"It's not your fault, you know," Jim said as she leaned against the wall just inside the observation room.

"I couldn't keep the transporter lock on her. I lost her. I lost Commander Spock's mother," he muttered.

"You did the best you could, Pavel. The fact that you managed to beam any of us up with everything going on was a goddamn miracle," she said with a small smile.

"Do not coddle me," Pavel snapped. Everyone keeps telling him that he did a good job and it's not his fault. But it is his fault. He should've done better. Should've tried harder. "I am the top of my class in transporter theory and I'm an expert in advanced theoretical physics, I should've been able to beam her up."

"There wasn't enough time," Jim sighed. He doesn't know when she got so close but she put her hand on his shoulder. "We can't save everyone, it's a lesson I've learned the hard way every day since the day I was born. We try like hell to get everyone home but it's not realistic. Trust me, if there's one thing I know, it's death."

Pavel looked over and saw more sadness in his friend's eyes then she could hide. That's when he realized that the man who just destroyed Vulcan and almost destroyed Earth was also the man who killed her father. She's probably had 25 years of thoughts and feelings pulling her in a million different directions.

He reached up and wrapped his hand around hers, "It's not your fault either."