Kirk wasn’t sure how he felt as he watched Spock interact with his father.

Tired, yes. Relieved, yes. Proud, yes. Elated, certainly.

They’d done it again. His crew. Saved the world or as much of the world that belonged to them from another threat of disaster.

This time they’d gone back in time for whales.

Sarek nodded at Spock, raised his hand in the ta’al and then walked away in another direction as Kirk waited for Spock to join him.

“Everything all right?”

“Of course.”

Side by side they walked as they had surely done so many dozens of times.

“What did your father have to say?”

Spock was contemplative for a moment. “Merely that perhaps he had been wrong about his dissatisfaction with my choice to join Starfleet.”

Kirk smiled faintly. “After all this time?”

“Indeed. And he inquired if I had a message for my mother.”

He glanced at Spock. “And did you?”

“I said I felt fine.”

His smile widened. “Good.”

He saw Spock’s gaze sweep over the crowd gathered outside the building they had just vacated. HQ. Still standing, though damaged from the probe. For a brief moment, Spock’s gaze landed and froze on Gillian Taylor as she stood talking to those that would train her on their time and their technology.

“Jealous, Spock?”

It wasn’t something they talked about often. Perhaps they should have. For Kirk there had been others over the years of their friendship, their…relationship. Many others. For Spock, a few as well.

They didn’t really talk about Saavik and what had happened on the Genesis planet. Kirk really didn’t want to either. Spock was alive and anything else didn’t make a difference.

With Gillian Taylor nothing had happened. Nothing would have happened. But there was history there and so Kirk wondered.

“No,” Spock said, softly.

Kirk looked at him bemusedly. “No?”

Spock arched a brow then. “Is there a reason I should be?”

He thought of their brief conversation where he’d joked with Gillian that he didn’t have her number. He shook his head.

“No.”

Spock looked at him then. “I know that no matter who catches your eye, your attention, your interest, in the end, you always come back to me.”

Kirk felt his heart twist. “Yeah, I do. As you do to me. Even without every memory you had before.”

“We are T’hy’la. No one else matters but us at the end of it all.”

Kirk looked away, swallowing hard. Perhaps he really was old now for he felt the prick of tears. He shook his head. “There’s not going to be anymore of those others, Spock. You’re stuck with me.”

“As you are stuck with me.”

Kirk grinned. “There’s an old Earth song that reminds me of us. It goes ‘I’m happy to be stuck with you’.”

He didn’t sing it but it was a near thing. He liked to sing even if he couldn’t really carry a tune. Spock had reminded him of that many times.

Kirk took a deep breath and turned away from the crowd and pointed to a much quieter street to use for their escape.

“Well, Mister Spock? Shall we?”

Once more they walked, side by side, as they had always been, as they were meant to be.

And that is a wrap of November and the “jealousy” theme. I hope you enjoyed my different takes.