Author's Note: This story is actually a completed one-shot but, in large part due to its length, I'll be posting it in parts over the next few days instead of all at once. The title is from Bjork's "Human Behavior" and she could not make a song more about Spock if she tried. And given that one of her other songs features the lyrics mon petit vulcan / your eruptions and disasters / I keep calm admiring your lava / i keep calm that's saying a lot.

Once the ship has stopped trembling around them, the crew is quick to settle as well. There is no shortage of work to be done, repairs to be made, as the Enterprise limps back to Earth. Absent warp capability, it is a seventeen hour trip. Accounting for time spent on duty after the distress call from Vulcan and prior to the destruction of the Narada, the mission has taken a total of less than twenty-eight hours.

Debriefings are a four-day long affair, carried out in conference halls, offices, and small, sterile rooms that seem more conducive to interrogation than anything else. Spock's attentions are split between his responsibilities in that regard and his attempts to assist his father and the rest of the remaining council members in any way that he can. They organize refugees, memorial services, and plans to preserve both their race and culture. His emotional control should be enough such that he does not require distraction to prevent him from dwelling on his grief. But Spock has ever been only what he is, and very rarely what he should be. This is becoming increasingly acceptable to him. So, he fortifies his mind with census data and lodging arrangements, with ensuring that numerous separate reports, both oral and written, are in perfect agreement and perfectly accurate. He grades assignments from his classes that have yet to recommence. He rarely sleeps.

On the fifth day, he returns to his quarters at the Academy, where he has spent only one night—and even then but partially—since their return to San Francisco. Nyota is waiting for him. They have maintained contact, but little of it has been in person and of any significant length. While the communiques they have managed have not been entirely without benefit to his condition, he has very much desired the private comfort of her sustained presence. Not less for the fact that he knows he will soon be required to relinquish it entirely.

Their messages have contained no such direct statement, but nevertheless were filled with the same resignation that he feels thrumming through her skin when she takes his hand. She has always understood him in a way that he cannot quantify except to acknowledge that it is better than most others he has ever met, and not just in the attempt itself.

Their individual needs cannot possibly be weighed favorably against his responsibility to his species and to their efforts to avoid nothing less than extinction. It does not require discussion because there is only one logical course of action. No argument can be made regarding their relationship, respective careers, or life ambitions that will prevail and so they do not speak at all.

Instead, they undress each other. She presses soft, cool lips to his cheekbone, the tip of his ear, his eyelids. He traces his fingers across her collarbones, down her abdomen, and kisses a path between her breasts. He bridges the gap separating their minds once she has her fingertips pressed into the nape of his neck as she explores his mouth, once her heel is at the small of his back, just before he enters her. The familiar comfort of her thoughts touching his is almost painful for the anticipation of its indefinite absence. But it is not through the meld that he perceives the desolate mantra last time last time last time that drives her as their joining becomes more frantic. That, he sees in her eyes, which she does not close during her climax, and hears in her shuddering breaths, though they never once form a single word.

oOo

During his trip to the Narada, Spock quickly deduced the high probability that some time-displaced version of himself had a role in the labyrinthine chain of temporal shifts. That is entirely different, though, from experiencing this fact firsthand.

Spock is at a loss for the appropriate reaction to staring into his own face, so weathered as to be barely recognizable, at hearing his own voice tremble with age and obvious emotion. His other self speaks with unwavering confidence about the friendships that he had and the life that he lived, all couched in the assumption that this is the life that Spock should inevitably live as well. That it is the life that will best serve him. Spock is less than certain of that, and of the things and people in which his alternate self chooses to place his faith, but the fundamental offer is as enticing as any he has ever heard. To be freed just this once from the weight of obligation is an incredible prospect. The opportunity to walk the path, pursue the career, and stand with the partner that he wants is more than he would have hoped to be granted.

Still, when he looks into his own weary eyes, he sees the well-worn grief for a lost life shining in them. Spock thinks, unbidden, that he would never wish to be so old—so hopelessly nostalgic. He thinks of all of the relationships in his life on Earth and in Starfleet that he has regretted not forging or making stronger. He thinks of the nearly crippling pain he still feels at his mother's death. He thinks of Nyota and their premature separation, of how essential she has come to feel.

He thinks of this and entertains the idea that losing it all now will save him from pain 130 years from now—save him from the endless longing for what is gone. Perhaps a century and more of acclimation could leave his ability to keep looking forward unimpeded.

He dismisses the thought moments later.

He cannot bring himself to see a benefit, no matter how small, in so much loss. And he has little evidence that his older self's actions are driven or intensified by the longer duration of his personal connections.

It could merely be that given the chance to do everything over again, in any respect, his other self would change nothing.

Spock is unspeakably grateful for the reprieve his twin has given him. But he was an adolescent the first time he realized that his life was his own, and he has spent his adulthood trying to work out what that means for him. He is still trying. And he has no intention of ceasing to make his own choices now.

oOo

The message from Christopher Pike is waiting on Spock's personal datapadd when he arrives in his office. It is not the first that he has received from Pike since their return. The earlier missive indicated a nebulous desire to speak with Spock. This one is much more explicit about the fact that Pike wishes to discuss Spock's future in Starfleet at his earliest convenience. Spock immediately departs for Pike's office. There are others he must inform of his intentions, but separating his professional and personal priorities is something at which he is long practiced.

