Boom, super long chapter here at 4286 words.
Warnings: beginnings of Spirk, or Spock/Kirk romance, that will continue through the story, though it won't be explicit.
Whoever is in Janice Lester's body, be it Lester or Jim Kirk, is sleeping fitfully. She moans and tosses and turns, twisting herself in the sheets to the point where Spock has had to free her more than once even in the few hours she's been there. Dr. McCoy went back to the medical bay after they moved her so he could keep Coleman sedated and keep the stranger in Kirk's skin off their tail. The safest place they could think of to hide her for the time being was Spock's personal quarters. He takes his newfound leisure time (Kirk banned him from the bridge) to observe his odd guest.
He recalls Janice Lester from the Academy, where she had been a student of his for a semester. She had been bright and cheerful, and he believed her to be a more than excellent addition to the Command program. Spock had had no doubts in her ability to command a ship and was confident she would quickly achieve a captaincy one day. Her sudden disappearance, therefore, had been shocking to everyone. There was no way such a dedicated cadet had gone AWOL. Her parents had insisted she'd been kidnapped, and Spock had been inclined to agree.
Janice Lester had been missing for the entire summer of 2257 (Spock had presumed her dead) when, just as suddenly as she disappeared, she reappeared, though greatly changed. After several rounds of psychiatric and psychological evaluations, she was deemed unfit for continued service at the Academy, and Starfleet obtained a position for her at Johns Hopkins University to study any subjects of her choice. No one at the Academy had heard from her since.
Spock notes that she is not greatly changed physically from her time at the Academy. She has become tanned from working outdoors for several years now, but her hair remains the same dark brown it always was, though its length is difficult to determine from its matted, tangled state. Perhaps when she woke one of the nurses be kind enough to comb it for her. Lester does appear thin and frail, as such a severe sickness is wont to do to most beings.
A low, pained moan escapes the woman's lips, drawing Spock out of his reverie. Lester seems to suffer a great many nightmares; Spock does not begin to presume what such nightmares are of. He reaches to offer the human comfort in a way she will respond to when she gasps out his name, harsh and upset. Spock's hand freezes in midair. It happens again, this time accompanied by a moan of grief. Her eyes move rapidly beneath her lids, her brow knitting into a pained expression. He wonders why his name should pass her lips in her nightmares. Spock quickly but carefully sets his mental walls in place and rests his hand on her thin arm.
Lester's face relaxes at once into calm repose. Spock pulls his hand away, his work done. Her eyes open slowly, bright but unfocused. She lifts her arm, clumsily seeking his hand, and the tips of their first two fingers brush together. Spock jerks his hand away as if he'd been burned, mentally chiding himself for such a reaction. She is delirious. She does not know the meaning of that action. The hurt shows in her eyes as she murmurs his name and slips back into unconsciousness. The tips of Spock's fingers still feel warm.
xXxXx
Kirk has been having longer moments of lucidity, and he likes it that way. He remembers waking, the world swimming by in a blur before dropping off once more into that damnable fog in his brain and the terrible dreams. The nightmares make him relive the horrible low points of his life: Frank's abuse, Tarsus IV, the death of Vulcan, Pike dying… his own death. He sees images from his meld so long ago with the Other Spock on Delta Vega. He wishes he wouldn't. That Other Spock was sad, so very sad. Kirk comes to at one point to see Spock's face swimming before him. Kirk reaches out, wanting to touch him, to reassure himself that Spock was truly there. He doesn't know why Spock jerks his hand away. It hurts.
When he wakes this time, he feels almost immediately that it is different. His eyes start to focus right away, and he feels a headache creeping up the base of his skull. He blinks up at the ceiling, tries to orient himself. It doesn't take him long to figure out that he's not in Medical anymore. He closes his eyes again, trying to quietly assess himself for injuries. Nothing really hurts, but his body feels wrong somehow, feels foreign and perhaps too small. Kirk tries to lift an arm, but it's dead weight.
He takes a deep breath, preparing to figure out what's wrong and feeling his chest rise and fall. His chest feels off-kilter, like the weight has been redistributed but he can't be sure. He wiggles his fingers, which feel too thin and more rough than usual. Kirk shifts his legs, adjusting his body, and that is when he feels that something is very wrong, that he is… lacking something between his legs. That's a big problem. He hopes nothing truly bad happened. He genuinely likes the pieces that are missing.
