He'd been so relieved to escape the crush of recognition and attention at the restaurant that he hadn't considered getting recognized on the shuttle. When he and Spock had been hopping transports to get to Riverside they hadn't earned much notice. But then, those had been short trips, with passengers coming and going at different stops all of the time and plenty of distractions to keep anyone from paying too much mind to their fellow commuters. The fast shuttles which ran to places like the Canadian or Mexican borders, or Alaska, were a different creature altogether. Their ride was a couple of hours, and with an airy, non-military seating design meant to make passengers feel at ease, there was plenty of opportunity to look around and take it all in.
He stiffened a little bit when the murmuring began, noticing a few people sending him covert glances and whispering to one another.
James Kirk? Oh, THAT guy? Yeah, no, he's not me. I have been told that I look like him, though. People say it's the mouth, he thought to himself in an almost desperate manner. His focus was so inward that he missed what Spock said the first time around.
"Hmm?" he asked. Spock looked completely unruffled, and if Jim didn't know about his observational skills, he'd think that the man didn't have a clue what was going on around them.
"I said, do you have any knowledge regarding the specifications of the engines used in these 'fast shuttles'? I am less familiar with terrestrial vessels than space-faring constructions," Spock repeated patiently.
"Oh," Jim said, and then thought for a moment. He liked to tinker. It wasn't by any means the Scotty-level of mechanical obsession, but he could hold his own in an engineering simulation. Before he'd joined Starfleet, taking vehicles apart (in ways less dramatic than some) had been one of his more legitimate hobbies. So in truth, he actually did have quite a bit of knowledge about 'terrestrial vessels'. "Engines, huh? Well, on a model like this I'd say…"
Spock listened attentively and asked questions at all the appropriate intervals as Jim described first the engines of their shuttle, then its likely operating systems, and then moved on to other vehicles he was acquainted with. He went into great detail about the bike he'd given up when he joined Starfleet – his pet project for nearly two years prior to that. It was a tricky thing to scrape up some of the information from his brain, given how long it had been since he'd used a lot of it. Space-faring technology was, by necessity, very different from the earth-bound kind. All complications presented by space itself aside, a starship could go much, much faster than was advisable for a vehicle seeing regular planetary use. Space was kind of like a big open field – a lone person could run fast and hard across the floor because there was very little to crash into, and if something was coming, you were almost definitely going to see it. If the field became cluttered then it was hell for a starship. But earthbound vehicles required much less speed and much more maneuverability, because a planet was full of obstacles. Buildings, mountains, other people, other vehicles… then there were emissions to consider. On a planet an engine needed to run as cleanly as it could, but in space there was a little more leeway with radiation and other unpleasant backlash. Soon enough the conversation progressed into a dissection of the differences in Starfleet technology versus Terran technology, with Spock offering his uniquely Vulcan perspective in quiet, even tones. The conversation was almost hypnotic.
Jim was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't notice if anyone else was listening in, or watching them. He had no idea that he was surprising the hell out of Spock, who hadn't expected his captain's knowledge of terrestrial vehicles to be either as thorough or as insightful as it actually was.
"Fascinating," Spock declared at last, when they had veered off onto the topic of space-faring shuttlecraft and the inherent complications to their design. "I was not aware that you were so well-versed in this subject."
Jim grinned, and actually had to resist the urge to preen a little. "Well, I actually did pass all of my aptitude tests, you know," he pointed out almost teasingly, well aware that Spock himself had gone over those same aptitude tests before the Kobayashi Maru hearing. His first officer had admitted as much to his face during the decidedly tense, early weeks of their command together, while they were still setting the ground rules for their working relationship.
Their easy banter came to an end, however, when a low tone sounded and a computerized voice announced that they should disembark. Amidst the shuffle of movement which resulted as passengers moved comply Jim noticed, again, a few lingering and speculative gazes. But he forced himself to ignore it, realizing that it didn't bother him so much if he could put his focus elsewhere.
