Hi. I usually write Hogan's Heroes fic only for this site (though I do write Trek fic elsewhere). This is my one shot attempt at AOS fiction. My muse felt like it needed to be written, so I obliged.

It is set in Spock Prime's POV. In it I reference "Generations" and Kirk's second death (which is set only a few years after "Reunification"), and early Vulcan mindset on things (A la ENT), plus, of course, "The Alternative Factor/Mirror, Mirror."

For starters... ;-)

Copyright legalese: Oh come ON! But for legality's sake, I own nothing except my imagination. Copyright Mistress V, 2009, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.

What I Know Now 1/1
by Mistress V

Spock Prime watched his younger, alternate persona walk away.

The sight of himself, back in the day, had at first been as incongruous to him as the concept of time travel had been to the Vulcan of T'Pol's era. But here they both were, with no ill effects that he could ascertain. Thankfully, the younger version was from the same universe. The whole concept of mirror universe anomalies had been enough to deal with once. Not again.

He contemplated the next moves he must take. The Vulcan colony's founding was first and foremost on his mind. Sarek was anxious that work begin as soon as possible on that front. The added bonus of having his father alive and with him once more meant that he would now have a second chance at healing an ages old rift between them, something that still nagged at him, years after the death of Sarek in his own lifetime. The fact his mother was once again lost to him was sad, especially, he realized, for the youth he had just seen. There would be no Babel (at least not as he recalled it) for them. Spock only hoped the alternate timeline had altered some other things in that life. For the better.

He felt grief at the loss of his people and their home world. But he also wondered about their Romulan brethren. How would this extraordinary event be viewed by the citizens of the present day Romulan Empire? Would reunification attempts come about earlier as a result, or would it drive the two cultures even more widely apart? There were the Remans, too...

Seeing Kirk again, a young Kirk he had not really known, was startling. He had now lost his old friend twice, so another version was at first rather difficult to accept. The same old Kirk, though. Brash, stubborn, opinionated, womanizing.. .and brilliant. It was safe to assume that he would be outlived by this incarnation, though the way things were, who was to say? He felt the remnants of their meld and sensed this young Jim's amazement at the depth of feeling the two had shared for each other as friends. A slight twinge, the memory of McCoy asking who that 'pointy eared bas**ard' was, crossed his mind, and he hoped the three men could once again share a camaraderie. A slightly different one, perhaps, but no less satisfying.

He realized he needed to read more in the computer banks about what this galaxy, this Federation, was about. So much was different, yet equally as much was still the same as it had been. Apart from that ginger-coiffed female Orion cadet he'd caught a glimpse of. THAT concept alone was definitely worth some study. The females he and his time's Pike had met, so long ago, were decidedly un-cadet like.

Part of him wanted to sit down with both himself and his best friends and give them sound advice on what their future might hold. The prospect of this Kirk falling in love with another Edith Keeler was not one he wanted to see repeated if it could be helped. And speaking of love, what about his own failed bonding? Was he indeed promised to T'Pring in this lifetime as well? Was she one of the lost? Or was there a different future mate waiting in the wings yet, one his own family had not known? Not having to face his friend on the sands---that would be a relief, even if only as a faraway observer.

What about Leila? And Christine? And of course Uhura, who obviously had a much deeper friendship with this youthful Spock than they had ever shared. Spock Prime raised an eyebrow. The coming years here for him were going to be fascinating indeed. Hopefully, Droxine was not a part of that future, he told himself. Come to think of it, that whole mess with the Romulan Commander could be bypassed, too. Same with Zarabeth's world. Though he could not make those decisions for others, he knew.

But it was illogical to speculate one's self into confusion. What had his mother always said? "Don't 'What If' yourself to death!" Some things were better left unlearned until they happened, and for the most part, he agreed. However, a meeting with Starfleet Command was on order, for some broad guidance that only he could provide, perhaps averting some major disasters in the process. Nothing official, mind you, just good, logical advice.

For now, though, there was much work to be done.

FIN