like Jim and Spock, had never had children. Pavel had lived through what Spock's life was now.
Spock decided that he would contact him, then opened the journal back up again and began reading where he had left off the day before. If he read enough tonight, he thought, he could start on the next journal tomorrow.
* * *
“Spock,” Nyota said the next day. “I think I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood. Care to join me?”
Spock looked up from the journal he was reading to look at her, small and smiling in the doorway, and considered for a moment before answering,
“Certainly.” He got to his feet from where he was sitting and together they walked out of the house.
They walked slowly and quietly for a little while, until Nyota said softly,
“Do you remember the last time you were here, and Jim baked that wonderful lemon meringue pie?”
“Yes,” Spock replied. “Though if I recall correctly, you put in just as much effort as Jim.” He remembered that Jim had wanted some fresh fruit, had gone to the store to find that lemons were on sale, bought more than he probably needed with no idea what to do with them, took them to Nyota asking if she wanted them, then they ended up baking a pie together. It had been quite palatable, and although Spock had been miffed at the time because Jim had bought them on a whim and in excess, it ended up being a happy moment in their trip.
Nyota laughed. “Yes, well. If it hadn't been for Jim, we wouldn't have had the pie at all.” She paused and sighed, a faint smile on her face. “I'm glad you two visited when you did. It's nice, that I can remember Jim from then, happy and healthy.”
“Indeed,” Spock agreed, his voice fainter this time.
“I know it's hard,” Nyota said, and she put a hand on Spock's arm. “I know it is. But things are going to get easier. They will.”
“I do not doubt you,” Spock replied, and he looked away.
“I remember, the first time I met Jim,” Nyota said. “I was convinced he was a stupid, arrogant idiot. Who would have known he would have ended up being a lifelong friend? It's funny, how things turn out, isn't it?”
“It is.”
They walked for a little while longer, then Spock said,
“I am planning on contacting Pavel and, if he is amenable to the idea, spending time with him in the same manner that I have spent time with you.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” Nyota replied with a soft smile. “I'm sure he'd appreciate the company, too. He's been living alone in Saint Petersburg for over a year now. I do wish I could visit him, but when you get to be as old as I am, traveling is just too much of a difficulty.” She sighed, and for a long moment was silent.
“Oh, Spock,” she said finally. “I'm sorry you have to be the one to watch all of us die. More than likely I'll be next, you know.”
Spock did not have an answer to that.
* * *
“Mr. Spock?”
Pavel Chekov's tone was one of surprise as he answered the comm, eyes wide and mouth quirked into an almost-smile. Spock bowed his head slightly in greeting.
“Hello, Mr. Chekov,” he said, and Pavel's features stretched into a smile.
“Hello, Mr. Spock, it's good to see you,” he said brightly. His accent had never quite gone away, and when he had begun living in Russia again, had returned full-force. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I am currently visiting Nyota in Kenya,” Spock explained, wasting no time with frivolities. “While here I wondered if perhaps you might be amenable to a visit from me, as well.”
“Oh,” Pavel said, his expression of surprise morphing into one of delight. “That sounds wonderful, Mr. Spock, I would certainly love to have you here! It has been many years since I have seen you last!”
“Indeed it has,” Spock agreed softly. “If it is acceptable to you, I was planning on departing from Kenya in the first week of December.”
“Oh, yes, yes, that is fine,” Pavel assured him, his words coming quickly in his excitement. More years had passed than Spock would care to admit, but Pavel seemed to be the same happy and excitable young man he remembered from their early days on the Enterprise. “But it's getting very cold in Saint Petersburg, very cold this time of year - I don't know if you would appreciate that, Mr. Spock, we will definitely have to get you good winter clothes! You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, of course, my home - well, my home is open to you. Oh, I'll have to clean the guest room first. How long do you anticipate staying, Mr. Spock?”
“I do not know,” Spock said. “Likely past the Christmas holiday.”
“Splendid, splendid,” he continued on. “I'll have a room prepared for you, and good warm clothing, just let me know when you will be arriving. This is quite exciting!”
“I am gratified you think so,” Spock answered, suppressing a smile. “I will be in contact with you again when I finalize the dates.”
“I'll be waiting.”
“Until then, goodbye, Mr. Chekov.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Spock!”
Spock turned the commlink off and settled back into his chair with a sigh. For all the energy Pavel had, it was certainly exhausting speaking to him.
So he would be going to Russia after all. It would be cold and it would be very different from Africa, but Spock was looking forward to the trip.
* * *
When Spock came to a blank page in the middle of thirteen-year-old Jim's journal, he paused and wondered if he should read any further.
In the last entry, Jim had written that his mother and Frank had decided to send him to the colony on Tarsus IV to spend the summer with an aunt and uncle. Spock knew what was coming, and he did not know how he felt about it.
Tarsus had always been a subject of little discussion between them. Jim had never had any desire to specifically keep it a secret, but neither was it something he advertised. He kept quiet about it but if he was approached about it, he would discuss it with little hesitation. When Spock found out about it - five months and eighteen days into their courtship - he had been angry that Jim had not told him about it beforehand. He was no longer ashamed to admit it, but at the time he had continually insisted he certainly was not angry, which, in hindsight, only made the matter worse. The confrontation had been unpleasant. Spock had found out through another crewmember and did not enjoy the feeling of having information being kept from him, and feared the possibility that there was more, much more, that Jim could be hiding from him.
“I don't see how wanting to keep this from the public eye makes me the bad guy,” Jim had snapped as their argument progressed. “If you had ever brought it up of course I would have told you, but you didn't. Excuse me for not just going up to you and telling you, 'oh by the fucking way, I'm a survivor of the Tarsus clusterfuck'!”
“The fact that I had to discover this information through a third party is unacceptable,” Spock had countered, stubbornly standing his ground. “If we are to build trust - if our relationship is to go anywhere - there must be no secrets and certainly no lies.”
“I never lied to you!” Jim exclaimed. “You think I'd want to talk about this shit with just anyone?”
“I do not believe I am 'just anyone', not to you.”
“I don't offer it to everyone I meet for the same reason you don't talk about Vulcan and the Narada incident and your mother.”
At that Spock's blood had run cold, then his face flushed with heated anger and he barely heard Jim's next words.
“It's not - It really sucks, having to talk about it, okay?” he had said, his voice pained and his gaze fluttering around the room and avoiding Spock. “You just - You have no idea. You don't know what it's like, because if you did you wouldn't be acting like this, you would - ”
“No,” Spock had interrupted, hands clenching behind his back. “No, it is you who has no idea.” He had turned and left the room abruptly, his heart hammering furiously in his side.
