Fic: Que Sera Sera (11/15)
Fandom: TOS/TNG/ST XI -slight AU where there isn’t a 16 year gap between the events of Generations and Star Trek 2009.
Pairings: Kirk Prime/McCoy Prime/Spock Prime, Kirk/Spock/McCoy, Scotty/Uhura
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: minor character death
Summary: Spock Prime went to save Romulus from a supernova and failed, leaving him in a universe that is similar and still so different from his own. Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy Kirk Prime was freed from the Nexus by Captain Picard and survived. Not believing that Spock Prime is dead Kirk Prime goes in search of him, and travels to the universe created when Nero went through the black hole. In that universe Kirk and Spock are starting on their five year mission, determined to write their own destinies after their encounters with Spock Prime. Unlike them McCoy doesn’t trust destiny as far as he can throw it, and he has his own problems to deal with, like getting custody of the three year old daughter he didn’t know he had.
Que Sera Sera
Kirk glared at the ugly piece of artwork on the wall of the bar as he sipped his drink.
“You know, Spock, I’ve just realized something.”
“What is that, Captain?”
“I hate my job.”
Spock lifted his eyebrow. “An unusual statement.”
“I mean think about it, we defeat the biggest threat to the Federation we have ever seen, get infected by ‘happy’ spores, nearly lose you to a band of aliens, and now we get to guard a bunch of wheat.”
“Quadrotritcale is not wheat, Captain, it is a hybrid of wheat and rye. It was first introduced in Canada and-“
“Spock, I don’t need a lecture I know exactly what it is: a royal pain in the ass. The only good thing about this is that crew gets some shore leave.”
As if on cue Uhura and Chekov came up to them just then with Joanna in tow.
“Well, you guys didn’t waste any time getting down here.”
Chekov smiled. “They wanted to go shopping and I said I would go with them to help carry the bags.”
The three of them set off. Fifteen minutes later Chekov disappeared into a shop displaying numerous weapons in search of a birthday present for Sulu. While Uhura and Joanna approached a small cart with a few very small fish tanks, and what looked like bright fuzzy balls sitting on the shelves.
The man running the booth smiled at them. “My name is Cyrano Jones, how may I help you?”
“We’re just looking thank you.”
Joanna looked at a small tank filled with colorful jellyfish looking creatures as Uhura picked up one of the balls on the shelves and it cooed at her.
“Oh it’s adorable, what is it?” Uhura asked Cyrano.
“My dear lady, it’s a tribble.”
Joanna picked up a smaller tribble and laughed as it wiggled in her hands.
“Can we get one, Auntie Uhura?”
Uhura bit her lip. “I don’t know, Sweetie. I don’t know what your daddy thinks about getting a pet. They’re a big responsibility.”
Joanna looked at Uhura with puppy dog eyes, her lip sticking out.
“Please?”
“I tell you what let’s pick out one for me and then we can go back to the ship and show daddy how good you are at taking care of him. Then maybe your daddy will let you get one of you own, okay?”
“Okay!”
***
The next morning Kirk and Spock came into the mess hall to find a bunch of crewmembers crowded around a table where Uhura was sitting with eleven tribbles displaying various fur colours spread out before her.
“Did you get this at the space station?” Kirk asked, as he picked one up.
“Yes, and this morning I saw that he-well that she had had babies.”
Joanna sat down by Uhura and pulled a yellow tribble close to her.
“Can I have one daddy, please?”
Bones picked up the fuzzy furball from his daughter’s hands and inspected it.
“I’d like to study one first.”
Uhura looked at Bones sternly.
“Okay, but if you’re going to dissect it I don’t want to know about it.”
“I promise I won’t harm a hair on its head, if it even has a head.”
Before Bones could leave though Scotty came up to the group.“You shouldn’t feed them you know,” he said.
“What do you know about the tribbles, Scotty?” Uhura asked.
“They’re cute and furry, and they breed worse than rabbits.”
Bones frowned as he looked at the table again. “They do seem to have large litters.”
“Are they a danger to the ship Mister Scott?” Spock asked.
“Oh no, I’m not saying we have to get rid of them or anything. As a matter a fact I had one as a pet a while ago. They’re friendly as can be you just have to be mindful about their food intake that’s all.”
“Why did you learn all this?” Uhura asked.
“A bonus science issue in the technical journal I receive.”
“Do you still have it, Scotty? Can I see it?”
“Sure Lassie,” he said, and passed over his PADD for her to look over.
Kirk shook his head, who subscribed to a technical journal? “Don’t you ever relax, Scotty?” he asked.
“I am relaxing.”