Luckily, he had a very interesting half-Vulcan to oblige him in this.
They boarded a few of the slower shuttles en-route to Toronto, their conversation still light but engaging and thoroughly distracting. Jim found himself laughing out loud a few times, pulled in by Spock's subtle sense of humour. It could have felt awkward to laugh alone. But it didn't, not really, because Spock's eyes betrayed him quite wickedly when he was amused, and so Jim knew he wasn't really the only one enjoying himself.
By the time they arrived at the city he was relaxed and cheerful, apprehensions momentarily abandoned in Riverside and the potential for exploration opening up before them. Their first order of business was to arrange for sleeping quarters at some travelers' facilities. After that, however, they hit something of an impasse.
I guess now I know why people tend to actually plan their vacations, Jim thought, as he and Spock considered where they should go next. Toronto was an interesting city. He wasn't sure how his first officer saw it, but for Jim, it was kind of engaging to see a place which was so close to home, and yet also distinctly unique. Earth had a lot of on-world variety, just going off of the standards set by other sentient cultures. There was a mingled sense of unity and uniqueness which had taken centuries to build up and maintain. The skyline which sprawled and stretched from beyond the window of their lodgings was decorated with buildings in many strange and fascinating shapes, a testament to the city's taste for creative architecture. Spots of green and brown and pale-coloured flowers lined the streets where tiny, well-kept gardens added a much-needed sense of nature to the urban stretch, the sprawling roots of trees lined with blooms and contrasting the metallic glint of the high-rises.
Briefly, it occurred to Jim that someone like Spock might very well have fared better if he'd been given precedence to his human side, rather than his Vulcan. Vulcans, by their nature, were required to present a very set image. They all had one ideal concept of behavior, conduct, and mannerism to which they were supposed to aspire. But humans sought (even if they didn't always achieve it) to unite their contrasting and separate qualities while still preserving them. For a being with Spock's natural duality, that might have been useful.
He looked over at the half-Vulcan occupying his thoughts, and noted that Spock, too, was examining their view of the city with interest. Jim wondered if he was thinking along any of the same lines.
"So," he said, folding his arms and leaning to rest against the durable material of the window. "Any thoughts on what we should do now?"
Spock considered this for a moment. "I must confess that I had not anticipated being presented with the opportunity to examine my mother's birth place so suddenly. My familiarity with the city is far too limited to provide me with any insights on how to proceed."
He couldn't help the snort which he produced in response to that. "Or in other words, 'gee, you know, getting dragged sight-seeing by my captain wasn't really part of my original itinerary'?"
Up went one of those peculiar eyebrows, but that couldn't quite mask the flicker of amusement in the eye below it. "I believe the saying goes – 'you said it, not me'," Spock replied tonelessly. Jim snorted again, but then a grin about a mile wide spread across his face, and he had to resist the urge to just grab Spock and pull him out to wander around aimlessly beside him. He had a feeling that if they did that then they'd probably come across something worthwhile sooner or later, but he didn't want to monopolize their time here. Spock had been a really good sport about putting up with his mother. Now it was his turn.
"Well…" he considered. "You said your mother only had distant family here. Do you think they'd be interested in meeting you anyway?" Especially now that you're a big-shot hero who helped save the entire planet? he added mentally.
Spock gave the Vulcan equivalent of a frown, the faintest down-turning of his lips. "I do not know," he admitted. "My knowledge of them is, as I said, highly limited."
Jim considered this, scuffing one shoe lightly against the carpet fibers beneath him while he thought. "Do you have any contact information for them?" he asked at length, shifting so that his back rested against the window, but his head was still facing his first officer. "We could just drop them a line and let them know you're in town. Then they can decide if they want to meet you or something."