Spock remembered he had been so enraged at the comment Jim had made about Vulcan and his mother that they had not spoken outside of the bridge for one day, thirteen hours, and forty-seven minutes. But they did speak again, and they did work through the problem, and though their interactions were still tense for several days after the incident, things did get better.
But Tarsus remained something they did not discuss if they did not have to. Every few years Jim would get a request to attend some social gathering of other Tarsus survivors, or he would be asked to give an interview for a documentary or to speak for some awareness-raising group, and he would do so but always with a tired and almost exasperated acceptance. Spock did not understand it, until the first request for an interview for a documentary on the destruction of Vulcan came to him.
He had been furious. When it happened he and Jim had been bonded for just over six months, and when Jim had come home to their quarters that day Spock had ranted about it for over half an hour while Jim just sat there, listening. When Spock finally ran out of angry and outraged words, Jim reached out and touched his fingers and said softly,
“It'll be like this at the beginning. Even when you know you should do this kind of thing it'll still make you angry, but I promise it'll get easier.”
And all at once it had hit Spock - that Jim had not been so far off to compare Tarsus to his own experience. He had been so angry that these people seemed to think his own experience - the struggle to understand and accept what had happened and all the pain and anguish that came along with it, the grief and suffering and anger and desperate longing to change what could not be changed - Jim understood it all and the whole time Spock had simply disregarded it, attributed it to some human over-emotionalism, had never thought of Tarsus as the painful and life-shattering event that it was - and shame flooded him all at once.
“I am sorry,” he had said hoarsely, unable to find any other words. “I - I am sorry.” Jim had just given a little almost-smile and held Spock's hand a little tighter.
“I forgive you,” he had murmured simply. “It's alright. I forgive you.”
Spock looked at the blank page in the journal with pain in his heart. For an event that had so sharply defined his Jim, he had long ignored it, and he regretted that - so he would ignore it no more, and he would read the journal all the way through. He turned the page.
There were three blank pages before the entries began again. The first was dated six months and four days after the last.
“I almost died this summer,” the entry begins, with no prelude, no exposition. “I almost wish I had. Tarsus was hell. I don't like talking about it but my psychologist says I should at least try, and writing about it is the first step.” Spock felt his hand tremble and he paused a moment before reading on.
“While I was there, a fungus attacked the crops and there wasnt enough food to go around. People were dying of starvation, but that wasnt the worst of it, not by a long shot. The governer of Tarsus decided that to save the “best” people, he would kill half of the population so there would be enough food to feed the other half. I was supposed to die. When the soldiers starting coming around to take people away, Uncle Anthony saw them coming and gave me his phaser rifle and told me and Aunt Dana to run. We went out through the back door and ran to the woods. We just ran and ran and ran and when I finally looked back when I couldnt run anymore I couldnt see Aunt Dana and I didnt know what to do so I just kept running. I dont know if shes alive, probably not but I dont know. I dont know about Uncle Anthony either, that was the last time I saw either of them but there names havent been on the lists of the confirmed dead either so who knows.
I dont know how long I ran but it must have been a long time because when I finally stopped I was so tired I just collapsed and fell asleep. When I woke up it was almost light so I must not have slept very long. I hadnt been caught yet so I thought it must be a good sign so I decided to go to the city to try and see what was going on. I didnt know where I was but since the farm was about two and a half miles west from the city and I could see where the sun was rising in the west, because it rises in the west on Tarsus, and just started walking away from it and hoped it was the right direction. I walked until the sun was in the middle of the sky and then I saw smoke, it was the city and the smoke was from where they were burning the bodies of all the people they had killed but I didnt know it then I was just glad I had gone in the right direction after all.
I knew I couldnt actually go into the city so I just kinda snuck around the outsides to try and see what I could to figure out what was happening. The governer Kodos had given his whole announcment thing a lot in the past couple days so I sort of knew what was going on but not really. When I was looking around I found a boy about my age with a littler girl sneaking around the outsides of the city too so I got their attention and found out they had run away just like me so we decided to stick together, and that was how our group of kids started.
I dont really remember how so many of them found us but by the time we were rescued there were nine of us together living in a cave. There would have been eleven but two died and then one died after we were rescued. I had my phaser rifle and two other kids had phasers that their parents had given them and we stole a few more from guard people who found us that we had to kill.
I killed two people on Tarsus, I know they were bad people and it was self-defense and I didn't have any other choice but I still keep thinking I killed two people and Im thirteen years old, the only thirteen year olds who have killed people are kids who are fucked up in their brains. I hate it. I just wish I had died.
Starfleet finally showed up almost three months after everything happened. We were rescued by a ship called the Farragut. When they took us to their medical bay and weighed us I weighed seventy-nine pounds. They told me that I would have died before much longer.
I dont know what happened after we were rescued and I dont really want to know. I wish I could just forget everything that happened. When the Farragut went back to Earth Mom was there and she just cried all the time for days and days and she keeps saying shes so sorry, shell never send me off somewhere again and I just wish she would stop. The doctor from the Farragut said I needed psychological counseling and stuff right away and Frank said he didn't want to pay for it if the insurance wouldnt. Mom says theyre getting a divorce.
Everyone keeps saying I must be a genius to stay alive and help keep so many other kids alive for so long and I'm lucky to be here but all I can think about is how much I wish I had just died on Tarsus.”
The entry ended abruptly there, and Spock closed the journal and let out a long, heavy sigh.
He remembered how, at the very beginning, Jim had told him he could read any of the journals he wanted. Jim had offered to Spock the chance to not only learn that he had been on Tarsus but to read the raw and intimate thoughts Jim had had about it so shortly after it had happened. For so long he had thought Jim had been keeping it from him - but he had given him the chance to know from the very beginning and he hadn't taken that opportunity. He had never wanted to hide it and Spock hadn't believed him when he claimed so.
Spock pressed a hand to his eyes. He did not cry often but suddenly the only thing he felt like doing was weeping.
(part two)
Rating: pg13
Wordcount: ~10,000 / 31,203
Warnings: major character death and all the baggage that comes with it
Disclaimer: don't own, etc.
Summary: Jim has died and Spock struggles to learn how to live without him.
A/N: written for ksrelativity . My prompt was: New Vulcan, notebook, birthday, fireworks.