“Hey, Lieutenant, can I have one?” a random crew member asked Uhura.
“Well, so long as we all know how to take care of them I don’t see why not, I think they’re old enough,”Uhura said. “Go on.”
***
Two days later much of the ship’s crew had a tribble in their arms, including Kirk. That turned out to be a good thing because it provided a calming agent as he dealt with Nilz Baris and his never ending list of complaints.
“Yes, your complaint about Cyrano Jones has been noted and logged.”
Kirk shut off the comm. link and leaned against the wall.
“I don’t get it, Spock. We’re guarding the stupid wheat. Why does he care what some shop-keeper is selling?”
“If I may, Captain, it has occurred to me that there may be a problem at the station.”
“What, Spock?”
“We are aware of the proper way to care for tribbles, but if not everyone at the space station knows not to feed them then they could quickly breed and get out of hand.”
“And if they get into the wheat…oh, shit! Spock, Bones, we’re beaming down.”
It was nothing short of mayhem on the station. Piles of fuzzing cooing balls were everywhere, including the air vents. Quickly Kirk, Spock, and Bones, went to check on the Quadrotritcale with Mister Baris ranting along behind them.
Kirk worked the door of one of the storage compartments open and the avalanche of furry cooing balls that came out knocked him to the floor.
“They appear to be gorged,” Spock said, as he picked one particularly fat tribble.
Baris was now beet red and yelling louder than before. “Now you’ve done it, Kirk! This entire mission is ruined and I will have you rank for this!”
Before Bones had to treat the man for a heart attack Spock noticed the tribble he was holding wasn’t responding to his touch.
“Captain, this tribble is dead.”
“A lot of them are,” Bones agreed, scanning the pile of them that Kirk was still buried in.
“Bones, I want everything, the tribbles the wheat, analyzed. I want to know what happened here!”
“All right, all right. Spock, help get this stuff to the labs.”
“Of course, Doctor.”
They worked together, trading verbal jabs all the while, and discovered that the grain itself had been poisoned. If it had been cultivated on the planet any colonists would have starved to death.
In light of that discovery everyone piled into the station manager’s office. And it was there that the tribble Kirk had claimed as his own suddenly started shrieked at Mister Baris’ assistant.
Cyrano Jones, who had been brought in on charges of carrying and selling a harmful species, look startled. “Why, I’ve never seen them act like that before.”
Curiously Kirk held the tribble up near Spock. The tribble just cooed softly.
“Well they like humans and they clearly like Vulcans.” Kirk smiled. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Spock.”
“Tribbles are obviously very perceptive creatures, Captain.”
He took the tribble back over to the assistant by the name of Darvin and again the tribble shrieked angrily.
“They don’t like, Darvin, no why do you think that is?”
Bones ran his tricorder over Darvin.
“Jim, this man is a Klingon.”
Kirk held back a groan at that announcement as he called for security to arrest Mister Baris’ assistant, this was going to result is another pile of reports to fill out.
“This is what I get for thinking this mission was going to be boring.”
***
Once the Klingon agent had had been taken into custody, Mister Baris had been thoroughly annoyed, and Cyrano Jones sentenced to clean up every tribble from the space-station Spock went to his quarters to meditate. Changing into his robes he knelt by his meditation lamp and concentrated. His hands in front of him and his fingers pressed together.
He sought focus on his recent interactions with his captain and Doctor McCoy. This was not the first time he had spent time with them both on missions and off duty, but it seemed to Spock that he wanted to have such interaction all the time with those two men regardless of duty. He wanted to be with them totally. He…desired them. He desired them physically and emotionally.
It seemed like a strange realization and yet Spock could not deny to himself that it was true. Doctor McCoy so open, so emotive, it seemed that they should never be able to get along and yet he also valued life as deeply as Spock did. Kirk was aggressive headstrong but also loyal and self-sacrificing, traits the Spock valued in himself and in others. Spock found that he valued both men’s positive traits over their weaknesses. Uhura had been right all those months ago. They were all good together, and what they were achieving here was nothing short of remarkable. Kirk might make comments to the contrary but they had a great success rate against great odds over the last several months. They had learned to work together and in many respects to enjoy each other’s company. Where the mess hall and the rec rooms had once contained groups of solid colours at every table, people sticking close to those they had known at the Academy. Now there were more mixed groups, new activities were being done and proposed and they were forming a proper cohesive unit.
And now it seemed even Spock himself was not immune to this camaraderie. He must deal with that development. As Spock moved deeper into his meditation his mind flashed back to the conversation he had with his counterpart.
“There are so few Vulcans left we cannot afford to ignore each other.”
