Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/2001825.

The mission was known in advance to be delicate; only three crewmembers beamed down to negotiate with the native leadership for a treaty regarding the export of dilithium from this independent planet to the Federation. The culture was advanced, ruled by two constantly warring factions. Civil strife was frequent, but the principles of greed overruled all other considerations. Both factions had agreed to a mutual treaty and to negotiate common terms; each more concerned, at the moment, with enriching their own coffers.

Command had expressly forbidden Captain Jim Kirk from joining the landing party. Instead, First Officer Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, and Yeoman Lewes had departed, and had been on the surface for little more than four hours when the first indication of trouble appeared. The on-duty communications officer had turned in his chair, and with alarm evident in his voice, had informed the captain that the intermittent contact signal from the landing party had ceased unexpectedly. Jim had called for a yellow alert and informed the transporter room to stand by for an emergency beam-out. He had asked the communications officer to hail the team, and the planetary authorities, but there was no response. Nothing. Even sensors were having a hard time deciphering what was happening on the surface. Then, Chekov reported a strange energy signature in the vicinity of the landing party's last known location. Jim had been about to enquire further when Scotty reported picking up an emergency beacon from one of the team's tricorders. The captain ordered immediate beam-up of all persons in the vicinity and had raced to the transporter room, leaving Sulu the conn.

Barreling into the room, Jim was brought up short by the scene before him. Yeoman Lewes, her face streaked with tears and her uniform caked with the planet's dingy yellow mud, was sitting on one of the pads, gasping for air. Uhura, similarly dirty, but with a strangely blank expression on her face, was standing, her hand slightly outstretched, as if she had been reaching for something.

"Where's Spock?" It was the first thing out of Jim's mouth.

At the mention of his name, Lewes burst in to fresh tears, sobbing, "He's dead, Captain! They shot him. Oh, god, there was so much blood. He's dead." Her voice trailed off into incoherency and ice water ran down Jim's spine.

"Uhura! Report! What the fuck happened down there?"

His command tone seemed to startle Uhura out of her blank stare and she met Jim's eyes. Nonononono. Jim's mind protested as he saw profound grief and helpless anger contort her features. Her voice, however, was officer-steady, "Sir. The meeting was attacked by unidentified members of the native populace. I was nearest to them at the time and they threatened to kill me, saying they wanted to teach Starfleet a lesson about ignoring them. Commander Spock interceded, telling them he was responsible for his people and that they must release me. One of them, the leader, said something about not caring who it was, but they were going to kill one of us. They...," her lower lip trembled, but she continued, "They pulled him to the front of the room. He asked them to give him their oath that they would not harm another of his crew if he were to submit. They agreed and...and shot him in the head, sir. Lewes and I were taken away from the building, into the woods, and given one of our tricorders. That's when we were beamed back up here, sir."

Jim couldn't find his voice for a moment. His head felt like he was in a wind tunnel, rushing noises and a sense of pressure. "Lieutenant. Are you sure he was dead?"

Uhura was staring at the wall over his shoulder, as if she couldn't look directly at him and maintain her composure, "I am sure, sir. There was a lot of blood. He didn't move."

Jim stared at her and stepped to the intercom on the wall, "Kirk to bridge. Chekov, run a life-signs check on the planet, focusing on the vicinity of where the landing party beamed down. Look for Vulcan life- signs."

Less than two minutes later, Chekov's voice came over the line reporting that there was nothing. Nothing! That can't be right. There has to be a mistake. Someone made a goddamn mistake. Jim ordered him to keep running the scan and told Uhura and the still-sobbing Lewes to report to sickbay.

Jim felt like he was on auto-pilot. He couldn't meet Scotty's eyes. He couldn't hear Chekov's acknowledgment. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, one by one, until he was back in the turbolift. And then he was in his chair on the bridge, trying to remember to breathe. His chest ached. Forcing his voice into a semblance of calm, and ignoring the horrified looks from the other members of the bridge crew as they realized what must have happened, he ordered contact with the leadership on the surface.

