Chapter XVII - You came back, but you are still lost to me
If there was a crime Kirk was often guilty of committing was that he expected too much. When Sarek informed him that Spock's katra had returned and that Bones' vital signs were improving and he was expected to wake up at any moment, he imagined that all would be well. But that wasn't exactly true. Even with his katra back, it was like Spock's brain didn't know how to process all the information it was receiving. Objective memories seemed to have returned, but any mention of feelings had been suppressed. It was in many ways similar to that Spock that returned to the Enterprise before meeting V'ger.
It was so painful to see Spock. He was interacting normally with people, but treated everyone with distance. Uhura, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu, all had tried talking to him several times, only to realize that he didn't treat them as friends. He would discuss the translations of documents Uhura made, a new theory that Scotty had on the warp core, the star that recently turned nova and destroyed an entire system or the dangers of the s'gagerat that still existed in The Forge, but in a detached way. And he never again called him Jim.
Sarek assured him that it would take some time for the katra to settle satisfactorily, but it was still a shock, because it was so different of the way he was living before. This was Spock, just not the same Spock who sacrificed himself in the Enterprise's core.
After spending his whole life fighting against his human side, and finally beginning to accept it, Spock had lost all the progress made in the last decade. It hurt to see him in that way. In a way, it was like he carrying the emotional burden for both. It was hard to wake up without Spock in his head after the meld they shared, or yet, with the presence of Spock being just a gentle caress on his mind. With some embarrassment, he remembered that he asked Sarek "Why would you separate us, Father?", realizing that he had him called father. He explained that it was a common consequence of such deep mind meld, the mistaken identities. And he felt like he was carrying a lot of Spock with him. It was different from the presence of link he felt. It was more intense and seemed to work with his own mind.
Now, Sarek had recommended that they spent more time apart. It was so hard, after more than two months spending almost all waking hours together, now being reprimanded for having a conversation longer than a few minutes. He didn't know how long he would be able to bear it. Of course there was a motivation behind Sarek's reasoning, but logic did nothing to make his suffering less intense.
He needed to do something, to decide what to do with his life. Now the situation had changed. Spock would probably want to get back to work after recovering, and Kirk couldn't ask him to remain on Vulcan. Still, the fact that the mission was a success didn't change his status as a wanted criminal.
S'gagerat is a plant native to the Vulcan desert The Forge. It has large tentacles to trap its victims and releases soporiferous toxins to keep the victim immobilized, if the victim escapes the tentacles are able to search for it. Seldom the victim survives, and the plant is known for killing Vulcans and even large animals like the sehlat.