The next day dawned as all the days before and all the days that would follow. A golden glimmer in the east as they marched toward the front line for the daily routine proceedings, a yellow shine that spread and made the morning dew glitter in No Man's Land as they stood on the fire step and looked over the parapet. No matter what, life would go on. With or without them, the Earth would rotate, the sun would shine, and days would turn into years and years into centuries.

And so, the routine of a new day began. Spock was assigned work on the new listening post, this time with Elliot, while Jim and Leonard were sent to repair the sump in the front-line trench. Other than Franklin, Elliot chatted amicably, and Spock indulged him. But when he asked him whether he wanted to join him and Henry at a game of cards, he declined.

And so, around noon, he found himself sitting alone on the bench in front of the bunker, sipping tea. He was not having biscuits. For some reason, he did not care for them anymore.

When McCoy and Jim approached him, he slid aside to make space for them.

"Henry told us you were moping," Jim murmured as he sank down next to him.

"I am not moping."
"Sure." McCoy shook his head and left into the bunker, returning with the equipment for a foot inspection.

Much used to the routine by now, Spock took off his shoes as the doctor knelt down in front of him. After that, it was Jim's turn, and lastly, Spock begrudgingly inspected McCoy's feet. But he was secretly grateful for having something to do. They did not speak throughout, the silence only interrupted by McCoy's coughs.

But he felt that his respite was coming to an end when everyone's shoes were back on, McCoy had brought the equipment away and sat down heavily on his other side.

Spock took a slow sip of his tea.

"Talk to us," Jim said, gentle but firm.

Spock sighed deeply. And then he did talk, but he did not say anything that they were expecting.

"How is your Achilles tendon?" he asked.

Jim laughed. "Achilles' heel, you mean," McCoy grumbled. "The idiom refers to the myth, not the anatomical term."

Spock pursed his lip. "I stand corrected," he said but continued to look at him expectantly.

"Well, I'm not doing too well if that's what you're asking," McCoy muttered. It was his turn to sigh, and a frown began to form on his face. "Tell me something. Was she in pain? And was she afraid?"

Spock glanced at Jim and then nodded. "Yes."

McCoy nodded, too, and the frown deepened. "Spock, I know that in your own way, you cared for her." He looked up at him with a pleading glimmer in his eyes. "But did she know? You never hugged her, never even held her hand, did you?"

Jim shot him a warning look. "Bones!"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Your point?" he asked coldly.

McCoy frowned back, unrelenting. "Why?"

"Because those are human gestures of affection and, other than some people, she respected my boundaries in public."

"In public?" Leonard blinked a couple of times, and then he smirked, the frown wiped away by the opportunity to tease Spock. "Something I should know?"

Spock thought back on the past couple of weeks, remembering her hand on his cheek, her head on his shoulder, his hands in hers, and then all the events of the more distant past. Oh, the past. "No," he said blandly. Then, he quirked an eyebrow at McCoy and added, "I will forgive you your implicit accusation, knowing you do it only out of concern."

Leonard bit his lip and averted his eyes. "Sorry, Spock," he mumbled.

"And she wouldn't have expected you to do those things, anyway," Jim supplied, evidently worried he would take what McCoy had said too much to heart.

Spock nodded and turned back to the doctor. "You are concerned she did not get the affection she deserved."

"Well, 'deserve' is a strong word." He shrugged, and the frown reappeared. "We all deserve more. Doesn't mean what we got isn't enough." He looked up at Spock, finding his question answered.

"There will always be things we wish we would have said," the Vulcan said softly, his gaze fixed on the doctor yet appearing far away. "But I do not think she ever doubted that she was appreciated."

Jim watched them warily, slightly surprised they had been able to resolve their little spat this quickly. And then it occurred to him that they had had to learn to live without him.

McCoy stared back at Spock with a bewildered frown and after he had recovered, muttered, "Thanks. For staying with her."

Spock inclined his head and leant back against the trench wall. A comfortable silence settled. After a while, he took another long sip of lukewarm tea and said slowly, "She told me to go. To save myself. I stayed."

"Naturally." Jim smiled softly. "Why did you do that?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "It was the right thing to do."

McCoy leant forward on the bench. "The human thing, even?"

"I would not go so far."

But the doctor was insistent. "I would. You've grown soft."

"I must protest." Spock pursed his lips. "Everything I did was most logical." Too late he realised the trap he had fallen into.

"Even better," McCoy mumbled. "An act of compassion justified by logic." He grinned and patted Spock on the arm, evoking a deep sigh. Sobering up again, he added, "I think I knew the moment you came back alone that she was gone. Cause you leave no one behind." He shook his head. "I just didn't want to hear it."

Spock nodded slowly and looked away again, his eyes fixed upon the opposite wall instead of McCoy. "I could not have left her," he said, his brow knitted as if he had just realised. "She wanted me to stay. And yet, she told me to leave."

Jim put his hand on the Vulcan's arm. "And that confuses you?"

"Yes." Spock turned to Jim and raised both his eyebrows. "Why did she tell me to go and save myself if she was scared and wanted me to stay?"

"You really don't know?" McCoy huffed from his other side.