Come on, Jim, think! Use your brain! Find the answer. There must be an answer…
He opens his eyes once more to look around. His vision has cleared even more, and Kirk is confused. These are private quarters, but these are very specific quarters. They belong to someone very important. He tries to push himself up and finds himself quickly pushed back down.
"You should not exert yourself," Spock says calmly, "You have been through quite an ordeal."
Kirk feels a grin split his face. This may be the happiest he's ever been to see Spock in his whole life, though he may be able to find another occasion with enough thought.
"Holy-… oh, Spock, am I glad to see you! Where were you? Have you been here the whole time?"
The voice coming from him sounds light and feminine. Kirk wets the unfamiliar lips.
"Spock… tell me… who am I? Who do you see, I mean?"
He waits for an answer.
"I see… I see Janice Lester."
Kirk's stomach bottoms out.
"But… but that can't be, Spock. I-I mean, I'm Jim. I'm Jim Kirk."
"You asked who I see," Spock tells him calmly, "and I see Janice Lester."
Fear and anxiety rise up in Kirk's heart. Janice Lester? He scrambles into a sitting position, ignoring the sudden dizziness that strikes him, to look down at his body.
Only, it's not his body. The body he's now wearing is completely foreign to him. The limbs are lithe and petite and make him feel fragile. The world around him looks bigger, and Spock seems to tower over him. The addition of breasts and his lack of a penis are especially startling. He examines the thin, trembling hands, rough from hard work, runs them over the face, hair, torso. Nothing is right. Kirk wants to scream.
"This… this isn't right!" Kirk gasps, "I… I mean… Spock! It's me! This isn't… Spock, you have to believe me, please!"
"I am afraid I cannot take you at your word. There is a distinct possibility you are either delusional or simply lying. To take such an argument as truth without other observation and fact-gathering would be illogical," he states.
Kirk stares at him, shaking from the effort of staying upright and telling himself, Think like Spock. Why did he bring me here if he thinks I'm Lester? Think!
"Why did you bring me here, Spock?"
"Pardon?"
"You heard me. Why am I here? You could've taken me anywhere on the ship. Why here?"
Once Kirk had fully sat up, he knew exactly where he was on his ship.
"These are your private quarters, Spock," Kirk continues, "yet you brought me here instead of guest quarters, which would have been protocol. You have a reason for doing this. You never act without a reason."
The edges of Kirk's vision are starting to blur, and he knows he'll be out cold again soon.
"The captain's behavior has become increasingly odd, alarmingly so. His actions and words are strange to those of us who know him well, and we are… worried for the crew. The sudden change in his behavior occurred after our return from Camus II and your rescue. Dr. Coleman's actions are also troubling."
"So… you think… you think I can tell you… what's wrong with… with the captain?" Kirk gasps.
"That is our hope, Miss Lester," Spock replies.
There is a loud ringing in Kirk's ears. The blurring at the edge of his vision creeps in and takes over completely, throwing him back into darkness.
xXxXx
"I think she may be tellin' the truth, Spock!" McCoy hisses, "I think she really is Jim!"
"Then your use of the feminine pronoun is incorrect, doctor," Spock replies, "I, however, am still skeptical. This could all be simply a well-crafted lie combined with some sort of mind-control. If I were to suddenly declare that I was Sherlock Holmes, it would not make such a claim truth."
"Well, Christ, there's gotta be some way to figure out the truth."
"There is the option I made allusion to earlier in the day."
"And I don't suppose you'd care to further elaborate on it? A little more than maybe just a mention of a solution?"
Damn Vulcans and their damn dramatics. He's never straightforward when he needs to be, always couching everything in veiled logic. McCoy thinks he probably enjoys confusing the humans.
"Vulcans do have a way of connecting to another's mind, as you may know, doctor, a way to examine another's thoughts and memories. Such parts of a person cannot be lied about or altered."
"My God, man, you wanna go muckin' around in his head?"
