The box is heavy in Spock's hands. Which is an illogical thought to have as the box's contents have neither gained any additional weight nor has he lost any strength; in all actuality, it is a very light box, as well. But all the same, Spock feels a bit like he needs to put it down. Rest it against something or just leave it somewhere until he's better able to deal with it. But, no. No, he has put this off for long enough. And with the new ship nearly completed, this is the best opportunity he has for a private moment with Jim and he's not about to squander it over... Well. Over nonsense, really.
He shifts the box and jabs his finger against the buzzer to alert Jim to his presence, waiting in nearly a parade rest to belay the more personal nature of his visit. He doesn't look at the box even once. It's a firm presence in his hands but nothing more than that. It shouldn't have been in his possession, in the first place.
Spock should have done this awhile ago. He knows he should have. There had been a note among Ambassador Spock's belongings that specified clearly which items were meant for him and which were meant for Jim. To have held on to them for this long was...inappropriate. But Spock had his concerns about delivering them. He had before and now, with meditation, they had only grown. Irregardless, however, these items were Jim's. And he could not withhold them any longer. So he waited, wondering if perhaps he should have commed ahead to make sure the man was in.
Or maybe he was just counting on the fact that he wouldn't be.
Spock's awareness of Jim is, as usual, spot on; he's in, and the door slides open with a soft noise soon enough after Spock pings. Jim isn't in uniform, sporting a light green v-neck and jeans that look potentially older than he is, the back of his hair sticking up in a way that suggests he might have been napping post-shower.
"Spock." Surprised to see his first officer but not displeased, he immediately waves him inside. "What's going on?"
The interior of Jim Kirk's temporary quarters on Yorktown looks the same as the interior of every other unit in Starfleet's officer housing. He's never been much for material possessions, and what few things he had were destroyed with the ship, anyway. His dress uniform is haphazardly strewn half on the floor, though. Uh. Jim picks up his trousers and looks around for his other sock.
"I have disturbed you," he deduces from the state of the room and his friend, both. But he walks in, all the same. No use looking for reasons to leave. He's here, now. And this needs to be finished. "I will...attempt to make this as brief as possible." He bends, finding the other sock and handing it to Jim. The box barely fits in his other hand, alone. He has to grip it especially hard to make sure it doesn't fall. Not to break it, of course.
That would be illogical.
"I have come with possessions my counterpart has bequeathed to you, in his final wishes." Both hands grab the box as though about to present it. But it's never actually extended toward Jim. "There are a few items. A photo of the crew of his Enterprise, what appears to be a holographic chess set, and..."
His eyes drift down to the box and stay there. The one item he wished his counterpart would have just taken with him.
"A necklace which holds a final birthday greeting your counterpart sent to mine. I believe it is after this your alternate self died. It seems that mine wore it on his person." Up till his death. Every day. The few items a man would carry with him every single day. Bring from one universe into another.
"You aren't disturbing me, Spock," Jim says, patient and a little fond through the faint exasperation. "Thanks." He takes the sock and digs around until he finds his underwear, undershirt, tunic, and shoves all of it in the laundry compartment. (Was that really so hard, James?)
The easy way he moves and holds himself only changes for an instant - his back to Spock, his shoulders suddenly tense. He doesn't turn around while he explains what he's here for. Jim has to will himself to let that tension go before he moves back to Spock, his expression only barely betraying how suddenly apprehensive he is. He'd been proud of himself for bringing up the Ambassador's passing so quietly and casually, burying their continued - if infrequent and very private - association. The news of the older Spock's death had hit him hard, harder still knowing that he hadn't been told sooner, hadn't been told directly at all. But as ever, Jim represses everything he feels about Vulcan (or Vulcans), because it feels selfish, and like he's infringing on something sacred. It's not his place.
"Well."
Awkward pause.
"I'm actually going to need a drink for that. How about you?"
The question is only a polite formality. Jim's already heading to the food replicator.
"I will join you in a drink," he says, not sounding as grateful as he is through sheer, practiced repression. "Hot chocolate, 40% cacao would be a good equivalent to the alcohol you are most likely going to obtain." Spock actually wants it. Because Jim is right, they have to be somewhere further away from sober than they currently are before they delve into all of these items.
Spock crosses over to the Starfleet-issued couch that was built for bulk production, not comfort. He perches on the edge of it and rests the box closer to the empty seat beside him than toward himself.
"I apologize that I did not come, sooner. I had opportunities. However..."
How to approach this, next? How to tell Jim that he has concerns that these items are the equivalent of an invasive virus, contaminating them both beyond any sort of repair. It's a drastic comparison, but it is apt. Both of them, from the moment they came into contact with the other Spock, had been infected with ideas of the alternate timeline. Of the possibilities open to them that had already opened to their counterparts in the other time.
It wasn't their life, but it had become so, piece by piece. And the first one that had slotted into place had Ambassador Spock's fingerprints all over it.
Jim orders the requested chocolate, and then picks a tumbler of 40 proof cognac, since that seems to be a decent equivalent. It's synthesized cognac, probably a huge step down from reconstituted real chocolate, but the alcohol is the important part. He brings both into the small living area and hands Spock his cup, taking a seat in the uninspired space IKEA armchair nearby.
