Spock stared into the abyss in front of him, eyes wide, and slowly backed away. His ears were still ringing from when Jim had shouted, his mouth pulled in a thin line and his face tight. There was a new voice now. Blaming him for the death of his friends. He let go. He let go… Jim, Leonard…gone.
He backed farther away from the edge, resting against the first step, unmoving, eyes unfocused. The doors creaked open behind him, his body tensing and his ears perked for it. He slowly turned his head, watching as it creaked open impassively. There was light beyond the doors, pouring out and casting weird eye-catching shadows. His own was thrown into sharp relief, into the dark around him. The buildings continued to melt and roil until there was nothing around him, nothing but the open door and the building behind him.
He didn't want to continue. He didn't want to.
"Spock…" He froze, his eyes widening and his head whirling around to stare into the light, another shadow spilling out over him. A familiar shadow. He knew it was illogical, he realized the facts of what happened in this place, and yet he couldn't stop himself. He needed to resist. He stood up slowly, and followed it. His feet dragged, his head was bowed, every muscle protesting against it, but something told him to continue. Something told him to move.
He crossed the threshold, into the light, the shadow melting and vanishing into nothing. As soon as he was in the light fully, the doors shut behind him and whatever had been pulling him vanished. He slumped, lax, every muscle protesting the movement from a force not his own. And now he couldn't get out. Spock's hands reached up, grasping the goggles covering his eyes and removing them, tossing them to the side.
The whispers were louder here, always on the edge of his hearing, always ready to tear into his mental defenses and rip whatever piece of himself he had regained and destroy it. Spock's vision was blurry; it had been since the melds, but for some reason that didn't matter. On the edge of his vision there was always movement, always something was reaching out to grab him. To grab them, tear into them and destroy them, and he could see them coming.
He was losing himself.
He didn't want to lose himself; he had lost everything else. Yet he could feel himself slipping away to something. Something he couldn't see, something he couldn't understand, but something that was always there at the edge of his consciousness, and it was destroying him.
Spock took a breath and looked around at his surroundings, trying to focus on the parts of his personality and understanding that were untainted by whatever it was that had taken over. He was in a wide empty foyer; there were no paintings on the walls, merely stained places where there had once been paintings hung, the tables had been removed, everything was empty, but the main thing that caught his attention was when he looked up. He didn't see the source of the light that had cut off almost as soon as he entered, instead seeing that the entire ceiling had been torn off, and it was snowing again.
Spock stared up into it, letting it fall onto his face, pulling his hat off and spreading his arms out, trying to let the small stings from the cold flakes burn into his mind. Accepting the cold, the way it bit into his uncovered ears and nose. He bit his lip until it bled, and slowly looked back down, not paying attention to the dirt stained foyer and instead focusing on finding a way up there. Something told him it was a good idea, and unfortunately that meant that it was likely not coming from inside himself. The only problem was, he couldn't think of a better idea.
Spock moved quietly; towards the only door, a large black rectangle that seemed more foreboding than everything he had yet encountered. He didn't need the flashlight to see it; it was burned into his retinas. He reached out and slowly pushed the door open, revealing another wide empty room, only this time there were bodies. They were huddled amongst each other, curled up tight, dressed in warm clothes that had faded and shredded over time. They had frozen to death.
The other door was right past this room of bodies, this room of failures. They had arrived too late. Everyone in this colony, everyone in this town was dead. Spock moved quietly, he knew there would likely be something that moved, but so far his communicator was silent and that whispering inside his head was quiet. He needed to get to that door.
He took a few steps into the room, and then there was a rolling of quiet static from his communicator. He froze, waiting, watching. There was a moment of complete and total silence, and then a loud crack split the air. Another followed, and then another. Even if the sound was new, the way the things began twisting up and staring at him through rotting and decomposing eyes told him exactly what it was. He ran.
Fingers reached out to grab him, voices called out, shouting accusations and pronouncements of failure, of death. He was tripped, and went down flat, skidding along the ground. Yet the hands that he thought would follow didn't come. He slowly pushed himself upright and froze. They didn't move.
Dead flesh stared at him, their lack of movement eerie. They stood to either side of him, their posture and stance like something of an honor guard, but for what he wasn't sure. He dearly hoped it wasn't him. He took a slow step forward, still unable to focus on much aside from getting to that door. He had found a reason to stop listening to the voices, but they were blotting him out.