“Then why did you send Kirk aboard when you alone could have explained the truth?”
“Because you needed each other. I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together. Of a friendship that will define you both, in ways you cannot yet realize.”
“How did you persuade him to keep your secret?”
“He inferred that universe ending paradoxes would ensue should he break his promise.”
“You lied.”
“Oh…I…I implied.”
“A gamble. “ Spock remembered being rather confused at his counterparts actions, they were so human.
“An act of faith. One I hope you will repeat in the future at Starfleet.”
“In the face of extinction it is only logical that I resign my Starfleet commission and help rebuild our race.”
“I submit that you must be centred and whole to fully give of yourself to anyone else, Spock, and that will happen best in Starfleet you know that. Besides you now have the ability to be in two places at once, and I have already found a suitable planet on which to establish a Vulcan colony. I urge you to remain in Starfleet. You may find great fulfillment there, with them.”
”Them?”
“Jim Kirk is an extraordinary man, but he is not the only one who influenced my life profoundly. That honour goes to an old country doctor as he so often described himself.”
“Doctor McCoy’s age is not within numerical parameters to be considered old by human standards. However, he did seem rather fascinated by an event known as the Kentucky Derby that does take place in the southern US if I am not mistaken.”
His counterpart had looked at him with a strange expression and Spock was struck with how different that man was from himself. He was older of course, but it seemed that those years of experience had smoothed away all the rough edges that Spock knew he himself still carried. His elder self was comfortable with who he was. Spock realized now that his older self had wanted him to know such peace as well.
Spock wondered that if was in such a position now what would he say to a younger version of himself? Spock realized that he too would tell his younger self how much those two men meant to him. How crucial they had become in his life.
Spock opened his eyes.
So it seemed he was his counterpart after all.
No! Spock clenched his fists in defiance.
He would not be like him, could not be like him. He had seen what had become of having such feelings.
His counterpart no longer wished to shield as Spock did. His eyes were open. As his counterpart spoke of those men he eyes revealed not just the comfort that he had grown to have in his own skin, and the fondness of having a relationship with Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy, but also the deep pain and sorrow that marred his katra. It was not difficult to figure out why, he had lost them. They were human assuming they had not left him on their own, then they might have lived a quarter of his Vulcan lifespan and no more. So, his older self had loved the Jim Kirk and Doctor McCoy of his universe and then lost them; just as his father had lost his mother.
The evidence was clear. To love a human was to be destined to be alone in the universe.
Like happiness love was a lie. Spock would learn to be without them.
***
As Spock came to conclusion that he could never be with the two men he had come to care for above all else Bones was thinking about the very same thing, and coming to a very different conclusion.
If someone told him he would be considering such things at the start of the mission Bones would have laughed at them. No actually he probably would have yelled at them for making such an idiotic comment, and yet here he was thinking about just that.
Jim was his buddy, his best friend. He was the guy Bones went out drinking with, the roommate he threw pillows at to get him to stop snoring. He wasn’t a guy Bones ever thought of building a life with. But he had seen a change in his friend since he had become a captain. Kirk was more grounded now than he had ever been. He was focused and passionate and Bones liked seeing all those good qualities on display. That was someone Bones could see himself being with in a romantic sense.
Spock…now that was something that threw him for a loop even more. The guy was a Vulcan, strict and contained. He was everything Bones was not. However, Bones had seen that just because he kept an aura of control and indifference around him didn’t mean that he didn’t care, even if he didn’t do so it that way Bones did, and that was appealing as well.
Kirk and Spock were both good with Joanna and she liked them in return. Bones wouldn’t try to integrate everyone together to that new level quite yet of course, but in time he would have to. Just like that he realized that he wasn’t thinking about the possibly anymore he was planning out his next steps. The ones he wanted to take to keep moving his life forward.
He was ready to try again he realized. He was ready to love again.
***
What Bones was not really ready to do was talk about it. So he waited a week while he worked up the nerve.
He caught them in the turbolift as their shift ended one day.
“Hey, Bones, haven’t seen you around the bridge lately.”
“Sorry I’ve been kind of busy,” he said, keeping his head down.
“Is something on your mind, Doctor?” Spock asked.
“Yes, actually I…I’d like to talk to you, both of you. Not here, but maybe in your quarters, Jim, over dinner?”
“Sure, Bones.”
Dinner was quiet and filled mostly with chatter about their respective duties for the day.
“So what exactly did you want to talk about, Bones,” Kirk finally asked over dessert, as he put an extra scoop of ice cream on his slice of apple pie.
