Spock stared at the young man across the table. The over eager expression on his face reminded the Vulcan strongly of the days when it had been his duty to greet the new crew members assigned to the Enterprise, fresh from the academy and over stimulated by the prospect of their first deep space mission. Most had been ill prepared for the dangers ahead of them. Likewise, this young journalist seemed to be ignorant of the minefield he was about to enter.

The truth of the situation was that in his youth and his exuberance, the young man had crossed a boundary that other more seasoned journalists had avoided. In his quest to do the best most thorough job possible, Mr. Carson Jackson had turned what should have been a basic background piece on the Khitomer Accords into a scandal. The worst of it was, the man was clueless as to the implications of what he had uncovered.

Not that the information he had meticulously compiled from the Vulcan databanks was secret. In fact, it was all public record. Many an individual before him had known of its existence. But, they also knew the reputations of the men involved. They respected them. They knew they owed their lives and their futures to Spock and the crew of the Enterprise and, out of that respect and debt, they had not pried. They had not questioned. And they had not gone looking.

Frankly it was a wonder that some unscrupulous lout had not stumbled upon it earlier, and had the individual in question been a shady dealer in secrets or a no account gossip monger Spock would have insured the matter was dealt with quietly. And that individual would likely have never worked again.

But the young college student before him, working his first internship with a multiworld publication had not acted out of malice or greed. Jackson was simply doing a good job, to the best of his abilities, and the teacher in Spock had acknowledged that the manchild before him showed promise in his chosen field. So instead of unleashing the terror of a Vulcan High Council gag order, or sending a Fleet Admiral to 'talk', Spock had accepted the interview request.
Jackson clearly hadn't been expecting his request to be answered at all, let alone accepted. And if he'd had more experience that alone would have tipped him off that the information he had was more than it seemed. There was something to be said for youth, Spock supposed, but as he was approaching his hundred and thirty-fifth year he was self aware enough to admit that he often found this younger generation dim minded. His mother had often laminated that it was the plight of the old to look at the young with trepidation and worry that they would not be up to the task of running things. She had said it was always that way, and that she drew comfort from the knowledge that her mother and her mother's mother had all thought the same and that some how the universe had managed to continue. Spock could not entirely assuage his worries with the same knowledge.

"So...ah..."Jackson blushed deeply and fumbled with his stylus, making nonsensical markings on his padd. "This is just so amazing, Ambassador. I know how busy you are, and I can't tell you how much it means to me to land this interview with you,"

Spock raised his eyebrow. "Indeed." he stated drily, "I would not have agreed if I did not feel it was in both our best interests."

Jackson swallowed. "I understand why you don't want me recording this, sir, but can you please tell me why you insisted we meet here?" The young man gestured around him to the shelves full of worn, well-loved books. "It would have been easier to have me come to you on Vulcan or to meet half way in between."

Spock's gaze shifted to the nearest shelf, the glass front and climate control system keeping him from reaching out to run a finger along the spines. "This, Mr. Jackson, is the private collection of Captain James T. Kirk. Upon his disappearance I was entrusted with his estate. Over the years, the Captain had acquired a fairly sizable collection of vintage books and it was his wish they could be preserved and shared for the enjoyment of all. So I donated them to a public library here, where he grew up, and used the funds from his estate to pay for the environmental system you see here as well as their ongoing care. Since the Enterprise itself is no longer in existence, and since this interview will likely involve questions predominately from my time there, I wanted to be as close as possible to what remains of that life."

"These books were on the original Enterprise?"

"A few." Spock acknowledged, "but not all. Still, the love the written word was something that nearly all the senior officers shared and Jim was always generous with his collection. When we were in port he would trade for new volumes, and send the old home to Iowa. He relished the chance to locate new volumes from almost every species we encountered. He and Nyota Uhura would spend many hours between missions translating them into Standard. Over the course of our two missions and his time at the admiralty he amassed this personal library that he considered to belong to his crew as much as himself. In return, many of the bridge crew would add to it, until we had one communal collection rather than our own individual libraries. I have read every volume here, Mr. Jackson. As had the Captain, the doctor, Sulu, Uhura..."Spock trailed off, his eyes losing focus." "And so to many others, whose names I am sure you did not learn from your history books. All their hands touched the covers, turned the pages. When I find myself missing their presence I come here, and while I know it is but a fragment of memory, it is almost as if they are with me again - if only fleetingly."

