A/N Characters are not mine. Hope you guys like it. It's written in a style that I don't often use, and personally, don't always like, but I tried to do it justice. Enjoy.
Death.
There is no adequate definition of the word. It is an end. It is the ceasing of the functions that maintain homeostasis in an organism. Death is final. Death is unavoidable.
Death is the concept that which renders all individuality obsolete.
And yet, where death is the destruction of the essence of life, it is also a creator. When one experiences the death of another—or, by some stretch of ability, the death and resurrection of oneself—the ending of that life creates more pain, more emotion, and more stress than any act of finality seems capable of bearing.
The end of life begins a time of mourning and, most often, of despair.
The death of my mother, aligned with the destruction of my home planet, render me into such a time. While my control is more practiced than that of others, it was simply impossible to expect that even I would maintain a separation from my emotions in such a time. I managed, of course, for some time. However, I could not stave off my emotions for an extended period of time.
Death is inescapable. That fact does not make the concept any less terrifying.
After the Narada had been destroyed, and the Enterprise had begun her journey home, I found myself collapsing. Alone, away from the crew and captain, I found my structured containment of my negative emotions dissolving, despite my attempts to maintain them.
For too long I had tried to prevent myself from feeling. On more than one occasion, I have found that it is truly an inconvenience, being half human. Emotions demand more attention than I would like to give them, and prevent me from assessing many situations adequately.
I did not intend to neglect the mourning of my mother and my planet.
I simply did not have the time.
However, after such a long time, I found myself in my quarters, kneeling against the edge of my bed, succumbing to the pain and agony.
I did not want to process the death of the woman I loved above all others. I refused to process it, and broke myself even further.
A noise buzzed from my comm, and yet, I ignored it. I could not control myself. My nature is to deny that I shed tears, and yet, I could not stop them.
I was spiraling out of control and did not have the means to stop myself.
There was a knock on my door, and in a rush, it opened. The Captain, face glowing with a grin, observed me, and I watched the grin fall swiftly from his face as he rushed to my side.
Jim Kirk is a man of many things. He is emotional. He is volatile. He is reckless, cunning, and loyal to a fault, to coin a term. Up until that point, I had acknowledged these things as part of him, but had not yet reconciled myself with his human-ness, nor found myself attached to him in any way.
But I had not acknowledged that Jim Kirk had also experienced death in his life. And, having observed me in such a state, he did what he thought was best.
I spent no more than four point six minutes weeping in his arms.
After I had concluded, and assessed the situation, I made the best of it that I could. I apologized to my Captain, who responded in no uncertain terms that it was "about damn time". There is no need to elaborate on my confusion that followed, for he did not bother to explain his statement. I acknowledged that his presence was a comfort, and he proceeded to remind me that he had lost his father, as I had lost my mother. He had seen death, and its unchanging effects on those it touches. He claimed to see in me emotions that I could not explain.
He could see them, and had responded to them with the same ease that he chose to address the universe with.
The Captain—I do not always know what to say about Captain James Tiberius Kirk. My counterpart tells me that he is "the other side of the coin" to myself, but as I continue this journey with him, I question the logic of that statement. However, I know this of Captain Kirk.
He is the only man who has seen me at my lowest emotional point other than my mother, and, like her, he is the only man who has accepted it with ease. Thus, through a force I cannot yet explain, we are bound, for better or for worse.