A/N: Here we go again! Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with the story this far, and to everyone who has taken the time to comment. I appreciate each and every review :)

Also thanks to Dizdayn, without whom the story would be a lot less.

Star Trek belongs to Paramount Viacom.

X. Memory

The journey back through the narrow tunnel felt simultaneously shorter and longer than before. Though Kirk and Spock had both torn strips off their uniform shirts to wrap around their palms and knees, the floor grated at already raw skin, leaving their scratches to bleed freely. Daelus, though unharmed by the rock, seemed disconnected from reality. He moved mechanically, and didn't speak at all. Spock supposed it couldn't be a pleasant experience to discover the people you'd been counting on for help weren't the all-powerful beings you'd thought they were. It helped their pace that they knew they were moving across known terrain, into the light. The prospect of fresh air seemed to have given Kirk new strength, and in addition to supporting their guide, he made sure Spock followed along.

Spock was almost as unresponsive as Daelus. He was considering the possible options for averting the asteroid and didn't notice their surroundings until they were standing again, and Kirk leaned on the wall to catch his breath.

"My physical strength is superior to that of a Human. I can carry your pack for you," Spock offered.

Kirk shook his head. "I'm fine. Despite what you and Bones think, I'm not actually made of paper." Spock must have shown a flicker of emotion, because Kirk added; "If you're up to it, you can carry Daelus' pack. I think he might pass out."

The Phaetan clutched the strap of his pack and made a cutting movement with his right hand.

"Don't be stubborn," Kirk said. "Spock's strong. He lifted this huge boulder off my leg once."

Spock felt like mentioning something about glass houses, rocks and stubbornness, but at Kirk's insistence, the Phaetan handed his bag over gratefully. Spock felt a slight twinge of guilt; yes, he didn't have all the calculations down yet, but he was fairly sure that given three years, he could move the asteroid in pretty much any direction the Phaetans wanted. Kirk had painted Daelus a much bleaker picture.

"You've worn out your shoes," Daelus said quietly. "Bad host thing to do."

Kirk gave an incredulous laugh. "Yeah, well, we're not all you expected either, are we?"

"I know a nice place," Daelus said. "Epia told me."

Whether it was that thought or the loss of his pack that made Daelus wake up a little, Spock wasn't sure, but they moved faster after that. When they reached the lake cave, they didn't continue on up the entrance tunnel but followed the shore counterclockwise around the lake until they reached another tunnel entrance. Daelus stepped across what looked like a threshold carved in the rock, and led them past a fork in the way and around a corner to a small bubble of a cave. The walls and roof curved into each other, making it impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. The floor, on the other hand, was clearly marked by moss similar to that in the great cavern; it was a faded sea green instead of emerald but looked just as soft. It was a thoroughly welcome sight

Daelus simply threw himself along the nearest wall, curled up, and went to sleep.

Kirk afforded him his privacy, leaving his bag by the far wall. He stripped off the tattered remains of his command golds and folded it into a makeshift pillow. Spock copied the idea, thankful for the fact that their uniforms incorporated multiple layers. Kirk watched him as he settled down beside him.

"We'll have to convince the Marin to let us contact Scotty once we're back," Kirk whispered. "We can find out who our poisoner is once we've got a solution to the asteroid-problem to bargain with. I'm not leaving the murderer here; I want the son of a bitch court-martialed."

"Affirmative."

Kirk rolled onto his side, and nuzzled into the moss. His eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. "M'gonna sleep a bit," he said. "Hey, Spock?"

Spock raised an eyebrow.

"Thanks for coming with me."

Spock thought of explaining to the captain that it was his duty to act as support and offer his assistance whenever required, that it was not a matter of him choosing to accompany Kirk, but of Kirk letting him go with him, and that, if presented with the opportunity to enter a wormhole and, like Ambassador Spock, go back to an earlier point in his life, he would still make the same choice, but by the time he'd strung it all together in a coherent speech, Kirk was fast asleep.