Jim had been gone for four months when remaining at their home in New Vulcan became more than Spock could bear. The house was all but a prison, with every corner filled with lingering memories of him, and try as he might Spock could not stop the tightness in his chest and the dull ache of the severed bond with each reminder. The bond was more than enough to keep him constantly aware of his bondmate's absence - he didn't need the physical reminders. He would never forget.
They had built their lives on New Vulcan when they had retired from Starfleet. But now - now, he was alone, and he did not know how to be alone on New Vulcan.
So, quietly, he packed up his possessions into four boxes, packed a few of Jim's things he couldn't bear to leave behind into another two boxes, and announced to the New Vulcan Science Academy that he was retiring and leaving New Vulcan. He expected to be met with opposition - but all that answered him were words of understanding, condolences, and glances full of pity. He did not know whether to be grateful or furious - so he was neither. Like that it was done, and he had his belongings sent ahead on a cargo ship before catching the next shuttle to Earth.
When he arrived in San Francisco after a long and uneventful shuttle trip, there was no one to greet him. He had secured a small apartment, courtesy of Starfleet's Veteran Department, before his departure, and his belongings were waiting for him there. He hailed a taxi and spoke for the first time since boarding the shuttle.
“Quiet Creek Apartments, please.”
“Confirmed,” the computer murmured back at him.
He arrived at his new apartment and for a long moment stood in the middle of the room that the door opened into. The six boxes were stacked neatly in a corner. The apartment had only the most basic of furnishings and the walls and the carpet were a stark white that made the room seem much brighter than it really was. Spock stood there for two minutes and eight seconds before moving towards the boxes. He pulled the ones labeled “Spock” to the center of the room. The ones labeled “Jim” he left where they were.
When all of his belongings were unpacked and put in their place, Spock sat down at the chair by the window, through which he could see tall buildings rising up against a sky turned pink and orange with the sunset. Jim's boxes remained untouched.
He was alone.
* * *
Of the original command crew of the Enterprise, only Nyota Uhura, Pavel Chekov, and himself were still alive. Spock knew he would outlive the human crew by far, but it still was not a pleasant thought that most of the few friends he had from his time in Starfleet were dead.
For two days he puttered about his apartment with little productive activities to partake in. It was late October on Earth and the weather was beginning to cool, the infamous San Francisco fog greeting him in the mornings and lingering for much of the day. For Spock, it was easier to stay indoors than bundle up and brave the cold outside. It had been a very long time since he had had to deal with weather cooler than that on New Vulcan. And, after all, what would he even do outdoors?
On the second day he received a call from Uhura herself, as if she had known somehow that he had been thinking of her.
“I've heard you're in San Francisco,” she said, smiling at him from his computer screen. If he looked hard enough he could still see her soft, pretty features hidden behind wrinkled skin and gray hair.
“I am,” he replied, his voice gravelly with disuse.
“I don't suppose you could make a trip out to Africa for me?” she teased, still smiling. “You do owe me a visit, after all.”
“Certainly,” he answered, and that was how he ended up packing to leave again after two days in his apartment. He packed most of his belongings back into the boxes labeled “Spock”. He stood looking at the boxes labeled “Jim” for a long time, then finally decided to send them along as well. Only one box stayed at the apartment - five went with him, for he would be in Africa for at least a month.
He was grateful for the excuse and for the chance of company. He did not know how to be alone anymore.
When he told the landlord that he would be leaving for an indefinite amount of time, the Human looked very obviously surprised, but told him it was no problem, no problem at all, so long as he continued to pay rent. The landlord was fair of hair and skin and when he smiled his blue eyes crinkled in the corners, very much like Jim.
He boarded another shuttle, but this time the shuttle ride was just a few hours instead of two days. When he arrived in Africa, Nyota was there to meet him, looking small and fragile against the hustle and bustle of the shuttle bay, but she smiled brightly when she saw him. He walked up to her and she touched his arm.
“Oh, Spock,” she said. “It's so good to see you.”
“Likewise,” he replied. “I am pleased to see you are well.”
“Are you ready to go?” she asked, and he nodded once, then they set out. She walked much slower than he did, but he did not mind keeping pace with her, and thankfully they only had to walk out into the parking lot where Nyota's grandson was waiting for them in a hovercar.
“Mr. Spock,” the man said simply in greeting, and Spock nodded at him. He was rather fond of Nyota's grandson, whose name was Ikinya, because his mannerisms were very Vulcanesque - he was quiet and serious and thoughtful, never speaking more than he needed to.
“We're so glad to have you. It's been years since anyone's used the guest room. We cleaned it all up for you, though, of course,” Nyota said. “I think I'm most happy to see you, though. It gets tiring having to live with my children and their children and their children's children! The young all move so fast, and things are always so busy. It's hard to keep up. It'll be a nice change to have someone around going the same pace as me for once.”
“I am gratified to be here,” Spock said simply in reply, and she smiled at him.
When they arrived at Nyota's family's home, Ikinya opened the hovercar doors for Nyota and Spock and took Spock's suitcase out from the trunk, carrying it for him.
“Come, we'll show you to the guest room,” Nyota said as she led him into the house, but it was very slow progress as the entire household had to stop and greet him as they went, from Nyota's eldest son to her small great-grandchildren who were running merrily about with their toys. Many of them recognized Spock by sight and even those who did not still knew who he was, and they were all pleased to see him and anxious to tell him so. He greeted each of them politely with Nyota smiling fondly at the exchange before they could move on another ten feet before being greeted by someone else. It was indeed a very busy household.
Finally they made it to the guest room, which was on the third floor of the house. Ikinya, who had barreled right through the house ahead of them, had set down Spock's suitcase in front of the door, and so he picked it up and carried it into the room, Nyota following him. He glanced about, first searching for the boxes he had sent ahead before absorbing any other details of the room. The boxes were stacked neatly in the corner and showed no signs of having been opened or disturbed, which was a relief. It was not that he was suspicious of Nyota's family, but the boxes were his most precious physical belongings.
“I'll leave you to settle in,” Nyota said softly, touching his arm. “Dinner will be in an hour or so.” Spock simply nodded, and quietly Nyota left the room.
She had said nothing of Jim but it was painfully obvious to Spock that she knew that the only reason he was here was because he could not yet be alone. Her soft words and looks and everything that she meant to comfort him with made him equal parts grateful and ashamed.
He did not know what to do first, so he simply sat down in the single chair in the room and studied his surroundings. The chair he sat in was upholstered in a green and brown patterned fabric and was in the corner furthest from the door, turned to face the window. The bed, which was in a matching print, was pushed up against the opposite wall, a small bedside table stood between his chair and the bed, and across from his chair there was a small desk, and across from the bed there was a holoscreen set up on the wall. The boxes with his belongings were stacked next to the holoscreen.
