A/N: I was toying around with the idea of dividing this chapter into two, because it's so long. But there was no good place to split it, so here it is in full, almost 10k words in total whoops.

I've been on a Home Also writing spree recently, and in addition to working on new chapters, I've been writing little scenes and part-scenes and playing around within in the universe just to practice. All of this is posted on my tumblr, kinetic_elaboration, under the tag "home also i cannot go," if anyone's interested.

Also, the anniversary of this fic is coming up next month and I kiiiiind of want to do something to commemorate it… but I don't know what. If anyone has any ideas or requests, please feel free to tell me in a review or PM me or contact me on tumblr.

Finally, thank you again to everyone who's reviewed. Reviews inspire me to keep working on this fic and I truly appreciate each one.

x

The beginning of the message addresses him as family and this, as the Earth saying goes, Spock takes to heart. He replies in equally intimate terms, offers polite congratulations, and promises to visit at the first opportunity, which by a lucky accident happens to be that very afternoon.

Soval and Senar live just outside San Francisco, a long bus ride out from Spock's neighborhood and the Academy campus. On the way, he sits by the window, watches the people and buildings as they pass, this unfamiliar part of a city he's started to call home, and remembers when Soval first visited him, after Sevin was born. Soval's appearance, the words that they spoke, even the school project he'd been working on and the details of his parents' house, destroyed now, swallowed up, all are perfectly defined and preserved in his memory, but his feelings during that meeting are not. He could describe them, but only as one describes fossils, because that is what they are: there is no life to them. They are of interest. They speak to the past. But one cannot forget for a second that they are of that past entirely.

He remembers being wary. He remembers being suspicious and uncertain, also tired, busy, overwhelmed—more overwhelmed than he can even now admit, yet unwilling to accept help. Would it be fair to say he was scared? Scared he'd made a mistake, and that his parents had been correct, he could not do everything on his own? When Soval had offered again to be his bondmate, a part of him could not help but take the offer seriously. He could even picture it. He could picture a life with this man. To remember that temptation now sends an odd feeling through him, something like guilt, though neither Kirk nor Senar was in their lives—and no he should not equate the two—but mixed with that feeling there is a deeper uneasiness, the origin of which he cannot name. Had he married Soval, would he have even survived the destruction of Vulcan? Is it only that thought that causes this queasiness? And if not, then what else could it be? He knows only that there would have been something deeply wrong in that path.

Perhaps he felt such an instinct even then. After all, he did not choose it.

If he continues in this vein, his thoughts will quickly become irrational. He knows this. Lifting his head, he catches a glimpse of the ocean through the window, just a tiny hint of sun glinting off water, off in the distance through a maze of buildings straight ahead, and he remembers something else that Soval told him then: he had never seen Earth. Only in pictures. Yet his daughter is Earth-born, and she will never see Vulcan. Only in pictures.

Spock hesitates for a moment outside the door before he knocks. He could not explain to himself why, but he feels he needs these minutes to gather himself, or to prepare. Soval and Senar are expecting him, true, and they did specifically invite him to visit and to meet their newborn girl, and yet he feels as if he were about to invade on a scene not for his eyes, into a territory that is not his. There is something else that bothers him too, something again that he cannot name. It is all the more frustrating for being just out of his reach. Finally, he reaches up and raps his knuckles against the door, waits out a long pause—yes, he is intruding, he is certain now—and then is allowed in.

Soval opens the door for him, and Spock is struck again by the same memory, which seems more ancient and more worn now than it is, because it comes from a different planet and seems to be from another life. Once they stood in the opposite roles. Spock was a new father then, and Soval, a visitor. Perhaps these same thoughts have struck Soval too, and as sharply, because he hesitates before offering a greeting, stepping back, and ushering Spock in. Or perhaps Spock is flattering himself. Of everything on Soval's mind, now, why should he be thinking of their past? It is more likely that, despite the invitation he sent, he was shocked for just a second to see someone at his door, requesting entrance to the private, closed off world that Soval has kept for a week now with his bondmate and their child.

"I am pleased to see you, Spock," he murmurs, as the door slides shut behind them. A human, Spock believes, would never see what Spock sees in this man's face. He would appear to an alien, and for this moment he forgets that they are the aliens here, as calm, as impassive, as emotionless as always. But that is not what Spock sees. He reads fatigue around the eyes, and certain remnants of worry in the set of his expression, worry that has faded but not left him, a sense of uncertainty clinging. In the way he looks at his guest, too, Spock is certain he sees pride. This pride neither overwhelms nor erases these other emotions, but it's there and it's visible and Spock chooses it as his focus. Perhaps this is his form of optimism. Perhaps it is just easiest for them both to ignore what cannot be made positive.

"And I am honored that you invited me," Spock answers. His voice is equally quiet. Despite himself, he glances over Soval's shoulder, into the rest of the apartment, but of course there is nothing to see: only the curtain that marks off the makeshift bedroom, and behind which Senar and his daughter are resting. "Are your family well?" Spock continues, and pretends that his eyes never flicked away from his friend's face.

"Yes, both very well." He's trying not to say too much at once, but there is so much to say. There is an instinct, and Spock knows it well, to cut oneself off after a new child is born, to bond with it, to ignore everyone else because those people are already known and cannot ever be as important or as interesting or as purely fascinating as this new being in one's life. But there is a competing desire, too. Soval needs a break. He is tired, only vaguely aware of the day or perhaps even the hour, and his world has become so small that a part of him craves a broader view. He wants new conversation. But if that conversation starts, Spock is sure that it will soon lead right back to Soval's bondmate and daughter, that his pride in them, obvious even now, will become brighter still, and Spock does not begrudge him this. In a way, he envies him.

