11.

Spock's eyebrow shot up. "That would be highly illogical, since it is theoretically impossible to alter an event that has already happened."

"Theoretically impossible," Kirk agreed with emphasis. "But I have a sneaky feeling that whatever time loop we are stuck in, it isn't linear. Besides, according to the self-consistency principle, time paradox by itself is impossible, yet here we are."

"A valid statement," Spock conceded gracefully. "Paradoxically, the only consistency in the temporal anomalies we have encountered lies in its inconsistency."

Kirk scratched his chin thoughtfully, frowning. "Y'know, the more I think about this, the more I feel like we are getting played," he said, crossing his arms and glancing skyward. "And you know how much I don't like getting played."

"Indeed," Spock noted with a hint of bemusement. "Nevertheless, the possibility remain that — "

He was cut off when the air around them rippled.

"You felt that too, right?" Kirk said, eyes wide. "Every time there is a temporal disturbance, the air does that. I think we are about to — "

A palm suddenly thrusted out of the darkness. It made a tentative grope around them, opened and closed its fists experimentally, then hang limp.

" — see that," Kirk finished, drawing out each word in slow disbelief.

Spock eyed it speculatively. "I believe the hand belongs to Lieutenant Uhura," he observed.

A curious thought crossed Kirk's mind. If he didn't know better, he would have scratched her palm, just because he could. Despite himself, Kirk snorted.

Spock poised an articulate eyebrow. Kirk glanced sideways and grinned: he sensed, without a doubt, that the Vulcan knew exactly what he was thinking.

"So," He declared, peering at the empty palm, "According to the script, this is where I take her hand, then run like my tail is on fire until we hit the lake again." He paused and furrowed his brows. "By which point I could disappear into the thin air, because Uhura never saw me."

"The remaining sequence of events comprising this particular loop is yet unclear," Spock agreed. "However, if we do not complete it, we may very well risk being sent back to that point in time, as we would never have left the corridor."

"We have to try," Kirk said, shaking his head and backing way from Uhura's hand, careful not to make contact. "I'm not just going to follow some grand design, even it is fixed in time." He mulled over the thought in his head, feeling vaguely uneasy. "Besides, I have a feeling I don't want the events to unfold the way it did. Or will. Ergh, I've always hated time paradoxes."

Spock lifted an inquisitive brow. "Have you been given more information on your predestination curve?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." Kirk sighed, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "It's just — I keep seeing this...this image, in my head, ever since we came down here. Only I don't think it's —" He hesitated. "We have to break the loop," he said finally, meeting Spock's eyes, then lowering his gaze by a fraction. "I — I think something will happen to you if we don't."

A brief look of surprise flitted across Spock's face. "Fascinating," he murmured, voice dipping low. "I had been under the impression that I should be vigilant of, and prevent, a similar fate from befalling you."

Kirk dropped his arms. "Wait, me — ?"

Spock bowed his head in confirmation, then looked up with an indecipherable expression. "Although it is impossible to pinpoint the exact event it is referring to," he said quietly, "I have, at least, concluded that there could be no other person who could serve as the point of reference in the warning that I gave myself."

Kirk stared, almost afraid to parse what he was really hearing. Swallowing, he fought against the strange flutter in the pit of his stomach, one that had nothing to do with where he was.

"Spock — " He inhaled, seized by a sudden, irrational feeling of being on the verge of a deep dive. " — Why did you come back for me?"

Spock parted his lips, hesitated, then closed it.

"The same reason you went back for me," he answered finally.

Kirk considered this, then smiled. "Because you are my friend?" he ventured softly, feeling bittersweet in more ways than one.

Spock said nothing. For a moment Kirk remembered the Vulcan's eyes behind the glass: full of anguish and apprehension, torn by helplessness, desperately trying to hold on. He thought he had seen a tear, then, and remembered musing over the myth that Vulcans do not cry, before telling himself that Spock was just as, if not more, human. He remembered his hand, pressed against the cold glass, numb at the fingertips, hoping illogically for a last touch of the warmth...

Kirk blinked. Then blinked again; Spock was slowly tracing two of his fingers over Kirk's own.

"Oh," he breathed. Something was threatening to rip from his chest. "Oh."

Spock lowered his eyes, then raised them back up again. "I believe," he said slowly, "I finally understand. — Ashayam."

Kirk's breath hitched. The reverence adhered to that single word was palpable, filled with hope and quiet devotion, a gift on its own. There was no ambiguity, no hesitation, no room for doubt; Spock's eyes were impossibly bright. A rare and vulnerable expression stretched open across his normally controlled features, the most beautiful enigma Kirk had ever seen.

It took Kirk a full five seconds to realise that he had yet to give a reply. He opened his mouth — yes yes god yes — and said,

"For the record? I'm still not eating salad with you."