He sat and looked at the boxes for a little while before finally standing back up and unpacking them.
He placed his clothes in the closet, his toiletries in the bathroom, and left the other miscellaneous items in their boxes. The boxes at the bottom of the stack were labeled “Jim”. For a moment he just looked at them, uncertain, then he reached for one and carefully opened it.
Inside this box there were several small cases containing the many medals and certificates Jim had earned throughout his time in Starfleet, plus the smaller awards he had been given after he had left Starfleet and had taught at the University of New Vulcan (because the New Vulcan Science Academy did not allow non-Vulcans to serve as faculty, even non-Vulcans who were Jim Kirk). Spock glanced over each of them, remembering each award ceremony where they had been bestowed. The Badge of Honor from when he had defeated the Narada and saved the Earth, the Award of Diplomatic Excellence which was given to him after he successfully negotiated a ceasefire treaty with the Romulans which was integral in ending the Two-Year War, the Purple Heart he received after nearly losing his leg in a battle against a Klingon armada (he never quite walked the same after that). Spock could name all of them. He looked over them, a soft sigh escaped his lungs, and then he closed that box, put it aside, and pulled up the other.
This one he hesitated over before opening, but finally he pulled it open. It was a rather large box, approximately four times the size of the box that had held Jim's various medals and awards. Inside of it was a stack of notebooks, in two rows with the faces up. They had been placed in the box according to size, so he could only see the smallest of them on the top row; the largest ones were at the bottom of the box, though they were all relatively small. Though he could not see them all, he knew that there were eighty-two notebooks in the box. Spock looked at them, and reminisced.
When he and Jim first began courting, Jim had showed him a small bookshelf he had in his quarters that housed seventeen such notebooks. He had begun keeping a journal at the age of eight, he explained, and had never stopped. When he had shown him the journals, Jim gave Spock one and only one rule about the journals: if he wished to, he could read only completed journals, not the one Jim was currently writing in, as long as he asked first. That was all.
Spock had never read them. He had never felt a need to - and after they were bonded, they could not have told him anything he did not already know.
“I don't know why I write in them,” Jim had said, looking over at the bookshelf that housed them. “I just do. I don't think I could stop if I tried.” Then he had looked over at Spock and laughed a bit. “I guess they'll make pretty decent historical artifacts in a hundred years or so, since I'm a hero now and all.”
Spock looked at the eighty-two journals stacked neatly according to size in the box, and thought about how all that remained of his t'hy'la's life and legacy was sitting in front of him, simply ink that would fade on paper that would deteriorate - and thought how these fragile elements had outlasted the man himself.
* * *
The pleasant thing about Africa was that it was warm, and therefore much closer to the New Vulcan climate Spock was used to than San Francisco had been. Even in the morning hours, when it was relatively cool, Spock only needed to put a light robe on over his clothing to feel comfortable before stepping outside for a walk. He was not so old yet that he did not benefit from daily exercise.
He walked around the quiet suburban neighborhood where Nyota's family lived, thinking and remembering.
The last time Spock had been in Africa was twelve years ago when Jim had wanted to visit their friends on Earth. Their visit to Earth previous to that one had been for Dr. McCoy's funeral, so Jim declared he wanted a “happy” trip that time around. He had not yet been hoverchair-bound when they had made that visit, and on the first day of their trip they had gone to see Nyota and Scotty in Africa, where they stayed for a week, then to San Francisco to see Chekov and Sulu.
Their visit to Africa had been pleasant, though Jim complained often of the heat, and he had wanted to go on a “safari”, which they did, and Jim had been quite impressed with the lions and giraffes and said he was sad there weren't any African elephants, which had gone extinct in his youth. Jim and Scotty were both old for Humans and so Spock often had to slow his pace to walk with them, or take breaks for them to catch their breath, or cut outings short because they were tired or aching, and he had tried very hard not to let it bother him but at one point towards the end of their Africa visit he had gotten rather frustrated with Jim because he had wanted to go for a walk but was having to stop to catch his breath approximately every four point three minutes.
“I do not understand why you wished to walk about when it is such a difficulty for you,” Spock had finally snapped after they had stopped for the sixth time.
“I just wanted to be outdoors,” Jim replied defensively. “I'm sorry I can't keep up with you. But you knew it would be like this.”
“I wish it were not,” Spock said, and Jim did not reply. His only response was a deep melancholy sinking through their bond, and immediately Spock regretted having said anything at all.
They had made their way slowly back to their hotel in silence. Jim settled quietly into a chair in front of the holoscreen and Spock went to the small kitchenette to replicate a small dinner and when he went back to the front room the holoscreen was still turned off and Jim was sitting there with tears leaking out of his eyes. Spock quickly forgot about the food and went to kneel in front of Jim, taking his gnarled wrinkled hands into his own.
“I am sorry,” he had said fervently. “I am sorry for what I said, t'hy'la. You know I did not mean anything, you know I love you. I love you.”
“It's not that,” Jim said between sniffles, his voice hoarse and gravelly. “It's - It's just - Spock, I'm old and I'm dying and you - you've still got so much life to live and I don't and - I'm sorry, Spock. I'm sorry.” His fingers had curled around Spock's as his voice broke and his sniffles turned into quiet sobs and Spock felt his heart clench and his eyes sting.
“Do not be sorry,” he said. “Jim. T'hy'la. Do not ever be sorry. I would not trade you for anyone, I would not trade our lives together for anything. Do not be sorry for being my t'hy'la.” He pulled Jim closer to him and the Human pressed his face into Spock's shoulder.
They stayed this way for a long time - Spock did not keep track of just how long. But even when his knees began to protest in pain he did not move and just held Jim close, saying nothing, projecting only a sense of calmness and love and devotion through the bond, and after a while Jim's tears turned into sniffles, then into hiccups, then he pulled away and managed a weary smile at Spock.
“Human emotionalism at its finest for you, there,” he murmured wryly, and Spock gently squeezed his hand and kissed him before they both went back to the kitchen to replicate another meal, for the food Spock had replicated had long since gone cold.
“Spock!” Nyota called, breaking him from his thoughts. He looked up and realized he had made his way through the neighborhood and back to Nyota's home, and he was now standing in the front yard and staring vacantly at the various plants in the yard. “There you are. You're back just in time. Breakfast is ready if you're interested.”
“I will be inside shortly,” Spock replied, a medium-sized flowering plant near him catching his eye.