"Before we get into any of that," he begins slowly, holding his cup between both of his hands, "Do you want to talk about him? I don't mean-- I don't mean want as in, do you think it might be a pleasurable thing to do, I mean it as in 'do you think it would be constructive'. We haven't ever done much talking about him."
Something by Jim's design, feeling too uncomfortable. But he's got a feeling - he's got about thirty feelings - that this is going to prompt some serious unpacking, and not of that little box.
Spock bristles at the mere idea of talking with Jim about the deceased, older version of himself. Not because he is adverse to discussing him in general. Just...because he is unsure whether the conversation will be productive or not. And the idea of this devolving into an argument is deeply unappealing.
"I am unsure what we would speak of," he nearly lies, taking a long sip of his cocoa and letting it warm him up. His eyes drift back to the box on the table and with the message inside that he apparently wore around his neck every day of his life.
"I believe he and your counterpart were lovers."
Which is probably not what Jim meant when he said that they should talk about the other Spock. But. You know. Vulcans aren't ones to pull punches. And maybe if he shocks Jim enough he'll end this before they get into other areas. Areas where they might potentially have significant disagreements.
"There are hints of it. Many places. I can think of no other reason to have a token such as a birthday card made into a necklace. It is...highly illogical."
The surprise in Jim isn't about that non-revelation, but the fact that Spock seems so uncertain about it. Jim thought it was incredibly obvious but-- well, he'd mind-melded with the older Vulcan, so maybe it wasn't incredibly obvious to anyone but him. Jim picks his words carefully.
"For a time, anyway. Though I believe that aspect of their relationship was secondary to the emotional significance of it, for the ambassador. I don't think anyone else managed to reach him. He didn't have the relationship with his mother that you did with yours."
For Jim, there's no confusion between the older Spock and this one. They're too different-- he knew he'd never be able to conflate them, even back on Delta Vega, when the ambassador told him fondly that he learned cheating from a friend. The contrast between how his world's Spock had treated him over the Kobayashi Maru test (and more, what Jim was heading off that snowy rock to do to him) was a gulf too wide to ever build a bridge over. And as time went on and he began to sift through half-remembered echoes in his head, it only became more true. But that's fine, in Jim's opinion. He doesn't want to confuse them, or mistake one for the other. He doesn't want to be some damaged photocopy of another world.
Quieter: "I.. don't think it was appropriate for him to have left that for you to find."
He takes another sip of his cocoa and nearly snorts into the liquid. "I find very little of my counterparts actions toward us 'appropriate'." Which might not be the best thing to say, but it is true. And Vulcans did not lie. He takes another long drink. It's been awhile since he allowed himself to become inebriated. And if there was ever a time, it was now.
"I suspected, even before I found the necklace," he admits. "The way he would often speak of his Jim... It was clear that the affection was greater than that which he had for the other members of his crew. Leonard, for instance. When he died, in that universe, his Leonard McCoy held his katra. And still, when speaking about him, it is not with a fraction of the restrained emotion he had when referring to his Jim."
Spock looked up at his friend, suddenly realizing something. "It does not bother you? That we were lovers in another reality?"
Watching Spock knock back what amounts to a solid cocktail is interesting-- Jim wonders just how unsettled he is about this, and feels a twinge of guilt. He didn't have to give him a drink and sit him down to go through this slowly.
"We weren't," Jim says, blinking at him. "They were. They're not us. But no, it doesn't bother me. It wasn't like they were unhappy."
Not too far removed in rank or age, not abusive, not lying to each other... there was nothing objectionable or scandalous that Jim could see, and so there's nothing to be bothered by. And then a wee voice in the back of his head pipes up to suggest maybe it should seem weird to him, that maybe it's only the echo of Ambassador Spock's affection in his head keeping him unfazed. What does bother him is--
--ridiculous, so he doesn't even want to think about it.
"I..." he begins but there is nothing following it. He's not entirely sure how to answer that. "It is a complicated sentiment." And that is putting it lightly.
"Whenever he and I had conversed, he had always impressed upon me the importance these years would have on my life. How fortunate I was to have these experiences." Spock's eyebrows knit over his nose. The cup of cocoa in his hands is already half empty and that alone is probably why he's saying anything on this subject at all.
"I am pleased to be here. With you. With the crew. I believe I am effective and provide a useful service. However..." His grip tightens, eyes refusing to look up. "I have increasingly wondered whether these thoughts are indeed my own or impacted by the encouragement my counterpart instilled in my mind."
He exhales, bringing the cup back to his lips.
"Sometimes it is...difficult to answer the question of 'who am I' when I attempt to separate myself from his influence. And, for that reason... I do not know whether I would consider him a friend, or not. Whether I 'like' him, or not."
"He-- instilled in your mind? He performed a mind meld with you?" Jim asks the question calmly, but inside there's a sudden, wild stab of jealousy because Ambassador Spock never mentioned anything like that to him. As quick as he gets a lid on that feeling he thinks You should be disturbed he might have been manipulating him not territorial over a dead man, and it takes him a few seconds to even out, though he covers it by drinking more.
