Welcome to Chapter three! So let me start off by apologizing for taking so long yet again. I really do think that I'll only be able to update once a week because my days are still just so busy, so expect a once a week on either Tuesday or Wednesday for an update.

Anyway, so this chapter is another small one. I try to shoot for 3500 words like the first chapter but sometimes I can only go to about 2500-2800. So this a short chapter for me. I'm a bit anal when it comes to writing most of the time, heh.

Thank you all for the reviews and the favs and follows. I'm glad so many people are liking this fanfic so far and it's only been a couple of chapters! When I say slow build, I mean slow build. I tried really hard to come up with a good plot for the main story line because I didn't just want to focus it solely on Spock and Kirk's thoughts/feelings. I wanted to give a bit of action because to be honest, who can resist Spock and Kirk in action?

So with that being said, please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of its characters.

"This is Lieutenant Commander George Kirk of the U.S.S. Kelvin." The video glitched. "I-I have been ej-jected along with the rest of my c-crew-" The video cut out and then back in. "-ship came out of nowhere. P-please I-" The video cut out again but when it came back, George wasn't looking at the recorder. He was watching out of a nearby window. The video froze as George stood up but the audio was still rolling. "Oh my God…no..NO! Winona! WINONA! No...no..." The video unfroze and there sat George with his face in his hands, sobbing.

The video played for a few more seconds before Uhura stopped it. "Captain." She turned to see Jim sitting in his Captain's chair. His back was stiff and straight as a board. "There was about five more minutes of video but…" Spock slowly walked over to stand next to Jim's shoulder, tilting his head slightly to catch the sight of Jim's eyes watering up with tears. He cleared his throat and threw a glance at Uhura, who quickly shut the screen back to the view of the stars. Bones marched up to Jim's other shoulder, his face a combination of emotions between curiosity and outrage. He moved around to stand in Jim's line of sight.

"What in God's name-"

"Captain." Spock interrupted, catching Jim's attention. He tried so hard to keep his face in check from any sign of emotion as he watched those blue eyes catch his, tears threatening to fall. "I believe what we have just encountered is a transmission from another alternate timeline." He took a step away to move closer to the bridge window. Placing his hands behind his back he faced away to look out at the space and stars that surrounded the Enterprise. His mind was running a mile a minute. "Since the existence of my older self has proven that there lay different timelines-"

"Spock."

"-one could only ascertain that this timeline is one where you and your Mother-"

"SPOCK." Uhura was at the Vulcan's side in an instant, having crossed the bridge in large strides. She grabbed his elbow and looked up at him long enough to jerk her head towards Jim's retreating form. "Enough." She didn't have to say much. Spock heard the stern tone in her voice that said that if he kept going on like he was, he was going to seriously piss off everyone on the bridge. He took a moment to survey everybody's faces and once he was certain that Uhura's tone wasn't the only thing suggesting inflicting pain on him, he took off after Jim.

He caught him just as Jim was about to enter the lift. "Captain, I-"

Jim rounded on his heel, his face an assortment of anger, confusion, and utter heartbreak. Spock noted all of these emotions instantly and paused in the middle of his apology to stare. Jim stared back, his eyes roaming all over Spock's face. "What…" His voice was barely above a whisper. Spock continued to ogle, his mouth slightly open as if to say something more. Jim could feel his own irritation levels rising from within. Why was Spock just staring like that? Why wouldn't he say something? Just say something!

Spock shuffled awkwardly. "Captain-"

"WHAT!?" His voice bounced off the walls around them. It reverberated down the hall, an eerie hush following. Jim's hands balled into fists and were shaking slightly. He felt like hitting something and breaking down all at the same time. Although that video was only a few minutes long, and could quite possibly be from a neighboring timeline that he couldn't see, the effects that played out during the duration of the transmission was enough to make his heart break. He had to ground himself and remind himself that his mother was very much alive, albeit mostly absent from most of his childhood, but alive nonetheless. What he saw and heard in that video wasn't his reality. His reality had an annoying Vulcan staring slack-jawed in front of him. He felt like hitting that stupid expression off Spock's face but instead turned back around and entered the lift. He needed to get away, to get a moment to think.

But of course that wouldn't happen. Spock cautiously joined him in the lift. He was almost caught off guard by the sudden outburst but he chose to ignore the anger pointed in his direction and decided to just stand by Jim's side, silent. He placed his hands behind his back and interlaced his fingers, a common bodily position that brought a bit more calmness into his every day hard exterior. He felt that people could connect more easily with him while he stood this way. Without his arms down by his side, he left his front open, left himself vulnerable enough to stand on level ground with everyone else.

