Spock gave Jim the side-eye. It was not the first time Jim had suggested he didn’t want to go with Spock to his father’s hotel in San Francisco.
Currently they were on leave between Enterprise missions. Sarek was on Earth and in San Francisco at the same time, performing ambassador duties.
Spock had, he thought wisely, suggested it was the perfect time for Jim and Spock’s father to become better acquainted.
“Technically you have already met him.”
“Are you…you’re talking about the time I emotionally compromised you, aren’t you?”
Spock hesitated. It was not something either of them liked to talk about. Jim felt guilt and Spock shame.
“Yes.”
Jim shook his head. “Great first impression.”
“Jim my father bears no ill will toward you regarding that. He is anxious to become more familiar with you as my mate.”
Which Jim was. They were fully bonded and had been for some time. Spock did not understand Jim’s hesitation.
He had absolutely no doubt Jim loved him and was fully committed.
“What is your hesitation in having dinner with my father at the hotel?”
“Parents of significant others do not like me.”
Spock was unaware Jim had ever had this experience before, so he stopped walking and made the query.
“Which significant other have you—”
“Back in Riverside. Before I enlisted. I was supposed to meet this girl’s mom and dad, right? Well. Turns out I had met one of them before and had a one-night stand with them.” Jim shook his head and winced. “Beyond awkward.”
“Which one?”
“Which…that doesn’t matter, Spock. The point is we were all mortified. That was the end of that.”
“You have not had a prior liaison with my father,” Spock pointed out.
“No, I know. But…”
Spock could not hide the fact he was disappointed. However, he would do anything to avoid hurting Jim in any way. “I will meet my father for dinner without you.”
“Spock—”
“It is fine, Ashaya. I wouldn’t want you to feel forced or uncomfortable.”
“No, I’ll go. I know it’s all part of it and I’d have to anyway. It’s just…I love you and I hate the idea of your dad not liking me.”
“I do not believe that will be the case, Jim, but if it is, that will change nothing between us. You are the most important being in my life and will remain so.”
Jim sighed. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Negative.”
Jim laughed then and leaned in to kiss Spock. “You are so meeting my mom.”
Logically, Spock had no reason to rush to the hospital. He had already been informed that his boyfriend, Jim Kirk, was stable and in good condition, and yet he found that he was rushing to be at Jim’s side, nevertheless.
He’d received the somewhat terse message from Jim’s difficult best friend, Leonard McCoy. He’d been forced to finish the course he’d been instructing before he was able to leave.
As soon as Spock stepped through the open door of the hospital room, he felt calmer. More relieved.
Jim sat up in the bed, hair adorably rumpled, a cup of something in his hands. His glance went straight to Spock. His expression brightened immediately and it was all Spock could do not to respond in kind.
“Spock!”
McCoy had been standing beside the bed talking to Jim. He frowned at Spock.
“Just a few minutes. He needs rest.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jim said as Spock made it to his side. “Barely a scratch.”
“Doctor McCoy advised you had been struck by a hover car.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “It was a hover cart. You know the kind that the delivery guys use.”
“It knocked him to the ground and he hit his head,” McCoy said. “Got a concussion.”
“It really was nothing.” Jim smiled. “But I’m glad you’re here. Tell Bones I can go home.”
“You’re staying overnight for observation.”
“Oh come on. Spock, tell him it’s nonsense.”
“Now see here—”
Spock touched his fingers to Jim’s. “I bow to the doctor’s judgement, Jim.”
McCoy smiled and bounced up and down. “Well. That’s good then. Just a few minutes.”
And McCoy left them alone.
“You look worried,” Jim said softly.
“I am. Or was. I feel better now.”
“It really was just a small thing. I’ve got a hard head.”
“Hmm. Still I am glad it was not more serious.” Spock sat on the edge of the bed when Jim scooted over. “If you would like to delay—”
“No. No way. We’re leaving on Saturday for Vulcan to meet your parents.”
