A/N: Yes I'm FINALLY back. I know it's been forever, but I never forgot about my stories but between complete and total writer's block, I'm couldn't write ANYTHING for 6 months or so, 3000 mile moves and other real life craziness I was averaging 1-2 sentences a day for a while and most of them were erased the next day because they were total crap. Now things are moving again, so here's the first of my updates. This one was inspired by a screen shot I ran across of Spock trying to choke Kirk on the bridge, I'm sure everyone has seen it by now. And for some reason the idea that had visited me before, decided to come back and bite hard. There might be a second part, but right now nothing more is clamoring to be written. I know Spock might seem OOC but with everything that's happened he has the right to be.

'Oh shit!' was the first and last thought in Jim Kirk's head as Spock exploded almost before the last word of the one insult he'd almost hoped he wouldn't have to use left his mouth. All he was doing after that was trying to stay alive against the enraged Vulcan long enough for him to calm down or for someone else on the bridge to do something to stop him. As good as he was at hand to hand combat he had almost no chance against Spock's speed or strength as he barely managed to even partially block any of the blows let alone land any of his own to try and stop this himself. It was more instinct than actual thought to grab Spock's wrist as he felt the Commander's hand close around his throat.

The grief at losing his mother as well as the anger at himself for never having actually told her that he loved her slammed through the fragile walls of Spock's control at Kirk's words. He hadn't felt this kind of fury since he'd been a child and had attacked another boy for insulting his parents, and his mother in particular. Like then, he welcomed the red haze that covered his vision, almost glad that there was no one other than his father who would be strong enough to try and stop him from eliminating this threat to his sanity. He was only vaguely aware of Kirk's hands closing around his wrist as he gripped the cadet's neck.

Suddenly pictures began to flit across Spock's mind cracking the iron grip that his anger had on his mind: an older blond woman with blue eyes in both a Starfleet science uniform and civilian clothes, was the most common followed by a dark haired young girl with hazel eyes on a comm. screen and images of places and people that were both familiar and strange to Spock. Reflexively he tried to push the images out of his mind but to his surprise Kirk managed to push back, making him have to work to end this unintentional link. Just as he was succeeding in ending the barrage of images his father's voice sliced through the tense air of the bridge, and causing his concentration to slip slightly. He almost ignored the command in his father's voice until one final thought from Kirk left him reeling: an image of the Narada as the Kelvin impacted it that had been taken from one of the Kelvin's shuttles during the escape twenty-five years earlier and the almost whispered phrase 'I'm sorry Mom, love you'. A sensation resembling the one he'd received from the bucket of ice water that had been once left to soak him for a prank as a cadet, slammed into him leaving a crushing guilt and shame as he realized how close he had come to killing Kirk as he jerkily released the younger man, as he fought for some semblance of control the final words and the image kept playing through his mind making him realize how close his obsessive literal adherence to Pike's final orders had come to endangering the families of a large portion of the crew, Nyota's family as well as his mother's. He looked over at her and his father, horrified that he had nearly lost both sides of his heritage due to following what had seemed logical. The images both from Kirk and his own memories were still swirling in his head as he gave his resignation to Doctor McCoy and avoided Uhura's eyes as he left the bridge.

He only vaguely heard Kirk's announcement and order for battle stations as he wandered almost aimlessly through the ship. That he ended up in the transporter room staring at the pad where his mother should have appeared was no real surprise. He needed a place to think and sort out what had happened on the bridge. That the images were not his own was obvious but the strength of the emotions behind them was surprising, he had only experienced strong emotions from two humans, Nyota and his mother, but Kirk's were shockingly stronger. The thought of her brought back his fury, this time directed at the Romulans who had destroyed his home world. It was as if now that he had admitted to that anger it was taking him over following the avenue suggested by Kirk in his taunts to avenge her death. He was still trying and failing to regain control of that anger when his father entered.

Their conversation had been illuminating, his father had many of the same regrets about telling his mother of his feelings but Sarek also had the knowledge that she had known how he felt through their bond. Spock had no consolation like that but listening to his father's advice brought Spock a measure of comfort that Amanda had still known how much he loved her. When Spock hesitantly brought up the images he had picked up from Kirk on the bridge it was Sarek's belief that the they were people and places that were as important to Kirk as their memories of Vulcan and Amanda were to them, especially the woman, girl and Captain Pike as they were the ones Spock had seen the most during the brief contact.

The curiosity that Sarek had always claimed their son had inherited from Amanda was caught and the Ambassador excused himself to prepare the other survivors for what might happen as Spock did a more general search on Kirk from the terminal in the transporter room. There was no record of the little girl but the woman was easily identified as Lieutenant Commander Winona Kirk, and Spock could still feel the echo's of Kirk's feelings for her as well as that final thought he'd heard. Several of the other images he'd seen could also be explained as cadets or others that Kirk was close to, as well as the remembered fact that Captain Pike had been both his sponsor at the Academy and his academic advisor.

With that much of his curiosity satisfied Spock realized that Kirk's actions while an illogical gamble with his own life had been led by the same desire that had led him to risk his life to save his parents when he had learned of the impending destruction of Vulcan. The fact that the cadet had already lost one parent to this particular group of Romulans was not lost on Spock as a factor for Kirk's initial anger at his decision to detour to the Laurentian system. He also remembered Kirk's concern for Pike's fate after hearing the Captain's plan to deactivate the drill. At the time it had seemed a bit odd coming from the brash stowaway cadet, as had Kirk's agitation when he had charged onto the bridge with his warning about the actual nature of the 'lightening storm'. The fact that he had been the only one to put together what had happened twenty-five years earlier and the current situation with only the apparently innocuous statement in the mission brief spoke of his mental faculties.

Looking at the information now in front of him as well as what he'd picked up from Kirk himself on the bridge he found himself actually understanding why Kirk had pushed as hard as he had to force him to reveal that his logic was badly compromised by events; though how Kirk had come to that conclusion and knew what would make him reveal his state was beyond Spock's ability to guess at the moment. But he realized that in some ways they were now in the same boat so to speak, they had both lost someone important to them to this group of renegade madmen.

As he thought about that particular fact he realized he had the one bit of knowledge that Kirk lacked; the ability to understand the Romulan language both spoken and written as well as the ability to extract the information quickly and quietly, depending on what plan was being formulated those could be essential to the success or failure of the mission. Also the image of Earth disappearing into a black hole the way Vulcan had without at least some resistance was unacceptable not only was it the only home planet he could still claim, thanks to his mother, but Starfleet was headquartered there, satisfying both his logic and his heart.

With that firmly decided, Spock headed back to the bridge. While he knew from his research both for the hearing and just know that Kirk was one of the top tacticians in his class he lacked much real world experience; experience that Spock had had from his longer time in Starfleet. His only hope was that Kirk wouldn't fight him on being a part of this, and that Nyota would forgive him for volunteering for what was most likely to be a suicide mission as by his calculations there was no more than a 9.01% chance of any attack on the Narada resulting in both the successful destruction of that ship as well as the survival of the attacking force. The old saying ' the needs of the many' ran through his mind as the doors to the bridge slid open and he got a look at the plan that Kirk was outlining on one of the tact-screens before he was noticed.