Story: Of Friendship and Wormholes
Author: gammacorvi
Fandom: Star Trek, Kelvin Timeline
Chapter: Aftermath
Chapter Summary: Does Spock's life matter?
Pairing: James T. Kirk & Spock friendship, James T. Kirk Prime & Spock Prime friendship, Spock/Nyota Uhura
Notes: This story will focus on the friendship between Kirk and Spock from either Universe. I assume that there is a strong bond between them. This story is not K/S (although I love reading K/S!).
Please enjoy!
ooo
Of Friendship and Wormholes
by gammacorvi
-Chapter 1-
Aftermath
From the moment Spock received Scotty's comm, telling him to 'better hurry', until Uhura beamed down onto the garbage scow and shouted at him that Khan was their only hope to save the Captain's life, exactly 34 minutes passed. Spock did not actually knew this until much later, when the incident had been examined, evaluated, re-examined, re-evaluated and finally put down in pages and pages of an official report, which Spock had dutifully read and signed off on. The report tells the truth. The incident took exactly 34 minutes. Spock knows this because of the official timeline included in appendix 56. He double-checked it himself, double-checked it twice, in fact, because he couldn't believe it. 34 minutes. A factual truth. And yet, Spock knows that those 34 minutes are a lie. The time between Scotty's words and Uhura's plea was much longer. Countless details come to mind that could not possibly have happened in such a short time. Take the time it took the decontamination unit to arrive in the engine room after the Captain died. Or the wait until the airlock leading to the warp core had gone through its decontamination cycle and they were finally able to open the door. There was the moment when the Captain's body slipped sideways until Spock caught it, much to the horror of the decontamination unit, since he was not wearing a suit. And the time it took them to zip the Captain's body into a body bag, planning to take him away, over Spock's objections. Finally the arrival of Leonard McCoy who told them to fuck the regulations, the body was going to sickbay until he himself had determined the cause of death. And then, the chase, that Spock now barely remembers.
Time, usually a rapidly flowing entity had slowed down, turned into endlessly turning swirls and eddies. Spock had lost his friend and Captain and nothing would bring him back.
ooo
When Spock enters Sickbay after those 34 minutes the decontamination unit is trying to leave at the same time as security is wheeling in an unconscious Khan. The doctor is standing in the middle, barking out orders to everyone in sight, his staff milling around him. Not to speak of all the crewmembers, injured and uninjured, in various states of shock, some of them just standing around, gazing at the cryotube that holds their dead captain. There is Carol Marcus, cool and composed as if she is still merely defusing a photon torpedo, working on stabilizing the cryo sequence, unperturbed by the noise surrounding her, a rock in a stormy sea. When Spock comes close she barely looks up at him and says in that clipped, efficient way of hers:
"We need Khan's blood as soon as possible. This cryotube is too old to stabilize the Captain's neural pathways for more than a few hours."
Spock is not sure if she is speaking to him or to the doctor, but a nurse springs into action, approaching the unconscious Khan, obviously in the process of collecting the precious commodity.
Spock puts himself between the nurse and Khan.
"Did you obtain this individual's consent for the procedure you are about to undertake?" he asks. Everyone around him freezes. Spock is aware that there is a certain irony in the situation. He just tried beating Khan into a pulp. There was no question about consent then. Violence is supposedly alien to modern Vulcans, but there he is, battered, barely having been able to subdue Khan with the help of Nyota, a phaser, and his own strength, superior to a human, sufficient to possibly take on a Klingon in hand to hand combat but vastly inferior to Khan's genetically engineered, superhuman strength. In Vulcan history violence gradually gave way to logic and ethical considerations. But violence remains part of Vulcan nature, carefully controlled. Spock lost control when he attacked Khan. Now he takes it back.
Across the room Leonard McCoy's face has turned into stormclouds and his hands have formed into fists. The milling masses part before his approach until he stands right in front of Spock.
"You green-blooded, cold-hearted son of a bitch," he hisses. "I thought you were his friend!"