Spock took another stumbling step, tensing when one of them reached out, but halted close to touching him. His eyes shifted to that one and took another step, the brown orbs drifting to another as that one reached out. He halted completely in the middle of the room, slowly turning to look at them all, lined up, one after another, staring at him with bleeding sockets, the ice melting and turning to blood and gore as it decomposed rapidly.
They didn't move, didn't shift, and simply stared back, the two who had reached out to him letting their arms fall limp.
Spock took in a breath, and began walking again. The static continued crackling, the sound a backdrop for the strange atmosphere he was standing in, feeling strangely like he was in limbo between the moment when he didn't have to run, and the moment when they attacked. But they didn't move. He made it to the door; reaching his hand out he closed it around the knob, ears pricked for any sounds of movement. He pushed the door open and looked up at a long flight of stairs.
Turning around Spock was met with the sight of each and every one of the things standing directly behind him, still not moving, still just staring. He backed onto the first step, and pulled the door closed. There was a moment of silence, and then the door shook. Spock didn't move, eyes focused on it, waiting for a sign of what was happening. There was a quiet roar, a moment of complete and total cacophony, and then all went still.
He opened the door, and looked out into nothing.
Blackness encroached on his vision, not even the sort of blackness that he was used to on Vulcan which had had no moon…when it had existed. He was staring into black, and there was nothing to see. He closed the door quietly. There was no way back, only forward, up the stairs. Into whatever place had been prepared for him to see. He had realized the fact that there is something that has been leading their actions. He does not know precisely what it is, but he knows it is there. He also knows that it seems to flow and respond towards them, more specifically, what's inside them.
Emotions, fears, traumas… This place feeds off of them, and then sends them back at them, tearing down defenses against things that were meant to be buried. Meant to stay hidden.
He never wanted to think about his life on Vulcan. He never wanted to think about where he stood with that race. He never wanted to think about the 'feelings', the honest-to-God 'feelings' that had been incurred at the sight of his planet imploding. Yet here he was, both things torn to the fore of his mind and put on display for two others to see. When they had been there. When they had been together.
He had not told them of how he came to be captured. Had not told them exactly what had been done to him. He remembered though. It was painted across his mind, and now that he was alone it was almost impossible not to dwell on it. The stairs continued, up and around, a spiral staircase that he couldn't see the top of. All he knew was he had to keep climbing.
And with every step, the scene replayed. He had been running from one horror, only to encounter another, swarms of them. Strange, shapely nurses with no faces. He hadn't been able to stop without skidding or falling, the snow was that deep and that treacherous. He had thrown his motion back and stood facing a creature he knew hadn't been after him. But that didn't stop him from backing away, directly into the throng. He had felt a needle enter his neck, a sudden rush of chemical entering his bloodstream, and then blackness had consumed him.
He remembered being cold when he had come to. So cold, it bit into his skin and his bones. He had already begun to lose feeling in his extremities, but he still felt a cloth resting along and over his pelvis that ended just under his upper thighs. Everything else was gone. Boots to hat, he had been stripped.
He could smell copper.
Then he noticed a dirty light filtering through his closed lids, and shadows moving along it. Moments of blackness against the green of his blood. There had been a voice. Or…something like a voice. Only he didn't so much hear it as feel it. Pounding into his skull.
He hadn't been able to understand what it was saying, but he had understood its meaning. His eyes had flickered open at a very strong prodding, and he stared up at the bare bulb of a light hanging from the ceiling, shining down on him. He couldn't move his arms or his legs; his arms had been yanked over his head and his legs had been spread and locked into position. One of the nurses was hovering over him, her faceless head tilted down and giving him the impression that she was staring at him. It was impossible, but she seemed to anyway.
He could just see something moving out of the corner of his eye and turned his head slightly to look; once he saw what it was he wished he hadn't. Several more stood there, scalpels and needles held in bandaged hands, but what drew his attention mainly was the tank of green viscous liquid next to him. He recognized that liquid. He recognized that smell. One of them bumped it, causing a splash, and droplets of green spattered across his face and chest. He didn't flinch, but he wanted to. He wanted to get away, he wanted to run. He could do neither.
The nurse hovering over him reached a hand down, her movements jerky, and rested one finger on one of the droplets of blood on his chest. Spock's mind was assaulted with the contact a feeling of despair seeping into his mind. She drew the bead of blood up in a line that connected with another droplet, and continued. Tracing patterns on his skin that soon led up to his face. He had a moment to slam all his mental walls down before her fingers found his meld points.
His resistance was futile. He struggled, arching against the bed, trying to get away from her fingers, trying to get away from her mind, gritting his teeth; all the while his mind fought in vain. She was through.