Long minutes ticked by as the hail went through and an answer was delayed. Chekov reported intermittently that his scans were still negative, and Jim didn't bother answering. He's dead. He can't be dead. He's my friend. He's my...

"Captain!" The communications officer had a signal.

The president of the council of governors was the person they had originally had established contact with, the person who had guaranteed their safety, and who was hosting the treaty negotiations. He was apologetic, sycophantically sad, pulling at his rich robes in mock grief. He told Jim that a minor third party had heard of the treaty and wanted in on the payout. They had thought such a display would demonstrate that they had the muscle to be at the negotiating table in the first place. The president was so, so sorry that the first officer was murdered. What a terrible tragedy.

Jim's only response was a request to have Spock's body returned to the ship. The president looked even more upset and waved his hands in the air, regretfully informing Jim that the body had already been destroyed. Destroyed? I can't even see him again, can't touch him. Can't ever touch him. But, the president had added with a disgustingly hopeful smile, they had a recording of the incident, should the captain wish to view it. And perhaps the captain could come down personally to see to the resumption of negotiations?

Jim had blindly ordered the recording sent to McCoy's office, and then closed the channel without another word. His insides felt twisted, and he wondered absently if he would throw up. He ordered Chekov to continue scanning and left the bridge.

The walk to McCoy's office in sickbay seemed to take forever. Jim vaguely noticed the look of shock on passing crewmembers but didn't see the subsequent looks of pity directed at his back. Jim couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. I'll never talk to him again. Never hear him disagree with me again or lecture me on regulations. Never play chess again. Never hear his voice say, "Jim".

Bones was grimly waiting for him, apparently having heard Uhura's story and confirmed the transfer of the recording to his computer. He and Spock had never seemed to get along, but Jim could see lines of tension and grief on the doctor's face.

"Are you sure you want to see this, Jim?" he asked gently.

Jim had nodded. The recording was in full-color, and at such an angle that they could see everything clearly. Too clearly. Uhura's report had been accurate. Spock had done the same thing Jim would have done, stepped forward to protect his people. Had stood quietly, with an enemy's hand gripping his arm and a weapon pointed at his head, asking that his crew be spared. Had listened to the reply and straightened, looking forward, his face and eyes betraying no fear as the weapon discharged and his eyes closed, head snapping forward. His body had fallen almost gracefully to the floor, Uhura's scream in the background a jarring counterpoint. From the angle of the camera, they could not see the wound, but the floor under Spock's head had turned green, as a pool of steadily-widening blood spread out. The recording ended with the two female crewmembers being escorted out, Uhura struggling to linger behind, her eyes fixed on Spock's unmoving form.

"Jesus Christ," Bones whispered, turning off the screen. "I can't believe it."

Jim felt cold. Blank. Every small movement, every breath cutting him like a knife. He didn't want to feel that he was still alive and his best friend was dead. His voice was sharp, and he felt like someone else was speaking, "What is your medical opinion, Doctor? Is he really dead?"

Bones looked at him with compassion and deep sadness. "Jim."

"Answer me. They said they destroyed his body. Chekov can't find any Vulcan life-signs on the planet. Just...answer me. If I can't see him, I can't know..." Jim's voice caught, and he stopped.

"Jim, I can't medically declare him dead without examining the body, but I would say that, yes, from what I've seen on this recording, he's gone."

Jim forced himself to his feet. Gone. Never touch you. Never see your eyes. That eyebrow. Your hands... "Thanks, Bones." He left without looking at the doctor.

Jim sat in his quarters. He was cold and couldn't move. He had done his duty. Had reported to Command, had made the announcement to the crew, had sent a letter of condolence to Sarek, had ordered Spock's cabin sealed and had appointed a temporary Head of Sciences, making Sulu Acting First. He had written a final commendation for Spock's file, noting that the Vulcan gave his life in performance of his duty. Jim's hands had shaken as he had typed. They had been ordered to leave the planet, continue on to a routine star mapping survey as part of their regular mission. Command had determined that the state of the planetary political structure made a stable treaty now seem impossible. Jim wondered bitterly why they couldn't have figured that out before. Jim had presided over a memorial. So many crew had come to show their respects. Jim had said words, but he couldn't remember what they were. He had refused to cry. He had left early to return to his cabin and drink himself into a stupor, but now, alone, he found he hadn't the energy to do it. Are you cold, where you are now? The ship was always cold to you. Your skin was so warm.

