Days later, even painful experiences like these were rendered a memory of better times, as the first bombardment since their return reminded them of the vulnerability of their situation.
Spock, McCoy, Christine, and Pavel huddled together in a bolthole, small clumps of earth raining down on them with every explosion. No one said it, but they all felt that the shelling was too close for comfort. And they were all thankful for their Brodie helmets.
In the semi-darkness next to Spock, Christine shuddered as a particularly violent explosion shook the earth.
"Do not be afraid," he said calmly or, rather, called over the bangs of the explosions. "Everything will be fine."
"I'm not afraid," she returned quickly. "Not for me. I'm afraid for them," she said, gesturing outside. "And for you." She sighed and rested her head on her knees, her eyes fixed on the exit of the hole. "They're so vulnerable and lost," she continued, and if her words had not been clearly audible over the banging outside, the others would have thought she was talking to herself. "And who will talk of them in years to come? No one." She shrugged, and her mouth moved into a pout. "Perhaps they'll be a name on a gravestone or a statistic somewhere, all that's left the documents of their military history. But who'll talk about their little quirks, their habits, their favourite book or song? About their dreams, their fears, their hopes? All that which truly made them the people they are?" She turned to Spock. "Who'll talk about that?"
Spock pursed his lips and remained silent.
"I thought so," she said, nodded sadly and looked back outside. "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of everyone else dying and being left alone." She shook her head and huffed. "I wish I could stop feeling so weak."
To her shock, she felt a finger on her chin turning her head to the side. Spock.
"A friend of mine once told me," he said slowly, "that my feelings did not make me weak, they made me human."
She stared back at him and for a moment forgot the others were still here.
"You could do well at following your own advice." His eyes grew softer, barely visible in the low light. "Compassion is not a weakness."
"Compassion is one of your biggest strengths, Chris," Leonard said from her other side.
Spock nodded, and despite wanting to argue that it certainly did not feel like a strength right now, she smiled back.
They settled into a comfortable silence, broken only by the shuffling sounds of Leonard and Pavel trying to get more comfortable without either of them having an elbow pressing into their ribcage.
Spock seemed to think about something, and after a while, he looked at his hands as if he was seeing them for the first time. McCoy was about to ask him whether he was all right, when he suddenly burst out, "I have been a fool." He looked up at Christine. "I am a Vulcan. I can help."
She shook her head. "You can't help them. Not without breaking dozens of directives, not to speak of your own morals."
"Not them. You. With a mind meld."
"Oh. You mean, you can help me not be afraid?"
"No." He shook his head and said, "But I may help you not be paralysed by it." He shifted his weight so he was kneeling in front of her and raised a hand. "May I?"
"Well, go ahead." She shrugged and stretched out her legs for easier access. "What harm could it do?"
Gently, Spock touched her face. She closed her eyes and opened her mind to him, trusting him implicitly. Spock navigated the passageways of her consciousness swiftly but carefully, trying to preserve her privacy as much as possible. This became harder as he went deeper, and he felt grateful for her trust in him. In a way, it made it easier to help, even though the emotionality of an unfiltered mind could seem disconcerting at first.
He ended the meld just as gingerly as he had initiated it. When he lifted his hand from her face, the tips of his fingers were moist. He did not mention it, of course, but merely tilted his head to ask silently whether she was all right, and she nodded, a smile, a small one but a smile nonetheless, spreading over her face.
"Does someone else require my services?" he asked the other two.
"I thought a mind meld was something very intimate to Vulcans, something not to be used just for fun," McCoy said, already surprised Spock had offered it to Christine. "It could even be dangerous."
"This is not for fun," Spock replied, motioning outside towards the noise of shells raining down on them. "I am helping my friends. And I assume that it should be less dangerous with a mind already familiar to mine." He quirked an eyebrow at the doctor. "I will be especially careful with yours."
"Well, you go first, Chekov," he grumbled. "I'm not ready to get turned inside out yet."
Pavel readily agreed, and Spock melded with him as well. McCoy, on the other hand, was still not enthusiastic when his turn came. "You know I'm not particularly fond of mind melds," he mumbled. But he seemed to consider it, and a second later he shrugged and added, "All right, go ahead, before I change my mind."
"And what about you?" Pavel asked after Spock was through with McCoy and they were all leaning back against the earthen wall, not quite happy but somewhat calmer.
"I am fine," Spock said. "Thank you."
McCoy rolled his eyes but didn't voice his disbelief, instead settling for sitting in silence. Silence but for the noise of the explosions they were waiting for to end and the occasional cough shaking him.
"I wonder if Tolkien was inspired by this," Chekov said after a while.
Spock looked around them and then shook his head. "This is nothing like a hobbit-hole," he said decisively, with an air of authority that was bordering on impertinence.