Spock tilts his head to the side, an indication that he wishes to hear more.

"Senar is still recovering, but that is to be expected. And she—" he pauses just a moment. This is the first time he has referenced his daughter by herself, and something in this clearly strikes him and makes him hesitate. This hesitation underscores the moment. "She is healthy. She is healthy and beautiful. We are," he admits, "in the middle of a debate, as to which parent she resembles more closely."

This is a debate that no one will win, and the expression on Spock's face shows amusement. "I am sure she is a perfect combination of you both." It is illogical to say that any one being should be perfect or that any mixing of genes should be without its flaws. They both know this. Yet it is the polite thing to say.

"Would you like to meet her?" Soval offers. "Perhaps you can decide for yourself."

"I would like to very much," Spock answers, and this time allows a more obvious, decisive look at the curtained off room over Soval's shoulder.

Soval pokes his head in first, and murmurs a low question that not even Spock, standing just behind him, can make out. The answer he receives is similarly unintelligible, but it must be an affirmative, because Soval carefully parts the curtains and steps in, nodding for Spock to follow. He steps into a small space, half lit and sparsely furnished, hardly even masquerading as a proper room. Even more so here than in the rest of the apartment, Spock is aware that this is a temporary home. The bed is a mattress. Clothes are kept in boxes. One corner is devoted to clothes, toys, and other supplies for the baby, and Spock sees right away that many are gifts and some are previously used. Yet all of this is unimportant. Not only is the apartment not really home, the planet itself is not really home; someday they will leave this all behind and they know it.

There is a small bassinet by the side of the bed, but it is empty. Spock barely glances at it. He takes the whole space in quickly, in one glance, and then his eyes are drawn to what seems to be the center, where Senar is sitting at the edge of the mattress, holding very gently something small and bundled up. His eyes flick up when the newcomers enter. He looks tired and a bit worn, lacking in color, but content. Yes, Spock repeats to himself: content, that is the word. He remembers what Soval once told him, that they had wanted a child on Vulcan, that they had all but abandoned this hope and that the dream had seemed particularly impossible on this new, harsh planet, this strange place. But after all that, here she is, Senar's expression seems to say. In that, he is as proud as Soval, or more so.

"Spock," he says quietly. "You are here. We were hoping you would come."

"I would not want to miss this opportunity to meet the newest member of your family," Spock answers, a gentle rehearsed phrase. He wants to step closer, but does not dare. "May I see her?"

Senar nods, and gestures with his head for Spock to approach. Soval stays behind, as if wanting to watch them, as if wishing, for now, to remain a spectator. Spock crouches so that he is at the proper height. As Senar pushes back the blankets slightly, so that the newborn girl's face is visible, Spock feels himself suddenly and strangely in two places at once. A part of him is here. Another part is years in the past and lightyears away. He has not seen a child this small since his own son was born.

Immediately, he knows he must put up his defenses. He cannot let those memories show on his face or in his posture: they are of the past; they must be put away. He does not want to remember the first time he held Sevin or touched his ears to watch them unfurl, or held his tiny hand and counted his fingers. Why should he think of such things? What good do they do?

Just as one adjusts a microscope that is out of focus, in order to make its picture sharp, so he adjusts his sight now, and he finds his double vision cleared. The child in front of him is a one-week-old Vulcan girl, with green tinted skin and pointed ears, her eyes closed now in sleep, her hands curled into small fists. She has a very fine down of black hair. She appears incredibly peaceful.

"We've named her T'Prina," Senar tells him, after what seems an age long silence. "We believe she is the first Vulcan born since the Tragedy, but we are not certain."

"It is quite possible," Spock replies, though the words seem too inconsequential, all but meaningless. What was the point of them? He cannot stop looking at the little girl, tiny, vulnerable, safe in her father's arms. "She is very beautiful."

"We agree," Soval echoes. His voice seems faint and far away, even though he is standing just next to Spock, and a few steps behind. He is looking, Spock knows without a glance, not at his visitor, but at T'Prina, who holds the complete attention of everyone in the room. "We are quite proud of her."

Spock sees out of the corner of his eye that Senar is nodding. "And yet," he murmurs, a hesitation in his voice, "I look at her and I wish that I could bring her home." This, he does not need to add, this apartment, this planet, is not really home, and never will be. Will the colony feel as Vulcan did? Or will it be just another replacement, a good-enough imitation that will leave them always with a strange, haunting sense of displacement, never quite right, never quite home? Spock feels that Senar is looking at him now. He is wondering, perhaps, if Spock has felt this way his whole life: a half-stranger no matter where he goes. It is an impossible question. Feelings and impressions are too subjective. There is no scientific test for his emotions.

He pretends he does not notice. "Senar," he says instead, flicking his eyes up, returning the glance, "for her, New Vulcan will be home." He does not know if this is a reassurance or only a new worry, but at the way Senar dips his gaze downward again, the slight furrow that forms between his brows, Spock understands that this idea has never before occurred to him. His daughter is the first member of a new generation, and the cavern that separates her from the last is deep.

x

Jim is third generation Starfleet on his father's side and second generation on his mother's, and if he adds in aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, second-cousins-once-removed, and so on, the list of Kirks in uniform grows near uncountable. But he is in contact with none of them. It's been over four years since he's spoken to his own mother face to face, and though one would think that a woman would want to pay her son a visit after he did something big and impressive like, for example, saving the entire planet from destruction, Winona Kirk has a different set of priorities. Jim doesn't exactly blame her. They've never been close.

