...in Berkeley Square

The first time the Starfleet officers were all among themselves was later that evening. They had assembled in The Langham, and for a moment, all seemed well.

Jim told them, with wry humour, that the German trenches had been dry at least, other than their own. He had spent all the time at the front because the German platoon that had captured him had been stuck there with little to no possibility of safe passage east.

"You've got some guardian angel, Jim," McCoy mumbled after he had told them all but how he had managed to return. "To escape the enemy trenches? I don't get how you did it."

Jim smirked as he leaned back in his chair. "My guardian angel was Spock. I think."

"Now you're exaggerating!" McCoy burst out. "He can't have been. He was firmly convinced you were six feet under."

"I must agree." Spock nodded. "I had nothing to do with your escape."

"And that's where you're wrong." Jim smiled again, evidently enjoying knowing something his friends didn't. "Do you know anyone by the name of Franz Zimmermann?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I am sure I do not."

"You spared his life a while ago. He never forgot his saviour."

Spock straightened up, looking scandalised. "It was certainly not as heroic as you make it sound. I simply made the choice not to shoot him." He remembered the crater, the scared look of the young man in grey uniform and his incredulous look as he realised Spock, a British soldier, was sparing his life.

"And that's what touched him," Jim said. "That when you could have, you didn't. That you made a choice and didn't even seem to think twice. In an era where dehumanisation runs rampant, you chose compassion."

Spock was silent, only nodding slowly. Naturally, he had not thought this far when he had met the other soldier. He certainly had not expected his actions would have as far-reaching consequences.

"Of course," Jim continued, smirking, "some might call it insubordination not to shoot your enemy."

Spock's head shot up. "Franz Zimmermann is not my enemy. None of them is."

Jim shrugged. "Tell that to the King, to the Kaiser, and to the Tsar." He sighed, meeting the looks of McCoy and Chris, tentatively hopeful but very much aware of their lack of self-determination in this theatre of war. "I agree, Spock," he sighed. "That's the injustice of war. Very few of the soldiers actually want to kill the others. And the ones that tell them to do so from the comfort of home. If they had to follow their own orders, this would be over in a day." He smiled again and laid his hand on the Vulcan's shoulder. "All I mean is that I am grateful. I think he wanted to repay that act of kindness in some way. Just before the last battle, he set me free and told me to go. He sends his regards, by the way."

Spock pursed his lips as he absentmindedly twirled Thomas Cooper's cigarette between his fingers.

"Don't say you've started smoking," Jim said bemused, after watching him for a while.

Spock shook his head. "Cooper gave it to me. For when a hand seems like a worthy trade for my life or sanity."

Jim did not ask what he had meant by that. His eyes merely widened slightly, and he sighed softly. "Chris told us you almost gave up," he murmured after a while, his tone having grown dark. "And Bones told me you haven't been well."

Spock looked at McCoy who shook his head. He hadn't told anyone the details of their talk in the rear area. He hadn't even told Jim about the events of the last evening there, as funny as he would find it. He had only told him that they had had somewhat of a heart-to-heart talk. That alone had told Jim all he needed to know, though, combined with his and Spock's little talk earlier.

"I did not give up," Spock protested. "I initially refused to fight."

Jim thought this was a matter of perspective. "Why?" he asked.

"Because it is wrong to kill." Spock paused. "Because seeing you dead reaffirmed my conviction that I must not cause another being to suffer like that." He paused again and averted his eyes before he continued. "I should have realised it was not you. And I should not have been affected so much. Not by your death and not by Mr Chekov's."

Jim smirked. "I should take that personally."

"Well, how could you not be affected," McCoy grumbled good-naturedly, "if it hit you right in the Achilles' heel?"

Spock looked up and raised an eyebrow. "My Achilles' heel? I am uninjured."

The others could not stop themselves from laughing quietly as McCoy regarded Spock with a glare that was half punishing, half amused.

"The proverbial one," Christine explained in an exasperated tone. "I'm beginning to think you're doing that on purpose, misunderstanding idioms."

"I never would."

"And a liar, too," Christine muttered and exchanged a smirk with Jim.

"What I'm trying to say," Leonard went on, "is that the well-being of your friends is your metaphorical Achilles' heel, the point where you're most vulnerable."

Spock nodded. "I got as much."

"And?" Jim asked. "Are we?"

Spock's eyebrow rose again. "You seem to have made up your mind already, anyway," he answered dryly. "I see no reason to comment."