"Well, yes, that's the first lines of the book, that a hobbit-hole is nothing like this," Pavel said. "But I think he was inspired by the First World War in general and maybe by having to sit in holes in the ground."
Christine nodded. "And maybe he remembered these holes and wrote about a cosy, warm, comfortable hole on purpose." She smiled as she looked towards the exit. "A hole that was a home, overlooking a river, with pantries full of food and windows where the light streamed through."
Leonard smiled. "Wouldn't that be nice, right about now?"
It would have been, but it was not meant to be. When the bombardment ended in the early evening, it did so only for the Germans to attack. Safe to say, their evening manoeuvres of fixing their bayonets, stepping forward, and facing to, were redundant today.
The moment for Spock to lead his section into battle for the first time had come. And he did, despite his earlier misgivings. He did not falter or hesitate, leading his men to the front-line trench and over the top.
He pushed McCoy to the ground when a shell exploded close by and hurried forward, Pavel to his right, Christine slightly behind. They leapt behind a tree trunk when they came under fire from up ahead. The artillery barrage had long rendered the air thick and misty so that they could see neither enemy nor friend but for those standing closest.
Spock fired a few shots over the tree and stood up again. "Advance!" he called to the others. He could see a few of them moving nearby and hoped the rest of the section was still with them.
He walked forward, ever ready to duck. He lost sight of Christine at some point after she had rounded a crater. More than ever, the logic of this entire operation was unfathomable to him.
He slowed down when the onslaught increased, shells raining down left and right. A discomfiting feeling took hold when he realised it had become difficult for him to ascertain exactly where they were coming down. A side-effect of his hearing impairment, perhaps, or a tactical choice by the Germans. Probably both. He pressed on, though, carefully finding a balance between ignoring the shells and evading them.
When he heard the whistling overhead, it was too late. Something heavy collided with him, and he lost his footing, tumbling to one side, milliseconds before the shell exploded next to him, where he had just walked, and the blast sent him flying through the air. He slammed into the ground with a force that knocked the breath out of him, and it was some seconds before he could start to get his bearings.
When he did so, the first thing he noticed was the earthy taste. He coughed and spat out some dirt. Opening his eyes carefully, he found that he had at least not been buried, even though the weight on top of him seemed to suggest it. The second thing he noticed was that he could not hear anything. There was a sharp beeping in his left ear, and he was struck by an intense feeling of déjà vu. Then, when his sense of orientation had recovered somewhat, his attention returned to the weight on top of him.
He looked down and saw that someone was lying over him. Then he noticed it was none other than Chekov, whimpering with pain. His uniform was crimson red in places and Spock had a feeling that it was even worse than he could see. He could feel his uniform being soaked, a warm wetness spreading over his upper legs.
He sat up and carefully turned Pavel on his back, forgetting the hail of gunfire around them at the sight before him.
There was blood, so much blood. There was a laceration on his forehead, and the many places where his uniform was slowly acquiring a reddish tone told him he had more wounds than he could see. But it was his leg that made Spock forget the world around him—or rather the lack thereof. His right thigh ended in a fleshy stump, a jagged piece of bone sticking out the middle and bursts of blood spouting out of the mass of torn muscles and blood vessels.
He reached for Pavel's field dressing, pulling it out from the interior pocket under the right flap of his lower tunic. A sinking feeling began to take hold of him, as his analytical mind supplied him with cruel statistics. The piece of fabric was utterly useless against such a wound.
Instead of staunching the bleeding directly, Spock strapped the bandage around what remained of Chekov's thigh and tightened it. Then, he bent over him and picked him up, pressing him against his breast as he made his way towards the British trenches.
"Retreat!" Thompson called from somewhere in the fog, a few cruel moments too late.
Pavel only produced a pained moan, and Spock cursed himself for not talking to him sooner and reassuring him.
"I am bringing you back to the trenches, Mr Chekov," he declared as he hurried along, finding himself entirely ill-equipped to deal with the psychological component.
Pavel limply wrapped his arms around his neck, and his breath tickled Spock's ear. "I want to go home, Mr Spock."
Spock only pressed his lips together and held him closer—the truth of the moment creeping up on him—hesitant to speak a lie, even now.
When he reached the first aid station, he placed Pavel on the table in the middle of the dugout and turned to the medic with an expectant expression, the kind of expression that would have sent a certain young ensign running to revise his research and return with a completed protocol before an hour was up.
"Please help him," Spock said. "Save him."
The medic, a skinny fellow whose eyes looked ten years older than the rest of him, shook his head. "I can't do both," he replied. "If I thought there was a chance to save him, I'd be sending him to the nearest field hospital already. If I do that, he'll be jostled around and is gonna die on a stretcher somewhere on the way."