He felt her filling him with her thoughts, and suddenly, that wasn't the only thing filling him. Something had been inserted down his throat when he had been concentrating on keeping her out, and a feeling of rushing liquid and warmth and a taste that turned his stomach was dripping down the sides of the tube. The smell of copper was unmistakable, and so was the feeling of overindulgence.
"You drank the blood of innocents. You destroyed them all. It was your fault. It was yours. The fault of a useless half-breed who shouldn't have been born…"
It echoed inside his mind and out of it, constantly, never ending.
He could say nothing; he could not tell her otherwise, he could not convince himself otherwise. His mind was not his. The smell of copper got stronger, and suddenly it was on him, pouring over him like a fountain, and he shuddered, arched, tried to spit the tube out, do anything. Still, nothing, nothing but pain, nothing but the sticky feeling of blood covering him, nothing but her voice screaming at him, telling him it was his fault.
"You are covered in the blood of your people…"
He fell into the dark with those words in his mind and heart, the blood of his people covering him and in him.
He was guilty.
Now he stood in front of a door. Large, black, heavy, and covered with chains and spikes.
Spock did not want to go in.
But once again his movements and decisions were made for him. His fingers stretched out, grasping the handle, right under a spike. He couldn't stop himself from turning it. A gash was torn into his hand, but he pushed the door open anyway.
Spock stood on the open rooftop, a peak of stone in a sea of darkness. He moved forward quietly, breath coming in great puffs of moisture, drops of green blood from his hand falling onto snow covered concrete. He took a step, and then another. Shadows continued dancing across his vision, hands reaching to grasp him and pull him from this tenuous reality.
He didn't know what they would pull him into. He had no desire to find out; in fact, his whole body shuddered at the thought of what it could be, something he couldn't control, something he couldn't stop from doing. He was able to control less and less of himself.
And it terrified him.
The door swung shut; the scenery changed. There were walls all around him; he was trapped in a wide towering room with light shining in on either side, but none in the space he was standing in. There was a small table to the right of him; on it was placed a revolver. It was shiny and seemed to be new, and in this place of rust and grime, that was something to consider.
Spock was not surprised. He simply stood still and waited for whatever would happen.
"Spock?" A voice. Not just any voice, but a voice that had haunted his dreams and memories for longer than he cared to remember. He stiffened, unwilling to turn, unwilling to face whatever perversion this place had visited on the owner of that voice.
"Spock, look at me, Spock…please?"
He didn't move, eyes focused straight ahead, afraid of what he would see should he turn his head. The feeling came back. The feeling of being controlled, the feeling of being gripped by something else and forced into its will. That feeling was making him turn around.
He strained against it, exerting his will and mental barriers. He could do nothing.
Spock finally faced the origin of the voice, happy that for a time it was in shadow. "You've grown so much, Spock…"
He didn't respond. He didn't want to respond. What was talking did not live. Had not lived in two years. But that voice had haunted his dreams.
"Spock, I can't tell you how much I've wanted to see you again, how much I've wanted to hold you to me…and Spock… Now I can. Now you're here. I've waited so long."
He forced himself to take a step back. Eyes locked on that patch of darkness right outside the ring of light that surrounded him. There was rustling behind him, and he turned to look, only to realize his mistake when it was too late. He jerked back, his head whipping around, and his eyes immediately locked onto a woman standing in the light directly in front of him.
She was smiling softly, dressed in the same outfit he remembered her wearing; she looked so real he could touch her, but he didn't trust his eyes any more.
Spock jolted, falling over backwards, half of him in the light, half of him out. He looked up into those eyes that had filled his dreams and felt nothing but terror. Something touched him, and he jerked, eyes flickering over to see a tentacle of black just inches from him. He followed that tentacle into the darkness at the base of her dress.
"Spock…don't do this. Don't be afraid…please? I love you, Spock. You've grown up so much. You've gotten to be so handsome. I didn't get a chance to tell you that last time I saw you…"
His voice was caught in the back of his throat. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think…
The one in possession of the tentacle moved closer into the darkness that spilled over his lower half, leaning down just enough so he could see just the smallest slit of skin and the several sharp, twisted teeth. He leaned back, farther away. What had been beautiful eyes were red glowing things in the dark.
"Please…do not do this to me, not her. Please, do not taint her…do not take the only things I have left and replace them with this…Please…" He was begging, whispering, pleading with a town, or a being, or anything that could cause it to go away. That would take her away and leave his memories of her in peace.
She seemed to stiffen, straightening much higher than Spock remembered, towering over him, and always those red eyes bored into him.