And so that evening, that oh-so-precious evening drew slowly to a close. McCoy never told Jim what exactly had happened between him and Spock in the rear area, and he would never know. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," the Doctor had said with a Cheshire Cat grin when Jim had asked.

They would often ask themselves what went wrong, how it could have happened, if in their exhilaration about Jim's return they had been careless. They would never find an answer to those questions, and now, in the dugout, they did not yet know what else would befall them. They did not yet know how valuable this moment would become, and in their determination to see the good amid all the pain did not imagine that things could get even worse. Pavel's death might have prepared them. It didn't. Because the next day, all hell broke loose.

The attack came at twilight, after one blissful day spent with Jim back in their fold. Sure, his return had made Pavel's absence all the more noticeable, but there had been a feeling of hope in the air, of precious, stupid hope.

With the setting sun, McCoy and Spock found themselves fighting side to side on the battlefield.

The doctor flinched when a British soldier to his left slumped to the ground, felled by a gunshot from up ahead.

"Please don't let it be Spock this time or Chris or Jim again," he whispered to himself as he hurried after the Vulcan. "Just this once, let everybody live."

Up ahead, Christine ran, and when an artillery blast shook the earth, she stumbled and fell. McCoy leapt behind a mound of earth to give her cover. "Spock! Take care of her!" he shouted.

Realising his intent, Spock bolted forward and pulled Christine behind a similar heap. McCoy saw she was moving and breathed a sigh of relief.

During the course of the battle, he lost sight of the two again, though, and the fear returned.

But when he came back to the trenches with Jim a while later, bruised and beaten, they came back, too, just as battered but alive, making up the rear of the platoon. Maybe, just maybe, luck was with them this time.

A scream pierced the air. Leonard looked around for the source of it then realised it had come from behind, from out of No Man's Land. Luck was not with everyone today.

"Help!" the voice cried out. "Help me, please!" It broke off into a sobbing wail, a sound of pain and terror.

Just behind Leonard, Chris stopped and turned around, her expression serious and drawn.

He took her arm. "You can't help him, Chris," he muttered. "Come on."

Christine bit her lips, balled her hands into fists and nodded grimly, turning her back to the front line and the screams.

"Mummy!" the voice called.

Christine stopped again, and then, in a sudden burst of energy, turned and ran the way they had come, leaping out over the parapet.

"Chris, no!" Leonard shouted. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

Spock rushed past him, after her.

"Dammit, Spock!" McCoy shouted as the Vulcan vanished.

Christine had not even heard Leonard's shouts, dashing towards the feeble cry for help. Running across the battlefield, she stumbled but carried on, rounding craters, jumping over fallen trees and mounds of earth, heedless of the fact that she was getting ever closer to the German trenches. When the cries stopped, she carried on, hurrying in the direction she had heard them last. And when she saw the boy lying in the mud ahead, she sped up.

"I'm here," she called out, falling to her knees next to him. "It's all right!"

He didn't react.

Before she could think much about it, she felt herself yanked away from the child as someone collided with her, grabbed her, and pulled her up. A bang sounded from up ahead, and a sharp pain shot through her abdomen, but she paid it no mind, fighting against the arms that were encircling her from behind and pulling her away from the boy, into a crater.

"Let me go, we can't leave him!" she shouted, clawing at the earth to scramble away from the person holding her down. "We can't leave him!"

Two hands grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. "You can't save him," Spock said, shaking her once. "He's dead already."

"Spock." She stared up at him, slowly getting her bearings as the adrenaline rush faded. She hadn't even realised he had followed her. "Spock, why—"

She collapsed into him with a pained scream, no longer able to ignore the burning sensation in her abdomen. She looked down and saw the blood spreading through her tunic.

"Oh no," she whimpered, her fingers clawing into Spock's shoulder and trying with the other hand to stop the bleeding. "Oh no, no, no."

Spock knelt next to her and pressed his own hands against the wound. "Look at me," he murmured. "It's all right, I'm here."

She shuddered involuntarily and blinked up at him. "I can't feel my legs."

Spock nodded grimly. "Your spine must have been hit." With one hand, he tried to reach her emergency field dressing, pushing his hand under the flap of her tunic and feeling for the pocket where the dressing should be found.

But Christine put a quivering hand on his arm. "It's too late," she muttered, shaking her head. "Go." She bit her lip and inhaled sharply. "Go, save yourself."