Spock bristled at this directness, a remarkable achievement as a Vulcan. "All right." He pursed his lips, and his eyes returned to Pavel writhing on the table. He put his hand on the younger man's shoulder as he addressed the medic again. "What are you going to do, then?"
The medic moved to an open crate. "Try to alleviate his pain. We've got enough morphine for once."
As he was speaking, Doctor McCoy rushed in. "Good God, Pavel! What were you thinking?" he gasped as he took his place next to Spock.
"I must have stumbled." A pained grin spread over his features. "Remember, my feet are rotten." He looked towards the other end of the table and blinked twice. "Ah, yes. Foot, not feet." He chuckled, the delirium from the blood loss setting in.
McCoy frowned and answered Spock's look with a grim shake of his head. Pavel was growing weaker every second, fading away before their very eyes.
When he stretched out his hand in Spock's direction, he took it without even thinking about it and bent over him.
"Let me go," Pavel whispered. "It's all right, I am not afraid anymore, Mr Spock."
Looking down into his protégé's eyes, Spock put his free hand against his cheek. "Even if you were, I am proud of you."
Pavel looked back up at him, silently. His lips curved upwards, and he sighed once. As his breath left his lungs, his look grew blank, and he died with a smile on his face before the medic could administer the morphine.
Spock slowly lowered Pavel's lifeless hand, placing it on the table. Then, he opened the first buttons of his battle dress tunic and flannel shirt, tugged at the cord around his neck, and pulled out his identity tags. He ripped off the red one, leaving the green one with Pavel's body. Not sparing another glance for McCoy who sat hunched over the dead man or the medic who was still standing at the crate, a syringe in one hand and the unopened bottle of morphine in the other, Spock turned around and left.
Once outside, he sank down on the ground, against the trench wall, pressing one hand against his hurting ear and clenching the identity tag so firmly with the other that its edges were digging into his palm. He would have sat like this for a long while had it not been for someone shaking him.
"Spock! Are you all right?" Christine Chapel was crouching in front of him, her expression pale against the falling darkness.
"Fine," Spock mumbled, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall.
In a moment of embarrassed recollection as she was looking him up and down, Chris remembered that his blood was green. "Whose blood is all this?"
"Pavel Chekov's."
Christine took a sharp breath and made to rush into the first aid station, but Spock's hand on her arm stopped her.
"It is not a pretty sight," Spock murmured, still not looking at her.
"Let me in," she hissed. "I'm a nurse."
She had been a doctor for over a decade now, but Spock shook his head blandly, not even correcting her slip of the tongue. "There's nothing you can do."
"There may be!" She tried to free herself, but his hand had closed around her wrist like a vice.
He blinked a couple of times and gazed up at her. "It's too late, Chris," he said.
She stared back at him and for a heartbeat thought she might have misheard. "I understand," she mumbled at last and bit her lip as she felt it quivering. "Let me in now, please."
He dropped his hand and returned to looking into the empty space ahead.
She rose to go, but before she turned into the first aid station, she lingered to take a good look at Spock. He did not seem to mind her scrutinizing, in fact, he did not seem to notice.
"Wait here," she told him, her hand brushing over his shoulder. "I'm gonna be back for you in a minute."
She entered the first aid station and stopped in her tracks. Spock hadn't been kidding. She noticed Leonard and sank down on the chair next to him. He did not seem to acknowledge her at first, but when she put her hand on his back in silent comfort and her head on his shoulder, he sighed softly and leaned his head on hers.
Outside, Spock pulled himself up from the ground, coming to his feet slightly unsteadily. He began to walk away, with no specific direction in mind. His feet carried him to the bunker, and he entered, to the shocked reactions of Edwin Thompson, Thomas Cooper, and Franklin Jones.
"Good heavens, Grayson, are you all right?" Thompson burst out, hurrying around the table.
Spock nodded curtly and held up the identity tag for the others to read.
"Come, sit down." Cooper pulled at his sleeve and for reasons incomprehensible to Spock, led him to a nearby chair while Thompson lit the lamp and set it on the table.
"Where's Chapel?" Franklin asked and bent over him.
Spock stared up at him and held up the identity tag.
"No, the other one." Franklin's face morphed into a pained grimace. "Where is his brother? Where's Chris?"
Spock motioned outside. "First aid station," he mumbled sluggishly. "I think."
Franklin turned on his heel and left.
Spock's gaze travelled to the tag in his hand and the name on it. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
He barely reacted when Thompson and Cooper pulled him up from the chair and opened his collar. He only frowned slightly when, for some reason, Thompson told him that if he was going to be sick, he should go outside.
