Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Trek it is all property of Gene Roddenberry, J.J. Abrams, Paramount, and whoever else owns rights to the franchise. I am not making any profits off of this so please don't sue me.
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Chapter 25
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The New Vulcan night sky was a rich, inky, blackish violet and filled with many twinkling stars. The lantern lights that hung from long and thin metal poles along the railing around Sarek's veranda had been activated, bathing the outdoor area in a rich, soft golden light. Jim and Elder Selik were sitting under one of the lantern lights at the far end of the veranda where a small lounge area had been set up. The pair were each sitting in a very comfortable deck chair, gazing out at the night sky, and the quiet, night darkened desert landscape that encompassed Sarek's house.
Jim let out a small sigh before he finally spoke.
" I don't care if I have to drag him here all the way from Earth itself kicking and screaming, but one of these I'm gonna get Bones to come here." He said with a mischievous smile and a determined glint in his striking eyes as he turned to Elder Selik.
" I trust that you will not have to resort to such extreme measures, but I concur with you that Dr. McCoy should indeed visit Vafer-Tor. Speaking of Dr. McCoy, I trust that he is well?" Selik asked.
" Oh yeah, he's alright. as grumpy and bossy as ever. He's in San Francisco, the Brass asked him to quest lecture at Starfleet Medical." Jim answered.
" That is well, for I do believe that in any universe, Leonard McCoy will always be one of the most gifted physicians of the time." Selik said as warm memories of the Leonard McCoy of his own universe filled his mind. Sadly, that Dr. McCoy had passed away many long years before Spock Prime had been dispatched on his ill-fated attempt to save the Romulan home-world from the supernova. But that Leonard McCoy had lived a long and full live, and had quietly passed away at the golden age of one hundred and thirty-seven. Spock Prime had recently just turned one hundred and ninety-five himself.
" Yeah, I agree with you there, hope he has fun." Jim smiled with a small nod as he thought about his best friend all the way back on Earth.
The pair tapered off into silence after that, until Selik decide to breach the subject he had been wanting to tend to since everything he had noticed during dinner.
" What about you Jim, are you well?" Selik asked as he gazed upon the young man sitting beside him.
The softly asked question made something inside Jim shatter to a thousand pieces because in all honesty, no, he was not well, not fully. Yes, he was in love, and deeply so, but he was terrified still. And now Jim knew that in a few moments he would have to tell another version of the man he loved, the one that was a dear friend, the truly Hellish nightmare that he had barely lived through. He was going to have to relive some of the darkest days of his entire life.
Jim took in a deep breath and spoke.
" I'm okay, more or less." He said quietly.
" That is not a satisfactory answer Jim, I shall take it to mean that you are indeed not 'okay' as you have put it. I may be well on in years, but I am still perceptive enough to know that something is amiss with you. There is something wrong, something that had diminished within you to some capacity. Please Jim, I desire greatly that you tell me what is wrong." Selik said as he leaned closer to Jim and pinned him with a veiled, imploring look in his weathered eyes.
Jim felt the tell-tale burning sensation start up behind his eyeballs as he gazed into those weathered yet soulful eyes that were so different, yet so very much the same as the dark eyes of his Spock. Forcing himself to remain as calm as he could, Jim forced himself to speak with as much steadiness as he could.
" You couldn't be more right about your own perceptiveness Selik and you're right, I'm not okay." Jim said softly before he smiled humorlessly and ducked his head.
" Tell me what is wrong." Selik urged gently. " What has happened?"
Jim forced himself to look back up and meet Selik's concerned dark eyes before he took in a deep, rattling breath and spoke.
" S-Something happened... Something really, really bad happened." He all but whispered before he averted his gaze.
Silently, Selik reached out and gently tucked two fingered under Jim's chin and slowly made the young man tilt his head back up and look him in the eye as he spoke.
" The Jim Kirk I knew in my universe never bowed his head or averted his gaze in my presence, I will not accept you do so to me now. Look at me, and tell me what has happened to you old friend, because there is indeed something." Selik said in a softly commanding tone.
Taking in another deep breath to steady his nerves, and blinking his eyes rapidly to stave off the burn of tears, Jim parted his lips and proceeded to haltingly recount to Selik the Hellish events that had transpired many months ago, nearly a full year, the elder Vulcan was not aware of up until this point.
