Welcome back. This begins sweet, but you're in for a treat. Thanks to all who reviewed so far, every single one is appreciated.
After Jim had left, Spock let his eyes wander through Christine's quarters again, paying more attention to details than before. The standard-issue quarters, even the officers' cabins, had always been spartan in design, leaving only a few possibilities for personal expression. These possibilities were usually limited to some pictures, books, and only a few personal belongings that were not used regularly. The focus had to be utilitarian, as there was no place for clutter in their restricted living space.
Still, every member of their crew had somehow managed to give these surroundings their very personal note. Spock knew that even his cabin was no exception, with its candelabrums, harp, curtains, and a handful of books. The Captain's quarters were decorated with pictures of his late son and old naval vessels, a plaque with brass models of whales, and a model of the original Enterprise.
Dr McCoy had once remarked that Jim was collecting memories and trophies, while Spock was accumulating symbols, no doubt alluding to Chagall's painting of the expulsion from Paradise that he kept in his quarters.
"If you want to have a constant reminder that all things must end, take a look at these grey hairs you've given me through the years!", he had said.
"I doubt a large-scale picture of you would be an aesthetically fitting addition to my design choices.", Spock had retorted.
But when some days later, a group picture showing him among his friends had appeared on his desk, he had kept it there, merely placing it aside.
And so, Doctor Chapel's quarters likewise bore her individual touch atop the Starfleet-issue layout. There was the small seating alcove with periwinkle blue chairs opposite the replicator where the sweater had landed before, and a vase of flowers from the arboretum was standing next to the mirror, in the place where Spock kept his candles and incense. A small display case on the shelf over the workspace bore her Starfleet decorations, and some pictures were neatly lined up beside it, while the shelf over her bed was stacked with books.
Spock reached out to the volumes just within reach of her arm and picked out a random one.
"'The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson'?", he asked, weighing the green paperback in her hand.
"Scotty gave it to me; I think Uhura picked it out, though. They found it in an old bookshop in Aberdeen."
"Is this a favourite author of yours?"
"No, I actually never read her before. But go on. I can see that you're interested."
Spock opened the book gingerly, browsing slowly through the first few pages, then stopping at the sixth entry to read: "'If I can stop one heart from breaking, / I shall not live in vain; / If I can ease one life the aching, / Or cool one pain, / Or help one fainting robin / Unto his nest again, / I shall not live in vain. /'" *
"Hm. Very straightforward and unpretentious.", he thought.
"Yes, you like it that way, don't you?", Christine teased.
"I did not say that. However, there is a certain…allure to its simplicity."
"I think it's lovely. It sounds fragile, but comforting at the same time."
"Comforting? How so?"
"Well, we're always afraid of not having contributed, of not having done enough, of our work and our whole life being in vain."
"That is no concern of mine.", Spock objected. "But go on."
"Well, the poem says that just one life saved, just one soul's anguish spared, gives your life meaning. It wasn't all in vain if you helped. Even if it's just one tiny being whose life you made a little easier, it's a life worth lived." Christine paused for a second, struggling to come back to an earlier point she wanted to make. "You don't need to be concerned about that because you've helped so many already. You've saved lives every step of your career, even placing others before yourself. And if that isn't the epitome of not having lived in vain, I don't know."
"That is a rather one-sided interpretation if you forgive me for saying so. It disregards the suffering caused.", Spock disagreed. "I have also taken lives, Christine."
"Yes, but you still want to do good, don't you?", she persisted.
"I think that goes without saying. But if you only do good to get the satisfaction of your life having meaning, and not because what you do is inherently good, you are diminishing the good deed to its use alone."
"Well, no argument from me there. But the poem doesn't say that you should do those things for your life to have meaning. It just says that if you do just a little good, you happen to give your life meaning in the process. If we selflessly - without expecting anything in return – bring happiness to just one living being, our own life will be richer for it. I think it's compassionate and kind."
"I think it's self-serving."
