Chapter one: Not Alone.

Part I

Freak in a cupboard.

They always said the first Call was the best. James Tiberius Kirk didn't understand that turn phrase, or rather, he thought it was only spoken by people who had no understanding of life and all its hardships. Of course, he understood the basics of it, understood the hope laced in each syllable. The first Call would open up the 'channel' between you and your supposed 'soulmate'. The mental link between soulmate's finally blossoming and maturing enough for the visitations to begin, a wonderous thing to be celebrated. Jim could hardly contain a scoff at the idea.

Everybody 'matured' differently. His mother, Winona Kirk, was called upon by his father when they were both only fifteen and seventeen respectively, young by normal standards. To be fair, Call's as they had become named instead of their full-length title that Jim couldn't pronounce, only really took place when one of the pair was either in danger or emotional distress. As an added bonus, at the end of the first Call, you got a nifty little marker on your skin that stayed with you for the rest of your life. Wonderful.

Jim himself wasn't totally bought on the whole 'soul-mate' spiel they were force fed since birth. Did he really want one? Even after he saw the devastation and havoc it wreaks on his mother even to this day? Rightfully, she should have been dead if it wasn't for his and his brothers birth. Who knows, the doctors still think she will die once he and George eventually fly the nest.

What kind of life was that? No, James Tiberius Kirk wasn't sure he wanted one, despite the lengthy chats his mother had forced him to endure since boyhood. If she wouldn't change it for the world, if she never regretted a moment of it, ever, if she really would do everything exactly the same just so she could meet his father and spend the time they had together, then why did he find her crying at night? Why couldn't she look him in the eye? Why did she sign up for long duty hauls in Starfleet every chance she got, just to get away from the boy who looked too much like his father? Soulmates, to a young and impressionable Jim, seemed wholly more dangerous than good. A death sentence really. A ticking bomb strapped to his chest.

However, no one, especially his mother, had expected his first Call to happen when he was only ten. An unprecedented age for at least the last century. With war, murder and crime itself practically none existent, emotional distress or danger was hard to come by in this day and age, leaving most people's first calls to come in their mid-twenties, sometimes even later.

He was forcing down a bowl of chilling, slightly burnt, clumpy oats, the go to breakfast his mother made for him and George when she had to leave for another extended stay in space and was in a rush to dash through the door, trying his hardest not to gag. He hated oats. Loathed them. But vouchers were tight at the moment and so, to ease the strain that had taken up home on his mother's brows and mouth, he scoffed them down as fast as he could, acting as if she had given him a chocolate cake he so wished he had.

He was shuffling in the last spoonful, pushing down his nausea, when it happened. One moment he was sitting at the slightly wonky kitchen table, damned bowl in front of him, the next he was sitting on something squeaky, padded but harsh... Broken. The sparse lesson in school had told him the Calls would be odd, dreamy in a way. The types of dreams that left you soft and boneless, jellied, unquestioning, willing to go with the flow and not ponder the odd things you saw, felt or said. The questioning would come later, when you were mentally back where you belonged, in your own body.

Dazedly, but frighteningly peacefull, Jim took a gawking gander around himself. A bare bulb, dim, broken and old, was swinging and flickering above his head, the intensity changing in pulsating intervals. The room... No, not a room, too enclosed and claustrophobic to be ever called a room, was old too. The paint chipped, cracks splintering across the walls like spiderwebs, some strange contraption stuck to the wall, bleeping out a number he didn't understand. A shelf was stacked at one end of the tiny room, a tool box and various mechanical instruments cluttered upon its shelves, all apart from the middle shelf. A wilted flower, a picture of a red-headed woman, something Jim had never seen before apart from in the Orion race, smiling with a man at her side and a little-broken music box. On the wall, next to the weird machine, was a crumpled piece of paper, at least, he thought it was paper, it looked how his school teacher had described it, colored in with crayon's boldly stated 'Harry's room' in nearly unintelligible chicken scrawl.

