Title: Divergence
Rating: PG-13
Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, pre-slash, character death
Spoilers: Star Trek XI, Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, Star Trek Generations, and brief references to the TOS episode 'Amok Time'
Character/Pairing: James T. Kirk, Spock, Spock Prime, Kirk Prime, Jean Luc Picard, Pre-Kirk/Spock, established Kirk Prime/Spock Prime
Number: 1/4
Word Count: 1 663 (as stated in Microsoft Word)
Summary: Eliciting an emotional response from a Vulcan is dammed near impossible; unless that Vulcan happens to be under the command of one James T. Kirk.
Author's Note: This is following after 'Different Circumstances' and 'Stark Landscape'. I think I've written it so you don't actually have to read those two, but they do all happen in the same universe, so to speak, so reading them might help. We've all probably read stories now where Jim gets memories of the other timeline from Spock Prime and so fics even have Jim having trouble dealing with them. My thought is that if he is struggling, he shouldn't have to struggle alone.

"Spock!"

"I have been, and always shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper."

"No!"

Jim bolted upright, sweat running down his skin in rivets causing the sheets which had twisted themselves around him in sleep to stick uncomfortably to his skin. His gaze flickered wildly around the room, but he saw nothing more then the outline of his darkened quarters, the faint glow of passing stars illuminating the area around his bed just enough for him to discern the familiar shapes and lines of the room. He slowly began to breathe more steadily as he realized he'd only been dreaming. His heart rate slowed.

It wasn't real; it hadn't happened. There was no Khan, no Genesis device. The Enterprise wasn't damaged and there was no radiation leak. He was alone in his quarters, not in Engineering...not leaning against that clear wall watching Spock struggle to stand...struggle to speak...to breathe...

"Computer, locate Commander Spock," he'd voiced the words before he was even consciously aware of his need to know.

"Commander Spock is on the Bridge," the computer chirped.

Not dead, he repeated over and over to himself. Spock wasn't dead. He was safe on the Enterprise working on the bridge, most likely running some scans and tests on the readings they'd collected from a nearby nebula. What he was seeing in his mind had never happened, probably would never happen now that the timeline had been changed and they knew what to do to prevent it...but it had happened once, had happened to the other him and the other Spock. He felt that loss and pain as keenly as if it had been him.

He pushed the covers aside and climbed out of bed, quickly making his way towards his and Spock's shared bathroom. The lights flickered on to a low setting at his entranced and as he placed his hands under the facet, water automatically poured down onto his hands, which he then splashed onto his face.

It seemed to be getting worse. He wasn't sure why but the memories that Spock Prime had inadvertently left in his possession on Delta Vega were getting harder to deal with, harder to ignore. He knew the Ambassador hadn't meant to give him as much as he had, had even said so when he realized just what exactly Jim had seen, but he couldn't fault the old man for that, especially considering what he'd been dealing with at the time. His intense loss at the destruction of his homeworld, his guilt and regret over his failure to help Romulus, his relief and joy at seeing Jim again, the intense love and sadness that had been dredge up to the surface at this confrontation with a Jim that was and wasn't the man he'd loved and lost, and the exact nature of the bond that had existed between the two.

Jim raised his head and stared at his reflection in the mirror. What he saw was a face that was somehow both incredibly familiar and yet foreign at the same time. He'd caught himself more than once having to look at his reflection twice after having caught a glance of it from the corner of his eyes and was almost startled not to see an older face, eyes weighed down by years of hardship and pain, and yet at the same time settled in some way, lightened by...

He closed his eyes and sighed, leaning heavily against the counter. Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young. He'd said that and yet he couldn't, couldn't even image why he'd say such a thing and yet at the same time, understanding all too well. The memories in his mind were an odd mixture of his counterpart's and Spock Prime's. The two had been so very close, their minds one on so many occasions that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began...and it was silently tearing Jim apart to now be able to experience that for himself. He'd gotten a very brief taste of it with Spock Prime – that mind-meld had touched something very deep within him, filling a need he hadn't even been aware of – and through the memories of his other self and through Spock's he knew how fulfilling and rewarding that bond could be...and it only made him ache all the more.

