"Bones, do you have a minute?" Kirk growled in his commanding tone, entering the doctor's quarters with his usual confident strides and a quite angry expression. McCoy wasn't impressed. It needed more than Kirk's fury to shake up the older man.
"Sure."
"I need to talk to you."
"About?"
"About Spock."
Bones groaned. "You always want to talk about Spock. Do you ever talk to him? What did you do this time? He needs rest! He nearly died five days ago! You can't go around upsetting my patients!"
The doctor's mouth was set in a grim line, and his hands trembled, as though fighting the urge to grab something and smash it. Kirk had rarely seen him so upset.
"Why do you always think I am the one who fucked up?"
"Jim, honestly, you're not the most tactful person on your good days and on your bad days you can get downright nasty." Kirk glared at him. Bones glared right back. "…by now you could already write a book about – how to offend your Vulcan in six words or less."
"Hey, it's not that I'm the only one who is good at offending him…Chris was quite good at it too."
Before Pike's death and during the meeting break discussing Khan's attacks on London, Kirk had observed a quarrel between them – or more Pike had been talking insistently to Spock and Spock's had been saying nearly nothing. The Vulcan's posture had been defensive and closed-off. They had been alone on the floor outside the conference room. Kirk had seen them through the half-open door. He had been standing a few feet away from them, so he didn't exactly hear what they had been talking about, but Kirk had been able to see that Spock had been upset. Upset and ill. There had been a sickly pallor to his skin and a fine tremor running through his frame. As the argument had continued he seemed to become even more unsteady on his feet. He certainly would have fallen - if not for Pike, who had steadied him with a hand to his chest. In that moment Kirk had realized for the first time that Pike and Spock were more to each other than Admiral and Commander. Pike had looked at Spock, like a husband would look at his wife – with love and worry and a tiny little bit of desire and want underneath it - certainly not like a superior officer would look at his subordinate.
"That's not a fucking challenge between you and Pike…"
"I have asked for extended compassionate leave…"
"You what?"
"I'm his husband – it's my right to take extended leave…Are you questioning my judgement now?" Kirk looked at him ready to fight.
"No, ….I just never thought you would lie down com-…. Nevermind…," McCoy suddenly seemed unsure. "I have asked for extended leave, as well. I thought if you didn't take Spock to Earth with you, I would. Phil is already awaiting us."
"What're you doing?"
Kirk stilled in his task to pack his belongings to see Sulu standing in the door to his quarters. The younger man lingered by the door for a moment before coming into the room.
"Packing…," Kirk told the Japanese, before he angrily continued to throw various personal things and clothes in the bags on his bed.
"Because of Spock?"
"Yeah…"
"Now you're finally leaving our sorry asses alone?" The other man grinned but every attempt to lighten the mood died down as he looked up at Kirk's sullen, desperate face.
"I'm sorry, man… for both of you…" Sulu paused. "I really thought you could work it out…"
"He isn't getter better …he's getting worse.. and I…"
"Do you really think leaving the Enterprise is the right thing to do?""
"I don't know…staying doesn't make things better either," Kirk replied quietly. "He's just...He won't let anyone try to help him. Not me, not McCoy….not Boyce…"
"Maybe he isn't ready to accept help yet?" Sulu suggested. "It's really hard to accept help for most people and Spock being Vulcan and all that – it must be hard for him to be seen as something other than in control."
"Yeah," Kirk muttered distractedly, "Maybe... I just- I... I've never seen him like this before. Except for the bridge incident - he was always so collected… at least in the beginning. He had never shown any signs of trauma those first weeks after Vulcan's destruction. But now his moods and reactions are all over the place. He's always on the edge, he's scared and apathetic and he's disappearing before my very eyes and now he got injured again and I…."
"You didn't spend that much time in each other's company back then. Maybe you just didn't see it? Spock doesn't seem exactly like the sharing type…? "
"No, he isn't…but…"
"Look," Sulu slowly approached Kirk's bed and sat down on it. "Jim, I can't... There isn't really anything I can do about this..."
Kirk inhaled shakily as he too sat down and put his face in his hands, elbows propped up on his thighs.
"I know, I'm sorry," he said in a muffled voice. "Fuck, look at me... I- I brought this on myself..maybe McCoy, Uhura…maybe they are right…I shouldn't have bonded with him..."
"I didn't mean it like that," Sulu said unusual seriously and laid a calming hand on Kirk's shaking back. "I just don't want you to think that I have some kind of miracle fix-it advice I can give you. I can listen. I can be there for you. You can always comm me but that's all. And that's also all what you can do for him."
"There has to be more I could do..," Kirk whispered, raising his head to stare at the Japanese - ice blue meeting dark brown. He suddenly felt a rush of almost painful affection for Sulu, for the fact that they've been friends – like brothers since the first time they fought together against Nero. How they've been on so many missions together, how they spend nearly all of their shore leaves together – having fun in bars – joking and drinking, being the carefree young men they still where underneath all the responsibility, how Sulu always had his back, about all these little things about his friend that he had nearly forgotten in the fog of despair and helplessness the bond to his Vulcan had brought with it.
"You're doing everything you can, Jim."
"No, I—"
"What more, then?" Sulu demanded, a sudden fierceness to his voice. "What more could you possibly be doing that you aren't doing already?"
Kirk sighed heavily."Nothing, I guess."