Looking down, he found he was actually sitting on some form of cot, bed, if you could call it that, which took up all the space of the heavily slanted ceiling box he was in. It was more a metal frame, bars and slats were broken and jagged, a pallet of cotton the only padding and comfort added, a holey blanket, threadbare, the single option for warmth. Then he heard the sniffles.

She was a young thing, perhaps just a year short of his age, thin, wiry, with a mass of crimson curls that nearly engulfed her small frame, cascading around her, shielding her from the cold room. He couldn't see much of her, she had her knobbly knee's drawn up and pressed tightly to her chest, one sock on, the other god knows where. The shirt she wore was three times too big, blue so faded it was white in some places, falling off her shoulder, but he could spot a hole in its side that had been, while crudely, lovingly stitched back together. It was her face that caught him and held him there, or more aptly, her eyes.

Her features were sharp, angled, foretelling a feline grace once the baby fat had relinquished its hold on it, but right now, it was an odd mix to see, almost like looking at a baby kitten. Her nose was straight, upturned at the end, almost cute in an 'I want to press it and say bop' sort of way. Her lips were flushed, pouty, the bottom fuller than its top counterpart. Her eyebrows were arched, sharp, slicing angles, as deeply red as her fire hair, almost comically so for such a young face. Although on closer look, Jim could see an angry scar, oddly shaped, splitting down her forehead like a bolt of lightening and cutting through one brow, leaving it disjointed in two, so long it touched down on her eyelid. She had been close to losing that eye by the looks of it.

But it was the eyes themselves that were jarring. Green, in every bejeweled shade ever possible, glittered from underneath long lashes, old eyes. Too old for such a young person. They seemed to be able to look right through you, into you, to pick you apart attribute by deed and leave nothing but the pecked bone of your existence in place. "Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"

Jim fell back within himself, floundering for a moment. This... This was her room? It was nothing more than a shoe box. He and his family weren't rich, but even he had a better room than this monstrosity.

Beyond his control, he found himself speaking, tone calm, placid, though he was feeling anything but. "Jim. I'm Jim. I... I don't know what I'm doing here... I think you called me. Are you... Are you my soulmate?"

The girl scoffed and dug deeper into herself, arms tightening around her legs. "Called you? I don't even know who you are, how could I call you? Now, what are you doing in my room?"

Jim's mouth wouldn't move the way he wanted to. A hundred and one questions swam around his mind, begging to be asked. How old was she? Where was she? Was she okay? Obviously not if she had Called him. What could he do to help? And yet, he still found himself hung up on this... Hellhole being a room at all. "This is really your room? You... You sleep here?"

Of course, she did, he knew, hence the bed and blanket and still, even knowing this, he couldn't actually bring himself to believe it. Why would her parents leave her here? Jim saw her shoulders tense, spine straightened a fraction, indignation. He had bruised her pride. Her tone was deprecating, incredulous and more than slightly tinged with anger when she snarled back at him. "Yes. Can't you read the sign? It's not much but it's mine... It's not so bad..."

She seemed to be trying to convince herself more than she was him, her tone loosing the biting edge at the end, fading to smoke that clung in the air and suffocated not only her but Jim too. He could feel her now. Just the barest brushes of foreign emotions against his own, a skim of raw, coarse velvet that scratched against his own more temperant silken emotions. Anger. Hurt. Pain. Loneliness. She was lonely... So very, very lonely.

He knew why he was here now. Jim wasn't the brightest student. He wasn't the fastest boy. He wasn't the hardest either, though he got into his own fair share of scrapes and boyish tussles. But one thing no one could or would dispute, was Jim was friendly. He was sociable. He was chatty, an extrovert with enough charm to quell even the grumpiest of old buggers. This girl... His soul-mate was alone and she needed a friend. Now that was something he could do.

Scrambling up as much as the staggered ceiling let him, Jim shuffled towards the strange machine, reaching up to press the buttons on its face, even going for the little key still held inside to twist and see the surprise, a devilish grin playing on his face when he turned to face the girl. "What's this do?"