“Well it’s kind of personal. Oh, hell it’s totally personal. I don’t want to pressure you two I was have just being thinking about us lately. Of us together not as friends but…”
“Whoa, Bones, wait. You mean the three of us together like as a couple?”
“Yes. I know it’s kind of sudden, I-I just really want us to think about it.”
“We shall,” Spock said, looking at Bones seriously.
“Right, Bones, when do you want an answer?” Kirk asked.
Bones chuckled nervously. “Jim, this isn’t a job interview. You guys take as much time as you need. Talk it over or whatever, and when you guys want to meet all three of us or one on one…just let me know.”
Bones left shortly after that. He had gotten the jittery part out now came the even worse part, the waiting. Bones was just crossing his fingers that in the end the wait would be worth it.
***
After nearly two weeks of trying to focus on work and avoiding the bridge in case they felt like he was pressuring them by being there Bones got a response.
“Kirk to McCoy.”
“McCoy here.”
“We’ve thought about it and now we’d like to talk about it, Bones.”
Bones went to meet them immediately. They said to come to the briefing room. Bones did and sat down in a chair, feeling like a rock was settling in his stomach. They were doing this in a meeting room. Not in one of their quarters, or even on the observation deck where there was some attempt at intimacy. This was not going to end well.
“You are a remarkable individual, Doctor McCoy, do not doubt that.”
“But?”
“You are dedicated to your job and your daughter.”
“But?”
“Look, Bones, you really are a great guy-”
“Oh please would you two stop with the ‘it’s not you it’s me speech’! If you don’t want to have anything except friendship just say so.”
“No it’s not that it’s just that I-we…I don’t think it’s really the right time I mean I-”
Bones held up his hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Not the right time? So we agree there could be something here between us?”
“Perhaps,” Spock conceded.
“And we’re going to do nothing about it now because…?”
“I won’t be destiny’s puppet,” Spock announced, while glaring holes in the table in front of him.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Bones, you remember when Spock dumped me off on Delta Vega?”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Sure, Jim, that’s not something you just forget.”
“Well when I was down there I ran into another Vulcan…and he’s Spock too.”
Bones let his eyebrows rise and leaned in closer to Kirk.
“You want to run that by me again?”
Kirk did his best to explain the circumstances, and when he came to the part where the old Vulcan had transported him and Scotty aboard the Enterprise using a formula developed by future Scotty Spock took over.
“He was rescued from Delta Vega along with the other Vulcan refugees. When he was on Earth he spoke to me-“
“Meaning he totally lied about the universe ending if that happened,” Kirk interjected.
Spock glanced at him and then continued. “He has spoken of this, of what we are to one another. In his reality he was in a relationship with the James T. Kirk and the Leonard H. McCoy of his universe. He seemed to think back on it…fondly.”
“Well isn’t that a sign that it will work then? If he already did it I mean?” Bones asked.
“No, it’s a sign that we’re just a bunch of copycats for what’s already been done. You just said it, Bones, he already did it. They already did everything!”
Kirk got up from his chair and started pacing the room.
“Don’t you see? We’re nothing now. Everything is just a repeat of what they already did!”
“No it’s not, Jim, we know he didn’t deal with Nero.”
“Yeah, that just makes us a broken version of them.”
“They are us and we are them unless we force it to be otherwise,” Spock said.
Bones snorted. “This from the guy who said that our destinies were changed.”
Spock turned his head to glare at the wall. “I may have been mistaken.”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Well, at least I got to hear that.”
Kirk leaned against the table, pleading with Bones, wanting his best friend to understand.
“I won’t just be a shade of what was, Bones, whatever the future holds we’ll make those decisions ourselves.”
“And your decision is to tell me no,” Bones said sharply, as he shoved his chair back and headed for the door.
Kirk was around the table in an instant and caught his arm.
“Bones, look this-this doesn’t have to change anything.”
Bones nodded.
“Of course I’ll be totally professional…Captain.”
With that he jerked his arm away from Kirk and left the room.
He arrived back at his quarters, thanked Janice for watching Joanna on such short notice, then sighed deeply and sat down on his bed.
He had his hands on his knees resting his head on them when Joanna came in, wearing her pyjamas and carrying a stuffed stegosaurs toy.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Sweetheart?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing little girls need to worry about. Something just didn’t go the way I wanted it to that’s all.”
Joanna crawled up on the bed and into his lap.
“I don’t like it when you’re sad.”
Bones felt his face relax out of its frown just a bit as he hugged her tightly.
“Well, being with you doesn’t make me so sad.”
She hugged him back.
“Play checkers before bed?” she asked.
That got a full smile from Bones. “Okay.”
