A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed; 12,000 plus reviews is really pretty insane.

It's a long update this time, and I hope a satisfying one...? I consider this to be a turning point, or, maybe I should say, the first half-turn of a turning point, if that makes sense. The other half will be a couple chapters from now. I've been writing a ton on this story recently, hence all of the quick updates. I'm not sure how long that will last, no promises, but I've finally gotten to a place where writing this story is enjoyable again, so…I'm taking advantage of that as much as I can.

x

He hands in his official resignation at four and, three hours later, as they're finishing dinner, he tells his son, "Sevin, there is something I must discuss with you."

"Did I do something wrong?" Sevin asks.

Spock shakes his head quickly, and says, "No, no of course not," to reassure him; he hadn't realized just how serious he'd sounded, how sober, and he fears that he's already started this conversation in exactly the wrong way. "Sevin," he tries again, drawing out the name and the pause afterward, gathering the right phrases and choosing the right route from here, "It has been some time since we discussed the future."

"The future?" he echoes.

"Yes. You know that I have been taking time off from my work at Starfleet."

Sevin nods. "You said it would be the whole summer. It's almost October now though," he adds, as if thinking aloud, and he stares up at Spock with his eyebrows leaning in to meet over his eyes. "Are you taking more time off?"

Spock shakes his head. "I am not returning to Starfleet. I informed my superiors today that I am requesting early retirement. They made it clear after the Tragedy that they would allow this, were I to choose it."

"Okay." Sevin's tone is as unreadable to Spock as he knows his own often is to his human acquaintances. If anything, it is a placeholder, an acknowledgement only that he has heard, and no more. His gaze is downtilted now, as he pokes his fork absently into the last pieces of lettuce left over from his salad, and Spock only wishes he knew what his boy was thinking now. "I guess that's all right," he says slowly. "I liked having you around this summer. Unless," his gaze darts up, "unless you are going to be doing something else. Are you getting a new job?"

"Yes," he answers, and hesitates, but not for too long, does not let himself hesitate for too long, and adds, "on New Vulcan."

Sevin just frowns. "We're moving?" he asks, not because he does not understand, but because, Spock thinks, he wishes he didn't.

"Yes. The colony will need all of the assistance it can find. It is only logical that I should provide what I can. I must be honest, it will be an adjustment—for us both, but I believe it is the best thing."

"The best thing for Vulcans or the best thing for us?" Sevin mutters, low and angry, and Spock sharpens his own tone in response.

"For everyone," he answers. "Our lives will be more stable, safer, on New Vulcan than they could ever be, were I to remain in Starfleet. Space is dangerous, Sevin, and a career in the military is not one I believe I can pursue while being a parent to you."

"But you've always been in Starfleet," Sevin argues. "For as long as I can remember. And Jim—Dad—is in Starfleet. And so were his parents!"

His parents, Spock thinks, and tries to gauge Sevin's expression, how even though his voice is loud and defiant, his face, when he stops speaking, betrays his insecurity in his own words. His parents. His father died in space and he ran away from his mother's house when he was only seventeen. Sevin knows these things, repeated all of them to Spock after his first afternoon with his new-found parent, repeated them as if they were the greatest discoveries of the century.

Spock does not argue these points. He only makes his voice hard, uncompromising, the voice of a parent who is speaking to his child and will admit no argument, no attempt to turn them into equals. "Your dad and I have both made our decisions, Sevin. I know that this is difficult for you to understand—"

"Because it's dumb! Why can't you just…be together! You introduced me to dad and said you wanted me to be friends with him but you aren't even friends with him. You hate talking to him. And now he's going to go off and explore space and we're going to live on New Vulcan and I'm never going to see him or anyone else I know and it's not fair!"

"I know this may be difficult," Spock answers, and he keeps on talking even when Sevin tries to interrupt again, his voice loud but even, all of his defenses up, "but there is no simple solution. When you are older, you will understand." He hates the sound of his own voice, so harsh and uncompromising. Sevin crosses his arms over his chest and scowls at hm.

"Why did you leave Vulcan in the first place if you were just going to go back?" he spits.

Spock feels his chest tighten, and his spine stiffen. "I could hardly have predicted the events of the last few months," he says, voice low, more dangerous than he knows, and for the first time, Sevin sits back and draws away from him. He slumps down in his seat, insolent and withdrawn, a pout on his face.