Spock nodded. “Very well. What is that you have?”
“Bones’ nasty broth. I’d kill for some coffee.”
“How about tea?”
“A milkshake?”
“Tea.”
Jim sighed. “Okay. And a cookie.”
Spock’s lips quirked. “And a cookie.” He kissed Jim’s forehead and went to fetch the tea and cookie, letting out the last of his worry and tension as he did so.
Jim sat straight up, gawking at the figure sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Sp-pock?”
Then he threw his arms around Spock as Spock’s arms came around his. Spock’s arms tightened and held him very close.
Tears sprung to Jim’s eyes before he could stop them. A gasping sob escaped.
“I am here, Jim, I am here,” Spock whispered.
“Are you even real?”
Spock pulled away but only to frame Jim’s face with his hands so that he could kiss him. Spock’s warm lips crushed his, kissing him as though he needed to make up for a year’s time.
Spock broke the kiss, panting. “I am real.”
“But…how are you here? I thought…”
“I could not leave you, Jim. You are my T’hy’la. My bondmate. You are…everything. I have spent the last year trying to find a way for us to be together. My brother was working on a way to help me.”
“I’m going crazy, Spock. I don’t want to live like this.”
“Nor do I.” Spock put his hand on Jim’s face and in a moment Jim felt a burst of warmth and then so much love and tenderness.
“Is that the bond?” he asked, awed.
“Yes, ashayam. I unshielded. I will never keep you out of my mind again.” He blew out a long breath and leaned their heads together. “No matter how we live it must be together.”
Jim swallowed and nodded. “God, it feels so good to have you here.” More tears fell down his cheeks. “If this is a dream, I never want to wake.”
“I must concur. But if it is a dream, we are both having it.”
Spock kissed him again. “Will you come with me?”
“To the future?”
“Yes. I do not wish to take you from your family, however—”
“They’ll be okay.” Jim felt his pulse racing. “Dad knows. We’ve talked. Mom and Sam don’t, but I think Dad would tell them, I don’t know, but he said they’d all be okay. Spock, I could do it. I can go with you.”
“The other way that we have figured out is to have me stay here, with you in this time.”
Jim frowned. “How would that work? I mean with your different physiology.”
“Leonard McCoy. He said if the only way was for me to come here to be with you, he would come here too, to be my doctor.”
Jim blinked, startled. “Yeah?”
“Yes, Jim. Whichever way we choose, there will be times when we could use the technology my brother has developed to cross over to either the past or the future. Not often, not even as much as every year, but it could be done.”
“Not without risk though,” Jim guessed.
“Yes, there is still the chance something could go wrong.” Spock took Jim’s hands in his. “The choice is yours, T’hy’la. For me, the choice is to be with you, wherever you wish. Where I am from is more familiar to me, but I can adjust to anything, do anything, to be with you.”
Jim pulled away and rose. He ran his hand over his face. “I need coffee.”
Spock got up too. “Come.”
They left the bedroom and went out to the kitchen of Spock’s apartment. Jim silently made a pot of coffee, his mind a whirl of thoughts, mostly confusing ones.
“What do you want?” he asked Spock, when he turned from the coffeemaker after he set it to brew.
“To be with you.”
“Me too. Do they have coffee there?”
Spock smiled slightly. “They do, yes.”
Jim closed his eyes. “My family and friends are here. Your family and friends are there.”
“Yes.”
“Here you would always have to hide your true self, there I would have no idea what’s going on, really. But I could learn.”
“Here the weather is good, there it sucks.”
Spock chuckled softly, making Jim’s eyes open in surprise.
“Pros and Cons,” Jim explained. “I can’t help but go through them.”
“I understand.”
“You would outlive me.” He got that thought from Spock. For he’d somehow been given the knowledge that Vulcans outlived Humans by a number of years. “When I die, if you were here, you’d be able to go back there.”
“Theoretically.”
“Theoretically,” Jim agreed. “I don’t know what to do, Spock.”