He replies to the one short message that she sends him after the Narada mission, a missive so neutral that it might have been sent from any Starfleet officer to a fellow serviceman. That done, he moves on, goes back to work. He's not exactly expecting a warm and fuzzy family reunion anytime soon, and, more than that, he's busy.

So when he comes home one afternoon and finds, instead of Bones, Winona sitting at his kitchen table, he's a bit surprised. Startled, he thinks, might be a better word. And mixed in with that, he's a little annoyed.

"You're not my roommate," he says, though, in a tone that strives to be inconsequential and light. It falls flat.

She doesn't smile. "He let me in. I was going to call, but I thought it might be more fun to just drop in."

Jim can think of very few things that would be less fun than a surprise visit from his mother. In fact, he'd rather be stranded on an ice planet (again) than have whatever conversation they're about to have, and he almost says so, until she tilts her head just slightly, her version of an apology, and says, "I know we have a lot to talk about."

That's an understatement.

He sits down across from her. "I guess so. But if you just wanted to catch up, you would have come to visit months ago—years ago." Their last decent conversation, after he joined Starfleet, was over video, and he'd managed to stand it only because he knew he could just turn off the viewscreen at any moment, and zap her image away. It still hasn't hit him that she's really here this time, his mother, a flesh and blood person so close that he could touch her, if he wanted to. She looks older. She's more tan than he remembered, too, probably because she's been off-world on a desert planet for the last three years. And she's grown out her hair, which he notices because she's wearing it down so that it frames her face, softening it, rounding it out. For a short moment, Jim thinks that she looks like she's hiding, and he wonders if that's what she's been doing for the last twenty-six years.

It's odd that he feels so little for her. She's like a hologram mother, distant and unreal, liable to disappear at any moment. He tries to focus on all of the details of her, but still all he feels is a slight under-taste of distrust, something like wariness.

"I know," she answers, but her tone is colder this time, harder, and there is no hint of apology about her anymore. Something else has taken its place, and when he realizes what it is, he straightens his back and pulls away. It's the barely repressed expectation of confrontation. She wants to fight with him. She's the one invading his home, showing up unannounced after an age-long absence, and she acts as if he were the one who'd done something wrong, as if all she can do is draw on a deep store of patience just to deal with him. He could be twelve again, rebellious, but small.

"I assume you have a specific reason for stopping by, then," he says. Even he can hear how distant he sounds. This is the tone of an officer speaking to a superior, wanting to fight but not knowing the terms, only their respective positions, and treading lightly for this reason. It is not, he thinks, the tone of a son to his mother. He still can't believe this is his mother. "You might as well tell me now. I don't have time for small talk."

She closes her eyes, just for a moment, like flinching, then snaps, "You could have told me." These aren't the words she was intending. He hears that, and it almost disarms him, in just the same way her own sentence almost disarms her. "You could have told me that you have a son, Jim."

His hands tighten on air. Strange, but of all of the accusations he'd expected, this one had not crossed his mind. He starts to answer, closes his mouth again, and finds he can no longer meet her eyes. "You weren't around to tell," he says finally. "We haven't exactly been in contact. You know that. You can't drop in here with no warning and act insulted that I don't treat you like family. That goes two ways."

It's like listening to someone else speak, some combination of Captain and lonely little boy; he wonders if she can hear both these people too.

"It isn't the sort of thing I expected to hear through Starfleet gossip," she answers. He has the impression that she hasn't been listening, that she's reciting her half of a script she's written in her own mind. He's all but unnecessary here. "To be caught completely off guard and then to have to explain—" She makes a low, displeased sound, deep in her throat. "I didn't realize when you left my house that you'd start having children."

"Well, it wasn't exactly part of the plan," he admits. His tone, too flippant and light, out of place in this conversation, jars badly with his words. "But it's too late to change anything now. In my experience, time travel is pretty tricky—probably not worth the risk—"

"You can put that attitude away now." His mother never did have any patience for him, and he takes pride, a stupid and immature sort of pride, in goading her. "I know it can't be changed."

"Could have fooled me—"

"Jim." The harsh snap of her voice makes him sit up straighter, eyes wide for just a moment, as if he'd heard a threat there. Sometimes, as a child, he'd hear this tone, frustrated, edged with an anger painfully reined in, and he'd feel irrationally frightened. He never believed his mother wanted to harm him. But he feared she wanted to harm someone.

"Then tell me why you're here, if it's not just to scold me," he says quietly. "I think you owe me that."

She sighs. She wants to get up and pace; he knows that look. "I wish you'd told me, so I could have at least prepared myself for the comments. There are plenty of people who believe I can answer all of their questions about you and your…" She waves a hand. "Partner."

Jim narrows his eyes. "Even if I'd told you about Sevin, you wouldn't have any of the answers they want. Just change the subject; it's not their business anyway. And Spock isn't my partner. He's my First Officer, and he's my friend." He puffs himself up a bit at the word 'friend,' because Winona might not understand it, but that title is hard-earned

"You aren't in a relationship with this man?" she asks. Jim narrows his eyes as he tries to read her tone, and does not realize he is mimicking her expression so exactly that no one could doubt they are mother and son.

"Not in a romantic relationship, no," he answers, after a beat, and then, after a second: "I guess that's a popular rumor. Feel free to squash it."

"I thought you might have taken the opportunity to settle down."

