Jim woke feeling better than when he’d fallen unconscious. He was sure of it.
He kind of sort of remembered a phaser blast that seemed way more than on stun but clearly hadn’t killed him. He thought at one point maybe he’d wanted to be.
But now he felt comfortable. Downright cozy. Very warm. And even loved.
And his head was resting against a very solid chest. For a moment he frowned, but then a hand softly massages the crown of his head and he closed his eyes, smiling.
Spock now sat in his living room, cat on his lap, trying to wrap his logical mind as to why Commander James T. Kirk would be the cat that Spock had rescued and was now fostering.
A line from an old Earth’s scribe came to mind.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
From all accounts and Starfleet records, James Kirk was an ordinary Human. A brilliant, high-achieving one, notwithstanding. However, if the cat now staring at him with striking blue eyes was indeed Kirk than accounts were not accurate.
Now there was a chance that something on the planet the shuttlecraft had crashed on had somehow turned Kirk into the creature now in Spock’s apartment, but Spock didn’t think so.
He recalled after speaking with George Samuel Kirk that he read that the hole in the door of the shuttle had been too small for a Human to escape through, which was one of the reasons the authorities had decided that Kirk perished along with the others in the crash, even after not finding evidential remains. And that had been a logical conclusion if they did not have all the information needed to determine that.
But George Samuel Kirk had declared to Spock without hesitation that the hole in the door had been big enough for Jim. And if Kirk was in the form of this feline on his lap, that would make him fit through that hole.
Yet Kirk, if this was indeed somehow him, had not changed back to Human form.
“What are your secrets?” Spock asked Bombay.
Bombay made the tiniest of meow sounds, more like a kitten than a full-grown cat and then put his paw on Spock’s face.
Spock blinked at the cat. “You want me to meld with you?”
“My ankle is killing me. I need to rest.” Jim panted and slunk down on the nearest rock. It felt like maybe his ankle had shattered. It was excruciating.
Spock, though, was giving him that sort of almost frown. “Captain, we should keep on moving.”
“I know that, Spock. I need a moment.”
They had been running for a couple of hours on this stupid planet. The inhabitants had not been friendly but they hadn’t been aware of them for a while. Jim was pretty sure they had lost them. But they’d also got lost themselves.
They had to meet up with the rest of the party at the beam up point. Spock had been trying to keep them both moving.
Five minutes passed.
“Captain.”
Jim gritted his teeth and stood. “Okay.”
He made it another mile but then he fell onto his knees, crying out in pain.
“Jim!”
Jim groaned. “I can’t do it, Spock. You’re going to have to keep going.”
Spock had crouched down beside Jim. “And leave you?”
“Yeah. I can’t walk like this. I can’t move. I can’t even put weight on it anymore.” Jim shook his head. “You’re going to have to go to the beam up point.”
“There is absolutely no way that I am going to abandon you here.”
“You have to, Spock. It’s ridiculous for both of us to be stuck here. You go on and they’ll have to send a medical team for me.” Jim only hoped their unfriendly hosts didn’t find him there.
Spock shook his head. “There is no scenario that includes me leaving you behind.”
“Spock, your duty—”
“Is to you,” Spock responded. “The Enterprise will survive without us. I will not survive without you.”
Jim blinked at Spock, his jaw dropping open.
Spock’s nostrils flared.
“Is there something maybe you’d like to declare, Spock?” Jim asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.
“This is hardly the place or time.”
“True. So then—”
“I will be carrying you.”
“Carrying me? Spock, you can’t—”
“I can.”
“That’s pretty humiliating,” Jim groused.
Spock gave him a look, Jim stopped arguing, and allowed his first officer to swoop him up into his arms. Their gazes met.
Jim smiled. “Same, by the way.”
Spock shook his head. “You are impossible.”
“Yep. All right, Mister Spock. Get us out of here.”
Jim chuckled. Okay, sure, he was feeling pretty good considering he’d nearly been killed. It was no doubt the pain meds he was being given. Happy Juice.
“I was thinking that I ought to save the life of a very important serving officer of Starfleet. Very valuable.”