Jim rolled his eyes but he could feel some of his anger deflate the longer they stood barely brushing shoulders. He still felt annoyed but now it was because he hated the fact that Spock could be the only person he'd want to hit and stand next to in the same minute. He gave himself a couple of moments before he turned and sighed, facing his First Officer. "Spock, I-"

"I can completely understand why you would express such a bout of emotion. I remember being just as furious when my own mother died." Jim opened his mouth to interrupt but Spock cocked a brow and continued. "Though I am aware that what we heard in that video is not the truth that you know, I am confident that hearing it, and having no way of stopping of it, can hurt just as much."

Jim let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding and shut his mouth, running a hand through his golden brown hair. Only Spock could apologize and accept another's apology all in the same breath. Jim's anger had almost completely left him by now and all that was left was confusion. "How could this be possible?"

All at once, the Enterprise lurched. Spock flew across the lift into the wall and Jim followed, crashing into Spock. It felt like a car crash, or in this case, a "ship crash". Red flashed all around them as the alarms started to sound. Jim regained balance and hopped off the lift at whatever floor it had stopped at, which in this case was engineering, and started running.

Spock took a moment try to control himself. In a split second his emotions had spiked. He'd already left himself defenseless while apologizing and he wasn't expecting the sudden jolt to the ship nor the sudden impact of Jim's body on his own. With the red lights flashing and the alarms blaring, he couldn't concentrate long enough to pull himself completely back together before taking off down the hall after his Captain.

ooooo

"Scotty!" Jim rounded the corner, spotting the redhead in just as much a panic as he was in. "What's going on?"

Scotty whirled around, shrugging his shoulders as he started violently rapping on his keyboard. "I dunno Cap'n. She's been hit by a gravitational pull of some sort… Oh. My. God." Scotty had stopped typing, his eyes widening as he stared at his computer screen. Jim slid up next to him to grab a look at the monitor.

"What is it?"

On the screen was a very unpleasant view of a black hole opening up just beyond the front of the Enterprise. Spock had joined them, peering over Jim's shoulder. He hadn't even bothered to keep a safe enough distance so that when Jim turned around, they bumped into each other. Jim hadn't seem to notice anything concerning Spock's close proximity. He just looked onward as he made his way back down to the lift. Spock was flustered and quickly losing any control he thought he built back up in the short amount of time running from the lift.

Scotty followed leaving Spock alone. He took a deep breath and tried to study the footage of the ever growing black hole. He straightened his back and set his jaw hard. He concentrated on what a random black hole could mean and soon all illogical thoughts about Jim flew out of his mind. All that was left were theories and probabilities of what he was seeing.

ooooo

Dodging crew members and cutting corners, Jim and Scotty eventually made their way to the bridge where Sulu was already starting to punch in coordinates to escape through warp drive to. Jim rounded his chair and almost tripped down the steps. "What's going on?" He called out, watching with the rest of the crew as the black hole grew bigger and bigger outside the bridge window.

"Keptin, a black hole has opened up."

"Besides the obvious, Chekov. Uhura, why is it here? Are you picking up any Romulan readings?" Bones, who was intently staring over Chekov's shoulders at his screen, shot up quickly and turned, facing Jim.

"Romulan? Jim, what are you talking about? We beat the Romulan."

Jim shook his head and parked it in his chair. "Weren't you listening to Spock? He talked about an alternate timeline."

"Captain."Uhura interrupted. "Our coordinates, Sir." Jim looked over his shoulder at her. "This is where Vulcan use to be." She said, confirming what Jim was already guessing.

A cold quiet settled over the room as everyone suddenly felt heavy with the memories of the last time the Enterprise was here. The swish of the door and the footsteps of Commander Spock sounded louder, booming, as he walked down. He'd already figured it out. He'd known what Uhura had just confessed only seconds before. He knew why everyone was staring at him.

Jim swiveled around in his chair and looked up, watching Spock walk down the few steps before settling himself at Jim's side. He didn't look down but instead fixed his sight straight ahead. He could feel everyone looking at him, could feel the pity ebbing from them.

"It is not a black hole. It is a worm hole." He kept his eyes forward, his hands behind his back. "This is an opening to an alternate timeline. We were able to catch the video transmission because this place, where we intercepted the Romulan ship, the Narada, is weak to the timeline scar, or rift if you will." He paused. "I believe we have another chance to witness another miracle."