"It must be hard to be the last of them."

Spock's eyes snapped back to the interviewer. "It simply is, Mr. Jackson. What cannot be changed must be endured. I knew that I would one day outlive them, as my father outlived my mother. It is the price that longer lived species pay when they go out among the stars. But that is not why you asked to speak with me."

"No sir." Jackson fumbled with his padd, calling up his notes from the days he'd spent researching background. "I started out looking into the social climate that surrounded the Khitomer Accords, seeing as the 72nd Anniversary is next month. We wanted to run a piece discussing how you were uniquely placed to negotiate the treaty. In order to try and understand how you could do so, after all your years on the front lines of what people are calling the Galactic Cold War, I took a trip to Vulcan to look into some of the records your people have about that time."

"Mr. Jackson," Spock interrupted. "If you are seeking understanding as to my motivations for agreeing to negotiate the treaty, than Vulcan was not the correct location."

"I don't understand. Since you are Vulcan, I assumed the political climate and culture of your world would lend insight into what made you different from other Federation negotiators who were either unsuccessful or refused the assignment?"

"You are operating under the false premise that Vulcan has had the largest influence on my view of the universe." Spock steepled his fingers and looked at the young man with a renewed sense of annoyance. "You are working under the assumption that since I appear Vulcan, and since I currently reside on that planet, that I would cite the Vulcan philosophy as the grounding for such an action. I would ask instead that you look around you. I have spent far more of my life away from Vulcan and her people than with them. While I will not go so far as to discount the ways of Surak and the admittedly essential role they have played in who and what I am, I would say that it is the columniation of all my experiences that lead me to the belief that peace with Klingon was the only way forward for the galaxy, and the determination to follow through with the Accords despite all that transpired."

Jackson's forehead crinkled in confusion. "But sir, you've always said you were Vulcan, despite your dual species background."

"I have always said that I follow the Vulcan way, Mr. Jackson. At no point have I ever considered myself entirely Vulcan. I would argue that even were I not half human, my life spent in Star Fleet and in diplomatic service has left me with a far more eclectic set of values and mores than any one planet could provide."

Spock looked away again, his gaze once more falling onto the well known spines. "My people were the crew of the Enterprise. My home was its halls. Since they are gone I have been a man without an anchor, a soldier without a cause for which to fight. I reside on Vulcan because it offers me access to a network I require for a new venture I am undertaking. It is not my home." Spock shifted his eyes back and held the young man's attention with a harsh glare. "But we both know that you are no longer interested in what compelled me to seek a lasting peace with a once mortal enemy. Your communication indicated you have discovered a previously unreleased document."

Jackson frowned. "I almost didn't mention it. It didn't seem terribly important. At least, the woman that was working in the archives that day didn't seem too concerned about copying it for me when I asked."

"She is Vulcan. Unless you are familiar with the species it can be difficult for humans to grasp our more subtle social ques." Spock let out a measured breath. "However, she contacted immediately after to inform me of your interest."

"So what does it really mean?" Jackson produced a second padd and called up the image of the document. "According to Star Fleet records, and Federation files, you have never been married. But this seems to indicate that you've been thrice bonded?"

Spock nodded. "The Vulcan people have many kinds of bonds, Mr. Jackson. That document is simply an internal clan record for dates of mate bonding in my father's House. While most humans equate a mating bond to marriage they are not same. A human or a Vulcan marriage indicates some level of exclusivity, and typically co-habitation, which is not the case for a Vulcan mating bond."

"Is that why your father's wife Paren is not listed?"

"Correct. They are not bonded, however they are legally married within Vulcan and Federation law. On Vulcan this is considered highly unusual since most legal marriages are precipitated by a mating bond, but their situation is unique."
"But this says you were bonded three times?"