“All right. I'll make sure a place at the table is set for you,” Nyota said, but he hardly heard her. When he had last been in Africa, Jim had stood in front of this plant, gripping one of the flowers between two fingers as he studied it.
“It's lovely,” he had said. “Look at the color, Spock. Nyota, can we get a few clippings of this? Do you think we could get it to grow in the yard, Spock?”
“Possibly,” he had said, and they had brought a few buds of the plant back to New Vulcan with them but they had died.
He stared at the plant a moment longer, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it the way Jim had, before turning and walking up to Nyota who was still standing in the doorway watching him. She touched his arm softly when he reached her, and they walked into the house together.
* * *
For a normal Vulcan, meditation involved emptying the mind sufficiently enough that the subconscious could be sorted through and processed, similar to the way Humans processed their subconscious in their sleep, but with conscious control of how the contents of the subconscious were sorted. For the vast majority of Spock's life he had meditated in the same way as any other Vulcan - the thought of meditation was inseparable from the thought of mental silence and emptiness followed by careful sorting and consideration.
But since Jim had been gone, meditation had become less of Spock emptying his mind and more of him remembering. Instead of focusing on nothing he remembered as hard as he could, until the memory seemed almost real, until he could describe the feel of the clothes (or lack thereof) he was wearing on his skin, the scents in the air, the ambient sounds around them, just as accurately as if he were really there, as if the memory was really happening. It was the closest thing he had to Jim anymore.
The only thing keeping it from being completely and truly realistic was the bond that still cried out for its other half, wounded and alone.
As counter-intuitive as it seemed, meditation came a little easier when he was remembering. Most of what his subconscious was dredging up had to do with Jim anyway, which he suspected had something to do with it, but he could not explain why it was so. He found he did not wish to explain it.
He had been with Nyota for four days when he rose out of meditation with the memory of the day Jim had shown him his journals fresh in his mind. He could still almost hear the background hum of the Enterprise's engines in Jim's quarters.
Jim had grinned sheepishly as he had explained his journals to Spock. A slight embarrassed flush had risen in his face, casting his cheeks with a ruddy hue that gave Spock a strange but not unpleasant sensation in his abdomen.
Now, as he opened his eyes in the middle of Nyota's guest room, he looked over at the box with all eighty-two of Jim's journals and stared, pondering, at them for a long while.
He had never read the journals because he had never needed to. But now Jim was gone, and the journals were all he had left behind. He had never read them, but perhaps, he thought, perhaps now was the time to finally do so.
After only a moment more of uncertainty, Spock stood slowly and reached for the box, opening it carefully. The notebooks were still stacked inside just as untouched as they had been the last time he had looked at them. It took a moment before he could muster the courage to reach into the box and begin pulling them out.
He handled them gingerly as he took them out of the box and placed them on the floor, grouping them together by roughly how old they appeared to be. When they were all out of the box, all eighty-two of them, he looked upon the journals grouped in neat stacks around him and allowed himself only a moment to feel melancholy before going about sorting them by date, so that they went in perfect chronological order.
This was made relatively easy because Jim had dated almost every entry, and most journals had a starting date and an ending date written in the front page. He placed them in chronological order in the small bookshelf he had emptied (the bookshelf had, in his defense, contained very few actual books, all of which were easily relocated to other shelves or into the closet, and the other decorative paraphernalia on the bookshelf was also easy to place elsewhere), with the oldest journals starting in the upper left hand corner, ending with the most recent halfway through the third shelf.
When his handiwork was done, he straightened up and looked at the bookshelf for a long moment, then reached for the first journal and carefully, reverently opened it.
He did not start reading it right away, but instead leafed through a few pages, simply glancing at them and catching a few words as he carefully flipped through the pages, previewing it. From what he could see, almost every entry started with “Dear Journal”. This was usually followed by something along the lines of “Hi, it's Jimmy again.”
Spock had glanced through approximately half of the journal before turning back to the beginning and reading the first entry.
“Dear Journal,” the journal began. “Mom sent me this notebook because she thinks I talk too much. She told me to start writting my thoughts down insted of saying them out loud. I think it bugs her. I think she is a little bit crazy but I will do it anyway. Anyways so my name is Jimmy and I am 8 yrs old and I am the smartest kid in my class. I have a mom and a brother but not a dad and there is Frank who mom is gonna marry but hes not my dad. I also have some friends at school their names are Jake, Citlali, Brenton and Hanna. I have blond hair and blue eyes and I am not the shortest kid in my class but Iam not tallest either. Anyways that is all for now. Bye Journal. Sinceerly, Jimmy”.
Spock sighed softly and turned the page.
“Dear Journal, hi, it's Jimmy. Today was a Thursday so I had to go to school. School is ok. Its kind of boring most of the time because I already know half the stuff we learn. My teacher Miss Cruz yells at me alot because I dont pay attention very much. But I am still the smartest kid in the class. Today when I got home I did my homework real fast so that I could play shooting games with Sam before he went to soccer practice. Mom is off planet so Frank had to look after me when Sam left. I dont like Frank very much and I dont think he likes me either. But hes not my dad so I dont care. He made spagetty for dinner but I am allergic to tomatos so I had to eat mine without any sauce because Frank forgot I am allergic. If I hadnt reminded him he woulda made me eat it and then I would have an allergic reaction and have to go to the hospital and probably die. I think Frank is stupider than half the kids in my class which is saying a lot because Taylor is in my class and he is the stupidest kid I have ever met. Anyway Im gonna go to bed now. Bye Journal. Sinceerly, Jimmy”.
The childlike accounts of a young Jim's daily life were more amusing than comforting, as Jim had been a rather precocious child, to put it lightly, and for Spock, reading about Jim's life long before he had entered it was surreal at best. But even so, he could still recognize Jim's sharp wit and often scathing sense of humor even in the early entries written in the messy scrawl of an eight-year-old boy. A tiny smile brought a slight crinkle to the corners of Spock's eyes and he looked fondly at the journal entries before moving on to the next page.
* * *
Spock and Jim had decided, even before they were bonded, that they would never have children.
At the time it had been the logical choice - and throughout their lives it had remained the most logical choice to make, for a myriad of reasons. A starship was no place to raise a child. Neither wanted to sacrifice their careers to start a family. And because they were both men incapable of carrying children, as well as Spock's infertility caused by his own mixed heritage, any child they had through a surrogate would be Jim and someone else's child, not Jim and Spock's. They considered adopting a Vulcan child for a brief period of time, as many Vulcan children still remained orphans years after the Narada Massacre, but they decided against it in the end.