“Did it occur to you that description applied to you too and should leave that to your security guards?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully.
“Nope?” Bones shook his head and jabbed Jim with a hypo. That Happy Juice was magic. He hadn’t even felt that. “Well, you are the captain of this bucket of bolts, you know.”
“Sure, sure. But Spock could take over.”
“Spock does not want to take over,” Spock himself said stoically as he approached Jim’s biobed. “And he does not appreciate you risking your life unnecessarily.”
Jim waved this away. Or he thought he did anyway.
“Someone had to save you, Sweetheart.”
Spock flicked his glance to Bones, who shrugged. Then Bones walked away and Spock moved closer.
“How do you feel, Captain?”
“Like all my blood drained out and then got put back in.” Jim smiled and held out his hand, which Spock took. “How are you feeling, Sweetheart?”
“I am feeling well, thanks to your actions that prevented my injury.”
“Well, good. You are welcome, Sweetheart.”
Spock frowned.
“What?”
“That is the third time you called me sweetheart.”
“And? Oh, I know! You prefer another endearment. Honey? Baby? Sugar?”
“Sweetheart is acceptable. But you have…that is…you have never called me an endearment before.”
“No?” Jim licked his lips. Shook his head. “We are doing it, yeah?”
Spock nearly laughed. Jim could see the twitch of his lips and the merriment in his eyes.
“Yes, Jim. Although not at the moment,” Spock said gravely.
“Okay then.” He paused, arched both brows. “You don’t like endearments?”
“Actually, I find that I do.” Spock touched the tips of his fingers to Jim’s. “I have one for your.” He leaned down and whispered it int Jim’s ear.
“What?” Even as Spock asked the question, the cats claws dug into his skin painfully, but Spock dared not let him go.
“My cat. That cat belongs to my wife and me,” the man explained. “I saw the notices about looking for the cat’s owners.” He grinned. “Well, you found me!”
Automatically, Spock took a backwards step. He couldn’t even explain why.
“So.” The man held out his hands. “Give him over.”
“What is the cat’s name?” Spock heard himself ask.
“Hmm?” The man frowned. “The name?”
“Yes. You should know his name.”
“Well, of course I know his name! It’s…Kirk.”
Spock’s blood ran cold. It made no sense. It was likely a mere coincidence that this man would name this cat Kirk. And yet…Spock rarely observed coincidences.
“If it’s a reward you want—”
“No, I do not want a reward. I do not believe this is your cat.”
The man’s face reddened. “How dare you! Give me that cat.”
Bombay hissed and this time as he scratched at Spock’s neck, he had no choice but to release the cat. But rather than fly past the fedora man, Bombay ran toward Spock’s bedroom, presumably to hide.
“I demand that you leave my house,” Spock said coldly.
“I want that cat, it belongs to me!”
“I think not.”
The man stepped closer to Spock, who’d had enough. He reached up and pinched the man’s shoulders and watched as he slid to the floor, unconscious.
A while later, he went to his bedroom to seek out Bombay’s hiding place. He crouched down by the bed.
“It is all right. He is gone, taken off by the authorities for trespassing.”
He could see the cat’s glowing eyes under the bed.
Taking a chance, though strange it was, Spock said, “Come, Jim. It is all right. I will help you.”
And then the cat slunk out from under the bed and onto Spock’s lap on the floor.
Jim felt vaguely silly carrying the stuffed animal he held in his arms to a convalescing Vulcan, but he was doing that actual thing.
He heard low voices as he approached Spock’s hospital room and for a moment he hesitated, thinking Uhura was probably in there with him, but just as he took a step backward, a somewhat harried looking nurse appeared.
“You here for Mister Spock, Captain?”
He nodded.
She grimaced. “Good luck.”
Then she walked away.
With a slight shrug, he went through the doorway and into Spock’s room. The Vulcan was sitting up, his usually impeccable bowl cut mussy. He cradled a cup of tea in his hands and in front of him was an untouched plate of food.
“Hey,” Jim greeted him with a smile.