While Elder Selik was, in the figurative sense, about to have a bomb dropped onto him by Jim, back inside the house, Spock was already experiencing a verbal trouncing of his own, standing in his father's office with said father doing the verbal trouncing.
" I will not mince words my son." Sarek said gravely as he gazed intensely at his son from across his desk. " As your mother would say, what the Hell were you thinking treating James the way you did?"
Spock forced himself to keep his head up and meet his father's severe gaze, while most of him just wanted to sink into the ground and never see the light of day ever again.
" I believe that the correct explanation is that my logic was deeply flawed, and that I allowed my baser emotions to cloud my judgement." Spock said softly.
Sarek let out a sort of huff before he minutely deflated as he spoke.
" I must again reiterate that I am having great amount of difficulty making sense of your actions my son. I would be inclined to believe that your mother and I raised you well enough to be an adequate judge of character for yourself. " Sarek paused a moment before continuing.
"You and James were romantically involved for at least ten months as you have said. In all that time, James clearly grew to trust you enough to come straight to you for assistance after he was assaulted. And yet, judging by your deplorable treatment of him, you did not develop that same level of trust in him."
The Sarek shook his head and pinned Spock with a look as he spoke.
" Why Spock, why did you treat James the way you did my son?" He asked quietly. " And do not say that it was just blatant stupidity that was the cause, for I can already surmise for myself that this is not the case, that there is some other, underlying cause to your actions." Sarek added before he stepped around his desk and came to stand almost toe to toe with his child.
" Speak now my son, for I desire greatly to hear the truth straight from you." Sarek quietly ordered.
Spock barely fought off the intense urge to flinch and basically run out of his father's office/study and held his ground. He took in a deep breath before he began to speak.
" When Jim and I first began our relationship after several months of mutual courtship, I will admit without shame that I was very please, pleased beyond words even. But at some point I started to question everything from my ability to be a satisfying partner to Jim, to whether Jim would want to remain with me after a certain amount of time had passed." He began when Sarek gently interrupted.
" I am grieved that you began to doubt yourself to such an extent. However, I surmise that you did not share your thoughts of your own inadequacy with James." He said quietly.
Spock averting his gaze to the floor was answer enough for Sarek, but the Vulcan was not going to stand for Spock keeping his eyes to the floor.
" Spock, look at me." Sarek ordered sternly.
After a moment of hesitation, Spock forced his eyes to look back up and meet his father's gaze.
" I see now that not sharing you thoughts with James has cost you greatly. If you had done so, perhaps you could have begun to trust him the way he clearly trusted you before the incident occurred." Sarek said, but without any anger or malice, just a neutral observation.
It made Spock want to sink into the floor once again none the less. Steadying himself, Spock spoke.
" Perhaps, but the past cannot be altered, and the damage has been done to James, and to myself." He said quietly.
" Although I already have a good idea as to why you felt this way, I desire to hear it straight from you Spock." Sarek said.
" Why did you feel such personal inadequacy in your relationship with James, when it clearly was not the case?" He further asked.
Memories flooded Spock's mind, all of them universally unpleasant as Spock answered his father.
" I believe that my feelings of personal inadequacy stems from... It stems from my childhood. Throughout all of my adolescent years, until I left Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy, my peers made it quite clear just how un-accepting of me and my mixed heritage they were. You know full well the number of times their comments emotionally compromised me. I had liked to believe that in adulthood, I had managed to forget all of those cruel and malicious words from my youth." Spock said softly.
" But you did not forget the cruelty and malice you suffered at the hands of your peers, did you my son?" Sarek asked knowingly.
" No father, I did not, and Jim was the one who suffered for it. I allowed the taunting and cruelty I suffered at the hands of my peers affect my judgement. It caused me to always think myself inadequate, unworthy of the affections of someone such as Jim. I doubted myself, and in the process I doubted Jim, who was nothing but faithful to me throughout our earlier relationship. " Spock answered with self-loathing tinging his voice.
Then with a small shake of his head, Spock turned away from his father and made his way over to the sofa that stood against one of the walls of Sarek's office. Spock lowered himself down onto the sofa. He sat with a visible slump over his entire form. Sarek gazed at his son, feeling a small twinge at seeing his child in such a state, and also once again wishing that his Amanda was there with him, she would have known how to handle this situation far better than he could. But she wasn't here, and Spock needed guidance now more than ever. Sarek suddenly felt determination rise up inside him, chasing away his own feelings of self-doubt. Sarek made his way over to the sofa and silently took his seat next to his son.