They had been happy in their child-free lives together. They enjoyed watching their friends' children grow up, but at the end of the day it was a relief to come home to quiet quarters, or, later in life, a quiet house, have a relaxed evening meal together, make love if they wanted to or sit together reading in bed if they didn't. There was enough stress in their careers - they did not need any more from a family.
“Besides,” Jim had said wearily, once, “I've never had a strong father figure, I don't know what it's like to have a dad. I wouldn't know the first thing about being a parent. I'd be a horrible father.”
“I am sure you would not,” Spock had protested, the confession causing him to feel uncomfortable, but he could not convince Jim otherwise and after that one time they rarely spoke of the matter again.
But they were happy without children. They had never been struck with the desire to have any and were content with their family of two. Spock had never second-guessed their decision or wondered if they had made the right one.
Well, he hadn't until now, at least.
Nyota had a large family, the complete opposite of he and Jim. She and Scotty had had two children together before they were married and three more after, and each of those children had had children, and several of those children now had children of their own, and even one of those children had recently had a child as well - and as was normal in that region of Earth, families lived together in the same house, or at least in very close vicinity to each other. As such, they had a very large house to hold in a very, very large family.
While the hustle and bustle and sheer noise of a full house was completely foreign to Spock, after he had spent two weeks with Nyota, it had become comfortable - comforting, even. After having been alone and isolated for months, even Spock was glad to be surrounded by people who, even if they did not interact with him all the time, still cared about him on some level and made sure he knew it.
Between the sense of comfort it brought him, watching Nyota interact with the members of her family, and reading the journal of an eight-year-old Jim, Spock was suddenly struck with the thought of what his life might be like now if he and Jim had decided to have children after all.
Once the thought hit him it was difficult to push it away. He wondered what their child would have been like, had it existed. He wondered if he would have a family as extensive as Nyota's now if he and Jim had even just had one child. He wondered whether the child would have taken after him or Jim or neither of them, if it would have been male or female or neither, what it would have done with its life, if it would have joined Starfleet to follow in its fathers' footsteps or chosen a different path entirely. He wondered if the child would have been an artist or a doctor or a musician or a scientist or a businessperson, if it would have turned out to live a good life or a bad one.
Spock was not normally one for what-ifs, but he found that he could not stop wondering how things could be different now. If they had had a child it would be taking care of him now. He would not have been alone when Jim passed away, would not have had to grieve alone. They might even have grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
But they did not. For all his wishing and wondering, the fact remained that they had decided not to have children and had never changed that decision. He did not have children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren. He did not have a family to be looking after him - he was alone. The thought had never bothered him before, but now it filled him with a deep despair - it seemed as though all of a sudden he was second-guessing all the things he had been comfortable with and certain of in his life.
He did not know what to do, so he spent most of his time sitting out in the sun watching the children play, or in his room reading Jim's journals, and wondering.
* * *
Spock had been at Nyota's home for three weeks and three days when he realized that it was Thanksgiving. As it was not a holiday in the United States of Africa, no one had said anything of it - but it was a holiday where Jim had grown up and they had celebrated it every year.
The fact that Spock was vegetarian and Jim was not had been the subject of many heated arguments throughout their lives, but especially so around Thanksgiving.
“You have to have a turkey for Thanksgiving, Spock,” Jim insisted, the first year they planned to celebrate it together. “Or at least a ham! It's tradition! It's what the holiday is known for!”
“I am sure that vegetarian humans have come up with an adequate replacement,” Spock replied.
“We are not having tofu turkey for Thanksgiving.”
“We will not, but I will. Jim, Vulcans do not eat meat and we make very few exceptions to that rule. This holiday is not one of them.” Jim had huffed and grumbled and finally muttered,
“Well, you had better look up how to make tofu turkey for yourself, then, because I'm not going to make it.”
That had been their first Thanksgiving. At their last, and for many Thanksgivings before it, they had not had a real turkey but imitation. It was curious, the way things changed over time, and how one didn't even notice the change until they took the time to look back.
Spock leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, out in the yard, and thought that he no longer had a reason to celebrate the North American holiday of Thanksgiving. It was not a particularly happy thought.
When he went back inside forty-three minutes later, he went up to his room and pulled out the journal he was reading. He had finished the first and the second, and was making his way through the third now, but instead of opening it up to the page he had read last, he flipped through the pages until he found the entries dated in November, then looked through them to see if there had been an entry on Thanksgiving that year.
Finally he found an entry about Thanksgiving, and Spock settled into his reading chair.
“Dear Journal,
Today is Thanksgiving which is a very old holiday that is about being thankful for things in your life. This year Mom was on Earth for Thanksgiving but only Papa could come for dinner and not my other grampa who is Grampa Tiberius, and I am named after both of them. So it was me, Mom, Sam, Papa and Frank. Before dinner we talked about things we are thankful for. Here is my list of things I am thankful for.
1. My family which is Mom and Sam and Papa and Grampa Tiberius and my aunts and uncles and cousins except I've only ever met a few of them. I am not thankful for Frank because he is not my family
2. My friends at school who are Jake, Brenton, Citlali, and Hanna.
3. video games
4. books
Thanksgiving dinner was yummy because Mom made most of it from scratch which means she didn't use the replicator but she used food from the store. But the rest of the day was boring.”
Spock read the entry a few more times with a faint smile on his face. Reading from a now nine-year-old Jim's point of view had become an often heartwarming experience, as the childlike honesty combined with Jim's own recognizable personality permeated every page. Spock liked to think that if they had ever had a son, he would be very much like Jim.
He read over the small list of things Jim was thankful for, and found himself wondering how that list had changed over the years. He supposed he would find out soon enough as long as he continued reading the journals, which he planned on doing.
Finally he closed the journal and placed it carefully back on the bedside table where it had been before. He no longer had a reason to celebrate Thanksgiving, but he did not stop himself from making a mental list of things he was thankful for, the same way Jim had listed off what he was thankful for every year before starting on their Thanksgiving dinner.
More than anything, Spock was thankful for Jim. He did not know that he would be the same person he was now had Jim not been in his life.
Second, he was thankful for the friends he had made and kept throughout his life. Nyota especially, for being kind to him now and opening her home to him even as he mourned still. He was thankful for all his friends from the Enterprise - who had all taught him there was no shame in the word friend, a word he had been loathe to use before his time in Starfleet. But they were his friends, and he had no shame in it now. Of those friends, only he, Nyota, and Pavel Chekov remained. All the rest had succumbed to old age, a feat in and of itself for Starfleet officers who had served in times of both peace and war. He was thankful that they had all lived long, happy lives.
