A/N: I'm sorry to those who got an alert for this chapter at the same time as the alert for chapter 34. It's…a long story, but the short version is that keeps on glitching up on me and I think I just need to accept 24 hours of confusion with every update, instead of worrying about it and trying to fix it, which I am not good at doing.

Thanks to those who left a review, and please, if you read, do review.

x

"So," Pike says, and leans back to give Spock that certain look, questioning and searching both, as if he could read Spock's thoughts if he only looked long enough. Spock remembers that look well from his time serving under Pike during his training mission. Spock was a Vulcan, true, famously opaque, perhaps the first one that Pike had ever met, but he was also a subordinate officer, and Pike had learned how to read his men and women no matter what planet they came from. If Spock was a challenge to that talent, he would rise to meet it. He is still the only human under whose scrutiny Spock feels himself ill at ease and truly vulnerable, and he forces himself, now, to meet that gaze calmly. "So, it's official."

"Almost," Spock corrects. "However, my mind is completely made up."

Pike taps his fingers against his desk. "Hmmm," he says. He thinks Spock is lying, that's clear enough. He thinks that if he finds the right words, he could still persuade Spock to alter his decision. But he didn't come here to be convinced. He only came to hand in to Pike the last of the work he has completed for the preparation of the Enterprise mission, the barest of pretexts for what is essentially a social visit. It has been weeks since he last had time to speak to Pike, a man he once considered a mentor, and he must admit to himself that he already misses their old conversations.

"No chance to entice you back to the service, then?" Pike asks.

Spock shakes his head. "No. I will remain in San Francisco until relocation to the new Vulcan colony begins, and then my son and I will move to that planet. My people need me, Admiral." He says this last quietly, almost under his breath, and he can't quite look Pike in the eye as he says it, either. He watches the way Pike taps his fingers, still, unceasingly but slowly, against the desk edge.

"And you don't think that Starfleet needs you?" he asks, after a moment. He picks up the disk that Spock handed him as he sat down, his last official contribution to Starfleet, and looks at it as if it, by itself, warranted some examination.

"I have heard the arguments uncountable times Admiral—"

"I know." He sighs. "I see when I'm defeated. But you do know that serving in Starfleet and helping the Vulcan colony don't have to be mutually exclusive? Starfleet is one of the most important organizations in the Federation, and Vulcan is one of our founding member planets. We're devoted to helping in any way possible and the colony will need that support. The question is, will the colony accept our aid? There are still some who feel that Starfleet is too Earth-based and, somehow, untrustworthy—"

"I am aware of the politics of the matter," Spock interrupts.

"Of course." Pike clears his throat and tries to recover, as if he hadn't just been speaking to Spock the Starfleet Officer, forgetting entirely that he was also speaking to Spock of Vulcan. "And you know that the relationship between Starfleet and the new colony will be an important one. You could be a great help to that endeavor, Spock. You would be able to live on New Vulcan, to…to fulfill whatever plans you have there, and still serve in Starfleet."

He doesn't answer, at first. The suggestion is not an impossible one, and it is even one he's considered. But what strikes him now is not what Pike is saying but the tone he's using, an insistence there that Spock never thought he would hear from him, from this man whose orders he is long accustomed to following, and seeing followed, without question. "It is important to you," he says slowly, "that I stay in the service."

"Yes." He does not hesitate to admit it, and he stares at Spock with all of the confidence of an experienced captain. "You're good, Spock. I've said it before and I'll say it again; there's no simpler way to put it. You're a talented officer and this Fleet has lost a lot of talented officers recently. We can't afford to lose anymore."

"I am only one person, no different than the others."

"No, Spock, you aren't. Look," he leans forward, then stops, as if on the verge of giving away a secret that was never made for Spock's ears. "I wouldn't pick just anyone to be my First Officer on the Narada mission. I would certainly never pick a Lieutenant who was only two years out of the Academy and whose only experience in space was a one year training mission if I didn't think that Lieutenant was someone special."

Spock only watches him, for a long moment. He's not sure if Pike intends him to be complimented, or impressed, if he believes he is succeeding in changing Spock's mind through these commendations, but all he can think is that Pike doesn't understand. He doesn't see. Some failures are unforgivable.

"I hope you can understand, Admiral," he says, "that I would prefer to make a clean break with the service."

He does not say: I would prefer to devote myself to my son, to protecting the family that I have left. I would prefer to promise only what I can give, to one person, one husband, instead of to an organization or a Federation. He only meets Pike's gaze, and does not blink.

Pike looks away first. He sighs and taps his knuckles, once, against the desk. "You're stubborn."

"I am sure of my decision."

"I'm stubborn too. I don't like losing good men for bad reasons—"

He stops himself abruptly, but the only response Spock gives is to quirk an eyebrow up. "Bad reasons?" he says slowly.

