The Most Hurtful Thing of All

by Lucillia

There are three facts that may or may not be related. 1. While seeking revenge, Nero focused on Spock almost to the exclusion of all else despite the fact that the Vulcan High Council could arguably be given some of the blame. 2. When Spock surrendered to Nero, he almost seemed to recognize him. 3. Sybok had wandered loose around the galaxy for decades before he died.

He knew that he should be focusing on his revenge, focusing on making Spock suffer as he had but there was something about calling the Enterprise that stirred an almost fanboyish excitement within him. There was an almost unaccountable sense of stage fright as he spoke with Captain Pike as a part of him wondered how he compared to the great beings who had hailed the ship well before he was born.

That feeling of nervousness would likely have been heightened had it been Kirk himself in the command chair. But, how could it not be when he had been raised on stories of the Enterprise that had been told to him by his father? Throughout his entire childhood, he'd been entranced and enraptured by stories of the heroic adventures that his grandfather's half-brother had undertaken while serving at the side of the one who was arguably the greatest captain in the history of Starfleet.

Probably the greatest reason he'd felt betrayed by Spock wasn't that the great hero who'd swooped in and saved a hundred worlds at the last second had failed to save that which was most important to him, but that after saving billions of strangers, his great-uncle had allowed members of his own family to die.