A/N: This is my first foray into ST: 2009. But if it's written from Spock Prime's POV, does that really count as reboot? ;-)
Legacies
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. A friend had asked him once if there was a message contained in those words, but that had been another time, another life.
When that friend had questioned him, so very long ago, he really hadn't understood the significance of that simple statement; now, the meaning was suddenly, painfully clear. That quote was the very definition of the dichotomy that had become his life.
It was the worst of times.
Here he had lost everything – his planet, his mother, his friends, the universe as he knew it, and his place within. All that had vanished in one irretrievable instant. Thanks to one mistake, one failure, he had irrevocably changed all that he was; all that he knew.
That would be his legacy here, now, in this place, in this time, for there was no going back, no way to undo the cataclysm he had unwittingly unleashed, bringing about the destruction of the very essence of who he had been, of his life as he had come to know it.
Once upon a time he had foolishly, arrogantly believed the legacy he would leave behind would be quite different: First officer of the only ship to survive her five-year mission; architect of the peace process with the Klingons; the person who would eventually bring about the reunification of the Vulcan and the Romulan people. But this was not to be. Henceforth – if only in his own mind – he would be remembered as the man who had single-handedly altered the known universe. But for those people living here, and now, this was their reality. He was the only one who could see the echoes of that other time, that other place.
And yet, logic told him he must not focus on that. Kaiidth – what is, is. There was no point in dwelling on that which he could not change. There was so much that needed to be done now to ensure the survival of his race; to heal the wounds of this time, this reality. That would be the one, the only way to redeem himself; to make amends for his transgression.
It was the best of times.
He sighed, remembering the scene he had witnessed earlier. The James Kirk of this timeline, of this alternate reality, was receiving a commendation for his valor, his bravery, his actions that had saved Earth from following in the footsteps of Vulcan. This James Kirk had managed to thwart Nero, stopping the crazed Romulan from destroying Earth as well. This younger version was much like the man he'd left behind in another world, another time, and yet so very different.
And now, this intractable maverick had been given command of the Enterprise. There could be no other outcome. It was this man's birthright; his first, best destiny. It seemed some things were a constant no matter the parallel universe.
But there were other positives as well. His mentor and former captain, Christopher Pike, while still severely injured, unable to continue as Captain of the Enterprise, had not suffered the same fate as before. His only hope was that some good should come out of all this, to offset the tragedies that had already unfolded.
This time, his captain, his friend, need not die alone, sucked out into the void of space through a hull breach on the Enterprise B, only to emerge in the Nexus and die a second time, almost eight decades later, on Veridian III. Mr. Scott need not spend the better part of seventy-five years trapped in a transporter buffer. Perhaps his alternate self could avoid his own death – things might play out differently with Khan, if the alternate versions of those he remembered so well were to even encounter the man at all in this new timeline – thereby averting the death of Jim's son at the hands of the Klingons.
And he had set his younger self – a man still adrift, searching for himself, his place in this universe – on the path to the friendship that would come to define two men, making each stronger together than they were separately. The friendship that would ultimately grant that other self the serenity he sought, even were he as yet unaware of that fact.
This was now their legacy; he would have no further part in it. These two young men were about to embark on the friendship he remembered, had come to treasure, but that man, the brother-in-arms of his youth, was long gone. For him, there was to be no second chance. He had no right to this 'new' version of the friend he had once called brother. That right belonged to the other; the 'different,' the 'alternate' version of himself. He must now let things unfold according to the rules that governed this time and place.
He had already lived that past life; the future now belonged to the young.