You will never be anything.
Jim smiles. It's the kind of look that starts as a grin, tugging at one side of his face with only enough strength to reverse gravity. The uplift of eyes--the transition from smirk to white teeth that stand out in pooling blood lips.
Yeah, he's down. He's really down. Really, really. He has to slide his tongue behind his teeth to keep from drooling red saliva down his crisp, new shiny shirt...
...never be anything. You will never--
Negation. Linguistic term. She'd know all about that. "I'm impressed--"
--never--
Right, right. Negation. Language, to be used to persuade. Where negation becomes the process which transforms "you will" to "you will not" and the interpreter takes into consideration the something-something constrained and axioms.
She'd do it. She'd tell him exactly that "negation bears a much wider range of functions and meanings than it does in logic" dot dot dot...
That's what he said--and it's almost enough to tweak that smile just a little wider. Or perhaps just the eyes a tad brighter. "Spock," he drawls, nearly losing a lip full of spit at the image.
His eyes are actually bleak.
"In logic and mathematics, negation (usually expressed by 'not') is an operation on propositions."
There's more something-somethings here when the other progresses into Classical negation where "a value of true when its operand is false and a value of false when its operand is true. For example, if statement A is true, then ¬A (pronounced "not A") would therefore be false; and conversely--"
Conversely...
The word amuses him, and he can hear himself draw it out in his head before he realizes that it's an anomaly within himself. There's a black hole of sound, which tells James that his heart probably just stopped for a moment--no pulse in his ear aside from the noise of his thoughts. And if Leonard isn't breaking his ribs to restart the damn thing, it's probably sign enough that nobody else is around either.
No words, no logic, no breath.
You will never be anything.
No. Forget, negate, ignore...
For where the corner of him starts to accept the words like an always-known thing, a contrast enters. "You are not dead yet, Jim; therefore, you are still alive."
There was a grin. There was a reason to grin. He tries to catch it, the fragment of feeling which had inspired it--produced it. It was said...it was...
Oh yeah.
"You will never be anything."
They had all heard it. Here and now. Then, and before. Spock, being human; Bones, being alone; Uhura, though...he can't imagine who would say such a thing to her; Scotty, received from Starfleet itself; and Jim, every day. Every damn day from the mirror.
And today, he had smiled.
He can't tell what he's broken. He can't tell if his comm. is at all connected anymore. He doesn't even know if his shirt is intact.
But he does know who he is. Bring me your poor your tired your huddled masses and...something-something. Hell, he'll get better at speeches along the way. He hopes. Best to keep it simple, because he now might throw up.
He's James Tiberius Kirk, and this is space. They're all in space. And nobody can hear negations in space.
It's a new rule. He's just invented it.
You will be anything.
'Cause he will be alive.
The promise makes him smile, and the potential drives him up.