Spock stands straight, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.
"As you well know, Doctor," he says, "The Tragorian Convention of Stardate 2156 expressly deals with the ethical implications of forced consent, which are applicable in this setting. Alternatively I can quote Starfleet regulation 549, subsection 47c…"
There is a shocked exclamation from the crowd around him and then the doctor's fist connects with his face. Spock didn't see it coming which is a telltale sign of the state he is in. His vision blacks out for a moment and then he finds himself on the floor, not sure what is up and down and if his arms and legs still have a connection to the rest of his body.
"Fucking robot," someone whispers to his right. He identifies the voice as belonging to Lieutenant Hendorff, whom the Captain insists calling "Cupcake". Of course, Spock would never hold the opinion against the man, not in this situation.
Ensign Cho and Lieutenant Cree help him to his feet. The doctor makes another move but is restrained by a nurse and one of the members of the decontamination unit, still in his suit.
Spock tries to steady himself. Green blood is dripping from his lips and his nose. The world around him blurs again and he reaches out a hand to keep himself from falling. It connects with Khan's gurney and when Spock's vision clears he sees his enemy, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. Khan's hands are strapped down with titanium reinforced clasps, but his fingers manage to wrap around Spock's wrist, strong like a band of steel. The bruises left on his face by Spock's brutal beating are already fading, succumbing to his superior physiology.
"Did you know, Mr. Spock," he whispers, "that my body was genetically engineered to withstand all kinds of radiation? Warp core radiation cannot hurt me. If only your precious Captain had had some of my cells in his body he would still be alive."
Khan tugs at Spock's wrist and Spock bends closer. There is a voice of warning in the background but Spock doesn't care.
"I underestimated you, Mr. Spock," Khan whispers. "At heart you and I are both the same. Savages. I'm surprised. And impressed. And that little discussion you just had with the doctor about consent?"
His voice drops and Spock bends even closer, knowing that Khan is willing to meet Spock's need if Spock meets his.
"We both know that if I declined consent you would take what you need, anyway, is that not so, Mr. Spock?"
For a moment there is a perfect mutual understanding between them.
"To save what is dear to you. And I would respect you for it. But, of course, my respect means nothing to you."
Khan inclines his head toward the cryotubes that hold his own frozen crewmembers, his family.
"I understand the bonds forged in battle. I know what your Captain means to you. Just tell me one thing. Are they alive?"
Spock inclines his head and is not surprised when tears gather in Khan's eyes.
"Well played, Mr. Spock," he says, his voice choked with emotion. "Promise me that they will be kept alive."
Spock wipes blood off his lips.
"I promise," he says.
Khan relaxes.
"Then we will live to fight another day. You can take what you want."
His fingers release Spock's wrist and Spock straightens up and takes a step back. Telepathic contact lingers for a moment, then dissolves. There is a metallic taste in Spock's mouth that is not from his blood. He feels soiled but pushes back the emotion. He motions the nurse.
"He consented to have his blood taken. You can go ahead."
There is a moment of stunned silence. The doctor looks at him, eyebrows drawn together, before he turns around and goes to save the Captain's life.
Spock accepts a gauze from Nyota and tries to wipe the blood off his face. His lower lip is split and he can feel his nose swelling. She puts a steadying hand on his neck and he allows himself the weakness to lean into her touch.
Later he catches a glimpse of the Captain still in the cryotube, but the doctor sends him a glare that would have killed a lesser man and Spock decides it is better not to distract him. Uhura is being called away to deal with the communications system and Spock soon finds himself swept up in coordinating the salvage operation. After all they have been through, the Enterprise is badly damaged and has to be towed to Luna shipyards.
ooo
It is two days later when he finally catches a transport to San Francisco.
Several times he has attempted to communicate with the doctor, but Leonard McCoy has been answering in monosyllables and all Spock knows is that the Captain's life still hangs in the balance.