Yes, he thinks, why, why leave that planet and its people, who looked down on him, gossiped about him, who could never accept him or his son, why leave them to try to make something of himself, only to return? Because they need him. Because they needed him when their planet was falling apart underneath their feet, when he did all he could and saved what he could, when he couldn't quite do enough. Yes, that's true, true enough, but it's not all. Really, he's returning because he needs them. Because he can't stay here any longer.

"You will understand when you are older," he tells his son. His tone is stiff, admits no argument or disagreement, and he wonders just when it was that he started to hear Sarek's voice coming out of his mouth.

"Why can't I understand now?" Sevin whines.

Because you are too young, he wants to say, but then he knows from harsh experience how dissatisfying that answer is. He draws a sharp breath in through his teeth, then leans over the table, and tries to speak as calmly as he can, rationally and inarguably. "This decision is not debatable. The best thing that we can do for our people now is to help them rebuild our society on the new colony. There is no reason to remain in San Francisco if I am no longer serving in Starfleet."

"So why can't you stay in Starfleet? With Dad?"

"Your dad and I…" He hesitates. Sevin already knows the answer to the question, has already yelled it, shattered any of Spock's illusions that he and Kirk have hidden their icy animosity from their son. "Your dad and I cannot work together anymore."

"Because of me," Sevin says, not even a question but a low, bitter declaration.

"No," Spock answers, and then again, insistent and louder than he'd intended, "No. Sevin. Nothing that is happening between your dad and me is your fault. Okay?"

"Yeah." He doesn't sound convinced, but Spock won't press him, not now. This is just another problem he can't fix, a question to which there is no answer, to gnaw at him. Maybe someday this will all seem worth it, just a small price to pay in the long run, or maybe it will grow into only another paralyzing regret.

"I still think this is dumb," Sevin informs him.

"The decision has already been made," Spock answers calmly. "You may think whatever you wish of it, but it is not going to change." He stands up, and picks up both his and Sevin's plates to take to the sink. "You will become accustomed to the idea, in time."

"Yeah, right," Sevin mutters, but this last remark, Spock simply pretends not to hear.

x

"So is it just us four tonight?" Sulu asks, as he and Scotty move his too-large dining-room sized table away from the living room wall. He's thinking he should sell it. He really won't have any use for it when he's on the Enterprise—won't have any use for most of the stuff in his apartment, while he's gone. He hopes his question comes out mildly curious, and no more, as if it doesn't really matter to him if they're six or eight or twenty for poker tonight, as if he was just idly wondering.

"Jim said he would come," McCoy answers. "He might be late, though. Said he had some sort of meeting with Mitchell that might run late."

"Is our new First Officer planning on making an appearance, then?" Scotty asks.

"Not that I know," McCoy tells them. His voice is gruffer than usual and he sounds like he's just waiting for this conversation to be over. "Probably not, unless Jim invites him."

"And you do not think he will?" Chekov sounds honestly curious on this point, but Sulu has more important concerns than whether Mitchell does or does not show, and before McCoy can quite finish shrugging off the question, he asks, "Anyone know if Uhura is coming tonight?"

He glances around, but Chekov shrugs, and McCoy shakes his head and sighs in his weary, overworked, are-we-here-to-play-poker-or-not way, and Scotty mumbles something like "Hadn't heard anything," so he just pulls back his chair and sits down. They play one hand through, but Sulu folds early. His mind is elsewhere. He ran into Uhura yesterday in the library, just by accident, and she'd been agitated and distant. He felt nervous and tongue-tied, and couldn't think of a single thing to say except the worst thing to say, which of course slipped out before he could stop it. So have you heard these crazy rumors about Kirk and Spock? He wants to hit himself now just thinking about it. He should have known better, really: gossiping about a guy with his best friend was worse than a rookie mistake; it was the sort of thing that got you cut before tryouts were over. In his defense, it's the news on everyone's tongue: not just that Starfleet's latest dream team are ex-lovers with a secret kid, but that now they're feuding on such a scale that the Fleet higher ups refuse to acknowledge it's even happening. But of course, after that, she'd gone completely close-lipped. She'd taken a deep breath first, like she wanted to give him a piece of her mind, but then she'd let it out slowly and forcefully, and said tersely that she didn't want to discuss anything that wasn't her business (or his, she might as well have said for how strongly it was implied) and anyway, she had to go. Then she was gone.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he berates himself silently now, and he doesn't even realize what sort of sour faces he's making until McCoy's voice snaps him back to the present. "Sulu! You in for this round or not?"

