"I never aspired to become a coward, Major West."
It would always have come to this in the end – a final unmasking, a final betrayal, a final confrontation... He never could have gotten away with it forever – he never was. Everything he tried was doomed to come to the same end, and it would seem that it would have become familiar to him.
And yet, it still stung him – pained a part of him he hadn't know he held. Or perhaps it was a part that he had held too well...
He had betrayed them, certainly; planning on their death by accident or abandonment after the sabotage. That he was drug with them was never intentional – but he had never been one to give up. He had adapted – had told a story and had stuck to it. He had lied, and screamed, and cried, and stole, and whimpered, and somewhere he had come to feel that these strangers that posed such a danger to himself were people he would do anything to protect – that they were his family.
It was a fool's hope – he was the extra, the superfluous appendage. He made himself the sniveling, avaricious – and failing – weakling that the family would protect him. They were too good to abandon someone to death without great cause – and he was ever too careful to give them that reason. They didn't trust him, nor did they care for him – but they would not unduly leave him. He doubted that any would risk their life to rescue or come for him if it didn't benefit the majority of the family, but he was assured that they would at least make a pretense of looking for him.
This situation wasn't something he had expected to avoid. It was something he had certainly hoped to, certainly – but not expected. He was too pragmatical – or cynical - for that.
So now he stood at the end of it all. The task that had doomed him aboard the Jupiter II had finally been found out – how, he couldn't begin to guess in this moment – and now the Major stood to accuse, judge, and execute him.
He distantly realised that perhaps the Major hadn't incontrovertibly known the truth – perhaps the vague goading had deluded him and he had confessed when it was not necessary... Either way, all was lost.
The pain, the pain...
The pain in his heart, his throat... He thought it might be tears, but he was too proud to shed them.
He supposed that it was best, that it was only him and the Major here now – that the others would not see this end. They were military men, the Major and he – neither would long mourn the execution, especially himself. He wished a last look at the family he had accidently come to adopt, but he wished more for the uniform he had earned once – for the bravery and honour he had once held. He wished to forget the coward he had become to survive.
The least he could do was face his death without flinching – he owed the Major that much respect.
"No more than any man does."
AN: my musing on combining Spock and McCoy to get smith begat this... Anyway! Set much later after the series end. Basically: the Smith seen in canon is his act to protect himself. Here, West finally figures it out and is going to execute Smith for the attempted murder. However, what Smith doesn't know? West didn't tell anyone – half expecting a better and braver man to be hiding beneath the sniveling mask of Smith. He doesn't kill Smith, and they become friends of a sort. 3-13-2016