He secures himself a room at Starfleet Academy, takes a shower and puts on a new uniform. Then he permits himself 10 minutes of meditation before he heads over to Starfleet Medical.
-oooOOOooo-
His first look at the Captain is all but reassuring. He looks like a corpse, barely kept alive.
Spock stands behind a large window, looking into the Captain's room and suddenly finds himself back on the Enterprise, in front of the door to the warp core, kneeling, the Captain's eyes staring at him, sightlessly. He jolts back into the present, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, his heart beating rapidly, low in his right side.
"They told me you were here."
Leonard McCoy stands behind him, his scrubs a blinding white.
"What is his condition, doctor?" Spock asks, his voice perfectly controlled.
McCoy shrugs.
"It's better than being dead, but right now I can't make any promises."
After a short silence he adds:
"I know he looks like shit. We're all doing our best, Spock."
"I have no doubt, doctor."
"Of course, you want to know the details. Come to my office."
Spock nods, turns around and the doctor gasps in shock.
"What the hell happened to you?"
Spock lifts an eyebrow and has the satisfaction to see the doctor's ire rise.
"You know damned well what I mean. You are all beat up. Who did that to you?"
The doctor has suffered, too, during the last days. The Captain is a close friend, has been since Academy days and the recent events have hit him hard. Spock has known the doctor for several years and knows that the greater the stress the more aggressive he appears. He has never actually seen him hit another person in anger, but Spock is the last one to judge anyone for a violent breakdown. Consequently, he does not blame the doctor for the state his face is in.
"I did? Dammit, man, why didn't you let one of the nurses fix that mess?"
"The injury didn't affect my performance. Your staff had more important things to do."
The Doctor is speechless, but that, Spock finds, is nothing new.
He straightens himself and tightly clasps his shaking hands behind his back in preparation of the inevitable. He knows the doctor is going to find out shortly in just how poor a condition Spock really is.
And, lo and behold, the doctor indeed whips out his secret weapon, the tricorder, and gives him a thorough scan.
"Events have prevented me from seeking adequate rest," Spock forestalls, but the doctor doesn't even look up.
Finally he slips the sensor back in the docket and puts the tricorder down.
"As far as I can tell you haven't slept, you haven't eaten and you are dehydrated. The only thing that is holding you up is your Vulcan physiology. You know, Spock, that you have a human part, too."
"Indeed, Doctor."
"Your are on the verge of a physical breakdown, Spock."
As always, Spock thinks, the doctor is being overly dramatic.
"I can assure you that as a Vulcan I have coping mechanisms that far surpass..."
But the doctor is not listening. He takes Spock's elbow and ushers him into his office, uncharacteristically gentle. Spock is given the most thorough examination he has ever been subjected to. The swelling in his face and the split lip are repaired until only a slight discoloration remains. He is pretty sure that the doctor even slipped in a psychological evaluation somehow. Spock, frankly, is far too exhausted to care.
When everything is finished and he has been fed and rehydrated he prepares to leave. Water and food have made him feel better and relieved a pounding headache that he had been only dimly aware of. When he passes the Captain's room he sees Sulu sitting beside the bed, holding the Captain's hand, his head bent.
Spock does not have time to sit beside the Captain's bed. He is scheduled for a lengthy debriefing in an hour. On his way out of the door he is stopped by the doctor.
"Spock... "
"I am grateful, doctor..."
"Spock, I'm putting you on medical leave."
"Doctor McCoy, I'm due at Starfleet Command in an hour. I will need some time to myself before that. Good day."
He tries to exit but is sidestepped.
"I mean it, Spock. As of now you are on medical leave."
"The debriefing... "
"Can wait, Spock. Spock, you're in the middle of a breakdown, physical and psychological... No, don't you give me that look you green-blooded devil! I know it's a very Vulcan breakdown and you'll probably be able to function, but it could have serious long term consequences. I wouldn't be doing my job if I let you walk out that door."
"How long?"