Slowly, Spock gave one of his economical, small nods. "My father sent them a transmission to inform them of my mother's demise. I can recall the information from it," he said, and then moved towards the lodgings' computer console. Jim followed, standing behind Spock's shoulder as his fingers moved deftly across the touch-pad, and then – paused. Indecision reigned momentarily. What to say? But after a few seconds the human moment passed, and he watched as Spock voiced a very formal, brief, clinical message.
Damn, Jim thought. They're going to think he's some kind of android or something. But he kept this to himself, hearing, as he did, a kind of edgy self-consciousness in the utterly unsentimental words. An instant later the message was sent.
"Alright," Jim said at length, as Spock seemed to have retreated inwardly somewhat. "There's got to be a tourist center around here somewhere…"
As it turned out, there was. The gal who manned the information booth and downloaded several destinations into Jim's datapad had one of those bubble-gum pink smiles, and kept making eyes at Spock, who was either oblivious to her attention or was doing a very good job of pretending to be. Jim couldn't help but wonder – was he ignoring her because he was Vulcan, because of something to do with Uhura, or because she just flat-out wasn't his type?
Well, whatever the reason, the encounter didn't seem terribly important once they'd gotten their information and set out to, as Jim phrased it, 'play tourist'. After getting a few more recognizing glances on the street, he dragged Spock into a nearby clothing outfitter, and went with the old celebrity-disguise standard of putting on a pair of sunglasses. Figuring that Spock was more recognizable than he was (honestly, why were people looking at him, when he wasn't even the tall one with pointy ears?) he advised his first officer to similarly disguise himself.
He nearly died when he saw Spock wearing a white knit-cap which neatly covered the tips of his ears and the upswing of his eyebrows.
"Is something amusing, Jim?" Spock asked as he tried to force his sense of humour to behave itself.
"No, nope, nothing," he denied. Spock gave him a look which managed to convey that he was thinking very exasperated thoughts about the human species in general now. But he kept those thoughts to himself as they wandered through the city, hopping transports here and there and examining landmarks which Spock's mother would have grown up surrounded by. When his first officer mentioned that his mother was a teacher, they managed to hunt down the school which she'd worked at before she met Sarek. Spock only mentioned once that such an endeavor was illogical, and the protest seemed more token than anything else. Jim decided to play the human card and get obstinate about it.
Yes, Spock. Illogical human me, I want to see the school where your mother worked, he thought to himself, amused at his own attempts to be 'manipulative'. The school was just a normal building, and held no real interest for him. But he was having a wicked amount of fun with Spock. I should start taking him on more away missions when we get back to the ship, he considered. Before he'd tended to leave his first officer behind, in command of the Enterprise. Slowly, however, he was starting to think that as reasonable as that was from a command perspective, from a personal one he was missing out. Spock was a scientist by trade, but an explorer by nature. He asked questions which Jim would never think to, and noticed details which escaped his eye.
It was starting to look like this might be the best vacation he'd ever been on, and so far it hadn't involved any death-defying stunts, beautiful, scantily clad girls, brawling, or alcohol. Just a lot of wandering around with Spock, and visiting his mother. I never would have called that one, he thought, wondering what to make of it.
Eventually their wandering brought them to the city's waterfront, where the newly-repaired CN Tower lanced upwards into the sky – a unique, antiquated architectural feature nestled among many. They considered going up to it, but for whatever reason the tranquility of the water and the refreshing bite of open air dissuaded them.
"I cannot help but wonder if she ever 'played tourist' here," Spock confessed as Jim watched a few birds circle lazily above them. His voice was quiet enough, the words hesitant enough, that it was almost as if he hadn't even meant to speak.
Jim thought about it for a while. "She was a teacher, right?" he said at length, slipping his hands into his pockets. "So I bet she did. She probably had to take her students on field trips all around the city." He could remember the trips he himself had taken when he'd been in elementary school, learning about Earth's culture and history. Though he vehemently denied it when asked, he'd loved them – part of him was still quietly intrigued by humanity's past. Starfleet had been such a tense point of contention in his house. The source of both pride and suffering. So, the idea of a time when exploration and adventure could be had without ever having to leave Earth was a compelling fantasy.
