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I do not believe the captain realized who he was facing as he stood and said. 'I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. May we be of assistance?'

The human on the Romulan vessel, however, appeared to lose his balance momentarily. Then he straightened and stood with a confidence I recognized...in the man he was facing.

'Yes. My navigation system seems to be broken. I need to go to Vulcan, but I'm not able to find it.' He appeared to be studying us. I believed he saw no threat, because his stance became more relaxed. A subtle shift in his eyes lead me to suspect that he had made that intuitive leap that his bondmate spoke of so fondly. I knew in that instance he understood exactly who he was talking to.

The bridge crew murmured softly to each other, but the captain waved his hand for silence. 'I'm sorry to bring you the news this way, but Vulcan was destroyed two months ago.'

'Destroyed? How?' In an instant, the older man's ease with the situation disappeared. He braced himself against the chair he was standing next to in a way that made him appear ready to leap through the screen if he found us responsible for the planet's demise.

I moved from the science station and went to stand next to my captain. Whispering in his ear, I asked him to let me explain the situation to the elder man. I requested that he trust me for the moment. The chess games we had played had obviously affected him as they had me, for he allowed me to speak with a small nod.

I turned toward the screen. The elder Kirk flinched as if struck. Then, oddly, a side of his mouth began to rise as if he would smile before he sighed. 'Please. What happened?'

I attempted to relax slightly, to mirror his bondmate's logical-but-emotional attitude. I did this in response to an odd wish to comfort him. 'The red matter on your bondmate's ship was used in revenge against our homeworld. A Romulan merchant blamed him for the destruction of Romulus. He captured your mate's ship and made him...us watch our people die.'

'Why?! For God's sake, he did everything he could! He couldn't predict that unstable flare that set off the final reaction!' The older man nearly shouted, tears shining in his eyes. 'How could anyone...' He turned away from the screen for a moment. The bridge crew was respectfully silent as the man struggled with the horror we had faced two months ago.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our captain glance from me to the screen and back again. His eyes widened as he took in the older man's features more thoroughly. I could see that he now recognized the man on the Romulan ship.

But his identity seemed less important to the captain than a certain detail. 'Bondmate?' He mouthed to me. I inclined my head slightly, signalling an affirmative. Jim blinked in startlement. I could see from his expression that he knew the full connotation of that word in Vulcan.

His surprise did not last long, however. He turned back to the screen as the elder Kirk regained his composure. 'Sir, we're sorry to bring you this bad news...'

The other man held up his hand to interrupt the captain. He needed more information before apologies. 'How did my bondmate die?' he asked softly.

'He didn't.' The captain replied in confusion as I took a step back in consternation. Only one thing could have prompted that question, and it was the most dangerous mating difficulty after pon farr. My face must have reflected the horror I felt, for Jim turned toward me worriedly. 'Spock?'

'We must beam him aboard, Captain. He and Elder Savid are in danger.' My hands gripped each other tightly. If what I believed was true, the elder Kirk was in danger of dying within a day, with my elder to follow not long after.

'Spock's alive?' The older man questioned in surprise, disregarding the new name for the moment. 'But the bond...'

'Seems to have been disrupted in some way, perhaps by the wormhole you travelled through to arrive in this universe.' I finished for him without hesitation. The reluctance to speak of such matters deserted me within an instance. I would not let a taboo keep them apart. They both had sacrificed much to get to this moment. It would be illogical...and inhuman to not aid them.

So I continued. 'It must be restored before its absence threatens both of your lives.'

'It's been gone before without adverse effects.' The older Kirk looked worried, however. From my elder's narrative, I knew this man trusted his bondmate implicitly. It appeared that he was transferring that trust to me.

I honored that trust by being truthful. 'That was a different circumstance. Your bondmate's death allowed the bond to break in a natural way, one that causes pain but rarely death in the surviving mate. A broken bond between two living mates is as life threatening as a fast acting poison.'