It's something he's considered on many occasions: is his life completely of his own making, or is he being moved around like a chess piece? Is he complicit in controlling Spock's life, due to being goaded into it? But worries over the other universe's Spock were short-lived; Jim accepts that he did what he had to do to prevent Earth's destruction, and that if he made a reckless call, it was parts necessary and parts the product of his grief. Jim had felt that grief. He's incapable of holding it against Ambassador Spock. More pressing, to him, has been living under the shadow of his father and Christopher Pike.
The idea of a meld with his own mind (no matter how different it might have been from his own, is repugnant. Incestuous in a way that he can't quite explain to a human. But the look on his face, slight though it may be, likely told the entire story. "I meant more abstractly. Through his...hints. And his 'advice'." Advice which had really just been the older man pushing the younger to follow in his footsteps. Playing god in a timeline that should have been unique and now is, instead, following just steps behind it's better, bigger brother.
Spock has been meditating on this for weeks. Ever since he found the necklace and knew where it was going to go. And each time he dwells over the questions it brings up, he becomes more and more convinced that he's lost something, here, that he can never reclaim. An independence--a path--that will never be explored.
All because of the other Spock.
"I am in Starfleet, because of him." He chases the admission with another swallow of cocoa. "I had...intended to rejoin my people, after the destruction of Vulcan. I had lost my mother, my betrothed, so many family and acquaintances. I felt it was my duty and my responsibility to be with the colony and mend what had been lost. But...my counterpart. He...told me it would be a mistake. Not in as many words. But." He wants to take another drink, but his glass might empty if he does. Jim's is barely touched. "He convinced me to stay. I am here, because of that moment. Because of his influence."
Screw it. The mug empties out but he holds it in his hands, still. It's warm.
"I do not know who I would have been, had he allowed me to make my own choice."
Hopefully Spock won't notice Jim's visible relief at the denial-- or if he does, hopefully he'll assume it's because of how disturbing it'd be in general. Listening to Spock causes a kind of creeping guilt up Jim's spine and in his stomach, and he forces himself to take another drink. Evenness, or something. Not that he could find himself wobbly from this glass.
"You're in Starfleet because you chose to enroll there instead of the Vulcan Science Academy," Jim says after a quiet, his voice low and subdued. "After that... your life could have been different, yes. But anyone could have encouraged you to stay."
That's the good news. The bad news is everything else, really. Even if Ambassador Spock was only trying to give his counterpart a chance to go on the track he'd have stayed on were it not for the incursions into the timeline already... what's done is done. They can only go forward. It's the time-space continuum version of a sunk-cost fallacy to change more in the interests of trying to compensate.
"Our timeline is never going to congeal with theirs and disintegrate. We're not them, Spock. We never were, not even before Nero and the.. Kelvin. Even if we're a magnet for time-travelers, what we have is special."
"I do not know if I am..." Which was the worst part about it all. He wishes there were more cocoa, but the amount he sucked down so quickly is doing an effective job of blurring the edges of his vision. Making him relax, despite himself as he talks to Jim. They should have had this conversation ages ago. But it was never appropriate. There was never time.
He never knew his mind enough to know exactly what he wanted to say.
"When we first met... you are correct. I had already diverged from the man that I otherwise could have been. I do not know why as the incident with the Kelvin had no direct impact on my rearing. However..." He spoke with his counterpart. He knows the differences from the surprised looks on the other man's face. From the way they both talk about their childhood.
"I had...resentments where he did not. I felt the need to prove myself where he had long abandoned such ideas. When you beat the Kobayashi Maru test... It was an insult to myself. To my abilities. A way for me to be questioned and ridiculed anew in the place I had found relief."
And this is definitely the drink talking, now. So he closes his mouth and gets to the point before he rambles on and on for days. He could. He's been thinking about it long enough, by now. He has the ammunition and Jim's given him the opportunity to let it fly.
"I...do not prefer who I was to who I became from his interference. But it is still due to him that I have changed. Perhaps...we were destined to never become friends, here." He looks up at Jim, questions written all over his face. "Is that preferable? I cannot...decide whether it should have been or whether I should be grateful it was altered so irreparably..."
"I prefer that we're friends," Jim says carefully, realizing that Spock is probably drunk and feeling a little bit like he's taking advantage. "I don't have many friends."
It's an admission he knows most people don't believe - Captain James Kirk, sociable and charming, can't possibly be lacking in friendship, but rank is isolating, and even before that, he met more people than he ever knew. Trust, the kind that comes with real friendship, is impossibly rare for him. And he trusts Spock.
"You're important to me, and.. it's probably selfish, but even if what we have began as manufactured, I'm happy that we have it. I know what it's like to not have a family. I want you to have this one."
His grip on the glass tightens, and Jim drains the rest of the cognac smoothly, not coughing after thanks to a history of drinking entirely too much. The quickness sends a bit of a buzz to his head, but it begins to fade almost immediately. He considers getting another to catch up, and he rises to do just that. At the replicator: "What I did to beat the Kobayashi Maru test was wrong. It wasn't about you, though. It wasn't about anyone but me."