They played one quick game tucked her into bed and once he changed out of his uniform and stretched out under the covers, and he eventually fell asleep in the empty bed.
Chapter 12
Pairings: Kirk Prime/McCoy Prime/Spock Prime, Kirk/Spock/McCoy, Scotty/Uhura
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: minor character death
Summary: Spock Prime went to save Romulus from a supernova and failed, leaving him in a universe that is similar and still so different from his own. Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy Kirk Prime was freed from the Nexus by Captain Picard and survived. Not believing that Spock Prime is dead Kirk Prime goes in search of him, and travels to the universe created when Nero went through the black hole. In that universe Kirk and Spock are starting on their five year mission, determined to write their own destinies after their encounters with Spock Prime. Unlike them McCoy doesn’t trust destiny as far as he can throw it, and he has his own problems to deal with, like getting custody of the three year old daughter he didn’t know he had.
Que Sera Sera
Kirk glared at the ugly piece of artwork on the wall of the bar as he sipped his drink.
“You know, Spock, I’ve just realized something.”
“What is that, Captain?”
“I hate my job.”
Spock lifted his eyebrow. “An unusual statement.”
“I mean think about it, we defeat the biggest threat to the Federation we have ever seen, get infected by ‘happy’ spores, nearly lose you to a band of aliens, and now we get to guard a bunch of wheat.”
“Quadrotritcale is not wheat, Captain, it is a hybrid of wheat and rye. It was first introduced in Canada and-“
“Spock, I don’t need a lecture I know exactly what it is: a royal pain in the ass. The only good thing about this is that crew gets some shore leave.”
As if on cue Uhura and Chekov came up to them just then with Joanna in tow.
“Well, you guys didn’t waste any time getting down here.”
Chekov smiled. “They wanted to go shopping and I said I would go with them to help carry the bags.”
The three of them set off. Fifteen minutes later Chekov disappeared into a shop displaying numerous weapons in search of a birthday present for Sulu. While Uhura and Joanna approached a small cart with a few very small fish tanks, and what looked like bright fuzzy balls sitting on the shelves.
The man running the booth smiled at them. “My name is Cyrano Jones, how may I help you?”
“We’re just looking thank you.”
Joanna looked at a small tank filled with colorful jellyfish looking creatures as Uhura picked up one of the balls on the shelves and it cooed at her.
“Oh it’s adorable, what is it?” Uhura asked Cyrano.
“My dear lady, it’s a tribble.”
Joanna picked up a smaller tribble and laughed as it wiggled in her hands.
“Can we get one, Auntie Uhura?”
Uhura bit her lip. “I don’t know, Sweetie. I don’t know what your daddy thinks about getting a pet. They’re a big responsibility.”
Joanna looked at Uhura with puppy dog eyes, her lip sticking out.
“Please?”
“I tell you what let’s pick out one for me and then we can go back to the ship and show daddy how good you are at taking care of him. Then maybe your daddy will let you get one of you own, okay?”
“Okay!”
***
The next morning Kirk and Spock came into the mess hall to find a bunch of crewmembers crowded around a table where Uhura was sitting with eleven tribbles displaying various fur colours spread out before her.
“Did you get this at the space station?” Kirk asked, as he picked one up.
“Yes, and this morning I saw that he-well that she had had babies.”
Joanna sat down by Uhura and pulled a yellow tribble close to her.
“Can I have one daddy, please?”
Bones picked up the fuzzy furball from his daughter’s hands and inspected it.
“I’d like to study one first.”
Uhura looked at Bones sternly.
“Okay, but if you’re going to dissect it I don’t want to know about it.”
“I promise I won’t harm a hair on its head, if it even has a head.”
Before Bones could leave though Scotty came up to the group.“You shouldn’t feed them you know,” he said.
“What do you know about the tribbles, Scotty?” Uhura asked.
“They’re cute and furry, and they breed worse than rabbits.”
Bones frowned as he looked at the table again. “They do seem to have large litters.”
“Are they a danger to the ship Mister Scott?” Spock asked.
“Oh no, I’m not saying we have to get rid of them or anything. As a matter a fact I had one as a pet a while ago. They’re friendly as can be you just have to be mindful about their food intake that’s all.”
“Why did you learn all this?” Uhura asked.
“A bonus science issue in the technical journal I receive.”
“Do you still have it, Scotty? Can I see it?”
“Sure Lassie,” he said, and passed over his PADD for her to look over.
Kirk shook his head, who subscribed to a technical journal? “Don’t you ever relax, Scotty?” he asked.
“I am relaxing.”
“Hey, Lieutenant, can I have one?” a random crew member asked Uhura.