The older captain's eyebrow raised as he listened to me. He said something in a low tone that the camera could not transmit, then spoke to me again. 'How much did he tell you about us, for God's sake?'

'Everything he deemed important for my future.' I said softly, realizing that I had inadvertently invaded this man's privacy by announcing his circumstances to the bridge crew.

The elder Kirk snorted. 'Knowing him, that's just about all of it, then.'

I inclined my head to him, in acknowledgement of that truth, then turned to the captain as he laid a hand on my arm.

'So he just came out of the wormhole?' Jim asked me.

'Yes,' I replied. 'The bond was intact when I talked to Elder Savid last night.'

The older Kirk now sighed as he heard the Elder's new name a second time. 'He's getting sentimental in his old age. I wish I could tell Bones...'

'You could tell ours if you'd like.' Jim smiled softly. 'After we beam you aboard and...' He looked toward me.

'And I examine the bond.' I said immediately to the older man. 'I need to look into your mind in order to inform the correct healers of your difficulties.'

The older man nodded. 'Let me use my transporter though. It's probably less tempermental than yours...' He smiled softly, as if remembering something.

'What do you want us to do with your ship?' The captain asked. I knew he'd like to examine it to see what use it could be to the Federation.

But the elder Kirk thwarted that possibility. 'I'm setting it to self-destruct after I beam over. I've had enough experience with this sort of thing,' he waved his hand towards us, 'to know that letting anyone get their hands on it before the technology is actually developed will cause headaches for someone. That someone has a good chance of being you.'

Jim sighed regretfully, but nodded and told Chekov to return to our flight path as soon as the elder Kirk was aboard the Enterprise. Then we went to the transporter room to meet the man who would definitively change our future.

I do not know why the elder Kirk chose to beam to the transporter room, when in actuality he could beam himself to any room on the ship. Perhaps he wanted a sense of familiarity, or perhaps he wanted time to adjust to this universe before meeting the bridge crew. Either way, it served us all well. The three of us had a chance to confront the personal issues that entangled all of us, as well as Elder Savid, without the crew watching.

The elder Kirk beamed into the room 1.6 minutes after we entered it. After materializing, he studied both of us and chuckled softly. 'Pavel was right. It's hard to remember ever being as young as you.'

The captain was taken aback slightly. 'I'm 25. It's not that young.'

'Twenty-five?!' The elder Kirk exclaimed. 'How the hell did you get your captaincy that early?'

'He manipulated me.' I said, but I could not summon the rancor that was attached to that conclusion earlier.

'I had help.' The captain winked at his older self, who grinned.

'Never underestimate the Vulcan capacity for deviousness. It's shocking the first time you see it, given their 'logic', but I think all that training gives them an advantage when they actually have to slip something by somebody.' The elder Kirk smiled gently at me. 'Whatever my Spock had him do...consider it a lesson in a skill you'll need to develop.'

I nodded respectfully, then asked curiously, 'Why is it the Elder does not know you were in the Romulan system with him at the time the wormhole was created?'

'Always straight to the point,' the older man chuckled again, leaning against the wall of the transporter room. He paused for a moment, then said more seriously, 'I couldn't let him know. He would have found a way to keep me from joining him there.'

'You were disregarding your safety.' I said softly, remembering the Elder's words from last night.

'He was ignoring his own. We knew there was a chance his calculations were off. Plus there was the sun's gravitational force to contend with. I had no idea how the hell he thought he was going to get out of there alive, so...'

'So you followed him in a cloaked Romulan ship in case he needed help,' Jim finished admiringly. Realizing this conversation might become long, he ushered the other man to Briefing Room 2, telling me with a glance that I was to join them.

'Actually, I got there before he did. That little ship was way too fast for my Romulan clunker to keep up with. I had borrowed it from one of the Romulan politicians Spock was friends with.' The elder Kirk started to lead the way to the briefing rooms, then sighed and let my captain lead. 'It was an old ship. The only improvement I had time to make was to enhance its tractor beam. So I tricked Spock into thinking I was in the VSA when he went to make the final inspections to his ship.'

