| ST: TOS S2 Fic, Part 2/5: "Reverse Mirror" - Kirk/Spock - PG13 |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|02:43 am] |
Title: Reverse Mirror
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS (S2)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This will be the second piece out of five in my S2 fic arc, which itself follows from my five-story S1 arc (which begins here - I strongly recommend reading those first; meanwhile, Part 1 of this arc is here). This piece contains references to/spoilers for "Metamorphosis." As with the first sequence, there's music holding all of this together. The song in question is "This Is Me," by Girlyman. I find that they're very little-known outside the Northeast U.S., so I suppose I'm imagining a future where they're still haunting the airwaves (or the minds of the musically-inclined).
Summary: In the wake of Gamma Canaris, Jim faces up to some difficult questions.
[Part 1/5, Other Lives, can be found here.]
The noble mind, it traps four pieces of the heart inside:
we came in twos, and two by twos it seemed of little use.
We felt the rain, our faces cold and pale, the colors drained;
the oceans grew until we floated on a deeper hue.
—This Is Me, Terran 21st-century
*
It keeps happening, Jim thought, pacing. Worlds without end, eternity in microcosm.
First Pike, and now Hedford. To say that heaven or something like it wasn't desirable would be foolish, certainly, but happy endings of the kind he'd now been party to twice over were...rare, to say the least. Something you only read about in fairytales or got promised after death in antiquated religions that were almost one-hundred percent bunk. What good was turning off the head to appease the heart?
Completely illogical under most circumstances, that's what.
If Jim hadn't known better, he would've assumed that the thought-intrusion was Spock's. But Spock wasn't off shift for another twenty minutes, and it was some distance from Jim's quarters to the bridge. Acting in capacity as First Officer, Spock's thoughts were generally far from such pursuits as probing Jim's thoughts for a lark. There was little need for it on the bridge anyway; they could read each other's body language so well by now that psychic intervention would have been superfluous.
Still, he had to admit that the examples at hand were not, in fact, most circumstances—and that logic did seem to apply. If that weren't the case, Spock wouldn't have committed mutiny for the sake of what was, essentially, a mission of mercy. And if it hadn't been one of Jim's first clues as to what Spock was really worth to him, well, it should have been. Anyone willing to give an old friend what was essentially his dying wish against all other odds was beyond price. And how could he, in good conscience, attempt to appraise the man who'd lately become his beloved?
And what about Cochrane's parochial attitude? Would you have said that even six months ago, or would such a criticism not have occurred to you until now?
Shame was a strange emotion, one that Jim didn't make a habit of harboring. It seared through him now, raking his flesh with doubt. Had he not had Spock by that point of no returning, he might have just sat in silence while his First Officer and CMO commented in wonder. What would it have mattered to him that the Companion and Cochrane were lovers? And what did it matter that the Companion had revealed itself to have an inclination toward identification with the feminine gender?
What if Hedford had been a man? What then, when the only available body, dying by the second, would have been rendered twice as abhorrent to its object of desire?
Difficult to tell. Cochrane would have initially rejected the creature in such a guise, no doubt, just as he had rejected it in its alien form when Jim had revealed to him the obvious nature of its intent. Of his own intent. Could such deep-seated fear have turned to love, just as he'd found it in himself to accept at the eleventh hour when faced with a body possessed by two souls? The implications were endlessly complex, and they hit closer to home than Jim ever would have guessed. In that other universe, would Marlena's departure open a space for other-Spock in his other self's life? Did it mean that there were, indeed, worlds without end wherein they might find no happy ending? Realms in which they were young again, or old, or dying—even dead?
Hell, our happy ending here's not even written yet.
"I wish you would not brood, Captain. It concerns me."
Jim spun around. He hadn't even heard the door slide open.
"Is that what it looks like I'm doing, Spock?"
"Affirmative," Spock replied, already standing less than a breath away. "The manner in which your brow is furrowed, just here—" he raised one elegant finger to point, skimming one of Jim's fainter scars "—never fails to get the better of you."
"Which means you don't get the best of me," Jim concluded, frowning. "I see."
"Would it help if I were to listen, Jim, or is this matter too private to share?"
"No, Spock," Jim admitted, reaching up to take Spock's hand, which hadn't moved. "It's not. I was thinking about what happened on Gamma Canaris."
Spock nodded, possessed of that maddening, imperturbable calm. "Indeed. Ever since the moment of our departure, it has not been far from my thoughts."
"Is that so?" Jim asked. "What about it has been bothering you?"
Spock frowned slightly, inclining his head, as if contemplating the relative merits of kissing over starting a heady conversation. "Although 'bothering' is not precisely an apt term under these circumstances, I gather your meaning. I have been unable to decide whether I am comfortable with the situation we left behind."
"It's not too dissimilar from Pike's present situation. That's one thing I was thinking. You seemed perfectly fine with leaving him on Talos IV."
"That is correct, Jim. But I had no doubts whatsoever that he loved, and would be loved in turn. I have my doubts about Cochrane. He is a restless spirit. He may grow to resent the Companion and Commissioner Hedford. Or to prefer one over the other."
Jim chewed his lip. "I hope not. I mean, they seemed pretty integrated, didn't they?"
Spock's fingers unfurled lazily, assuming the meld position without warning. Instead of a harsh, jarring moment of psychological lockdown, there was only the secure, reassuring warmth he'd come to expect of any physical contact with Spock. Instinctively, Jim closed his eyes and leaned into the ebb of it, relinquishing every last thought. When Spock reached memories of the moments over which he'd tripped into doubt, the shame returned. Beneath Spock's fingertips, his cheeks burned with it.
"Jim," Spock whispered, gone in an instant. "Do not blame yourself for not stepping forward, for not saying more. In speaking that single word, you said all that there was to be said. His reaction would have been no different to an explicit revelation of—"
"That one word," said Jim, hesitantly, "is still pretty problematic here, isn't it?"
"Love?" Spock asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do you mean to imply I have difficulty acknowledging it, let alone speaking it? I should think that I have made myself abundantly clear on a number of occasions, not least of all a fortnight ago when—"
"I get the message," Jim said, his chest flooding with something like relief. And he should have kissed Spock a hell of a lot sooner, that was for damned sure.
- Continue: Split Vision - |
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