She took his breath away, it had been two and a half years since he had seen her, walked her halls, sat on her bridge, and it had felt like two and half centuries. As Scotty steered the two of them towards the Enterprise, all James T. Kirk could do was stare in wonder and amazement. Hanging in that dry dock, slowly coming closer, he realized what a beautiful creature the Enterprise truly was and how much he had missed being in her captain's chair going boldly where no person had gone before. Kirk thought of what Admiral Pike once wrote in his captain's log: "Earth – the dust and the sky – is my heart, but Enterprise is my home."* Truer words had never been written -the Enterprise was his home. If he could help it, he would never give her up again and with this cloud entity headed towards earth he would take his place once again in her Captain's chair. For a fleeting moment in the engine room he had felt guilty as he told Decker he was replacing him as Captain, sharing a furtive glance with Scotty who could read the captain as easily as he read his beloved engines and knew the guilt the captain was feeling.
Kirk felt him before he came on the bridge - their trace of a T'hy'la and marriage bond still strong after six months apart with no contact. The omega in Kirk wanted to run to his cabin to present himself to Spock. While Kirk waited for Spock to make his presence known, he remembered when he first discovered he was an Omega. When he entered Starfleet he hadn't presented as an alpha, so he knew he must have been a beta or omega. Starfleet did the blood work required for all cadets and much to Kirk's surprise he was an Omega. By the time he was tested, he had taken the basic biology class all starfleet cadets were expected to take and the information came flooding back to him. Of the known federation planets, on average 80% of the population were Beta's - meaning they did not have a soulmate or heat but could still reproduce. The next grouping were Alpha's: they made up 10% of the population, and were entirely male. When the male finally meet their mate, they are able to produce a knot during their Omega's heat. This knot allowed them to impregnate their soulmate, regardless of gender. Omega's made up the final 10% of the population and could be either gender. Omega's begin their heat when they meet their soulmate. Heats lasted for a week, and could occur as frequently as once a month to as infrequently as once every three months. The omega's scent would change once their gland (located on the left side of each omegas neck) was broken by their mate during heat, this breakage also produced a bond between the alpha and the omega which cannot be undone. Despite it being the 23rd century, omega's were looked down on as the weaker of the three groups. Kirk did his best to hide this fact, and if he were forced to admit, did a damn good job of it, until he became the youngest Captain in Starfleet history and met his first officer.
Kirk was shaken out of his reflection by the swishing of the doors, and the entrance of Spock. For a moment Kirk was left breathless at the man's entrance, gods above the man was stunning in his black robes. For those that knew Kirk well he practically jumped out of his seat to meet the man, and repeated his name twice - seeming to beg the half Vulcan for some kind of Recognition of what they had once been. Instead, the man went straight to his station and to his work - seemingly colder then he had ever been. Only through their bond could he feel the man's nerves. Just as quickly as Spock had entered he had left - down to the engine room to help Scotty to fix the problem. Kirk slowly sat back down in the Captain's chair. As the hours crawled by he wondered what the next step would be for himself and his husband. He thought of his son who was currently with Bones, his papa, down in med bay. His son who had been asking where Spock, his Sa'mekh, was for the past six months. His thoughts eventually drifted to seven and half years earlier when he had first stepped onto the Enterprise.
*Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 1
* Vulcan for father