Spock stands (it takes two attempts, but he does it) and he moves behind Jim, fully intending to get another mug, himself. He's never gotten drunk before, but he knows the mechanics of it. The biology. The psychological effects. He also knows that it's not going to solve any of the problems he has nor soothe any of the uncertainty that's been plaguing his mind.
But it's a start.
"You didn't know me," Spock says in a way that's not slurring, but sounds just a bit off, all the same. Perhaps its the contraction. "It's illogical to believe that it was against me. And...it was clever." Spock leans against the wall and stares at the ceiling.
Beyond it was stars.
Beyond every ceiling is stars. Beyond ever floor, too. If you just go far enough.
"You should have been commemorated for your solution. Instead, I brought you up on charges. Because I believed I had to prove that you were wrong. And that I was right." The logic wasn't clear. The meditation only made things worse. He'd spun these wheels for weeks and had come up with nothing but exhaustion.
"I was different, in this universe. Somehow, I was different because of Nero. And, because of Nero, we hated one another. Then were pushed to befriend each other by the other Spock." He looks at Jim, eyes bleary around the edges but sharp in the center. "Where does one influence end and corruption begin? Without Nero, we would have been destined to be friends. With Nero and, by association, my counterpart, we are friends once again. How do you extrapolate what was meant to be from the interference of others? Or is it all meant to be?
The look Jim gives Spock is restrained, but still a little bit like that concerned Kermit the Frog one on plurk. You know the one. "Let me," Jim says, of the replicator, ever the polite host, and proceeds to order his refill first. He uses the distraction of talking over it and holding his gaze to hide the fact that he makes this chocolate drink less potent.
"Nero didn't have anything to do with why we disliked each other at first," Jim insists, looking at him frankly. "That was all us. And-- probably some Ambassador Spock." Jim puts the cup of hot chocolate back into Spock's hand and herds him back to the sofa, snagging his own liquor on the way.
"He was the one who instructed me to go after you when I got back to the Enterprise after Delta Vega," he explains, and he knows this is in the reports and that it's more or less known, even if he hasn't said so in so many plain words. It's a concession to their friendship that he does not say 'after you marooned me on Delta Vega'. Jim means it, about preferring things with them as confidants. "He didn't do it to screw with us, he did it to save Earth. And what does 'meant to be' mean, anyway? What if all of this 'interference' is what's meant to be? Maybe if Ambassador Spock stayed in his universe, his presence would trigger the end of all realities, or something. We have no idea."
"I don't want to think that our friendship is false," he says plainly, swallowing a mouthful more, but then resting the mug against his knee in what might be an attempt to slow down just a little bit. "That is was built by someone else. After the death of Vulcan I...was compromised. I did things I regret, to this day. Delta Vega being among them." His eyes closed, a headache starting right along his temples.
"But if I had not, you would not have met Mister Scott. You would not have met the other Spock. There is so much that has happened by pure chance. Miraculous coincidences which should not have ever occurred. And now...the interference is gone." He looks at the box, accusatory. "Nero is dead. My counterpart is dead. All that is left is the world they had a hand in creating. The people they moved like chess pieces before abandoning the game to new players."
His hand tightens around the mug but doesn't lift it.
"He used you. My counterpart. Do you not feel...anger toward that? Resentment?"
"We built it, Spock," he reminds him quietly in the midst of that. Because they did. Jim and Spock could have rejected each other after the Narada's destruction. They could have gone back to Earth and never spoken again-- even if Spock hadn't decided to stay with Starfleet, he didn't have to come to the Enterprise. Has some of their goodwill been Jim subtly enabling it due to faith in the abyss of time that it'd work out? Yeah, sure, but Jim Kirk is a rulebreaker. He doesn't have a problem using the cheat sheet on an exam if someone was careless enough to let him see it. That's not being led. It's a choice. It's tactical.
And like he mentioned: he's selfish. He wanted it to work.
"He used me to save the Federation. A scrap of my autonomy is a small price to pay for that. I'd have gladly paid far more."
--Is perhaps the most coldly Vulcan thing Jim has ever said, and he doesn't seem to notice.
Spock turns and looks at Jim with a raised eyebrow. A question forming slowly in his chemical-soaked mind. Something he is sure isn't right but can't seem to figure out how to put into words, just yet. So he starts simpler.
"Your willingness is pointless if you were not given the opportunity to choose."
He takes another sip of his drink which doesn't help his mental fuzz, but it's helping him talk. A lot. So maybe that's alright.
"He manipulated you. How do you know your belief that the greater good was served is not something he planted to assure you would not protest to his actions?" Spock, at times, doesn't know how he and the other version of him can have the same DNA. Have known the same people.
Sometimes he wonders what happened to make him do the things that he's done, here. A lost bondmate, perhaps. That...could be a particularly strong motivator.
Why does Spock want Jim to be resentful about it? A slight frown forms on his face, though he tries to avoid any negative feelings-- Spock's half in the bag at least, and he and his trachea know very well what kind of very much human emotions lurk under the cool exterior. Getting into an argument isn't going to help anything. It occurs to him that his friend probably needs to get it off his chest, anyway. This is a whole lot to have been holding in for so long.
