An AU TOS story, not written for monetary compensation. All Star Trek rights are the properties of other corporations.

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Kirk was pleased as could be, he had brought the Enterprise back to Starbase 4 without losing anyone or anything in the process, his ship was whole, his crew was all accounted for, everyone was in a good mood, and Starfleet had had the wonderful idea to chase everybody off the ship so that they could effectuate necessary maintenance and fine-tune anything that needed fine-tuning. He felt like whistling a happy tune, the happy tune of someone who didn't have a care in the world except where to eat and what to do to while the hours between waking and sleeping.

That lasted exactly three days.

On the fourth day, he was antsy for the ship to be ready so he could get back on board, he always forgot how boring he found life on the ground. Or perhaps it was not about living on the ground, it was about living on the edge of the danger that accompanied every new mission and every new discovery.

On the fifth day, he started pestering the authorities about his ship and the repairs and the timeline. Fairly quickly that day, the entire bureaucracy knew the incoming identifier for the captain's communicator and they stopped answering his calls.

On the sixth day, he reached out to Bones, because it would be more fun to spend time with the sarcastic doctor even watching the grass grow than alone waiting for his ship to be ready. Bones didn't want to be reminded about Starfleet, as that would remind him of his life before he joined Starfleet, and he didn't bother to take his call.

On the seventh day, he reached out to Spock, because as boring as the Vulcan's pursuits might be, it would be better than being alone waiting for his ship. Vulcans are creatures of logic and logic dictated that his commanding officer must be accommodated. Thus Spock found himself that afternoon away from the research he was conducting in the library of Vusteon, an edifice and collection of interstellar reputation, and instead played stoic companion to Captain Kirk's idea of entertainment.

It would be fair to say that neither party benefited greatly from the exchange. Kirk would have much preferred having someone of the female persuasion to spend the day with, and then the evening, and the day after that. His gaze kept being drawn to anything walking by that had boobs and many times Spock sighed internally with long patience, wondering why the captain had chosen to spend the day with him when obviously he would have preferred to find a female for sexual relations.

It was during one of those times that Kirk very unexpectedly turned to Spock and asked "Have you ever been in love?"

Once he had regained control of his bucking eyebrow, Spock seriously considered the question, as seriously as he would consider any question he was asked, before clearing his throat for an answer. "I have been infatuated before, at an age where I might have thought that such infatuation was love. But if you are asking whether I have found a consort, no I have not."

The answer came as a surprise to Kirk, who was personally very well situated to know that consorts and Vulcan and love were generally not part of the same equation.

"But I thought your people didn't consort for love?" Tact not being one of Kirk's defining characteristics.

"Perhaps I do not wish to follow the path of 'my people'." Letting him know the question had been insensitive but that his friend was still talking to him.

Kirk was surprised at the answer. He had never heard Spock declare openly that he did not want to follow Vulcan tradition. But, as he came to realize, that view was somewhat unenlightened considering that by choosing to be in Stafleet Spock had already made it very clear that he wanted to forge a path of his own.

The unspoken part being that it was not by spending their lives on a starship in the middle of space that either of them were likely to find love or a consort. And Kirk being who he was, he had to exteriorize the thought. "Sometimes I wonder how I'm ever going to find someone to love if I keep spending my life on a starship, exploring the unknown."

Now the other eyebrow started bucking and Spock had to rein it in. He privately thought that being planet-bound may not suit the youthful captain though at the same time he had to recognize that was a realistic appreciation of their prospects for a meaningful relationship. Though Vulcans living to an advanced age, he had many more opportunities to find a relationship at some point in his life then his Human friend did.

"The past is not an accurate predicator of the future" was his somewhat cryptic answer. It was not because Kirk had been on a starship until this point that he would be on a starship for the remainder of his life. He trusted Kirk to understand the reply.

The rest of the day was spent in conversations of a less personal nature. Finally it was time for Kirk to go back to his hotel room, and for Spock to catch up on the research plans that were interrupted by the Captain. They parted company on the large square plaza in front of the library, a work of logical lines and beauty.

"See you aboard."

"Of course, Captain." Spock turned back towards the library.

Kirk was almost out of the general perimeter when he hard a whistling sound that raised the hackles on his back. He knew that sound only too well. He whipped around just in time to see part of the building explode in a cloud of debris before the shockwave reached him, throwing him on the ground. When he got up, coughing, the dust and smoke of the explosion were so thick he couldn't see any of what had been there. He started running back to where he had last seen Spock, coughing as he breathed the dust, trying to wave it away from his face. Finally, he saw a survivor teeter out of the cloud, covered with a thin grey film of particulates, doubled over in a coughing fit. The air started clearing, approaching sirens signaled that emergency services were near. The dust cleared over an image of devastation.

Nothing was left of the plaza.

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