He wanted that with his Spock; was almost desperate for it. The memories showed him what it was like to be loved so completely by another, to feel totally secure in another's presence and what it felt like to never be alone.

Though you may be parted from me, never shall we be parted. Never and always touching and touched.

But he was alone, always alone, and it was an almost physical ache for him to not be that close to someone...to not be that close to Spock.

He still had trouble dealing with these thoughts. It hadn't been all that long ago that he'd though he hated the Vulcan.

"Who is that pointy-eared basterd?"

"I don't know, but I like him."

Just the fact that Bones had like Spock while he hadn't was enough to show him how very screwed up this reality had become. With some effort things were now beginning to settle themselves. Bones and Spock were back to bickering and snipping at each other, with himself playing as mediator, but there were so many things that weren't the same. Spock's relationship with Uhura being the big one.

He pushed angrily away from the counter and made his way back into the bedroom, settling down on the edge of the bed. His back to the window and simply stared down at the faint outline of his shadow on the floor.

He'd made some headway in his plan to fix his relationship with Spock. After the conversation with him on the observation deck before the warped into the Sol System, Spock and he had tentatively began building that friendship that he had glimpsed in those memories from the mind-meld. The last three months had shown that when they did work together on something, they didn't just work well, but worked almost perfectly. They balanced each other; him with his emotion and Spock with his cool logic. He'd come up with the plans and Spock would break them down and build them up into something better.

But not everything was perfect. There were times when they didn't jive together, when they weren't on the same page. Those times grated on Jim and he knew he couldn't expect everything to change over night, but it just served to remind him that no matter how much he was able to build up his friendship with Spock, that's all it would ever remain.

At one time that might have been fine, but over the course of the last four months, Jim had done exactly what he'd feared would be all to easy to do on Delta Vega: he was falling in love with his First Officer.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, his forearms resting against his knees. He could never let it show though. When others were around, he had to show them exactly what they expected to see. Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, universal flirt, deadly loyal to his ship and crew, and almost always leaping in head first within checking the water level. If he seemed to hover around his First Officer's station, it was merely because he valued the Vulcan's observations and advice. If he kept his eyes on Spock on away missions, it was only because Spock usually spotted problems before anyone else and if he clenched his fists whenever he saw Spock and Uhura together, it was only because he was concerned for his friend who many not anticipate everything a human relationship entailed.

He couldn't afford to let it be known that he found the Vulcan highly attractive, that he valued his advice and opinions because any insight into the Commander's mind was a treasure; that he watched Spock on away missions because of the fear that something might happen to him and he was jealous of Uhura for having what Jim so desperately wanted.

"Whatever our lives might have been had the time continuum not been altered, our destines have changed."

Spock's own words. Jim found it ironic that even with the changes to the timeline, he was still Captain of the Enterprise – though he knew that was in part due to Spock Prime – that the original crew was all still here, but the things that truly mattered to him, things that his other self felt he couldn't live without, he couldn't have. Nero had murdered his Father before he could know him, causing his childhood to resemble almost nothing to what it should have been, and Spock, do to the huge difference in the beginnings of their relationship and his courtship with Uhura, as lost to him.

"But what of the cost: you ship, your son."

"If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul."

He pushed himself back up from the bed, hunting around for a shirt to shrug into. However true he felt that statement was, he had to keep it to himself.

Shirt quickly thrown in place over his sleep pants, he left his quarters, knowing he wasn't going to be able to sleep again tonight and hoped that a walk through the ship might help to calm his thoughts. He couldn't have Spock in the way that he wanted – that path had been closed to him almost since the day he'd been born – but he could have him as his friend and Jim promised himself that he would do whatever it took to be there for Spock in whatever way the Vulcan would need. It didn't matter to him that the universe was different and the bond would never form. For him, Spock would always be his t'hy'la.

tbc...