“Captain!” Spock straightened like he planned to salute or something.
“At ease, Spock. I’m not here as your captain, but your friend.” Jim thrust the stuffy at him. “Uh. This is a…”
Spock stared at the stuffed creature in his hands. “A sehlat?”
Jim felt his face flush. “Yeah. Um, so your dad—”
“My father?”
“Yes. He told me where I could get one.” Jim chuckled self-consciously. “Your dad’s okay.”
Spock’s gaze moved to the sehlat. “Thank you.”
Jim smiled and put it on the table beside the bed. “Uh, I don’t know if I…did I properly thank you for saving my life yet again?”
“Thanks are unnecessary.”
“They probably are.”
Spock shook his head, his gaze rather intense.
“Well, uh.” Jim cleared his throat. “We weren’t even on the ship.”
“An assassin attempted to end your life, I have no regrets.” Spock paused. “Fortunately.”
Jim licked his lips. “I’m just glad you’ll be okay. And that fucker was taken into custody. Did they say when you’ll be released?”
“Two more nights,” Spock said, sounding bitter. “I do not believe it is required. They think otherwise.”
Jim hid a smile. “I ran into one of your nurses.”
“A most disagreeable woman. You should sit, Captain.”
“Jim.” He looked around for a chair, but Spock padded a space on the bed. Surprised, Jim blinked and sat on the small space there. “I’m surprised Uhura isn’t here with you.”
“Nyota was here earlier to see me but she left some time ago.”
“She coming back later?”
Spock frowned slightly. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Oh? I thought she’d want to stay close the whole time you are here.”
Spock shook his head. “We are not together.”
“What?”
“Jim, we dissolved our relationship before the attack on Altamid.”
“But…I thought after you helped rescue her and at my party you guys seemed to be reconciling.”
“We considered it for a brief time,” Spock acknowledged. “But it became clear that it would not work considering the depth of our emotional attachment to each other had altered.”
Jim shook his head to clear it. “Uh. Okay.” Sometimes he really wished Spock would find an easy way to say something. “Why is that?”
Spock held out his hand toward Jim, who though surprised, took Spock’s hand in his.
“My affections are for someone else,” Spock said simply.
“For someone…” Jim’s eyes widened as he looked into those dark chocolate eyes. “Oh.”
Spock’s lips curved into an almost smile. “Yes. Oh.”
Jim laughed, feeling rather giddy as he leaned forward for Spock’s kiss.
We’ve been getting hammered with a storm the last few days (Friday night was wicked) and this morning we woke to snow on the local hills. I attempted a picture from my sister’s backyard window where you can sorta see the snow on the top of the hills past the leafless winter trees.
Snow on hills February 26, 2023
Naturally after I told M’s sister who lives in North Dakota, she was suitably impressed. And sent THESE pictures from her house. Now, really, where would YOU rather live? LOL
The rest of the day proved to be fairly normal, but in the morning when Spock went to leave his apartment, Bombay ran out the door.
“Bombay, come back,” Spock called after the feline, but the cat was gone out of the outside courtyard.
At first, Spock wasn’t sure if he should go after him. Bombay wasn’t his and perhaps the cat had decided to leave to seek his real home. But then Spock knew that he could not just let the cat go without knowing he was safe, especially given his already witnessing a person abusing the animal, and so he set out in pursuit.
When he got to the street, Spock glanced first to the left which would take him in direction of a less crowded suburban area. He saw no sign Bombay had gone that way. He turned to look to the right toward the city and the direction Spock himself would go when going to Starfleet Academy. He spotted Bombay’s raised tail as the cat trotted off in that direction.
With a bit of a sigh, Spock followed after, increasing his pace the more the cat seemed to get ahead of him. Once more he wondered if he should just let the animal go.
He was about to slow his pace when Bombay ran into the intersection of a street and missed getting hit by a speeding hover cab by mere inches. The cat stopped in the street then, looking disoriented, and for a moment Spock thought perhaps the cab had not missed the feline after all.
Spock rushed to his side, ignoring the twinge in his leg, and scooped the cat up into his arms. Another hover vehicle honked at Spock and the cat, so he hurried back to the safety of the sidewalk.