A hand reached out, caressing his cheek. "I really hoped that things would be better, Spock. But what could a mother expect from a child that was unable to tell her she was loved? You ruined me, Spock… You hurt me so much, Spock. You hurt me so much. You shunned me, rejected me. You let me die…"
He scooted farther away, his body beginning to tremble, and then he heard the sound of miserable tears coming from the blackness on the edges of his vision. He turned to look, watching as a long tentacle of dark creeped its way out of the blackness, a curled up form clutched inside it. Another tentacle raised as well, another body clutched inside it. They were pulled into the light, and Spock almost gasped.
Jim looked shattered; his eyes were half lidded, and his mouth was slack. His mind was lost in its own world of loneliness and desperation.
Bones was weeping bitterly and curled up tighter against the light.
"Captain…Doctor!" He shouted before he could help himself.
The form in the center drew up. "So, we have replacements…"
"They are not," he said before he could stop himself. But his voice seemed to snap them both out of whatever stupor they had been in.
They twitched, Bones' hands moving up to wipe at his face desperately, trying to clear the tears and the remains of dust. Jim blinked, eyes starting to focus, and then slowly peered down, noticing Bones, noticing Spock, and then noticing the thing that held them.
"No?" the perversion of Lady Amanda asked quietly in a half-purr. Jim found himself raised up until he was looking into a pair of red eyes that glowed. He could see his reflection in them. Wide-eyed and trembling.
"I believe they are. Replacements for the feeling of family that you never had in the first place," she whispered.
Bones blinked, realized what he was looking at and tensed. He didn't want to know about this, he didn't want to know what kind of thoughts Spock had entertained in his heart and mind for as long as he could remember.
"Please…" Spock's voice was soft, broken, making the two clutched tight in the tentacles tense.
"What's wrong, Spock? Don't like the truth?" Her voice was changing, shifting like her form. He could no longer recognize her, but that didn't matter. "Don't like hearing that you were always a second-class excuse for a son, a second-class excuse for a Vulcan?"
Spock flinched and backed away further. He was slipping. His mind was slipping. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe.
Jim watched as Spock struggled against words that had repeated in his consciousness for years, for as long as he was young and tried to speak, but found his mouth covered by more tentacles. His eyes drifted away from the sight of his First Officer and landed on Bones as he thrashed in the tentacles' hold, his own mouth covered. He wasn't surprised that his volatile friend had been attempting to shout exactly what he thought of what that Amanda clone was saying.
But it was then that they realized what Spock was backing up to - table, and on that table a gun, and they realized exactly what was meant to happen.
They tensed, trying to shout louder, trying to stop him from moving, trying to get him to realize how his mother had never thought that about him. But when they realized that everything she said were words that Spock had replayed in his mind over and over again, they felt like screaming.
Her words continued, a strange echoing quality deep in them, and for some reason they felt her words eating into their minds, even though they had never known her. But they knew Spock. They knew how much it was hurting him, how much of himself he was losing. How much it was killing him.
The whispers were joining her voice; they struggled harder, but there was nothing they could do… They watched in horror as Spock finally backed into the table, the force from it sending the revolver clattering to the ground next to him, and then they heard what she was saying.
"Spock, you failed everyone. Failed everything from saving your mother to your relationship…" They didn't know about Nyota. "What right do you have to continue to exist when others that were better than you could ever hope to be are dead? Spock…you shouldn't be alive, and you know it."
Spock's mind was not his own, his thoughts were not his own, and his hands as they held the revolver were not his own. He brought his trembling hands up, pulling the hammer back until it clicked into place. His eyes were wide and bright, the pupils dilated until his seemed almost black, and still his hand raised it up to his temple, resting it there quietly.
They were so busy watching Spock as he trembled, his mind infused with thoughts and images not of his choosing that they didn't notice where they were until they saw two glowing red eyes staring at them, wider and larger than they had been before.
Then they saw the mouth and the teeth, elongated, round and gaping. They were going to die. She was going to eat them alive, and they couldn't do anything about it. Their eyes flicked back to Spock, watching as he pressed the revolver against his temple in despair. They were all going to die. Their eyes flicked back into the stretched-out-of-shape face of Lady Amanda, the tentacles surrounding them and flicking through the air, making them shudder as they brushed them.
Her mouth opened wider, large razorblade-sharp black teeth ready to slice down on them, and they had one last moment to feel despair and true terror before the sound of a gun went off. Everything froze, and they gave a sob of fear, realizing what had happened.