"Dear God, Spock, if you're not even fighting me on this it must be bad... "
"Doctor..."
"A few days."
Spock nods.
"Since you will not let me leave, I will need a place to stay."
The doctor looks disappointed. Obviously he was looking for a fight. Under normal circumstances Spock would have been happy to accommodate him, but today he barely has the strength for the essentials.
ooo
A nurse takes him to a small room, tucked away in a corner of the building. Spock manages to get another glimpse of the Captain. Lieutenant Keenser has joined Sulu. He is tapping away on a PADD, no doubt giving Lieutenant Scott who is still on the Enterprise a thorough update on the Captain's condition.
Alone in his room Spock sets up the PADD on the desk and dims the windows to reduce the glare from the sun. For a minute he savours the view across the Bay then he kneels down on the floor. He has to struggle to attain a state of meditation but his mind wanders off to dark places and he finds himself disoriented. Breathing, again, becomes difficult. His heart racing, he braces himself against the floor.
-oooOOOooo-
Ten minutes later he has washed his face, straightened his uniform and is setting up the connection to Starfleet Command. He could use one of the Captain's bone-crushing back slaps right now. He thinks about the heated discussion they had, several months ago, why exactly the silicon component of the short range sensor array needed to be upgraded on the molecular level at considerable cost and about the paper-work involved to get the upgrade approved by the science division on Alpha Centauri. He thinks about the Captain barging into the science lab, disrupting a delicate experimental setup yet again. He thinks about all the times the odds have been against them, all the careful statistical calculations Spock has gone through to calculate the probability of failure or success, only to have the Captain cut him short with the words: "It'll work, Spock."
He thinks about the Captain storming into the transporter room to make sure Spock is unharmed after his trip into an active Volcano, carelessly laughing it off as another one of Spock's eccentricities when Spock blurts out: "You let them see our ship," instead of a thank you.
Spock had expected to die.
He had not expected that his life was more important to the Captain than the Prime Directive. Or his career. Or, for that matter, the Captain's own life.
The comm-link beeps and he is pulled out of his thoughts.
"We are glad that you could join us, Commander, even if it is just by comm link. Doctor McCoy informed us that he put you on medical leave. Exhaustion, he said? Are you all right?"
What Spock wants to say is that Doctor McCoy has no idea about the intricacies of Vulcan physiology and that he is, as always, overreacting as far as Spock's health is concerned. He doesn't say so because he has no wish to get the Doctor into trouble and he thinks that maybe the doctor was right, after all.
"Merely a precaution, Admiral," he says.
"You disagree with his assessment? I hear you had a serious difference of opinion."
Ah, the Admiral, always fishing for trouble.
Pictures spring up on his screen as more Admirals are connecting and Spock is suddenly glad that he does not have to bear their scrutiny in close proximity. It will make it easier to say, what needs to be said. He has the doctor to thank for that, too.
"A discussion about the nature of consent in a medical setting which was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties involved."
"I heard he hit you."
Spock raises one eyebrow in calculated surprise.
"If he did so I suffered no ill effects."
The problem with the Admiralty is that most of them were appointed during Admiral Marcus' tenure. Many of them are incompetent or were Marcus' cronies. Others, like Pike, were killed when Khan attacked Fleet Headquarters. Spock knows that there are hard questions to answer and heads will have to roll. The first question to ask is why no ship came to the Enterprise's help when she was threatened by an unauthorized Dreadnought Class Cruiser staffed by non-Starfleet personnel, despite several requests for assistance.
The "debriefing" takes four hours. At the end Spock is running on adrenalin alone but certain that he is backed up by several Admirals including Nogura, who is rumoured to be Marcus's replacement.
He turns off the screen and sits staring out of the window, motionless for several minutes. Messages have been piling up for him and he spends several more hours to answer them and to make calls. The Enterprise will need a complete refit and Engineer Scott is making plans for a redesign of the warp core that will eliminate the danger of a misalignment and make the warp core more accessible. According to Scotty no more dying will be done in the warp core behind doors that cannot be opened. Spock wholeheartedly agrees and has promised to get all necessary changes approved.
