21.1.2014

AN: Seen the new film a few times now. It's just beyond awesome. This thing wanted to be written the same night as I saw it the first time. The quotes might not be 100%, but close enough to get by I think. Obviously major spoilers.

Kinda Spock/Kirk-ish, hinted anyway. You've been warned.

Beta by SeveredWing. My love and gratitude, as always.

Also, I haven't written anything in forever, so I'm a little rusty. Also new fandom for me. Reviews are almost as good as a new movie. At least they'll keep me alive till the next one. :)

12.5.2019

AN: Five years later and it's finally done. I hope you enjoy this. I wanted to keep my original author's note in, to show where my mind was at at the time. Not happy about the way the layout is here, but I can't seem to change it.

Cross posted to Ao3.

A fire inside

"The ship is dead, sir. She's gone."

"No, she's not." Jim Kirk refused to sit idly by while his baby died. There was something they could still do, and nothing would stop him from doing it. It would seem he was his father's son after all.

"Engineering to bridge. Mr Spock?" There was a strange tone to the main engineer's voice.

"Mr Scott?" What could be wrong now? The ship was functioning as well as was to be expected.

"You'd better get down here. Better hurry."

Scotty's words sent a cold chill down his spine. 'Kirk.' His body took to a run before he could even command it to do so.

The look on the engineers face was filled with emotion that he had not seen for some time: hopelessness, surrender, defeat. What was it that Kirk had done now?

Scotty just shook his head in defeat and nodded to the side of them. Spock quickly crossed the short distance to his objective.

There, his captain was trapped behind an indestructible wall of glass, death in the very air he was breathing. "Open it," he commanded the engineer. Get him out now!

Scotty's voice was beyond defeated. To open it was to sacrifice the crew Kirk had died to save. 'He's not dead yet! There must be something...' Spock went to his knees, trying to reach for his captain, the cold glass door that was supposed to shield them in his way. 'Please, look at me.'

Kirk was drawing labored breaths, his lungs fighting the toxins that destroyed them with each breath he managed to take. Spock's mind ran through the statistics of survival without immediate care, the symptoms of poisoning, radiation sickness, the effects the toxins were having; all the knowledge he had that was of no use. His mind quieted as his captain tried to speak.

"How's the ship?"

Of course, the ship. "Out of danger."

"Good." The relief was evident in Kirk's voice.

"You saved the crew." For some reason, Spock felt that he needed to assure the captain of this.

"You used what he wanted against him. Nice move." I learned it from you.

"It is what you would have done." His body was again acting without his command, liquid beginning to fill up his eyes.

"And this, this is what you would have done. It was only logical." Silence. They had both become so much more like the other, had learned and grown, became stronger together as a team.

It took him awhile, and tremendous effort, but Kirk struggled through it to speak.

"I'm scared, Spock. Help me not to be."

He hated seeing Kirk afraid, detested hearing it in his voice. It had never been like this before; the absolute certainty that this was the end. The final no-win scenario. Him in the volcano? That didn't really count, because a part of him had known the captain would not let him die, even if he hadn't been aware of it at the moment. He was again drawn from his mind as Kirk asked,

"How do you choose not to feel?" Kirk's eyes were searching, desperate to stop the fear, the hopelessness. Desperate for Spock to save him with some last minute plan.

Spock just shook his head. "I do not know. Right now, I am failing." I am failing you when you need me most.

There was another silence. Precious seconds flying by before Kirk spoke up again, knowing it could be his final words and they needed to be said. Things could not be left unsaid for another time. There would be no other time.

"I want you to know why I couldn't let you die. Why I went back for you." He had hinted at it before, as if Spock should know the obvious answer, to simply reach out right in front of him and grasp it with his Vulcan might. And so he answered with what had become obvious a long time ago, even if he did refuse to recognize it.

"Because you are my friend." And then the liquid, his emotion made flesh unbidden and unlike anything other, fell from his eyes. Kirk smiled. Somehow, Spock felt there were more words that needed to be said, words that Kirk seemed to know, but he himself had yet to find. Only these ones would have to be enough.

Jim Kirk drew another gasping breath, then coughed as his lungs were starting to give out. Spock watched Kirk's hand reach for him, as if desperate for physical contact, for comfort. Spock watched it stopped by the cursed glass. All he could do was put his own hand against Kirks, his fingers forming the traditional sign of his kind that could mean so much. Kirk seemed pleased, a smile on his lips as he turned from gazing at their hands to look back at Spock.

The soft smile stayed on his face as Kirk finally looked no more, his hand falling from it's place on the glass, leaving Spock alone, the cold glass proof of his failure.

Loss. Such a loss, the destruction of his planet could not compare. Not even the death of his mother had cut him so. Suddenly those lost words and emotions were clear to him. That one most precious thing revered among his people trying to take it's place in his mind, but not finding a place as it's other was gone and the loss of that was unbearable.

Then anger; rage, an all consuming need for vengeance.

"Khaaaaaan!" The scream was pulled from him, from somewhere he did not know existed.

Everything went blank. Only the need to kill that which had killed him mattered now. Not Scotty or Nyota standing behind Spock, mourning. Not the Enterprise and her crew, still not completely in the clear. Nothing, but the red blood of Khan on his hands would register. Khan was alive. He had to be, so that Spock could find him and kill him.

The next thing that truly registered in the logical Vulcan part of Spock was Nyota's voice screaming at him to stop, to not destroy their only chance to save Kirk. The blank rage lifted. Hope was restored. Kirk alive...

When he saw Spock come out of the shadows, there was a soft smile instantly on his face.

"You saved my life." The Vulcan made his way to Kirk's bedside.

"Uhura and I had something to do with it too, you know." Trust Bones to butt in.

However, Spock seemed to pay the medical officer no mind.

"You saved my life, captain, and the lives of your..." For Pete's sake! Not back to this again. He silenced the Vulcan before he could complete the sentence.

"Thank you." He could have sworn he'd seen a bunch of emotions flash in the eyes of his second, but the normal stoic-ness was quickly back in place. With one exception.

"You are welcome, Jim."