"I was willing to get into a fight with the entire security force and you when you ejected me from the Enterprise," he says wryly, after taking a moment to consider how to answer. "I believed wholeheartedly, to the point where I was unable to stop myself from desperately trying to change your mind, that your plan would result in Earth's destruction. I would have done anything, Spock. And it's not like--"
It's not like I haven't proven my willingness to die for the greater good.
Something catches in his chest. A tiny, traitorous thought that if the older Vulcan hadn't influenced him, he might have never gone into the warp core. For a split-second it's panic inducing and then he crushes it, because if he hadn't gone into the warp core then all of them would be dead and fuck only knows what would have happened in a ripple effect from there. It doesn't matter if it was a decision influenced by someone else or not. If he had been too afraid to do it, Jim wouldn't be able to live with himself. He knows that much. He knows because his father was the kind of man who chose to die the same way. It's in his DNA.
Jim swallows a mouthful of cognac.
"I choose not to be resentful. I choose to move forward and take advantage of whatever I can from that world, because it's already taken so much from me."
"You chose all of that after the encounter with my counterpart," Spock points out. Because, drunk or not, he knows how the chronology worked out. "Who knows what he said to you in order to get you to agree with his plan?" Jim knew. But they haven't discussed it, really.
They haven't talked about it at all, come to think of it. Not even a little.
Spock takes another sip and extrapolates. "When he saw you...he saw the memory of his lover, alive once more. Perhaps even a bondmate, if they had progressed in their relationship far enough. Given how long the other Spock existed without his Jim, it would serve to reason his already significant emotionally compromised state was exacerbated all the more, seeing you. I imagine his judgement was clouded. What seemed to be for the greater good was moreso for his own. He-"
A thought occurs to him. A memory of Jim's relief when Spock had said he hadn't melded with himself. And something cold drops into his stomach, spreading out like a virus from the spot.
Jim feels certain that he would have chosen to sacrifice himself for the Enterprise even without the interference-- he does what he has to. Period. And he's not suicidal despite Ambassador Spock's self-loathing and guilt about his actions - that Jim certainly felt - because he didn't want to die, because he didn't go down with his ship on Altamid, because of a hundred other things. It's a disturbing feeling to consider it, and he has empathy for Spock's unease about it now, but he's sure of himself. He has to be.
And then that question.
Jim looks at him, expression suddenly shuttered because he can tell how much the idea worries his first officer. So what if he did is his first thought, defensive, because really, so what. Even though he knows (logically, hah) that it was abrupt and too intense, because what in life goes on without a hitch? Jim had to understand. The older Spock made him understand. He made him understand more than he set out to, and left memories in him that sometimes flit to the surface in dreams or even in waking, but so what.
He doesn't answer, just stares at him. Which is answer enough on its own.
Spock feels physically ill. And it has nothing to do with the chocolate he's drank.
"Jim," he hisses between his teeth, setting the mug on the table before getting up to his feet and walking over to the window. His hands ball into fists and press against the frame , white-knuckled and shaking with the strain. "Jim. Why did you not tell me?"
He can't look at his friend. Not when he feels a bit like he was the one who had just violated him. Illogical, certainly, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it. Everything from the last few years is in question, now. Jim's mental state alone is in question. Spock's head bows forward, taking his shoulders with it. The plastic beneath his knuckles bends, just ever so slightly.
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He shifts the box and jabs his finger against the buzzer to alert Jim to his presence, waiting in nearly a parade rest to belay the more personal nature of his visit. He doesn't look at the box even once. It's a firm presence in his hands but nothing more than that. It shouldn't have been in his possession, in the first place.
Spock should have done this awhile ago. He knows he should have. There had been a note among Ambassador Spock's belongings that specified clearly which items were meant for him and which were meant for Jim. To have held on to them for this long was...inappropriate. But Spock had his concerns about delivering them. He had before and now, with meditation, they had only grown. Irregardless, however, these items were Jim's. And he could not withhold them any longer. So he waited, wondering if perhaps he should have commed ahead to make sure the man was in.
Or maybe he was just counting on the fact that he wouldn't be.
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"Spock." Surprised to see his first officer but not displeased, he immediately waves him inside. "What's going on?"
The interior of Jim Kirk's temporary quarters on Yorktown looks the same as the interior of every other unit in Starfleet's officer housing. He's never been much for material possessions, and what few things he had were destroyed with the ship, anyway. His dress uniform is haphazardly strewn half on the floor, though. Uh. Jim picks up his trousers and looks around for his other sock.
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That would be illogical.
"I have come with possessions my counterpart has bequeathed to you, in his final wishes." Both hands grab the box as though about to present it. But it's never actually extended toward Jim. "There are a few items. A photo of the crew of his Enterprise, what appears to be a holographic chess set, and..."
His eyes drift down to the box and stay there. The one item he wished his counterpart would have just taken with him.