It was also an extremely intellectual, geeky fantasy, and he'd learned the hard way that allowing people insights to those qualities in himself was an invitation to mockery and criticism. So he was a little surprised at how compelled he felt to admit his interest to Spock.
"I loved those kinds of trips when I was in school," he blurted out into the contemplative silence which had settled between them. Oh, goddamn motherfucking hell! It was like Spock emitted some weird frequency wave which jammed the connector between his brain and his mouth. He ducked his head in momentary embarrassment, but all his first officer did was glance towards him and say, evenly, "Indeed?"
Jim cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah," he confirmed. "Well, I mean it was interesting, you know? Getting out of the classroom and… er…" His voice trailed off as he struggled for a way to elaborate without making an idiot of himself.
"And obtaining first-hand insights to various subjects?" Spock supplied.
He snapped his fingers. "That's a good way of putting it. Yup, pretty much," he agreed.
Dark eyes glanced, assessing, in his direction. "I, too, found myself to be more suited to the rare occasions in which I was permitted exploration beyond the realm of computerized learning."
The revelation surprised Jim. "Really?" he asked. "But you're good with computers." He would know. The Kobayashi Maru had not been an easy system to hack into.
Spock inclined his head. "True. My proficiency is exceptional. However, it is but one of many skills which I possess."
Jim snorted, and then laughed outright at this declaration. "And you're humble, too, huh?" he noted.
"Given that humility is technically defined as an awareness of one's own limitations, weaknesses, and social standing free of pride or exaggeration, and Vulcans do not exaggerate, your insight would be accurate."
He grinned at Spock, incredibly amused by his play at arrogance, and the subtle change to feigned ignorance and innocence which his expression had adopted. For an instant, then, the clouds shifted overhead, freeing the lingering sun from their shadows. The changed lighting momentarily placed the half-Vulcan's features into sharp contrast – the line of his ear trailing down the curve of his skull, the angle of his nose and elegant brows highlighted while his eyes shone with suppressed amusement.
For one moment, all of the breath vanished from his lungs, and his mouth went dry. The shape of Spock robbed him of all conscious thought.
It was brief, so momentary that an instant later it was gone, and normalcy returned with such swift completion that it was as if nothing had happened. Jim carried on grinning. Their conversation moved forward. But the impression remained, a lingering image of light and shadow holding all the same mysterious promise as space. He wasn't certain what to do with it just then, and so, instead, he put it aside, tucked away in a quiet corner of his mind.
When the last of the day trailed into darkness they finally agreed to hunt down a restaurant and eat, before heading back to their lodgings to see if there was any word from Spock's extended family. It could have been his imagination, but Jim thought that it almost seemed like his friend was procrastinating, trying to put off their return. Of course, he knew enough to expect that asking would only yield a response to the tune of 'Vulcans don't get nervous'.
He asked anyway.
"Nervousness is a human quality," Spock replied, and Jim blinked. Reading between the lines, it was as good as an admission. And I am half-human, was the important part, again left unsaid like a secret between them.
"It sure as hell is," he agreed under his breath. Then, louder, he asked: "So what do you know about them? Your family, I mean." He didn't want to come across as if he were trying to pry the guy's personal life open, but under the circumstances, the question probably wasn't inappropriate. Besides, at some point between that day and the one before it, his first officer had probably learned more about Jim's own family than anyone else on the ship.
Spock answered at first with only a subtle half-shrug, a gesture which surprised Jim in its informality. It seemed to have been an unconscious move. "My understanding of them is only basic. I know that my grandparents perished during a shuttle incident well before my birth. My grandmother's sister had two sons, one of whom re-located to a colony. I am uncertain of the specifics regarding his current location or motivations for leaving Earth. The other remained here, and it his family whom I contacted."