"I'm about to leave on a five-year exploratory mission into space, so, no, settling down isn't part of the plan, and that has nothing to do with my relationship with Spock. Can we please drop this charade where you pretend to care about my life?" He pushes his chair back abruptly and stands, because he did not see his breaking point coming, but apparently, this is it. How can she talk about settling down? She left Frank, who never wanted kids, who didn't like kids, who hated being stuck with her kids, to raise him and his brother while she stayed as far away from Earth, and all her wretched memories, as she could. She never settled down. Maybe she would have, in some way or another, if George had lived, but he didn't, and that has changed everything. Only Jim knows by how much.

She stares back at him, and does not answer for a long time.

When she looks down, staring at her hands where they're folded on the table, one half on top of the other, he feels defeated, as if he had been the one to break first. "How could I know about my grandson," she says quietly, "and still stay away?"

He doesn't have an answer. He just stays standing, wishing he could sit, exposed as he looks down at her, yet unable to move.

"I only wondered, if you hadn't told me about him, what else you'd hidden. I thought you might be married, or—what is that Vulcans do?" She glances up at him, almost amused. "It doesn't surprise me at all that you've ended up with someone from another world."

"I haven't 'ended up' with him. I'm not—" But that isn't what bothers him about the phrase. He is with Spock, in almost every way that matters, and maybe 'partner' isn't the worst word for what they have. "This isn't the end."

She smiles at that. How funny, she might be saying, or, how naïve.

"Answer the questions however you want," he says into the silence, as it stretches out painfully long. "As long as it's the truth." He already knows she'll find half-truths and almosts, nice-sounding good-enough words to make everything neater and easier than it is. That is how his mother likes her narratives: simple and clean-cut. Such stories invite no questions. They are a wall, behind which she can live with her pain that no one questions and that she need never explain.

If this permission satisfied her, she would leave. But she's here for something else, and Jim knows it. He knew it right from the start.

"I'll be in San Francisco for two weeks," she says. "And I thought you might find the time—"

"I'm busy."

She talks right over him, as he expected she would. These are words meant to be spoken over, a compulsory and meaningless objection.

"—to introduce me, at least to my grandson?"

x

The conversation stays with him, echoing in him, bothering him, like an itch he can't quite reach to scratch. He'd told himself to make no promises, but of course he had. By the time she left, he'd promised exactly what she wanted. He isn't exactly a diplomat. And even if he were, when he talks to his mother, it's challenge enough just to fight against the instinct to be a little boy again.

Of course, he'd rather call the whole thing off. If he could come up with some polite excuse, some easy sidestep out of this annoying, odd meeting, he would, but he left himself no room for that, like a fool.

It's not until late that night that he starts to question his own irritation, his childlike desire to stomp his feet and say no, and what he finds then is not a secret hatred of his mother, but his own bone-deep fear. He's quietly panicked. All he's wanted since he set foot on that shuttle out of Riverside is to put the past behind him—all of it, Winona, Sam, Iowa, his childhood—and now it's here again and at his door and worse, coming after his son. Jim's heard the talk, of course: what kind of father must he be if he thinks he can take a child out there into the unknown. But he wouldn't even consider it if he didn't really believe, as deeply as it is possible to believe, that he can keep his boy safe. All he wants is to keep him safe. Winona's not exactly a Romulan or a black hole, but she's unpredictable, an intermittent mother, never quite he wanted her to be—that's threat enough when he thinks of how excited Sevin was to learn about his dad's family, how much he wants to know them. Jim won't let him be disappointed. He won't let him be crushed. And it doesn't matter that his son and his own younger self seem to blend more and more in his thoughts, his sleepy night thoughts, as he drifts off. It doesn't matter that the past and future are twisting together for him now. Such confusion always comes at this hour. It's best to just let it be.

x

His odd mood follows him through the next day, building up slowly behind a wall of other concerns and higher priorities, until all that's left at the end of the day is the rubble of his distractions and an endless speech about his childhood and his mother and his confused jumble of feelings, though he'd never admit he's talking about his feelings. Not in so many words. Spock is patient with him, though, surprisingly patient; Jim is quietly grateful in turn. It's late by now. Sevin has been put to bed, and they've abandoned their work, too: their PADDs sit ignored on the coffee table, and Spock's computer has put itself gently to sleep.

"I haven't seen her since I left Riverside," he's saying. "Since before I joined the Academy. So when I see her, when she just shows up, it's—it's just like seeing a ghost—" He falters, recognizes just how inappropriate that particular phrase was, and looks up. But Spock, standing by the window, facing Jim, makes no sign that he's bothered or even that he noticed the slip.

"I am sure it was disorienting," he answers.

"Yeah," Jim echoes. "Disorienting." He reaches back to rearrange the sofa pillows under his head. His feet are propped up on the far arm. "I don't know why I can't get her out of my head."

Spock tilts his head just slightly to the side. His expression is one Jim already knows well, what he secretly calls Spock's computer face, where he seems to resemble machine more than man, as he runs through possibilities and potential answers as if they were no more than long strings of code. Jim likes to imagine his brain, when he does this. A fast whirring compact machine.

Today, though, Jim's distracted, and it isn't Winona who sends his usual slight fantasies astray. It's Spock himself. Something about his face, not its expression but its very form, seems bizarrely, impossibly striking, and Jim is taken over by the same feeling that often startles him when he encounters something beautiful.

"She is your mother," Spock says finally. "Given your history and the situation, it is perfectly reasonable that you should be upset by this turn of events."

"I never said upset."

Spock raises his eyebrows. He knows, of course, that he's not wrong.

Jim breaks their staring contest first, and turns his gaze up to the ceiling, shifting a little on the couch. "She's not going to take 'no' for an answer," he continues. "She wants to meet him. She'll insist."

