Okay, I'll just let you know. Spock in this story is based on the Abram's verse, and on my own idea of how Spock would turn out after seventy years around Jim, whom someone described as a man truly capable of great love. (I really don't know who said it:) and it's kinda based on Spock prime from the Abram's universe. However the some of the issues are vaguely TOS. Nothing that a non-TOS follower won't understand. But ya'll have to understand I haven't seen the whole thing myself, and much of this is pieced together from wikis and other databases. :D
I own nothing!
P.S. Forgive my overuse of the word 'twinkled'. No this is not a crack!fic.
Jeanne Grayson was nervous. It wasn't normal for her, really. She was a reporter, and proud of it. One of the best Starfleet had ever had. Many people expressed surprise at Starfleet having a reporter in employment, but Jeanne didn't see anything wrong with this. The Starfleet was a massive organization and they had their own publicity issues to handle. It wasn't often that a large gathering of intelligent beings (in this case, throughout the Federation Universe) held a large organization in such high regard. It just wasn't natural. That was her job, and she loved it.
Only two days ago she had gotten it in her mind that on the verge of a new century there would be nothing better than to cement their progress with autobiographies of their best captains, men who were held in the highest esteem by everyone, from children to working adults to other superior members of Starfleet. They were heroes, idols.
She had come up with three men who should be considered, but two of them turned out to be complete pricks. She had suffered a depressing disillusionment; she had held them in high esteem as well. This man was her last hope, the most famous of the three.
Her superior, none other than Admiral Ohanyu, was pleased at the idea, and would be most displeased at its failure. No doubt it would result in her being demoted, if not left jobless. Drastic, really, but Admiral Ohanyu was young, inexperienced. If his watch went bad, he would be in worse trouble.
She knocked on the door with a neat bronze plaque, labeling it as the office of Ambassador Spock S'chn T'gai, notoriously the nicest Vulcan to be found, ever. Her father had told her; where there was smoke, there was fire. She tended to be more cryptic. He was bound to be of extremely superior intellect, and most likely people who knew him had passed off condescending behaviour as 'niceness' just for the sake of his reputation.
Instead of a voice beckoning her entrance, the door opened, and a wizened looking man, a Vulcan actually, opened to door. "Greetings, madam. How may I be of your assistance?"
"Yes," she said, following him in. She didn't believe in belittling assistants. This man had been nice to her, and she would be nice, right back. He was probably Ambassador Spock's secretary or something. A man like him would need one. "I was wondering if I could please speak to Ambassador Spock?" she asked, with a smile.
Though he did not move a muscle, she had the feeling that he was laughing. Something about the twinkle in his eyes. "You are speaking to him," he informed her in his still-gentle tone. She did her best to not look for an assistant hiding somewhere in a corner, in the small, humbly furnished office, and nearly succeeded.
It wasn't really her fault. Everyone who was anyone had a secretary. Or two. And a really big office, with a coffee machine. And it was made of chrome and glass. With fancy expensive artwork tastefully scattered around. And a waiting room, where she would be seated for hours, before being informed that the man had never actually been in the office that day.
This man was Ambassador Spock. Admiral Kirk's best friend and first officer of many years. One of the most intelligent men to ever grace Starfleet. One of the greatest explorers known to man. Either a whole lot of that was bullshit, or Admiral Kirk was a really crappy friend. Who landed their buddy in an office like this?
The office had lots of wood. With one photo frame. A good computer, but everyone had to have one. And a whole lot of nothing else.
She snapped back, remembering who she was standing in front of. He was still twinkling at her. "Have a seat," he offered.
"But you haven't even asked me who I am!" she protested, suddenly letting go of formality in this odd, comforting presence.
"Very well than, my name is Spock S'chn T'gai." He held out a hand in a very gallant human sorta way.
She gathered herself and responded with a firm, trademark handshake. "I am Jeanne Grayson, reporter for Starfleet." She geared herself to defend the very existence of her position. He simply nodded, and gestured to the seat. She was off balance, again.