"It is not 'mucking around'. The mind meld is extremely controlled and safe when performed by someone well-versed in the proper technique."
"And where do we find someone like that?" McCoy asks, already thinking he knows the answer.
McCoy prides himself on being able to read Spock's not-quite expressions, and the one he is offering now is the one McCoy privately calls 'smug bastard'. It's his least favorite. The doctor grumbles to himself before asking, "How's the patient?"
"Miss Lester appears to have exhausted herself after a rather long period of wakefulness. She was most distressed upon waking, and she was adamant that she was indeed the captain. As I stated previously, a mind meld will enable a quick determination of the truth."
McCoy does not like that one bit. He waves his hand toward the young woman, saying, "Well, there she is, Mr. Spock. Why don't you get to it if you're so eager?"
"I will not perform a meld without her consent," Spock tells him firmly.
McCoy looks up at him. As much as he complains about Spock, the man is an incomparable Starfleet officer and, dare he say it, human being… half of one anyway. Spock is right, as usual. McCoy had been on the wrong end of a forced mind meld once in a parallel universe where everything was so very wrong. A mirror version of Spock forced it on him to determine their purpose, and McCoy had not liked it one bit. He feels ashamed for even thinking of doing such a thing to Lester. Now, he knows that Spock is a good man and that he won't hurt Miss Lester (or Kirk, if this person is telling the truth) with this meld, but the thought of the wrongs done to him set his hairs on end. He tries to shake it off. He's seen Spock perform melds before. He knows that Spock knows what he's doing. He heaves a sigh.
"Alright, well… you just get some rest, okay?" McCoy says, "You've been up with Lester since we brought her here in the middle of the night and it's after dinnertime now. You'll be of no use if you're all worn out. Ya gotta meditate right?"
"It is especially useful leading up to a deeper mind meld," Spock answers.
"Good, then meditate. I'll look after… whoever the hell this is…"
Spock offers him a nod and prepares for meditation, while McCoy sits down beside the young woman, waiting for her (or him, as it were) to wake again. He wants very much to believe that this is his friend Jim, that this person is not lying, but Spock's very logical argument cannot be ignored. This whole thing could be part of some elaborate scheme to cover up some sort of mind control and discredit Kirk.
McCoy huffs and settles in his chair for a long afternoon. He looks over to Spock and feels a strange surge of affection for him. Vulcans do not meditate easily. They need a quiet, calm, safe place to settle in for their intensive meditation. This is how they rested their bodies and settled their impressive minds. For Spock to feel comfortable enough with McCoy to meditate in front of him while there is a stranger in the room says a great deal. It makes a soft warm glow fill McCoy's belly while he watches over the two of them.
xXxXx
"Bones? That you?" Kirk murmurs, blinking up at the doctor.
"It is. How are you feeling?" McCoy replies, grabbing his medscanner.
Kirk tries to push himself up, but McCoy gently pushes him back down onto the bed. He placidly allows McCoy to examine the foreign body with the scanner, hoping that somehow the scanner will be able to tell he's in there. He doesn't have the strength to fight back anyway, not with the headache pounding in his skull and the weariness in his limbs. It rankles him. McCoy gives him a few hyposprays, and Kirk's vision instantly clears up, the fog rushing out of his head.
"Feel better?" McCoy asks.
"Much," Kirk replies, sitting up, "You sure do work magic, Bones."
He looks to McCoy with a grin that soon fades. He was so sure…
"You don't believe me, either. You don't believe I'm Jim. I… it's me, Bones."
McCoy sighs and scrubs his face with a hand, saying, "It's not that simple. I wanna believe you're Jim, I really do, but… but there are too many variables. I can't be sure you're telling the truth."
"I can."
Kirk turns to see Spock standing behind McCoy, hands clasped behind his back.
"You can what?" Kirk asks.
"I can determine if you are telling the truth."
"How?"
"Your memories and experiences are your own. They can be manipulated on a surface level, but deep in your mind, they remain unaffected. James T. Kirk is in possession of certain memories that cannot be replicated because they are unknown to the world at large. By looking into your mind, I can tell if you are telling the truth."
Kirk thinks he knows what Spock is talking about, but damn it all if he isn't always vague when he needs to be clear. He watches Spock approach and sits up a little straighter, asking, "What are you asking?"
