James Tiberius Kirk is a master at twisting facts and people his way when he has to (and at times, when he wants to). A face that seems boyishly open and honest, combined with an over actively imaginative mind makes Jim a very successful liar when called to it.
But unlike many liars, James Kirk never lies to himself. No matter how unflattering, or downright painful the truth, he will accept it. so he knows better than to pretend that the exhilaration he feels in battle is a purely physical response to be blamed on human biochemistry.
The truth is, he enjoys battle. Enjoys the thrill of life-and-death decisions, the age old clash of wits and of weapons. He loves the feel of adrenaline coursing through his veins, the sleek purr of Enterprise as she flies into combat.
But, once the battle is over, there's the aftermath. The part they never mention in epics and holovids. The frantic surge of an overcrowded sickbay. The smell of blood and burned flesh lingering in the corridors. The letters that will be send to parents, to husbands or wives, to lovers, to children, to siblings. The letters which never got easier to write. The bodies placed so still and cold in stasis, to be held within the blue, heatless flames till they are taken home.
This time, a body laid out lovingly in a coffin in the ship's chapel, with the girl who was to have been a bride tonight keeping last vigil over her beloved.
The aftermath. What happens after the credits roll on the holovid. That makes sure that no matter how much he enjoys battle, he will never grow to love it. That he will never fail to exhaust all other options before giving that irreversible order.
Tonight, as after every battle, after every mission in which he failed to bring all his people back aboard, James Kirk paces the corridors of his silver lady. He knows better than to go and lie down as Bones would no doubt insist on his doing. He'll never be able to get to sleep tonight. Not the way he is feeling now. Of course, he could take one of Bones' red pills, but he hates having to take them. besides, there is the not-entirely-logical (or sane) need to keep his ship company after all she went through.
He owes the fallen at least one night's lost sleep. A wan smile touches his lips as he wonders what Spock would say to that idea. Spock.
Jim hesitates, as another, more disturbing thought flashes by.
Spock, the pacifist, the scientist. Spock, the Vulcan who won't even eat meat because the idea of taking even an animal's life is repugnant to him. It was Spock who fired the phasers at that last fateful moment. Who saved the ship. And took the lives of about two dozen Romulans. He knows Spock well enough to know that the commendation put down on his record for today's actions would be a mark of shame for the Vulcan.
If he, Kirk, Terran and more than part soldier, felt pain at the needless deaths of the Romulan crew what would Spock be feeling? He feels yet another pang of guilt. Today really hasn't been easy on Spock. Stiles and his accusations…The instinctive reaction of the Bridge crew (yes, all of them, Jim is not excepting himself) when the Romulan appeared on screen… The mistake he made…Oh yes. Firing those phasers, while choking on the coolant fumes – a perfect ending to a perfect day.
I should have gone to him. Talked for a while. We always do, after a rough mission…
But this time he had avoided that ritual. Mostly because he hadn't wanted to talk at all, not now, not even to Spock. It is still too close, hits too close to home. But had Spock wanted to talk about it? Needed to talk about it? Anyone would have… No, any human would have. Spock… Even now, the Vulcan First Officer is a mystery to James Kirk. Maybe he always will be.
He nearly died today.
Kirk tried to push away the thought. There was enough pain involved without bringing up hypothetical nightmares. It was too close a shave, he knew from McCoy's expression. A few minutes more, a slight delay in getting away, and Tomlinson may not have been the only victim…
He pushed away the thought, the image of Spock's dead body next to Tomlinson's, the image of a vigil that he may have been called upon to keep. It didn't happen. He got away in time. You didn't lose him.
But somehow an instinctual fear was gnawing at his mind. Something wrong, something badly wrong with Spock… He stopped short. Had Spock ever killed before? Directly? Not just given an order that resulted in deaths, but did it with his own hands?
He must have – graduating from the Academy at eighteen, nearly two decades in the Fleet, in Deep Space… There were too many unknowns, too many dangers out here for someone to keep his hands clean of blood over all those years, a major part of the reason many pacifist species simply refused to join the Fleet. They were explorers, scientists and diplomats first of all, but they also had to be soldiers when called upon. Maybe he had, under Pike's command, but not under Kirk's. Not yet.
