Fic: Two Summers, 1-16
Chekov mans the science station now. When he turns around in his captain’s chair it’s not Spock he sees, but the Russian. The Russian who sure as hell isn’t seventeen anymore.
Out of them all, Pavel seems to take things the quietest. Sulu’s says it’s the Russian winters, the way the wind strips you of the very warmth of your own skin and slices through the marrow of your bones. You either grow a thicker skin or freeze to death.
Pavel doesn’t say yes or no either way. Jim’s come to rely on him as much as he relies on the rest of them. When things get bad he prefers to put Pavel on navigation because he and Sulu make an incomparable team. But otherwise, he wants the Russian’s genius focused on the sensors. Spock always admired Chekov’s raw intellectual power, which was saying something. He had hoped that as Pavel got older his mind would become sharper and a more effective tool.
Jim certainly thinks Pavel’s growing into his own mind.
He wishes he knew what was going on with his emotions though.
It’s funny how he sees different aspect of Spock in his crew. Is it because he misses Spock so much his mind goes hunting for anything that might remotely resemble him? Have those characteristics always been there? Is it because the crew is responding to Spock’s absence and trying to fill the gap he left behind?
Jim’s never really been that close to Chekov, not like Spock. He’s spent a lot more time with Sulu. Their interests line up more naturally, they often spar or fence together, Sulu’s personality’s a lot more like Jim’s. When he first took command, he wasn’t really sure how to act around Pavel. On one hand he sympathized with him because he knows what it feels like to be the youngest prodigy boy genius sensation. On the other hand, seventeen is just fucking young. They might’ve been evenly matched in brainpower but that was where the similarities ended.
There was also the fact that most of the time, Jim was arguing with Spock. Then planning missions with Spock, playing chess with Spock, debating with Spock, making out with Spock, eating lunch with Spock. Basically living and breathing Spock while he was on duty, and on a lot of his time off.
Without Spock, he finds he has a lot of time on his hands.
He refuses to play chess with anyone. But he needs something to occupy his mind and the time, keep him sharp and able to think on his feet.
Sulu introduces him and Chekov the game of go. They become addicted immediately.
At first, the games are short. Jim and Pavel are fast learners though, and soon the games are stretching over an hour. Then two. Then four. Then they decide to break up their games to take place in two halves.
Jim refuses to play in his quarters, so they either take a table in the rec room or find an empty conference room.
It’s fun, it’s different, it’s exactly what he needs. He thinks it takes some of the edge off of Pavel’s face, but he can’t be sure about that.
He can’t help but think that Spock would’ve loved this game. He wonders if there any Vulcan board games they might have tried, to vary it up from round after round of chess. He also wonders why he never bothered to ask more questions about Vulcan traditions, Vulcan pastimes they might’ve shared. Vulcans must’ve had logic games, things to help them develop different parts of their mental abilities.
It hits him again. The loss of Spock’s world. The loss of Vulcan, the loss of Spock, everything intertwined. The diversity that was wiped out by the mad grief of a Romulan, the precious life ended by a lucky shot to the head. It’s the subtle things, the small things make his breath hitch and vision blur.
And suddenly he’s afraid that he’ll forget. That process of time will erode away all those small details that he treasures and misses so much. At times, he’s overwhelmed by the memory of Spock, like a wave that just knocks him off his feet and drags him under until he’s drowning in Spock. Other times, he feels like he’s grasping to keep Spock from slipping away. His own mind feels like a treacherous thing, unreliable and frustratingly unable to preserve Spock as he was in life. Jim doesn’t want distorted images and fading memories. He just wants Spock. He wanted Spock alive, but he’s dead. Is it too much to ask for a clear and true memory of the only man Jim has ever shared a bond?
But there are moments. There are moments, clear and true, when the memory of Spock flashes before him and he remembers.
They are only moments, and they are few and far between. They are only moments, but they have the power to bring him to his knees.
Spock.
Why?