"Um…I guess not." He has no idea what's going on. He forces himself to pay attention to the game, the intermittent conversation, but there's a coil of anxiety balled up in his stomach that he can't quite ignore. He's waiting. He tells himself that he shouldn't, it's just the four of them tonight, that's it, but he can't force his ears to stop straining and then—then there's a knock on the door.

Everyone looks up, except for Chekov, who is trying to decide if he should fold or not, not because the knock is so interesting in and of itself, but because it is angry, almost violent, and accompanied by two loud but incoherent voices, whose argument is just short of understandable.

"I, uh, should get that," Sulu says, after a moment. Then, as if to make up for his previous inertia, when he'd first heard the startling burst of knocking and noise, he jumps up and all but runs for the door. When he gets closer he can hear the argument more distinctly, Uhura's sharp voice talking about how he just thinks he knows everything doesn't he, and for a second, he's afraid to open the door. Then there's another loud splattering of knocks, and he decides to key the thing open before they break it down.

It couldn't have been more awkward if he'd walked in on them having sex, he thinks, the way Kirk's face is flushed and Uhura's nostrils are beginning to flare. He doesn't know where to look, and he can't help thinking about how he just knows there will be a passive aggressive note from his upstairs neighbor, the one who hates noise as much as he hates confrontation, waiting for him in the lift tomorrow.

"Oh why can't you just mind your own—" Kirk is saying, like he hasn't even noticed the door sliding open or his future pilot staring at him slack-jawed and embarrassed, but then Uhura snaps her head toward him, and Kirk cuts himself off and looks at him, too.

He didn't think it could get more awkward, but that just about does it.

"Um, come in," he says stiffly, and gestures them inside.

"Thanks," Kirk says darkly, and Sulu reminds himself never to get on his Captain's bad side when they're living on a ship in the middle of space and Kirk has actual authority over him.

"Sorry we're late," Uhura says, and actually smiles a slight, small, apologetic smile at him. He smiles too wide back and tells them that the game's already started, but McCoy can deal them into the next hand, if they want.

"Sounds great," Kirk answers, but his voice sounds absent and distant and his gaze is fixed unwaveringly on Uhura as he speaks. "I'm, uh, kind of thirsty though. Do you mind if I…?" He gestures vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, and Sulu nods quickly and says something like "Yeah, yeah, of course, help yourself."

He turns back toward the living room and fully expects Uhura will follow him, but when he gets to the table and turns around, he finds she's deserted him. It's no big mystery where she is. Chekov catches his gaze and raises his eyebrows comically high, and he rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders. If his newest guests think they're being discreet, they would be sorely disappointed to learn just how audible they are to the rest of the future bridge crew in the next room over.

"Your selfishness is really appalling, you know that, right?" Uhura's voice comes at them, followed by Kirk's just after, challenging her, "I'm selfish?"

"Oooookay," Chekov says softly just under his breath, and turns his gaze down to his cards. McCoy clears his throat and Scotty asks, "Everyone in this round, then?" and everyone nods. The pact is silent but strict: they will all pretend they hear nothing. As far as they are concerned, there is nothing to hear.

"You just imagine having something like this kept from you for eight years, and by somebody you trusted, and then you can tell me that you understand where I'm coming from."

"Oh please, don't even make yourself the martyr here. It's ridiculous that you are asking me to put myself in your shoes, when you aren't even attempting to put yourself in his. Of course he didn't contact you—"

"Yes, of course he didn't, it would be a crazy idea to contact the person you're having a child with to tell him he's going to be a dad."

"Just shut up and listen for once you arrogant—"

"Not arrogant. Just angry. And I'd say I have a right to be."

"Don't you see you are blinding yourself?"

Uhura yells this last so loudly that Chekov actually flinches. Even though they are definitely not listening, because Kirk and Uhura aren't having a very loud, very personal, discussion in his kitchen in the middle of Friday night poker, the game has come to a standstill, the cards dealt but no bets made, and no one daring to meet anyone else's eyes.

Sulu tries to picture what they must look like now, standing in his kitchen glaring at each other, each probably breathing too hard. It's not the sort of fight that turns violent. It's the sort that gets stuck. Neither will admit to being wrong; neither will apologize for words spoken or yelled. The only thing to do is walk out.

But before any doors slam, McCoy raises his voice and yells at them, "Are you two playing or not?"

He expects one or both of them will leave, but they don't. They appear in the doorway together, flustered and embarrassed and each pretending the other isn't there, and then Kirk takes the spare seat between McCoy and Scotty, and Uhura the chair between Sulu and Chekov. This puts them, unfortunately, almost across from each other, but neither gives the other a glance for the rest of the evening.