"I suppose," Spock began, setting aside his empty cup and crossing his arms, "knowing me safe was more important to her than fulfilling her need."

Jim exchanged a look with McCoy and smiled gently up at the Vulcan as he squeezed his arm. "Because she loved you, Spock."

The eyebrows rose again. "Are you referring to our friendship or are you implying some romantic feelings?"

"It doesn't matter," McCoy grumbled, in an exasperated tone but not without kindness, thinking that Spock sounded endearingly defensive. "The kind of love she had for you, it's not necessarily romantic, not strictly platonic. She simply loved you. And she loved you for who you are, just the way you are. No more and no less. Trust me, that's rare."

He half expected Spock to protest. But he didn't even raise an eyebrow at the veiled insult. He merely nodded and sighed.

"You seem better off than when Pavel died," McCoy mumbled after having watched him for a while.

"I have gotten used to the dying."

"Hm. Maybe. Or this just wasn't as much of a shock." He shook his head at Jim's disapproving look. "I'm not saying you didn't care for her, but this wasn't as sudden and gory."

"I wish." A shadow passed over Spock's face.

Jim frowned. "You wish what?"

"I wish I did not care. The more we care, the more it hurts to lose."

Jim met McCoy's eyes, likewise surprised. Both knew he didn't mean that first part. And it was a small shock that he was divulging something so intimate. Made one wonder about the things he wasn't saying.

Deciding not to pry, Jim shrugged. "The price we pay for being human." He looked at Spock, waiting for the inevitable protest of 'I am not human'.

Spock's eyebrow rose slightly. He opened his mouth but closed it again. Apparently, he could not bring himself to say it.

Jim noticed and smiled. "But in the end, is it not worth it?"

"Wasn't it Shakespeare," McCoy chimed in, "who said, 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'?"

Spock shook his head. "Tennyson."

"Are you sure?"

Spock gave him a look of superiority.

"Sure, you're sure," McCoy muttered. "Well, whoever it was, I think he was right."

Spock did not answer anymore. He seemed very tired all of a sudden.

McCoy smiled and reached into his breast pocket. "Now, I happened to notice that you left without a biscuit today."

Spock looked down at it and made no motion to accept it. "It was never about the biscuits," he muttered.

Christine's last words came back to him, and he realised that she had told him how much she cared for him every single day. Every time she had wrapped his blanket around him, every cup of tea, every biscuit, had spoken those words of 'I love you' almost louder than her dying breath had managed.

"I know," the doctor replied and gently placed the biscuit in the Vulcan's hand.

A tense peace settled in the days that followed. The daily routine was a blessing and a curse, and the rays of the afternoon sun that warmed many a stiff limb after the daily duties were done often served as a reminder of ones whose faces would never feel this warmth again, those who were lying cold and dead out there. And yet, there was a macabre comfort of knowing that they were surrounded by people who felt similar. Perhaps Thompson had been right.

Everything Spock did he did with equanimity. A paradigm of a Vulcan. And yet it would have been far-fetched to say he was at peace. It was that very fact that they were not that gave him the ability to remain calm, that strange assurance that everything was falling apart and they could die any day. At least that was what he told himself, that he was calm. And with no one questioning him, what did it matter that he wasn't?

One night towards the end of June, McCoy approached him in the bunker where he was updating a map for Lieutenant Thompson. The doctor leaned against the table, almost causing Spock's pen to slip and spill ink on the trenches that he had so carefully drawn.

"What?" he grumbled at the Vulcan's reproachful look. "You shouldn't work bent over like that anyway. Your back won't thank you."
"My back has ceased to be a long-term investment anyway, I think."

"What's that, Spock? Gallows-humour?" McCoy smiled dryly but did not find it in him to disagree with him.

"Was there something you wanted from me?" Spock asked.

"Yes, your warm and caring presence," Leonard grumbled.

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. "I aim to please."

"Only the masochists among us."

The smug expression wiped from his face, Spock sighed and crossed his arms. "Really, Doctor. You need to learn to give a compliment."

Leonard smiled up at him, no doubt bewildering him with this unexpected response. "I can see what she loved about you. And that like no one ever will."

Quickly recovering, Spock pursed his lips. "Is that so?"

"It's not like we don't, you know, love you," McCoy continued, unfazed. "But no one will ever love you in the same way she loved you. Or me or Jim for that matter." He sighed and let his eyes travel over the map. "She was an outstanding officer and a great friend. And no one here will ever really know her."

"They know enough to miss her."

Leonard raised his eyes to Spock who had sunk down onto a chair. "Hm. Perhaps you're right. But they only know Chris the soldier. Not Christine the doctor, the Starfleet officer. It's left to us to remember that. And if we ever get back, we're the only ones who'll know about her last weeks."

"You are stating the obvious," Spock replied. "Dying seldom happens strongly supervised and documented. More often than that, unnoticed and alone."

"Way to spoil my mood." Leonard glowered down at him, but his expression softened quickly. "Well, I'm still glad you were with her. I can't stop thinking about her, the pain she was in, the fear she must have felt. But at least she died in the arms of the man she loved. I hope you know that."

Spock nodded curtly. "I do."