He finally shuts down the PADD on several more incoming messages.
Outside a sunny day has turned into dusk. Spock leaves his room to check in on the Captain. He sees Carol Marcus sitting by his bedside, deep in thought and looking rather forlorn, and decides not to intrude.
The Captain looks worse than in the morning.
Two days ago Spock saw his Captain die. Now he will have to see him die all over again.
It is customary for Vulcans to retrieve a person's katra when death is close. Spock had melded with Admiral Pike after Pike was mortally wounded. But Pike had slipped away too fast and Spock remains uncertain if human katras can be retrieved at all.
Now, that there is no wall of transparent aluminum between him and the Captain he wonders if Jim has an eternal soul, too, and, if so, he has to let that soul slip away into the void.
When Carol Marcus leaves 5 minutes later he enters the room. For a moment his hand hovers over his Captain's face then he gently puts his fingers on the meld points…
He jolts awake and withdraws his hand from the Captain's face. No more than a few seconds can have passed but he has lost track of time and he feels disoriented again. There is a memory of the Captain's face in his mind. No, more than a memory - an imprint, vibrantly alive. Bright laughter rings in his ears. The Captain, looking at him across the chess set, pleased, warmth in his eyes, and Spock trying to muster and show his irritation at having lost, but not quite able to pull it off. Because he is pleased at the Captain's proficiency.
Then the vision is gone and he looks down at his dying friend. Only the warmth remains.
Spock retreats to his room to set up a connection with New Vulcan.
-oooOOOooo-
His counterpart looks old and worn. Older even than two days ago when the old man warned him about Khan.
"At great cost," he repeats and Spock shudders.
"But in your universe the Captain went on to live a full life?" he asks.
The old man smiles, sadly.
"He died too soon, but that is another story entirely. No, you misunderstand. In my universe I was the one who died from radiation poisoning."
Spock still tries to wrap his mind around that when the old man continues:
"My Captain saw a way to retrieve my katra which ultimately led to my body being restored in ways I cannot go into. But he sacrificed too much to save my life."
And while Spock still considers what 'too much' means exactly and how Spock could have been bodily resurrected the old man goes on:
"I know that since the destruction of Vulcan you have not valued you own life as you should."
Clearly, Spock thinks, his counterpart has been talking to Uhura.
"I ask you to be mindful of your own life and well-being in the future. What happens to you has repercussions on the people close to you. Do not continue to underestimate your Captain's desire to see you alive and safe. He beat the Kobayashi Maru test. He has shown, consistently, that he is at his best when the odds are against him. He will find a way but in the end he is mortal, like we all are."
"You speak as if you know that he will survive. At the moment his condition is critical."
"Spock, my Captain once told me that I was closer to him than anyone else in the universe. That I knew his mind. Do you know your Captain's mind, Spock?"
Spock is stunned. Does he know the Captain's mind? He shakes his head.
"I told Jim that I had been and always would be his friend. Spock, human lives are fragile and short. If you feel for your Captain what I felt for mine I urge you to not waste your time dwelling on the past. It is all I have to say for now."
ooo
What is the past? Vulcan being destroyed? 6 billion katras scattered. Irretrievably lost. And his own feeling that one more life, one more Vulcan katra does not truly matter. That if it would somehow join with the ones already lost it would be of little consequence. That if Spock would sacrifice his life, the sacrifice would be a small one.
What his counterpart is saying is, that it is of consequence to the Captain. That Spock's life matters. It is the reason they are here now. The Captain dying in another room. Because he sacrificed himself so that Spock did not have to.
ooo
Spock's hand hovers over his Captain's face, but in the end he just settles the tip of his fingers on the back of his Captain's hand.
"I have been and always shall be your friend," he whispers.
He stays like that for a long time, feeling his friend's life-force thrum distantly beneath his skin.