Spock sighed, it was soft and low. He nodded. “Then allow me to choose for you, ashayam. We will stay here on Earth. In your time. Doctor McCoy will come here as our friend and my doctor. And you will have your friends and family with you.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“What is not fair is to be apart. Everything else is workable, Jim. I want your choice to make you happy.”
The coffee had finished so Jim turned and filled his mug with coffee. It was the Dad mug Jim had found so long ago now. It seemed an eternity but really wasn’t and even though it kind of felt like it, he had not loved Spock for an eternity.
He took a few sips of coffee.
“This place, this city…it’s my home.”
Spock nodded.
Jim set his coffee mug down.
“But my home is you now, Spock. I want it to be. I love you. What we have, I think, is the love of a lifetime. I feel you everywhere. This…” He gestured around. “This is my old life. My future is you. With you…in the future.”
Spock’s warm chocolate eyes gazed at Jim intensely. “Are you sure, T’hy’la?”
Jim smiled and kissed him. “I’m sure.”
Spock drew him close and into his arms once more. “You’re my future too.”
No matter how many times Jim came to the Starfleet Memorial Cemetery in San Francisco, it never failed to not only fill him with sorrow but give him the chills. So many lives lost and each year more appeared.
He went to his father’s memorial first. It was a plaque only, there’d been no remains to bury or cremate.
He didn’t linger there long as he’d never known his dad, really. Just the idea of a dad and stories his mother told him.
Pike was next. There he stayed longer, but he didn’t speak. Really, he never spoke much when he came here. It was just, when he was in the city, he came, to honor those he knew and came before him.
He stopped at others…Gaila, Chekov, both far too young.
Komack.
And then finally, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura.
Bones.
Having super blood meant you outlived everyone else, Jim guessed. There were some things that were not worth it.
Jim turned to face Spock, who accompanied him. His dark eyes were soft, warm, and likewise filled with sorrow.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he whispered.
“I always will. Our transport to New Vulcan awaits.”
Jim had no idea why he was there. It was stupid and pointless. He knew that.
After he had returned to his time, without Spock, he’d gone to Spock’s apartment and found all that Spock had left behind. Even now it was empty, not rented by anyone else, because Spock had, apparently paid the rent well in advance, not wishing to bother with it. He’d been gone a year, and yet according to Jim’s now former apartment manager, the place was still leased for another six months.
Jim came there to this apartment in San Francisco every once in a while. Just to remind himself of Spock and yes, he knew it was crazy.
Here he was again. Just sitting on the couch, staring into space, wishing for something he couldn’t have.
He’d made himself coffee with the coffeemaker Spock bought for him. And that hurt his heart, to remember that.
When he came here, he brought food with him, cream for his coffee, and just soaked it up, he guessed.
Jim was pretty sure his dad understood. But he knew he got strange looks from Sam and his mom. Once Sam told him that he needed to move on and find love elsewhere, but Jim knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not for him.
Sometimes, Jim tried to reach Spock with his mind but nothing ever happened, and he knew Spock had somehow “shielded” things between them anyway.
Hope sprang eternal or so the saying claimed but he was fast losing any hope he’d ever had, which admittedly hadn’t been much.
With another six months on the lease here, Jim had to make the decision whether to continue coming or just give up. He’d never been one to give up before, but this situation was different. Spock was in the future and for all Jim knew he had forgotten there was any past.
I do not belong there, in your time.
Spock had made his position pretty clear. And he’d also made sure to have Jim go back to his time. Perhaps Spock paid more attention to Sarek than Jim thought he would.
He leaned his head back against the couch.
“This is stupid. You’re an idiot. Coming here for an entire year to an empty place that doesn’t even have a trace of Spock in it.”
Jim had spoken out loud.
There was no response, of course.
****
Jim woke in the dark sometime later, stretched out on his back on Spock’s bed. Next to the bed, on the floor, was an empty pizza box. Jim had pathetically stuffed his face before lying down.