A moment later, his soaked uniform was stripped away, and Thompson took a wet cloth to scrub away the dirt and blood from his face, hands, and where it had seeped through his clothes. Miraculously, and fortunately for their disguise, he had not sustained any visible wounds. But Spock was not thinking about the colour of his own blood. Unbidden images flashed in his mind again, of Pavel bleeding out in his arms and also of Jim burned beyond recognition. He shuddered at the coldness of the rag as it touched his face but did not have it in him to protest. Everything seemed strangely hazy since Pavel had died, and he had difficulties noticing what was going on around him, let alone caring about it. And so, he let it happen.
By the time he found himself sitting on the chair again, in fresh trousers and flannel shirt, he noticed Cooper was gone.
"Where is he?" he asked, blinking up at Thompson.
"Went to fetch McCoy," Thompson returned, beginning to push one arm of his into a clean battle dress tunic.
"For what?"
"For you. Can you raise your arm a bit?"
Spock raised the same arm that the Lieutenant had just pulled through its sleeve.
Thompson sighed. "The other one, Jack."
Spock did as he was told and let Edwin Thompson finish buttoning up the tunic. The one time he feebly tried to close a button by himself, his hand was pushed away.
When McCoy came in, Thompson had just finished straightening out Spock's collar and left them alone after giving McCoy a short clap on the shoulder. More seemed to pass between them than Spock could decipher, some implicit understanding.
McCoy set the two mugs of steaming liquid that he was carrying on the table, along with his blanket. Then, he sat down next to him, closer than would be comfortable for Spock under normal circumstances.
"Hey there." His voice was thick, either from his respiratory issues or because he had been crying. Probably both. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were glittering in the light of the lamp. "Why'd you run off like that? Chris told me you were supposed to wait for her." He did not expect an answer and, indeed, did not get one. "Take this," he mumbled, holding out one mug to him.
Spock shook his head, realising at the same time that without him noticing, McCoy had already wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.
"You're in shock," Leonard grumbled. "Take the tea. It'll help." He pressed the mug into Spock's hand, manually opening and closing it.
"I am a Vulcan," Spock muttered. "I am not in shock." But he could not help reacting immediately to the warmth of the mug of tea, wrapping the fingers of both his hands around it. He sighed and closed his eyes. But all he saw when he did so was all that blood and the stump of a leg, and he thought he could feel that unnatural warmth again, of someone else's blood seeping through one's clothes. He opened his eyes again, choosing instead to stare at the table.
"You did well with the tourniquet," McCoy said.
"It wasn't enough."
"Enough to say goodbye." McCoy looked him up and down and asked, after a while, "I'm guessing you were right there with him when he was injured. So, how are you? How's your ear? It's hurting again, isn't it?"
Spock nodded.
"Badly?"
"It is uncomfortable." Spock looked down into his tea but was still not drinking anything. McCoy noticed but chose not to push him. All within its time. "But I will be fine," the Vulcan continued. "If Pavel Chekov had not thrown himself between me and the shell, I would not be here at all. I will gladly accept the pain in my ear, knowing he got much worse."
Leonard decided not to tell Spock how, even with Pavel's involvement, he was damn lucky to be alive and uninjured. He probably knew. Instead, he reached out to lay his hand on Spock's wrist. "It's not your fault," he mumbled.
Spock continued to address his tea. "I must have not heard the incoming shell, but he did and saved my life. I was thrown onto my back, and he landed on top of me. He must have been exactly between me and the explosion."
Leonard made a mental note to check Spock for internal injuries later and squeezed his arm. "It's not your fault."
"Could you have saved him, Doctor?" he asked suddenly, with a strangely piercing look. "If I had brought him to you, would he still be alive?"
McCoy smiled bitterly. "It is illogical to ask a question that you already know the answer to." Then he shook his head. "No. I couldn't have done it. I'm just a doctor, Spock, not a magician."
"You undersell yourself. You are the CMO of the Enterprise for a reason. You have medical and scientific abilities that are almost unrivalled."
For a moment, McCoy thought he could see the executive officer again, used to giving orders on a starship, not fighting for survival in the trenches. But his look was still one of desperation, not of his usual composure, and Leonard almost wished he would look away again.
"And a femoral artery is still a femoral artery," he said. "Spock, he lost blood at such a rate that it was a wonder he was still alive when you got here. And that was thanks to your improvisation with the field dressing. People can survive losing a leg, yes, even as traumatic an injury as his, in some cases." He shook his head as he tried to explain the inevitability of the situation. "But he never had a chance. Not in this time and place, not with blunt force trauma, internal bleeding, perforation of his major organs, and severe blood loss. Even if he had survived the loss of limb, any of his other injuries or an infection might have killed him. And that's not even taking into account his increased risk of morbidity related to his trench foot." Again, he squeezed Spock's arm. "You did all you could. You know that, right?"