'When actually, you were already headed halfway across the quadrant.' The captain looked at me with a grin and whispered two words. Kobayashi Maru.

The elder Kirk laughed as he saw what Jim was saying. 'Exactly.'

'Did you attempt to pull the Elder's ship out?' I asked as we sat at the briefing room table with the older man between the captain and myself.

'Yeah. I thought I had him, too. But the wormhole was too strong for either ship.' The elder Kirk sighed. 'I guess we're lucky we weren't killed.'

'You did what was needed. The result was simply unexpected.' I pointed out. 'We will take you to the New Vulcan colony once we receive the necessary supplies from Delta IV.'

'Yeah.' The captain added. 'We can send him an encoded message first if you'd like.'

The elder Kirk looked to me. 'Can we find out what's wrong with the bond first? I don't want him to panic.'

'Spock, panic?' The captain looked incredulous.

The older man gave him a hard stare. 'When it comes to those he cares about, Spock has been known to lose sight of all logic. I could tell you...'

The captain thought a moment, then held up a hand. 'No, no. You're right. I have seen this one panic...' He gestured towards me. 'It's just kind of hard to think of that reaction in response to me.'

'Who then?' the elder Kirk asked me softly. Sympathy softened his eyes as he looked at me.

'My mother.' I replied. 'She did not survive the destruction of Vulcan.'

'Ah.' The older human bowed his head. 'I grieve with thee. She was a good woman.'

I bowed my head in acknowledgement of his sympathy, then met his eyes with mine. Something in them seemed to startle him, because he asked, 'Are you all right?'

Knowing that he'd see the truth as soon as I touched his mind, I simply said, 'For the moment. If I may?' I held my hand close to his face.

'Of course.' The older man leaned back in his chair.

I whispered the mantra to aid the meld, and slipped into a unfamiliar place that had my mark on it everywhere.

'First, call me JT or something, kid. This 'elder' label running through your head is going to drive me crazy,' his mind spoke to me immediately through the meld, without discomfort or alarm. 'Secondly, what the hell are you doing running around on a starship during your pon farr? I thought Spock told you about his life.'

'He did,' I sent back. 'I have time before the madness takes me.'

'Not enough. Look, see what you can do about the bond, and I'll see if I can help you out.' He paused, looking deeper into my mind. 'For God's sake, you haven't even told him about any of it yet! What were you waiting for?'

'The correct opportunity.'

The elder...JT sighed into the meld. 'Vulcans! You have more taboos about sex than 19th century America. All right. Look at the bond, then the three of us are going to talk before you cause an interplanetary disaster.'

I agreed, then preceded to examine the bond. 'It is not broken. It is shielded.' I 'touched' the shield gently. 'This shield is not of Vulcan design. It is elastic. No Vulcan barrier has this quality. Did you create this?'

'Did I?' JT examined it closely. 'If I did, I didn't do it consciously.'

'Which would explain why you did not know it was there. Your mind most likely put it in place to protect the Elder as you came through the wormhole. He told me the exit to our side appeared...chaotic.' I 'manipulated' the shield carefully, trying to move it. 'You cannot remove it?'

'That makes sense. There were some bolts of energy I thought were about to rip the ship in half before I made it here.' JT concentrated for a moment. 'No, I can't get ahold of it. It's as if my mind's afraid to take it down.'

'Calm your mind.' I suggested. 'I will attempt to remove it.'

JT relaxed and the shield began to lose its grip on the bond, so I gently peeled it away.

Then my presence was grabbed by an unseen force and I was suddenly thrown out of the meld. The force of my removal also pushed me to the floor.

'Spock!' Jim grabbed shoulder to prevent me from hitting my head on the chair beside me. 'What happened?'

I looked up into the smiling face of the elder Kirk. His eyes were closed and he appeared quite relaxed. 'I believe Elder Savid has reunited with his bondmate.'

Then I covered the hand on my shoulder with my palm and looked my intended straight in the eyes.

I burned for him.

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end part 4