Then the tentacles started slackening. They watched in amazement as the face in front of them withered, and suddenly they were falling. They collapsed onto the ground, wide eyed and bruised, watching as the woman landed in the light, her form changing as she did so.
They turned their heads quietly, locking on Spock as he sat there sprawled, his eyes wide, and the revolver pointing where they had been, the end of the barrel still lightly smoking. He didn't move for all of a minute, before slowly but surely sagging down, his eyes resting on the form of his suddenly-human mother.
She was bleeding from a shot to the head. Her face stuck in a peaceful expression, her body crumpled and small. She looked innocent, she looked pure. She was as he had always remembered her to be. Only she would never move again.
The gun fell to the ground with a clatter, as Spock bent forward over himself, mind and body reeling. Everything was wrong. His head came to rest in his hands as he curled, trying to blot out what he had done, trying to blot out the words. When a low keening began reverberating around the room he had no idea of what it was. Then he realized that it came from his own throat, that his shoulders were shaking, that his hands were wet with tears. Tears from his human eyes, Amanda's eyes.
Two hands landed on his shoulders and he froze, but then whole bodies joined the hands, burying heads in the juncture between shoulder and neck, ignoring the cold of his ears and skin that was unused to such weather and temperatures, wrapping arms around him, forcing themselves into his space, forcing themselves into his pain. They were all weeping.
Every thought was touched with despair; every thought was touched with pain.
A swirl of pain and fear and death sweeping over every thought as they just sobbed and screamed their pain. Trying to bury it in the despair of another.
Spock's mind was his for the first time since the meld, and he found that he didn't want it. It was too chaotic. Everything hurt, everything ached. Tears fell down his face; his head rested in the crook between his captain and the doctor's shoulders, sobbing, weakly keening and whimpering. Jim rubbed at his back, and the three of them clutched at each other.
Bones was the first one who noticed the change. There was a breeze wafting over him, and the air was no longer as chill. He sniffed, slowly removing his head from that crook, looking around him with squinting eyes.
There were surroundings. They were sitting on top of a building; he noticed with irony that it was the Town Hall they had been so focused on getting to. Seems that really was the way out. The snow had stopped falling and the clouds were parting slowly. The other two men raised their heads curiously, looking up at the light that peeked out of the parting clouds, two pairs of eyes bloodshot red, the other set green.
Jim sniffed, wiping his eyes and face on his coat sleeve and slowly standing up, watching as the sun rose over a quiet morning. The sounds of birds chirping made the others blink, and they slowly stood up to join Jim, watching in shock as small flitting birds flew up from the forest, chirping merrily.
"What the hell is going on here?" Bones asked softly.
But before the other two could answer they could hear something else, something that made them blink, something that made their hearts swell with fear.
"Spock?" The half-Vulcan jerked around to stare, only to nearly fall limp. There in front of him was his mother, only this time how she should have been.
"Mother?" He asked softly, taking a small step forward. She covered her mouth, choking back a sob, and Spock automatically took her into his arms.
Jim's ears were filled with the sound of children laughing, and he turned to watch as several children that he thought he would never see again ran to him, laughing and whole. They tackled him to the ground, hugging him tight, and he burst into happy tears of joy, arms wrapping around them all and shouting and laughing in concert to their own.
Bones smiled, watching his friends and feeling the joy radiating off of the two of them, as they were given one last chance.
"Mother…" Spock's voice was quiet, pressed on her shoulder. "I never told you, but I must… I love you, Mother."
"I know you do, Spock. I've always known. I have to go now, but Spock, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you will always have a proud mother." They hugged tighter, and he let go, watching as she faded along with the rest.
They looked at each other. "What was that all about?"
"I don't know, but I don't think you should complain," Bones said with a small smile. Then they heard something, something that surprised and startled them, but then something that made their hearts leap.
"Cap…tain, ca…you…us?" Crackling from their communicators, and in the crackle, the sound of Scotty's voice. Broken up, but there. Jim pulled his communicator up to his mouth.
"Scotty! Scotty, can you hear me?"
"Capt…ld…sig…" There was a moment, and then finally, "Captain! Captain, can ye hear me?"
"SCOTTY! Oh, Scotty, I can't even begin to tell you how good it is to hear your voice!" Jim shouted out, clutching his communicator, the other two crowding closer, Bones laughing joyously, and Spock allowed him to hug him. "Scotty, can you beam us up?"
"I sure can, Captain. Jus' gimme one momen'…"
They took one last look around at the sun-kissed town and felt the tingle of beam-up. Bones had never been happier.