“Well, so long as we all know how to take care of them I don’t see why not, I think they’re old enough,”Uhura said. “Go on.”
***
Two days later much of the ship’s crew had a tribble in their arms, including Kirk. That turned out to be a good thing because it provided a calming agent as he dealt with Nilz Baris and his never ending list of complaints.
“Yes, your complaint about Cyrano Jones has been noted and logged.”
Kirk shut off the comm. link and leaned against the wall.
“I don’t get it, Spock. We’re guarding the stupid wheat. Why does he care what some shop-keeper is selling?”
“If I may, Captain, it has occurred to me that there may be a problem at the station.”
“What, Spock?”
“We are aware of the proper way to care for tribbles, but if not everyone at the space station knows not to feed them then they could quickly breed and get out of hand.”
“And if they get into the wheat…oh, shit! Spock, Bones, we’re beaming down.”
It was nothing short of mayhem on the station. Piles of fuzzing cooing balls were everywhere, including the air vents. Quickly Kirk, Spock, and Bones, went to check on the Quadrotritcale with Mister Baris ranting along behind them.
Kirk worked the door of one of the storage compartments open and the avalanche of furry cooing balls that came out knocked him to the floor.
“They appear to be gorged,” Spock said, as he picked one particularly fat tribble.
Baris was now beet red and yelling louder than before. “Now you’ve done it, Kirk! This entire mission is ruined and I will have you rank for this!”
Before Bones had to treat the man for a heart attack Spock noticed the tribble he was holding wasn’t responding to his touch.
“Captain, this tribble is dead.”
“A lot of them are,” Bones agreed, scanning the pile of them that Kirk was still buried in.
“Bones, I want everything, the tribbles the wheat, analyzed. I want to know what happened here!”
“All right, all right. Spock, help get this stuff to the labs.”
“Of course, Doctor.”
They worked together, trading verbal jabs all the while, and discovered that the grain itself had been poisoned. If it had been cultivated on the planet any colonists would have starved to death.
In light of that discovery everyone piled into the station manager’s office. And it was there that the tribble Kirk had claimed as his own suddenly started shrieked at Mister Baris’ assistant.
Cyrano Jones, who had been brought in on charges of carrying and selling a harmful species, look startled. “Why, I’ve never seen them act like that before.”
Curiously Kirk held the tribble up near Spock. The tribble just cooed softly.
“Well they like humans and they clearly like Vulcans.” Kirk smiled. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Spock.”
“Tribbles are obviously very perceptive creatures, Captain.”
He took the tribble back over to the assistant by the name of Darvin and again the tribble shrieked angrily.
“They don’t like, Darvin, no why do you think that is?”
Bones ran his tricorder over Darvin.
“Jim, this man is a Klingon.”
Kirk held back a groan at that announcement as he called for security to arrest Mister Baris’ assistant, this was going to result is another pile of reports to fill out.
“This is what I get for thinking this mission was going to be boring.”
***
Once the Klingon agent had had been taken into custody, Mister Baris had been thoroughly annoyed, and Cyrano Jones sentenced to clean up every tribble from the space-station Spock went to his quarters to meditate. Changing into his robes he knelt by his meditation lamp and concentrated. His hands in front of him and his fingers pressed together.
He sought focus on his recent interactions with his captain and Doctor McCoy. This was not the first time he had spent time with them both on missions and off duty, but it seemed to Spock that he wanted to have such interaction all the time with those two men regardless of duty. He wanted to be with them totally. He…desired them. He desired them physically and emotionally.
It seemed like a strange realization and yet Spock could not deny to himself that it was true. Doctor McCoy so open, so emotive, it seemed that they should never be able to get along and yet he also valued life as deeply as Spock did. Kirk was aggressive headstrong but also loyal and self-sacrificing, traits the Spock valued in himself and in others. Spock found that he valued both men’s positive traits over their weaknesses. Uhura had been right all those months ago. They were all good together, and what they were achieving here was nothing short of remarkable. Kirk might make comments to the contrary but they had a great success rate against great odds over the last several months. They had learned to work together and in many respects to enjoy each other’s company. Where the mess hall and the rec rooms had once contained groups of solid colours at every table, people sticking close to those they had known at the Academy. Now there were more mixed groups, new activities were being done and proposed and they were forming a proper cohesive unit.
And now it seemed even Spock himself was not immune to this camaraderie. He must deal with that development. As Spock moved deeper into his meditation his mind flashed back to the conversation he had with his counterpart.
“There are so few Vulcans left we cannot afford to ignore each other.”
“Then why did you send Kirk aboard when you alone could have explained the truth?”