She needed a distraction, a friend, and Jim was happy to play the part. Perhaps, in a certain light, his mother had been right. Soulmates weren't the worst thing to exist. The girl dived for him, trying to smack his hands away from the box before he could press the bright red button. "Don't touch that, It's the electric meter! You'll turn the light off if you play with it!"

Jim only chuckled, he had no clue what an 'electric meter' was, nor what it would cause if he messed with it, but where was the fun in knowing? His longer arms gave him the advantage as he reached around her and pressed the button... Repeatedly. "What, like this?"

On the twelfth click, a pleasing sound if Jim did say so himself, the bulb above their heads made a squeaking pop and the two were plunged into darkness. Jim winced, pulling his hand away from the box-machine. So that was what an 'electric meter' did. It took away light. Maybe he really shouldn't have messed with it.

However, just as he was about to begrudgingly apologize and ask what he could do to fix it, a little light, flaring, white, condensed, burst to life in between him and the girl, hovering in the air, dancing almost. It was... It was beautiful. "Are you... Did you make that?!"

Jim winced once more. His pitch had been a little high then, too high for the young man he pretended he was and not the boy he was in reality. He could see the girls face through the small light the ball created, almost as if she was bathed in moonlight. She was scared, beyond scared. Her emotions tasted bitter. Jim didn't understand."I... I didn't mean to! I'm sorry... Please, I swear I didn't mean to! I promised it wouldn't happen again but it always does."

Jim's brows drew down heavily on his forehead, crinkling in the middle. She was scared, petrified, the emotion grating on his own. He liked it as much as those burnt oats. Not. At. All. "Didn't mean to? But... But that's awesome! It looks like a mini white dwarf star! Can you make it bigger?"

The girl faltered, confusion and apprehension bubbling across her face, slanting her eyes in shadows."You... You don't think I'm a freak?"

Jim laughed loudly, incredulously, without restraint. In all honesty, those three adjectives could be ascribed to Jim himself, how he lived life."What? No! If I could do that, you would never get me to stop making them. Can you... Can you do other stuff as well? How did you make them? Can you do more than one at a time? Can you make it red? Or blue? Or orange? Or yellow? Try Yellow!"

The little star of light flared brighter, growing, twirling faster. The alien feeling of fright lifted, morphed to happiness. She wasn't scared anymore and that made Jim... Well, he didn't know the right words for it, but he felt... Lighter. Better. Like coming home after a long time away."I... Sometimes. I just wish it and if I wish really hard, it happens."

Jim was practically vibrating with excitement as he sank back down to sit opposite the girl."Well, what are you waiting for? Wish for something! Go on! Anything!"

It took a while, and even longer before he noticed the change in the dim light, but when he cocked his head to the side, taking in the little star, a piece of his fringe fell into his eyes and as he went to hazardly and roughly push it back, he stalled. "My hair! It's pink! this... This is amazing. Imagine all the pranks you can do and get away with! Oh, now you have to show me other things, you just have to. You can't just leave it there... Go on, try and turn my skin blue! I always wanted blue skin."

And so the two children played. They laughed. One child even turned blue, like he had asked. More little stars came out to play, most yellow, some blue, one even pink and soon they found themselves laying side by side on the rickety cot, cramped but happy, watching the balls of light dance as the girl twirled her hand, movement getting sloppy as she began to drift off, Jim too amazed and intrigued to notice the change as he tried to catch one with his bare hands.

However, he did notice the morph of his surroundings seconds later, felt the kitchen table under his cheek, heard his mother shouting his name, felt her hands shaking his shoulder, something that sounded like an order for George to run and get a med officer echoing in the recess of his mind.

Groggily, he sat up, blearily watching the distorted colors of the world around him form into shapes he knew. His mother's face, worried, wide-eyed, so close to his own it was the only thing he could see. Slowly, like the first bloom in spring, a smile, wide, white, toothy fractured his face. "You were right mom. They're not so bad after all."

Winona only grew confused, until her gaze landed on his arms, one clutching his forearm as if he had been burnt. Burnt. She knew that feeling. Stunned, she steadily reached for the hand covering his arm, gently prying it away, an act Jim allowed her to do, almost simultaneously crying and laughing at the sight that greeted her.