Spock carefully toed the line between sleep and waking. He hadn't slept for close to forty-eight hours, and his system was screaming at him for rest, but his shields were comparatively weak. He did not want to wake up thrashing, the barriers keeping his emotions at bay razed to the ground by another nightmare. His brain required a little over an hour of continuous sleep to fall into a REM-cycle, and if he woke up with half-hour intervals, he should be fine.

They'd muffled the lanterns by putting them in their packs, so it was dark; there was no point in opening his eyes if it made no difference.

Perhaps he could afford just a few more minutes before regaining full consciousness.

It was like circling a drain, he felt like he was moving forwards, but instead he was just slipping deeper and deeper.

When he finally opens his eyes, it's not dark at all. He's standing at the edge of a massive field in the shadow of a crude wooden tribunal. The sun's high in the sky, throwing the whole scene into stark illumination. A group of people are standing before the tribunal. Their arms are chained together behind their backs, and they're all in a neat line. Some have their shoulders back in defiance, looking into the sun or towards him. Some are hunched over. There is a young woman about halfway down the file who's collapsed; the chains around her wrists and ankles keep her upright. Her neighbors are staggering under the effort of supporting her. He can't make out the details of their faces at a distance.

He knows them, though. He crosses the field mindless of the ocean of white noise and the masses in the tribunals. There are no facets to them he can hold on to; he is certain that they are unimportant to the scene playing out before him. He will forget them later.

The gray dust puffs out in tiny clouds beneath his bare feet. He imagines that they can solidify beneath him, lifting him up and carrying him away.

Spock wanted out; even though he couldn't remember the place, he knew what would happen next.

The boy at the end of the file is called Kevin. He's got a cut across his forehead, hair like a mop, and 206 bones in his body. Most of them are visible. Sam's next, he's in marginally better shape, but Sam's always been able to take care of himself. There's Emmy, Tom, boy-with-limp (and that one's going to eat at him later, how can he not know his name, Limp's going to die in five minutes, and then he'll just be forgotten), Anna and Boot (kept responsible footwear, a first-aid kit and a sack of grain buried before it all went sour; they used to think he was a bit mad).

There was a soft moan to his right, and he tried to reach for it, to drag himself out of the field.

The next part of the line is a silver haze, and then each new face is a painful jolt: Uhura, hair falling lankly across her face, Bones. Chekov and Sulu holding each other upright. Winona Kirk (a strange sort of double vision, he recognizes her from Iowa and from the medal ceremony after the Narada debacle. The points of view don't match up.) Christopher Pike, Chapel-from-sickbay, Scotty, and furthest away is -

Spock?

Spock?

It's not him.

He's standing twenty paces away. Spock looks at himself in the mirror when his human genes impose the annoyance of being forced to shave on him: he is three inches shorter than the individual at the end of the line, and he's quite sure that his hair doesn't usually shine like that. There is no doubt that the individual isn't a full Vulcan, though. His ears, though tapered, have a curve to them that speaks of mixed heritage. There is a slant to the shoulders, a softening of the jaw.

They're all going to die. Kevin goes first, as usual, not even bothering with a deep breath before the plunge, before his forehead has a neat little hole through it, and he can't take anymore breaths at all. Their heads snap backwards as they're called. Emmy curses when it's her turn. She had a voracious appetite for everything, especially life. If they were judged by the magnitude of their crime, she would have been shot first. She ate for two, even if her belly is flat and empty by now.

He tries to move, to run to them and save them, but there is an invisible wall bisecting the distance between him and the prisoners. He leaps, trying to find the top, but it just goes on and on to the edge of the atmosphere. He tries to run around it and discovers it's not an invisible wall, it's a glass cage. Uhura's head snaps, and he screams himself hoarse. He's throwing himself at the wall, kicking at it, scrabbling desperately for just a tiny imperfection in the smooth surface. He's too light to do any damage, though - every time he flings himself forward, he's only made more aware of the fact that he's as hollow as bird's bones. He hasn't eaten for days. His core is rotten and corrupted. His skin hangs loose on his frame, wrinkled and gray.