Chekov tries to talk to him about it later, but he says he thinks it's probably best that they pretend they didn't hear anything. It was obvious, of course, what they were discussing, and now he can fill in the gaps in the gossip much better than he ever could have expected, or wanted. Spock had always intimidated him a bit, and annoyed him at times, too, but ultimately he'd had to admire him just as much as he admired Kirk. He'd been looking forward to serving with them both, after Kirk inevitably wore Spock down and got him to agree to the First Officer position. Now he can't help but be glad that won't be happening, not if whatever fight they're having runs this deep.

It's funny, he thinks, in a sad sort of way, that the same fight that makes it impossible for them work together is over the same person who makes it impossible for them to cut their ties. He wouldn't want to be that kid, not for anything.

x

Jim wakes up at six, an hour before his alarm was set to rouse him, and stares up at the ceiling. He'd stomped off into the shower and then to bed as soon as he and Bones got back from poker, saying only that he didn't want to talk about it and not even waiting for an answer, and now he feels like he's woken from a dream in which he reverted to the mental age of six, except it wasn't a dream, and he just can't wrap his mind around the idea that it was real. It's enough to make him grab his pillow and throw it over his face as if he could suffocate.

His embarrassment is so thick, so nauseating, coating his stomach and lungs, that it's difficult to think. He can't even remember anymore how the argument started, only that he'd met Uhura down the street from Sulu's, both of them late and so already hurrying, and from the moment they said hello the atmosphere between them was tense and uncomfortable. It felt as if they were already fighting before either had said a word.

She'd been so infuriating. What annoyed him most was not what she'd said, most of that only a blur by now, but that it was Uhura goading him, pressing his buttons, forcing out that repressed, low burn of anger that he's only swallowed down, not smothered out. He wants to fight someone, he realizes now. He's wanted to fight someone since he first confronted Spock about their son. But it can't just be anyone taking the brunt of his anger, and Spock had never quite taken his bait, only letting himself go for a moment here and there, and most of the time hiding behind that perfect Vulcan calm. He plays their conversations through again in his head and realizes, yes, he was always carefully controlled, but it was more than that, too. Spock had reacted to him like a man burdened by his own guilt. He'd seen it, at the time, but only now does he put it into words.

He sighs, and takes his pillow from his face and throws it to the end of the bed. He lies with his head flat on the uncomfortable, vaguely lumpy surface of his bed, and stares up at his ceiling. What had Uhura said to him? To imagine himself in Spock's position? He tries, but there's a block in his mind, as if there were a wall against which his thoughts can do more than hurl themselves helplessly, never breaking through. It comes from being too angry, too tense. He enjoys the time he spends with Sevin, and they get along as well as he could expect, but they do not interact like a son and his parent, and perhaps they never will. That is what he fears in his quiet moments, his irrational moments, when he cannot tell himself to be patient, that this is still new, that almost no time at all has passed and he cannot be unreasonable—the truth is that the time that was lost can never be taken back. Maybe Spock did not know what he was taking from him. Maybe there was nothing else he could have done. But the effect is the same: time lost and memories lost and chances lost, and now he has to prove himself—prove himself to them both.

That's what it is, isn't it, he almost says out loud to his ceiling. Spock thought he couldn't be trusted. Spock thought he was just some callous jerk, just some teenage Earth kid who picked up an alien for a good, quick, fuck, and would have been loath to ever hear from that one-night-stand again, especially if the guy contacted him with some sort of completely unbelievable news like I'm going to have a baby. It must have been so logical to assume, too. That's the kind of person Jim was then. That's what he seemed like, and it's not far from who he was. It sickens him and then the nausea turns to helplessness and then into anger and he goes blind again.

It just fuels that hot flame of rage to think that Spock must still think all these things of him. He passed over opportunity after opportunity all summer to tell Jim the truth. They served together. They walked back to back, phasers out, through a Romulan ship. Spock would have trusted him to take back his last message (Tell my father—) if he had died out there in the Ambassador's ship. And yet for all that, somehow, Spock still sees him as that irresponsible Earth kid, nothing more.

It's embarrassing, because he was thinking of Spock as the adult he'd become, intelligent and efficient and precise and talented and brave; he'd been thinking of Spock as someone he could trust with anything, as someone he could even love.

It's a joke. It's an utter joke.