In a scrawl she could hardly read, blazoned in hot red with glittering speckles of gold, read two simple words.

Harriet Lillian Potter.

The tears came and so did the laughter as she reached up and cradled her sons face in her hands. He was too young. It shouldn't have happened now, but, worries could come later, when he wasn't smiling at her like that, that same smile his father used to give her. "No Jim. It's not bad at all is it?"

Part II

Not Alone.

Jim dug his chin harder into his folded arms on the window sill. The pain kept him in the present, away from the past. Away from the future. Grounding him. It was the only action he could think to use. Through the window, he could see his brother, Goerge, crossing the front lawn, practically jogging to the car parked on the road outside their house, not even wasting time in opening the door as he threw his bag in and then jumped through the window too.

Then the car was pulling away and so was George. Gone. Left. Never to return. George had left him. Ran away. Abandoned him to Frank. Yes, Jim wanted to run away too. God knows he did, especially when his mother wasn't here to play buffer between him and the man she had married two years ago. Frank had been like her, widowed from a soulmate's untimely demise, and in that, they thought getting married was the best plan.

Jim hated Frank. He detested him. He yelled. Called him names. Punching too, if Jim wasn't fast enough to dodge or run. He didn't know when was worst anymore, when his mother was home and he had to get between her and Frank when Frank lost his temper and became violent, or when his mother wasn't there and he and George were left to face the bastard by themselves. But it was no longer themselves. It was himself. Singular. George had left him to face this alone.

A soft voice, feathery, spoke up from behind him, somewhere from the depths of his bedroom, likely from his unmade bed. "It's okay to be angry you know? It's okay to be angry, to be hurt, to feel betrayed... But he's still your brother. He's still family."

The elation of having Harry being Called to him was diminished to nothing in the wake of watching his brother turn his back on him. He had not seen or heard of her since that night, nearly two years ago now. However, he never forgot it, sometimes replaying it before he would go to sleep, pretending he could still see the glittering stars she had created like magic. Sometimes, when he was especially tired, he would still try and catch them. He was twelve now, she would be turning eleven soon.

Jim huffed and pushed harshly away from the window, snapping around to glower at Harry. She was sat on the end of his messy bed, the mass of curls tied into a giant ball on top of her head and thin neck, shirt still too large, but this time she had both socks on, and some weird shoes that were tied together by a long piece of thin... Rope? They were dusty, grass stained like the knees of her thick, bluish trousers. What the hell were they made from? It looked like a weird type of Denimetex.

It didn't matter. Nothing really did now. George had left him behind with only a 'goodbye Jim, maybe one day we'll meet again.' Jim scoffed. Yeah, they would meet in hell. The bastard had even left when he knew Frank would be gone for an hour or two, not brave enough to face him. "He's no brother of mine. I don't know about where you come from, but here? Here, family doesn't abandon each other."

Harry's hands braced against her knees as she gently stood, taking a few cautious steps closer. Jim couldn't look at her face, not even her chin. He knew what was there. Like he intimately knew what was displayed on his own. Hurt. Pain. Agony. So much for soulmates, if the only thing you gave them was the worst of what you were feeling. How did he get here? How did they all come to this? His mother, who was a damned Starfleet officer, beaten, broken down. Nothing but a shell of what she used to be. George, brave George running away and him, disconnected, alone, cut off.

While his voice had been practically shouting, restraint never being his strong suit, Harry's was even, soft, like a trickling river. The one calm thing in his world that was just chaos. "Look, I don't know if you're real or a figment of my imagination, but I feel you. I. Feel. You. I feel your pain. How you want to cry-"

He hadn't meant to do it, he swore, but he did. His arm lashed out, grasping his bookshelf by his window, as he heaved and pushed it over, the bang of it falling to the floor somehow, oddly, soothing. He was too caught up in his own pain, the loss, to really notice how Harry thought he was imaginary, to even question it. "I don't want to cry! Not over a bastard like him! I'm not hurt Harry! I'm pissed! He left. He. Left. Us... Me... He left me! He's nothing but a coward! Scum! What sort of brother or son turns his back on his family?! Why did he leave me behind..."

