Title: Its Name is Destiny
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS and AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Warning: Short-lived angst?
Disclaimer: Roddenberry, Paramount, rich people. Nope. I am definitely not on that list.
Summary: Reflection on the destiny for our trio.

“Damn it! JIM!”

Leonard doesn’t want to think about what he is doing because if he does, he will scare himself stiff… and he’s already terrified.

Bullets fly. People die.

Once Jim sees Spock’s body jerk sharply, ungracefully, and fold—the Vulcan falling to his knees, then to the earth—Jim Kirk simply does not think and turns back.

Leonard, already coated in somebody’s lifeblood as he staunches an ensign’s wound, is inundated by the Captain’s frantic “Spock!” and has no choice but to take heed.

He relinquishes the easier task of pressing down on the gaping, bleeding hole to another officer and instead picks the more dangerous option. Waiting only for that split-second between spats of gunfire, he pursues Jim and the prone Spock.

Bullets keep flying. More people die.

When the enemy has obliterated most of the invaders, these starship officers, they leave behind silence, stirred dust, and too much stillness.

Spock died before he touched the ground; Jim dies gasping his last breath into a blue shirt stained green, and Leonard lingers, dying slowly and one hand on each man, as he is beamed aboard the Enterprise. Someone talks to him but he only hears the shock of words “nothing we can do, both gone.” It then becomes a simple matter to complete a vicious cycle.

Leonard dies on an operating table with a cracked-open chest and M’Benga trying to will life back into a dead heart.

This is how destiny ends before it begins.

The human named Kirk laughs. Spock does not hear its harmless, friendly quality; he hears derision, mockery, and other nameless things which haunt his past. He says nothing, still believing that a lack of response is his only defense.

Silence does not negate the curl of something painful inside him.

“Jim. Call me Jim.”

“I cannot, Captain.”

“Why?”

Spock lifts an eyebrow. The man beside Kirk, this Doctor McCoy for whom Kirk displays a fondness, elbows Kirk with an exaggeration of facial features which Spock attempts to classify (but cannot).

Captain Kirk ignores his companion. “Why?” is repeated, too casually.

“It is improper, given our current level of acquaintance.”

Kirk frowns while McCoy says “Leave him be, Jim. We’re gonna have plenty of time for you to get under his skin.”

It is impossible for another being the size of Jim Kirk to burrow under Spock’s skin. The Vulcan states this fact flatly.

The doctor fixes a look on him that leaves little room for interpretation. Humans are extremely expressive in this manner and seem to enjoy such intense yet silent displays of emotion.

The commanding officer under whom Spock will serve during the Enterprise’s next five-year mission (possibly longer, he concedes) looks between the doctor and the Vulcan and grins without warning.

“Mr. Spock, I will bow to the doctor’s wisdom—” At McCoy’s snort of disbelief, Kirk emphasizes, “—today. However, I do hope that in time our ‘level of acquaintance’ will expand beyond formalities.”

Spock finds himself nodding once, almost involuntary, in an unspoken acceptance of Jim’s words.

The Captain looks at him for a long moment. Then Doctor McCoy breaks the pause with movement, by stepping around them both with limbs intentionally angled to clear a wide path. McCoy’s sharp eyes spear Spock for another second or two, except in them is a curiosity which supersedes the human’s blatant annoyance.

“You are coming down to the med bay, Mr. Spock?”

Doctor McCoy phrases a question as a statement, and Spock fails to find logic in this behavior. Nevertheless, he replies with the courtesy due to a Chief Medical Officer—and the man who will oversee his health examinations and treatments, if necessary, when the time comes. “I will arrange an appointment with your staff, Doctor.”

The human bobs up and down in place, perhaps as a form of fidgeting, which Spock finds fascinating. However, this action also indicates irritation because the Vulcan is informed, “Well now’s as good a time as it gets for me, Mr. Spock!”

“My presence is required for the last inspections aboard the Enterprise before departure. I will consult my schedule and—”

“Bones,” Kirk reaches out to place a hand on the other human’s arm. Surprisingly, the Captain seems not to need any other words for McCoy to understand what Kirk conveys.

Spock also finds this fascinating—and worth careful observation and consideration at a later date.

McCoy calms, excuses himself to proceed “to wrangle that confounded Requisitions department over missing supplies. Damn it, Jim, what do y’all expect me to do—heal a man with nothin’ but paste and shoelaces? I’m a doctor, not a kindergartener!” and disappears at the turn of the ship’s corridor.

Kirk looks at Spock with the words, “He’ll be a good friend for you,” and laughs.

The Vulcan stiffens, comprehending neither the remark nor the laughter.

This is how destiny begins its beginning.

“I don’t understand.”

“You need not understand, James Tiberius Kirk—only trust that my friendship is as real as I am. Trust in more.”

Jim repeats these words in his mind decades after they are spoken. Spock (an alternate older Spock, strange but true) spoke of bonds that had no choice but to exist in a universe fragmented into shards of cannot be and desperately wrong.

He has Spock. He has Bones.

As if Kirk had summoned him, Leonard McCoy eases down onto the porch swing with a familiar grumble.

“Have a pleasant outing at the market, Bones?” Jim pushes the swing into motion again, rocking them back and forth, back and forth. The day is bright, the smell of grass sweet, and he is alive.

The corner of Leonard’s mouth quirks. “Some baby in a shopping cart asked his mother if he was gonna be as wrinkly and creaky someday as the old man next to ’em in line.”

Jim shades his eyes to watch a bluebird dive for its chattering mate. “So… what did the mother say?”

“She told him to hush his mouth, because it wasn’t polite to shout things like that within hearing distance.”

“And how did you respond?”

“What makes you think I said anything, Jim?”

Jim turns to look at him, smiling. “Because you were the old man.”

Bones mimics a hypospray-stab to the neck as a threat. “I’m retired, not old.”

“Mm. Yesterday, you were retired AND old.”

“Shut up, kid.”

He sighs, content.

They let the wide swing rock them into a lull of companionable silence, soaking up peace and time.

Eventually Leonard reminds them both, like always, “We ought to pack.”

“It isn’t tomorrow yet.”

He gives the same response every year. When the sun has set and Bones complains about the drop in temperature, they will go back inside the farmhouse. Spock—having spent the last hour or two of the afternoon meditating in their absence—will greet them, already halfway through the preparations for dinner. Kirk and McCoy shall seamlessly slip into their roles, knowing the steps of this last traditional meal by heart and by the ease of familiarity with one another.

This is Iowa on Earth, Eden in Heaven, and simply a week in which Kirk, Spock, and McCoy reunite. They dedicate seven days from each remaining year of their lives to camaraderie, to a long history shaped from brotherhood and battlefield, forgiveness and understanding—and bonds that must exist, no matter the backdrop of the universe.

This is how destiny refuses to end.

-Fini

Related Posts:

• Color Me a Vulcan – from October 30, 2010
• Fun Comes In All Forms – from August 7, 2013
• The Skiff – from February 8, 2012
• The Unhappy Holiday – from December 21, 2011
• Sometimes Pants Are For Wearing; Sometimes Not – from August 24, 2011