A fleeting look of utter bewilderment crossed Spock's face and Kirk laughed, diving forward for a kiss. He brought up Spock's hand to his cheek, fingers still entwined, and Spock ran a light touch over his face; a torrent of emotions ricocheted between their shared skin, stronger and headier than anything Kirk had ever experienced. The back of his hand still stung painfully, and he could taste some of his blood on Spock's lips, but he did not care; his chest was about to explode and it felt like the most incredible thing in the world.

Kirk felt like he was being rocked on his feet, the entire axis of his world tilting and swaying. He was still vaguely marvelling over the power of Vulcan telepathy when his feet made a slip, making him realise belatedly that actually, he was being rocked on his feet.

The ground beneath them shook. An ominous rumble thundered close, somewhere above their heads, propelling a gush of dust over their shoulders. They pulled apart, and stared at each other.

"Fascinating," Spock commented, eyes widening by a fraction, a visible tinge of green in his cheeks.

Kirk let out a small laugh. He was still too engrossed in the high to really care about anything, even the threat of an apparent cave-in. "Typical," he said breathily, "I have one moment of unreserved happiness, and the sky starts to fall in."

"To find causation in these two events is highly illogical," Spock remarked, sounding both wry and privately pleased. Small stones began to drop around them; it appeared the tunnel was beginning to yield under the quaking pressure.

"I think we broke the loop," Kirk said, grasping Spock's hand and squeezing it tightly. The disembodied parts of their past selves were long gone, dissolved into the darkness when they were not paying attention. "Among other things."

"It does appear we have destabilised the entire temporal environment," Spock remarked, standing close to Kirk and narrowing his eyes through the dust.

"You know, this could very well be it," Kirk grinned wildly, a mad rush of endorphin mixed with adrenaline in his system. "You gave up your Captaincy for one kiss. If we are lucky, Lieutenant Riley may sing about us when he's drunk."

"I find that I do not care," Spock replied, foregoing the comment on statistical likelihood of survival versus human illogic. Backing away from the unstable ceiling until they had nowhere to go, he scanned the collapsing tunnel with a contemplative look. "I also believe — "

A loud crack drowned the rest of Spock's sentence. A huge slab of stone fell down and landed just a few metres from their feet, throwing a sharp ray of light into the corridor, and dissipating the darkness. Almost on cue, a burst of lively noise filtered through the falling rubbles, throwing everything into keen relief:

"— Now the bleedin' sky's fallin' down — "

"— Crazy hobgoblin had to run after our crazier Captain — "

"— This thing's falling apart people we need to move — "

"— Look out — "

"— Goddammit when I find Jim I'm going to hypo him to Tuesday — "

"— This way this way this way!"

Five scrambling silhouettes emerged from the dust and skidded to a sharp halt, just after a boulder took down another section of the wall. Dumbstruck, they stared at Kirk and Spock, mouth hanging open.

"We thought ye 'ere dead!" Scotty shouted, first to recover. "Ye bastards!"

"You are welcome," Kirk said quickly, hopping just as another piece of rock crashed to his feet. "Listen, we think — "

"Jim!" McCoy lurched forward, medi-kit swinging madly by his side, "We figured it out — "

"Keptin, it's a predestination paradox!" Chekov proclaimed, hands over his head and squinting through the scatter of dust. "Your hand came through — "

"And apparently it was my arm you had a taste for," McCoy said, pointing to his short sleeved uniform. "Like I was gonna allow that to happen — "

"I told 'em if we were gonna have a shot at gettin' outta this, we gotta take matters into our own hands, innit — " Scotty interjected, gesturing wildly and getting pulled aside by Uhura just before a large chunk of the ceiling came down, narrowly missing his toes.

"— so we did nothing, and broke the loop!" Chekov finished, letting out a huge sneeze.

"Good!" Kirk yelled over the crumbling noise, "That's exactly what we did!"

"You too?" McCoy shouted back, "No wonder this place is going to shit!"

"I think that's a good thing!" Kirk replied, agilely skipping over a piece of the wall. "We need to find an exit, now!"

It was as if the time bubble itself was collapsing. As the quake increased in its intensity, he could see the small chamber that they fell into not far away, the writing on the wall peeling off as the entire cave shook. In the opposite direction, the lake sank into the ground, swallowing up the surrounding rocks with a sickening squelching noise. Kirk waved his hand frantically, peering through the storm of dust: there must be a way out here somewhere...

"There!" Sulu shouted, pointing at a bright burst of light coming through in the distance. Just as everyone turned, however, the ground suddenly gave a lurch; the tunnel started to sink, angling impossibly downwards until a stream of small pebbles rolled down the path and disappeared into the hole of light.

Sulu did not miss a beat once he regained his balance. "Looks like we are going down!" he called, bracing himself against another ripple of reverberation.