He knows, of course, that if Spock were to put his foot down, if he were to insist for any reason that Sevin not meet Winona Kirk, it would only create problems. It would put Jim in the middle of two immovable obstacles, two impossible forces; it would make his life that much harder and he's not sure what he would do, how he would fix it. But he wishes for it anyway. He wishes for it because he feels, on some level deep beneath thinking or even sense, that Spock would win. Spock would banish Winona back into space, somewhere beyond even Jim's own reach, and this problem could be neatly sidestepped and forgotten, solved, just like that. Is he a bad son, for thinking this way? Is he stupid for thinking this way?

Spock says only, "Of course she would insist," in the lightest and most inconsequential of tones. So there will be no debate. But still Jim wishes he knew what Spock was thinking, if he's nervous deep down under that stony Vulcan façade. Jim would be, if their positions were reversed—he was, when he met Sarek, and the mere memory of that meeting brings a slightly queasy, uncertain, feeling to the pit of his stomach. If not for himself, isn't Spock nervous for Sevin? Curious, at least?

"Have you spoken to Sevin yet?" Spock asks, breaking Jim's train of thought. He startles. Spock is tilting his head and waiting.

"I thought it was better to bring it up to you first," he answers, and the fleeting expression on Spock's face reads, strangely, like defeat. But then, of course: only distracted people ask such obvious questions. He's been caught out in an obvious attempt to break out of his own wandering thoughts. "It's a…. dual parent decision," Jim adds.

Spock sits down at the other end of the couch, just by Jim's feet, which he moves out of the way to make room. "Yes, of course. But surely you know I would not keep Sevin from his own grandmother."

"No, I don't suppose so."

He sounds sad, and he's not sure if it's because he's disappointed, like a child, that there is no quick solution here, or if it's because he's thinking despite himself of Spock's own loss. Surely it haunts Spock even more than it does him. The silence is uncertain and uncomfortable and Spock's back is too rigid and too straight.

Jim clears his throat awkwardly. "Sevin's always been curious about his Earth family," he says. It's an inept change of topic, more a testing of waters than anything. "I mean, he's asked me questions about them. I guess it was a disappointment to him, that he only has me, on this side." Just me, he doesn't add, his human father, a complete mystery for the first seven years of his life.

"Meeting you could not have been a disappointment," Spock answers. His voice is quiet and low, gentle with sincerity. It is this undercurrent, perhaps, that makes Jim want to move closer to him. He wants to pretend he cannot hear, sit up and lean in, feels this want like a wave cresting in him, building. "You are, after all, his parent," Spock continues. "I could tell him very little about you when we lived on Vulcan."

Jim wants to put his hand over Spock's and tell him, You don't need to be stoic with me. But he knows this isn't true. He's not sure what it takes to earn Spock's openness but he isn't there yet.

All he says is, "I'm trying to make up for all of that, you know."

"I do."

Jim hesitates, starts to answer, doesn't know what to say, so he gives in. He sits up slowly, leaning his weight on one hand, and with only the slightest hesitation puts his other hand on Spock's shoulder. Somehow it just feels like the right thing to do. But Spock won't return his gaze and he seems nervous, Jim can see it in the tense set of his back or how he doesn't know what to do with his hands. He can't help wondering how they found themselves here—here in any sense of the word.

He breaks first. He stands up first and walks to the window, restless, pacing, and he doesn't hear the way Spock sighs, and he wouldn't have been able to place the sound even if he had noticed the slight, gentle outtake of breath. Regret, or relief?

"I'm sorry I missed out on so much with him," he says, louder, the start of a rush of words or a confession. "But I'm not always sorry he missed out on me. You were probably better off not having my dead weight around seven years ago. I didn't… I don't like to admit it, but it's probably true."

Spock shakes his head. "It is never better to be alone."

It would be easy to argue, and he almost does. But he closes his mouth before any words quite form. He's spent more than enough time feeling sorry for himself, angry that he missed out on the earliest years of his son's life. And now, with Winona in the city, sneaking into his apartment and staring at him across his kitchen table with her quiet, judging stare, bringing back sharp, clear memories of his childhood and the troubled years before he first met Spock, and after, now it's hard to avoid asking himself again, as he occasionally does: what could he have really done for Sevin? What could he have offered him? But the question, the doubt, that has never done more than hover on the edges of his thoughts is: what could he have done for Spock? Eminently capable, fearless, competent, genius Spock, Spock who can do and has done everything, infuriating but too-near-perfect Spock… what could he have needed from Jim?

"I… suppose not," he answers slowly. It's pathetic, how he does not hide his surprise, does not hide anything at all. Spock can read his mind as surely, Jim thinks, as if he were touching his fingertips gently to Jim's face.

Perhaps, if he were a better man, he would apologize. Or perhaps that would be a pointless waste of breath.

"Do you—?" he asks instead, and is grateful when Spock interrupts, uncurls himself from the couch and says, "It is late and we should both be asleep." A simple statement, easy to agree with, easy to push everything else away. Yes, yes, of course. Jim is about to head for the door when Spock offers him the couch, a not-unusual arrangement between them now: late nights working or talking, which end with Jim passed out in the living room, an alarm set to wake him early so that he will be gone by the time Sevin wakes. No reason to confuse him. No reason to inflate his hopes. The offer and acceptance is a well-worn ritual by now too; Jim hesitates, as if he shouldn't, as if he would be an imposition, then agrees, acquiescing quietly and offering a thanks that Spock simply waves away.

Usually, he falls asleep quickly. Tonight, he finds himself awake a long time. If Spock hadn't interrupted him, what would he have said? What could he have said? Had he been on the verge of asking a question, or making an offer? Does it matter?