"Gotcha," Jim replied with a nod.
The temperature had dropped somewhat significantly by the time they made it back to the traveler's facilities. Jim had to say, after spending quite a bit of time in space, he'd become acquainted with the structures of many worlds designed to host shore-leave or house visitors, and Toronto's were pretty nice. The building was tall, with a dramatic, curved style to its structuring, and had as they already knew a good view of the city. It put him vaguely in mind of Starfleet's housing for cadets, simply because of the diversity of alien faces which could be found milling around it.
When they had made their way up to their allotted quarters, Jim glanced at Spock, and noticed an air of discomfort around him. While his friend moved to the computer console, he made his way over to the environmental control systems, and raised the room's temperature. He wasn't really cold, and he was pretty sure that Spock's discomfort was more internal than external, but it couldn't hurt. Then he tossed his sunglasses – which had been placed into his pocket as soon as the sun disappeared – onto the nearest available surface, and dropped into one of the plain, grey chairs in the room. He and Spock seemed to be doing a lot of walking.
"So?" he asked, keeping his tone light as he looked inquisitively over at Spock, wondering what the verdict was on the whole 'extended family' issue.
His first officer was silent for a moment.
"There is no response," he said at last, and then closed down the computer and moved swiftly away from it. His long, narrow gate carried him steadily over to the window, which now showed the glittering lights of the city at night. Jim frowned.
"Maybe they're on a trip?" he suggested.
"It is irrelevant," Spock said abruptly. "Their connection to me is distant. Pursuing contact with them was illogical."
Jim didn't like the tone to Spock's voice. Somehow it managed to be… emptier than it usually was. The tone more toneless, the absence of inflection or emotion almost excessively pronounced. It was a strange observation. Kind of like asserting that there could be a darkness which was 'deeper than black'. But he knew that he wasn't imagining it. Something was up.
It didn't look like he was going to get a chance to find out what was up, however, since over the course of the next half an hour, Spock completely shut down any attempts he made at wheedling it out of him. He was utterly cold and even a little harsh – shades of the early Spock, which Jim hadn't seen for quite some time.
"I require solitude," the half-Vulcan finally snapped after a failed attempt on his captain's part to make a joke, and then slipped into the small, separate section of the quarters which contained the two narrow beds. Before Jim could even reply the door had 'whooshed' shut behind his friend, and the lock had activated.
For a full minute Jim just sat there, wondering why it felt like someone had just jabbed at him with an ice-pick, and why the friendly, thoroughly engaging Spock of the last little while had run screaming for the hills.
He gave the computer console a suspicious glance. Then he looked back at the closed door, somehow damning in its smooth, unmarked surface.
To hell with this, he mentally swore before he marched over to the terminal and accessed it. As he expected, all messages had been deleted. But it only took him a minute to recover the files. If Spock had taken the time to completely wipe them, he wouldn't have had a chance, but apparently his first officer hadn't accounted for Jim's ability to see through his bullshit. Or just hadn't been in a fit state to account for much at all.
'Vulcans don't lie' was, in the opinion of anyone who had some familiarity with them, a very appropriate phrase, because it was exactly the kind of lie which Vulcans were apt to tell. Just like 'Vulcans don't have emotions'. Spock hadn't been telling the truth when he said there was no response from his relatives – even though that was probably the reality he would have preferred.
Jim felt his temper climbing up several notches as he read the snide, offensive, and downright hateful content of this distant cousin's response. Words like 'freak' and 'unnatural' were bandied about with shocking frequency, an unpleasantly out-dated attitude of xenophobia and hatred dripping off of every letter. The reply was most emphatically not a welcome to stop by for a visit and maybe share some stories. It was an unprovoked and unnecessary denouncement of Spock, his mother, and Vulcans in general. After everything that had happened, after the death of an entire planet full of people, that someone with this kind of attitude could… could…
With undue force, Jim jabbed the command to delete the message again, and then all but sprang out of the terminal chair. He downloaded the family's address into his datapad and then slung his jacket over his shoulders, his motions sharp and forceful. With a brief rap against the closed door he told Spock in unconsciously tense tones that he was going out for a walk.