Pike passes one hand over his face, a surprising gesture of regret and embarrassment that Spock had not expected of him.

"You believe that I have made my decision because of my history with Captain Kirk?" he asks. "I have lost my planet. I have lost my mother. I almost lost my son." He does not need to say these things. It is unseemly that he should, as if he owed anyone, even a former superior officer, an explanation of this private decision. But he cannot stop. "My priorities have changed, Admiral, and for good reason. I would not throw away a career for such personal reasons as the ones you seem to be ascribing to me."

For several moments, Pike doesn't look at him, nor answer him, just sits with his hand shading his eyes, as if deep in thought. "Your relationship—past or present—with Jim Kirk is of course none of my business," he says finally, slowly. He lets his hand fall back down to the table again. He meets Spock's gaze. Spock still hasn't let it slip, still has that same, hard, defiant look in his eyes. "I'm not trying to talk to you about that. What I'm telling you, Spock, is that if you change your mind, at any point, and want to return to Starfleet, you have an ally in me. I can't get you on the Enterprise, but I could find you a place on another ship, or in some other capacity in the service."

He's not sure if Pike can be believed. Spock has tried Starfleet's patience and he knows it; his summer of indecision was over weeks ago and still his resignation remains just to the side of official. He can't believe that there could be a second chance, a chance to undo his decision, or else he might never make it. He can't look back. He almost tells Pike just this, but then he swallows back the words. "I thank you," he says, instead. "You understand that I consider my decision to be final—"

"I understand."

Even as he says this, he looks at Spock as if he knew something Spock didn't. It is that gaze, more than any of the words they spoke, that stays with him even after he leaves Pike's office, through the rest of his day and into the night, as he stars at his ceiling waiting for sleep.

x

"Father and I used to live in this neighborhood," Sevin tells him, as they round the corner onto the street where Jim lives.

"Really?" He's not particularly surprised, or shouldn't be: plenty of Starfleet students rent apartments in this part of San Francisco. It's cheap housing near the Academy campus, readily available if the dorms are full or if, like Jim, you find yourself tired of dorm living before graduation comes. Still, it's strange to imagine Spock walking these same streets, holding Sevin by the wrist or maybe—he must have been so young—carrying him in his arms. For all the times he'd visited Jim here, he'd never mentioned it.

"Yeah," Sevin answers. "I don't remember it, though. I was really little."

Here is another thing Jim never knew, another thing he must imagine with only his scant, poor evidence for help. He has this strange idea, for just a moment as he keys them into the building's lobby, that Spock lived in this very building, in the very same apartment that Jim and Bones live in now. It is just a flash of an idea, no more. Still, for that moment, he feels able to imagine it all, that time he missed and can't get back.

They take the lift up, Sevin taking in whatever details he can as he asks, "How long have you lived here?"

"Oh…about two years. My roommate and I moved in after our first year at the Academy."

"You said he was a doctor?"

"I did. He became a doctor before he joined Starfleet, and he's going to be the head of the whole medical division on the Enterprise when we leave on our mission." He's not sure, even as he says it, if he should mention the ship, the five years of separation that loom over him, that loom over his son too.

He sees Sevin frown and wonders if this is what is worrying him, but instead he says, "I don't like doctors. They think I'm weird. I don't feel like…real, when they talk to me."

The lift stops with a slight bump and the doors open. Jim's apartment is at the end of the hall, and he leads Sevin there without thinking where he is going. It is all instinct, and instead his mind is racing with words he could possibly say next. Of course some people will be assholes—he can't say it, but he thinks it. And of course his kid would incite curiosity. Still, he wishes he'd been there, if not to change anyone's mind at least to tell Sevin later that people like that, they don't matter. But then, he had Spock, a father to tell him everything Jim could have told him, and still it doesn't matter, still he's learned wariness and fear.

"Give Dr. McCoy a chance anyway, okay?" he says, and keys in the code to the apartment door. "Maybe you'll like him."

Bones is sitting in the living room when they come in, trying to look like he's busy when Jim knows very well he isn't. He sets aside his reading too fast, glancing up at their footsteps like he was waiting for them. Jim introduces them—"my son, Sevin; my friend, Dr. McCoy"—and Bones tells Sevin to call him Leonard, even though Jim doesn't know anyone who calls him Leonard. Jim smiles wide, wishing that he could tell Bones by the strength of his smile just how hard he may have to work for this one, to seem trustworthy to this one. Sevin is polite, but quiet. He looks down mostly at his feet.

"I was just going to start dinner," Bones says, after a moment, as he pulls himself up from the couch. When he adds that he "could use some help, though," with an exaggerated questioning look down at Sevin, the boy nods an okay and follows him to the kitchen, Jim trailing behind.

"I help Father cook sometimes," he says, then laughs a little. "He's not very good at it, though. Usually we just replicate something."