"Are we crazy!? This thing just turned itself into a bleedin' slide!" Scotty exclaimed, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "One boulder comin' down that way, and we turn into one giant black pudding with a side of mushed peas!"

"Peas? Is that a derogatory reference to — "

"I think he's just hungry again — "

"Scotty, I swear to god —"

"WILL YOU ALL GET A FUCKING GRIP!" McCoy bellowed, arms flailing as they staggered on the quaking ground. "I wanna getta hell outta here, YESTERDAY!"

"Let's go let's go let's go!" Kirk called, hopping down the slope and making headway in a outpouring of rubbles.

They skidded down the path, McCoy yelling "I — HATE — THIIIIIS — " on the top of his lungs. Behind them, the tunnel crumpled like a long string of dominoes, spitting broken rocks at their backs. Glancing around wildly to avoid the falling debris, Kirk pulled out his communicator and hit the hailing frequency with all his might, crossing his fingers and sending his prayers to six different deities across three star systems.

"Kirk to Enterprise," he shouted, "Enterprise, come in!"

"Enterprise," the voice of a young ensign crackled through the device. "Captain Kirk! We were — "

"No time for that now!" Kirk barked, heart thumping wildly in his chest and feet dancing a mad zigzag through the wrecked path. "Track my comm and beam us up as soon as we are in the clear!"

A muted flurry of orders being passed down the other end, then, "Your signal is still being obstructed by some unknown material," the ensign replied urgently. "We will beam you up as soon as we are able, but you need to get out in the clear, sir!"

"We will we will we will!" Kirk cried, wanting to taste the freedom so much it almost hurt. "Transporter room standby! Kirk out!"

He snapped his communicator shut just as the ceiling above their heads growled ominously. There was a loud tremble, followed by a sickening crack, then Uhura screamed, jerking back just in time.

Kirk watched, horrified, as a large piece of the ceiling broke off, and rocks from the cave above tumbled in. His stomach gave a panicked lurch: they were still too far away from the exit, and the cascade of the debris was falling too fast, —

"It's going to block it!" Sulu yelled, just as another boulder landed on the side, and began to topple downhill.

"Watch out!" Kirk cried, but a dash of blue was quicker; Spock burst through a torrent of rubble with feline grace and backed the falling rock against what remained of the wall.

"Spock!" Kirk's heart made a flip flop in his chest as he leapt forward blindly, "What are you — this is no time to play the damn hero!"

"Captain, evacuate the crew," Spock said through gritted teeth.

The rock was momentarily halted, but Kirk could see that even with the superior Vulcan strength, it was not going to hold. The window of escape was rapidly diminishing, and he could not waste another second —

"Everyone out! Go!" Kirk shouted, slipping beside his First Officer and shouldering some of the weight, however small his contribution might be. "Beam the hell outta here the moment you go outside, that's an order!"

"Captain!" Scotty said, scrambling close and nearly falling over on all fours. "We're not leavin' ye 'ere — "

"That's an order, Mr. Scott!" Kirk bellowed. "We can't hold on any longer, just get the fuck out of here — Bones! We will be right behind you, get your ass out of here — NOW!"

The last of his crew had just climbed through the hole when Kirk heard another sickening crack. He looked up, and to his abject horror, saw a volley of stalactites shooting down from the cave above, directly at his head.

In the split second that followed, Kirk's mind had a stretched moment of impossible clarity: he heard his name before it left Spock's lips, felt his body tilt before Spock pushed against him, and knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened.

Time re-tilted itself on its axis, and Kirk stared down at Spock's body, contorted and terrible, a large pool of green blood seeping through his shirt.

It was both better and worse than he had dreamed: Spock's eyes were imploring into him and he could feel the short, wet puffs of air brushing against his cheek, but the slickness on the Vulcan's chest was making it difficult to hold on. He was overcome by an insane urge to laugh and cry at the same time; something red and hot was eating him inside, alive. This was exactly what he had hoped to prevent, yet Spock was, once again, right: the paradox was such that he only completed his predestination loop by trying to break out of it.

"Spock... Come on..."

Warm fingers snapped around his wrist and Kirk gasped; it was nothing like his dreams. The blank canvas that appeared in his dreams was flooded with emotions and intricately weaved thought, too much to take in at once; he thought he would explode from the inside. Somewhere at the back of his mind, however, he knew how this was going to go, and he feared for it — it was too much and too terrible to imagine. But there was no delaying it.

"Spock!"

Spock's eyes locked onto his, and long fingers reached for his temple; Kirk gasped, his eyes stung. Desperately grabbing for Spock's hand, he leaned into the touch, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yes, do it, do it, do it!"

A blinding light, then the world went dark.

A/N: and the story, too, comes to a full loop ;)