The Fluid Nature of Fixed Eventualities (Star Trek 2009/Enterprise)
Rating: PG
Summary: It was impossible to resist - the depth and volume of knowledge Spock Prime had of the original timeline, a timeline in which Vulcan lived. Young Spock can’t deny the temptation or the need to at least try.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I profit from nothing. BUT if I did Kirk would get beaten up a lot more. Just saying J
Warnings: Spoilers for end of Enterprise and Star Trek 2009.
AN: I wrote this for crossover_las and since the comm appears to be down for awhile (forever?) I have decided to post it, which if the comm is restarted will probably disqualify me. I appear to be in a selfdestructive, clean out the WIP folder mood. :)
Spock waited exactly one year after Nyota’s death before initiating the final stages of his plan. Their plan. Spock(s) plan.
During his first shore leave under Kirk’s command, on the fledging colony of New Vulcan, Spock had cornered Spock Prime. On a scratched, battered but serviceable datapad, Spock Prime had detailed the old timeline, the prime timeline. The major events, the key turning points, the pivotal players in the galaxy’s destiny. That approximate four hours barely covered the closing decades of the 23rd century. By the time Spock stood on the make shift transport pad awaiting a beam back, Spock Prime handed him two more datapads.
The long, knowing look from old Spock, deep, considering, a lifetime of experience and regret leeching into the very core of Spock led him to the conclusion that his subterfuge of wanting to track the differences in the timeline, had failed. Spock Prime knew even better than he did the burning, aching hole within them.
All three of those datapads sat in the small, experimental spacecraft with him seventy years later. They had been upgraded, patched and retrofitted over the years but the data had never been transferred or copied. Not once. Not ever. Not if the plan was going to work.
Spock Prime had died ten years after the founding of New Vulcan and his final act had been the express command that the New Vulcan Science Academy accept all species applications. If he had not done so, Spock would have insisted himself.
It hadn’t been easy to balance the full time occupation of keeping James T. Kirk from starting a war with the Klingons with the careful grooming of select students, and surreptitious feeding of ideas and notions to fertile, eager minds. But Spock managed it. Managed to divert a war and advance technological development in time travel.
With the original time line further divergent without the Klingon war, it had been tempting to set aside the datapads, but Spock Prime’s final message had proved itself time and time again. ‘Some things are as inevitable as the turning of the page. And others are fixed points in the fate of the Universe.’
Marrying Nyota had been simple, inevitable and wonderful. At times, her sad smiles and soft touches on his forehead had warned him that she knew, knew what he was planning. So Spock waited, waited for her to die, surrounded by their children and grandchildren.
Fifty years before its original ‘prime version’ was built, Spock signed off on the small, sleek spacecraft that did not have a globe of red matter at its core, but instead a pulsing, gyrating energy source that allowed for temporal travel.
The future was impossible to change, too fluid now - continuing down the wrong path, so it was to the past Spock leapt. Engines primed, farewells intimated, Spock whispered to himself, ‘Engage.’ The sleek little ship that should never have been because its architect was the alternate future version of himself, leapt and disappeared from normal space.
How do you stop a time travelling Romulan ship from destroying your world, people and utterly changing your life? Do you go back to the point that it all went wrong, the year 2233? Or years later, when the Narada was actually destroying Vulcan?
Possibly, yes. But the original timeline would still be different. Kirk would still be born on the Kelvin instead of Earth. Spock Prime, would still be out of his original time. So, perhaps it was better to change ... everything.
*st2009*enterprise*
Two years into the Earth-Romulan war and Jonathan Archer was already tired. Tired of pushing his people to their limits, tired of failing even when they succeeded because the smallest victory cost too much, in lives and honour.
The Romulans were smart, vicious and unpredictable. It was going to be a long war. Archer groaned as he stared at the datapad in front of him and wondered how to tell yet another mother that her son was dead. The comm. blipped, delaying the inevitable.
“Captain. An unidentified spacecraft is hailing us, sir.”
Sighing a little more, Archer stood and replied into his comm., “On my way.”
By the time he reached the bridge, Malcolm was in a flat spin as the distinct glow of an incoming transporter beam filled the bridge. Archer drew his own phaser and pointed it at the being remateralising. A Vulcan, but maybe a Romulan, the man held up his hands, unarmed and said quickly, “Forgive the impertinence, but I come in peace.”
The small smile, the odd Earth phrase, and Archer felt his hackles ease. “Who are you?” he snapped. The Vulcan smiled again, “A friend, I assure you. Commander T’Pol can verify my intentions, Captain Archer, but simply I’ve come to help you win a war.”
It took a lot of talking and one brief mind meld session but Captain Archer was as trusting of his ‘gut’ as Kirk had always said he’d been. Spock won them over with his intel and the tide of the war turned quickly in the Earth Alliance’s favour.
In typical fashion, the Romulans were stubborn and defiant but eventually capitulated and surrendered. They would join the Federation, eventually. Be an ally. Like the Klingons had been ... eventually.
The timeline was once again irrecoverably changed.
Old, weary, victorious, Spock planned one last trip. 2259 - one year after Vulcan’s destruction in ‘his’ original timeline, the one he desperately wished to change, had spent a lifetime planning to change... had gambled like no Vulcan ever would that changing the past would spare his people.
As his ship finished its final trip, leaving the year of the birth of the Federation and slipping into the worst year of his life, Spock was strangely reluctant to look and see if all his sacrifice and plans had born fruit. As the spacecraft turned in orbit, the massive red planet below rose into view. The sensors indicated a thriving population, and he was being scanned by ships in orbit, demanding to know who he was.
Spock’s final smile was beautiful in its completeness.
*
FIN