He may not have had the experience or prowess of his late wife, but Sarek was Spock's remaining parent, and he would do all that he could to help his son through this difficult time.
The pair sat in silence for the longest time before Sarek spoke.
" Forgive me my son." He said quietly.
Spock instantly gave a small jolt at his father's words and turned in his seat to eye his father with veiled confusion.
" Why do you ask for my forgiveness father?" Spock asked.
" Because I failed you Spock, I did not adequately protect you from the malice of your peers. I should have known that the taunting and the bullying you suffered through would undoubtedly have long-lasting affects on you, mainly causing an inferiority complex to develop within your psyche." Sarek explained.
Spock was about to speak when Sarek held up his hand and silenced him.
" Spock, I say this to you know as your father, there is absolutely nothing inadequate about you. You are and always will be a child of two worlds, and no matter what others would have you believe, to your mother and myself, you are the best of those two worlds. I deeply regret that I never told you this when you were a child, that I simply told you to do what was logical, what was of the Vulcan way. Telling you to simply be a Vulcan was not at all what you needed. Because I did not adequately tend to the emotional wounds you suffered at the hands of your peers, you and James, a completely innocent person, are now having to suffer the consequences." Sarek said with as much neutrality as he could, all the while silently feeling ever single emotion that rose up inside him with brutal starkness.
Spock sat beside his father, silently stunned, but also feeling ten times worse than when this conversation with his father had first started. The pair sat in silence for several long moments before Sarek spoke.
" Spock, I believe that in this instance, your mother would tell you that the past is the past, you cannot go back and change it, but you can change what happens after, in the present and with it the future." He said as he turned his sage eyes onto his son and continued.
" Spock, the emotional wounds you suffered at the hands of your peers has festered and infected your mind and your judgement."
" That is... a very accurate assessment of the situation." Spock said quietly.
Sarek's eyes softened as he continued to gaze at his son and spoke.
" My son, do you not think that the malice and cruelty you suffered at the hands of your ignorant peers, has ruled over you for long enough?" He asked.
Spock leaned back a little as his father's words reverberated through him. Spock knew full well that his father was right, absolutely right. Enough was enough. Yes he had suffered at the hands and words of people like Stonn and Solvek in his youth, but he was an adult now, he was above them and their cruelty. Spock had thought that he was over what had happened to him as a child, but after everything that had happened with Jim, and all those months apart in which he had been able to do some introspection, Spock realized that the bullies who had tormented him still had power over him.
It was like a spark went off and everything inside Spock was ignited with determination.
" Yes father, I believe you are indeed correct, they have ruled over me for long enough, but not anymore. Not even for another second longer." Spock said, his voice hard with steely resolve as he finally met his father's gaze unflinchingly.
" It is very gratifying to hear those words finally come forth past your lips my son." Sarek said with the barest curve gracing the corners of his lips as he nodded his head in approval.
" It is equally gratifying to be the one to say them, and mean them whole-heartedly." Spock replied.
Meanwhile, back outside on the veranda...
Two men sat facing each other in the small lounge area, completely silent as they stared at one another. The silence was deafening as Spock Prime stared at Jim with his weathered eyes wide with barely veiled shock. Jim stared back at Prime with his own pale blue eyes blurred with tears, the bitter salt flowing free and carving wet trails down his colorless cheeks.
The charged silence between them lasted for several more eternally long moments until Selik blink and then rose to his feet faster than Jim thought the elder Vulcan could and began all but running towards the door that led back into the house. Jim scrambled to his feet and hurriedly caught up to the elder Vulcan, hastily grabbing Selik by the arm to stop him, knowing full well that the elder Vulcan wanted to head inside and get to his younger self.
" Selik please don't, it's not worth it." Jim said shakily as he was almost being dragged along because Selik was still moving forward.
" I do not care in the least that he his an alternate version of myself, after what you have just revealed to me, at the very least I shall have words with the idiot." Selik as he continued walking towards the door that led back into Sarek's house, only slightly hindered by the young man who was hanging onto his right arm in an effort to halt his steps.
" Then have words with his later, when you've calmed down. The last thing I want is the person I love having an all out brawl with the older version of himself. Please Selik, just stop, for me." Jim urged.
That instantly halted Selik's determined stride. Letting out a small breath, Selik turned to Jim and spoke.
" Only for you do I stop Jim." Selik said before he fully turned to face Jim and reached out towards him, his hands coming to gently cup Jim's tear-stained cheeks.