He was still seeing red when he boarded the transport shuttle to the as-yet-unvisited part of the city. Some of his temper must have been showing, since people gave him a wide birth, but he didn't even notice them. His right hand stayed clenched, white-knuckled, at his side.
Before he'd joined Starfleet Jim had never seen a Vulcan in person before. The only one he'd ever gotten to know personally was Spock, who was also half human. But all those deaths, and all of that destruction which they had suffered still haunted his nightmares from time to time. He could remember the drill, and the sight of the device dropping past himself and Sulu – headed straight for the planet's core. Billions of people had died because he hadn't been able to stop it. Sometimes he thought, if he'd shot it with his phaser, or somehow seen it coming sooner… he knew it was useless. He knew it. It was just the kind of oppressive, helpless guilt which all of the Starfleet counselors warned them they would face. In the wake of a terrible disaster, it was only human to go over everything you could have done to prevent it, and to wonder if it was somehow your fault.
He didn't carry around the burden of Vulcan's death the way that Spock did, because it hadn't been his home. So if the contents of that message had struck a nerve in him, he could only imagine what it was like for his first officer. Especially given that these people were actually, physically related to him. Were supposed to be family to him.
He wanted to put his fist through something. He wanted to tear something apart. The words 'how dare they' kept turning over in his mind, a denial and an accusation in one - and the tamest of comments his thoughts were producing.
All told it took him about an hour and a half to reach his destination, making his way through the meticulously organized streets, his datapad shoved into his pocket and only briefly consulted for directions. It informed him that it was just after seven p.m. when he worked his way through layers of residential housing to find the place, nestled neatly and quietly into a row of simple, innocuous homes. A cherry tree was blooming in the front garden. He double-checked the address, confirmed it.
And then he stopped. Because he wasn't sure what to do now.
His temper and outrage had carried him all of the way there. But now the complexity of the decision before him gave him pause. The strongest urge was to just march up the front steps and pound on the door until he could identify the right person to punch the living shit out of. Then he would progress to Stage 2 – actually punching the living shit out of them. But he pushed back that impulse. He wasn't, and had never really been, the kind of person who enjoyed inflicting pain. Oh, he liked to fight, but that was a little different, and he always let his opponents start it. He was a defender, not an assailant. The same defensive instincts which had caused him enough sheer physical anger to bring him here were causing him conflict now.
Well. Even if he didn't actually follow through with the temptation to commit perfectly justified acts of violence, he could still give the bastard a verbal lashing that would make his head spin. And who knew? Maybe he'd throw the first punch, and Jim would run out of reasons to hold back.
He walked up the neat little concrete path to the door. Inside of the home, the lights were on.
The sound of a child laughing made him hesitate again.
Okay, so, there were kids inside. All the more reason to be upset – presumably the adults of the household would be passing on their incredibly offensive philosophies to another generation now. Maybe they played rousing games of 'let's sit around and insult the alien race who just suffered the loss of their homeworld'.
He raised his hand, prepared to either knock or hit the buzzer. But the motion never completed itself. For a long, internally tense moment he just stood there, a jumbled mix of emotions. None of them good.
Then he turned on his heel and walked away, his feet carrying him from the sickening glow of the house, from the all-too 'homey' drift of noises produced by its occupants. He made his way to the end of the block, where a small play-park had been set up, surrounded on most sides by a waist-high stone wall. A simple little oasis for the neighborhood children. He rested his elbows against it and sunk his face into his hands, taking in a few deep, even breaths. Then he turned his gaze upwards, to the distant pinpricks of stars blinking above him.
