Thanks to everyone who read and to LauraCynthia, sunsethill, and FoundtoArrive for reviewing.
Please note that I'm basically ignoring Discovery and Strange New Worlds for this fic since #1, they're theoretically back in the other timeline, and #2, while I generally like both shows, I'm about at my limit for the number of reinventions of existing characters that I can handle.
Spock unfolded from his meditation position and found that the light rain that had been falling when he'd awoken earlier had increased to a steady drumming. Intermittent rustling from somewhere beyond the door indicated that Jim was now awake as well, though, and he rose.
Jim had sat with him while he'd eaten last night, but the conversation had been limited to trivialities, and Spock had accepted the suggestion that he retire to the guest room as soon as the meal was complete. And, as he'd expected, sleep and meditation had allowed him to center himself again.
The assault was a nonissue; unacceptable behavior to be certain, but he had suffered no lasting harm. The losses of Professors Navrics and Aaangstrom, as well as all of the other attendees at the conference, remained tragic for both those close to them and also for the professional community to which they'd belonged, and he grieved too the fact that the two of them had been among those that he might have considered friends if such a thing had occurred to him. But what was in the past could not now be changed, and he would honor them by honoring their work.
He dressed for the day and then took the time to check his messages. Unsurprisingly he'd received several dozen since leaving Starfleet Headquarters yesterday, but the majority were simply status reports relating to the ongoing repairs to the Enterprise that did not require more than acknowledgment. However, Mr. Scott had sent his 67th complaint regarding changes made in engineering, and Spock debated the appropriate response for several seconds before deciding that the captain was more adept at interpreting and allaying Mr. Scott's concerns—that or escalating when appropriate, although Spock saw nothing in this that would require such—and it would be best to simply ensure that he was aware of the issue.
From Nyota he had a short missive containing well-wishings from her relatives as well as a summary of several of the more notable workshops that she planned to attend at an upcoming music symposium, to which he replied requesting that she convey the appropriate courtesies and agreed that such a schedule looked quite optimal. He also added a note that he had decided to accept the captain's offer that he visit, which he believed would please her.
Dr. McCoy…. Spock read through his message a second time. The doctor was undeniably talented and accomplished in his field, and as one who'd been treated more than once as a specimen rather than a patient Spock had been pleased to find his interpretation of medical ethics above reproach as well. But the man was unnecessarily emotional even in comparison with other humans, and it occasionally rendered his personal communications obtuse. For example, while Spock was more than willing to ensure that the captain—the only possible interpretation for 'that damn infant' under current circumstances, regardless of the absurdity of the identifier —was not overtaxing himself, in order to do so he required some form of data as to what that might entail, and nothing of the sort had been provided. After a moment he replied requesting the same.
And noting the illogic in failing to provide such in the first place.
When Spock exited into the main room he discovered that the rustling had been coming from the kitchen, and he found Jim a moment later kneeling in front of an open panel below the replicator. "Good morning," Spock greeted.
"Hey. Sleep well? Hopefully the environmental controls worked for you."
"They did, and I did." As described, the system built into the guest room was somewhat outdated, but it had been more than sufficient to bring the room temperature up into his preferred range for sleep and meditation.
"Good." Jim replaced the panel and started to push himself to his feet, only to gasp and kneel again.
Spock stepped forward even as Jim muttered something vulgar and then shoved himself upwards with a great deal more force, and it was as well that he did as Jim nearly fell into the replicator.
"You are unwell." Spock caught his arm and pulled him back towards a chair. He noted as he did so that while he'd been able to identify the burst of mental connection as coming from the captain—beyond the obvious fact that he was the only possible source, of course—his shields had shown no sign of wavering and he'd received no stray thoughts. A distinct improvement over yesterday evening, but a secondary consideration if the captain's recovery had suffered some form of setback.
"I'm not unwell," Jim snapped. "The damn muscle is there, it's just…." He blew out a breath, and then sank down into the seat. "Never mind. Didn't mean to snarl, sorry, that wasn't directed at you."