With each death, there is less of him. He thinks the gray dust must be from others like him, who've lost too much of themselves to continue.

Then it's Bones, and the scream just sticks in his throat. Starfleet came. It can't end like this - why isn't Starfleet coming? The sky is blue and perfect, and there is no help anywhere.

A thought took root in the lucid part of Spock's mind, and he struggled harder. He knew this. He'd never seen the place before, but he knew what would happen. Starfleet would be too late for most of them, but they'd come eventually. Some of the prisoners would live. He sent up a silent prayer for his crewmates.

They keep dying, one by one, until the dust is a sodden red, saturated with blood. Blood contains water and nourishment; maybe wheat will be able to grow there. There is a dull sort of hope in that. Only the half-vulcan is left, now. He lifts his head defiantly, and their eyes lock for a a second.

It was Spock. He was instinctively sure, despite the tiny errors in appearance. He was going to watch himself die.

Goodbye, Jim.

The wall burst, and Spock's thoughts were flooded with a wave of ohfucknoIwon'tletithappen-despair. The sudden deluge of emotion slapped him instantly awake. He was on his back in a dark cave on Phaeton Eta, he was breathing like he'd just run a marathon, and his arm was stretched out to his right to gently touch Kirk's wrist.

Kirk was twitching under Spock's fingers, whimpering under his breath. Under the mud stains, his forehead was slick with sweat.

Spock brushed away a smear of dirt that threatened to run into Kirk's mouth. "Jim," he said. "Wake up."

Kirk winced, curling in on himself like a wounded animal. He batted Spock's arm away with his right hand. His left dropped to his belt, where his phaser would normally be. Upon realizing where he was, he relaxed. His eyes focused on Spock.

"Sorry. I'm a restless sleeper. If I kick you, just kick back." Kirk gave Spock a crooked and thoroughly stale grin. "Maybe I'll keep watch for a bit."

When Spock made no move to drift off again, Kirk gave him a dismissive wave. "Seriously, Spock. Go back to sleep. We've still got some walking to do."

"You are a Tarsus survivor." Spock said, his voice inflectionless.

"I was talking in my sleep. You know, humans dream of flying all the time. It doesn't mean we actually can -"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Spock caught the growl before it emerged but not the contraction. Things were rapidly snapping into place, small irregularities in Kirk's actions were lining up. Spock wasn't sure where to begin talking. "I am your friend. You have been having nightmares strong enough to resonate along our bond for years, and you never told me."

Kirk slouched as the bravado left him and rubbed at his face with his hands. Without the attitude, he looked like a lost little boy. "First off, I haven't had the nightmares for years-"

That time, Spock wasn't fast enough to catch the snarl. He clapped a hand to his mouth, horrified with himself. The moss is soft, but it is irrelevant. Your bondmate is one of approximately twenty survivors of one of the most horrific genocides in history, where he was sentenced to death for not passing genetic muster and eating food reserved for the ruling class, but you can't feel it. He would have been around ten at the time, not that it matters, nothing beyond the border of your presence -

Tarsus was the pile of dust Starfleet swept under the rug when speaking of colonization, the great beautiful beyond, ripe for the taking. It was something bound to be unearthed decades later; when time and distance allowed the future admirals and politicians to distance themselves from their predecessors, to condemn their failures and write books and speeches about the scope of human tragedy. It was still too close to touch - an ugly reminder that Starfleet wasn't infallible, that millions had died because they were too slow, too wrapped up in bureaucracy to act. The survivors weren't encouraged to share their experiences. Everyone else had moved on; it was supposed they had done the same.

"If you have not been sleeping adequately, it will affect your efficiency in reacting to challenging situations-" Kirk wasn't getting enough rest. Spock could deal with that. He could take some of Kirk's shifts, and maybe talk McCoy into getting him sleep meds.