He had been willing to kill when there had been no other choice – had even, with cold logic, recommended killing when that was the only logical option. Gary Mitchell, the salt vampire… But he had never had to directly do it, not in the years Kirk knew him. They all knew full well that theory was far removed from the actual deed. So… how would he react? How was he taking it? Romulans… Practically his own species… Go to him. You know you have to.
…..
There was no response to the door buzzer.
"Spock?" Kirk called "It's me."
Maybe Spock assumed it was McCoy, and decided he simply wasn't upto the task of tackling more human illogic today. No response. He tried again. Nothing.
"Spock? Are you in there? Are you okay ?"
He was in there, Kirk knew. Just…ignoring the signal. Something he had never done before. If it was Bones or Scotty who was doing the same thing, Kirk would simply have interpreted it as a passive aggressive 'just-leave-me-alone' signal and gone away, but not Spock. Ignoring a summons from his captain – even if Jim was there as a friend and not as the captain – was something that the Vulcan First Officer wouldn't even dream of. And Kirk knew that full well.
Maybe he's just asleep… Sure. When had any fleet officer lacked the instant awakening skills deep space duty demanded? And Spock was a very light sleeper – at times Jim doubted whether he ever slept at all – no way he would have been asleep deep enough not to hear the door buzzer.
Maybe meditating… Maybe. Or he could be…ill… The coolant fumes.. McCoy was too professional to discharge him from sickbay unless he was sure he'd be okay, but still… Sometimes there could be unpredictable after effects, especially with a mixed-species physiology.
"Spock?" Kirk called again, not quite at the point of hammering on the door, but heading there. "Spock, if you're in there, if you're okay, say something. Otherwise I'm coming in, okay? I'm worried about you."
He tried the door. Damn. Spock had locked the door. That was unusual in itself. One of his Vulcan habits – never locking the door, whether he was inside the cabin or not. A habit that both Kirk and McCoy regularly badgered him about. So he decided to take your suggestion, after all. So what? So it doesn't jibe. It doesn't.
The image that was actually driving him, the image he just wouldn't let into his conscious mind, swam into clear view again.
Lieutenant Williams. Not aboard Enterprise, not under his direct command, but when he was aboard USS Kelvin… The earnest, shy lieutenant who had found himself in the midst of a shootout on a landing party that went very wrong, very fast. A group of attackers, genetically engineered soldiers who couldn't be taken down by stun shots. The Starfleet officers forced to set their phasers to vaporize… Williams hadn't been security, just one of the scientists who had been caught in the middle of the fight, but he had had to defend himself.
He had had to kill – the first time he had to kill. The senior officers had been too busy trying to sort out the disaster the diplomatic mission had devolved into to realize this was the first time the man had had to actually fire a killing shot. Williams had skipped his obligatory appointment with the ship's counselor, and when his friends had finally gone looking for him… Kirk would never forget the marble pale face of the corpse, the blood from the slashed wrists…
"Spock!" Kirk called again.
This time he was pounding on the door, but forced himself to stop.
Alright then. The override code. If it was nothing, he could always apologize.
The door slid open. The first thing he noticed was that it was cold – not cold compared to shipboard temperatures, not by much, but Spock tended to keep his room at Vulcan atmosphere norms, meaning hot as a sauna. Not this time. The office space was empty, silent. The lighting low, reddish – that at least was normal.
In the couple of seconds he was in the room, Kirk's trained eyes took in every detail – including the collection of antique weapons on the wall, and the small shrine (?) at which a reddish lamp burned. A red flame also burned before the strange statue he had noticed before – the statue of a pre-Surakian god of death, no longer an object of worship, but still a powerful symbol, a sigil. He had never seen a light burning before it. The scent of a strange incense burning. It looked too much like a setting for a ritual of some kind.
"Spock?"
