A/N:
I was left to search in wonder for a resignation to Spock's anger and sorrow after the death of his mother.
Of Chekov's consuming regret after losing her.
Here is my version of the closure for that hidden moment.
Sort of a short drabble-like piece.
Enjoy
Disclaimer - I do not own any of the Star Trek Franchise. It belongs to JJ Abrams and Gene Roddenberry.
He was standing alone when he found him. Hardly a face anymore, beneath the guise of half-concealed sorrow and regret. His hands were tied by undiscovered manacles behind his back, motionless and decayed in their repressed trembles. But he could see them, those quivers that coursed in silent rivers through his skin.
It hadn't been enough for Pavel Chekov. To merely stay there, bound to his fitful silence. Commander Spock had left, wordless, and for a moment, Chekov was drowned in remorse.
If only, if only….if only. If only I had been faster. If only I had saved her. If only I had been a different man, no…a different boy, the moment she slipped through my guilty fingers.
His voice was gone. Buried itself, perhaps. Or attempting too hard to reach superficial words. Shallow pools of condolence. But how would words weigh in the face of the unfathomable? How could Chekov ever reach into the depths of heart that purged all knowledge of emotion, did not recognize its poison. Would words weigh at all on the scales of logic?
He didn't say anything. Not at first. But his footsteps, muted and bathed in white and heavy silence, drew him closer to the pinpricked ears, the angular brow knitted and painted with the curtains of grief shrouding all reason in the face of the stoic commander.
He reached for him, apologetic gestures that heeded no words. Heeded no barriers of age or of thin reflections of self-condemnation. Merely apologies, dressed in their consoling garments. Gray and colorless, bereft of all pretentious garlands and ostentatious presentation. Merely a connection of foreign hearts, and their connection of the universal correlation of emotions.
Spock heard him enter the room, after his father's confession of undaunted love against the innate regulations of his race. But it was hardly an assertion for Spock, a simple revelation of clandestine harboring. It was a symbol of hope, a path paved for his personal inquiries. Love could never be logical, not fully. It was mostly feral ability, wrapped in gossamer-frail interceptions of jealousy and doubt and need and sweet fragility.
But it had reason, he knew now – no matter the race, love was a widespread endeavor. And to reject its symptoms of bereavement, to disengage its innate corridors carved into the grottos of the Vulcan heart, was to dismantle his mother's humanity within him altogether.
And so Chekov's gesture of consolation was welcomed under such blinding revelation. He couldn't see, groping for shadows in a world of pure light. The young boy's hand was a beacon amidst the storm, a reminder of home.
Despite differences and culture and everything in between which separated the lives of his mother and this small Russian boy – they were alike. Human, and harboring a heart brimming over with sentiment that could never be contained. Not with logic, not with age or disapproval. It was as if she were there, beside him, and her words emanated from the heat of Chekov's feather-soft grip upon his shoulder.
He seized the pale hand, the memories with which it filled him. Not a look, not an exchange of words. Merely the crushing waves of pain, undulating and ravaging his withering resignation. Never did the Vulcan cry, and rarely did he laugh or exhume the toxic effect of gnashing, crippling rage – but he could feel.
Chekov's silent gesture of apology, the whispers of tears which carved wizened rivers of regret into the handsome young Ensign's face, was more than enough that Spock could ever need to relinquish his hold on forgiveness.