He sits up abruptly and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, then bends his body almost double, touching his hands to the floor. It's an uncomfortable and useless position and he's not sure why he's in it—just like his life. He wants to hit things. He wants to exorcise whatever part of him it was that fought with Uhura the day before, the part of him that embarrassed himself in front of his crew, the part of him that can barely have a civil conversation with the father of his kid.

He has the morning free, unusually, mercifully free. Feeling like he does, there's really only one thing he can do with it.

x

There's a girl working behind the desk at the entrance to the gym, and she looks bored and tired, staring off into the middle distance with her head resting on her hand. He gives her a forced, perfunctory smile as he walks in. As far as he can tell, she's the only other person in the building; the locker rooms, the hallways, the weight room are all deserted. He glances over the various machines, the free standing weights, and he thinks about how long it's been since he's worked out or trained. It used to be a priority, but it's fallen low on the list in the hurry of the last weeks. He feels tense and out of shape, so he takes a few minutes to stretch and to clear his head, as well as he can, but he feels like there are knots in his muscles that he can't shake out. He wants to fight, still; he wants to punch something, to thrash something. It's a good thing that he brought his gloves.

Sam first taught him how to box when he was in high school. He was sixteen and bored and suffocating in his own house, somehow more claustrophobic without Frank there than with him, too many silent dinners sitting across the table from his mother, and the only thing he looked forward to was Friday afternoons, when Sam would take him down to the gym and teach him how to hold his hands, how to move his arms, how to punch and how to deflect and how to avoid. He'll be rusty; he hasn't kept up with the skill in the way he wishes he had, but the memory hasn't left him, the movements stored permanently in his muscles.

There are a couple of punching bags in a small room down the hall from the weight room, and he starts to walk in that direction, gloves held in one hand and brain buzzing. He's almost excited. He can't wait to work off this anger, this ugly, pulsing energy, can't wait to feel the hard shock of the punching bag against his fists. He starts jumping on the balls of his feet as he approaches the door, shaking out his hands and feet, and he lets his gaze wander and his eyes open and close, and it's purely by chance that he is looking straight up when he gets to the doorway. He stops abruptly.

He isn't as alone as he'd thought. Of all the people at the Academy, all of the students and professors and Starfleet officers living in San Francisco, the one who's chosen this particular Saturday morning to get up early and train is the last one he wants to see.

It doesn't occur to him to say hello. It doesn't occur to him to say anything or do anything, to signal his presence in any way. It feels like all he's capable of is standing in the doorway with his hands at his sides and staring, slightly open mouthed. That's Spock in front him. He's wearing a loose fitting shirt and shorts, and he looks so strange in this outfit that Jim almost doesn't believe it's him—except that Spock's someone he would recognize faster than he'd recognize his own reflection. His usually perfect hair is ruffled and out of place, and his breathing is slightly harder, more ragged, than usual, and he's wearing a pair of large blue boxing gloves and punching again and again at a human-sized punching bag at the far end of the room. From the doorway, his profile is most visible, but Jim has the distinct feeling that even if they'd been standing face to face, Spock wouldn't have noticed him. He's in the zone. Jim knows that feeling well, knows how it looks from the outside, too; it's where he'd been hoping to find himself when he stuffed his gloves in his bag before he left his apartment.

He looks good, Jim thinks, before he can stop himself. But it's true. It's undeniably true. The muscles of his arms and legs, the tight, controlled bursts of his movements, the way that he looks disheveled but not tired, not worn—Jim feels a quick jolt of heat pass through him, unwelcome and uncontrollable. He grits his teeth.

He tells his feet to step forward but they won't listen. It's some sort of trance he's in now; he's hypnotized. He wonders how long it will take Spock to notice him, and he imagines standing just where he is for hours, observing it all and taking it all in. What would he feel by the end of it? Would he be carried off into that same space Spock has found, would he feel the same release he'd been hoping to discover in the hard, unforgiving feel of the punching bag against his fists? Would his anger spend itself out in the mere act of watching, so that when Spock turns to face him he is ready to forgive all and forget all, even to apologize in his turn, and to start again? Could it ever be so simple?

Or does he need something more?

He doesn't let himself overthink this time, just clears his throat and steps forward, finally, into the room.

The flurry of Spock's movements stops abruptly. His hands fall to his sides and he turns to face Jim, and his face is blank but not unreadable: he's startled, surprised, and there are two high points of green on his cheeks. He doesn't say anything. For a moment, Jim wonders if he will run away. He doesn't imagine a literal sprint from the room, but a calm and quiet exit, in which Spock takes off his gloves and pushes his hair from his eyes and then walks past Jim to the door without a word, without even looking at him. But then, that doesn't seem like a Spock thing to do.