He paused suddenly, thinking. He had not spoken to Pavel Chekov in a long while. Perhaps, he thought - perhaps, when he left Nyota's, he could visit Pavel in Russia.
Pavel was very similar to Spock in that he was now alone. Hikaru Sulu had died approximately one year before Jim, and they, like Jim and Spock, had never had children. Pavel had lived through what Spock's life was now.
Spock decided that he would contact him, then opened the journal back up again and began reading where he had left off the day before. If he read enough tonight, he thought, he could start on the next journal tomorrow.
* * *
“Spock,” Nyota said the next day. “I think I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood. Care to join me?”
Spock looked up from the journal he was reading to look at her, small and smiling in the doorway, and considered for a moment before answering,
“Certainly.” He got to his feet from where he was sitting and together they walked out of the house.
They walked slowly and quietly for a little while, until Nyota said softly,
“Do you remember the last time you were here, and Jim baked that wonderful lemon meringue pie?”
“Yes,” Spock replied. “Though if I recall correctly, you put in just as much effort as Jim.” He remembered that Jim had wanted some fresh fruit, had gone to the store to find that lemons were on sale, bought more than he probably needed with no idea what to do with them, took them to Nyota asking if she wanted them, then they ended up baking a pie together. It had been quite palatable, and although Spock had been miffed at the time because Jim had bought them on a whim and in excess, it ended up being a happy moment in their trip.
Nyota laughed. “Yes, well. If it hadn't been for Jim, we wouldn't have had the pie at all.” She paused and sighed, a faint smile on her face. “I'm glad you two visited when you did. It's nice, that I can remember Jim from then, happy and healthy.”
“Indeed,” Spock agreed, his voice fainter this time.
“I know it's hard,” Nyota said, and she put a hand on Spock's arm. “I know it is. But things are going to get easier. They will.”
“I do not doubt you,” Spock replied, and he looked away.
“I remember, the first time I met Jim,” Nyota said. “I was convinced he was a stupid, arrogant idiot. Who would have known he would have ended up being a lifelong friend? It's funny, how things turn out, isn't it?”
“It is.”
They walked for a little while longer, then Spock said,
“I am planning on contacting Pavel and, if he is amenable to the idea, spending time with him in the same manner that I have spent time with you.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” Nyota replied with a soft smile. “I'm sure he'd appreciate the company, too. He's been living alone in Saint Petersburg for over a year now. I do wish I could visit him, but when you get to be as old as I am, traveling is just too much of a difficulty.” She sighed, and for a long moment was silent.
“Oh, Spock,” she said finally. “I'm sorry you have to be the one to watch all of us die. More than likely I'll be next, you know.”
Spock did not have an answer to that.
* * *
“Mr. Spock?”
Pavel Chekov's tone was one of surprise as he answered the comm, eyes wide and mouth quirked into an almost-smile. Spock bowed his head slightly in greeting.
“Hello, Mr. Chekov,” he said, and Pavel's features stretched into a smile.
“Hello, Mr. Spock, it's good to see you,” he said brightly. His accent had never quite gone away, and when he had begun living in Russia again, had returned full-force. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I am currently visiting Nyota in Kenya,” Spock explained, wasting no time with frivolities. “While here I wondered if perhaps you might be amenable to a visit from me, as well.”
“Oh,” Pavel said, his expression of surprise morphing into one of delight. “That sounds wonderful, Mr. Spock, I would certainly love to have you here! It has been many years since I have seen you last!”
“Indeed it has,” Spock agreed softly. “If it is acceptable to you, I was planning on departing from Kenya in the first week of December.”
“Oh, yes, yes, that is fine,” Pavel assured him, his words coming quickly in his excitement. More years had passed than Spock would care to admit, but Pavel seemed to be the same happy and excitable young man he remembered from their early days on the Enterprise. “But it's getting very cold in Saint Petersburg, very cold this time of year - I don't know if you would appreciate that, Mr. Spock, we will definitely have to get you good winter clothes! You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, of course, my home - well, my home is open to you. Oh, I'll have to clean the guest room first. How long do you anticipate staying, Mr. Spock?”
“I do not know,” Spock said. “Likely past the Christmas holiday.”
“Splendid, splendid,” he continued on. “I'll have a room prepared for you, and good warm clothing, just let me know when you will be arriving. This is quite exciting!”
“I am gratified you think so,” Spock answered, suppressing a smile. “I will be in contact with you again when I finalize the dates.”
“I'll be waiting.”
“Until then, goodbye, Mr. Chekov.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Spock!”
Spock turned the commlink off and settled back into his chair with a sigh. For all the energy Pavel had, it was certainly exhausting speaking to him.
So he would be going to Russia after all. It would be cold and it would be very different from Africa, but Spock was looking forward to the trip.
* * *
When Spock came to a blank page in the middle of thirteen-year-old Jim's journal, he paused and wondered if he should read any further.
In the last entry, Jim had written that his mother and Frank had decided to send him to the colony on Tarsus IV to spend the summer with an aunt and uncle. Spock knew what was coming, and he did not know how he felt about it.
Tarsus had always been a subject of little discussion between them. Jim had never had any desire to specifically keep it a secret, but neither was it something he advertised. He kept quiet about it but if he was approached about it, he would discuss it with little hesitation. When Spock found out about it - five months and eighteen days into their courtship - he had been angry that Jim had not told him about it beforehand. He was no longer ashamed to admit it, but at the time he had continually insisted he certainly was not angry, which, in hindsight, only made the matter worse. The confrontation had been unpleasant. Spock had found out through another crewmember and did not enjoy the feeling of having information being kept from him, and feared the possibility that there was more, much more, that Jim could be hiding from him.
“I don't see how wanting to keep this from the public eye makes me the bad guy,” Jim had snapped as their argument progressed. “If you had ever brought it up of course I would have told you, but you didn't. Excuse me for not just going up to you and telling you, 'oh by the fucking way, I'm a survivor of the Tarsus clusterfuck'!”
“The fact that I had to discover this information through a third party is unacceptable,” Spock had countered, stubbornly standing his ground. “If we are to build trust - if our relationship is to go anywhere - there must be no secrets and certainly no lies.”
“I never lied to you!” Jim exclaimed. “You think I'd want to talk about this shit with just anyone?”
“I do not believe I am 'just anyone', not to you.”