And how, he wonders, as he turns on to his side, laughing very lightly at himself, at how in over his head he is, at how little this frightens him—how will he ever run a ship if he can't even control himself?

x

Sevin is not nervous. He walks between his parents, talking happily while Spock nods and Jim pretends to listen. He tries to actually listen. But it's hard to break free of the agitated circle of thoughts his brain has been following almost without pause for the last day. He feels like he's about to be put on trial, every decision he's made quietly picked apart and analyzed, everything Spock or Sevin has ever done heaped on him, too, because he chose Spock, professionally, personally, in (almost) every way there is to choose a person, because he helped create Sevin. Yet he is nothing but proud of them both—so perhaps it's not Winona's reaction he fears at all, but Spock's.

He glances over, but if Spock is nervous, he doesn't show it one bit. Maybe someday Jim will learn to read him. Maybe someday he'll know which small, slight tics mean what, know how to discern worry, or fear, or happiness.

Jim insisted that they meet in a public place. He's not sure what he thinks is going to happen, what he fears, but he won't be stuck in a small apartment with his mother and his son and his inscrutable Vulcan friend with no easy way out and no witnesses. This is not paranoia. This is not a train of thought unbefitting a starship captain. It is perfectly reasonable and normal. Lunch is obvious, simple, and safe. Winona let him pick the place, claiming he "knew the city better" than she did by now, so he brings them to a small restaurant with open architecture and too many plants, a largely vegetarian menu for Spock and Sevin.

Sevin keeps up his easy chatter until they get to the door, then stops abruptly, perhaps out of sudden nerves, more likely out of building curiosity. Then he shoves through the door ahead of his parents and looks around, no idea who he's looking for, a woman who looks like Jim, perhaps, or someone to whom he feels some indescribable, deep pull. "Sevin," Spock says, in a low and quiet voice to calm him, and holds him still with his hands on his shoulders. "We are here early. She probably has not arrived yet."

Winona is always early, though, something Spock doesn't know, and so Jim's not surprised to see her already waiting for them. She's at a corner table, near a window looking out on a terrace garden, where a few other patrons are enjoying the first truly pleasant days of spring. Jim catches sight of her first and says nothing. He only watches her, how absolutely still she sits. How emotionless she seems.

Finally, more out of fear that she will notice him first, that he will lose the power he has in this moment, he nudges Spock gently and tilts his head to her table. That's her. If Spock is surprised in any way, he does not show it. But Sevin, when Spock squeezes his shoulders and points him in the right direction, smiles widely and seems about to run to her, then hesitates, held back by a natural shyness or because of something he sees in Winona herself, Jim cannot know. He ends up leading the way himself.

Winona seems to snap out of something—her thoughts, a trance—as they approach. She looks up sharply, but after a moment the expression on her face softens. Jim is a bit surprised that it does, but then, her job requires some diplomacy, and she's been doing nothing but her job for over twenty years. He'd know. And this isn't a moment to appear hard or angry or tough. Jim doesn't entirely trust the friendly smile she greets them with, though. Even Spock can probably see that the way she stands when they approach, back perfectly straight, hand out to reach for his, is more appropriate to a first meeting between officers than between family. Spock takes her hand, though he has not learned yet how to shakes hands without looking awkward and uncertain, and then offers her a Vulcan salute. Sevin just looks up. Winona has no idea what to do with him.

"Ah, Mom," Jim steps in, gliding into the empty pause and turning himself off, as if he were performing a play in front of strangers. Words come to him without prompting, and he feels like he's watching himself from far away. "This is Spock, of course, and this is our son, Sevin." He puts his hands on Sevin's shoulders, and nudges him forward just a step. "Sevin, this is Winona Kirk—your grandmother."

Jim isn't sure what to expect; he finds that he's holding his breath, just waiting, on the edge of something that might be beautiful or might be nightmarish, that might be what he's been waiting for all these years or might be all his old fears confirmed. He's not had family for years now, he's not sure how family is supposed to be—he's aware of the leaves of the plants moving in the false breeze of artificial inside air, and of time slowing down, and the walls moving in. Almost. It's almost that bad. He'd rather be on the bridge facing down a ship of hostile Klingons than here. He's wondering if time has actually slowed—yes Captain this is a delayed side effect of living in an alternate universe, my extensive research has revealed that as you were never meant to be here at all, sometimes time itself—but then the second hand on the clock behind Winona's head moves one clear tick forward, with a too-loud sound that might as well be the sound of it moving in reverse. Stranger things have happened to him.

This time it is happening to them all. Sevin is looking up at Winona, and Winona back down at Sevin, without moving or speaking, each waiting for the other or for some inner realization, an oh moment: this is what I am supposed to do. It doesn't seem to come. Jim wonders how long it's been since Winona saw a real life child face to face. She has an expression on her face, as if seeing a strange new alien creature for the first time, the look of a land-bound diplomat suddenly thrown into space, shocked at the new, the unexplored, the bizarre. Jim wants to shake it off of her. Sevin is just a kid. And he's staring back at her with uncertainty bordering on fear.

This slow dragging on of moments isn't in his mind, it's not some comical twist of his imagination, a joke he's playing with himself to lessen his own nerves. The silence is really this long, and truly this awkward. Almost despite himself, Jim finds himself hoping blindly and fervently that his mother will just speak, just say something, do anything but stare with that look on her face, almost confused, every thought that passes through her mind somehow both visible and inscrutable as it is translated over her features.

"Sevin," Spock says at last, nudging him forward just the tiniest bit. "Say hello."