"No apology is required. However, I would ask if you had had similar incidents recently." Spock allowed no tension into his voice, but if the answer was yes, he would insist upon a discussion of acceptable risks. If Jim had stumbled on the rail bridge last night, Spock would not have been close enough to catch him.
"Not for a week or so or Bones wouldn't have let me come out here by myself. He already spends half his time convinced I'm walking head trauma just from the walking part." A pause. "But the bar might have been a little beyond the range that I was okay'd for. Technically."
Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Only by a couple miles, and I was fine at the time," Jim protested. "Hell, if the stupid spasms hadn't woken me up at two in the morning and then kept me up afterwards, I'd probably be fine right now. And it's not going to matter, it's not like we're going to be going anywhere today unless you're really into mud pits." He gestured towards the window and the still-falling rain.
Spock's assessment during the walk had also been that Jim's health was adequate, but given this new information, he made a mental note to closely review any data that Dr. McCoy chose to send him. And remained silent while keeping eye contact because in this situation there was a greater than ninety percent chance that the captain would correct himself without any further input on Spock's part.
"I'm sorry, okay?" Jim confirmed. "I was just bored. It's not like this is my first go-round with weird medical shit, but I usually bounce back way faster. I promise I'll take a nap later and be good from here on out."
"It is only reasonable that 'bouncing back' from death would require a greater magnitude of time than a typical illness or injury. Although under the circumstances, I find myself curious about the doctor's absence." Spock hadn't considered it when Jim had issued the invitation, but he was well aware the captain and the doctor had been friends for years, and it seemed unlikely that he would be invited if the doctor had not. And interpreting Dr. McCoy's message in light of this new information, the fact that he had allowed Jim to come alone was even more unexpected.
It also brought up the question of how the doctor had known of his current location.
"We talked last night," Jim said, answering at least the last question, "and he might try to come out for a day or two, but the whole thing with his ex is a mess. Like...really a mess. Since we're not in-system much these days, he wanted to stick close to San Francisco and try to arrange some extra visitation with his daughter first."
"Ah. Atypically logical."
Jim smiled. "I'm sure he'd be thrilled with that assessment." He gestured at the replicator. "Any chance you're hungry enough to give that a try? I had to bypass a couple ancient interlocks that kept interpreting Vulcan as some kind of restaurant and refused to accept what it considered proprietary recipes, but I think the bulk download finally went through."
"I am, thank you." Under other circumstances Spock might have suggested that such an effort had been unnecessary, but if Jim hadn't made the alterations, he would have requested permission to do so. The food from the bar had been at best edible, and while he was capable of eating most human dishes, he preferred Vulcan options if they were available. Unfortunately, while Asparata was a simple mixed-vegetable dish that shouldn't have taxed the system unnecessarily, the replicator screen flickered to yellow with a blinking warning message as soon as he requested it. "I believe more alterations may be required."
"Hm? Oh, ignore that, the override code is 1234. Sorry, you're obviously not allergic, but after I scared the hell out of myself when I was a kid I made some modifications so it would give a yellow alert for anything I hadn't signed as safe and red if there's a known allergen. Contrary to what Bones might claim, I don't actually enjoy anaphylactic shock."
"A sensible precaution." Spock keyed in the override and moved the plate that appeared to the table. "As I am already standing, would you care for anything?"
"No, thanks, I was snacking while I was testing. Gespar comes through fine, for the record."
"Noted." Spock took a seat. "I was not aware that allergies towards food were common among humans. On the rare occasion that such might occur in a Vulcan, it would be cured at birth." He was familiar with the concept of allergies, of course, and Dr. McCoy had been required on three separate occasions to attend to crew members who'd encountered novel substances on away missions that triggered such reactions, but he'd never considered them to be a day-to-day concern.
"Normally that's true for humans, too. Well, maybe not the rare part, you'd have to check with Bones on that, but the cure part. But I was born more than two months premature and under not great conditions which left me susceptible to a lot of stuff, and there wasn't exactly access to much in the way of medical treatments on the shuttle. By the time they got somewhere that did have those kinds of facilities, it was mostly too late."