Spock only nodded, but it was enough for McCoy to understand what he could not say.
"God knows it's cruel," he murmured, "to know that even one's best isn't enough."
Over the course of the next hour, Spock slowly emerged from his fog, and midnight saw him sit around the table in The Langham with Christine and Leonard. They should be trying to sleep, but none of them found it in them.
McCoy had examined Spock, finding him free of internal injuries as well, as far as he could say with the antiquated equipment. He would only feel sore for a while. Not that Spock cared.
Now, Spock was the only one of them who was busy. At some point, he had sighed resolutely, procured a sheet of paper, and started writing a letter to Marie-Claire, notifying her of Pavel's demise.
He had been scrawling away for only a minute when he laid down his safety pen and gazed critically down at his message. There was no way he could tell Marie-Claire how excruciating Pavel's last moments had been. And yet, he felt he owed her the truth.
Thompson, who came in at that moment and mumbled something about having lost his pay book, stopped behind him to glance over his shoulder.
"When in doubt, just write he died quick and clean," he said and stooped to pull his book out from under one of the beds.
Spock pursed his lips. "But that is a lie."
"You bet it is." Thompson straightened up with a sigh. "It's your call, Jack," he grumbled and left them to themselves again.
In the end, Spock settled on a clinical but general description of how Pavel had died and sprinkled in some words of comfort.
When he folded the letter and raised his head, he noticed Christine was holding a sheet of paper of her own. It was Pavel's poem that he had written to Marie-Claire.
"Did he not send it?" he asked.
Christine looked up from the page in her hand. "Oh, no, he just made a copy for himself," she mumbled and carefully slipped it into one of her breast pockets.
"It is sensible for you to keep it," Spock said quietly and nodded. "Remember that you and Mr Chekov were pretending to be brothers. I suggest that you continue that pretence in that the intensity of your mourning should reflect that role."
Beside Spock, McCoy, who had seemed lost in thoughts until now, straightened up and furrowed his brow at him as if he could not quite believe what he had said.
"Pretence?" Christine asked tensely.
Spock nodded. "Yes. A display of feelings. An act or a show, even."
"An act." She huffed, and her nostrils flared as she frowned at him. "Have you lost your mind, Spock?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Christine?" he asked carefully. He glanced sideways at McCoy, but he just answered with a look that seemed to say that he was on his own in this.
"You might want to rethink your words there," Christine grumbled. "Do you seriously think I have to pretend to mourn Pavel to be believable? To act bereaved?"
"That is not what I was trying to say."
"Oh, I know." She glared back at him, and her hand resting on the table balled to a fist. "But it sounded a hell of a lot like you did. And I don't really know what you did mean by that. Care to explain?"
Spock pursed his lips. It was hard to defend logic in such an emotionally loaded setting. "I meant it as a factual statement, not an evaluation. I meant that you should keep in mind you were pretending to be his brother and that in case—just in case—your mourning might not reflect that, you were validated to exaggerate."
There was a moment of silence during which Christine seemed to consider his words. Then, just as silently, she rose. Her voice shook as she answered. "He was your friend, too!" She shook her head in disbelief as she looked down at him. "How can you be so tone-deaf?" She turned around and rushed out of the dugout, and Spock thought that if there had been a door, she might have slammed it shut.
"Aren't you precious?" McCoy mumbled.
Spock turned around and raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well, don't just sit here." He jabbed his thumb towards the exit. "Go after her."
Spock nodded curtly and stood up, having come to the conclusion that the doctor's experience on these matters was far greater than his, and he would do well to follow his advice in this instance. He was halfway outside before he turned around again. Under the amused eye of McCoy, he went to a crate in the corner, took something out of it, stuffed it into a pocket, and then left.
He found her on the bench by the bunker.
"I am sorry," he said after he had sat down next to her.
"You're an idiot," she grumbled back.
There was a pause during which Spock only raised his eyebrow. He had a feeling or, rather, the hope that there was more that she wanted to say than this.
At last, she took a deep breath and said, "When did you think that was good advice?" It was obvious she was frustrated with him. Thankfully, Spock was also certain this was a rhetorical question. "You might have been right that keeping up our pretence is important," she continued tensely, "but I highly doubt anyone here is giving us grades in mourning. People don't really do that normally, why would they in the trenches?" She frowned up at him, and her voice rose slightly. "And to even insinuate that my mourning might not be right! Last time I checked, there was no proper way to mourn. I don't go around telling people how to mourn, so what gives you the idea?" She shook her head and huffed, "And your timing was way off. The quality of your so-called advice was one thing but to throw that at me when he's just died? Bad timing, Spock, really bad timing." She glared at him and sighed. "I know, I know," she mumbled. "You didn't mean any of it that way, and you only meant well, and you are deeply sorry for appearing unsympathetic."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Yes."