He had no idea what had awakened him, so he stayed still, listening. It was pitch black and he couldn’t see a thing. He’d left his cell phone on the table by the bed, so he reached blindly for it and activated it so he’d have a light.
He found a text from Sam.
Hey, are you doing okay?
It came through hours ago. He’d call Sam in the morning.
After a bit, he closed his eyes again, not able to figure out what woke him.
He slept again fitfully.
When he woke again, it was to fingers stroking across his face.
Jim blinked rapidly.
“Shh. T’hy’la, it is all right.”
One more to go, either tomorrow or Tuesday…we will see.
Jim peered up at his dad from his position on the ground next to the cabernet grapes. There was a small patch of dying grass, there was a drought you know, and Jim was lying on his back, staring up at the sky.
“Looking for me?”
“Yup.”
George Kirk lowered himself to the ground next to Jim. He moved easily now. Absolutely no sign of heart trouble. And damn Jim was grateful for that. He really was.
His dad put his hand on Jim’s leg. “How are you doing?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘right as rain’, but he choked on the words, and anyway there was nothing right about the lack of rain these days so it didn’t apply.
Instead he shook his head.
“Listen, I don’t know what all went on a year ago,” he dad admitted. “I feel great. I was pretty sure I was going to die.”
“I’m really glad you didn’t.”
“Me too. But it cost you something, didn’t it?” His dad’s tone was gentle.
“No. That didn’t. What cost me is…I just…I didn’t fight for what I wanted, Dad. I just gave up and let someone decide what was best for me.”
“Maybe you can change that.”
Jim laughed without mirth. “No, I can’t. Of all the things that can be changed in the universe, Dad, that’s the one thing I can’t change.”
George was quiet for a while. “I remember some things I am not sure I am supposed to.”
“Yeah?”
“When I was in the hospital, I remember you sitting with me. I was pretty out of it, but you were telling me something.”
Jim nodded.
“About Spock.”
He sighed. “You should probably try to forget what I told you, Dad.”
“Was it true? What you said? Spock’s an alien from another world? Another time?”
“Dad—”
“I’m remembering right, aren’t I? Jim, I remember being in some other hospital bed with strange machinery and a completely different doctor.”
“Doctor McCoy,” Jim said softly.
“Then I’m not crazy.”
“Not unless both of are.” Jim sat up so that he sat side by side with his dad. “I took you to Spock’s world and Spock’s time, which is in the future, and they had advanced medicine and they saved your life.”
George frowned. “And that’s why it seemed like my heart hadn’t been damaged.”
“Yeah. Only…I wanted to stay with Spock. Spock and I…we had the love of a lifetime, I guess, I don’t know. We were soulmates. But he saw how much you all meant to me and told me I should come back here and live my life and basically forget about him and never see him again. His dad was big on not changing the future when changing the past, that kind of crap.”
“So you came back here.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re miserable.”
Jim shook his head. “Not miserable. Exactly.”
“You quit your job in San Francisco to come stay here with us. That was what Sam wanted, though, not you.”
Jim shrugged. “It’s beautiful here. It’s not a hardship. But…my friend Nyota got married last week to the guy she’d wanted and the crazy thing is she was getting with him when I was seeing Spock and…it makes me a little sad. I’ll-I’ll get over it. Because I have to, Dad. He’s in the future in a place I can’t go.”
“Nothing is truly hopeless, Jim.”
“Yeah right.” Jim snorted. “My alien boyfriend from the future is never coming back. And the problem is, I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
“If I could help you, I would, son. But you should know that we would be all right, you know, if that opportunity ever came up again, your mom and me and Sam with Aurelan and their baby, Peter. We’d be all right.”
Jim smiled and wiped at his eyes. “Thanks, Dad. But it’s just too late.”
Spock felt Jim’s distress pouring off of him. It lead to Spock feeling distressed in reaction. Thus, definitely the problem with having your T’hy’la bond with a Human.