He looks so young, Jim thinks. Without his uniform, without the dark, multi-layered, conservative clothes he wears when he is off-duty, and with his mouth slightly open and his chest still rising and falling from exertion, he looks, not younger than he is, but just his age. Jim often forgets that Spock is only 23. He is used to thinking of them both as being so much older, their experiences working like wrinkles and lines to age them faster than simple years will do, but he himself is only halfway to thirty, and Spock not even a third.

"Jim," Spock says finally. He says the word like it was an effort to form.

"Spock," Jim echoes back. "I wasn't expecting to find anyone else here this early." He holds up his gloves for a moment, watches Spock's eyes flick to them and then back to Jim's face, and adds, "I guess we both had the same idea." He gives a small, humorless smile, pulled from convention rather than feeling, even though he knows such a gesture is useless with Spock and won't be returned.

"So it seems," Spock replies. He tilts his head just slightly to the side, as if thinking or considering some problem, or picking the proper words to say. "Do you wish for me to leave?" he asks, after a moment.

Jim has the feeling that Spock wouldn't leave, even if he asked him to, and of course he shouldn't. It's a public space. They're adults; they can be mature. They can share the large, empty, high-ceilinged room, with its clean white walls and unscuffed floor. So of course there is only one answer he can give, no matter how he may feel, and he says, "Of course not," with a light wave of his hand as if to bat Spock's words aside. He realizes as he says it that he doesn't want Spock to leave, not at all. They've been avoiding each other too long, speaking only when they have to and so briefly, so tersely, that it is as if these meetings do not happen at all. Standing face to face with Spock, with time to breathe and to think and to look at him, really look at him, is oddly jarring. He doesn't know what he'd do if he let himself go.

He wants the moment to pass, so he asks, the first thing that comes to mind, "Where did you learn how to box?"

"On Vulcan," Spock answers. "I was instructed by a man named Syken, who used to live on Earth. I trained with him after Sevin was born."

The reference to their son, like the hinted offer to leave a few moments before, feels like a challenge. He can't tell if Spock is goading him, exactly, or to what end, but he's almost certain that Spock knows what he's doing. If he's showing almost none of his own emotion, it's clear that he wants to see Jim's. Would fighting be giving in? Is this what Spock wants? He can't stop the images that flash through his mind, a perfect, controlled violence between them, communication beyond words, which have only failed them, a release.

He stopped solving problems with his fists years ago. He's beyond that now, a real adult at last. That's what he tells himself.

He gestures vaguely at the punching bag beyond Spock's shoulder. "You're good," he says, like it's just some casual comment. "Syken taught you well."

"Thank you. It has been quite some time since I practiced. The memory returns faster than I had anticipated it would."

"I know the feeling."

"This is a skill you also possess?" Spock asks, hardly a question, with a slight nod at Jim's gloves.

"I box a little," he admits, and he almost sounds like he's being humble except that he follows the words with a small grin. He was good, once. The few times he's faced off against another Cadet, he's won, and he feels, with a perhaps misplaced confidence, that he'll be able to shake off the cobwebs on his old talent easily. Perhaps it is foolish to be so sure. He's seen what Spock can do. Still, he's already feeling a rush, a burst of adrenaline from no more than anticipation, because he knows it will happen, they both do, it's only a question of who will ask first.

Spock tilts his head, examining him then with that careful, considering gaze, his own face so blank and unreadable that Jim doesn't have the slightest idea what he's thinking, what exactly he is contemplating. After a moment, he says, "It is reassuring to me that we can be civil with each other."

"We've been civil," Jim insists. It's true in the strictest sense of the word. They don't yell. They aren't rude to each other. They say what they have to say.

"Barely," Spock answers, tight-lipped and voice low. His control is still in place; this isn't a slip; but Jim can't help thinking that it could be turned into one.

"Look, Spock," he answers, and he doesn't sound angry so much as resigned, and as he speaks he starts to pull on his gloves. "I can't—" He's not sure how to finish. The words had come out with confidence, but he falters suddenly. Spock is staring at him, waiting. He shouldn't have said anything. He should have taken a swing. It's what he wants.

"You cannot," Spock repeats quietly.