His door buzzer sounded, and he automatically responded, allowing entry. Uhura walked in, none too steady. She paused a moment and sat down on the small couch in the front of his room. Her lovely eyes were swollen and red. She stared at him with something like anger. He found he couldn't bring himself to care.

Her voice was rough, "I argued with myself whether to tell you this or not. I don't know if he would have wanted me to tell you, but I think you deserve to know."

She took a breath, her hands twisting together in her lap, "He loved you. As a friend, and as something more. He had a word for it, but you wouldn't recognize it. I told him to tell you, told him not to waste time, but he was convinced that you would be uncomfortable, that it would affect your friendship."

Her voice broke and she stood up abruptly, "I don't know what you really would have done, if he told you. Probably fucked it up. But I thought you should know that someone like him loved you. That you were cherished. Don't ever forget that." She turned and left, and the silence in her wake was deafening.

Jim stared at the door, but didn't move. The pressure in his head was back, the feeling of falling, wind rushing past his ears. You couldn't love me. You couldn't love. You were Vulcan. Vulcans don't love, right? Right? Jim swept his desk suddenly clean with a tortured cry.

Bones did not look surprised to see Jim appear in his quarters in the middle of ship's night. He did not look offended when Jim reached forward and poured a drink in Bones' own glass, then took it and drained it in practically one gulp, staring at the bulkhead.

"Uhura came to see me. She told me that Spock loved me." His voice was dispassionate.

"And you just realized you love him back? Is that why you're acting like this?"

Jim rounded on his friend, "There is no 'back', Bones. Not anymore."

"Jim."

"You're acting like you knew." Jim's voice was hard, flinty. "Did you?"

Bones frowned and looked at his hands, "The hobgoblin would never tell me a damn thing, you know that. But I might have guessed. And I assumed you knew as well, that maybe you two were even involved and couldn't let anyone else in on the secret. You belonged together, as much as I hate to admit it."

Jim stared at him, the crushing cold and the burning rage from before now settling into a bone-deep ache. "No, I never knew. We never said anything to each other."

It occurred to Jim that that was all a lie. There were shared looks, shared moments, a deep sense of fellowship, hours spent at each other's bedside in sickbay and across a chess board, feelings pushed down and denied and hidden. He suddenly couldn't meet McCoy's eyes, couldn't stand to see the pity there. He could only stumble back to the door and retreat to his quarters. I need you. I needed you. Why? Why did you leave me? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?

Two weeks passed, and the crew's immediate grief and shock gave way to the day-to-day drudgery of mapping. Command sent word that they were assigning a new first officer as soon as the ship docked at the next starbase. Jim, however, couldn't get beyond it. He could barely eat, and could barely sleep on account of the nightmares. They were harsh, vivid, and so real that Jim would wake up screaming and frantically reaching out, his hands grasping only air and blankets.

He would see Spock's eyes, huge and brown and desperate. Trying to tell him something, trying to show him something. He felt hands on his wrists, burning like brands, felt pain all over his body as if he were being torn apart. He saw images of a planetoid, gray and lifeless, felt like he knew where it was. He saw green spattered everywhere. He heard a word, spoken in a strange language, repeated over and over again. And he would wake up, crying Spock's name.

Jim said nothing to anyone, even as Bones hovered around him, threatening to relieve him of duty. He said nothing, until he woke from another dream to find Nyota sitting on his bed next to him, his wrists in her hands, her face full of fear. She had come to visit him and heard him screaming through the door. She asked him what he had said, and he couldn't think of what she meant. Then she repeated it, this unfamiliar word from his nightmares, and he couldn't help finally bursting into tears, falling forward to sob on her shoulder. She had held him, and then calmly asked him what he had been dreaming of. When he told her, she had paled, and then asked him what he knew of Vulcan bonds. He had shaken his head, confused, and then she had told him what the word meant. And what she thought may have happened.

