"Something troubling you, Captain?"
The perfectly ordered, even-toned voice of the Vulcan came from behind the Captain's chair. Nothing out of the ordinary, just Spock coming over from his post as Science Officer to see why the Captain was in a particularly odd mood. James Kirk was certainly in an odd mood, and wasn't surprised to see at least one person pick up on it, though he didn't peg the Vulcan for being particularly sensitive to human dispositions. But when the Captain had answered pretty much every question today with a 'Huh?', spilled his coffee twice, and had the ship nearly peg an asteroid all within the space of two hours, even Spock knew that something was amiss with the normally professional Captain.
Kirk knew that his recent success and promotion as Captain had come as a bit of a surprise to the crew, and even to his best friend, Bones, but he'd proven himself quite well, in his opinion, over the past few weeks. He'd been competent, and even excelled at his new station.
But lately he'd not been sleeping well.
"Huh?" Kirk winced when he realized this was the 15th 'huh' he'd uttered today.
"I mean, I'm fine, Spock. Really."
Spock took two perfectly-even steps closer to the Captain's chair, and spoke in a lower tone. "If you are feeling ill, Captain, it's quite all right to admit that you are not—"
"I'm fine, really, Spock."
"You've not had adequate rest."
Now that was intuitive. The Captain smirked. "Is it that obvious?"
"You could have the Doctor prescribe you a sleeping aid, if this is a recurrent issue—"
"It's not," Kirk lied.
Spock gave him a long look. They hadn't known each other for very long, but Kirk felt like he knew the Vulcan a lot longer—something about meeting the guy's older self and mind-melding with him a bit tended to create a sense of familiarity. In fact, he hadn't slept well at all since the mind-meld, come to think of it. How long had it been? A month, maybe? Kirk rubbed his chin—it was gritty, he'd forgotten to shave.
"Maybe I just need coffee. I could use the walk. Did you get anything to eat, yet?"
"I've eaten, yes."
"Well, anyway. Walk with me."
Spock dutifully followed Kirk into the turbolift. Kirk sighed. He wasn't quite sure how to begin this conversation. After all, Spock was an alien—half-alien, anyway, and even though he knew the Vulcan wouldn't take offense to it.
Oh well.
"What can you tell me about mind-melds?" he blurted out.
Spock blinked, the only sign of surprise that he'd get out of him. "Mind melds? Why do you ask?"
"I don't know…just curious?"
"You could look up references and documentation in the ship's computer, I could point out areas of interest that normally wouldn't show in an indexing search—"
"Well, this mind-meld was in fact…" Kirk took a deep breath. He knew the universe wouldn't necessarily end, after all, the two of them had met already, but it was too weird a situation to easily shake off that fear.
"It was actually from you. The older you."
Spock stood very still for a moment, even stiller than usual. It was actually taking him a moment to compose himself. Then, as unflappable as ever, he spoke as if nothing was unusual.
"If you forgive my curiosity, why did he…or I…do this?"
"He explained about—you explained about Nero and how he—how you got here, to this universe. It was actually a pretty quick and easy way of learning about it. But ever since then, I've just…been having these really—"
"Nightmares," Spock said simply.
Kirk stared. "Yeah."
The turbolift stopped and the door opened. Kirk slammed his hand on the close button and it shut, much to the dismay of an Ensign carrying several large cases. Spock continued.
"Such events have been documented amongst other species who have encountered mind-melds, though most have faded in time. Some don't even get nightmares at all. But this, I speculate, may be due to the simple nature of…as plainly as I can put it…destiny."
"Whoa, destiny? I thought you don't believe in such things," Kirk scoffed.
"Not at all, if a timeline is repairing itself it would make sense that certain events need to play out in certain ways for both to return to a balance. I believe that your encounter with this Spock, one who has encountered the other universes' version of you, and I assume is quite close to, may have left his memories of the other Jim Kirk in your mind. Whether by design or accident, I do not know. This will manifest as nightmares as your subconscious tries to deal with it."
"Wait—hold your horses here—I don't remember seeing anything of…the other me, in what he showed me."
"Which is what I would expect from…myself. But he is much more…emotionally attunedthan I am," Spock actually seemed to have some difficulty saying this. "And he was dealing with the loss of an entire planet due to his actions. Your alternate would have died many years ago in his timeline. Seeing you again would have brought so many memories to the surface, I doubt that he even tried to suppress the emotions he felt when he mind-melded with you. I theorize that these memories were left behind as he broke the meld, probably without him even knowing it."
"Unless he did it on purpose," Kirk gave Spock an even longer look. He knew the Vulcan was a perfectionist, he doubted that even his older, more 'emotinally-attuned' self would let himself slip like that.