"That document deals specifically with a tribond." Spock corrected. "It is a specific kind of bond designating the nature of a single relationship."

"One relationship? So one person?"

"One relationship yes, but not one person." Spock raised an eyebrow. "In the vein of full disclosure, I have been bonded three distinct times with separate bonds, the tribond being only one incidence, but Zarabeth is not listed in clan records do to a technicality and the bond I share with she who is my wife is not listed because she did not wish it to become public knowledge. I ask that you enquire no further into that matter at this time. I was also betrothed as a youth, which could be considered a fourth bond, but it was dissolved without maturing."

"Can you spell the name you mentioned?"

Spock patiently spelled out Zarabeth's name, glad that the youth did not seem interested in pushing for more information on Saavik. "You will find no record of her, Mr. Jackson. She and I were not long in each other's company and she passed long ago. The mission on which we met is still classified."

"Was she an officer?"

"She was not in Star Fleet. In fact, she was not human. Her species is little known."

"What is it?"

"That information is classified."

"When did you meet her? Was it on the first mission?"

"Classified."

"How long were you together?"

"Classified."

"What can you tell me about her?" Jackson asked, his voice slightly louder with his frustration. "I mean, I'm not harassing you about your current wife, which I'm sure will drive everyone crazy trying to figure out who it could be. At least give me something!"

"The entire situation was so highly classified at the time that I was unable to even inform my clan of the bonding and the circumstances of my separation from her. It was only after you contacted me that I received permission from Fleet to share her existence with my clan archivist and have her name honored as it should be in the Hall of Ancestors."

Jackson scratched his head. "So if she's not part of the thrice bond?"

Spock leaned back slightly in his chair. "If you look closely at the document in your hand, you will notice that there is a qualifier."

"t'hy'la?" the journalist mangled the pronunciation but Spock did not bother to correct him. "What does that mean?"

"It is a complex notion, one I do not find a parallel for in modern earth history. There were a few examples that touch on aspects of it, most notably from your classical Greek and Roman eras." Spock hesitated slightly. "It is a relationship that carries no expectation of sexual fidelity, and is not intended for the raising of children or the maintenance of a household. It is never the less a life long commitment and of all the bonds I have held and will hold it will always remain the most fulfilling."

"I'm sure your current wife won't appreciate that."

Spock's eyes twinkled slightly. "She knew them well, Jackson. She holds no jealousy towards them and understands that I hold her equally in my regard. But the nature of our bond is different, the dynamics and purpose more intentional than what the tri-bond provided. It is no less, I assure you, but it is different and due to our natures we often find that we hold more of ourselves back from the other. With Jim and Leonard that was never the case."

The journalist's hand stilled on his notes and he looked up in shock. "Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy?"

Spock leaned back in his chair and could not help enjoying the expression on the other man's face. Leonard would have said he looked pole axed. "Indeed."

"You were bonded to Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy – the Kirk and McCoy?"

"Yes." Spock let a very small smile lift the corner of his mouth. "We are t'hy'la – even in death they are with me, although I maintain that Jim is not deceased, only adrift too far for me to reach. There is a very real difference."
Jackson waved off the assertion. "So you've have said before. But what is t'hy'la? And why is this bond listed as a mating bond?"

"Because, while t'hy'la bonds do not necessarily have a sexual aspect, they usually tend in that direction." Spock regarded the youth carefully. "T'hy'la is a bond between warriors, Mr. Jackson, a bond between brothers of purpose and forged through trial and pain. It is a thing indescribable and it cannot be created artificially; it must develop slowly over time. I am thrice bonded because not only were there three of us constituting the bond, but because it served three purposes: that of mating bond, t'hy'la bond, and familiar bond. A thrice bond is the second most revered type of bond to the Vulcan people."

Jackson looked confused for a moment. "What's the most revered? A quadbond?"