"I am not happy with you right now," she returned and crossed her arms. But there was a slight smirk on her lips again.
Spock thrust his hand into his breast pocket. "I brought biscuits," he said, looking at her apologetically as he offered her one.
"Think you can bribe me, huh?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I really am sorry."
"I know." She sighed again. "It's okay, Spock. You know I'm not one to hold a grudge." She took the biscuit and leaned back against the trench wall as she ate it.
Spock sat and waited. There was not anything else to say, and so he revelled in the companionate silence. He reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out Pavel's identity tag and turning it over in his hand as he looked down at it.
"Are you feeling better?" Christine asked after a while, glancing over at him as she picked the last crumbs from her collar.
"I am puzzled." He didn't raise his eyes from the tag.
"It never makes sense," she mumbled and put her hand on his arm. "I never would have expected Pavel to be the one to die next. But I didn't expect anyone to die next, I suppose." She took a shaky breath. "He should have had his life before him. He did. And I'm trying to see why him. And there's never an answer, cause it never makes sense."
Spock shook his head and held up the tag. "I am puzzled that, assuming this is the past and not a simulation, our identity tags bear our chosen names."
Christine smiled unwittingly, taking it as a good sign that Spock was thinking about details like these again. "Yeah, I've thought about that, too," she said and frowned at the writing on the tag. "It's a bit strange. But it doesn't mean nothing here is real. Maybe it's just part of the mystery of how we landed here."
"Perhaps." Spock nodded and slipped the tag back into his pocket. "It has started to feel a little too real."
"Amen to that." Chris smiled softly and mumbled, "Wanna know the truth? I did hold back with mourning." She bit her lip and hesitated. "Because I don't know if I can stop if I start. I've got to function."
Spock met her gaze and raised an eyebrow. "You repressed your emotions." He tilted his head and added softly, "Did you do it out of consideration for my feelings?"
She nodded slowly, slightly surprised he had arrived at the core of the matter so quickly.
"Admirable but unnecessary," he said gently. "You do not need to hide your emotions from me. In fact, some would say you should not."
"All right." She smiled up at him. "I won't, then." She took a deep breath and averted her eyes, then stood up. "I'm going back again," she said, "see you there."
She walked away without waiting for a response, and when she had rounded a few corners and was out of hearing range, let her tears flow freely. She balled her hands into fists and in an outburst of rage hit the wall, her knuckles colliding with the wood with a loud smack. Taken aback for a second, she looked at her fist, then back at the wall, and then she hit it again, harder this time, and then once more, so that her knuckles began to bleed. She paid it no mind, though, didn't even notice, hitting the wall again and again, putting all the pent-up hurt and frustration of the last days into it. After a few moments, she slowed down and gave the wall a last kick, for good measure. Then, she sat down on the ground, breathing hard.
She burrowed her face in her bleeding hands and continued to cry. She knew Spock was hurting, try as he might to remain unaffected. But all the love she had for him could not help him. She had felt a hint of his emotions when he had melded with her in the bolthole, an unintentional revelation, but she had noticed nonetheless. And her tears had been for him as much as for herself.
And that had been before Pavel had died, before the events of this evening had shaken all of them to the core. Pavel was dead, ripped apart by a shell, and Spock, Spock was perhaps not as aloof as Leonard would sometimes like to think. He had been in shock, not just grieving but actually in shock. And it scared her. Because when Spock was being affected to such a degree, it was bad.
Maybe some day in the future, she would be able to look back on these days with peace and find them but an ugly footnote in a happy life. Some day, when both physical and mental wounds were healed and they had long since started a new life away from the trenches in London.
She and Spock would have taken up positions at Thompson's household, receiving a steady income that was not particularly much but enough. Spock would carry the plates to dinner, move furniture for the housemaids to clean behind, open doors, and run all kinds of errands for Lieutenant Thompson, duties strikingly different to those of a science officer. But maybe they would be happy again.
It would not be easy, to recover from the war, to get used to new routines, particularly routines of a simple life, but they would manage. And she would be there for Spock and for Leonard with all the care she could muster, which was, she knew herself, a lot.
After a while, her tears had dried up, and she chuckled to herself at imagining them in such a content and domestic setting. And it struck her that dream as she might and care as she could, she was not sure it would work. She could not heal all wounds. And even wishing fervently to be at peace one day and share the rest of her time with Leonard and Spock in London, she had her doubts that it would ever come to pass, that they would even be able to cherish it. For how could there be a happily ever after if so much was lost already?
Suddenly very tired, she pushed herself off from the ground and trudged back to The Langham where she let herself fall on her bed without sparing much more than a glance for Leonard.