"A necklace which holds a final birthday greeting your counterpart sent to mine. I believe it is after this your alternate self died. It seems that mine wore it on his person." Up till his death. Every day. The few items a man would carry with him every single day. Bring from one universe into another.
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The easy way he moves and holds himself only changes for an instant - his back to Spock, his shoulders suddenly tense. He doesn't turn around while he explains what he's here for. Jim has to will himself to let that tension go before he moves back to Spock, his expression only barely betraying how suddenly apprehensive he is. He'd been proud of himself for bringing up the Ambassador's passing so quietly and casually, burying their continued - if infrequent and very private - association. The news of the older Spock's death had hit him hard, harder still knowing that he hadn't been told sooner, hadn't been told directly at all. But as ever, Jim represses everything he feels about Vulcan (or Vulcans), because it feels selfish, and like he's infringing on something sacred. It's not his place.
"Well."
Awkward pause.
"I'm actually going to need a drink for that. How about you?"
The question is only a polite formality. Jim's already heading to the food replicator.
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Spock crosses over to the Starfleet-issued couch that was built for bulk production, not comfort. He perches on the edge of it and rests the box closer to the empty seat beside him than toward himself.
"I apologize that I did not come, sooner. I had opportunities. However..."
How to approach this, next? How to tell Jim that he has concerns that these items are the equivalent of an invasive virus, contaminating them both beyond any sort of repair. It's a drastic comparison, but it is apt. Both of them, from the moment they came into contact with the other Spock, had been infected with ideas of the alternate timeline. Of the possibilities open to them that had already opened to their counterparts in the other time.
It wasn't their life, but it had become so, piece by piece. And the first one that had slotted into place had Ambassador Spock's fingerprints all over it.
"I had concerns."
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"Before we get into any of that," he begins slowly, holding his cup between both of his hands, "Do you want to talk about him? I don't mean-- I don't mean want as in, do you think it might be a pleasurable thing to do, I mean it as in 'do you think it would be constructive'. We haven't ever done much talking about him."
Something by Jim's design, feeling too uncomfortable. But he's got a feeling - he's got about thirty feelings - that this is going to prompt some serious unpacking, and not of that little box.
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"I am unsure what we would speak of," he nearly lies, taking a long sip of his cocoa and letting it warm him up. His eyes drift back to the box on the table and with the message inside that he apparently wore around his neck every day of his life.
"I believe he and your counterpart were lovers."
Which is probably not what Jim meant when he said that they should talk about the other Spock. But. You know. Vulcans aren't ones to pull punches. And maybe if he shocks Jim enough he'll end this before they get into other areas. Areas where they might potentially have significant disagreements.
"There are hints of it. Many places. I can think of no other reason to have a token such as a birthday card made into a necklace. It is...highly illogical."
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The surprise in Jim isn't about that non-revelation, but the fact that Spock seems so uncertain about it. Jim thought it was incredibly obvious but-- well, he'd mind-melded with the older Vulcan, so maybe it wasn't incredibly obvious to anyone but him. Jim picks his words carefully.
"For a time, anyway. Though I believe that aspect of their relationship was secondary to the emotional significance of it, for the ambassador. I don't think anyone else managed to reach him. He didn't have the relationship with his mother that you did with yours."
For Jim, there's no confusion between the older Spock and this one. They're too different-- he knew he'd never be able to conflate them, even back on Delta Vega, when the ambassador told him fondly that he learned cheating from a friend. The contrast between how his world's Spock had treated him over the Kobayashi Maru test (and more, what Jim was heading off that snowy rock to do to him) was a gulf too wide to ever build a bridge over. And as time went on and he began to sift through half-remembered echoes in his head, it only became more true. But that's fine, in Jim's opinion. He doesn't want to confuse them, or mistake one for the other. He doesn't want to be some damaged photocopy of another world.
Quieter: "I.. don't think it was appropriate for him to have left that for you to find."
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"I suspected, even before I found the necklace," he admits. "The way he would often speak of his Jim... It was clear that the affection was greater than that which he had for the other members of his crew. Leonard, for instance. When he died, in that universe, his Leonard McCoy held his katra. And still, when speaking about him, it is not with a fraction of the restrained emotion he had when referring to his Jim."
Spock looked up at his friend, suddenly realizing something. "It does not bother you? That we were lovers in another reality?"
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"We weren't," Jim says, blinking at him. "They were. They're not us. But no, it doesn't bother me. It wasn't like they were unhappy."
Not too far removed in rank or age, not abusive, not lying to each other... there was nothing objectionable or scandalous that Jim could see, and so there's nothing to be bothered by. And then a wee voice in the back of his head pipes up to suggest maybe it should seem weird to him, that maybe it's only the echo of Ambassador Spock's affection in his head keeping him unfazed. What does bother him is--
--ridiculous, so he doesn't even want to think about it.
"You didn't like him very much," he hazards.
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"Whenever he and I had conversed, he had always impressed upon me the importance these years would have on my life. How fortunate I was to have these experiences." Spock's eyebrows knit over his nose. The cup of cocoa in his hands is already half empty and that alone is probably why he's saying anything on this subject at all.