"Hi," he blurts out, as if he can't help but form the sound. Another word seems on the verge of following, a word that decides to twist itself into another "hello" at the last moment. Jim realizes that Sevin doesn't know what to call her.

But at least this seems to wake Winona up, at last, and she kneels down to Sevin's level. "Hello, Sevin. I—I'm glad to meet you." The words are a little stilted and too formal, but the sentiment is there. Jim's certain of that, certain enough to feel his own chest clench with it. Winona's voice has a twinge of awe around its edges.

If Sevin hears her amazement, her sense of wonder at his existence, he doesn't show it, and Jim's sure he's absorbed it only an unconscious level, if it all. It seems to trigger something in him, but only an instinct. No longer nervous, he steps forward. Then he wraps his arms around Winona in a gesture so purely affectionate that even Jim's worst vision of his mother (cool, professional, distant) could not help but respond. Anyone would. Still, at first, she seems not to know what to do, as if it's been years since she's been hugged or touched at all with such natural and unselfconscious affection. Then she hugs him in return and Jim watches her eyes close.

Only then does he remember to look over at Spock. His face is as unreadable as always. Does he find the scene curious, or touching, or sad—a reminder of his own mother, perhaps, who held Sevin when he was small, who knew all of the firsts that Winona, that Jim himself, will never know? Who will miss all the firsts to come? Even if this thought is not making Spock's heart clench in his side, it is making Jim's hurt a little bit in his chest.

Sevin pulls back from the hug and takes Winona's wrist instead, leading her back to her table. Jim has never seen anyone lead his mother anywhere, and he's never seen that look on her face either, slightly confused and slightly surprised, so unsure what she's supposed to say or do that she'll easily let a seven-year-old child drag her along. Sevin jumps up onto the chair next to hers, and leaves the two seats on the opposite side of the table for Spock and Jim. The last thing he wants to do is look his mother in the eye, so he tries to take a long view. His mother and his son, next to each other. They look nothing alike, they know nothing of each other, but he remembers Sevin's curiosity and all the questions he asked about his family, Jim's family, and he knows that even an awkward lunch means a great deal to his little boy. Sevin is staring at Winona with wide-eyed affection and fascination.

But Winona clearly doesn't know where to look. "Spock—" she starts to say, and Jim's fingers clench around the edges of the menu. He knows an interrogation voice when he hears it. But the word is hardly formed when Sevin interrupts, "Dad says you work for Starfleet, too. What do you do?"

"Sevin, your grandmother was speaking. It is not polite to interrupt," Spock warns. Sevin mumbles an apology that Jim doubts is sincere. He can hardly fault Sevin: his excitement and enthusiasm are genuine, and they bubble up almost on their own. And anyway, Jim's secretly proud of his son's attempt to keep the focus on himself. That's where it should be. Jim knows his mother only invited them here to take a look at her grandson, a curiosity in more ways than one, and to interview Spock on any number of qualifications, to see if he was fit to be Jim's First Officer, to see if he was fit to raise her grandson—as if the first were her business, as if the second were under her control. Jim's not worried about his friend. Spock can handle anything she tries to throw at him and more and won't even raise his voice; Winona will get no satisfaction from his response. But it's not fair to Sevin to make him wait so long to meet a grandmother who cannot even pretend to show the same interest and curiosity about him as he shows toward her.

It's possible that she feels that same curiosity. Jim's not sure, but he thought he saw it, or something of the sort, in her face when Sevin took her hand. But if she wants to know this little boy she's also afraid to know him, and she's never been one to work through what she cannot understand. She abandons the difficult and takes refuge in the familiar. Others don't see it in her, because her job is the unknown. But to her, it is a comfort, and the simplicity of Iowa, her own bed, her sons, a wild place of tangled emotions and strangling memories.

"Sevin's coming with us on the five-year mission," Jim says quickly, but lightly, before Winona can get in another word. He wonders if Spock can hear how tense he is, if he can sense a depth of feeling beneath the surface of the words. He hopes Sevin can't. "And he's been learning everything he can about Starfleet—just really taking everything in." What he means is that Sevin is a smart and curious kid, pure and open in his desire to learn, and if Winona has any grandmotherly feeling anywhere in her, she'll encourage that. What he means is don't you dare sit there and ignore him. "You should tell him about what you do. Sevin's never met anyone who's spent so many years working off planet." He turns to his son and adds, "Your grandmother has spent most of the last twenty-five years on off-planet colonies and space stations."

Sevin looks suitably impressed, his eyes wide and his body tilting forward with the force of unasked questions, but he's a little confused and uncertain too. "I thought you said you grew up in Iowa," he says. They've looked it up on a map together more than once, and Jim spent a whole afternoon showing him pictures of Riverside: rolling green farmland, the somewhat shabby downtown streets, the local Starfleet base.

"I did." He glances at Sevin, then looks to Winona, needing to watch her face. "With my stepdad, and your uncle Sam."

"It wasn't as easy to take children on missions off-planet when your dad was growing up as it is now," Winona says quickly, a cover that Jim, at least, can see right through. "You're lucky that way. You'll—get to have it all." She smiles, and if Jim were being generous, he'd call it not just encouraging, but apologetic, like she wishes it could have been that way for her boys too. But Jim doesn't buy it. To him, it seems too little, and very too late.

Something of his feeling must be showing on his face, because Spock nudges his knee under the table, hard, and breaks an awkward pause that's threatening to grow into an awkward silence. "Jim and I both want Sevin to learn as much as he can. Of course, he has never met anyone with experiences as unique and varied as yours. Jim mentioned that you represented Earth at the Federation conference on Rigel II three years ago. I am especially curious to hear more about that event. A colleague of my father's, whom I know quite well, represented Vulcan. I understand that it was… a tumultuous meeting."