A moment later, however, she heard the scraping of chair legs on the rough earthen floor, and he sat by her bedside, looming over her as he frowned at her.
"Chris Chapel, what'd you do?" he grumbled, pointing at her hands. He didn't even wait for an answer but fetched a first aid kit from the other end of the room.
"You don't have to," Chris mumbled when he returned. "I can do it myself."
"Poppycock!" He took her hands and began cleaning the wounds. In a softer tone, he said, "It's no problem, Chris. If anything, I appreciate being able to help somewhere."
She only sighed and let him help, leaning back on the pillow herself, trying not to think too much.
"Was this because of that Vulcan of ours?" Leonard asked after a while, standing up to put the kit away.
"Yes but not for the reason you might think." Christine sighed and mumbled, "I'm not angry at him, I feel bad for him. And for Pavel."
Leonard made a displeased sound and sat back down on the chair, crossing his arms.
"You don't?"
"Nah, I'm too busy feeling bad for myself to pity that pointy-eared fool," he grumbled, but it was obvious he did not mean it. If Leonard McCoy was known for anything, it was for caring about others.
Christine chuckled despite herself. "He doesn't always have it easy, you know?"
"Oh, I know." Leonard nodded and adopted an expression that seemed to speak of some long-held grudge. "I did carry his soul."
"Hm, I know." Christine smirked to herself as she flexed her fingers, starting to regret hitting the wall. She looked up at Leonard and said, "So did I."
"Oh, right," he muttered, chuckling softly, "I forgot all about that."
"Well, that's no wonder." She frowned playfully up at him. "I don't complain about it every chance I get."
He frowned back. "Now don't get rude."
"I am only stating facts."
"He's got a bad influence on you." Leonard coughed and shook his head in mock disappointment. "Frankly, I don't see what you like about him."
Christine smiled. "The same as you, I'd say."
"Oh, and what is that?"
"I don't know, you tell me."
"No way," Leonard grumbled. "Not sober." He shook his head and slowly stood up. "You try to sleep now, Chris," he said, either too tired or too averse to a conversation about Spock to continue. "It's been a long day." He turned and sank down on another bed. "If only Jim was here," he muttered.
When Spock came back some minutes later, his gaze travelled over her hands as he walked past her but he did not say anything. He merely raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged back apologetically, thinking that maybe he understood better than she had thought.
They were, of course, not the only ones affected by Pavel's death. Not with how long they had already been here and with the relationships they had formed with the others. And, likewise, it wasn't the case that they had not mourned the ones that had died before, but with Pavel, like with Jim, it was different because they had this other life in the future they had wished to return to together.
Young Elliot seemed to take Pavel's death particularly hard. During the morning duties, Spock found him kneeling alone in the communication trench, the tools to fix the duckboards set aside, sniffling to himself.
Spock, on his way back from sentry duty, crouched down next to him. For a moment, he regarded the young private silently as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was obviously neglecting his duty, and it should be his, Spock's duty, to command him to return to it.
Instead, he tilted his head and said softly, "You should not be here."
"I'm sorry, sir," Elliot hastily grabbed his tools, ready to stand up. "I was fixing the duckboards. Do you have new orders?"
"Elliot." Spock reached for his arm to stop him. "I was referring to the trenches." He shook his head and gestured around them. "You should not be here, at war but at home, with your biggest problem deciding how you are going to spend the coming summer."
Elliot sighed, relieved that he wasn't being told off, and sat back down. "Neither of us should be here," he muttered. "Not me, not you, not the German soldiers." He met Spock's gaze and then looked around as if he was afraid of being watched. "They are just as scared as we are, aren't they, sir?"
Spock nodded. "Yes, they are. Every single one."
"I am glad we often cannot see their faces when we shoot them," Elliot mumbled thickly. He paused, and, frowning at the ground between his feet, he added, "I hope the one who killed Paul did not see his face, either."
"I am positive that whoever launched that shell was not even targeting him in particular."
Elliot nodded, then began to sniffle again, as new tears threatened to spill.
Looking around, Spock saw Henry Forester just turning the corner to the bunker. He called out to him and motioned for him to come over.
Henry, immediately understanding what Spock was asking, kneeled down next to Elliot and pulled him into a hug. "There, there, it's all right," he mumbled. Looking up at Spock who had since stood up, he added, "Are you all right, Lance Corporal?"
"Of course," Spock returned curtly and left.
He turned towards the bunker himself and found Thomas Cooper waiting for him at the junction. Hesitant to indulge in even more emotionally loaded conversations, Spock sighed. But short of telling Cooper to go away, he could do nothing, and so, he only nodded in greeting while he turned to accompany him.
For a while, Thomas remained silent, and Spock began to suspect his concern had been unjustified. Maybe Cooper was an unlikely case of a human savouring silence.