Spock levels his request, "I am asking for your consent to perform a mind meld with you."
Kirk is thrown back to his first trip on the Enterprise, to a frozen, snow-covered planet called Delta Vega, to being rescued by an old Vulcan who happened to be another version of Spock, to seeing vivid images of another time and place and life in his head.
"Do it."
"Then you consent?"
"Yes."
"You truly consent?"
"Yes, Spock! I consent to the meld! Just do it!" Kirk half-shouts, exasperated.
"Dr. McCoy, please note that the patient offered consent three times," Spock says, "If you try to deny that you offered such consent, I will use this record as proof. Do ou understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Then we shall begin."
xXxXx
Spock observes Miss Lester as he approaches and sits by her on the bed. He notes the pale green eyes and the spark of fierce stubbornness they contain… so much like Kirk's…
"Physical contact is required. I need to perform some simple manipulations of nerves and blood flow in order to facilitate the linking of our minds. If you choose to renege your consent, I will not fault you."
She does not speak, only adjusts her body, sitting cross-legged on the bed to better face him. Spock quickly flexes his fingers, then reaches for Lester's face. Her expression changes imperceptibly. Her pupils expand, dilating and flushing out some of the pale green. Spock registers a change in her breathing pattern. He feels a strange sense of betrayal, though he is not sure why.
"You are frightened," Spock says, hand still hovering by her face.
"Yes, I am."
"You do not wish to continue."
"No… no, I wanna go through with this."
"Then explain your fear. I do not understand it. Is it due to a lack of trust in me?"
"No, Spock, I trust you more than anyone else in the entire universe. No, I'm afraid for you."
Spock takes a moment to process that, then, "Explain."
She does not avert her eyes, though the fear is still there. She explains softly, "I… I'm really messed up and broken, Spock. I'm afraid of what you'll see and feel… mostly what you'll feel."
Spock is almost unsure of what to say but manages to tell her, "I will take that into consideration."
He presses his fingers to the preferred pressure points, quietly ordering Lester, "You must relax your mind. Purge your conscious mind of all thought or emotion. My mind to your mind, your thoughts to my thoughts…"
Lester's eyes had long fallen shut by the time he closes his own.
Spock wanders through a fog before coming upon the wall of the Other's mind. The wall is immense and almost Vulcan in its construction. It is meant to keep everyone out, and it is not something Spock anticipated. He seeks a way around it but finds none, and as a last resort he finally asks the Other for a way through. He senses a familiar warmth on the other side, and he is suddenly desperate to find its source. The Other falters slightly but quickly agrees and sets a door in the wall. It is huge and heavy and made of wood and metal, yet Spock finds it opens at the barest touch of his mind.
Inside the wall is a sensory overload. He feels happy, sad, angry, frightened, loving, loved, kind, hateful, confident, shy, proud, embarrassed, ashamed, everything. The emotions crash over him as a wave, a tsunami. He struggles to find his way to the surface, to find the warmth he had felt from outside the wall. He reaches their summit only to find himself assaulted by memories, the images more vivid than anything he had known.
He drives an antique car off a cliff. His step-father bellows curses at him and abuses him. He is hiding in the woods, and he is hungry, so very hungry. He sees a pile of rotting, naked bodies, bloated from the sun. Pike comes to him after a bar fight and recruits him to Starfleet. McCoy smuggles him onto the Enterprise. Spock looks into his own eyes during a vicious beating and later looks to them for reassurance. Fear grips him as watches himself lowered into a volcano. Grief rips him apart as he looks into Pike's dead eyes. After the grief comes rage, such rages it consumes him. He beats Khan as hard as he can but Khan does not fall. He knocks out Scotty and climbs into the warp core, determined to save the Enterprise. The pain is incredible, unbearable, but he must press on. His strength is waning. He uses his last ounce of strength to kick the core back into alignment. He sees himself on the other side of thick glass, sad and scared and angry, a tear rolling down his face. A strange calm falls over him as his eyes are covered by darkness.