His voice broke at the end and the traitorous tears he had managed to hold back and lock deep inside himself broke free from their prison, trailing down his face. His chest heaved, jagged sobs wracking his ribs. Finally... Finally, he caved into himself, sobbing, crying, perhaps even yelling, he couldn't tell anymore.

He did, however, hear the soft pad of Harry's feet as she walked over, gently. He felt her delicate, tiny hands clasp onto his shoulders, forcing him to look at her squarely in the face for the first time. It only broke him further. To see his own pain, so present, so crude, shone back at him like a mirror hurt more than he thought it could. "You can be angry and hurt at the same time, Jim. It isn't a one or the other sort of deal."

His hand shook violently as he reached up and grabbed onto one of hers, pulling it down, clinging to it as if it was a lifeline. Perhaps it was. It felt like it, and really, wasn't that the most important? Not what something was, but how it felt? Before he could pull away, close in on himself like he had gotten so good at doing lately, he found himself rambling. Now the gates were open, he didn't think he could shut them, even if all he wanted was just that. "My dad died as I was born. Mom's always off on duty in some unknown quadrant. George was the only person I had left and now he's gone. They... They all leave in the end. Everybody does."

Harry squeezed his hand back just as tightly, but it didn't help, not really. He was right. They always left... She would too eventually. "You're not alone. I'm here... For what that's worth. And even If I do leave, or you leave, or however this, whatever this is, works, I'll come back. I'll always come back. You are not alone. Never truly alone. You're my friend and where I come from, friends don't leave one another."

Jim snapped out like a viper, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him, squeezing, hugging with everything he had. She stiffened a moment, just a split second, before she returned the hug, more softly than him. Home. He felt like he was home again.

Unfortunately, the bang from the front door being pushed open popped the bubble and then Jim was there, only him in his room, air between his arms, no warmth, no smile. Nothing. Maybe George was gone. His mother too, if her ship ran into trouble like his nightmares told him it would, and perhaps she might not return, but Harry would. She would be back, he knew.

He wasn't alone anymore.

Part III

Great Losses.

"Another one? Perhaps Hermione is right and I am losing my mind. Apparently seeing strange boys only you can see is a prelude to absolute insanity. Go figure."

Spock's head inclined to the side a fraction. He was a bit dazed. He had retired to bed like his mother had requested of him after a night-meal. He had been sure he had been meditating and yet, here he was. The atmosphere was too real to be a dream, the stagnant air to cloying and poignant to be made from a hazy R.E.M cycle. He had not traveled anywhere... A burning itch tickled the skin of his forearm.

Ah, fascinating.

Of course, he knew all about soulmates. Vulcan's were taught in-depth about the topic, as well as his own mother's teachings, which mainly consisted of being bonded to other species, a factor he must add into his own equation with him being the product of his own parents strange and rare bonding. Vulcan's, in general, did not get matched outside their own species, unlike human's who matched with nearly all known galactic species, his parent's bonding being exempt, and his mother had wanted to make sure he had enough information and confidence if such a precedence should befall on him too.

It seemed, by the strange, cavernous room that held old Human architecture designs and the oddly red-haired girl, that it had, in fact, happened to him too. However, he wasn't willing to label the girl human quite yet. Red hair, in human's, had died out one hundred and twenty-four years, three months and seven... No, five days ago. Perhaps she had Orion blood in her? It would explain the hair.

Her reaction to his presence was confusing too. She did not look at him, a common reaction from most species when a stranger appears in the previously empty room they inhabited. Instead, she simply stayed seated on the dusty, barren flooring in front of a rather large, ornate earth mirror, staring into its depths.

Her words themselves were confusing as well. Imagine? Another one? Only she can see? Of course only she can see him, she is only mentally linked to him, none of her acquaintances, or friends as he is sure she would call them, could. Did she not know of soul-bonding? No. She must. Every species, even ones who had only recently graduated into space travel, knew of such things, taught it to their young. It was detrimental to the species survival otherwise. One who did not teach of such things was a doomed civilization indeed.

