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straightontilmorning Jim’s not taken to displays of emotion. Maybe it’s a kind of cliché, the tough captain with a boy’s name who doesn’t cry; maybe that’s just the way she is, the way she always would have been. She has difficulty sorting her feelings, naming them, granting them validation. Given something really painful and difficult to come to terms with, she’ll bury it deep down, so far removed that she can ignore it, forget about it. It’s a survival technique she learned a long time ago.
But there’s only so long she can hide here, even on a ship the size of the Enterprise, especially when her first officer has command code overrides. He stands in the doorway to her quarters, silhouetted by the light from the corridor, uncertain of how far in to venture or perhaps just unsure if she’s in the room. She can see him consider whether to request lights – or perhaps she just imagines being able to read him so well. As she watches, he seems to come to a decision, letting the darkness rest for now. “Captain?”
She considers not answering, childishly playing hide and seek, but discards the idea as impractical. Even if her silence were to cause him doubt, he could easily request the computer to confirm her location. “Yes, Commander?” It’s unconscious, the use of his rank instead of his name, but in some small way it distances her from the situation, casts her into the role of Starfleet Officer instead of Normal Person.
This time he does ask for lights, but at forty percent; just enough for him to see by but not so much that the sudden change hurts her vision. He takes in the scene it reveals, his captain on the floor, back against the wall and knees pulled up to her chest. “Jim.” He’s used to her gambits from chess, sees through her bid for distance and turns the tables on her with use of the familiar name. He takes the few steps into her room, hands clasped behind his back. If she didn’t know the signs, the subtle tells in his posture and carefully controlled facial muscles, she could almost believe he’s uninvested in this situation. “Are you injured?”
“I’m not injured,” she says, voice even and controlled, at odds with the way her whole body tenses at his approach. The minute the crew on that other Enterprise realized their Captain was having an off day, they pounced on the chance to take advantage of it, and she had to develop some instincts very fast. When he looks like he’s just about to remark on the discrepancy between her words and her body language, she pushes recklessly for a subject change. “How’s Bones doing?”
“Dr. McCoy is in recovery,” he says, and the furrow in his eyebrows deepens; she thinks of it as his way of frowning, but she’s never called him on it. “You have not answered my question satisfactorily.”
The lines around her mouth tighten a little, but she doesn’t fight him on that point. “I’m fine, Spock.”
“Indeed.” To her surprise, he lowers himself to the floor, seating himself next to her. They regard each other for a minute, just letting the silence settle around them. If Winona was here, she could translate her daughter’s face, the look a little lost and wary of what the world would throw at her next, and draw the lines back to a grim-faced thirteen-year-old just returned from a revolution. In many ways, she feels like that girl again, just gone out and discovered that the universe is terrible and painful all over again, only this time it’s never going to end, not for that other James Kirk; and as horrible as she is, no one should have to live there. But Spock can’t know these things, not without the proper frame of reference.
“I spoke to the other universe’s Captain Kirk,” he says, and she gets the impression he’s testing the waters, feeling his way tentatively around her emotional state. When she doesn’t respond, just looks at him quietly, he takes it as a cue to continue. “I found her a most interesting individual, though entirely barbaric.”
“No, she wasn’t.” Jim laughed a little, the sound bitter and without amusement. It would have been a hell of a lot easier, all things considered, if she had been. “She behaved in an entirely practical and logical manner for her circumstances.”
Spock surprises her by placing his hand on her shoulder then. Its presence is solid and weighty, an undeniable fact resting between the two of them. “You,” he says, tone quiet and assured despite the leap of intuition he’s taking, “are not that James Kirk.”
“No,” she agrees. “But given the right – the right push, the right circumstances, and I would have been.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.” The frown rests just beyond existence now, almost but not quite reaching. His emotional control is too tight for that, even now.
“You know, Spock,” she says, all of the sudden angry and a little disappointed in the way her voice breaks, “for all your posturing, you’re really just an optimist underneath it all.” She slings the words at him like battering shots, and then, since she’s already playing the part of emotional, unpredictable human, she presses herself into him in what would be a hug if it were any other two people.
It’s too awkward and alien a concept for either of them, unused to the gesture as they are, but somehow they make it work. He stiffens at first, startled by the sudden change, but then his arm wraps around her, as gentle as if she were made of glass and the slightest pressure capable of shattering her into a million pieces. And for that, for the trying, it means more to her than it possibly could coming from anyone else. The tension coiled tight in her gut since the minute she stepped onto that other Enterprise finally melts away, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe she’s home.