Christine sighed defeatedly. "Maybe, Spock. But let me tell you, Leonard wouldn't be half the doctor he is if he didn't have the desire to help both out of goodness' sake and out of the instinct to give his life meaning. And the Captain would not be the great man he is if he didn't have a fear of his life's work being in vain in addition to his saviour's complex. And don't tell me you are not concerned with things like that. You literally gave your life to save the rest of the crew."
"That was simple logic.", Spock protested. "I would have died anyway."
"Exactly. What would have been the harm in not dying alone, but along with your friends?"
"It would have been illogical. Why should I have let them die if I could save them? As I said, I would have died anyway. That way I could at least save my friends, if not myself."
"Yes, Spock! Otherwise, you would have spent your last minutes knowing that there was something you could have done to help and that you'd die in vain."
Spock looked back at the open book in his hands, reading the poem again.
"I doubt the author had such deeply philosophical intentions."
"Yes, I doubt it.", Christine agreed. "I just think it appeals to human nature: the search for meaning but also the desire to do some good along the way. They don't have to exclude each other."
"Perhaps not."
They each followed their separate lines of thought for a while. Then, Christine brought up the matter at hand again.
"Still think the poem is straightforward, Spock?"
"I would like to retract that statement. You've proven it to be quite the opposite."
Their friendly sparring was interrupted by the sound of the door chime. In all her time on the ship, it had not rung as many times a day as on this one.
The Captain stormed in, with barely a word of greeting.
"Spock! Christine!", he exclaimed while slamming his hand against the support beam. "It's done! The machine's ready! We can beam down now and put you back together how you belong."
Spock immediately shut the book and returned it to its place on the shelf. Christine took over instantly, hurrying after the Captain, the meditation robe's sleeves waving behind her.
"Scotty's only now finished the repairs on the machine. He's left the circuit on one side as fried as we found it.", he explained on the way to the transporter room. "We don't want a switch, after all, just reverse what happened."
The transporter room was nearly empty as they arrived, only manned by a Lieutenant whose name Spock only vaguely remembered.
"Captain."
"Carry on, Tyler.", Kirk nodded. "We're still waiting for McCoy."
"Aye Sir, transporter on standby. Mr Scott says everything's ready for you on location."
Spock tugged at Jim's sleeve and they stepped to the side.
"Jim, how is…"
"Bones is bringing your body. He told me everything's ok, and apart from its inability to walk here by itself, your body can be transported without a problem.", he murmured.
"Not with a neural stimulator?", Christine hissed.
They all remembered how Dr McCoy had steered Spock's body with the help of a remote-controlled neural stimulator that one time his brain had been stolen, and not only Christine shuddered at the memory of how eerily lifeless Spock's body had seemed despite having been perfectly fine in a biological sense.
"No, no!", Jim assured them both. "He's taking one of the new anti-grav lifts. We only need a couple of seconds anyway, so there's no need for such a contraption. And he also says to tell you, that as long as we keep it short, there'll be no ill-effects to your health due to lack of life-support. Thankfully, we can all beam together now; the magnetic storm has ceased completely by now."
Seconds later, McCoy rushed in, pushing an anti-gravity stretcher with Spock's body strapped in. He turned off the anti-grav unit, lowering the gurney to the transporter pad and they all took their habitual places for beam-out.
"Energize, Tyler!"
The transporter room disappeared and the station's control room reappeared.
McCoy reactivated the anti-grav and pushed the stretcher towards the machine where Mr Scott was already waiting for them.
"Put him over here, where Christine stood last time, Doctor."
McCoy grunted in acknowledgement and pushed the lift in the indicated position, lowering it again, and stepped back.
With their positions reversed but the machine still only working in the same single direction, their plan seemed almost fool-proof. Well, all their plans did, until they went wrong. But McCoy couldn't say that now, or he'd be chided for his bedside manners.
Meanwhile, Spock and Christine had positioned themselves, in her body, where Spock had stood before.
"Well, on your mark, Captain.", Mr Scott said, holding his hand over a switch on the control panel. He had wisely deactivated the machine's proximity-activation for now.