Perhaps this was the equivalent of what his mother said was 'playing shy' or an 'ice breaker'. Nevertheless, it would be rude not to answer her. "I am not familiar with this Hermione and can neither validate, nor discredit her assumption. However, I will say I am neither imagined or faked. I am very much here, at least, mentally. If you are not inconvenienced, please inform me of where I am exactly?"

Her emotions, which he could feel so precisely that he could almost taste them, showed a deep ocean of melancholy. Denial. Want. She still had not looked away from the mirror and Spock theorized it was the mirror that was forcing the girl to feel this way. Fascinating indeed. He had never seen a mirror able to produce such unstable, strong emotions in an individual before. "Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn't you... You are currently in very bowels of Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry."

Spock straightened out, clasping his hands behind his back as he strode forward towards the girl. His mother had coached him on this very instance many times. He would introduce himself, let her introduce herself, and then, politely, ask questions about her person that are not too intimate but detailed enough to gain some knowledge of her. Perhaps he should try and keep the conversation going? "Witchcraft and Wizardry? What a peculiar and archaic belief to still adhere to. Is this common practice where you live?"

Silence. Nothing. No breeze. No birds. No footsteps. Just the sound of his beating heart echoing in his ears. Had he... Had he said something wrong? His mother had warned him he can come across as impolite and detached, especially to humans. He... He should try again. "What is this mirror and why do you stare so deeply into its depths?"

Only then did the girl turn around. She was... She was... She was aesthetically pleasing. Symmetrical. Smooth, sharp features that showed promise with age. Her hair, curly, out of control, strangely matched her features. What was the word his mother would use? Ah, yes, she was beautiful. However, he also noticed how thin she was, the rapid pulse thrumming in her neck, the dark circles under her eyes.

She had not been sleeping for some time now. From what he understood of human biology, this was harmful. However, his lessons he had memorized faded from his mind when she gave him a crooked smile. "It's called the mirror of Erised. It doesn't show you your reflection, not really. It shows you your deepest desires."

Spock faltered a little, but perhaps that was a good thing, he was already standing borderline inappropriately close. Once again his head cocked to the side. He had never heard of such technology before, and to be cased in something as mundane as a mirror... Even more fascinating. However, he highly doubted humans could create such a thing, and as a rebuttal was about to escape his lips, he caught his own reflection in the mirror.

He stood very much as he stood here, in the room. However, behind him were the Vulcan boys who had found a pastime in mocking and degrading him. Only, they weren't there, not behind him, he checked, and neither were they mocking him in the reflection. They were... Well, they were excepting him, urging him to come along with them, to join in.

Spock tore his eyes away from the lie. For that was all this mirror was, an elaborate lie. Perhaps he did wish for this to come to pass, but he would rather earn it than have it given to him as an illusion. Turning forty-five degrees from the mirror, so he could not see his reflection, and could solely focus on the girl approximately three to four years younger than him, his voice was even more blank, cold, desolate of human infliction as it normally was. His father would have been proud. "What do you see in this contraption?"

He could see her lips thin a fraction, her nostrils flaring a quarter of an inch. Interesting, she did not wish to share what she wanted most, but if she did not, how did she ever expect to obtain it? "My parents."

Well. That put the bits of information he had gathered from her person into perspective. She was thin, malnourished. Her clothes too big, old, worn to decrepit. Summarizing, he theorized her parents were dead and in their wake, she was left in unfit care. Something hot and heavy burned in his chest.

Spock pushed it down, cataloging to review the heady feeling later, when he had less pressing matters to attend to. From her unruliness, state and posture in sitting in front of this mirror of lies, wasting more time here would be detrimental to her health even further.

Against all that his father and teachers had taught him thus far, Spock took something no Vulcan took. A gamble. He leisurely placed a flat palm on her shoulder, making sure he did not touch any skin. That would be an unforgivable slight and invasion on her that he wasn't willing to commit without her agreement first.

