PROLOGUE

"Kirk, we get one shot at this. One chance. Your career is hanging by a thread and by some miracle I've managed to convince them that you can pull this off. You need to get that treaty, if you don't they're talking of stripping you of command and letting Spock take captaincy of the Enterprise instead. Make it work."

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and leant back against the wall behind his bed as the message Admiral Gunn had sent him a week ago reverberated inside his head.

The Federation wanted to expand its export range to Gentidas 7, a bustling trade planet where many species went to exchange goods and information. Unfortunately, the current route from Earth to Gentidas 7 took about a month and a half, as they had to take a detour to avoid violating the space of the Perioikoi, a close-knit race with a vibrant culture, but very strict rules about outsiders. They placed huge value on teamwork and any organisation that had command teams that were less than perfect did not deserve their notice or cooperation.

Jim let out a dark chuckle; he and Spock were about as far from a perfect command team as it was possible to get. Conflicting opinions, angry fights and mutual dislike flooded the bridge almost every time they had a shift together. Jim swallowed as he remembered that the reason the Federation had been denied a treaty last time; the command team had not interacted 'naturally' over a formal dinner.

Wait till they saw the screaming matches that would occur when Jim and Spock sat down.

Well, when one said screaming matches it was more like Jim screaming at Spock and the Vulcan responding with harsh jibes that had just as much impact, even though they lacked the same volume. The thing was, Jim had no clue of /why/ the situation between them had gotten so bad in the first place. They'd been going fine, even working out a system of light-hearted banter and Jim would like to think that they had been on their way to becoming friends, then the whole debacle with John Harrison, or 'Khan', had blown up and everything had gone to hell.

In fact, when Jim thought about it, everything had gone so badly wrong that he'd ended up /dying/. It made him feel oddly shaken whenever he remembered that he'd died - as in Bones calling time and declaring that he no longer lived - and that he'd done it all to save Spock and the crew of the Enterprise.

It was odd, Jim mused, that in his mind, Spock was separate from the rest of the crew in some way.

Jim hadn't known what had happened after his entry to the warp core, possibly because he'd been sort of dead, but apparently Spock had become a tornado of maniac energy and had been suicidal enough to try and kill the most dangerously genetically-engineered man the Earth had seen in the last century. Then, back on the Enterprise, Bones had worked his medical magic and realised that Khan's blood might help save him, the only problem was that it was inside Khan and that Spock was intent on destroying him. Nyota had beamed down, into the middle of the battle between the two crazed men and managed to convince Spock not to kill him, Jim had no clue how the hell she'd done that because from the accounts he'd heard from other crewmembers Spock had been 'unhinged' at best, most agreed he'd been closer to 'completely psychotic' and absolutely no-one had said he'd been even close to touching the rational side of sanity.

Either way, the job was done. Jim came back to life, Khan was locked away forever and the Enterprise sailed happily off into the comforting blackness of space.

Except their troubles hadn't ended there, Jim had been constantly monitored by a full squad of elite Starfleet agents. While Khan's blood had saved Jim's life, the Federation and Starfleet seemed to believe that it was going to have a negative effect on him. And by negative they meant that Jim might turn overnight into an insane fanatic with super strength and a penchant for bombing Starfleet installations. It had been eight weeks ago that they'd finally called off the guards after a month of intense scrutiny, seemingly satisfied that Jim's only other side effect was slightly increased muscle mass, but that had only been because he'd been hitting the on-board gym more often.

Not only had Jim's pride taken a hit from the squad of stern faced men and women that follows him everywhere but so had his social life. He hadn't had much of one to begin with but with Starfleet lackeys looking over his shoulder and psychoanalysing every word that came out of his mouth whenever he spoke to someone, he'd become quieter and quieter and eventually stopped talking unless he strictly had to.

The only people he'd been comfortable enough to really talk to had been Bones and Spock. But two weeks after the introduction of the 'Kirk-Bomb Squad' as Bones had dubbed them, something happened that seemed to destroy every little moment of friendship and civility that had ever passed between Spock and Jim.

Nyota broke up with Spock.

It had come as a bit of a shock, but looking back on their relationship Jim privately thought that it had done a good job to last as long as it had. Some people said that it was a natural progression, that they'd just been too different to make it work, other insisted that it was because Nyota had been scared by seeing the primal state that Spock had slipped into and yet another group claimed that Nyota had found out about Spock's 'secret lover' or some other nonsensical garbage.

Jim didn't think it had been any of these things but as he had no clue to what had actually happened between them, he tried to reserve judgement and gave Spock and Nyota two days off shifts to recover. A courtesy that he extended to all his crewmembers who went through a breakup.

To his intense astonishment Spock took the two days off work and Nyota declined, saying that she'd feel better if she was working, a complete reversal of what he'd thought would happen. Spock did not emerge from his quarters for two days and when he did it was like being thrown back to their first day on the Enterprise, when Spock and Jim had literally been at each others throats. Anything Jim said would be shot down by a snide remark from Spock and arguments between them began to break out on the bridge like small but deadly wildfires.

He'd tried to understand, he really had. Jim had made every excuse possible for Spock's behaviour, 'he's been through a bad break up', 'the destruction of his planet is catching up to him again' and 'Khan rattled him more than he let on'. And so Jim had tried to ignore the comments, keep his temper in check and his side of the argument light-hearted and positive. More than anything he'd tried to keep liking Spock, but it was incredibly difficult when he seemed to be getting nothing but disrespect from his first officer.

Which led them to where they were now, a few hours away from the planet of the teamwork obsessed Perioikoi and so deep in apparent dislike it felt like they were drowning.

In the cool darkness of his bedroom James Kirk buried his head in his hands as he felt a fresh wave of despair crash over him. Despite everything Spock had said and done and everything Jim had said and done back, Jim still couldn't bring himself to hate Spock. Couldn't bring himself to write the Vulcan off as another failed connection in the seemingly endless string that littered his life. He knew it was tearing him and the Enterprise apart, but he still couldn't bring himself to request Spock be transferred to another ship.

Jim let his head thunk back against the wall and as his eyes took in the stars glittering beyond the window he wondered - not for the first time - whether it would have been easier for him just to stay dead.

Okay so this prologue sounded super angsty but I swear that the story picks up from here. All reviews go to feeding my imaginary hamster called Steve and all flames will be used to warm my shivering family when winter closes in.

Oh, and Perioikoi means 'those who live around' and I sort of Classical History nerded out. Don't judge me. Okay. Fine. You can judge me, but only this once :)