He sighed and only increased the pressure on her wound. "We just have to wait for the stretcher-bearers."

Christine shook her head again. "They won't come. And if they did, it'd be too late." She coughed once, and her eyes grew softer. "Listen, there's something I want you to know."

Spock pursed his lips. "Spare your strength," he said and put one hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.

"No! Let me say goodbye while I still can. What're a few more seconds now?"

"There might still be a chance."

"It's no use, Spock. I'm a doctor, I know. And you do, too." She met his gaze and slowly, hesitantly, he nodded. "Thank you, Spock."

He raised an eyebrow.

"For everything," she mumbled. "You were one of the most remarkable people I've met, and I…I…"

Spock nodded, and she was touched to see a smile tugging at his lips. "I know," he said, his voice as soft as his eyes. Soft and sad.

Christine bit her lip, as the pain became almost unbearable. Instinctively, she put one hand over her wound. Finding Spock's hand there, she curled her fingers around his. "Remember how you made me laugh," she said. "In this terrible place, you still managed to make me laugh. You were a joy to be around." She smiled up at him, somehow managing through the agony.

"I count myself lucky," he replied, his gentle tone in stark contrast to the concern written in his eyes.

"Goodbye, Spock," Christine whispered through the pain, so quietly that he almost could not hear her. "Now, go!"

"No." Spock's look did not waver as he looked down at her, concerned but resolved. "I will not go."

She was tempted to roll her eyes at this unbelievable stubbornness. But when she met his gaze, there was a warmth spreading through her, despite the coldness that had begun to envelop her. And for all her protests, she held out her arms in a silent plea.

With one hand, Spock carefully took off her helmet and then lifted up her torso to cradle her against him.

"You should go," she gasped, shaking with pain. "It's not safe to stay."
But he shook his head. "I have made my decision."

"You fool, you damn fool." She coughed, and a trickle of blood ran down her chin. "Why risk yourself if I'm a lost case anyway?"

With one hand still pressing on her wound, Spock turned her sideways so that she would not choke on the blood filling her stomach but continued to hold her.

"Because you are my friend." He pressed his lips together and nodded down at her. "I will stay. Here, with you, until the end."

Christine made a noise somewhere between a sob and a chuckle. She did not want his last memory of her to be of a corpse in a ditch. But she was also so very glad he was here.

"Let go, Spock," she mumbled, tugging weakly at his hand. "It's all right, you can't stop it anyway."

He hesitated but after another look at her, lifted his hand from her wound, letting the blood flow freely.

She shivered, and he cradled her closer, wishing he knew something better than to sit with her. She grabbed his arm, holding on to life and to him with her last ounce of strength. "I'm so scared, Spock. I don't want to die."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again and swallowed heavily. "I am sorry," he mumbled and reached out to put one hand against her cheek.

"Don't be. You did everything you could." She tried to laugh, but it became a gurgling sound instead, and an iron taste filled her mouth. She coughed again, leaving a spray of red on his shoulder. "It was a foolish thing to do to run out here."

"I have never thought you foolish." He shook his head and very gently caressed her cheek with one thumb, a gesture that felt strangely familiar to them. "Feeling deeply for those around you is in your nature. It does not make you foolish, it makes you who you are."

Christine smiled, and her lower lip trembled. "Oh, Spock. I love you."

He wasn't sure if she had even said it aloud. If she had, he had been unable to hear it. But he did read it on her lips. And when he looked back at her eyes, they were suddenly unfocused and empty. Gone was the light that had so often shone in them when she had smiled at him.

For a few moments, he continued to hold her, just to be sure that he was with her until the last of her senses had truly left her. Then, he gently laid her down against the slope of the crater. He opened the first buttons of her battle dress tunic and flannel shirt and pulled at the cord with the identity tags, ripping off the red one just as he has done with Pavel. He slipped it into his pocket, pushed the green one back under her clothes, closed the buttons again, and folded her hands over her abdomen. Then, this last duty fulfilled, he sat back on his heels and found himself gazing blankly at the body in front of him.

It was an entirely illogical notion, but it struck him how alive she had always seemed, how obviously, vivaciously alive. Logically, one living being should not appear more alive than another. Then why had she? With this, he did not mean that she had lived with more intent than the average populace or that her life had had more meaning but that every aspect of her being had seemed like an expression of life, of sentient existence, rather than a by-effect. She had radiated light and warmth of such a kind as Vulcan often seemed to lack.