In turn, she slowly drifted away from the mirror to look up at him. The hot and heavy feeling was replaced with something light but equally warm. "We never get over great losses. We take them in. They become a part of us and make us stronger, better people. But first, we need to accept the loss and realize we cannot change what has already been. You need sleep, I can feel how tired you are."

The girl gave a shaky nod, sliding out from underneath his hand to stand, casting one last glimpse at the mirror. His fingers flexed, almost reaching back for the warmth, but he wrangled the urge in and placed the limb back behind his back at a safe distance. "You're right... You're right on both accounts."

Then she was walking away to the heavy wooden double doors, about to leave. Spock didn't know what to say, he didn't know if he should say anything more than he had. Before she slipped through the door, she glanced back at him, a twinkle in her eye that had not been present before. "Thank you... You know you don't need them to accept you. You're fine the way you are. Forget them."

The clang of the door left Spock sitting up in his bed back home, on Vulcan. Looking down at his arm, he nodded, stood, slipped on his house slippers and strolled over and out of his sleeping chambers, towards the kitchen where he could hear his mother already preparing morning-meal.

He was right, he found, when he paused at the doorway and saw his mother's back, already hunched over the thing she called a 'slow-cook pot'. He didn't understand her fascination with cooking when a replicator was readily available for her usage two foot to her left. "Mother, I have seen her."

Amanda Grayson twirled around, spoon still grasped in her hand, confusion washing her face white before understanding rang through. She dropped her spoon and dashed over, but before she could look at his arm and see the name, he spoke. "Mother, do you believe I am 'fine' the way I am?"

Amanda frowned deeply. "Of course I do. Why... Did she... Did she deny you? Did she tell you, you weren't? Or-"

Spock shook his head. "No. On the contrary, it was her that told me this. I was just wondering if it is a view that is shared or singular."

A bright smile brokered out of his mother's face, almost blindingly bright. Humans... They were so open, so easy to understand with their emotions so blatant on their faces. Then why did he not understand the girls? She... Confused him, many times. It was not something he was used to. "Well Spock, I believe I like this girl already. Come on son, don't leave your mother waiting, show me the mark."

He held his arm out primly, underside up, though, as he did so, he spoke quietly. Once his mother saw the name, she would understand the problem he faced. "Mother, she's... I believe she's human."

Harriet Potter.

Amanda stared at the writing, almost as bad as her own when she indulged in such an act. For a moment her face blanked, a serene expression that any Vulcan would envy taking up place in her normally emotive features. Then she smiled at him calmly. "Do not worry son. Let me handle your father. Go on, morn-meal is ready."

And handle Sarek she did.

Part IV

Kick Arse and Take Names.

Spock sat as perfectly still as he could in the waiting chair outside the main office. In a few minutes, one of the heads of administration would appear, call him in and he would then proceed to complete the entry exams for the Vulcan Learning Centre.

He is... Nervous. He has three options by the way he has logically worked through the factors. One, he could pass with top marks he is sure he could get. However, this would taunt the already illogical hatred and discourse between him and a few fellow students who taunt him daily for his heritage. Two; He could fail the tests purposefully.

This would mean he would no longer have to deal with his fellow students, but it would also hinder his education and therefore impact his later life choices such as career and stability of income and home. And finally three; He could fail some questions purposefully, but not the whole test, leading him to get into the school, but not with a high enough point advantage to garner even more attention unto himself.

The last one so far was the one likeliest to cause the least amount of problems and the most suitable course of action. It would allow him to study in peace, but keep inside the bracket of ordinary, average, that often lead to students being overlooked. "You really shouldn't."

His eyes locked to the side of him to the previously empty chair, which was now inhabited by his soulmate, Harry. He had not thought his nervousness had been so pronounced or needful as to call her to him, but yet he really could not complain. Surely if there was anyone who should and could understand his predicament, it would be Harry? This was also the first time she had been called to him, their previous exchange having happened seven months, three weeks and sixteen hours ago. It was... Good to see her again. "I do not think I understand what you are alluding to-"

Harry cut him off with a sharp, wiley smile that seemed too old for her face. Too knowledgeable. "Yes, you do. You're thinking of scoring lower in these tests to appease people who don't deserve to be appeased. It won't work."