"I wish I could tell you I had some particular talent in the kitchen to make up for it," Jim answers, smiling too, and he doesn't think about Spock trying to cook, his little boy providing assistance, or perhaps making the whole process harder, what sort of food they might have tried to make together and how it must have come out, and if he used to burn it, and end up ordering out at the last minute, as Jim used to. He does not think about any of these things. "Unfortunately, I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to cooking. If we want any decent real food around here, we have to rely on Bones."

McCoy rolls his eyes but doesn't disagree. "I can put something together if I have to," he mutters.

"Don't listen to him, Sevin," Jim stage whispers conspiratorially into his son's ear. "Cooking is one of his hidden talents."

Sevin glances from Jim to McCoy, considering, then asks him, "What other hidden talents do you have?"

McCoy sighs, and Jim can hear him mutter lowly, "Inquisitive, aren't you?" If he were speaking to an adult, the remark would have been louder, but Sevin is just a kid, and he can't be counted on to know when exasperation is exaggerated or feigned. "Well," he says, as he starts to take pots down from an upper shelf, "I'll have you know that I never lose a prank war."

"Oh really?" Jim crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows in challenge. "That's just because you've never gone up against me."

"You talk big, Kirk, but you weren't there for the University of Georgia Prank War my senior year. We broke into the President's office and—"

"Wait, wait!" Sevin interrupts. "What's a prank war?"

Jim and Bones explain, with plenty of examples to illustrate the concept, while Bones prepares dinner and Jim and Sevin assist where they can. Jim wasn't lying when he said his roommate had a secret aptitude for cooking: it's not a talent that uses he much, but he has it, and on rare occasions, when he has a free evening and they have more than a loaf of bread and a half-full box of pasta in their kitchen, he'll cook something nice for dinner and have Jim asking why, exactly, he doesn't do this more often, again?

"This is great, Bones, really," he says again, this time, after they've sat down at the kitchen table and passed around plates.

"It's like in the restaurants," Sevin tells him, and McCoy mumbles something about no need to exaggerate but thanks anyway, but secretly still seems pleased.

The process of setting the table and bringing out the food broke up the flow of their conversation, and for several minutes, the prank war memories dropped, the three eat in silence. Jim watches his son, and watches, in turn, as Sevin looks at McCoy. Sevin is staring so intently that Jim catches him, twice, paused with his fork partway to his mouth. Halfway through the meal, and with a slight hesitation, as if it has taken him this long to find the courage to speak, he asks McCoy, "Why does Jim call you 'Bones'?"

McCoy opens his mouth to answer, then quickly closes it again. He glances over at Jim, and maybe he's asking for permission or maybe just for help, but either way, Jim doesn't know what to offer. All I have left is my bones, he'd told him once, when he was running just like Jim was running, and suddenly and inexplicably Jim's thinking about Spock again. What was he running from? Not the other parent of his child, as Jim had once privately thought. His family, maybe, his society, their disapproval. The stigma of being an unwed parent, a stigma made all the worse by living among a people that tries so hard to keep these things, sex, procreation, even love, when it's there, private and hidden. Everyone knew Spock's secret. How could he have stayed?

These thoughts flash through his mind in seconds, and then he is snapped back to himself by McCoy, who is saying, "It's because I'm a doctor. 'Sawbones' is a very old nickname for doctors. Right, Jim?"

"Oh, yeah, right," he answers hurriedly, sure that Bones, at least, saw how his mind had been wandering. He brings himself back with a quick shake of his head. "From the nineteenth century, I think." He'd rather talk about Civil War doctors than about divorce, and loss, would rather Sevin ask questions about the gory origins of the name—and he does—than about McCoy's ex-wife, or whether he has children, or what his daughter is like. Bones tells him that the nickname was first used for doctors on the battlefield, because they had to amputate so many limbs. Sevin's face screws up at the thought, and he lets out a long, low, "eeeew."

"Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this at dinner," Jim remarks.

"Do you take off people's legs?" Sevin asks, as if he hadn't heard his dad's remark, and Jim can't tell if he's fascinated or terrified at the thought. He starts to feel a slight, paranoid, fear that he and Bones have just contributed to Sevin's long-held distrust of doctors, but McCoy shakes his head firmly and says, no, he has never had to perform such a surgery.

"What do you do, then?"

"Some of everything," McCoy answers lightly, with a bit of a shrug.

"Everything?"

"Some of everything. I'm the physician you go to when you're sick or when you need a checkup. I perform surgeries. I act as a psychologist, sometimes, and help people when they're feeling sad or upset. I've studied the biology of aliens—of non-humans," he corrects quickly, and shoots Jim a glance. He nods. Sevin has leaned forward in his chair, as if trying to get closer to McCoy even though the table is between them.

