Chapter VI - Clinging to empty hopes
The second month of Scotty's deadline had already begun, and nothing significant seemed to have changed. Kirk couldn't help but notice that the others were avoiding Spock, and couldn't hide the pain every time they looked at him. Even Sarek seemed to be avoiding his son, although he used his work as an excuse. That left only Amanda and Kirk to care for Spock. Two humans who were no longer at the apex of their own strengths and had to drag the half-Vulcan from one side to another.
At that moment, Kirk was combing Spock's hair. He had to stay on his toes to reach the top of the head, which made him feel too short. He didn't have to stretch so much just to run his hands through his hair, but he had greater difficulty using a comb. In fact, keeping his hair tidy wasn't really necessary, but it gave Kirk a sense of normalcy. And he desperately needed every ounce of normalcy he could get.
When he finished packing Spock, they went to sit on the balcony and look at the garden. He had given up saying that Spock liked to spend the afternoons watching the plants because it only made him receive looks of pity. Does no one else could see the contemplative air the Vulcan assumed when they were there? It wasn't just an empty expression. However, he was used to it. No one was able to read Spock's expressions as he was.
Amanda's garden was beyond beautiful. Few plants were native from Earth, for transplanting flora between planets was a very delicate procedure and limited by various Federation regulations. But the Vulcan plants she had went from the g'teth berry bushes to the delicate and potentially dangerous white stars of night. After several minutes sitting on the porch with Spock, he decided to get up and, looking around to see if Amanda wasn't anywhere near, he decided to gather some favinit. She didn't like having her garden vandalized, but over the years Kirk had acquired a taste for Vulcan cooking and a replicated orchid never have the same taste of a natural cultivated one. Feeling particularly daring, he reaped also a kal'ta. Those who didn't know him well would never imagine he was a person who appreciated beautiful flowers, but this was always one of his not so secret passions. During his childhood, more than once Sam mocked him for it, calling him flower boy. He appreciated the unusual tones of the kal'ta, that had leaves of a deep shade of violet circumvented by an incandescent blue, but they were also Amanda's favorite plants and he wouldn't want her to find out what he was destroying the garden she took care of so well.
He returned to sit by Spock's side. "Do you want it?" he asked while touching the Vulcan's lips with one of the flowers, knowing that opening his lips was as much collaboration as he could expect. He gave him one before taking one for himself, chewing the petals slowly and enjoying the strong and peculiar taste. "We can't let Amanda know that we are eating her flowers. What do you think? 55 years old and keeping secrets from mom!" he added the last part with a lighter tone.
After long moments in silence, eating together the favinit that he had gathered, Kirk found himself playing with the kal'ta between his fingers. "You know, you never told me how they can have those colors." Absent mindedly, Kirk took the plant and placed it around Spock's wrist. Strangely, he felt a soft and difficult to recognize sensation, as a mild itch in the center of the brain, but he dismissed the feeling as unimportant. It was then that he noticed that Spock was looking at his wrist and at Kirk's hands that were still reclining to his skin, he wasn't only looking towards the wrist, he really seemed to be watching it closely. "What, you are going to say that flower bracelets still make you uncomfortable?" he asked with a smile.
A sudden wave of guilt hit him. He was acting as if Spock could understand him, when he should know very well that this wasn't true. "You would say that it is illogical to talk to someone who can't answer, wouldn't you?" he said bitterly. "Dammit Jim, you foul. That's why even Vulcans who never even saw you before look to you with pity." he reprimanded himself for it, he should have stopped this already. Spock couldn't answer, Spock would never respond to him. Why he was still pretending that everything would be fine when he only had evidence that this wasn't true? He couldn't keep this going, he couldn't keep talking with Spock in that way.
"Let's go Spock, it's already getting cold." again, he felt a strange itching, this time it was more like small needles piercing throw his brain, but he discarded it again. It was probably just the beginning of a migraine or something like that. He decided to focus on raising Spock, who was only a few pounds heavier than him, but he had in his favor the stiffness of Vulcan muscles, that at the time refused to move. "Come on, Spock. You aren't dressed well enough to stay here in this wind, next time we will choose warmer clothes if you want to see the sunset. Now we have to go. You will end up catching the Vulcan flu and passing it to me, and you know that humans don't react well at all to it." again he berated himself for talking as if Spock could understand it, but was surprised when he allowed his body to be raised. The strange feeling has intensified, but he continued to ignore it. If there was something that James Tiberius Kirk knew how to do was to ignore problems until they either disappeared or became too big to ignore. And at the time he had more important things to do than to care for his own health.
T'khut is a planet near Vulcan which began to be explored in search of minerals in the pre-Surak era.