Jim barely stopped himself from dissolving into sobs right then and there, but he kept it together as he spoke.
" Please Selik, Spock made a mistake, a giant one, no body knows that more than he does. He's done a lot to get back what we lost, and right now we're at a place where things are good, really good between us." Jim said, his voice trembling somewhat.
" Describing what my younger self has done to you as a giant mistake, is probably the largest understatement I have heard in all my life. While the violation you suffered at the hands of that Antarian delegate is too vile and disgusting for words, the way my younger self treated you, his abandonment of you without so much as a backward glance is absolutely deplorable. And the rest of the crew, how could all of them be just as foolish, just as idiotic?" Selik asked.
At this, Jim averted his gaze a shrugged before he looked back up at Selik.
" I guess with the whole persona of being a 'playboy' and Spock being a Vulcan, I guess it was easier to think that I'd be the one to go behind Spock's back." Jim said with a humorless snort.
" Jim, the 'playboy' persona is just the opinions of those on the outside looking in, Spock and the rest of the crew are on the inside, you are their captain, you are Spock's romantic partner, they should not have thought so little of you, they should have been by your side Jim." Selik said as he wiped away the tear tracks that marred Jim's pale cheek before lowering his hands from the young man's face and settling them over Jim's shoulders.
" Again I reiterate, they all made some colossal mistakes, nobody in the galaxy is more aware of that than they are. It was touch and go for a while but they all pulled through, they all earned back my trust, especially Spock." Jim said with a small sniffle as he began to regain his composure.
Elder Selik looked like he had more to say, but instead he looked more closely at Jim and then a good deal of his outrage seemed to seep out of him as the elder Vulcan deflated a little.
" Please excuse my outburst, what your just revealed to me was quite... upsetting." Selik said, looking almost sheepish as the tips of his ears turned the barest shade of emerald.
Despite himself, Jim let out a watering chuckle at seeing someone who had lived so many more years than him blush with embarrassment.
" It's totally understandable." Jim said with a warm smile.
The next thing he knew, Jim was being pulled into a tight, yet surprisingly gentle embrace. Without hesitation, Jim raised his own arms and wrapped them around Spock Prime, returning the hug.
" I am so sorry this happened to you Jim." Spock Prime whispered against Jim's ear.
Jim needed a moment to battle back the sudden constriction of his throat but once the painful sensation passed somewhat, he spoke.
" Yeah, it really sucked." Jim said softly with a watery smile against Prime's shoulder.
" In-Indeed." Was all Spock Prime said before tightening his already snug hold around Jim.
" I'm alright for the most part. There's still a few things I have to work through, but I'm gonna be okay." Jim said, reassuring both himself and Selik.
" It gratifies me to no end to hear you say that, to know that the horrifying events that transpired could not destroy you like it could have other, lesser men. But then again, it is my belief that in any universe, James Tiberius Kirk will never be one to be easily destroyed by anything." Selik said softly into Jim's ear.
Well, these loving words served to effectively shatter Jim already threadbare composure. Let out a small gasp, Jim's face crumbled as he buried it into Selik's shoulder and allowed a few tears to fall. For his part, Selik simply held onto Jim, a silent but warm guardian around the young man who was in that instant, allowing himself to be fragile for a few fleeting moments.
A few minutes passed by before Jim let out a profound, cleansing breath and drew back a little so he could scrub away the new tear tracks that adorned his face.
" Thank you, I'm really glad you're here." Jim said quietly, for once not feeling self-conscious about showing this side of himself, the quiet man behind the golden Starfleet Captain persona as he drew his arms from around Selik.
The young man and the Vulcan elder stood less than arm's length as the Vulcan spoke.
" Thanks are not necessary Jim, and as for being here, well I do happen to live on this planet after all." Selik said with a mischievous glint in his sage eyes.
Jim let out a true laugh at the elder Vulcan's subtle, straight-faced humor, and it felt absolutely heavenly. When he sobered somewhat, Jim eyes Selik seriously and spoke.
" I take it that by no means does this mean that my Spock is off the hook?" He asked knowingly.
" You are correct in that regard Jim, but rest assured, I will not harm him, I will merely have some choice words with my younger counterpart, and perhaps impart some wisdom upon him." Selik replied.
" You gonna knock him upside his head?" Jim asked deadpanned.
" Perhaps that too." Selik replied in all seriousness.