Three hours before…

Ziggy had a plan. An I'm-probably-going-to-get-killed-for-this-by-an-angry-Vulcan sort of plan, but he had to do it, he hadto. He began by going down to his planet with the new wave of leave officers. Once there, he went to his home on the southern part of the planet in an area he had masked and made sure no one wanted to enter. Inside his home, he went down to his wine cellar and picked out the best bottle of homemade wine he had made. Being alone in a planet for hundreds of years had it's advantages, wine being one of them. He had wines aged beautifully he almost regretted to drink them once in a while. This was an exception. It had to be done.

He then asked to be beamed back to the Enterprise. The reply took longer than he expected but at the end Captain Kirk had promised him asylum of a sorts and he was beamed back onto the ship.

Bottle of wine in hand, he thanked the chaps operating the transporter controls and headed to Kirk's quarters.

"I'm sorry," Ziggy said as he let himself into the Captain's room. "I have to do this for everything to come out. You must see the future I see. You must see," he put the bottle of wine down and took out a packet of powder from his jacket, "that without Spock, you are nothing."

Sick bay… now...

Spock raced to Sick Bay, stopping only once when asked how the Captain was. And even then he only stopped because the inquirer was none other than Ziggy. Emotions in check, Spock calmly told the alien that Captain Kirk was better and that he need not worry about the Captain. He rushed off after that, leaving Ziggy behind without another word.

As he reached Sick Bay, he stopped. Even if he had never before felt it, he knew he was nervous. His hands shook, or so they felt like they were, and his stomach was doing what he believed was called 'having butterflies'. Jim was inside. Jim who had practically died on the floor of his quarters because of him, because of what Spock had said. It was his fault that Jim had ended up in Sick Bay.

"My fault… I shouldn't be here …" he mumbled turning away from the door.

"Hey Spock," McCoy called out as he came out of Sick Bay. Spock had no choice but to turn back. "I was just comin' to get ya. He's all goo-goo for you and wanted me to get ya here safe. Like you could get hurt with that Vulcan voodoo hand thing you got! But there was no convincin' him, you know how he is."

"Affirmative."

Spock followed the doctor inside past the main area and to the back where the private rooms were. Jim was in the farthest and more private room. He was surprised to see Jim's name on a plaque by the door and turned to the doctor.

"Oh yeah! I put it there as a joke," McCoy explained. "That boy gets into more trouble than he means to so I though I'd reserve him a room. Though I think I might move him up to the first room… it's a bitch draggin' his ass all the way over here."

The Vulcan nodded. McCoy walked into the room, the doors sliding soundlessly in front of him, with Spock following behind, his stomach still in turmoil. Jim was sitting up in bed wearing a white shirt unbuttoned at the top that exposed a bit of his chest. Spock's eyes glued themselves to that spot for a moment until those rich blue eyes stole his attention. His eyes were beautiful it was an undeniable fact.

"So, ima be the mediator in this little domestic dispute," McCoy said as he tapped a code into the module by the doors. "Any objections?"

"I do not believe we are having a quarrel and therefor are not in need of a intermediary," Spock said turning his back on Jim to look at McCoy. "I am here at the Captain's request for what I believed to be orders. Nothing more, Doctor." Lies and he knew it.

"Is that why you ran all the way here, Spock?"

"I did not run, Doctor."

"I got complaints of officers getting injuries as an 'anxious first officers' trampled them over as he ran through the halls. I'm pretty sure this ship's only got on First Officer and I'm lookin' right at him."

"Bones… stop it," Jim's tired voice ran though the room, halting the response Spock was ready to say. "You can be the mediator as long as you stop being an ass to Spock."

"Fine," McCoy replied. "I'll only be an ass to you, you twit. Why the hell you go and get wasted for? You scared the daylights out of me and you almost got yourself killed!"

"I'm tired of dealing with shit and drinking helps me forget. I found the bottle on my desk when I got to my quarters. I didn't mean to …" he paused and looked away. "I'm sorry… I am."

"Next time come talk to me instead of drinking your way to oblivion, will ya?"

"If I may interject, what is the purpose of my presence?" Spock asked watching the two men uncomfortably.

"Jim needs to tell you why he ran out of your quarters last time you talked," McCoy provided, looking over at Jim sternly. "Don't you, Jim?"

"Ziggy said that to prove him wrong, all I had to do was not to sleep with you," Jim said. "When you were… confessing… I had to stop you, you see? I had to stop you because if you'd gone any further, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. And then Ziggy would have been right."