He would have been surprised if this had been the case, though, and so, he was not at all surprised when Cooper did speak. Still, he did not ask for any kind of advice or ask him how he was. Instead, he offered him a cigarette.
"No, thank you," Spock said and walked on, wondering when Cooper could have gotten the idea that he was a smoker.
Thomas grabbed his wrist to stop him. "Not for smoking," he said as Spock turned around. "It's an easy way out." He shrugged. "Or a last resort, whatever you like best. You need only light it."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Light it?" He was beginning to wonder whether he was being involved in a more or less elaborate prank. This was Thomas Cooper, after all, and sleeping on his belly was still uncomfortable enough for him to be distrustful.
But he seemed to be serious. "And hold it up," he said, nodding gravely. "At some point, a hand might seem a worthy trade for your life or for your sanity."
Spock's gaze wandered from Cooper's face to the cigarette he was holding out to him and back. Then, he realised what Cooper was offering and swallowed heavily.
"Thank you," he mumbled and took the cigarette.
Cooper only nodded back, turned and walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the trench, a cigarette richer and feeling strangely touched.
When he entered the bunker some moments later, Cooper's way out was safely stored in his breast pocket, and he had no plan of mentioning it to anyone.
Sitting on a chair and currently being shaven by Chris, Thompson looked up as he entered. On some crates to the sides, McCoy lay, appearing fast asleep.
Presented with the remnants of his friends and his superior officer, Spock was reminded of a concern of his that had been nagging at him ever since he realised Pavel had noticed the shell before he did.
He stepped to the table next to Chris and Thompson and folded his arms behind his back.
"What is it, Grayson?" the Lieutenant mumbled, quietly so that he would not wake McCoy.
"I ask you to relieve me as commanding officer of my section."
"What?" Thompson almost turned his head to frown at him, forgetting the razor blade Chris was wielding near his throat.
"I do not believe I am fit for duty," Spock said calmly.
"Why's that?" Thompson asked, relieved Jack was not preaching pacifism again. Noble as it was, it did not make Edwin's life easier. Then again, what did, nowadays?
"Due to my hearing impairment." Spock pursed his lips. "Paul Chapel heard the shell. I did not. I dare say that is proof enough I am not fit to lead."
Thompson sighed, wishing silently that he had talked to him in private so that he was not forced to have this talk in front of Chris. Even though he might be his friend, there was no telling how such a statement would affect morale. And as focused on shaving as Chris was, Thompson had noticed him frown at Jack's words and knew he was listening intently.
"Jack Grayson," he said. "You've led the section for a month now."
"Three weeks and four days," Spock said. Curious, it had seemed longer.
"Yes, whatever." Thompson shared a smirk with Chris. For a moment he was tempted to ask for the hours, too, and he would not have been surprised if Jack had been able to tell him to the second. But considering the reason for his taking command, maybe that was a bit too macabre. "You're as good as I can get," he said instead, tilting back his head to give Chris access to his chin. "Not hearing that a single shell out of dozens raining down around you is headed straight for you doesn't disqualify you. In fact, I'm rather amazed that Paul did." He glanced up at Jack and added, with a smile, "Next thing you're gonna say you should know how the bullets fly."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "I would not presume to."
"Oh, why?" Thompson wiped off his face with the damp cloth Chris had handed him and stood up. "Why don't you? Where do you draw the line? And at what point do you stop saying you should have done more, you should have done better?"
Taken aback by the confrontational tone, Spock glanced at Chris who shrugged. "You know he's got a point."
"I get it, Jack," Edwin said and smiled softly. "He was a good man."
"He was my friend."
"Of course." Edwin nodded gently, then put on his helmet to go outside.
When he had left, Spock turned to McCoy, still sleeping on the crates.
"What is your medical opinion?" he murmured to Christine.
She shrugged and stepped next to him, looking down at Leonard. It would have been an exaggeration to say he was sleeping peacefully, not with his wheezing breaths filling the room. "His condition is stagnating," she said, "but he could change for the worse any time."
She met Spock's gaze, and he nodded, understanding clearly the gravity of the situation. Still, what he said next took her by surprise. "Have you thought about what you would do," he asked, "if all of us except you died here?"
"No, not really." She shook her head as she frowned up at him. "And I don't want to."
But Spock's eyes pierced into hers, and he said, "If that case ever does come to pass, it is imperative you take care not to compromise the timeline."
"I'll do my best." She nodded curtly. Softly, she added, "I'd rather you live, too, though, you know?"
He inclined his head, and his stance relaxed again. "Me, too, Christine, me, too." But when he looked back at Leonard, his look grew firm again, and his shoulders slouched under the heavy burden of command.