Yes, he considers saying, I cannot. I cannot have this discussion with you, I cannot explain myself, I cannot accept explanations. I know what you'll say and you know my answers. I met you when I thought my life had no purpose and then we changed each other forever, and only you knew.

"I came here to train," he says instead. "I need it. I can use one of the punching bags, like I was planning, or," he gestures between them with one gloved hand, "or we can have a go."

He'd been sure that Spock would agree right away, and it is only in that first long moment of his silence, the way that his eyes flick from Jim's face to the floor, then back, that Jim realizes what was so jarring about his first sight of Spock in his boxing gloves, his fighter's stance, lashing out with his short, quick punches. He had seemed angry. The emotion wasn't intense, or terrifying; perhaps it would be better called frustration, a long pent up and then released irritation, yet it was there. Spock isn't here to train, or to keep in shape. He's here to let out aggression, just as Jim is.

"I have not had the opportunity to box with another person in years," Spock admits.

"All the more reason to take this one," Jim answers. Maybe, if their situation had been different, he would have smiled.

Spock nods, but says no more, and slowly they move into position across from each other. There is no official signal to start, but after a few moments, a few dragging seconds during which his eyes are never still, and his every muscle is tense, he gives a small nod, and Spock tilts his head in answer, and it begins.

His mind leaves him, and he is all body. In the moments before it turns off, before it goes black, he finds himself thinking about what Pike told him, the last time they spoke. The thing about being a Captain, he'd said, is that you have to start being a diplomat, but you never stop being a soldier.

He never thought he'd be one, a soldier, but when he took on that role, he took to it completely, he pulled it on as a second skin. Starfleet's shining new ships and clean, sterile, phasers hide the grit well but it's still there, adventure and danger and the constant threat of death and that is what he loves in it, what he needs in it. There's a part of him that needs to argue with force, not words, a part of him that needs to feel the pulse of power in his arms and hands.

If Spock were human, Jim would have a distinct advantage in their contest. He doesn't know how long Spock has been in the gym, but he was beginning to breathe heavily in his workout at the time Jim interrupted him, and if he were from Earth he would have built up a sweat, a core of fatigue and slowly growing exhaustion. But Spock fights with an energy to match Jim's, and his tireless, quick movements are a challenge. Jim does his best to meet it.

He's not sure, later, how long they fight. He loses himself, no thoughts in his head but how Spock will move next, how he should move to counter, until he feels like he's no longer his own person but that he has merged with Spock, two halves moving in sync. He feels that hours are passing, then the next moment he's convinced it's only minutes; he feels a stab of fatigue and then, with the same breath, a lightness as if he were beyond all pain. Here, in the swing of his arms, the blocked punch of his fist, he's saying everything he wanted to say and couldn't find the right words to express. He's saying everything again that he said wrong. This is the release that he wanted because his anger, that coiling sickness that never leaves him, it's only partially directed toward Spock. The rest is reserved for himself. He wants his body to hurt. He wants to be exhausted and sweating and aching; he wants to be close to collapse; he wants to know nothing and feel nothing except the burn of used muscles and the overworking of his lungs and heart. He wants to be entirely his body.

Their rhythm falters, skews, and he realizes with a jolt that Spock is no longer fighting as he was. He rarely attacks, and he's only barely on the defense. If Jim wanted to win now, it would take nothing. It would be too simple. He stops mid swing, and steps back quickly out of Spock's reach. "Don't even think of letting me win," he warns.

"I was not."

"You were."

To this, Spock gives no further argument; nor does he admit that Jim is right. He only gives a small nod, and then steps forward again to close the space Jim had put between them. The fight is immediately intense, and he wonders how long Spock has been holding back, and how much. That is over now. Before he quite knows what is happening there is a fist an inch away from his cheek, set to collide with the bone. He doesn't flinch. Spock doesn't move.

They step back at the same moment, and Spock shakes his arms out, an uncharacteristic gesture that Jim watches while he should be catching his breath. He watches, too, as Spock tears his gloves from his hands and throws them into the corner of the room. For the first time since he walked into the gym, for the first time, Jim thinks, since the day Spock let out his grief over his mother, he looks truly angry, truly furious. Jim's surprised Spock was able to stop his fist in time. But then, he shouldn't be. Spock is a Vulcan, after all, famously, infamously, in control.

"Are you all right?" Jim asks him. It's a stupid question. He almost can't believe he let the words out of his mouth, and yet, he hadn't known what else he could possibly say.

"No," Spock answers. He's breathing hard, but it's not from exertion, Jim's almost sure.