Spock was obviously well aware of the circumstances surrounding Jim's birth, but Dr. McCoy's complaints notwithstanding had never considered that they might be the cause of ongoing adverse effects.
"It's not a big deal, I'm used to it," Jim said, waving a hand dismissively. "Anyway, like I was saying before, all this rain means it's going to be a mud sink outside. There's some workout equipment in the barn that you're welcome to make use of if you want, but otherwise staying inside is going to be a lot more pleasant."
"You did advise me to bring reading material. And you may wish to review your own messages at some point this morning if you have not yet done so. Mr. Scott has identified another concern with the repairs that have been made."
"Concern like an actual concern, or concern like someone installed a panel three centimeters to the left of where he thinks it should go?"
Spock declined to comment, and Jim groaned.
"Scotty." A shake of his head. "I mean, I know he wouldn't be happy if there wasn't something that needed tweaking to bring it up to his standards, and I swear I'll never ignore his opinion about something like those torpedoes again, but I also swear, the next time that engineering needs a refit, I'm just going to tell him that he can place every damn bolt himself and we'll eat the time lost."
"I see a great deal to recommend in that plan."
After breakfast they ended up settling into the main room, Spock in a padded chair of appropriate height and depth while Jim took the couch, and Spock found the atmosphere pleasantly calm as he pulled up the latest data relays from Starfleet's deep-space telescopes. While he had appreciated the captain's offer to visit and had obviously accepted the invitation, quiet was perhaps not precisely what he'd expected, and he found himself focusing more on that than the tables his PADD was displaying.
Spock had made certain assumptions at the point of Jim's entry to the Academy that he acknowledged now had not had basis in fact. His arrival had coincided with the first semester that Spock had had a full class load to teach without the support of the now-retired Professor Encan'nal, and he'd found the amount of faculty time spent theorizing about one cadet when there had been subjects of actual import to discuss completely illogical. In retrospect any speculation about Jim had had nothing to do with the man himself, and having come to know him, Spock was confident that he would have found the topic inappropriate as well, but at the time Spock had failed to recognize that.
And despite the inherent unfairness in his initial assessment, there was no denying that Jim had been more...noticeable...than most cadets. The occasional, usually annoyed, comment from Nyota might have been understandable; while she and Jim had been on different tracks, a number of upper-level classes were combined and the two of them had more than once found themselves in competition. But as to the rest, Spock would have had to expend considerable effort to avoid hearing about his penchant for easily passing classes whether or not he attended regularly—the latter not being a point in his favor in Spock's opinion, although such comments had in the majority ceased after the first year—his habit of participating in off-campus altercations, or his general disregard for the majority of the more formal Academy traditions, leading to more than one discussion with leadership although relatively few actual reprimands.
Their first direct interaction had been distinctly antagonistic, of course, and Jim's behavior upon boarding the Enterprise had done nothing to raise Spock's opinion of him, although, as Spock was well aware, his own actions during the majority of that mission had done nothing to recommend him, either. And they had worked together well in the end.
The past year had only proven that further, and yet 'quiet' was still not a word that he associated with his captain. There were their duties, of course, where the captain was by definition required to be in command, but the first time that Jim had dropped down across from him in the mess and started speaking about something that had had absolutely nothing to do with their respective duties, Spock had spent a full eighteen seconds attempting to determine if he'd somehow been mistaken for another crew member. He had not, and while Jim was as courteous as the rest of the crew with regards to allowing Spock and Nyota a private table if they selected one, if they did not or Spock was eating alone when he came for a meal, he would frequently take an unoccupied seat and either join or start a conversation.
In the officers' lounge Jim was typically in the middle of whatever card game or discussion was in progress, he cheerfully participated in any and all competitions offered in the gym regardless of his own prowess or lack thereof in the skill being tested…. The only other captain for whom Spock had the necessary data with which to compare him was Captain Pike, and while their age difference no doubt contributed to some of their behavioral differences—it wasn't something that Spock had spent a great deal of time considering, but Jim was still quite young—the majority seemed to be related to personality. And as Jim's comparative gregariousness and general lack of formality with the crew had led to no decrease in efficiency, Spock had simply noted it for future reference.
