A/N: All text with a ¹ comes directly from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Just a little story I was inspired to write on a rewatch of STIII, which I've seen so many times you'd think I wouldn't be finding anything new in it by now.


"Commander, do you have a minute? I'd like to talk to you."

Admiral Morrow, Commander, Starfleet, liked to think of himself as someone who always had time for his officers, despite how time-consuming running Starfleet was.

Of course, for someone like Jim Kirk, he would have made the time anyway, even if recent events hadn't been what they were. "Sure, Jim," he said. He hadn't been able to meet the Enterprise when they'd docked, though he'd sent Jim a brief message of condolence offering to talk if he needed. He hadn't heard anything back, though undoubtedly he was busy. The Enterprise had returned battered to pieces, her crew shocked and silent and Admiral Kirk himself looking shattered into a shell of his former self, according to those who had been there. The inquiry had afforded them no time to talk and every time he'd seen Jim in passing since then, he'd looked lost, even from a distance. Morrow was a little shocked at just how badly Jim seemed to be taking Captain Spock's death. They'd all lost someone. Morrow had lost his own First Officer, back when he commanded a starship, in the third year of his five-year mission. In fact, Jim had been the only one who'd made it back from both of his with his senior staff intact. Maybe that was why he seemed unable to cope with it. He had hardly been able to stand listening to his crew give their reports during the inquiry, had taken the stand himself only through sheer force of will and given his own testimony with tears glistening in his eyes, over an audible lump in his throat.

Today, Jim looked slightly more like the man Morrow knew, purposeful, driven, though the grief was still obvious in his eyes, surrounded by dark circles as if he hadn't slept. Morrow wasn't used to Starfleet's finest commander, a living legend, looking so lost. But then, he wasn't used to Jim appearing alone either. Even knowing Captain Spock was gone, it seemed completely wrong that he wasn't at Kirk's side. He had been almost as fine an officer as Jim himself, and notoriously loyal to his former captain. As a command team, they had been near unstoppable. Afterwards, they remained inseparable, and it had been rare to see one without the other. People had grown so used to it they had spoken their names in one breath, KirkandSpock.

Morrow had never believed that had been healthy, either professionally or personally, but if he had to describe the way Jim looked right now it would be as if he was only half of what should be a whole. It was wrong.

"How are you doing?" Morrow asked. He wasn't just asking as a friend, though Jim was a friend of his. He liked the man; most people did. The Kirk charm was legendary, though nowhere in evidence today. But Kirk was also the best commander he had, and he needed to know about his condition, and what he needed to recover. A sabbatical, therapy, anything. Losing any crew member was hard; let alone a First Officer and friend of such long duration. Morrow had never understood what had been between them; but if it was his job to make sure Jim got through this, he would do whatever he needed to.

Jim shrugged, and somehow managed to make the gesture look like he was shrugging an immense weight off his shoulders unsuccessfully. "The best I can," he answered, with a wan smile that only accentuated the grief he couldn't hide anyway.

"I'm truly sorry about Captain Spock," Morrow said. "He was an excellent officer."

"That's what I'm here about," Jim said quickly, practically cutting him off before he could say anything else. As if he couldn't stand to talk about it. "Ambassador Sarek came to see me."

That hardly seemed unusual to Morrow. Jim and Spock had been known to have been good friends for over fifteen years; of course Sarek would have visited his son's commanding officer. It was his prerogative as ambassador.

Then Jim launched into an explanation that sounded so far-fetched to Morrow that if it had been anyone else, he would have laughed them out of the canteen. Vulcan souls? The possibility of an eternal life? Had Jim been talking about any other race, it might have been believable, but Vulcans? Scientific rationality was their very lifeblood, and Morrow didn't know much about their more mystical beliefs. He was surprised Jim bought into it, but then, he had known Spock for long enough that maybe he knew something other humans didn't. Or maybe he had been so destroyed by the grief that he had lost his mind.

That crew had always been too close. Dr. McCoy was in Starfleet Medical right now, being treated for mental instability, no doubt also as a result of Captain Spock's death. Perhaps it was time to phase out the five year missions, if this was the result.

"Jim, what you're saying makes no sense," Morrow said. "If he has a soul that has to be returned, where is it?"

"He mind-melded. With Dr. McCoy," Jim said.

"You're trying to tell me that Captain Spock's soul is in Dr. McCoy's mind?" Morrow said. The only time he had ever been in the presence of both Captain Spock and Dr. McCoy, they had been at a dinner party for an admiral and had spent the better part of the night bickering. He doubted Captain Spock would have chosen McCoy as the ideal person to house his soul.