He could shield and that would make Jim’s emotional state less of a burden to him, but Spock didn’t really wish to do that. Not at this point.
But as Spock watched Jim anxiously standing by his father’s bed as Leonard McCoy treated him, Spock knew what he would have to do. The sacrifice he would have to make.
It would tear him apart, but for Jim, yes.
Spock put his hand on Jim’s back to get his attention, then turned him to face him, stepping away from where McCoy worked for just a moment.
“Jim, we need to talk.”
Jim licked his lips and then glanced back at his father. “Okay.” He nodded.
“When your father has been cured, you need to return to your time with him.”
Jim did not respond but was looking at Spock.
Here was the hard part.
“And I must stay here.”
“What?” Jim whispered.
“Your family is very important to you, Jim. You love them and they love you. You have a rare, very close relationship. Your life is full and rich and everything you want it to be.”
“Except without you.”
“I cannot come with you,” Spock made himself say. “I want to be with you, I love you, and that will never change.” Spock shook his head. “It amazes me that in the little amount of time I have known you, you have come to mean so much. But I do not belong there, in your time.”
“Spock—”
“Always having to hide myself, worrying about exposure as to who and what I am. Your world is not yet ready for me. And I cannot ask you to leave your family behind to stay here with me. This is not your life; your life is there.”
“I-I could do it,” Jim insisted.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Jim’s eyes were filling with tears, which was making it even more difficult for Spock.
“But your T’hy’la bond, don’t you need it?”
“It’s mere existence is a comfort to me. Before you leave, I will shield both of our minds to lessen any trauma or distress brought on by separation. It will be easy for you and quite manageable for me.”
“You think this is going to be easy for me?” Jim asked, choking up. “Nothing about any of this is easy. Telling me we’ll never see each other again, but hey, it’s okay, Jim because I can shield myself from you? That may work for your brain, Spock, but it sure as hell won’t work for my heart!”
“Jim—” Spock let out a shaky breath. “You know yourself that you do not want to simply disappear from your family without knowing what happened to you. You’ve said as much and I know how you feel.”
Jim closed his eyes and a tear squeezed out of his eye onto his cheek. “I get it. I understand what you’re telling me. But I want you to know, this is anything but easy.”
“I am sorry.”
Jim shook his head. “Me too.”
“Jim, only a few more minutes,” McCoy said from by the bed.
Jim embraced Spock then, holding him close, and letting the tears fall. “I don’t want this.”
“I know, T’hy’la. I do not either.”
Spock put his hand on Jim’s face.
“Will shielding hurt? I mean…physically.”
“Negative.” And yes, it will be excruciating, Spock thought.
Jim leaned his head on Spock’s shoulder.
Spock probed Jim’s mind and placed a shield there so being apart would do not damage to Jim’s mind. He did the same for his own, though he knew it would not be enough to dull the pain and torment of not being with his T’hy’la.
And some day, if he entered Pon Farr…but no, he would not think of that. It did not matter. Only ensuring Jim would have what he needed was important.
It was the best he could do under the circumstances, but already he felt the loss of the comfort of Jim’s mind with his. He could no longer feel Jim’s deeper emotions, only surface ones where he touched.
“Jim,” McCoy called.
Jim pulled back and kissed Spock.
Amazingly, Spock let him go and walk away. He was uncertain how he managed it.
Jim went to his father’s bedside.
“He’s fine now. He’ll recover,” McCoy assured Jim. “Heart’s good as new. You may have to explain that miracle—”
“Okay.”
“If you’re going with him,” Leonard said, with a glance at Spock, who nodded, “sit on the bed and hold onto him. That way you should both transport.”
Jim did as Leonard said, but he didn’t look at Spock. For that Spock was grateful, for he might beg Jim to stay after all.
“Okay, Sybok, they’re ready,” Leonard said into the comm.
George Kirk opened his eyes and looked around. “Jim? Who are—”
Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto) 