Seeing Jim curled into the couch cushions, his focus on whatever his choice of reading material was, was an unusual experience.
Unusual and worthy of further consideration, but such things were best done in meditation, and Spock returned his attention to the data in front of him until movement followed by muted cursing drew his attention. He straightened quickly. "Captain?"
"It's Jim, and it's also nothing, I just shouldn't have sat like that for two hours." He pushed himself up—reasonably slowly; clearly he hadn't forgotten the events of earlier either—stretching once he was stable before turnin. "I'm going to grab a snack, would you like anything?"
"Spice tea, if your replicator will accept the request," Spock said after a moment, and Jim headed into the kitchen only to return with a mug for Spock and some kind of nutrient bar for himself.
"Will it bother you if I bring down a model to work on?"
'Bother' was illogical, and regardless requesting that his host limit his activities for Spock's sake would be beyond impolite. "No. What hypothesis are you attempting to test?" The captain was considerably better versed in engineering than the sciences, but he was not incapable.
"Hypothesis?" He shook his head. "No, not that kind of model. More like a 3D puzzle, you might call it? They come in kits: ships, buildings, famous landmarks, whatever. Mom used to bring them back for Sam."
"I see." On Vulcan such things were typically only given to very young children since the ability to follow a set of instructions was considered a basic requirement for entry to formal schooling, and he was unsure why an adult would find enjoyment in such, but then, many things about humans still eluded him.
Jim headed up the staircase, returning several minutes later without the nutrient bar and with a battered box. It was emptied onto the floor, and Spock tilted his head as he spread out a collection of hundreds of oddly shaped pieces but tossed both the box and the flexi onto the couch behind him without looking at them.
"Do you not require the instructions?" he asked.
"Nah, that's cheating."
"The use of the instructions specifically provided to assist in the assembly of the model is cheating?"
"Yeah."
Over the course of the past year Spock had learned that while Jim frequently looked at things in a completely different manner than he did, one of the reasons that they were such an effective team even if it had taken them some time to learn to use their dual viewpoints, his thoughts were typically not without their own form of logic. However, in this situation, Spock was unable to find it. "Elaborate," he requested.
Jim twisted to look at him. "Elaborate on what?"
"What, specifically, is your definition of cheating?" Spock clarified after a moment of thought. "I begin to believe that we do not share a common reference."
Jim continued to stare at him for another two seconds, and then unexpectedly laughed. "Okay, I guess it wouldn't technically be cheating to use the instructions, but it would be pretty damn dull. I mean, 'Insert connector A into slot B'? At least if I don't read the instructions or look at the pictures there's enough work to do to figure things out that it'll keep me occupied for a couple hours and be reasonably satisfying once it's done."
Ignoring readily-available instructions was completely illogical if the objective was to quickly and accurately complete the assembly in question. On the other hand, if one took the position that that was not the objective…. "You do not care about the final product. It is the process that is of interest."
"Well, I'm not sure I'd put it exactly like that," Jim said, clearly considering Spock's words. "Just randomly gluing things together isn't any fun either. But you're right, it's not like I actually want a miniature model of a.…" He waved at the pile. "Whatever that's going to end up being. Some kind of ship, but I don't even keep most of them once they're done. So yeah, I guess you've got it. Building them is fun, but it's boring if it's too easy."
"Fascinating." Spock could not deny that—while it was only logical to complete all tasks to the best of one's ability—tasks with a higher level of difficultly were more personally satisfying. He set aside his PADD and slid down to the floor gesturing to the collection of scattered pieces. "May I?"
"Yeah, of course."
Jim shifted a little further to the side to allow him full access, and Spock picked up a particularly twisted bit of plastisteel.
"I think that might be one of the braces to hold the thrusters. There should be a couple more around here."
"Upon what do you base that hypothesis?"