"My efficiency's fine, Spock." Kirk's voice was flat.

"You cannot simply ignore this and hope it will disappear on its own. You are human. You are unequipped for such a battle."

Kirk gave an incredulous snort. "And you wonder why I haven't told you. You just don't get it, Spock, do you? I dealt with all this years ago. I'm not going to let a handful of bad experiences dictate who I am. I already beat this once."

"I can see that you are coping admirably on your own." Spock hadn't meant to say it with such acidity, but there wasn't any kindness left in him to soften the words with. All he had was the bitter sting of not being quite good enough, not being trusted enough to know that Kirk was in pain.

"Yes, well, fuck you too. I'm not like you; I can't just watch my friends get shot in front of me and then waltz off to another day on the job-"

"You are exactly like me!" Spock winced as his voice echoed in the small cave and brought down the volume. "You did not think, not even for an instant, that watching those you love die in front of you while you are utterly powerless to stop it would be something I understood? You did not stop to contemplate that being one of the few survivors of genocide would be familiar to me? And it did not occur to you that when I linked our minds together, creating a type of resonance not even Vulcans understand fully, that all this might be relevant?"

"No."

A small, detached part of Spock noted that it had been several months since he'd last had the urge to slap Kirk against the nearest wall and punch the marrow out of him.

"No, I, um-" Kirk inched away from Spock. "You're smoldering."

Blind, insensitive, foolish Human. Spock took a deep breath and imagined his shields in all their egg-shell glory - perfect, solid, and impossible to see through. Kirk's emotions were a mess, and he did not need the fireworks display the bond put on whenever Kirk was worked up.

Kirk, in an excellent example of his inability to see common sense even when provided with a microscope and detailed directions on where to find it, grabbed Spock by the shoulders.

"Don't do that. Let me explain. Don't just logic it all away."

Spock raised both eyebrows. Kirk hastily withdrew his hands.

"I was pretty small when Tarsus happened." Kirk dug his fingers into the moss by his side, as if anchoring himself. "Well, I thought I was old and wise, but I've thought that since I was five. My mom was having a bit of trouble with Earth - after my dad died, she had trouble with a lot of things - so she decided to give us a fresh start. Start again somewhere quiet where no one had heard of George Kirk, just me, my brother and her. And for a year or so it was - well, it was the happiest I've ever been. I had my family.

"I've read official reports at the Academy, and they got bits of it right. There was disease, and the fires they used to burn out the disease, and animals dead in the fields because after the fires, there just wasn't anything. The new colonists, the ones without much stashed away, were just left to starve. We got desperate." He gave Spock a sidelong glance. "Really desperate."

"I understand."

"Eventually, everyone new to the planet got a blanket blacklist - that meant everyone who wasn't part of the original group of settlers, Governor Kodos' group. They rounded us up, killed us, and those who didn't get caught found some nice caves to live in."

"You know what happened. They finally caught up with the last of us - me, my brother, and about fifty others. Kodos executed over half before Starfleet came. My brother and I were placed in our uncle's care back on Earth. I... think my mother probably died. We got separated and surviving Tarsus took a special kind of -"

"Determination?" Spock suggested gently.

Kirk nodded. "She was seeing ghosts already. She wouldn't have cared enough to fight, or steal, or whatever it took to get food."

Spock wondered if he should speak. He wanted to have better words than the ones that occurred to him.

"My uncle never knew what hit him." Kirk picked at the moss. "He was a jerk, but he'd had a pretty quiet life until then - and suddenly, wham, he's got two traumatized kids on his hands who hated him because he's not their parents, and he's got no idea what to do with them. Sam was... er... inventive..."

Spock could only imagine the carnage.

"That was the first time I beat the nightmares. I did stupid stuff for years. I almost drove a car off a cliff, once. So I figured, if I could face that..." Kirk shrugged. "The stupid stuff stuck, even after therapy."

"Why did you not inform me of this?" Spock asked again.