What the hell are you doing, Jim? he asked himself, although somewhere along the past few years his conscience had started to sound a lot like Bones. A cool breeze began to float around his head. The hard press of stone beneath his arms seeped through his jacket, but rather than pull away, he simply leaned further into it. The muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched as he got a handle on his emotions.
The stars helped.
After a while, he started to think again – to focus past simply sorting through his feelings and let his brain do some real work. He wondered at the same time what had compelled such a strong reaction from him, and what had stopped him from carrying through with his impulsiveness. It wasn't like him to do things by halves.
He got angry. Bigotry always made him angry, so that wasn't surprising. He'd gotten particularly enraged because of all the contributing factors – that the bigotry was against Vulcans, that the comments had been aimed at his friend. And he was pretty sure that Spock qualified for 'friend' status now, which had previously been making him happy. But one little incident seemed to have dumped ice water all over that easy camaraderie. So, he was pissed off about that, too.
Then why couldn't he just pound on that jackass's door and vent his frustrations?
He thought about it, and thought about it, and watched the stars as the air grew cold and heavy with night around him. It occurred to him after a long while that the transports might not be running anymore. I'll have to walk back, he thought, and so thinking pushed away from the park wall at last, retrieving his datapad to see that he'd been outside for a good many hours indeed. And still, he was unsure of himself.
He passed by that house again, footsteps slowing, taking in the dimmed lights and the stillness which had settled over it. Not too long ago he would have seized the opportunity. Maybe he might have vandalized the little vehicle sitting outside of it. He was still angry enough to.
So what had changed? Why did he think about doing something, but stop himself now? Had he turned into some kind of coward?
He grinned humourlessly at himself. Not two weeks ago he'd been drifting out in space, with nothing between himself and certain death but an environmental suit, and he hadn't batted an eyelash at that. Becoming a captain hadn't suddenly turned him into some kind of indecisive weakling. If anything, it had made him more decisive, forced him to commit to his ideas and stand by his decisions once he'd made them.
Realization hit him so sharply then that he stopped dead in his tracks. That was why he couldn't do it.
He was a Starfleet captain now. He was proud of himself, of that accomplishment – and breaking down the door of some civilian's house just because they'd pissed him off (really, really pissed him off) was indecorous behavior for a captain.
He couldn't do it, because he was better than it now. He was better than people like them now, and so was Spock.
Resolved and filled with a strangely refreshing kind of inner strength, Jim walked resolutely away from the house, not bothering to look back. So they had lashed out as his first officer. He'd actually do something to help Spock – he'd distract him, cheer him up (though that would take some trial and error, probably) and be a good friend. He'd make up for the disappointing reaction of his living human relatives by making him forget all about it. Or, well, maybe not 'forget', what with his near-perfect memory and all, but as close as Vulcans got to that.
It was a good plan. Jim only hit a snag about an hour into his walking, when he realized that there had been one crucial misstep on his part so far as all of this was concerned. He was largely unfamiliar with this city. The directions in his datapad operated under the assumption that the public transport system would be running - they were crucially vague where pedestrians would be concerned.
And now he was lost.
---
Author's Note: 'Nother chapter done! Yay! I'm basically uploading these as I finish them, since I know from personal experience that it can be a pain to wait around for updates. Lots of questions came up about the story this time – but all I can say is that they're inching towards one another, and regardless of other factors, they're going to keep doing that until they run out of inches. Oh, and I don't have a beta. I proofread my updates myself before I upload them, but that's about it… which probably explains any grammatical errors or typos you come across. And now, I have a question for all you lovely and wonderful reviewers – in TOS, one of Kirk's big fears is being completely alone. I cannot for the life of me tell whether this is or isn't true for his 09 counterpart. Thoughts?
Oh yes, and before I forget (because it came up a few times) – Kirk still has his libido. So far a combination of his growing maturity and responsibility has kept it in check, however, and at the moment he's kind of intrigued by his own sense of self-control (as we've just seen). But I do have plans revolving around this, and they're gonna come up later.