"I've done quite a few of these, and some shapes end up repeating, especially since I'm pretty sure this is from one of the collectors' series. Although hang on a second, I'd better go replicate some new glue tubes before we get started. It's very annoying when you get a section all built and ready to go and then realize that the glue you were planning to use to secure it dried up ten years ago."
Spock continued to sort through the pieces as Jim headed back into the kitchen, finding one that matched the one he held and another that mirrored it. "You said that your mother brought these back for Sam," he said when Jim returned. "May I assume that Sam is your brother, and that by 'back' you are referring to her returns from Starfleet missions?"
"Assume away about the brother, but Mom left Starfleet after the Kelvin. She was still an engineer, though, and after a couple years stuck in this place she got bored enough to start contracting with the shipyards. She mostly did troubleshooting on delivery flights so she'd be gone for a month or two at a time, visited pretty much all of the colonies somewhere along the line. Sometimes she'd only bring back a couple, but other times it would be whole sets. By the time Sam left he had like five hundred of them shoved into his closet. This one goes to you, I think."
The captain was frequently inexact enough with regards to numbers that it was difficult to determine if a count should be taken literally, but in this case five hundred was more likely to include rounding error than true absurdity, and Spock nodded as he took the second mirrored piece. "Did she not bring you similar?"
"I was younger. Guess she figured I wouldn't be interested. And I wasn't when I was little, even Sam wasn't, really. Every once in a while he'd start on one, but he usually ended up getting frustrated pretty quick and shoving whatever it was back into the box half-built. I found them when I was doing some cleanup after everyone was gone, and…." He shrugged. "I dropped the really kiddie-level ones off at the school, but what was left gave me something to do. Other than generalized juvenile delinquency."
Spock raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously, does it look like there's anything interesting happening around here?" He tilted his head. "Do you have any sibl—shit. Sorry, that was a stupid question, pretend I didn't open my mouth."
"The question was inoffensive," Spock said, identifying another curved piece that likely belonged to one of the thruster assembly pairs. "I too have an older brother, although Sybok is more specifically my half-brother through my father, and I am not currently aware of his status."
"I'm not sure if I should ask," Jim said after a moment.
"You may, but there is little to be said. He was the product of a betrothal that had been arranged between my father and his mother as children, although in the end they chose termination rather than completion of the bond. He lived with us for a time when I was a child and never hesitated to call me brother, but when he rejected the teachings of Surak the situation became difficult and eventually untenable."
"Wait, Surak is the logic guy, right? That sounds like it would be kind of a big deal."
Spock was not entirely surprised that Jim knew at least something about who Surak was, and while 'the logic guy' was perhaps an unnecessarily succinct description, it was accurate enough under the circumstances. "Indeed, particularly given my father's position and his mother's lineage. Initially I was simply instructed to avoid him, but as his influence grew, he and his followers were banished from Vulcan. To my knowledge no one has heard from them since." Spock understood the position of the Vulcan council better now than he had as a child, but he also remembered his mother's sorrow and his own feelings of loss with regards to the only Vulcan who had never found him lacking.
"It sucks," Jim said.
Spock was familiar with the vernacular, but the surety in his voice was surprising. "You are unaware of your brother's status as well?"
"Yeah."
"May I ask?"
"You can, but there's not much to it. We didn't really get along with our stepfather all that well, and since that's who we were stuck with when Mom was away on jobs.…" He shrugged. "It was worse for Sam, and when he was sixteen he just sort of decided that he was done."
"I was under the impression that eighteen was the age of majority for humans except under special circumstances."
"It is. Which is why when I begged him to take me with him he said no. Was going to be hard enough for him on his own without trying to keep me in one piece too. He said he'd come back when he was eighteen, but…." Another shrug.
"He did not?"
"No clue. I was angry enough after he left to do some damage, and they ended up shipping me to this troubled-kid camp offworld. Things were actually a lot better there, at least until they were a lot worse, but by the time I got back to Earth I was fourteen—uh, Sam and I are a little more than five years apart—and if he ever had come back he'd been and gone."
They exchanged glances, and when Jim repeated 'It sucks' again, Spock couldn't bring himself to disagree.
