Title: Mementos

Author: acidikiss

Rated: PG

Fandom: Star Trek: 2009

Characters/Pairings: Kirk, Spock Prime (suggests K/S)

Summary: Jim is very curious about the older Spock, so naturally he can't resist an interesting discovery when asked to wait in his room.

Note: Just a short drabble that popped into my head thanks to my imagination and TrekMovie's twitter. Basically he was discussing his belief that the only realistic way to somehow get Shatner into the 2012 movie would be to have him appear in some kind of recording or some such. At first I thought that was interesting. ...Then I realized that for such a recording to make it into the current timeline, Spock would have had to brought it.

Yeah. :D

Disclaimer: Don't own a thing! (Also as for "Ambassador Selek" - I've seen it in several fics to refer to Spock Prime as he is known to those who don't know who he really is. I really don't know the source for it, so I lay no claim to it, I just figure it wouldn't hurt to use it just once. :P)

It was rude to look through people's stuff, he knew. But when Jim was told to wait in "Elder Selek's" room, he couldn't help but be very, very curious.

He tried hard to sit still in the chair, but he kept turning about, taking in the room as a whole. It was a little... bare. Briefly he wondered if that was a Vulcan thing - a sort of Spartan lifestyle. But no - that didn't seem to fit either Spock. He'd never seen his Spock's quarters but still. Then, of course, he realized that when being sucked into a black hole while on an emergency mission, you didn't have a lot of time to pack a bag for trips into alternate timelines.

...Well that was depressing. Especially since the guy's home planet was blown up right after he arrived in this universe. Jim made a mental note to get a gift or two for Spock whenever he could.

When he turned back to sit properly in the chair, a glint of something caught his eye. A holotape - no, two or three. They were peeking halfway from a small black bag. Since the drawstring was open, he figured Spock must have been looking at them before he'd left the room. Jim reached for one before he paused; he really shouldn't.

But his hand had brushed near enough that the tape started up anyway. Cursing, Jim snatched it up and tried to turn it off in a hurry - until audio started up and he could only stop and stare at the small hologram in wonder.

The figure speaking in such a warm, fond tone looked familiar. Very familiar. His immediate thought was that it was his father, before he dismissed that as absurd. His father hadn't lived so long in thisuniverse - and even if he had where Spock came from, why would he send such a friendly holotape to the Vulcan?

So that meant this was a recording of him. Of the other James Kirk, the one from Spock's timeline.

He'd been paying no attention to the content of the tape, so it came as a surprise when it shut off. Blinking, Jim put it back, feeling simultaneously guilty and more curious than ever. Jim shook his head, nudged the other tapes back into the bag... paused when his fingers brushed across something completely unexpected.

...Well, just a quick peek. He doubted it would be anything incriminating, and even if it was Jim would rather die than admit he'd snooped around some of the older Spock's things. Jim pulled out the handful of small, glossy prints. The first photos were of Amanda - some of them showing her at an age she would never reach in this universe.

And then the next few were of him. The other Jim, and Spock too. They weren't anything special - if anything, they looked like photos that Spock had been dragged into by the captain. Both of them were older than he and his own Spock were now - it was a little unreal seeing this. Jim looked even more like his dad with age, it seemed.

There was even a photo of the entire command crew - he could pick out the years-older Uhura, Bones, Chekov, Scotty, Sulu... all standing and smiling alongside a stoic Spock and a grinning Jim. Unconsciously, his own lips curved in a smile, even though he felt a little sad.

As he quickly put everything as it was, Jim had to wonder... for these to have made it here, Spock had to have been carrying them. Photos of his mother, the Enterprise crew... but mostly of the other Jim and Spock. And he had to wonder if the other holotapes were also recordings of his alternate self.

And not for the first time, he wondered just how close they had been, for Spock to keep all of this so close to him.