Empty rooms always hold the most powerful impact. As the morning sun began to rise over the great hall, the Captain of the Federation flagship glared across the golden, dust-filled, streaks of light to that raised podium and felt a well of emotion that he had not faced in years. In a few hours the room would be filled with thousands. Scholars, explorers, esteemed doctors, military heroes, decorated politicians and kings and presidents from across the entire quadrant. In the center would rest one who stood above them all. As the Captain of the ship, once marked 'E', with a name that was legend long before he took that most influential of chairs, Jean-Luc Picard stepped solemnly down the center aisle. Between the grand columns, reaching high into the majestic hall, banners and emblems from all across the galaxy hung calm in the growing sunlight. For now, at least, there was a respectful silence before the ostentatious mayhem.
In the side wing to the west, the honor guard salute and nod respectfully as he gestures to enter. The door is old-fashioned, ornate, like many beautiful pieces in this centerpiece of the city. Picard turns the handle and opens the door as the guards respectfully move down the hall to give him some space. He declines to enter. The roof, of reflexive polymer, has been set to transparent and the morning sky gently rolls in bright blended colours and casts a warm azure haze over the coffin. Sleek and black and open. Ready to be buried in the heavens above. Fired into the great black space he searched all his life. He still doesn't know what he will say in just a few hours as he gives the keynote address, perhaps something about their short time together, or how impressive it was to fight by his side. Having to bury the man by hand was a task he will cherish for all his life. He will keep that memory to himself. But he understands the need for this. A send-off befitting the memory of the icon. With parades and celebrations. Linking to the great anniversary this year. It will be a spectacle and a state funeral of the most impressive stature. 'If he were alive he would hate it', Picard smiles to himself. Today everyone will have something to say but will anyone be able to say anything of importance? Will he? That thought will weight on him for the rest of the day. He closes the door.
Above, the impulse jets are practicing their formation display. Their shadows ride over the coffin and face of James Tiberius Kirk and form the impression of a final confident grin on his resting lips.
It is a clockwork day of pageantry and pressed uniforms, where even the sky shines contented on proceedings through the crystal clear roof. Great admirals speak of inspiration and admiration. Delegates speak of lives saved, worlds changed and the pages of history covered with the names of Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, Enterprise and so many more. The room sat hushed when the Klingons performed a great show of respect and the Chancellor commended the great warrior dressed in gold. After nearly a hundred years the name of Captain James Kirk has blossomed and shifted into something truly regal and iconic. This, the second burial, has as much a celebration of the Federation as it does the man itself. Yet, at every opportunity, the great recordings and holographic recreations are shown and bring a reverence and power to all that prodigious man, and his crew, achieved.
In the late evening, after the interplanetary parade and photon torpedo salute in low orbit, the room sits and watches the recordings from the 'true' burial. Specially released, the images of the original crew, saying goodbye to their Captain in a private ceremony, are beyond moving for many officers. That bond, forged between men and women, regardless of race or home, links all crews of all generations. Saying goodbye to your Captain, no matter who he is, is a task no crewmember could ever wish upon another. Those who lost their commanders feel the sting of McCoy's subdued and staccato words. The scarred soldiers who survived their injuries, when their best friend didn't, have to relive that pain as they watch the quiet strength of Uhura giving a traditional hymn of remembrance. Not one member of the current Enterprise crew fails to glance at their Captain when their predecessors speak of how horrible it was, so many times before, to have lost their Captain, and how joyous to find he was alive and well. Wishing this time there would be some new miracle.
Like the rays of the sun, the great goodbye fades slowly and the esteemed representatives file out. Nodding at this impossible man from a forgotten age. Salutes. The grandchildren walk with the few survivors; saved by Kirk's actions, as they shuffle to the man they never met. Left until last, these grateful few are given their moment to thank the Captain of the Enterprise face to face.
Emptied. No one left to speak of a man they never knew, the hall is cleaned and the casket guided to the side wing. The roof is still translucent and the purple haze on golden beams sits on the horizon and gently beckons the distant light of new worlds to reveal themselves. New civilizations lay out there, but how many owe their futures to this man? How many civilizations do not say goodbye to their dead? Yet as the door is closed and the living depart, that cold corpse lies still, and, in a true sense, forgotten. A man is not a list of achievements. Not a diary of days ticked off.
Elsewhere, Picard drinks long into the night, burdened with being the only man who knew him, in the flesh. Having glimpsed his idea of paradise, and seen the power that made him a legend; only to be there when he let the Captain of the Enterprise fall. What hangs on his head most of all tonight, is that he is surrounded by his crew. His friends. More than friends. At least, at the very least, he consoles himself with, he was there for Kirk in the end.
The stars, shining light that makes no shadows, are beginning to sprinkle across the dark blue edges on the eastern sky. Long shadows from a full moon spread the casket's presence. It sits like that for an age. Time having no meaning to the dead or to long burnt out stars, no matter how clear their light might still blaze.
Making the dullest of sounds a foot falls outside the door, and a murmur dismisses the guards. With an anxious orbit the handle moves and a low creak fills the room. Just as gently the door is closed and the grey clad figure locks it. Standing. Waiting. The light of the night sky growing as he takes in the room, and the final thud of the door disperses into the night air. The delegates have already said their tributes, and left their tokens and symbols of grief, appreciation and respect. The last survivors of that golden age have long since left the hall and spoken soft words of acknowledgment. This guest had no role in the proceedings. Took no chair in the hall. Took no official passage to this place. Here he stands, all the same, the only one who had anything worth saying.