Everyone seemed to forget for a moment that the alarms were ringing overhead and that the ship was slowly moving towards the worm hole. Sulu brought everyone back. "Ready to enter warp, Captain."

"No." Jim spoke softly, his eyes still fixed on Spock. "Don't enter warp, just back us up a little if you can."

"Sir!" Scotty called. "The only way we can successfully escape is by entering warp drive. Otherwise we'll be sucked in to that bloody worm hole and we have no idea what's on the other side!"

"Ve did receive zat transmission from ze coordinates, maybe-"

"My God man! You're not suggesting that-"

"Quiet!"

Everyone turned to look at Jim who shot up from his chair and started pacing for a couple of seconds. He stopped and looked out of the bridge window. "We were given time to explore." He started. "Our mission is to explore every possible place we can, to push the boundaries. What better way to push past those boundaries than to explore where others can't always go."

Spock cleared his throat. "Captain, to do as you suggest and enter the worm hole would mean that there is a fifty percent chance that we would not survive the journey."

Jim rounded on him. "You said we may have a chance to witness another miracle. Don't you believe in miracles, Mr. Spock?"

Spock's mind exploded with a thousand different things he could say to Jim but he focused on one thought that stood out from all the rest. A memory of his Captain's face behind a glass door, dying. So close and yet so far away. And then Jim's face as calm as if he weren't just in a coma, so still as if he were still dead. He felt the familiar worrisome feelings that he'd felt those few years ago when he'd spent practically every night at the side of that damn hospital bed.

He stared at Jim for a moment before blinking away the thoughts. "I believe in logicality. Captain." And just like that he was able to scoop up everything he was feeling and lock it away in that secret vault he kept in the back of his mind. He did admit to himself, silently, that it was getting harder and harder to do that nowadays. "We have the lives of everyone on board this ship to think about, not just our own."

Jim looked around the room at everyone's faces. They all had this look that was a mixture between being curious about what was on the other side of that worm hole and a little bit of worry that their Captain was seriously thinking about risking everyone's life for another thrill ride. They may all respect him, he sure as hell earned it, but they didn't have to agree with his half-baked plans all the time.

"Keptin! Something's coming out of ze worm hole!" Chekov broke the silence, yelling and pointing at his screen. Bones leaned back over the Russian's shoulder to see but by then everyone else could see it through the bridge window. Something was coming out of the growing worm hole. It was small.

Bones' eyes widened. "Is that an escape pod?"

"Zhere is a life form detected onboard."

Jim jumped into action. "Scotty, get down to engineering and get a lock on whoever is inside. Chekov, follow Scotty and once he energizes this mystery person, get back here." He sighed, disgruntled that their communications were down. "Sulu, as soon as Chekov gets back I want you take us into warp drive three." Scotty ran out the door with Chekov following behind. Sulu nodded and tapped in for the warp speed, getting ready to punch it as soon as possible. Jim took a seat in his chair.

Spock expected him to grin, to show any sign of fluster over any kind of action, but Jim just sat in his chair, his chin resting lightly against the knuckles of his right hand, his face a stone wall. He hadn't given Spock any type of direction and to be honest he felt a little lost with what to do with himself. "Captain, I should be down in the energizing room in case-"

"No, Spock." He caught Spock's eyes with his own. Blue to brown on a thin invisible line that completely shook Spock to his core. "I need you here." Spock blinked and straightened his shirt, even though it didn't need any straightening, and nodded, moving to stand next to the Captain's chair.

Jim wasn't sure how long they were waiting for Chekov to return and he was growing antsy in his chair. It felt like a life time as they watched the escape pod moving farther and farther away from the worm hole. Eventually the pod started to shake and instead of continuing on its path, it started back into the gravitational pull. When the escape pod disappeared back into the worm hole, Chekov had run back onto the bridge. Sulu didn't waste any time before sending the ship into warp drive.

Light burst around the ship as they whipped past stars and planets. Chekov was busy catching his breath and Uhura was tapping into her keyboard. "Sir, communications are back online."

Jim nodded. "Scotty, tell me what we got." He said into the bridge comm.

"Cap'n you're gonna want to get down here. To meet your father."

So I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave me a review if you have anything you'd like to say! :D I look forward to hearing people's opinions and thoughts on my writing.

I know I'm being a stinker for dragging out what everybody is eagerly awaiting to see but what's a story without a little suspense? I hope that I'm reeling you in more with stretching this out but don't worry, you'll like the next chapter…I hope :D…I hope a lot.