A/N: Written for a prompt on the Star Trek kink meme: "Ghost!George and Ghost!Amanda discussing their kids, their worries for them, and their relief that their kids have found people who truly love them. Pairings: Spock/UhuraKirk/McCoy"

Pairings: Spock/Uhura, Kirk/McCoy

Rating: PG

Length: 1026 words

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, I don't make any money from this.

***

She poured a cup of Earth tea and set it on the table in front of him.

"You're George Kirk." It wasn't a question; you needed no introductions here. He watched her eyes; they were sparkling with an ever-present vivacity and youth that had clearly been a part of her life Before.

He pulled back the chair that hadn't been there a moment ago and sat down. There was no discernable floor past the few square metres of flagstone their little table and chairs were perched on. Next to him there was a window set in a dark wood panelled wall, but the mahogany faded out into open skies flushed the peach-pink of dawn, revealing them to be suspended at some point in the space between snowy mountains, also doused in sunrise. But everything made sense here.

"Our sons know each other well." he commented, taking a sip. It tasted of a kiss from long ago, and rain licked from the inside of a flower neck, but mostly just of tea.

They hovered at a point in time known to the living as 2259, but to them it was simply the present.

"I often thought that they might end up together." She was smiling at him over the rim of her teacup. He grinned.

"Truth be told, I always thought Jim'd end up with a girl." His shoulders came up in a brief shrug. "I was wrong. That's why it's mothers' intuition, not fathers', I guess." Amanda was chuckling.

"Leonard is about as far from a typical woman as you can get."

"I know!" George laughed, then leant back in his chair pensively. "And I can see exactly why Jim loves him. Leonard's got a heart of gold but he's not going to let anyone see it plainly, and I mean anyone. But Jim loves just the fact that he knows it's there. Jim admires him, you know, more than he'll ever admit." The man turned his head to look out of the window through which a different sky, a greenish dusk, possibly, could be seen. "Maybe he will admit it." He smiled as senses came to him, half-visions and memories of things that hadn't happened yet. "He will tell him, one night when they're lying together as they fall asleep. Leonard will brush it off with some gruff comment and carry those words on his heart til the day he dies."

His companion nodded. "The way they talk at times, you might think they hated each other. Same with Jim and Spock." Amanda laughed; its echo seemed to ring far away. "Our sons have funny ways of showing their affection."

"No," replied George fondly, "they're just men."

She chuckled and they sat a while – a moment, a month – in quiet, amiable companionship.

To die was not a painless experience. It encompassed a grief no living person left behind would know, because in place of one person in your life dying it was as if everyone in your life had been extinguished like candles in a gust. You were alone in the smoke and the wind, save for the others whose lights had all gone out.

No great sadness endured long – it was impossible, because everything here slotted into place – but regrets lingered, the indelible 'if'.

"Had I only lasted a minute more, I could have seen her face for myself." Amanda spoke at last. There was no bitterness in her voice, only a soft, bone-gnawing sorrow. George knew exactly what she meant.

"Could have." he repeated evenly: not chastisement or warning, simply a reminder that while they could discuss, it did no good to dwell. Time may be more fluid here, but he still had twenty five more years of Could Have, Would Have, If Only under his belt. He knew what he was talking about.

"She's very beautiful." Through the flurries of Spock's own consciousness and the distilled images that sometimes appeared in the sky she knew. "He thinks she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen."

"What about his mother?" her friend teased. Amanda giggled a little.

"You know what I mean." Her face fell solemn a moment. "I think I still hurt a little too much for him to think about it much." George nodded.

"Winona was the same. The time will come when he'll think of you with no more sadness. And from them on you feel none either." Their hands met briefly on the table top, souls reaching out in comfort.

Amanda closed her eyes and sought out her son. A slow smile spread over her features. "I think he's going to tell her. He knows it's important to humans. He's planning to get her alone and tell her she's beautiful." A small, sweet laugh escaped her. "He's so nervous. He's researching the definition of 'love' because he thinks he's showing some of the symptoms."

George looked on, smiling, as Amanda grasped for Uhura across the gulf of existence. "I can't feel so much of her." she admitted, not having as much practice as her companion. "But I can feel her intensity, and her strength. She burns." He could see it too: a slender woman walking like a beacon of pale fire through the misty, grayscale realms of Before.

"She finds him brilliant." George helped her. "She can see there's more to his heart than most people possibly imagine. She wants to let him love and be loved in return." Amanda tilted her head back in thought to look up at the moon, like a slice of lime, hanging translucent overhead. Around them the air was bluish and indigo-thick; the breakfast mountains had receded to leave flat, moonlit meadows and the babble of a brook from somewhere unseen.

"We'll see them for real someday." said George quietly. Amanda, who he'd known for an hour or possibly forever, met his gaze and smiled softly.

"Here's to Jim and Leonard." She motioned with her cup; he followed suit.

"To Spock and Nyota."

They both drank deeply, contentedly, as around them fireflies danced paths of brilliance and the faces of unreachable loved ones were picked out as constellations in their canopy of stars.