"Unless he did it on purpose," Spock echoed, slowly. "In any case, I believe that we can remedy this by another." Spock held out his hand. "With your permission?"
Kirk balked. "Hey. I had enough of you guys in my head already."
"The only way for you to have peace if you resolve these memories. Once viewed, they will be…released from your subconscious. It shouldn't take long. I doubt there were very many."
An audible sigh. "Okay. Fine. But you better not go poking around in there, I have a lot of private information."
"I have the same self-destruct codes of the Enterprise just as you do."
The raise of an eyebrow. A thinly-veiled attempt at humor? That was scary. In any case, there was no turning back. And he trusted Spock. Now, more than ever. Kirk nodded.
Spock placed his fingers on Kirk's temple and cheek.
"Our minds…are one…" he said in his low, monotone voice.
Suddenly the turbolift disappeared. They were in a hallway, filled with tropical potted plants. It looked familiar, kind of like the academy. Kirk and Spock were somehow there, physically. They looked at each other.
"Does it usually work this way?" he asked the Vulcan.
"Depends on the memory. I thought it would be easier this way to examine it rather than taking an omniscient view."
Two men were walking down the hallway. Spock nodded and they followed behind them. "Just remember," he added. "This memory is the viewpoint of my alternate. Any…feelings that are associated with this memory are his." There was a particular emphasis on his. Kirk socked Spock in the arm.
"Don't worry, man, you'll love me just as much as everyone else too, you'll see."
He was right though—there was a peculiar feeling of warmth about them. Something familiar. Kind of like being at home on a cold snowy day reading a good book. Speaking of books, the taller one handed the shorter one a rather old, thick book. Kirk spied the cover. It was "The Tale of Two Cities."
One of the men spoke.
Kirk froze—the voice was older, a little more grizzled, but he'd know it anywhere. And he'd already met the older Spock. He looked at his younger companion, who merely stared ahead.
"You are welcome to look, of course. It's not like they can see or interact with you. This is a memory."
"Well, that's really…quite all right," Kirk said, pretending to be very interested in the nearest potted plant. He wasn't going to admit he was afraid—then again, he did have a Vulcan sharing a bit of his brain at the moment so it wasn't like he could hide that.
"There is no point in trying to hide feelings from me," Spock said without missing a beat. "We are still currently in a mind-meld. If you are hesitant, there is no shame in that. You are, after all, human, and I suspect that seeing oneself in the future is quite a rare occurrence."
"How did you take it, when you saw…yourself?"
Spock paused. "It was, in effect, a bit of a shock."
"You're admitting that to me?"
"Like I mentioned previously, there's no point in trying to hide emotion in a mind-meld," Spock said with just the slightest hint of annoyance in his unflappable tone.
Kirk laughed, when he noticed that the scene had changed—it was a different memory.
A bunch of memories—all flashing before them at an alarming speed.
Bones, himself, and Spock, camping at Yellowstone.
"Jim!" Spock extremely pleased for some reason that Kirk wasn't dead—it looked like they were on Vulcan, and both looked like they'd been in quite a bad fight.
Kirk sitting in a giant pile of Tribbles, looking very annoyed as they spilled out from a bin overhead.
Kirk sitting in the Captain's chair, dealing with a horrifying looking green alien on screen.
Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty and Checkov in what looked like a very cheap interpretation of the OK Corral.
Kirk and Spock, fighting in the transporter room. Kirk hurling insults at Spock, Spock hurling fists at and nearly killing Kirk.
Spock holding Kirk back from running across a street in what looked like 20th century earth, as a woman died in front of them.
"What is this?" It was too much. Too much to see, too much to process. "Stop it—stop it, get us out of here!"
And they were back in the Turbolift. Kirk broke away, and hit the open button on the door. He didn't know or care what deck they were on, he just needed to get away. Get away from his thoughts—they were jumbled and overflowing with memories that weren't his, memories of a future that never was and may never be, but somehow…was once, somewhere.
He wandered down the hallway for a moment until someone put a hand on his shoulder. He jumped—it was Spock.
"I'm sorry, Captain—I was unable to control the torrent of memories that were left behind, it was stronger than I expected, and much more than I'd assumed—you may be disoriented for quite some time."
"Oh, really?" the Captain still managed an eye roll, before he grabbed the wall, trying his best not to pass out.
"Perhaps we should go to sick bay."
"I'm fine," Kirk hissed through his teeth, and stood up straighter.
He adjusted his uniform, and promptly fell backwards, out cold.
This story is going to be about 09' Kirk learning about some of the more poignant and epic Kirk moments of the TOS and movies, especially with his brotherly friendship with Spock.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount, and I hold no claim over them, and consider this story exercise fair use under commentary and education
-please let me know how my writing is and critique as you'd like. Thank you in advance!