In one swift move, not giving himself time to think about the inappropriateness of this, of the several perfectly logical and harmless explanations that may be there, Kirk crossed the office space and was in the scarlet draped bedroom. For an instant Kirk almost hoped that he was mistaken, Spock was just asleep, and in a moment he would find himself trying to explain the illogic of human anxiety to his startled first officer
. But only for an instant. The Vulcan lay too still, his face too pale. His breathing irregular, unsteady. Almost gasping for breath.
"Spock!"
No response, no reaction, even when he tried to shake him awake. Vulcan body temperatures are lower than human, so Spock's hands always feel cold to the touch, but this time they seemed colder than normal, too cold. The pulse in his wrist too slow, not the hummingbird buzz of four beats per second. For a fraction of an instant Jim was frozen where he stood, then he dived for the intercom. Get McCoy here. Now.
"Sickbay-"
"That won't be necessary, Captain" Spock's voice – but in his mind, not his ears.
"Spock?"
He glanced around the room, hand still on the intercom. The still form on the bed moved, dark eyes flickering open.
"I am alright" this time he spoke aloud, but his voice was, despite an evident attempt to steady it, weak and shaky.
"You don't look alright" Jim stepped away from the intercom, not sure what to think or say. "And you definitely weren't alright when I came in."
Spock sighed and sat up, looking at the young human as if wondering what he had seen, what he suspected.
"There seems little point in insisting I lock the cabin doors if you are simply going to use the override code when I do so."
Jim had the grace to look a bit sheepish – but only a bit, since he had some very worrying questions about what he just saw.
"I was worried about you."
Not really the best thing to tell a vulcan, but it had slipped out. because he was worried. Very.
"Unnecessary. Surely Dr McCoy already informed you that I had been released from sickbay."
Spock had managed to pull himself together, his voice and posture were back to normal, but there were enough indications that whatever was going on, whatever he had been doing, or trying to do, was not something you could shake off in a hurry.
"You don't look alright" Kirk repeated. "And when I came in… You.. You looked like.."
He hesitated, not sure which way to go about this. Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Captain, surely you know that certain Vulcan meditative techniques can induce a physical condition which might be deduced as ill health going by external appearances."
"Yes…"
And certain Vulcan techniques can induce a physical condition not compatible with life. He had heard of it, and while much of it may be myth, enough was reliable. Enough to know that Vulcans didn't need a weapon to take their own lives.
"But I've never known of one that could make you look like you are in actual pain."
Jim was very good at reading people, but with a Vulcan, even his skill was somewhat limited. What was Spock thinking? Did he understand what Kirk suspected…feared?
"Spock?" Jim's voice softened. "Are you really okay? I.. I know what you feel about taking a life.."
Was that a barely perceptible wince? If you wanted to read a Vulcan's expression, you had to look in their eyes. the problem was, few people could actually manage to meet those eyes for long – like many of the galaxy's telepathic species, Vulcan eyes gave an impression of seeing way farther than you were comfortable with.
"There was no choice this time – we had to destroy them. it was that or war. You know what happened in the last wars. We managed to stop it from recurring again. The lives that were lost… A necessary price to pay. What you did today – it saved the ship. Might well have saved the Federation. You understand that, don't you?"
"I was the one who recommended destroying the Romulan ship, captain. Of course I understand."
Jim wasn't sure whether he was making things worse or better. Even after all this time, there was so much about Spock that he simply couldn't figure out.
They talked for a while – well, Jim did most of the talking, but that was normal enough in any circumstances. And Spock did look okay… Everything seemed normal enough – but Jim knew better than most how a normal exterior could hide a lot.
He wasn't sure how to bring up the topic. Normally James Kirk had no trouble coming up with the right words for any and all occasions, with a member of any species, but with this particular Vulcan, he found himself tongue tied way too often. Especially when the right words, the right questions, were most essential. Finally, he hit on the idea of steering the conversation to the new crew members, about their reaction to the battle. And, in what he hoped was a smooth transition, brought the conversation over to lieutenant Williams and what had happened to him.