"A lot of Earth doctors," Sevin tells him, "think people who aren't from Earth are weird."

McCoy's face falls at the words, and Jim watches as he drops his gaze down to his plate, awkward and unsure what to say. He can guess, without either Jim or Sevin explaining, what inspired the boy's comment, and he's been frustrated with alien biology a few times himself, how it's so far, he says, from everything he first learned. Still, out loud, he frowns at the thought of those men and women. "They just haven't seen enough," he tells Sevin, "to know better."

"Have you seen a lot?"

Jim laughs shortly. "Bones is going to head the medical department on Enterprise for the next five years," he tells Sevin proudly. "By the time he gets back to Earth, he'll have seen things none of us can even imagine yet."

"Cool!" Sevin exclaims, before Bones can quite explain that Jim is exaggerating there. But it doesn't matter. He isn't, and Bones knows it. Still, his friend gives him a look that says he's an idiot, or at least, too careless; Jim calls it his 'don't-do-this-when-you're-Captain' look, though it's much older than his promotion, almost as old as their friendship itself.

"I wish you were my doctor," Sevin is saying. "You're nice. Do you know about Vulcans? Even people who know about Vulcans don't know anything about me."

Jim clenches his hands into fists beneath the table, and looks up to meet Bones's eye, the movement discreet but his feeling clear, and the look Bones gives him in return is a clear warning to hold his silence. The hint of sadness in Sevin's voice is an instant killer to Jim's mood, smothering it out like one smothers a fire; he can't help but be annoyed at the thought of his son being treated as an experiment, and the feeling is all the worse for being mixed with guilt. He can't help being human, can't help that Spock is Vulcan, and he wouldn't change either of these things if he could, and it's not as if he believes he could have altered anyone's mind, any more than Spock could, had Sevin grown up with him as a parent. But then the feeling isn't logical, as few feelings are.

"That's okay, you know," he tries to say, now. "Being the first to do something, or be something, that can be scary. But it can be exciting too."

"Like exploring space."

"Yes. Like exploring space."

Sevin smiles, a small smile that looks familiar, somehow (it's yours, McCoy will tell him later, that kid has that patented Jim Kirk smile, all right). "Father is the first half-Vulcan who's ever lived," he says. "And I'm the first quarter-Vulcan. He says that makes me special. He also says that Earth doctors are even worse than Vulcan ones when it comes to dealing with something they don't understand right away and he thinks they should have to be treated like they treat their patients to see what it's like—but I wasn't supposed to hear that last part." He blushes a little, a faint pink spreading across his cheeks and tingeing the tips of his ears, but he seems more embarrassed that he admitted to eavesdropping than remorseful that he did in the first place. After a second, he adds, "Don't tell Father I heard him, please."

Jim laughs a little and promises that it will be just their secret, and McCoy makes his promise as well, though he mutters, "Like dad, like son," under his breath afterwards.

"I wish you really could be his doctor," Jim says later, after Sevin is back at Spock's, the dishes that they feel like washing are washed and the rest are piled in the sink to remain unwashed, and the light evening of early autumn has finally descended into night.

McCoy just sighs heavily, as he falls down next to Jim on the couch. "You know I'm no expert on Vulcans," he says, as if this were really the problem.

Jim waves that concern away. "My kid's more human than Vulcan anyway, and no one's an expert in that. That's not the point." He glances over at McCoy and flashes him a grin that, when they first met, would have forced McCoy to call him out for flirting. By now he knows better. "You have a great bedside manner."

"Don't bullshit me."

"I'm not! Seriously."

McCoy raises an eyebrow at him, grimaces like he doesn't believe him still, but doesn't argue either.

"Really," Jim says again. "So you're not all smiles and forced cheeriness all the time. You know how to treat people with respect. That's what's important. That's what people need." He slaps his hands once down on his knees to punctuate his point and then, aware in the silence that this is the first time he has complimented his friend so straightforwardly and so strongly, he feels a slight hint of embarrassment. There's nothing he can say now, and nothing Bones can say in return; they only glance at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

"Sevin's a good kid," McCoy says, after a moment.

"He is," Jim agrees. "Can't take any credit for that, though." For once, he feels no bitterness when he says it, and no anger, only a welling up of regret, through which it is still hard to see anything clearly.

"No," Bones agrees, his own voice distant, "you can't. You're going to miss him, you know, when we leave."

"I know. I don't have much of a choice, though, do I? Spock is leaving Starfleet and I…even if there was somewhere else I could go, I couldn't resign."

"Guess you've finally found a no-win scenario, then."

He wants to say, you just wait, he wants to take it as a challenge; it's his instinct. But for once he thinks McCoy might just be right.

x

In chapter thirty-six, Spock versus Sevin, Jim versus Nyota, Jim versus Spock. A breakthrough, and a turning point.