"Well, good," Leonard rambled on. "Cause I'd hate for you to think there was anything else to be done. There wasn't, not from the moment she passed the parapet." He cleared his throat. "You know, in a way, I'm glad it was you with her. And I'm ashamed to admit it. I only remember her alive and well, not dying and in pain like you probably do."

Spock pursed his lips as the doctor's look met his. "Do you not think we have mourned her enough?" he returned.

"I don't know." Leonard shrugged but did not break their gaze. "Have you?"

Spock did not answer. With a small sigh of frustration, he averted his eyes to stare at the map.

This being answer enough, Leonard nodded. "Some people we just don't get over." He reached out to gently put his hand on Spock's shoulder. "Learn to live with it."

"Learn to live with it?"

McCoy nodded. "It's okay to feel this way. And it's okay to keep feeling this way. No one expects anyone to just walk away from loss. Not even you. Especially not a loss like this." He faltered and with a small smile squeezed his friend's shoulder. "It's okay to hold on to the memory of one shooting star when it feels as if the sky has lost its brightest light."

Spock looked up, and for a moment, his eyebrow raised in an expression of befuddled amusement, and Leonard half expected him to criticise his poetic ramblings. But the Vulcan's eyes softened, and he whispered, "You've noticed it, too."

Leonard nodded. "Of course I have. You know, whatever happens, I think that you—"

Heavy steps sounded as Jim, Franklin, and Henry stepped into the bunker.

"Found this one sitting by himself," Henry grumbled, jabbing his thumb at Franklin. "I think he's in dire need of company."
"I am not. I was just thinking."

"A bit too much if you ask me." Henry pushed Franklin down on a chair, ignorant of having caused an interruption.

Jim noticed but merely shrugged apologetically and sat down across Franklin, pushing Spock's map aside.

Sighing with the exasperation of a cat that has been disturbed one time too many, the Vulcan rolled it up and stowed it away. His displeasure soon faded, though, when he turned around and saw Franklin Jones's face, drawn and haggard. He sat down next to him as the others settled around the table as well. There was no doubt what the reason behind Franklin's anguish was.

Even though he knew it would not take the pain away, Spock searched frantically for something to say to elevate his mood. But nothing came to mind. The others were quiet as well until Jim cleared his throat.

"You're gonna be fine, Franklin," he said softly, tracing his thumbs along the edge of the table. "Not now, but you're gonna feel better. You're strong, you'll get through this."

Franklin shook his head. "Eli was the strong one," he muttered. "He could almost make you forget the horrors of this war, with his cheerful stories, and the ease with which he made friends with everyone. It's never been that easy for me." He frowned as he looked down at his hands resting in his lap. "In a way, I've felt it was a barrier between us I could never breach. And yet, it was the reason I loved him so." He sniffled silently and broke off.

Spock pursed his lips and gently put his hand on his shoulder. Franklin slowly raised his head, and when his look met his, Spock said, "He loved you very much as well. Something like that is not defined by our differences but by our commitment to shared values."

Franklin's lips quivered as the shadow of a smile tugged at his mouth. From the corner of his eye, Spock noticed McCoy's bemused look but carried on. "I had a brother, once. He and I were estranged for most of our adult lives. But when he died, sacrificing himself to save me and my friends, all that remained was gratitude and love."

Franklin nodded stiffly and put his hand on his resting on his shoulder, unable to produce any sound that would not end in him bursting into tears.

Henry, however, was less inhibited. "You had a brother?" he burst out. "You never told us about him!"

"I know the feeling," Jim muttered.

Spock ignored him. "I did."

"What was his name?" Franklin asked quietly.

McCoy and Jim shared a mischievous smirk while Spock let his hand slip from Franklin's shoulder, leant back, and sighed, once again forced as he was to invent himself a backstory.

"Simon," he said.

"That's not what I expected," Henry mumbled. "It's very different from yours."

Spock's eyebrow shot up. "I was unaware parents had to follow a pattern at naming their children."

"They don't, but they often do, you know?" Henry shrugged. "So, how come your brother is named after an apostle, presumably, and you're just Jack?"

"Simple," Spock said slowly, mentally grasping for straws. "My parents named me after the United States president. Andrew Jackson."

McCoy frowned across at him and folded his arms. "Oh, I always thought it was after Jack and the Beanstalk."

Before Spock could reply, Franklin sighed and murmured, "I was named after a founding father of the states. Benjamin Franklin. I think you know that, Jack. But also after a prime minister. Archibald Primrose, fifth Earl of Rosebery." He smiled, his eyes casting downwards. "Eli used to make fun of my second namesake only having been in office for fifteen months and that it did not bode well for my future achievements. His name is from the bible, of course."

"Maybe naming one son after an American statesman and giving the other one a biblical name isn't that uncommon," grumbled Henry. "There seems to be a pattern."

"You have any siblings?" Jim asked.

Henry nodded. "Sisters. Three of them. Susan, Elizabeth, and Jane." He smirked. "Normal names, you see."

"Oh, for sure." McCoy shook his head towards Spock. "Andrew Jackson, indeed." But he smiled, and Spock knew his exasperation was in jest.