Spock frowned slightly.
"Captain.. Jim.. What did you think I was doing – or trying to do?"
Guess the transition was not as smooth as intended. Or they were seated close enough for some of that touch telepathy to pick up on what he was thinking.
"I wasn't sure what to think" Kirk admitted.
Spock looked at him in part exasperation at the human's tendency to jump to conclusions, part regret at having given his friend such cause for anxiety.
"I assure you I have no intention of taking my own life. "
Kirk looked equal parts sheepish and relieved.
"I'm sorry. it's just that…" he indicated the room "That light before the death god, low temperature… It looked like a scene set for a ritual of some kind. And when I came in to find you like that…"
"It was a ritual. As you know, every culture has their own rituals connected with death."
He hadn't exactly wanted to explain this, which was why he had tried to steer the conversation away and had been relieved when Kirk had asked no more direct questions about it. but considering what Kirk's imagination had conjured up, probably it would be better to tell the truth. It would likely be more conducive to the human's peace of mind.
Not to mention it was not exactly a secret – Kirk could find the details if he wanted in the early works of xenosociologists. And those details in their cold clinical language would be more disturbing to the human than a firsthand description. Kirk was frowning. He had a vague idea what Spock was talking about, and he really didn't like it.
"I thought your people didn't…not any more.."
"We no longer follow the pre-Surakian customs. But over the years we have had to find ways to reconcile Surakian ideals with the demands of reality. As long as we remained in our own world, the ideals could be followed – with little difficulty, once enough had chosen the path. But once we began to venture into deep space.."
Kirk nodded. There were a lot of folk out there, and more were like Klingons than like Vulcans.
"We were faced with the choice of confining ourselves within our own system and preserving Surakian ideals, or venturing out and compromising the path we had given up much to uphold."
Several had insisted on the first option, but in the end the cat-like curiosity in their blood had won out. No Vulcan could resist the lure of knowledge, and even Surakian ideals couldn't seem a fair trade off. They were not going to lock themselves in.
"So…compromises had to be made, new rituals created.." Kirk was beginning to see where this was heading. "Spock. Are you talking about X'hanear?"
Spock noted the look of horror in the human's face. Of course, Jim didn't understand. It was not something many off worlders could understand. Spock was beginning to regret having opened this topic, but now that it was begun, it had to be finished.
"Yes."
Kirk drew in a deep breath.
"Spock…"
"It is not as fearsome as it sounds."
"It sounds like you literally force yourselves to feel like you are dying. Force yourselves to feel whatever pain you inflicted on the other. Is that about right?"
Spock stifled a sigh. Of course, whatever source Jim had obtained the information from had clearly sensationalized the issue.
"Not really." He hesitated a moment. "Are you aware of the Gellerman Experiments ?"
Kirk nodded. That one had been by Terran scientists who wanted to prove the existence of the soul. Their procedure was to scan the vicinity of a dying individual continuously on all frequencies and discover whether there are specific energies that emerge at the moment of death.
The study was inconclusive as far as its primary objective was concerned – but it did discover something that had almost the same impact. Every death apparently sends a kind of ripple through the universe. Even animal deaths.
He had watched the video recordings of the appropriate frequency, and found it seriously eerie. Like every life snuffed out sent a shockwave out – very mild in case of natural deaths, increasing in intensity in proportion to the violence and prematurity of the death.
"That's how some species – both lower animals and sentient telepaths or ESPers – can sense deaths…" He looked at Spock "Is that what you sense? Whenever a death happens… You feel the shock it sends out?"
"Not in the case of all deaths. Not unless I lower my own shields enough to sense it, which I do only in case of deaths for which I was directly responsible."
Still, a bit too disturbing. Kirk really didn't like it – going by the expression on Spock's face when he had found him in that trance or whatever it was, it hurt and hurt a lot. Pre Surakian Vulcan was known for its sadomasochistic cultural elements. Looks like the masochistic element hasn't been shed yet.
"That… Seems hardly…logical, Spock."
Spock nodded.
