Jim Kirk had seen plenty of death. He'd lived inside it and found a way to survive. Tarsus got cold at night. Very cold. Some nights the only blanket was a still warm body found lying in a ditch. Kirk thought that if he could bring one child to safety, then one parent could give up their resting spot to keep him from freezing to death. Those gut wrenching moments had stayed with him, dwelled in him, and found a particularly cozy home in the depths of his psyche. But in every instance there had been one constant.
Emotion.
So when Kirk found himself staring to the blank face of the ship's first officer, he didn't know what to think.
The woman with him was also surprisingly silent, but not as unfeeling as Spock. She looked sunken in very much like the planet they had left behind. Being a human from Vulcan, Kirk could only conclude that this was Spock's mother. And the man they didn't retrieve?
His death was not significant to Kirk. But how unnerving that it could settle just a deep as the hundreds of colonists he had watched die when he was just 14.
Time felt like a rubber band stretch out. Any minute now things would snap into focus.
Kirk waited.
Technicians stared at the green globs smearing the transporter pad and moved very slowly to clean it up.
"No." Spock's voice sent time hurling into focus.
Sound reinvented itself most notably to the tune of Klaxons.
"Beam it into space."
Chekov reluctantly nodded; his hands collected in a dreary dance of fingertips on the panel, reenergized pad 2, and dematerialized the edematous matter somewhere far off from the ship's position.
Spock resigned from the pad, holding the woman's hand and led her to the door. The swish was louder than normal and Kirk turned.
He was about to watch them file out when Spock pivoted to face him.
"I will see my Mother to her temporary quarters. While I am occupied, I would like you to be on the bridge. Pike made you first officer. need to know that I can trust you. Set a course to the Laurentian System, I will be back shortly."
"Of course. Spock. I'm sorry." Jim projected it loudly, sincerely. If the Vulcan felt any of his condolences, it was worth it.
Spock's gaze held for a second longer before straightening and walking out of the room.
"Fuck."
Chekov stood from his post and settled at Kirk's side.
"I…
I couldn't…"
Kirk squeezed the youths shoulder.
"No one blames you. Especially not Spock."
"What about his Mother?" Chekov asked, his voice crumbling and soft.
Kirk didn't answer. He couldn't.
He'd never faced this kind of death before.
It was damning and comforting all at once. After Tarsus, Kirk felt a desensitization, a numbness to death that had left him hollow and cold to the event.
The ache was almost pleasant.