“I don't offer it to everyone I meet for the same reason you don't talk about Vulcan and the Narada incident and your mother.”
At that Spock's blood had run cold, then his face flushed with heated anger and he barely heard Jim's next words.
“It's not - It really sucks, having to talk about it, okay?” he had said, his voice pained and his gaze fluttering around the room and avoiding Spock. “You just - You have no idea. You don't know what it's like, because if you did you wouldn't be acting like this, you would - ”
“No,” Spock had interrupted, hands clenching behind his back. “No, it is you who has no idea.” He had turned and left the room abruptly, his heart hammering furiously in his side.
Spock remembered he had been so enraged at the comment Jim had made about Vulcan and his mother that they had not spoken outside of the bridge for one day, thirteen hours, and forty-seven minutes. But they did speak again, and they did work through the problem, and though their interactions were still tense for several days after the incident, things did get better.
But Tarsus remained something they did not discuss if they did not have to. Every few years Jim would get a request to attend some social gathering of other Tarsus survivors, or he would be asked to give an interview for a documentary or to speak for some awareness-raising group, and he would do so but always with a tired and almost exasperated acceptance. Spock did not understand it, until the first request for an interview for a documentary on the destruction of Vulcan came to him.
He had been furious. When it happened he and Jim had been bonded for just over six months, and when Jim had come home to their quarters that day Spock had ranted about it for over half an hour while Jim just sat there, listening. When Spock finally ran out of angry and outraged words, Jim reached out and touched his fingers and said softly,
“It'll be like this at the beginning. Even when you know you should do this kind of thing it'll still make you angry, but I promise it'll get easier.”
And all at once it had hit Spock - that Jim had not been so far off to compare Tarsus to his own experience. He had been so angry that these people seemed to think his own experience - the struggle to understand and accept what had happened and all the pain and anguish that came along with it, the grief and suffering and anger and desperate longing to change what could not be changed - Jim understood it all and the whole time Spock had simply disregarded it, attributed it to some human over-emotionalism, had never thought of Tarsus as the painful and life-shattering event that it was - and shame flooded him all at once.
“I am sorry,” he had said hoarsely, unable to find any other words. “I - I am sorry.” Jim had just given a little almost-smile and held Spock's hand a little tighter.
“I forgive you,” he had murmured simply. “It's alright. I forgive you.”
Spock looked at the blank page in the journal with pain in his heart. For an event that had so sharply defined his Jim, he had long ignored it, and he regretted that - so he would ignore it no more, and he would read the journal all the way through. He turned the page.
There were three blank pages before the entries began again. The first was dated six months and four days after the last.
“I almost died this summer,” the entry begins, with no prelude, no exposition. “I almost wish I had. Tarsus was hell. I don't like talking about it but my psychologist says I should at least try, and writing about it is the first step.” Spock felt his hand tremble and he paused a moment before reading on.
“While I was there, a fungus attacked the crops and there wasnt enough food to go around. People were dying of starvation, but that wasnt the worst of it, not by a long shot. The governer of Tarsus decided that to save the “best” people, he would kill half of the population so there would be enough food to feed the other half. I was supposed to die. When the soldiers starting coming around to take people away, Uncle Anthony saw them coming and gave me his phaser rifle and told me and Aunt Dana to run. We went out through the back door and ran to the woods. We just ran and ran and ran and when I finally looked back when I couldnt run anymore I couldnt see Aunt Dana and I didnt know what to do so I just kept running. I dont know if shes alive, probably not but I dont know. I dont know about Uncle Anthony either, that was the last time I saw either of them but there names havent been on the lists of the confirmed dead either so who knows.
I dont know how long I ran but it must have been a long time because when I finally stopped I was so tired I just collapsed and fell asleep. When I woke up it was almost light so I must not have slept very long. I hadnt been caught yet so I thought it must be a good sign so I decided to go to the city to try and see what was going on. I didnt know where I was but since the farm was about two and a half miles west from the city and I could see where the sun was rising in the west, because it rises in the west on Tarsus, and just started walking away from it and hoped it was the right direction. I walked until the sun was in the middle of the sky and then I saw smoke, it was the city and the smoke was from where they were burning the bodies of all the people they had killed but I didnt know it then I was just glad I had gone in the right direction after all.
I knew I couldnt actually go into the city so I just kinda snuck around the outsides to try and see what I could to figure out what was happening. The governer Kodos had given his whole announcment thing a lot in the past couple days so I sort of knew what was going on but not really. When I was looking around I found a boy about my age with a littler girl sneaking around the outsides of the city too so I got their attention and found out they had run away just like me so we decided to stick together, and that was how our group of kids started.
I dont really remember how so many of them found us but by the time we were rescued there were nine of us together living in a cave. There would have been eleven but two died and then one died after we were rescued. I had my phaser rifle and two other kids had phasers that their parents had given them and we stole a few more from guard people who found us that we had to kill.
I killed two people on Tarsus, I know they were bad people and it was self-defense and I didn't have any other choice but I still keep thinking I killed two people and Im thirteen years old, the only thirteen year olds who have killed people are kids who are fucked up in their brains. I hate it. I just wish I had died.
Starfleet finally showed up almost three months after everything happened. We were rescued by a ship called the Farragut. When they took us to their medical bay and weighed us I weighed seventy-nine pounds. They told me that I would have died before much longer.
I dont know what happened after we were rescued and I dont really want to know. I wish I could just forget everything that happened. When the Farragut went back to Earth Mom was there and she just cried all the time for days and days and she keeps saying shes so sorry, shell never send me off somewhere again and I just wish she would stop. The doctor from the Farragut said I needed psychological counseling and stuff right away and Frank said he didn't want to pay for it if the insurance wouldnt. Mom says theyre getting a divorce.
Everyone keeps saying I must be a genius to stay alive and help keep so many other kids alive for so long and I'm lucky to be here but all I can think about is how much I wish I had just died on Tarsus.”
The entry ended abruptly there, and Spock closed the journal and let out a long, heavy sigh.
He remembered how, at the very beginning, Jim had told him he could read any of the journals he wanted. Jim had offered to Spock the chance to not only learn that he had been on Tarsus but to read the raw and intimate thoughts Jim had had about it so shortly after it had happened. For so long he had thought Jim had been keeping it from him - but he had given him the chance to know from the very beginning and he hadn't taken that opportunity. He had never wanted to hide it and Spock hadn't believed him when he claimed so.
Spock pressed a hand to his eyes. He did not cry often but suddenly the only thing he felt like doing was weeping.
(part two)