The planetoid, small and easily overlooked, supposedly deserted, located near the Romulan neutral zone, had taken twelve hours to reach at maximum speed. It was a crazy idea, one only able to be spawned between once and future lovers. It was desperate, playing on a last string of hope. We never saw your body. It was against orders, and Jim had burned a few bridges with McCoy to let him stay in the captain's chair.

The captain had the sensors already running, and Vulcanoid life signs came into range as soon as they decelerated into orbit, along with several human readings, coming from a small, environmentally enclosed base tucked away near the southern pole. Jim beamed down with a security team, in full battle gear, with no advance communication. The skirmish was quick and efficient, and Jim finally burst in through a locked, nondescript door to find the source of the Vulcanoid readings lying on the hard floor, hands and feet manacled, thin and shivering and covered with blood and bruises, but alive. Alive! My god, you're alive. Never leave me again. Never.

It had been a setup from the beginning. The president and the council of governors had accepted a huge payout from an unidentified group. Their only role was not to interfere when the Vulcan was "killed" and taken, and then to lie about the truth of the incident, covering up the lack of a body. The strange energy surge that Chekov had detected immediately before the landing party had come back aboard had apparently been a transporter signal beaming Spock to a ship hidden elsewhere on the surface of the planet, which then shielded to prevent sensor penetration. The purpose had been to try to extract the secret of red matter from the first officer, and then to sell it to the Romulans. The group had been unsuccessful either way. Spock had not divulged anything, and, according to the communications logs on the base computers, the Romulans had shied away from an arrangement, wary of a setup. Command had decided to overlook Jim's violation of orders due to the successful recovery of Starfleet's only Vulcan officer and the discovery and apprehension of a dangerous fringe organization.

Jim sat next to Spock's bed in an isolation room in sickbay, unmoving, staring, memorizing the planes and angles of his face, the way his hair fell across his forehead, the dramatic sweep of his brows, and the gentle points of his ears. McCoy had come by to mumble an apology. Nyota had come in and stood next to him for a while, her hand warm and comforting on his shoulder. Jim hadn't acknowledged either. Spock had been unconscious when they found him, drugged, and showing signs of physical and mental torture. McCoy had repaired all of the physical damage, and the drug had worn off, but there was still something very wrong. The Vulcan hadn't gone into a healing trance, or shown any sign of awakening.

It was well into ship's night, and the rest of sickbay was all but deserted. The sound had been turned off on the panel above the bed, but Jim could see the steady beat of the heart monitor out of the corner of his eye. It was surreal, and Jim didn't want to move for fear of shattering an illusion, finding himself waking again in a cold sweat in his bed, calling out for someone whom he would never see again.

Jim hadn't touched Spock since finding him, had yelled into his communicator for an emergency medical beam-out when he had found him lying on that floor, scared of doing anything to injure him further. Now, if the captain concentrated, he could feel...something. A sense of slipping away, of pain, of indescribable loss, of regret. All of it buried inside a cold, dark place. It was the sense of cold that finally got to him; a childish wish that this one should never be cold again.

Jim stood up and reached out, hesitating, but with nothing to lose. He gently brushed his fingers against Spock's hair, against his cheek. He let his hand fall to his shoulder and traced his arm where it lay outside of the blankets, down to his hand. Finally, Jim curled their fingers together and held on. He held on tightly, pushing all the feelings he had since the Vulcan had gone through the simple contact. Horror, grief, fear, desperation, loneliness, anger, regret...love. The last he allowed himself to feel fully, desperately, allowed it to rise up inside his chest and radiate through his being with all the intensity he could manage.

He didn't expect it to work. He knew the whole thing was ridiculous. And then Spock's fingers moved against his, and his heart leapt. He squeezed his hand, and saw eyelids fluttering; whispered his friend's name, and saw soulful, brown eyes looking at him. Jim couldn't help the smile that spread across his face, seeing an answering warmth in the other's gaze. And he couldn't help whispering words he should have said long before, feeling rather than hearing an answer. And I you, t'hy'la.

THE END

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, and I make no money from this.