"Well, good luck, Spock. And don't you say, Vulcan's don't believe in luck!", Christine thought hurriedly.
"Good luck to you, too.", Spock answered.
"Ready?", Kirk asked, nodding towards Spock and Christine.
"Ready.", one of them replied.
"Do it, Scotty!"
The engineer flicked the switch, and the white light appeared again, so encompassing that only he remained visible, standing at the control panel that protruded into the room.
Mere seconds later, the light flickered and vanished again.
They saw Doctor Chapel slump against the wall, and Scotty quickly returned the switch into the off-position, hurrying over to help her regain her footing.
McCoy hastened towards the stretcher and loosened the safety straps while the Captain slumped down on the other side, hovering over Spock.
They saw him take a deep breath, and then he opened his eyes, looking up at them curiously.
"Spock!", Jim exclaimed, shaking his friend by the shoulders. "Welcome back!"
Very slowly, his second-in-command propped himself up on his elbows, gingerly moving his limbs one after the other.
"Take your time, Spock. Your body didn't move for over a day.", McCoy said, getting up to his feet to check on his other patient.
"Spock, say something!", Jim urged, grabbing his friend's arm.
Spock, in turn, seemed transfixed by Christine. Then, he looked down at the hand on his wrist, and up at the Captain himself. Suddenly, a deep laugh burst out from him and he grinned widely.
"Spock?", his friend asked him in a hushed tone. It was usually not a good sign when he had an emotional outburst.
But his question didn't make it better.
"No, no, not Spock.", was the cryptic answer he got between the unfamiliar laughs. "Spock's there. Well, I hope he is."
Jim's eyes followed the outstretched finger and came to rest on the two doctors. McCoy was standing next to Christine Chapel, looking back at Spock in a manner that indicated he had just received an equally unexpected reaction. Then the realisation hit him and he grumbled "Well that's just typical.", to no one in particular.
Jim Kirk looked down into the brown eyes sparkling up at him.
"Christine?"
"Yes, it's me, Christine.", the deep voice of his second-in-command answered.
"Spock?", he asked, while turning towards who appeared to be Christine Chapel.
"Correct, I'm still in here."
Jim jumped to his feet, turning to Scotty who was watching the scene with mild interest and amusement.
"What happened Scotty? What went wrong?"
"The way I see it nothing went wrong, Captain. The machine was wired to transfer one consciousness to the other side, that's what it did!"
"Well, yes, but it…it...transferred the wrong one!"
This felt almost more unlucky than yesterday. And Scotty didn't help.
"Well, machines dinnae discriminate.", he retorted, in a futile attempt to calm Kirk down.
"This is just unbelievable.", he growled, resisting the urge to kick the machine.
"It was a risk, but we couldnae have done the transfer differently.", Scotty tried.
Kirk breathed deeply, taking a look at his officers' faces, Christine's face bearing a judgingly raised eyebrow, and Spock's an awkward smirk.
"Can you fix it, Scotty?", he asked, placing his hands on the engineer's shoulders and looking at him imploringly.
"Aye! Course I can. It'll only take some minutes. I'll just need to repair that one circuit and then the machine will be fully functional and we can do a proper switch."
"You make it sound so easy.", Kirk sighed, both praise and exasperation tinging his voice.
"Aye, 'tis easy when yer a miracle worker. I repaired that darned thing, I'll be able to connect the last circuit, too."
"I'll leave you to it.", Jim murmured, patting his arm affectionately. Then, he turned to Spock and Christine and said: "Well, off you go, you don't need to sit around and wait."
The two of them promptly turned around, silently agreeing to look into some other rooms they hadn't found time for during their last visit.
"Don't you dare touch any machines, you two!", McCoy shouted after them. "And don't separate!"
*Dickinson, Emily. "If I can stop one heart from breaking." The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003, p.8.
To be continued...We're ending on a bit of a cliffhanger here. Did you see that coming? I couldn't help myself. You can look forward to some fun exchanges in the next chapter, and maybe some unexpected problems. I hope you liked it so far. And as always: reviews always appreciated, but mostly I hope you like the story.