He wished he had only told her. True, there had been that one time, back at the inn in the little French village, when he had said something very similar to her. But while he felt relieved that at least she had known that she was important, that her presence had been cherished, and her life one well-lived, he wished he had said more. They had had time enough to say so much more.

Time enough but not the words. With an un-Vulcan pang of regret, Spock realised the paradox he had trapped himself in. He could not have told her how much she meant to him because the words he wished to have said were only coming to him now, triggered by her demise taking away the very possibility to tell her. With a sudden twinge of bitterness, he thought that this was not enough. It should have been longer, and there should have been more.

With a sigh, Spock collected himself and stood up. Then, a memory bursting forth from the chaos of the last weeks and seeming utterly important all of a sudden, he bent down to fish Pavel's poem out of her breast pocket.

As he pushed the little sheet of paper into his own pocket, he looked one last time into the empty face of Christine Chapel. There was no warmth anymore, just the cold neutrality of a corpse. The waxy paleness of her features stood in stark contrast to the muddy earth, making her seem otherworldly in an almost beautiful way, the way that marble statues were beautiful. Her eyelids had slid shut with gravity pulling them down with the slope she was leaning against, and there was a small yearning in him to open them once more, to see that radiant blue of those eyes just one last time. But he didn't. It would not be the same.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he absentmindedly brushed one strand of hair from her forehead, came to his feet, then turned around and left. He could have carried her all too easily, and he would have undertaken the risk to his safety willingly, if it wasn't for the disguise they had to uphold that could all too easily be exposed if, for instance, her clothes were taken off to be re-used.

He made his way carefully back to the British trenches without her but his hands full of her blood and carrying her webbing, rifle, and helmet. When he slid down the parapet, McCoy and Jim were waiting in the front-line trench.

"Where's Christine?" the doctor burst out, undoubtedly disturbed at the sight of the blood and the equipment. "Where is she? Where's Chris?"

Spock pursed his lips, standing helplessly in front of his two friends. "I left her on the battlefield."

"Well, let's get her!" McCoy exclaimed, already turning towards No Man's Land. "We can't leave her!"

Spock shook his head. Glancing to the side, he met Jim's silent gaze, changing from concern to pained realisation.

"You promised you'd never leave her," McCoy hissed.

"Doctor." Something in his voice wiped the frown off Leonard's face. "She's dead," Spock said.

"No, you're joking."

"I am not."

"Oh, God." Doctor McCoy bit his lip, glancing from Spock to Jim, then towards No Man's Land and back at the Vulcan. "And you left her out there!"

"I had to." Spock tilted his head, aware that what sounded like accusations were the doctor's last attempts to prevent reality from catching up with him. "If I had brought her back," he explained gingerly, "our disguise might be revealed."

"And recovery of bodies is too dangerous anyway," Jim added quietly.

McCoy nodded slowly. "How'd she die?"

"Quickly," Spock answered. "By a gunshot wound. I was with her." He kept quiet about the pain she had felt.

McCoy nodded again. "Good. Good." He burrowed his face in his hands. "Oh God, Chris." He coughed again, worse than ever before.

Jim reached out to grab his shoulder. "Bones."

"It's okay," he grumbled, patting Jim's hand before he turned on his heel and walked away without another word or even a glance.

Spock watched him leave and then turned to Jim. "I tried to save her."

"I know," he said. "Of course, you did. I'm sorry, Spock."

Neither of them knew what he was apologising for, but it did not matter. They turned to look out at the battlefield in quiet companionship. Somewhere far out in the wasteland, a crow landed, perhaps to feast. Spock shook the unbidden image from his mind. He turned to go, but Jim's hand on his arm stopped him.

"The Lieutenant said you should report to him if you return."

Spock only nodded and left towards the bunker.

Thompson was inside, with Elliot Baker. When Spock entered, the Private took his leave from the Lieutenant and turned to go. In the entrance, though, he stopped, looking up at Spock, his eyes posing a silent question. Apparently, information about his and Chris's sprint back onto the battlefield had made the rounds already.

Spock shook his head, and Elliot's eyes grew sad. He nodded and then left. For a moment, Spock looked after him, experiencing a sensation of pity. Elliot was young and sensitive. The losses of his friends would hit him particularly hard. Spock would manage. He would have to.