"Are you mad at me?"

Spock turns to him sharply at the question, surprised that Jim should ask the question or that there is no dare to it, no challenge, Jim isn't sure which. "I wouldn't blame you if you were," Jim adds. If he's honest with himself, he wishes Spock were. Jim's anger is a wall between them, and he wants Spock to punch it down. He hadn't realized it before, but it's true. He can't do it himself. He's too blind.

Uhura's words echo, too loud, through is mind: Don't you see you're blinding yourself?

Spock is pacing away from him. He stops at the wall, turned from Jim so that only his profile is visible, and then he punches one fist against the hard, unforgiving stone. Jim half-jumps at the impact, but Spock seems not to feel it at all. He lets his knuckles rest against the wall, and bows his head. "I knew I should have told you," he says quietly. His voice is not soft, not a whisper, only perfectly audible and perfectly calm. "You believe that I did not consider it? You believe that I did not think of you? I wanted you to know your son. I wanted you to love him like I loved him." He takes a deep breath, and then slams his fist into the wall again. Jim can't stop watching him, can hardly to remember to breathe as he watches, and he wonders if Spock could really break through the Academy gym wall, if he tried hard enough. This is the easiest thing to think, so much easier than to contemplate everything that Spock is telling him.

"Finding you would have been a risk," Spock continues. He grits out the last word through his teeth. "If you rejected Sevin—"

"And you?"

His hands are still in his gloves, and it feels like they've swollen with heat. They have become large and blocky and useless things that weigh him down. His throat is dry. He did not have to ask the question, almost did not mean to, and he tells himself it will be his last stab, tells himself he does not need to attack any longer. He cannot win. There is no winning. For once, there is no winning.

"And me," Spock answers, as he turns his head to look at Jim once more. Jim wonders if he is waiting for some answer, some response. But what can he say? He was what Spock had feared he would be.

"I told Sevin," Spock says after a moment, "about my retirement from Starfleet. He became upset at the idea of moving to New Vulcan. Yet he knows that what he wants, for his parents to be in Starfleet together, is impossible. We can barely speak to each other, let alone serve together."

Something in Jim's chest constricts, and he's not sure if it's the realization of their own transparency, and what it does to their kid, or if it's the thought of Spock and Sevin moving to New Vulcan that causes this tight, aching feeling. Spock's words are just another reminder that he shouldn't need of the distance that will be between them.

He licks his chapped lips, and swallows down to try to ease the scratchiness in his throat. "You know that if I could," he says quietly, "I'd give him that, what he wants."

Spock turns so that he is facing Jim again, his bare hands at his sides now, and there's that air of youth around him again, so strong that Jim can't look away. "Have you finally found a problem you can't solve, Captain Kirk?" he asks, low and mocking.

"You know, you never answered my question, before," Jim answers. His voice is a sharp contrast to Spock's, loud and easy, a dirty imitation of friendliness. Spock's question is unfair; he deserves it and it's true and he won't admit any of it. "Are you angry with me, Spock? Did you have to force yourself to stop your fist, so you wouldn't hit me?"

"No." Spock seems to anticipate Jim's argument, and so repeats, again, "No. I am not angry with you. Are you still angry with me?"

He's not sure if he can trust Spock's answer, almost doesn't want to trust it; it leaves him alone in a mess of emotions that contrast sharply with Spock's control. But then, it is control, he sees. There is something to hold back, some feeling or combination of feelings that is more complicated than anger, and which he doubts Spock could explain to him even if he wanted to.

Spock is staring at him unblinkingly, waiting for his answer.

"No," he says finally. The word feels hollow, and it sticks in his throat as he tries to say it. He tries again. "I don't know." He looks down at his hands and slowly, watching his own movements as if they were another man's, he pulls off his gloves. His hands look so small without them. He looks up again and thinks that, finally, all his armor is gone. "I really don't know."

Spock nods. "I understand," he says. He looks resigned, and Jim's not sure if it's true, that he understands. If he does, then he has one up on Jim, who feels like he's lost in the dark. He watches as Spock picks up his gloves, and starts to walk toward the door. He stops only once, when he's already past Jim, so that he has to turn to look at him. "You are coming on Friday to take Sevin for the evening?" he asks.

"Um, yeah," he answers. "Of course."

Spock gives him another curt nod, their deal made, their plans set, and then, no more to say, he turns his back on Jim again and walks out the door.

x

In chapter thirty seven, Spock makes a new acquaintance.