No one could say no to such a steady, reasonable tone, or not be turned by such subtle flattery. Jim's sure that Winona hears it, just as he does, but it's the sort of diplomatic conversation steering she'd appreciate, and she lets it show. If she'd harbored any hope of turning the conversation around again, of getting her interrogation in after all, it's gone now. The slight downward movement of her shoulders and the minute change in her expression say that she's accepted as much. It will wait until another day.

As she opens her mouth to answer, a waiter appears quietly next to their table and asks for their order. Jim hasn't even looked at his menu, so he orders the first thing that comes to mind. He doesn't listen to the others. He glances out the window instead—they're not far from the Academy, and he can see a group of cadets, in their spotless reds, passing by in animated conversation—and tries not to assume too much about the way Spock called him Jim. It shouldn't mean anything at all that he did. He could hardly call Jim Captain Kirk at a family lunch—okay, he wouldn't put it past Spock to do that, actually, but not with Winona right across from them, not when the image they want to give her is one of a functioning family, instead of simply colleagues raising a son. So it was a strategic move, as purposeful as the subtle compliment or the passing mention of his father. That was all.

When he turns away from the window, the waiter is gone, and Winona has started to explain the conflict between the Andorians and the Orions at the conference. Sevin is listening attentively to every word. Spock is pretending to listen too, but Jim thinks that's just an act, and his thoughts are wandering behind his steady gaze. For his part, relief has started to set in: he can feel only a remnant of his former tension, persistent between his shoulder blades. Now all he has to do is keep his mouth shut, and stay out of the way.

Winona and Sevin dominate conversation for the rest of lunch, which is just as it should be. From time to time, Jim feels Spock's arm bump against his as they eat, and each time, he wonders if it's a coincidence or accident, and each time, he decides that it probably isn't either one, and he has to hold back a smile. He probably thinks it's going well, too, he thinks, and his spirits are buoyed.

Still, as lunch winds down and they prepare to leave, he feels a certain sense of relief cresting, a sensation like being able to breathe again fully after hours of half-holding his breath. It went well. It went better than he'd thought it could go. He can't complain. Then, as they're preparing to say their goodbyes, Winona stoops to give Sevin a hug without any sort of prompting at all, and he feels a rush of pride, tinged only a little with jealousy, as he watches his son cling to her.

Spock has taken a step back, as if he feels himself the odd one out. As if this scene were not his even to observe, except from a distance. Jim wants to take his hand and pull him forward again, but he doesn't. He feels in a way like he can't.

He's caught off guard when Winona approaches him. Maybe if he'd been paying a bit more attention, he would have seen the hug coming, or he would at least have had a chance to glance at her face, to gauge if this a genuine gesture inspired by a pleasant afternoon, or just a calculated one, a pantomime of affection to show Sevin. Even the second is more than he would have expected of her. A moment passes, then two, and he manages to move his arms to hug her in return. By the time she pulls away, he's convinced himself it's real, and if he's wrong, that the comfort of the illusion is worth a little self-deception.

She grabs his arms a little too tight, and looks in his face like it's the first time she's really seen it, his adult face, her long-gone son's face. He finds the gaze uncomfortable, but stubbornly won't look away. What he sees is a woman older than the mother in his memories, but no softer, tough and determined and scarred by grief she's learned to hide from almost everyone, everyone except her sons, who share it too.

"I'll be there to see you off," she says, in a low voice of solemn promise.

He nods. He knows she wasn't planning on being in California that long. She probably changed her plans in the moment of speaking, which is so unlike her that he feels a grudging sort of affection rise in him despite himself.

But all he answers is, "Sevin will like that."

She drops her hands again and turns to Spock, remembering this time to raise her hand in a Vulcan salute. He returns the gesture, then sticks out his hand for her to shake. His expression doesn't change even as she says, "We didn't really get to talk. Maybe a lunch just the two of us, before you leave." It isn't really a question, but Spock agrees as if it were. He doesn't seem in the least bit nervous or uncertain, just cool and professional, as if Winona were a new Starfleet colleague and not Sevin's grandmother, a relative of sorts. Jim envies that impenetrable mask. He'll have to ask Spock if it's something one can teach, or just a natural talent, imbedded in Vulcan genes.

"I'll contact you," Winona promises, and from this, Jim sees that the mask is frustrating to her, and she's making some slight attempt to see what's underneath. It will take much more than that. He knows. He feels like he's been trying forever, himself.

They walk outside together, but at the doorway, Winona makes clear that she's heading in the opposite direction, and quickly takes her leave. Jim is grateful. He feels exactly what he imagines she must feel, a slowly stifling claustrophobia, a sense that their reunion has lasted a few beats too long. He's glad to be outside and to feel a gentle April breeze. This is something he will miss about Earth, one of only a very few things.

"That was fun!" Sevin announces, surprising Jim out of his thoughts.

"Mmmm," he answers, unable to manage more. Over Sevin's head, he catches Spock's eye. He inclines his head briefly, a gesture Jim's not sure he knows how to read. But he takes it to mean you survived, and finds he feels a bit stronger for having lived that moment when their gazes met.

x

A/N: I'm not generally a big fan of the bad-mom-is-cause-of-all-hero's-problems trope, and I hope this version of Winona doesn't skirt too close to that. I actually have a lot of sympathy for her, including this version of her. But her scenes are from Jim's point of view, and he's harsher toward her than I am.

In chapter fifty-one, Jim and Sevin bake a cake, Spock is kissed, and Uhura lays down the law.