The last three words hand been partially sung in a disjointed tune, taunting, as if she knew something he didn't, even as she smiled and turned to face the front, towards the administration office he would be called into soon enough. "Explain? If I give them no reason to persist in this behavior, if they believe their spots in the hierarchy are unchallenged, they will come to the logical solution of stopping this redundant routine they have driven themselves into."

Harry let out a bark of full-bellied laughter, bright, tinkling, her teeth and eyes glinting in the hot Vulcan sun from the windows all around the hallway, her cheeks merrily flushed. "They're jealous of you. They know you're purposefully trying to score low, and yet, you still beat most of them. It's a pointless tactic. Trust me, I tried it. It won't work. Plus, why hide, change and self-sabotage your goals and aspirations for people who won't do the same for you?"

Spock momentarily pondered what she had told him, mentally agreeing to her valid points. Why was he trying to do all that again? To make life 'easier'? From what his father and mother told him, it is always a foolish action to expect anything to be easy and he was not a foolish boy. But still, he wanted the taunting to stop. "What do you think my course of action should be then?"

Harry swiveled in her chair, smiling once more at him. However, this time he had the odd feeling it was not a happy smile, but a sad one, if such a thing could exist. "I know you want them to, but they won't stop. So, in face of this, I say actually give them a reason to do what they do. Go in there, get the best marks this school's history has ever seen and kept climbing from there."

Spock actually frowned at this. "Keep climbing up? I fail to see what climbing has to do with-"

There it was again, that laughter. "It's a metaphor. It means keep being and doing the best. Don't cave under people's biased standards and expectations of you. In short, start kicking arse and taking names."

Spock went to question why she tried to explain a metaphor with another metaphor he did not understand, but he thought he had a feeling of it, when the swoosh of the office door filtered through the heavy air. "Spock? We request your presence now."

His mother came to his side, bending down beside his seat. She had been in the office with the administrators to get some files and databases filled out. "Are you sure you're fine son? We can always reschedule the tests for another day. You are looking rather pale. Who were you talking to?... Was it her? Harry? What did she say?"

Spock shook his head, the corners of his mouth upturned just a fraction. "I am ready and fine mother... At least I am now. She used a turn of phrase I do not quite understand but I think I understand the fundamentals. She said to 'kick arse and take names.'"

His mother laughed, just as brightly as Harry had. "Yes, I'm definitely starting to like this girl. Well then, you better head in and begin. I have every faith in you Spock. Just try your best. I'm sure you'll pass."

He did pass. He succeeded with the highest score seen in the last hundred and seventy- six years. In short, he 'kicked arse and took many names' that day.

!IMPORTANT!

This is my first ever venture into cross-over, and only my second into fanfiction in general, so it might take me a while to get things right. The important thing I want to ask you guys is this; I have plenty of material from the Harry Potter verse to have Harry 'Call' Spock or Jim to her, however, I need some inspiration for having them 'Call' Harry.

So, if you have any idea's, please, please let me know. It could be a word, a poem, a song, even a whole situation you want to see play out. If you have anything, don't hesitate to P.M me the idea, even drop it in a review, I would be ever so grateful. The only guidelines are it has to be an emotional situation, good emotions, bad, or they have to be in danger. As the premise of soul-mate fic I've laid out sort of dictates.

In this fic I've sort of mashed a lot of things together, dream shares, soulmate mark trope, fem!Harry, I don't know, I sort of went a little crazy with it and I have no doubt it's confusing at the moment but I hope It clears up in future chapters, that is if you guys want this to carry on and not just end the madness here XD

THANK YOU to everyone who read, are you enjoying it? And, perhaps, see that box down there with review on it? Try it out for me, I think it might be broken ;) In all seriousness, please drop a review, it lets me know your guys thoughts, if I should carry this on or scrap it and work on other things.

Well, not much to say for now, I hope you liked it and if I do continue it, you will like the upcoming chapters just as much, because as whacky as this idea is, I really enjoyed writing it!

carelessdodger.