"I am pleased to be here. With you. With the crew. I believe I am effective and provide a useful service. However..." His grip tightens, eyes refusing to look up. "I have increasingly wondered whether these thoughts are indeed my own or impacted by the encouragement my counterpart instilled in my mind."
He exhales, bringing the cup back to his lips.
"Sometimes it is...difficult to answer the question of 'who am I' when I attempt to separate myself from his influence. And, for that reason... I do not know whether I would consider him a friend, or not. Whether I 'like' him, or not."
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It's something he's considered on many occasions: is his life completely of his own making, or is he being moved around like a chess piece? Is he complicit in controlling Spock's life, due to being goaded into it? But worries over the other universe's Spock were short-lived; Jim accepts that he did what he had to do to prevent Earth's destruction, and that if he made a reckless call, it was parts necessary and parts the product of his grief. Jim had felt that grief. He's incapable of holding it against Ambassador Spock. More pressing, to him, has been living under the shadow of his father and Christopher Pike.
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Spock has been meditating on this for weeks. Ever since he found the necklace and knew where it was going to go. And each time he dwells over the questions it brings up, he becomes more and more convinced that he's lost something, here, that he can never reclaim. An independence--a path--that will never be explored.
All because of the other Spock.
"I am in Starfleet, because of him." He chases the admission with another swallow of cocoa. "I had...intended to rejoin my people, after the destruction of Vulcan. I had lost my mother, my betrothed, so many family and acquaintances. I felt it was my duty and my responsibility to be with the colony and mend what had been lost. But...my counterpart. He...told me it would be a mistake. Not in as many words. But." He wants to take another drink, but his glass might empty if he does. Jim's is barely touched. "He convinced me to stay. I am here, because of that moment. Because of his influence."
Screw it. The mug empties out but he holds it in his hands, still. It's warm.
"I do not know who I would have been, had he allowed me to make my own choice."
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"You're in Starfleet because you chose to enroll there instead of the Vulcan Science Academy," Jim says after a quiet, his voice low and subdued. "After that... your life could have been different, yes. But anyone could have encouraged you to stay."
That's the good news. The bad news is everything else, really. Even if Ambassador Spock was only trying to give his counterpart a chance to go on the track he'd have stayed on were it not for the incursions into the timeline already... what's done is done. They can only go forward. It's the time-space continuum version of a sunk-cost fallacy to change more in the interests of trying to compensate.
"Our timeline is never going to congeal with theirs and disintegrate. We're not them, Spock. We never were, not even before Nero and the.. Kelvin. Even if we're a magnet for time-travelers, what we have is special."
Still,
"I'm sorry."
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He never knew his mind enough to know exactly what he wanted to say.
"When we first met... you are correct. I had already diverged from the man that I otherwise could have been. I do not know why as the incident with the Kelvin had no direct impact on my rearing. However..." He spoke with his counterpart. He knows the differences from the surprised looks on the other man's face. From the way they both talk about their childhood.
"I had...resentments where he did not. I felt the need to prove myself where he had long abandoned such ideas. When you beat the Kobayashi Maru test... It was an insult to myself. To my abilities. A way for me to be questioned and ridiculed anew in the place I had found relief."
And this is definitely the drink talking, now. So he closes his mouth and gets to the point before he rambles on and on for days. He could. He's been thinking about it long enough, by now. He has the ammunition and Jim's given him the opportunity to let it fly.
"I...do not prefer who I was to who I became from his interference. But it is still due to him that I have changed. Perhaps...we were destined to never become friends, here." He looks up at Jim, questions written all over his face. "Is that preferable? I cannot...decide whether it should have been or whether I should be grateful it was altered so irreparably..."
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It's an admission he knows most people don't believe - Captain James Kirk, sociable and charming, can't possibly be lacking in friendship, but rank is isolating, and even before that, he met more people than he ever knew. Trust, the kind that comes with real friendship, is impossibly rare for him. And he trusts Spock.
"You're important to me, and.. it's probably selfish, but even if what we have began as manufactured, I'm happy that we have it. I know what it's like to not have a family. I want you to have this one."
His grip on the glass tightens, and Jim drains the rest of the cognac smoothly, not coughing after thanks to a history of drinking entirely too much. The quickness sends a bit of a buzz to his head, but it begins to fade almost immediately. He considers getting another to catch up, and he rises to do just that. At the replicator: "What I did to beat the Kobayashi Maru test was wrong. It wasn't about you, though. It wasn't about anyone but me."
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But it's a start.
"You didn't know me," Spock says in a way that's not slurring, but sounds just a bit off, all the same. Perhaps its the contraction. "It's illogical to believe that it was against me. And...it was clever." Spock leans against the wall and stares at the ceiling.
Beyond it was stars.
Beyond every ceiling is stars. Beyond ever floor, too. If you just go far enough.
"You should have been commemorated for your solution. Instead, I brought you up on charges. Because I believed I had to prove that you were wrong. And that I was right." The logic wasn't clear. The meditation only made things worse. He'd spun these wheels for weeks and had come up with nothing but exhaustion.