The walk is not long, but it still provides Spock time to consider both the nature of the meeting and Pike, himself. Though Spock generally puts little stock in rumors and other hearsay, it is ubiquitously reported in essentially every strata of both social and professional circles that Captain Pike will very soon be made Admiral Pike. Spock allows it some measure of verity on the basis that it seems a reasonable likelihood. And though Pike was unconscious in sickbay for the vast majority of the return trip following his rescue, Spock is certain that he has been privy to every detailed report gleaned from the debriefings of the crew. As such Spock cannot help but wonder whether his most recent commanding officer has been chosen to reprimand him in some manner for his conduct while acting captain of the Enterprise.

The lack of disciplinary actions taken with regard to some of the more egregious and publicly-known regulation violations that took place in the course of those 27.72 hours has been another subject of gossip. Despite the foreknowledge all of his questioners had at that point, relating his attack on James Kirk and the surrounding circumstances had been troubling to Spock. Still, he refused to dissemble. He lost control. He allowed himself to be ruled by his anger and, as such, he was at that time and remains willing to accept the consequences of his actions.

The door to Soon-to-be-Admiral Pike's office slides open immediately and the older man nods a greeting at Spock from behind his desk. There is an extra chair off to the side of the room which Spock immediately recognizes as Pike's old office chair, not currently required due to the injuries that have left Pike temporarily wheelchair-bound.

Spock takes the seat directly in front of the desk and is gratified when Pike, having worked closely with Spock for long enough to know better, does not attempt small talk.

"I'm going to cut to the chase because I know you appreciate that. It's barely been three weeks." Pike neither hesitates or pauses, but what he doesn't say still hangs in the air. "We've got less than a quarter of a senior class that we're about to graduate in five days, we lost more ships in a single engagement than we have in the last 70 years, and, to be completely honest, no one is entirely sure how exactly to handle…everything."

"I believe I understand the position in which Starfleet currently finds itself, sir," is Spock's measured reply.

"It's been assumed," Pike soldiers on. "That when this semester closes, you're going to resign your commission and rejoin your people."

"That was, indeed, my initial plan."

The emphasis does not go unnoticed.

"You're saying you've reconsidered?" Pike asks immediately. When Spock nods his affirmation, he can see signs of tension leaving the captain's body. The line of his shoulders becomes less harsh and he leans back in his chair.

"Well, that's a hell of a relief. I was not looking forward to trying to convince you away from that. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn't want to." Spock does not mention that had the extraordinary circumstance that caused him to change his position not occurred, there would certainly have been nothing that Captain Pike, as much as Spock respects him, could have done to dissuade him.

"Would I then be correct in my assumption that this is not a disciplinary meeting?" Spock asks instead.

Pike chuckles, a short bark of such genuine mirth that it curtails Spock's pronounced dislike of being laughed at.

"The admiralty wants you to stay on. Badly," Pike replies. "They're going to give you the Enterprise, Spock."

Spock shifts his feet, slides forward in his chair, then realizes what he has done and rights himself. When he speaks it still comes out confused, and he wonders not for the first time if Pike is joking with him in an entirely inappropriate manner.

"Captain?" he inquires, torn between awe and incredulity, seeking an affirmation of the assertion he just heard twelve seconds ago.

"Yeah, that's what they'll call you," Pike says around a smile.

Spock, naturally, does not return the gesture. "My conduct during the mission was not always…as efficient or objective as it could have been."

Spock has always been extraordinary among his peers. He excels in his chosen primary fields and in numerous others besides. He knows that he is an excellent instructor, an exemplary officer, and would be an asset to any starship in the Federation. Further, he is aware that his superiors know this. It is not arrogance, merely acknowledgment of fact. But this is not a show of confidence that he would ever have predicted. As such, he is unsure whether it is surprise, unwelcome self-doubt, or simply objective questioning of the rationality of this decision that gives him pause.

Pike leans forward, resting one arm on his desk. The amused light has left his eyes.

"Spock, you lost your mother, your planet, the vast majority of your species and, according to every report, it still took intentional provocation to make you act as anything less than a model captain. After which, you willingly stepped down and less than an hour after that, led a successful away mission to save this very planet at great personal risk to yourself.

"I can't comment on what- failures you may have from a Vulcan cultural standpoint and I wouldn't want to. But I can damn well assure you that not a lick of that makes anyone here think that you are unfit to be a captain."

Spock has no ready response, but Captain Pike does not seem to require one.

"The board wants to see you tomorrow evening," Pike says, sliding a datapadd across his desk towards Spock. "They also want you to have a preliminary crew roster ready. Senior officers and other key personnel at the very least."

Spock looks down at the offering, still silent, his thoughts racing. And when he remains silent, Pike speaks again.

"You can still change your mind," he offers. "And if you do, you have my best wishes. But if you don't, well, you know what's waiting for you."

Spock picks up the padd.