"Yes." Spock was starting to enjoy the astonished look the young journalist kept tossing him. "A quadbond will have the three just mentioned as well as elements of a marriage bond. While we had contemplated taking that last step we decided mutually that there was little point in it since we were unlikely to find ourselves caring for any more children and since both of my partners preferred to exercise more freedom of choice in sexual partnerships than would be considered proper in a marriage by human or Vulcan standards."

"You had sex with Captain Kirk." Jackson seemed to have become stuck on that one point and Spock waited patiently for him to make the other connection. "Wait, are you telling me that you, Captain Kirk, and Dr. McCoy were all…" he fumbled for a word, "a threesome?"

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I believe that is what I have said."

Jackson blinked. "That's…that's incredible. And you've kept it a secret till now?"

"We had no reason to reveal it. I would not have made it public at all if you had not located that document and made your request to see me." Spock turned away slightly and eyed the shelf where Dickens was held, his voice taking on a decidedly melancholy tone despite his efforts at control. "Jim is beyond my reach and with Leonard's passing six months ago I am almost the last of the Enterprise crew left alive. We do not know what happened to Mr. Scott. Uhura is in failing health. Chekov and Sulu are also gone. Rand, Chapel, M'Benga, Bailey- all dead. Everyone on the Enterprise knew; I am relatively certain Command knew as well. It was not a secret, Mr. Jackson. We simply choose not to discuss it publically. But soon the day will come that I will be the only one remaining who can remember what we were, how we were, and I find that I do not relish the thought that history should forget this part of their lives. I owe it to them to tell the story and record it. It is perhaps my last duty to them."

"You loved them."

"Yes." Spock did not dissemble. He turned his gaze back to the reporter and held his attention. "We were three parts of one soul, Mr. Jackson. I am less without them."

"But you married someone else?"

Spock sighed and stood up slowly from his chair to walk nearer the cases, his hand trailing aimlessly over the glass doors. "Jim was gone and while Leonard and I cared very much for one another we have always shared a tempestuous relationship. Jim was the element that allowed our volatile natures to mix." Spock stopped at the case that held McCoy's collection of western novels. "We were never apart for long, especially towards the end, but we both needed space to ourselves. There are also certain biological considerations that came into play. Leonard approved of my choice. As I said, she was not a stranger to them."

"But you won't reveal her name?"

"She does not wish for it to be public knowledge and I have agreed with her logic on the matter. And more to the point, this is not her tale. This is the story of James T. Kirk and Leonard H. McCoy and what we were, what we are." Spock opened the case and took out a weathered paperback, its ancient pages preserved in a chemical coating of his own design. "I found this book during one of our first shoreleaves together in a little market stall near the neutral zone. How an early copy of Zane Gray's work managed to make its way into the hands of a Tellorite pawn broker I will never know. I worked for weeks on a formulae to stop the acidification and still allow the pages to turn." Spock smiled very softly and ignored the sharp intake of breath from the young journalist. "I wrapped it in real paper I'd had mother send to me on a diplomatic shuttle we were scheduled to escort. She was delighted to find out that I was, for the first time, in love. Leonard knew the instant he saw the package how much work it had been to locate true wrapping paper in deep space and when he first touched the book there were tears in his eyes." Spock placed the book gently back on the shelf and moved to the next case.

A leather bound copy of Moby Dick, the binding turning to a soft yellow power despite the preservation work, lay inside and Spock removed it from the case with great care. He brought the volume up to his nose and breathed deep for a moment. "The smell of a decaying leather binding always clung to Jim whenever we were between missions. He would fall into the pages of one of these, his old favorites, and we would have to remind him to eat. He would laugh like a schoolboy as he read them, and Leonard and I would often sit and watch him, pretending that we were engaged with our own reading material. This book sat on the shelf above his bed during the first five year mission and again when we were given the Enterprise A."

Spock gently placed the book back down and ran his fingers over the cover as if in a caress. "Yes, Mr. Jackson, I did engage in sexual intercourse with both the captain and the doctor. But that was not the totality of our relationship. It was not even the most memorable or the most potent. It was, in fact, the least of our relationship and brought on more by close proximity and the trials of a long deep space mission than any other reason I could give you. I am not minimizing its importance, but you humans place more emphasis on the physical then is wise or true."