"I was different, in this universe. Somehow, I was different because of Nero. And, because of Nero, we hated one another. Then were pushed to befriend each other by the other Spock." He looks at Jim, eyes bleary around the edges but sharp in the center. "Where does one influence end and corruption begin? Without Nero, we would have been destined to be friends. With Nero and, by association, my counterpart, we are friends once again. How do you extrapolate what was meant to be from the interference of others? Or is it all meant to be?
"Or is nothing?"
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"Nero didn't have anything to do with why we disliked each other at first," Jim insists, looking at him frankly. "That was all us. And-- probably some Ambassador Spock." Jim puts the cup of hot chocolate back into Spock's hand and herds him back to the sofa, snagging his own liquor on the way.
"He was the one who instructed me to go after you when I got back to the Enterprise after Delta Vega," he explains, and he knows this is in the reports and that it's more or less known, even if he hasn't said so in so many plain words. It's a concession to their friendship that he does not say 'after you marooned me on Delta Vega'. Jim means it, about preferring things with them as confidants. "He didn't do it to screw with us, he did it to save Earth. And what does 'meant to be' mean, anyway? What if all of this 'interference' is what's meant to be? Maybe if Ambassador Spock stayed in his universe, his presence would trigger the end of all realities, or something. We have no idea."
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"But if I had not, you would not have met Mister Scott. You would not have met the other Spock. There is so much that has happened by pure chance. Miraculous coincidences which should not have ever occurred. And now...the interference is gone." He looks at the box, accusatory. "Nero is dead. My counterpart is dead. All that is left is the world they had a hand in creating. The people they moved like chess pieces before abandoning the game to new players."
His hand tightens around the mug but doesn't lift it.
"He used you. My counterpart. Do you not feel...anger toward that? Resentment?"
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And like he mentioned: he's selfish. He wanted it to work.
"He used me to save the Federation. A scrap of my autonomy is a small price to pay for that. I'd have gladly paid far more."
--Is perhaps the most coldly Vulcan thing Jim has ever said, and he doesn't seem to notice.
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"Your willingness is pointless if you were not given the opportunity to choose."
He takes another sip of his drink which doesn't help his mental fuzz, but it's helping him talk. A lot. So maybe that's alright.
"He manipulated you. How do you know your belief that the greater good was served is not something he planted to assure you would not protest to his actions?" Spock, at times, doesn't know how he and the other version of him can have the same DNA. Have known the same people.
Sometimes he wonders what happened to make him do the things that he's done, here. A lost bondmate, perhaps. That...could be a particularly strong motivator.
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"I was willing to get into a fight with the entire security force and you when you ejected me from the Enterprise," he says wryly, after taking a moment to consider how to answer. "I believed wholeheartedly, to the point where I was unable to stop myself from desperately trying to change your mind, that your plan would result in Earth's destruction. I would have done anything, Spock. And it's not like--"
It's not like I haven't proven my willingness to die for the greater good.
Something catches in his chest. A tiny, traitorous thought that if the older Vulcan hadn't influenced him, he might have never gone into the warp core. For a split-second it's panic inducing and then he crushes it, because if he hadn't gone into the warp core then all of them would be dead and fuck only knows what would have happened in a ripple effect from there. It doesn't matter if it was a decision influenced by someone else or not. If he had been too afraid to do it, Jim wouldn't be able to live with himself. He knows that much. He knows because his father was the kind of man who chose to die the same way. It's in his DNA.
Jim swallows a mouthful of cognac.
"I choose not to be resentful. I choose to move forward and take advantage of whatever I can from that world, because it's already taken so much from me."
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They haven't talked about it at all, come to think of it. Not even a little.
Spock takes another sip and extrapolates. "When he saw you...he saw the memory of his lover, alive once more. Perhaps even a bondmate, if they had progressed in their relationship far enough. Given how long the other Spock existed without his Jim, it would serve to reason his already significant emotionally compromised state was exacerbated all the more, seeing you. I imagine his judgement was clouded. What seemed to be for the greater good was moreso for his own. He-"
A thought occurs to him. A memory of Jim's relief when Spock had said he hadn't melded with himself. And something cold drops into his stomach, spreading out like a virus from the spot.
"Did he...meld with you?"
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And then that question.
Jim looks at him, expression suddenly shuttered because he can tell how much the idea worries his first officer. So what if he did is his first thought, defensive, because really, so what. Even though he knows (logically, hah) that it was abrupt and too intense, because what in life goes on without a hitch? Jim had to understand. The older Spock made him understand. He made him understand more than he set out to, and left memories in him that sometimes flit to the surface in dreams or even in waking, but so what.
He doesn't answer, just stares at him. Which is answer enough on its own.
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"Jim," he hisses between his teeth, setting the mug on the table before getting up to his feet and walking over to the window. His hands ball into fists and press against the frame , white-knuckled and shaking with the strain. "Jim. Why did you not tell me?"
He can't look at his friend. Not when he feels a bit like he was the one who had just violated him. Illogical, certainly, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it. Everything from the last few years is in question, now. Jim's mental state alone is in question. Spock's head bows forward, taking his shoulders with it. The plastic beneath his knuckles bends, just ever so slightly.
"You should have told me."
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