"Because after Vulcan, you were so fucking together and dignified -"

In what universe, thought Spock, does indiscriminate homicidal rage count as 'dignified'?

"- once you got over your little Klingon outburst. You'd just lost your mother, I know how that felt - I knew exactly how to use it against you because I'd been there - I wasn't about to go up to you and say 'Hey, Spock, I know you're hurting right now, and you're doing fantastically well; let me tell you about some dreams I'm having because something vaguely similar happened to me, once, and - why, no, I didn't take it quite so well. Spent a few years drunk off my ass, now you ask. Had lots of indiscriminate, if fantastic sex - yes, felonies too, almost as bad as the ones I committed on Tarsus, I think they still keep a cell in the Riverside Penitentiary with my name on it-"

"Perhaps not all of that," said Spock, "but 'I know how this feels' would have been appreciated."

"I know," Kirk said, and much to Spock's trepidation, he ran a hand from Spock's shoulder down his arm, letting it rest on his elbow for a few moments before cupping Spock's hand in his own. Like the touch after Spock had blacked out in the Spore, Kirk's fingers against his felt as an embrace would. A part of Kirk wound tight around him, and Spock gave in to the implicit apology in the gesture.

"You have been having nightmares for a year," he said.

"A few."

Spock raised an eyebrow.

"A few. Really. It didn't get bad until after Niamh." Kirk held up a hand. "Don't say it. Yes, I did get help. Bones knows about me. He was my roommate at the Academy, and he saw me very, very drunk once." Kirk frowned. "He's scarier that you are when he's pissed off." He gave Spock's hand a small squeeze. "Apparently, I'd been talking in Vulcan in my sleep while he patched up my leg. He weaseled the fact that I was having nightmares out of me, gave me a hypospray to the shoulder, made me promise not to do anything stupid, and went off to do research."

"The nightmares started to occur at approximately the same time in my case. The fact that you seem to have picked up on my natural speech patterns would suggest that the bond has enabled us to communicate on a sub-conscious level."

His conversation with the older Spock raised some questions. Spock wasn't quite sure how exactly a bond meant they were having shared nightmares, but he was fairly certain that it was his fault. T'Lema, dreamwalker, Vulcan telepathic warrior, two-for-one reliving of trauma at a reduced rate.

Surak, even his inner voice was beginning to sound like Kirk.

"The effect will disappear when Ambassador Sorel severs our bond," he reassured Kirk. "I apologize profoundly for the distress I have caused."

"No offense taken where none is..." Kirk trailed off, lighting up as if a switch had been flicked somewhere in his brain. "Ha! That's why you stayed up all night yesterday. I thought you'd just be all, 'oh, dreams, how illogical', but you haven't been sleeping either. You're just as scared as I am!" His voice was somewhere between delighted and sympathetic. "You sneaky, hypocritical bastard. You didn't tell me that you were having nightmares because you were embarrassed!"

Spock ducked his head. "...Affirmative."

"And you had the gall to tell me off." Kirk laughed softly, then slid his arms around Spock in a real, physical hug. "Christ, we both need therapy," he said.

"Perhaps," Spock suggested, "sleep would be a more viable option at the moment. As you pointed out, we still have some distance to cover."

"Well, yeah." Kirk said. He ducked his head. "Um, Spock? This whole 'resonance' thing - do you think maybe you could dampen it somehow, just 'till Sorel fixes it? It's not exactly pleasant. I'm coping with the whole Tarsus thing, but having flashbacks whenever you mess with my head isn't exactly making it easier. I think I've been seeing bits of Vulcan mixed up with it, too. Plus, it kinda feels like someone's having a party in my parietal lobe with a jackhammer."

"I will attempt to improve my shielding."

"Wonderful."