“You cannot run out in front of cars,” Spock admonished the cat, as though the furball could understand him. He glance back toward the way to his apartment. It would take him time to take Bombay and then he would be late to begin the teaching of his class. His leg already ached from overuse considering his prior injury.
Spock made up his mind. He would have to find something to keep the cat in while he taught, but, “You are coming with me.”
****
The day proved to be much more uneventful than it had begun, Spock realized, as he made his way home with Bombay in a cardboard box he had obtained at the Academy.
During two of his taught courses, Bombay had made something of a ruckus but eventually when he realized he wasn’t getting free, Bombay had curled up in the box and went to sleep.
He had just fed the cat when there was a knock on his door. The cat jumped into his arms and began to rub against Spock’s neck and purr.
“Apparently you have forgiven me for trapping you n that box,” Spock said, as he made his way to the door. Whoever was knocking was impatient, as they rapped again, this time much louder and with more force.
Spock opened the door, holding onto Bombay tighter so the cat wouldn’t try to escape.
There stood a man Spock did not know. He wore a fedora, which seemed odd. He grinned broadly.
She’d insisted on wearing a traditional wedding dress rather than giving into the idea of wearing Vulcan robes. The dress fell long to just the top of her delicate little ballet slippers, which were trimmed with tiny little cloth roses in yellow that seemed to go very well with her off-white dress and shoes. She’d chosen not to don a veil or a tiara, nothing like that. She just had her blonde hair, now streaked rather liberally with gray, piled high on her head with ringlets cascading down.
She looked beautiful. Even breathtaking if Jim was allowed to say so considering she was his mama.
“I bet you looked like this when you married dad.”
Winona Kirk, soon to be Kirk no more, Jim supposed, turned and gave him a radiant smile. “Oh but a lot younger, of course.” She sighed and smoothed out her dress. “Is it stupid that I’m nervous?”
“Nope. It’s not every day you get married. And even less that you marry a Vulcan.”
“And yet you did too.”
“Uh-huh.” Jim sat down on the edge of her bed as she stood before the free-standing full length mirror in her bedroom.
Sarek had, somewhat surprisingly, agreed to have their marriage and bonding ceremony in Riverside at the farmhouse. The couple would split their time between the farmhouse and their house on New Vulcan.
If someone had told Jim a year ago that his father-in-law would one day become his stepfather, well…life was strange sometimes. But Sarek seemed to make his mother happy and that was what mattered to Jim.
“Were you nervous?”
“I was. And I had a bit of cold feet, too.”
She frowned at him. “Did you?”
“Sure. All that bonding for life, mind meld shit, it’s a lot to deal with.” He laughed. “You know that. You’re dealing with some of that yourself.”
“We haven’t really done much in the way of melds. But yes. I’m still surprised to hear you had doubts.”
“Of course I did. But I loved Spock, so I set those aside and married him anyway.”
“And now?”
Jim laughed. “Now I’m deliriously happy and have no clue what my problem was. How about you, Mom? You have any doubts?”
She thought about it. Shook her head. “No. I am nervous. Maybe I’ll say the wrong thing, stumble over my words, that kind of thing. I don’t want to embarrass Sarek in front of the priestess or other Vulcans. But doubts about being Sarek’s wife? No. I love him and he loves me. We’re different, sure, but I think those differences make us work really well. I never had doubts about your dad either.”
Jim nodded, smiled, and stood to offer her his arm.
“Frank was a different story.”
“Yeah?”
“I definitely had a million alarms going off in my head, but I ignored them, thinking it was just…not wanting to let go of your father.” She shook her head ruefully. “What a fool I was. I should have listened to my instincts.”
“You weren’t a fool. You were just lonely and wanted companionship. You chose the wrong guy. But you’re no fool, Mom.”
“I certainly have a spectacular son.” She hugged him.
“Come on, let’s get you married.”
They exited her bedroom and went down the stairs and out to the yard to begin.
And that concludes the love month of February, thanks for reading
Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto) 