Joy fills him as looks up at himself from a hospital bed. Everything fades into a white fog, and Kirk emerges, bright and golden as always. He approaches Spock with a grin, his bright blue eyes cheerful and sad all at once. He reaches out and grips Spock tight by the upper arms, and Spock feels a deep rush of affection for his Other. Kirk pulls him out of the tide of emotion and memory and into an embrace.
I knew you'd find me, Kirk thinks at him, I knew you'd come to me here, and I'm so glad you did… but I am so, so sorry you had see all of that, Spock.
Spock allows Kirk's voice to wash over him, only slightly distorted in his head and so soothing after the turmoil of the memories.
Of course I came to find you, Jim. I am sorry it took so long. You were hidden from me and I could not see you, Spock offers to him, feeling safe in the quiet connection of their minds, I am ashamed to say I doubted you, ne ki'ne.
What's that mean? Ne ki'ne?
I haven named you shield-partner, my closest friend and companion, a great and trusted warrior.
Waves of emotion lap at their ankles.
Does the term displease you, Jim?
No… no, I like it. I like it very much. It's just… well… I'm not supposed to say.
You may tell me anything. You know I will always endeavor to keep your secrets.
Kirk leads him into another memory, one he kept hidden before, and Spock looks into his own ancient eyes in a freezing cave.
Oh, ne ki'ne, I already know of my counterpart. He sought me out, and I have spoken with him.
I was trying to be careful. He told me I could never tell you about him, that sneaky bastard.
Did he meld with you? Spock queries.
How did you guess?
I never guess.
Oh, that's bullshit, and you know it, Kirk jibes.
I usually never guess. In this case, I have known for some time. You were very quick to agree to a mind meld with me the first time we did so. Most humans are loathe to allow any intrusion into their mind, but you were almost eager for the connection. It was no great leap of logic. Please, I should very much like to see what he showed you… if it please you, Jim…
I can't, Kirk quickly replies, sending emotions seething around their knees, It was too much. It was all that guilt at not being able to save Romulus and Vulcan, and he was just so sad. So sad… everyone he knew and loved in his time is gone, either lost to that world or long dead. I've been dead to him for years. Did you know that?
He did not tell me expressly… though I found that to be a logical conclusion.
Well, I'm dead. Scotty and Uhura are dead. So are Sulu and Chekov and McCoy… He's the last one left of all his closest friends, and now he's where no one knows him or what he's done or been through… God, he's so lonely, Spock, so lonely it hurt more than anything…
The emotions churn about their waists, and Spock sends him soothing thoughts until they come under control and once again merely lap at their ankles.
He was so pleased to see me, Kirk tells him sadly, so pleased. I was like the Jim he had known when they were young like us, and he… he showed me so many things from that other life… about him and his Jim…
Spock wraps Kirk comfortingly in his mind, providing warm thoughts to keep him calm, though some level of agitation remains. He allows Kirk some time to collect his thoughts before gently requesting, Show me, Jim…
Feelings roil up instead, bubbling over their heads in an instant. As much as Spock wants to calm his friend, he realizes he must experience these feelings in order to receive the desired information. Emotions churn and boil around them like a raging sea in a brutal storm. These are the emotions of Spock's counterpart, the ones he allowed Kirk to feel in their mind meld, and there are many: friendship, trust, anger, grief, sadness, fear, frustration, confusion. They mix together, as if they are all just parts of some larger whole Spock could not yet discern. The realization hits him hard.
Love. It is love that surrounds them, settles them in a glow despite the flood around them. This is a remnant of another life, one that can never be his fully. These are the feelings his counterpart felt for his Kirk, the memories of that Kirk's feelings for him. There is another jolt as Spock understands just what that means. The emotions grow stronger, push them closer together in the meld, and the memories get deeper and more potent. A chorus of sounds rises up from the memories, Vulcan and Standard comingling in perfect harmony. Some time seems to pass before Spock can discern some of the Vulcan words leaping out at him.
Besu. Ne ki'ne. T'hy'la. Ashayam. K'diwa. K'hat'n'dlawa.
The use of such words of endearment to refer to their relationship in another life startles Spock to the point where he inadvertently throws up a thick wall in his mind. He feels Kirk cry out, scrabbling against the new wall between them as he ends the meld.
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