"It didn't hurt that Kirk was a womanizer? Every history book talks about how flippant he was in romance- a right cad."

Spock turned sharply. "Jim Kirk was hardly a cad. Granted, he turned many a female or male eye, but you will be hard pressed to find truth in any testimony from any man or woman that he treated them lightly. When Jim loved he did it without reservation. And he did not engage in a physical relationship if he did not feel very deeply for the individual. He was a masterful conversationalist and he used his charm to his advantage in diplomacy as well as battle. But every romance he had, every woman and every man he took to his bed, he would have died for. Make no mistake on that, Mr. Jackson. I saw the man prostrate with grief on more than one occasion over the lose of a lover. Do not make light of his devotion to them."

"And that doesn't bother you? That he loved so unreservedly?"

"Why should it?" Spock raised an eyebrow. "I was one of the few who were privileged enough to know him, to experience the gift it was to be counted among those he loved. And as for Leonard, we both of us had our scars from the past. He and I were more similar than at first it would appear. We do not love easily and we do not allow even those we hold dear to see beyond the masks we wear." Spock turned away again, unable to look at the youth any longer as he explained. "Leonard was six years senior to Jim and three earth years older than myself. He'd a family and life before Star Fleet. In many ways he was the elder of our group, the conscious, the voice of emotional wisdom. But he did not want to let us in, did not want to let us love him. He'd been hurt too many times and it took many years before Jim and I were able to make him truly believe that we cared for him. He found pleasure in a kind of casual physicality that neither Jim nor I were capable of. If the truth be known, Leonard was the one who was most given to casual sexual relationships, for that was primarily all he would allow himself. But this did not bother us, for we understood him."

"This is all a little hard to grasp. Its very unusual."

"For humans, I suppose it is." Spock shrugged, his back still turned to the table where the journalist was scribbling furiously into his padd, his reflection wavy but clear in the glass of the cases. "Such bondings are not unusual on Vulcan and while I do not know exactly what they thought when it began I know that by the time the bond was matured between us, they considered it as natural to them as breathing."

"So you shared mental contact?"

"We still do." Spock clarified softly. "I was with Leonard at his passing and while the human mind does not have the ability to pass a katra as Vulcans would understand it, a portion of him remained with me at his death. And while I was not with Jim when he disappeared the bond is still active. I can feel him alive somewhere – somehow. His mind sleeps but he lives. My attempts to locate him have failed and while I will never give up hope, Leonard and I had to concede that there was nothing more we could do and after a few years we moved on as we knew Jim would have desired of us."

"What will you do now? With Dr. McCoy's death, where does that leave you?"

Spock's head lowered and he spoke with a chilling calm. "I have one last duty to preform for the world of my birth – one last mission that I must complete even if they do not yet understand the need for it. I am leaving, Mr. Jackson. It is doubtful that you will see me again, and even more unlikely that I will return to Federation space prior to my death."

Jackson stood and moved towards and Spock allowed the youth the rare privliage of laying a hand on his clothed arm. "You can't mean that. Mr. Spock, we need you. You're…you're the last hero of the Enterprise left."

Spock gazed at the young man, a twinge of fondness for his youthful understanding of the universe showing in his dark eyes. "You do not need me, kan. You need the stories and the adventures that time has built into myth. So I will go, fade into the stars as I should. This was the last duty I owed to the two men who shaped my life and now that I have paid it, I go towards my last and final adventure. Someday, if you remain as dogged a reporter as you are now, she-who-is-my-wife will find you and finish the last chapter of this tale." Spock patted his hand gently before removing it from his arm. "Stay here a while, kan. Read the books that we read and dream our dreams."

With those parting words Spock left the room, his ambassadorial robes making a swirl of heavy fabric around his legs. He supposed it appeared dramatic, given the youth's quickly in drawn breath. Saavik was waiting for him, to say her own goodbyes, and there was a ship waiting to carry him to Romulus. He would not be here to see the story when it was written. He could only hope the child did them justice.