“Because you needed each other. I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together. Of a friendship that will define you both, in ways you cannot yet realize.”
“How did you persuade him to keep your secret?”
“He inferred that universe ending paradoxes would ensue should he break his promise.”
“You lied.”
“Oh…I…I implied.”
“A gamble. “ Spock remembered being rather confused at his counterparts actions, they were so human.
“An act of faith. One I hope you will repeat in the future at Starfleet.”
“In the face of extinction it is only logical that I resign my Starfleet commission and help rebuild our race.”
“I submit that you must be centred and whole to fully give of yourself to anyone else, Spock, and that will happen best in Starfleet you know that. Besides you now have the ability to be in two places at once, and I have already found a suitable planet on which to establish a Vulcan colony. I urge you to remain in Starfleet. You may find great fulfillment there, with them.”
”Them?”
“Jim Kirk is an extraordinary man, but he is not the only one who influenced my life profoundly. That honour goes to an old country doctor as he so often described himself.”
“Doctor McCoy’s age is not within numerical parameters to be considered old by human standards. However, he did seem rather fascinated by an event known as the Kentucky Derby that does take place in the southern US if I am not mistaken.”
His counterpart had looked at him with a strange expression and Spock was struck with how different that man was from himself. He was older of course, but it seemed that those years of experience had smoothed away all the rough edges that Spock knew he himself still carried. His elder self was comfortable with who he was. Spock realized now that his older self had wanted him to know such peace as well.
Spock wondered that if was in such a position now what would he say to a younger version of himself? Spock realized that he too would tell his younger self how much those two men meant to him. How crucial they had become in his life.
Spock opened his eyes.
So it seemed he was his counterpart after all.
No! Spock clenched his fists in defiance.
He would not be like him, could not be like him. He had seen what had become of having such feelings.
His counterpart no longer wished to shield as Spock did. His eyes were open. As his counterpart spoke of those men he eyes revealed not just the comfort that he had grown to have in his own skin, and the fondness of having a relationship with Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy, but also the deep pain and sorrow that marred his katra. It was not difficult to figure out why, he had lost them. They were human assuming they had not left him on their own, then they might have lived a quarter of his Vulcan lifespan and no more. So, his older self had loved the Jim Kirk and Doctor McCoy of his universe and then lost them; just as his father had lost his mother.
The evidence was clear. To love a human was to be destined to be alone in the universe.
Like happiness love was a lie. Spock would learn to be without them.
***
As Spock came to conclusion that he could never be with the two men he had come to care for above all else Bones was thinking about the very same thing, and coming to a very different conclusion.
If someone told him he would be considering such things at the start of the mission Bones would have laughed at them. No actually he probably would have yelled at them for making such an idiotic comment, and yet here he was thinking about just that.
Jim was his buddy, his best friend. He was the guy Bones went out drinking with, the roommate he threw pillows at to get him to stop snoring. He wasn’t a guy Bones ever thought of building a life with. But he had seen a change in his friend since he had become a captain. Kirk was more grounded now than he had ever been. He was focused and passionate and Bones liked seeing all those good qualities on display. That was someone Bones could see himself being with in a romantic sense.
Spock…now that was something that threw him for a loop even more. The guy was a Vulcan, strict and contained. He was everything Bones was not. However, Bones had seen that just because he kept an aura of control and indifference around him didn’t mean that he didn’t care, even if he didn’t do so it that way Bones did, and that was appealing as well.
Kirk and Spock were both good with Joanna and she liked them in return. Bones wouldn’t try to integrate everyone together to that new level quite yet of course, but in time he would have to. Just like that he realized that he wasn’t thinking about the possibly anymore he was planning out his next steps. The ones he wanted to take to keep moving his life forward.
He was ready to try again he realized. He was ready to love again.
***
What Bones was not really ready to do was talk about it. So he waited a week while he worked up the nerve.
He caught them in the turbolift as their shift ended one day.
“Hey, Bones, haven’t seen you around the bridge lately.”
“Sorry I’ve been kind of busy,” he said, keeping his head down.
“Is something on your mind, Doctor?” Spock asked.
“Yes, actually I…I’d like to talk to you, both of you. Not here, but maybe in your quarters, Jim, over dinner?”
“Sure, Bones.”
Dinner was quiet and filled mostly with chatter about their respective duties for the day.
“So what exactly did you want to talk about, Bones,” Kirk finally asked over dessert, as he put an extra scoop of ice cream on his slice of apple pie.
“Well it’s kind of personal. Oh, hell it’s totally personal. I don’t want to pressure you two I was have just being thinking about us lately. Of us together not as friends but…”
“Whoa, Bones, wait. You mean the three of us together like as a couple?”