But there’s only so long she can hide here, even on a ship the size of the Enterprise, especially when her first officer has command code overrides. He stands in the doorway to her quarters, silhouetted by the light from the corridor, uncertain of how far in to venture or perhaps just unsure if she’s in the room. She can see him consider whether to request lights – or perhaps she just imagines being able to read him so well. As she watches, he seems to come to a decision, letting the darkness rest for now. “Captain?”
She considers not answering, childishly playing hide and seek, but discards the idea as impractical. Even if her silence were to cause him doubt, he could easily request the computer to confirm her location. “Yes, Commander?” It’s unconscious, the use of his rank instead of his name, but in some small way it distances her from the situation, casts her into the role of Starfleet Officer instead of Normal Person.
This time he does ask for lights, but at forty percent; just enough for him to see by but not so much that the sudden change hurts her vision. He takes in the scene it reveals, his captain on the floor, back against the wall and knees pulled up to her chest. “Jim.” He’s used to her gambits from chess, sees through her bid for distance and turns the tables on her with use of the familiar name. He takes the few steps into her room, hands clasped behind his back. If she didn’t know the signs, the subtle tells in his posture and carefully controlled facial muscles, she could almost believe he’s uninvested in this situation. “Are you injured?”
“I’m not injured,” she says, voice even and controlled, at odds with the way her whole body tenses at his approach. The minute the crew on that other Enterprise realized their Captain was having an off day, they pounced on the chance to take advantage of it, and she had to develop some instincts very fast. When he looks like he’s just about to remark on the discrepancy between her words and her body language, she pushes recklessly for a subject change. “How’s Bones doing?”
“Dr. McCoy is in recovery,” he says, and the furrow in his eyebrows deepens; she thinks of it as his way of frowning, but she’s never called him on it. “You have not answered my question satisfactorily.”
The lines around her mouth tighten a little, but she doesn’t fight him on that point. “I’m fine, Spock.”
“Indeed.” To her surprise, he lowers himself to the floor, seating himself next to her. They regard each other for a minute, just letting the silence settle around them. If Winona was here, she could translate her daughter’s face, the look a little lost and wary of what the world would throw at her next, and draw the lines back to a grim-faced thirteen-year-old just returned from a revolution. In many ways, she feels like that girl again, just gone out and discovered that the universe is terrible and painful all over again, only this time it’s never going to end, not for that other James Kirk; and as horrible as she is, no one should have to live there. But Spock can’t know these things, not without the proper frame of reference.
“I spoke to the other universe’s Captain Kirk,” he says, and she gets the impression he’s testing the waters, feeling his way tentatively around her emotional state. When she doesn’t respond, just looks at him quietly, he takes it as a cue to continue. “I found her a most interesting individual, though entirely barbaric.”
“No, she wasn’t.” Jim laughed a little, the sound bitter and without amusement. It would have been a hell of a lot easier, all things considered, if she had been. “She behaved in an entirely practical and logical manner for her circumstances.”
Spock surprises her by placing his hand on her shoulder then. Its presence is solid and weighty, an undeniable fact resting between the two of them. “You,” he says, tone quiet and assured despite the leap of intuition he’s taking, “are not that James Kirk.”
“No,” she agrees. “But given the right – the right push, the right circumstances, and I would have been.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.” The frown rests just beyond existence now, almost but not quite reaching. His emotional control is too tight for that, even now.
“You know, Spock,” she says, all of the sudden angry and a little disappointed in the way her voice breaks, “for all your posturing, you’re really just an optimist underneath it all.” She slings the words at him like battering shots, and then, since she’s already playing the part of emotional, unpredictable human, she presses herself into him in what would be a hug if it were any other two people.
It’s too awkward and alien a concept for either of them, unused to the gesture as they are, but somehow they make it work. He stiffens at first, startled by the sudden change, but then his arm wraps around her, as gentle as if she were made of glass and the slightest pressure capable of shattering her into a million pieces. And for that, for the trying, it means more to her than it possibly could coming from anyone else. The tension coiled tight in her gut since the minute she stepped onto that other Enterprise finally melts away, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe she’s home.
1,012
Mirror, Mirror
sacrosanct.
Mirror, Mirror
sacrosanct.