"On one condition - in the future, you will tell me about anything that might affect our bond. I understand that there are parts of yourself, and your past, that you do not wish to share. I am, however -" Spock bit back on the ashy taste at the back of his mouth. "I am not infallible. My shields are mediocre at best. There are dangers inherent in being bonded to an unstable Vulcan - especially for a psi-null individual - and it is necessary that I have the necessary information to protect you. If I am inadvertently projecting information and images, I am less able to keep our minds separate than I thought."

"Yeah. Yeah, ok. I can do that."

Spock waited for a moment to see if anything was immediately forthcoming and breathed a sigh of relief when Kirk just shrugged and yawned.

"Goodnight then, Jim," said Spock.

If Kirk hadn't been pressed against him, he wouldn't have caught the faint tremor humming through the human. Kirk pulled back and bit his lower lip, considering.

"Unlike some others, I slept last night. I'll keep watch."

Spock didn't need the telepathic link to translate that into: 'I don't want to go back to sleep. I can't face another nightmare right now.'

He sighed. "There are dark circles under your eyes."

"Mud?" Kirk suggested.

Perhaps it was the semi-darkness that did it. They'd spent so long in the damp caves it was easy to forget a world existed outside. Sunshine, five year missions and the Enterprise seemed very far away. It was one of those moments that sometimes occur late at night; Spock had seen it once or twice. People would open themselves, secure in the knowledge that they were operating under different rules now, that when the day broke nobody would mention what had been said or done- selective social amnesia brought on by nightfall. Perhaps it was only because it was Jim; Spock had thought about this, driven himself to distraction over the way Kirk would drape himself in the captain's chair, and wondered how the lazy, indolent lines of his body would fit against Spock's. Spock found it startlingly easy to wrap himself around Kirk and bury his nose in his hair. "I've got you," he echoed.

It still didn't make any sense, but judging by the way Kirk eased down until they were both stretched out on the ground, he found it reassuring. Spock kept one arm around Kirk's shoulders, holding him against his chest. Kirk slung an arm across his waist, burrowing in against Spock in a possessive manner. Kirk was warm, like the science console on the Enterprise, vibrating softly with energy - pulse points and huffed breaths against Spock's clavicle. Despite the overwhelming odor of must, sand and sweat the clung to both of them, Kirk still smelled vaguely like home; bad-quality, Starfleet-regulation soap and machine oil. He was such a solid, sprawling weight, with patches of bare skin on his hands, neck, knees and face all burning against Spock.

Spock tightened his arms a little, shifted so that Kirk was settled along him, molded to him, filling the hollows above his hips and beside his shoulder with his body. The corner of Kirk's mouth was soft against Spock's neck. With each breath Kirk drew, air trickled across Spock's skin with the most delicious whispers of heat, and moisture; because Spock's shields were down, and if echoes of Kirk's mouth felt that good, Surak, he should turn them over, use gravity to mold them even closer, until every plane and curve of their bodies were fitted and their lips and tongues as well, he should take everything Kirk would give him. Lock their legs together and bare more of those burning patches of skin. Spock felt drunk on the smell of Kirk, drunk and suddenly ravenous, and he shifted his leg to wrap around Kirk's before he realized what he was doing.

And froze. Kirk's pulse was hammering, mirroring his own. Spock thought if Kirk moved away now he might just die; it was hyperbole, illogical, but that aching, sucking hunger that Kirk awakened in him would surely consume him if Kirk took all he was and shifted away. Kirk was tense, muscles locked to fight or fly, and Spock realized that he was just as unnaturally still.

Then Kirk twisted his head a little, brushed his mouth along Spock's collarbone, and Spock bit his lip bloody before he noticed that Kirk was talking, muttering faint vibrations into his collarbone.

"I watched you die three times this week."

Spock's heart broke a little for his friend.

"I am not leaving, Jim. Sleep."

Kirk huffed. "Not goin' anywhere. Like you could walk another step after today." But he still tightened his grip on Spock's waist, and Spock bit back a smile. The crackling tension softened, and Spock was abruptly conscious of just how exhausted he was.

Spock pressed a soft kiss to the top of Kirk's head and waited for him to fall asleep.