"What happened out there?" Thompson asked as Spock stepped into the bunker and took in his appearance and the equipment he was carrying with one glance. "I have people telling me Chapel ran back into No Man's Land when he heard a dying man scream for help. As if that isn't bad enough, you ran after him?"

Spock nodded. "I did, sir."

Thompson threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. "Why?"

"I thought I could bring him back safely."

"And did you?"

Spock pursed his lips. "No, sir," he answered, showing Thompson the red identity tag.

The Lieutenant sighed, nodded, and pointed him to a basin of water in the corner. "Wash up, Lance Corporal. You can leave Chapel's stuff on the crates next to it."

Spock obliged, carefully putting Christine's rifle on one crate and her webbing with the gas mask and other equipment on a pile with the helmet. His own equipment he laid down next to it, wishing he would never have to pick it up again. Her tag he slipped into his pocket. Then he set about washing her blood from his hands as best he could. It had already dried, and the iron smell filled his nose again as he scrubbed at it.

When he was finished and straightened up, Thompson beckoned him to the table.

"Have a whisky."

Spock remained standing where he was. "No, thank you."

"Have a whisky, Grayson."

Spock nodded curtly, took off his helmet, and sat down while Thompson fetched a bottle from a nearby crate, ostensibly his personal supply.

"I should discipline you for such a stupid course of action," he grumbled when they were seated across from each other, Thompson with a glass of swirling amber liquid in his hands, undiluted for cases such as these. Spock was not touching his.

He looked down at the table, suddenly not caring about anything anymore. "If you see fit for that, by all means do," he returned.

"I know it'd be of no use." Thompson chuckled softly. "You'd endure your punishment without complaint. And the next time you got the chance, you'd do it again." He held up his hand when Spock opened his mouth. "No, don't answer, I don't even want to hear it." He took a gulp of whisky and cleared his throat. "We can't save everyone, Jack," he said after a pause, his eyes finding Spock's and transporting more understanding than he would have expected. "Sometimes we just have to accept someone can't be saved."

"I am aware." Spock raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips again but this time in grim defiance, not frustration. "But as long as there is a chance, why should we not try?"

Edwin Thompson sighed deeply, pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked up again at him and shook his head. "You're either the bravest or the stupidest man I ever met."

Spock chose not to answer but slowly took a sip of whisky. Come to think of it, it was not half bad. He drained the glass and stood up to excuse himself. He had things to do. And if he did not, he would find something to do.

"Not so fast," Thompson grumbled and grabbed his wrist to pull him back down into his chair. "There's something else." It was his turn to drain his glass, apparently stalling for time, and while he was at it, he filled up both their glasses a second time, ignoring Spock's protest.

"With Chris gone, I need a new soldier-servant," he said at last, stroking his moustache somewhat awkwardly. "I want someone I like and more importantly, someone I trust. I'd like you to do it." He held up his hand to silence Spock who had already opened his mouth to reply. "I understand if you had rather not take it. After all, you're a lance corporal, and we both know that role is usually taken by a private. It would be highly unusual, and it's an awkward situation as it is. It's an offer, not an order."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I accept," he said calmly.

Edwin smirked. "Thanks, Jack, I appreciate it." He cleared his throat, set down his glass, and got up, forcibly dispelling the relaxed atmosphere. "Dismissed, Grayson," he mumbled with a wave of his hand and, not one to disobey an order, Spock left.

He spent most of the night burrowed in work. Quite literally, as he helped Franklin Jones dig a new listening post. For a couple of hours, there was no sound but their breathing and the scraping of their shovels. Sometimes, a fellow soldier passed by in the dark, but they worked on without speaking, either of them holding on to the fragile peace of silence. And when they were relieved, Franklin merely clapped him on the shoulder and went on his way, as did Spock.

With nothing else to do, he went to bed. He found a free hollow and pressed himself into the earth, quickly falling asleep. But his dreams were haunted by the dead. No nightmares but dreams filled with sparkling blue eyes. There was that inner light shining from them once more, and her steps fell carefree and softly as she tread the corridors of a place that had been home in another lifetime. The hallways bent out of sight as they walked on and on. She was talking, but what about he could not hear, the very sound of her voice a comforting murmur that he longed to hold on to and never let go. She laughed at something he had said, and the sound rang out clearly and echoed like the memory of a nightingale singing on a golden afternoon. And yet, even as he looked across at her and the light in her eyes enveloped him, he knew it was not real. Not anymore.