Though he'd seen the footage from the Enterprise's Engineering section. Jim had been separated from Spock by a glass partition, and undoubtedly had he chosen, Spock would have chosen Jim.

If Morrow believed all this.

"I know it sounds ridiculous," Jim said. "But we have to take him to Vulcan so it can be removed and put to rest, along with his body."

"His body…you want to go back to Genesis?" Morrow said incredulously. The stuff about Spock's…soul in Dr. McCoy's head might be just believable; it would at least explain why an otherwise excellent doctor was currently having a mental breakdown. He knew Vulcans had odd mental powers - he'd always been secretly glad he'd never had to undergo a mind-meld himself - but to house an entire mind inside another's? Could they do that?

Maybe. But going to Genesis was out of the question entirely. "No. Absolutely not, Jim...you are my best officer. But I am Commander, Starfleet, so I don't break rules!"¹

Jim bristled instantly. "Don't quote rules to me. I'm talking about loyalty and sacrifice. One man who's died for us, another who has deep emotional problems."¹

"Now, wait a minute! This business about Spock and McCoy...honestly, I never understood Vulcan mysticism,"¹ Morrow said. Jim had fought back with more strength than he'd expected. He had never been on the opposite side of Jim Kirk before, and he could see how that driven refusal to accept any other outcome but what he expected had become the stuff of legend.

"You don't have to believe! I'm not even sure I believe,"¹ Jim said, and now Morrow was sure he was lying. Jim had been known to be duplicitous as a commander, able to bluff his way out of any situation, and Morrow would have bet anything that Jim believed what he was saying totally, heart and soul. Morrow might not have any idea whether a Vulcan could truly transfer their soul to another person…but Jim almost certainly did know. To Morrow's knowledge, aside from those few who had married a Vulcan, Jim was probably the only human who had ever submitted to a full Vulcan mind-meld. According to his mission reports, more than once. More than twice.

Either he knew what he was saying was true, or he was so biased he would have to be removed from service.

Jim continued. "But even if there's a chance that Spock has an eternal soul ...then it's my responsibility."¹

"Yours?"¹ Morrow asked curiously. Of course a commander was responsible for their crew, but that didn't extend past death. Not usually.

"As surely as if it were my very own,"¹ Jim said, quietly but firmly.

Morrow looked at him; a strange choice of words. No one would expect a commanding officer to do so much for their subordinates, and even for friends…

But there had always been something about Jim and Captain Spock, Morrow thought. He'd heard the rumors, that they could read each other's minds (which, to be fair, was true in Captain Spock's case), that they could sense when the other was in trouble. Morrow had seen them in action only once, during the last five year mission on an inspection tour, and he'd been impressed not only by how seamlessly they worked together, but how effortless it was. He could tell how comfortable Captain Spock was around Jim, and as for Jim…well, he'd stifled a gasp when Jim grabbed his First Officer's wrist to change direction down a corridor. But Captain Spock acted as if such a grievous breach of Vulcan protocol was nothing at all.

Morrow didn't know much about Vulcan, but he knew only family and bondmates were permitted to break the cultural taboo against touch. And Jim Kirk, apparently. That told him all he needed to know about Starfleet's most famous command team.

He was reasonably certain the rumors that they were, in fact, life-bonded, were false, but he truly couldn't be that certain. For his part, Jim openly told anyone who asked (and a few who didn't) that he considered Captain Spock his brother. Perhaps more surprisingly, those few who managed to ask Spock heard the same from him. The mere fact that an officer of Captain's Spock ability and caliber all but demanded an assignment on Earth, seemingly to follow his former commander, only added to the questions.

No, he had never understood what was between them. Now Jim was telling him that Captain Spock's soul, if it existed at all, was his personal responsibility. It was sad, really, to see an officer of Jim's ability lose himself to this sort of delusion.

Perhaps they ought to rethink letting crews serve together for such long assignments at all, if this sort of dangerous attachment was the result.

A day or two later, when the Enterprise disappeared with Jim at the helm, Morrow was shocked into inaction for the first time in his career.

My God, Jim, what happened to you?

No one else who lost an officer reacted like this. Either they had all misjudged Jim - who, up until now, had had the most decorated career of any officer in Starfleet history - or they had seriously misjudged how deeply he and Captain Spock had been connected.

Yes, they would definitely have to avoid letting crews serve together for so long.