Author: Caeyle
Rating: G
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Category: general
Summary: Spock looks back and remembers
Warnings: Spoilers for Generations
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Do you remember me?
An illogical question. You are not here for me to ask you, and you cannot possibly know or remember me where you are: on Veridian III, dead.
I forever and always shall remember you, my friend. We hardly knew each other at the beginning of our five year mission, and at the end, we could read each other, as you humans would say, like a book.
I got the news yesterday; no, not personally. It was broadcasted all over the Romulan network. The federation hero, the living legend, was dead, at last.
It was believed you were dead before, twice that I remember well. I almost killed you that one day; I had thought you dead. Murdered. I know I smiled when I saw you again, alive, and I didn't care.
And this second time, you were dead. Dead. The whole galaxy knew about it. How could you possibly survive death when the whole deck was blown out? Yet I could not help thinking to myself: He would have found a way. We were too much alike, you and I; and both too stubborn for our own good. Ironic, as I was chosen as your first officer because of our differences. You would have found a way; for everything you've been through, you couldn't just die then. And you did, or a way found you, and still you lived.
Now you are dead, I cannot deny it. Dead, buried; the man behind the legend lives no longer. For you are no immortal god; and a man, no matter how great, can die by a single wound, and you have no katra to give to another. Or rather, you have a katra, but you had not the power to give it away. After all, you are only human.
Perhaps I am wrong. For I can still feel you-- almost. I still remember, and in remembering, remembering all your faults and weaknesses, not just the hero-glorifying legends, you will live. That aura of yours, all confident and shining, is gone, and I know I held a bit within myself-- it has vanished also, leaving an empty space. But I am left with memories.
I feel almost human. I have a great longing to have seen you before you died, that I should have been there. Maybe if I were there, you would not have died. You always said you would died alone. And you did, you were right.
Died in action-- it sounds exactly like what you would have wanted. Would you have been able to cope with retirement, powerless and unimportant? Yes, I know you talk about it, like it's the best thing in the world, to relax without a sense of duty, but could you have really done it?
I am on Romulus, unlikely to leave any time soon. You are on Veridian III, unlikely to leave any time at all. You are deep in that undiscovered country now, unable to depart, while I discover myself in a different type of undiscovered country. Yet you are with me, and I with you, parted but never parted.
I will find you, seek you out one day again, my captain, my friend, my brother. My th'y'la.
FIN 4/30/02