"How may I help you, Ms. Grayson?" he asked again.
"Jeanne," she said, "I'm actually in charge of writing a biography about Admiral Kirk, and I was wondering if you could help me." She crossed her fingers in a very quaint old-fashioned human way, like her grandmother had used to.
"I'd be delighted," he said, still smiling.
There was a moment.
Jeanne was still actually expecting him to set a date and chuck her out. "So, when can I meet you?"
"No time like the present," he said, twinkling. There was something endearing about the way he did that. Then she registered his words.
"You serious?" He twinkled. "Like, now? Don't you have stuff to do? Appointments? Other, more important people to meet? Like, presidents and kings and stuff?" he was still twinkling.
"Wow. Um. Okay, thanks," she said, grinning. He twinkled back. "Okay, let me gather myself here," she said taking stuff out of her bag and dropping a whole pile of it along the way. She resisted the urge to swear, and bent down to shuffle scraps of paper together, and met someone else's hands working with hers. The Ambassador himself. She was just about to protest but they were done. "Thanks."
He was waiting patiently. That in itself was a miracle. But he seemed happy to do nothing as she set up her recorder. This man was a godsend for any reporter.
"Okay," she said, settled. "So, when did you first meet Admiral, then Captain Kirk?"
"I met him when the Enterprise was first manned. We hated each other." Jeanne was taken aback by the honesty in his voice. "He was everything I was not, and vice versa. He was human; open, expressive, emotive and loud. I was reserved, quiet and entirely logical. And I was first mate under Captain Pike. He was a stowaway Dr. McCoy had brought onboard for personal reasons. I'm sure you can find this story anywhere. As they say, the rest is history."
"Yeah," she grinned. "My dad brought me up on those stories." Needless to say, Spock twinkled. "Okay, next, when can you say you became friends?"
Spock thought a moment. "I cannot give an exact stardate, it was more of a progression towards an agreement to disagree, then a respect for the alternate opinion, then respect for each others intellect, and then just a liking to be around someone so different. I remember, I only realised that we were friends when I was worried he was in the sickbay due to a virus which he had caught on shore leave. I hazarded a visit and he enjoyed my presence and I enjoyed his, and realized I had missed it while he had been quarantined. Then McCoy caught me and told me he was glad that we were friends, and I was, honestly, stunned. I hadn't even considered that idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised he was right."
Jeanne found herself smiling at the thought of such a wonderful friendship, and said so.
"Oh yes, it is, Jeanne. It is one of those things that cannot be touched, let alone broken. Something that grows with every day that passes." He was solemn and serious but there was no doubting the emotion behind that voice. Emotion which other Vulcans thought would ill fit them.
"Then, tell me about Admiral Kirk."
"Oh, to broach the subject is identical to swimming the oceans alone, a daunting task. But I shall attempt." She got the idea he was teasing her. "Jim is a man who knows exactly which rules to break. He is genius in that way. He is a very charismatic man, charming really. He has an innate ability to say things which will cause you to favour him, however he also has the awful habit of putting his foot, very metaphorically, of course, in his mouth. He has a tendency to act before thinking. But he is very passionate. Truly, he is. He never did anything halfway, and this was the first thing I noticed we had in common."
"He is a man with a awesome capacity for love, and it is an irony which does not escape me, that a rigid son-of-a-Vulcan was the first to discover this. He taught me to laugh and to love and to just be happy in the moment, because that is the kind of person he is. He is free and easy all the time. It took him months to get our crew to be less formal with him, and only because he was constantly pestering them to not call him Captain and salute him in the corridors all the time."
"James Kirk is also a flirt. I'm sure you've heard the rumors. He loves men, women, anything in between and things that aren't even human. He was the first person to really, openly explore the possibility of inter-species relationships, if you could call them that. Of course, he was hailed as insane, but they've done that many times."