"Yes. But it was the only compromise that could be worked out."
Kirk looked very doubtful about that.
"Captain, what was your reaction the first time you had to take a life? Directly, with your own hands."
Kirk frowned. He remembered well enough. if anything, a bit too well. A landing party had walked right into a Klingon ambush. In the ensuing melee, he had lost his phaser and had had to grab a stunned Klingon's disruptor instead. Only, Klingon disruptors don't have a stun setting. You don't point it at anything you don't want dead. He hadn't wanted that young Klingon dead – a rookie, by the look of him, younger than ensign Kirk had been – but he hadn't wanted to die either.
The one he killed was a Klingon, an enemy, someone who had been about to kill him. All the same, once they got back aboard, he had spent the rest of the evening throwing up or crying on Gary's shoulder. He didn't need to say it out loud. Spock had the answer from his expression.
"It gets easier, does it not?"
"It never gets easy."
"Not easy, easier."
Kirk nodded reluctantly. He had killed, after that. Killed more times than he liked to admit. So many battles. The Klingon ships, mostly, the ones that would rather self destruct or try to ram the starship than risk being captured alive. You got used to it.
"I am not accusing you of becoming callous. I know you too well for that. But.. naturally, it gets easier. And one who follows Surak's path cannot afford that. We can never let it become easier. Every time we kill, it must have the same impact as it did the first time – and it will, if we are directly aware what a death does to the universe at large. If we have to kill, we are to do it fully aware of what we are doing and why. Aware in every sense of the term."
Kirk wasn't sure he understood, or even wanted to understand.
"It hurts you."
"There is no permanent damage."
"And all Vulcans do this?"
"All who have chosen a path which leads them close to violence."
"You.. You do this every time you have had to.."
"Yes."
Kirk wanted to ask whether 'deaths he was directly responsible for' included not only the times he had to kill someone in combat, but also the occasions where his orders had resulted in deaths. The occasions where he hadn't managed to bring back all of the landing party. But he couldn't ask, mostly because he was afraid he knew what the answer was.
"It disturbs you" Spock said softly.
Kirk nodded.
"It's…sort of eerie, Spock. No offense, but.."
But it really doesn't sound as if it would be conducive to anyone's health or sanity. Well, any human's health or sanity. Spock wasn't human…
"It is a ritual. A way of resolving the conflict between our ideals and our reality. "
He wanted to forbid Spock from doing this again. But of course, he was pretty certain rituals and cultural practices didn't come under his jurisdiction as the commanding officer. Vulcans would emphatically deny Surakism was a religion – it certainly wasn't, Surak was a great man, but a mortal one all the same – but it effectively enjoyed the same protections religious freedom issued. And if Spock really did find this necessary, and there was no real damage…
Spock was looking at him, a question in his dark eyes. Kirk wasn't sure how to respond.
"I don't think I really understand, Spock. I don't think I can understand."
"Of course" Spock acknowledged. If he was disappointed, there was no trace of it in his face or voice. "Neither do I understand the emphasis human culture places on funerals and the treatment of the corpse. It seems an unnecessary evocation of grief and pain in the name of a closure that is too often lacking. Especially when it leads to risking lives to retrieve corpses and treating said corpses as if they still contained or were connected to the essence that once resided in them."
Kirk shrugged.
"As you said, closure, plus the chance to say goodbye."
"Not entirely. If we had managed to recover any of the bodies of the Romulan crew, you would have considered yourself obligated to give them what is considered a proper funeral, as close as possible to their own customs – of which we admittedly know little. But there have been more than one occasion when you arranged a Klingon funeral – at least the closest approximation possible. "
"You are saying this ritual is a way of…honoring a dead enemy."
"No. Honoring life."
And a way of understanding what exactly one had done. The cost of not having managed to find a way around it, find a peaceful solution. He wasn't going to explain it in those terms, though. It would sound like a punishment, almost ritualized self-harm, as bad as the sensational truisms surrounding the ancient rituals made them sound. This explanation will do. it will have to do.