"Why not explain that to me? You could have explained the situation, I would have understood." Spock took a step forward, his eyes firmly on Jim. "I would have understood clearly if only you had explained, Jim."

"Yeah well, I didn't, okay?" Jim said rubbing the back of his neck.

"And look where that got you, kiddo," McCoy interjected. "Why didn't you tell him?"

Jim paused as if thinking over the question. Spock kept his eyes on him, not wanting to miss a single emotion as they passed by Jim's face.

"When the other me told the other you he loved you, the other you ran away. He ran away and tried to purge all of his emotions whilst the other me lived with the fact that he had driven you away. Seven years you were gone, Spock. And even before then, five years of pining and you ignoring. I can't be like that. "

"My alternate self has assured me that events will not occur the same way unless we make the same decisions," Spock said.

"In standard terms, he ain't that Spock," McCoy urged. "And you prove that you aren't that Kirk so what's all this hogwash?"

"The past always repeats itself..." Jim mumbled, looking away.

"Not once it has been rewritten," Spock said. "We are in a new timeline - an alternate timeline - one that has yet to have happened. One that is happening right now, Captain. What happened in that universe will not happen here unless we make it so."

"You can't know that," Jim insisted.

"And you can't know the opposite."

A pause.

"The Kolinahr." Jim looked at Spock, tears brimming his eyes. "You left me waiting whilst you sneaked off in the middle of the night and went home to Vulcan do study the Kolinahr." Jim's hands fisted with anger. "The other me thought you had been taken captive or dead. It was your mother who was nice enough to tell me what you were doing. It was she who thought it be appropriate to inform me of this tidbit."

"That is not me-"

"Twelve years, Spock, I loved you for twelve years." He shook his head. McCoy gave Spock a worried look as Jim looked away briefly. "And you know what? You came back and I didn't have the guts to talk to you. And when I was finally ready to tell you that I forgave you, you died."

Jim saw it in his mind. He remembered it as if it was he who was running through the halls trying to reach engineering. As if he had been held back by two of his best friend while the love of his life inhaled poisonous gas and died as his blood vessels expanded. It hurt then and it certainly hurt now watching Spock adjust his uniform and walk over to the glass doors, stumbling as his eyes glazed over. It hurt to hear those choked words – his final words – and not being able to say I love you, Spock. Please don't leave me! All he could do was sit on the floor and watch as Spock closed his eyes and died.

"But you weren't dead, were you? No, we shot your body into space and you regrew. Your memories – your katra – inside Bones' head, we found you. Even then, you slept with Saavik and seemed to have forgotten me." Jim gasped holding his head in his hands as a sharp pain vibrated inside his skull. He continued to talk. "We save you and the whales! And then – and only then – did we talk. But then your stupid brother happened and shit got complicated. I never got a chance to tell you, Spock, how much you meant to me."

"Jim, are you okay?" McCoy asked stepping closer to him with a worried look. "You're talking nonsense."

"I'm talking the truth," Jim replied with another pained gasp. Every moment flashed in his minds eye. Every away mission, every dignitary who ever made eyes at Spock, every chess match and lunch date, every touch and lingering feel of his skin. He saw them all in his head like a giant flashback. "My … head… hurts."

"Perhaps you should rest, Captain," Spock said coming to McCoy's side. "I will come back later, once you have rested, and we can talk some more."

"Promise?" Jim's eyes began to close. Even so, McCoy got a hypo and sedated Jim but not before checking his pupils and pulse to make sure he was okay. Something was wrong with him, he just didn't know what. "S-sp-pock you pr-promise?"

"I promise, Jim," Spock whispered stroking the top of Jim's hand. "I promise."

Ziggy heard it as a passing rumour - the friend of a friend of a friend saw it on her way to the scan the science labs. And once he heard it, he made it his life's mission to get off the ship before the Captain recovered completely. The only thing he had to do was go to a transporter room and beam down. Easy enough except for the big, angry and quite scary Vulcan who cornered him as he reached the transporter room. The Vulcan, not in a very nice way, ordered a red shirt to leave before turning his gaze on Ziggy.

"Oh, shit," Ziggy mumbled to himself, trying to figure out if he could operate the machine fast enough and still make it to the pad in time to be transported before being killed by a blood thirsty Vulcan. No, he decided, I'm screwed. He turned on his best smile and asked, "What can I do for you, Mister Spock?"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO JIM?"