Jeanne wasn't really paying attention to the exact words Ambassador Spock was saying, instead listening between the lines, to the emotion that was coming through. Love. She briefly wondered if she could just write one line in her book, and leave it at 'Spock loves Kirk, and that's all that anyone ever needed.' It was true, too. The depth of the Ambassador's love was…frightening.
She nodded as he finished, and swallowed. Her questioning continued and she could barely believe her luck when he let her stay beyond half an hour. Though he stopped between each question to make sure she wasn't disrupting his plans.
Then she reached the question which she was going to ask only because Admiral Ohanyu had forced her to. "I need you to know, that if you feel, for any reason, unwilling to answer this question, I'm okay with it." He nodded, the twinkle slightly dimmed but still there.
"Okay, the incident on Vulcan. I have no clue what happened, but rumor has it that you killed Captain Kirk because he was having an affair with your bond mate, who challenged you in Kal-if-fee for his rights to be her bond mate. Can you shed any light on the situation?"
Spock's face was now, if possible, grimmer than before. She backtracked as quickly as she could; she like this guy, and had no intention of harming him. "It's okay, bad question. Never mind."
"No, it is something that needs to be written, if this is what people think happened. They should know the honorable truth. T'pring was my chosen bond-mate, and I had just begun my first Ponn Farr. She chose Jim as her opponent with perfect logic, and unflawed reasoning. Either way she would be able to continue her affair with her chosen mate, regardless of who died. Bones used a special chemical that would make it look like Jim died, but I didn't know that. I thought I had just killed my captain and my best friend. I was devastated. Only when we got back aboard the ship was the deception revealed to me, and I remember it as the only day when I truly lost composure to joy." His face was still down turned, and she felt so sad.
Suddenly his eyes twinkled, and he looked up. "Jeanne, meet" he started, then the door opened, "Jim." In strode a man of considerable age, yet admirable physique. He was shorter than Spock with grey hair, and laugh lines a-plenty. Momentarily Jeanne wondered how Spock had known Jim would arrive before he did, but dismissed the thought. Then she realised this was Admiral Kirk.
"Admiral!" she jumped up, not knowing how to react. He grinned, and waved her down.
"'M I disturbing anything?" he asked, and Spock nodded a mock-severe yes, while Jeanne shook her head, no. The admiral grinned. "You still can't beat me, Spock. The ladies can't resist my charm!" he said, boastfully.
"More likely, they're terrified of you, Jim. And no wonder, with your face…" Spock sighed, sadly. Jeanne couldn't help but grin. There was no way she could feel sad in this. This was all the warmth of a family, or a home. Two people who had known each other so long that they knew them as well, if not better than themselves. It was touching. Jim grinned, winking at her, to let her know he was joking. She smiled in return.
"Jim, this is Jeanne. She's writing your biography."
Admiral Kirk jumped. "Shit. Please don't write that I have a belly, or grey hair, or that I said a bad word! Shit. Spock!" he wailed, "you should'a told me!" Spock grinned, and Jeanne was taken aback by the warmth on his face.
"No worries, sir," she smiled, and grinned. "I'm done here, anyway. Thank you so much, Ambassador Spock. You don't know what it means to me."
"You're done with my biography without talking to me?" Jim asked, jokingly. Jeanne jumped.
"You don't mind?" she asked.
"Of course not! Spock likes you! Any friend of Spock is a friend of mine! And it helps that you're pretty…" he winked again. He was charming.
"Anyway, I'll call. I feel like I'm intruding. Thanks again, and have a good day!" she grinned, showing herself out, feeling better than she had felt in days.
She watched them walk down the corridor after they waved to her, chatting like friends, or brothers. There was an easy familiarity that was so warm, and suddenly it struck her. She saw what she had been sensing ever since Spock began talking about Jim. She could even see it in the way they walked; ever so close to each other, touching as much as casual behaviour would allow. It was so obvious. It was love.
She didn't know in what sense, or way, or anything, but it was love, and it was so wonderful. She grinned and walked the other way, thinking, they should start a fan club…
I know it's not how I wanted it, but there ya go. It's 11.55 pm. :D night!
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