Pulling a chair into the moonlight beside the open casket and removing his hood, Spock has come back to his Captain's side.
Yet there is no logic to him being here, he tells himself. No purpose for coming so far, or, for reasons he still knows not, hiding his presence from the organizers. He was there, so many years ago now, when the news first came. When he first had to hear that awful call. When someone tells you that your life is now changed forever, and there is nothing you can do or say to fight it, beg, it, convince it any other way. They speak of loss when death comes. Yet it is those still living who feel they have been let adrift, a rudderless ship, without that soul that kept them safe.
As the black sky falls in and the city lights extinguish, the tales of the day are heard again, and well up from inside him. Watched again from one who was there. For the very first time since he entered the room he dares look at that face he knows so, so well. The stories that light up the eyes of cadets, and fill up lectures and holo-novels. No, the real stories are the moments, between the pages of history, where they went together and wrote their names. The long nights on the edge of the sky monitoring the heavens. The orbits of passing comets and the swirl of new nebula. Watching the supernova sunrises and following the trail of shadows across the planets as a new corner of the cosmos was opened to them. With every expanding horizon there was an even greater depth and an always surprisingly endless well of feeling. Vulcan's feel. Always have. No matter how much it seemed illogical, he knew he always would.
He knew he would outlive them all too. But, this time, this time there was regret. Wanting just a little more time. Another chance. One chance to say goodbye. He had buried him before. With no body he buried him. Stood and heard the crack in the Doctor's throat, and seen Nyota's delicate hands tremble as she stood at the podium. He gave a speech and was done with it. That's what he had told himself he now starts to realize. The moment he had heard he was still alive, that he had lived for eight decades, he was not shocked. He had known it. Somehow, he irrationally knew his Captain was not gone. And he was - Impressed. To hear he had survived. Fascinated. So he said to himself. Then again, he wasn't surprised. He knew he had a habit of cheating death.
Then, before the news had reached his ears, it was stolen away again. As a steady moon climbed higher and its pale light caressed Kirk's face he had a terrible shiver like he had never felt all those years ago. He had lost him again. And this time there would be no trademark escape from the jaws of death. He wants to reach out and touch him. 'It's not him' logic tells him. Just a shell. Not the man. Is that logic telling him? He should have missed him before, he's been dead before, but somehow it is now, when he is actually here, actually in front of him, that he misses him most of all.
The burden of age he distracts himself with, having so many years to recall and feeling you have never had enough time at all. And the years to come. How many long nights will there be? On a starship it is always night. His mind drifts, despite all his logical protestations, to watching that face like he did from his science station. Watching him change, yet always be the same. From the young brash Captain, to that friend on the other side of the radiation chamber. The angry father to the diplomat. Every line and wrinkle a marker of a lifetime being exactly where he wanted to be, doing what he was meant to do, and surrounded by those that admired. Those that respected. Those that - -
He looks to the stars and yet his mind stays where it is. It stays on Earth and he remembers the end of the mission, the end of everything he had ever known. He thinks about Jim, alone in his new home here. Wonders if he missed him. That's what humans do after all. They become attached. Sentimental. They miss each other. When all it would take was a call. Did Jim miss him? That's what humans do.
The stars are bright, and the moon brighter still. Second star on the right. Spock turns to hear him speak. The Captain lies still. Straight on until morning. Those words of goodbye. He is still there, on the bridge, by his side. He will always be on the bridge. That's where he lived. That's where he will always live. Everyday since, no matter where or when, that's never felt like him. Not completely. It has been a shadow and a pale shimmer of who is. No, Spock admits to no one but himself, this is who he is and where his life will always be viewed in his mind. Where he felt real. Felt like Kirk shone on him like a loving sun, illuminating who he was. Felt anything. Felt. Happy.
He can't stop himself from looking at the face. That face. He knows it so well. Seen it a thousand times. And a thousand times more, even when he was gone. He wants to speak. Wants to. All he does is watch his hand, as if controlled by someone else, reach over and brush the cold skin of Kirk's cheek. He does not know why, though admonishes himself all the same. Yet that passes. This is okay he tells himself. People do this. They come here and say things and react. Humans would cry. That's what humans do.
Speak? What to say? He wants to say so many things. Yet logic says no one would be around to hear it. That in this shadowed room, there would be no reason to voice a thought or concern out loud. He cannot take his hand from Kirk's face. Deep down inside, his heart tells him a more honest story; that he is not saying anything because there is nothing he wants to hear. There is nothing he could say. Emotions, true emotions, cannot be distilled or boiled down to single words. A thousand days looking at that face, ten thousand days missing it. A bond forged in battle, facing death and then, more importantly, facing life together. The jokes told a hundred times that takes new meaning and value in every retelling. And every time a smile suppressed. The pain that only that person can make you feel. That one person.
'I'm sorry - -'
He whispers unfinished into the night, not enough breath left to say the rest and more besides. Lips move without sound. 'I miss you'.
Not a Vulcan or man, not an officer or ambassador. No. Tonight he was what he had always been, and always would be. A friend.
Spock sat until the morning. Alone.
No one would ever know he had been there. A shadow in the starlight.