“Yes. I know it’s kind of sudden, I-I just really want us to think about it.”
“We shall,” Spock said, looking at Bones seriously.
“Right, Bones, when do you want an answer?” Kirk asked.
Bones chuckled nervously. “Jim, this isn’t a job interview. You guys take as much time as you need. Talk it over or whatever, and when you guys want to meet all three of us or one on one…just let me know.”
Bones left shortly after that. He had gotten the jittery part out now came the even worse part, the waiting. Bones was just crossing his fingers that in the end the wait would be worth it.
***
After nearly two weeks of trying to focus on work and avoiding the bridge in case they felt like he was pressuring them by being there Bones got a response.
“Kirk to McCoy.”
“McCoy here.”
“We’ve thought about it and now we’d like to talk about it, Bones.”
Bones went to meet them immediately. They said to come to the briefing room. Bones did and sat down in a chair, feeling like a rock was settling in his stomach. They were doing this in a meeting room. Not in one of their quarters, or even on the observation deck where there was some attempt at intimacy. This was not going to end well.
“You are a remarkable individual, Doctor McCoy, do not doubt that.”
“But?”
“You are dedicated to your job and your daughter.”
“But?”
“Look, Bones, you really are a great guy-”
“Oh please would you two stop with the ‘it’s not you it’s me speech’! If you don’t want to have anything except friendship just say so.”
“No it’s not that it’s just that I-we…I don’t think it’s really the right time I mean I-”
Bones held up his hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Not the right time? So we agree there could be something here between us?”
“Perhaps,” Spock conceded.
“And we’re going to do nothing about it now because…?”
“I won’t be destiny’s puppet,” Spock announced, while glaring holes in the table in front of him.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Bones, you remember when Spock dumped me off on Delta Vega?”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Sure, Jim, that’s not something you just forget.”
“Well when I was down there I ran into another Vulcan…and he’s Spock too.”
Bones let his eyebrows rise and leaned in closer to Kirk.
“You want to run that by me again?”
Kirk did his best to explain the circumstances, and when he came to the part where the old Vulcan had transported him and Scotty aboard the Enterprise using a formula developed by future Scotty Spock took over.
“He was rescued from Delta Vega along with the other Vulcan refugees. When he was on Earth he spoke to me-“
“Meaning he totally lied about the universe ending if that happened,” Kirk interjected.
Spock glanced at him and then continued. “He has spoken of this, of what we are to one another. In his reality he was in a relationship with the James T. Kirk and the Leonard H. McCoy of his universe. He seemed to think back on it…fondly.”
“Well isn’t that a sign that it will work then? If he already did it I mean?” Bones asked.
“No, it’s a sign that we’re just a bunch of copycats for what’s already been done. You just said it, Bones, he already did it. They already did everything!”
Kirk got up from his chair and started pacing the room.
“Don’t you see? We’re nothing now. Everything is just a repeat of what they already did!”
“No it’s not, Jim, we know he didn’t deal with Nero.”
“Yeah, that just makes us a broken version of them.”
“They are us and we are them unless we force it to be otherwise,” Spock said.
Bones snorted. “This from the guy who said that our destinies were changed.”
Spock turned his head to glare at the wall. “I may have been mistaken.”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Well, at least I got to hear that.”
Kirk leaned against the table, pleading with Bones, wanting his best friend to understand.
“I won’t just be a shade of what was, Bones, whatever the future holds we’ll make those decisions ourselves.”
“And your decision is to tell me no,” Bones said sharply, as he shoved his chair back and headed for the door.
Kirk was around the table in an instant and caught his arm.
“Bones, look this-this doesn’t have to change anything.”
Bones nodded.
“Of course I’ll be totally professional…Captain.”
With that he jerked his arm away from Kirk and left the room.
He arrived back at his quarters, thanked Janice for watching Joanna on such short notice, then sighed deeply and sat down on his bed.
He had his hands on his knees resting his head on them when Joanna came in, wearing her pyjamas and carrying a stuffed stegosaurs toy.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Sweetheart?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing little girls need to worry about. Something just didn’t go the way I wanted it to that’s all.”
Joanna crawled up on the bed and into his lap.
“I don’t like it when you’re sad.”
Bones felt his face relax out of its frown just a bit as he hugged her tightly.
“Well, being with you doesn’t make me so sad.”
She hugged him back.
“Play checkers before bed?” she asked.
That got a full smile from Bones. “Okay.”
They played one quick game tucked her into bed and once he changed out of his uniform and stretched out under the covers, and he eventually fell asleep in the empty bed.
Chapter 12