I couldnāt believed what I had written into this blog. When Iām old enough to reminisce about past life, I would surely look and read these little whines, complaints, regret and all the things Iāve said. Today, a great actor, Alan Rickman, passed away. And I could not believe that Iām writing this but this is the first time I write about an actor in this way, which shows that I admire him strongly. I hadnāt meant for this piece of writing to be about him but my mind told me so. I feel like I need to do this, to at least record this happening Ā and my feelings towards it. I almost chucked and threw my phone across the room when I knew the news, which was a silly but reasonable thing to do. And I wanted to cry but no tears came out, I wanted to do nothing but pondered over the news all night long. It must have been so hard for their family, losing a great man like that. But the world will never forget about him, no matter how much time pass, we will chant his name, write his words over our tombstone and re-reading Harry Potter and crying when Snape dies for the umpteenth time. Yes, we will do that, I will do that.
Iām gone for the day.
Left for the day.
Iām in a better reality.
A real reality
Surrounded by pure life.
Itās no longer all a lie
I left for the day.
I shall never return to the reality of humanity.
Nature has a balance
No greed of humans can take that all away
I shall live with the earth
Instead of just existing
Instead of just taking
Lets make a change
But first leave your reality.
Jimās fingers dig into Leoās arm, but Spockās stoicism has (thankfully) taken over his face (their face, but it was his first).
"Bones." One word, but they have never needed more. Leo can hear, under the word, all the pleading and fear. "You donāt have to do this."
("Donāt take that risk.")
Leo looks back. Spock doesnāt resist, nor does he speak. Leo can feel Spockās guilt. It wasnāt your fault.
Jimās eyes dart frantically over Leoās face. āThey donāt know that this will work. You could die.ā
Leo opens his mouth. He wants to point out there will always be a risk that he could die. Spock stops him. Jim is emotionally compromised. This will not ease his fear. In fact, it will likely increase his anger. Leo closes his mouth, as they both can see the fear metabolizing into anger already, turning Jimās wide eyes stormy.
"You know what, fine. If you want to risk your life in this idiotic ritual that we donāt know will even work, you just do that. But donāt expect me to be here to watch you die."
The pleading is there, hidden in a tremor between you and die. Leo notices, but Spock almost misses it. What does it mean?
("Donāt die, too.") Leo translates for him.
Oh. Leo feels another wave of guilt. He sighs. āWeāll find you when itās over.ā
"Donāt." Jimās voice is a warning and a finality rolled in one. He turns heel and walks away, and both Spockās and Leoās heart reach after him. Spock recoils.
"Donāt start that now. Iām doing this for you." Leo murmurs. (Thereās a flash back, to dancing blue eyes and the equivalent of a Vulcan smile. Leo feels Spockās heart warm, tinged with surprise that he held such a memory in him. Leo himself only feels numbness. His jealousy had dried up long ago.)
Jim loves you as well. Spock whispers, and Leo feels he is not yet beyond jealousy.
"Itās not the same."
It is.
"Keep that to yourself, Spock." I donāt need another false hope.
"Doctor?" The Vulcan woman tilts her head in confusion.
"I was talking to- well, not you, miss. Donāt worry. Itās a nervous habit." An unfortunate one at that.
I didnāt ask you, Spock. He follows the elaborately dresses woman.
She is nervous. Spock, Leo warns. His stomach is twisting in knots. I apologize, Doctor. I often cannot help my observations. I know.
"Fal-tor-pan is a dangerous ritual, for both the bearer and the soulā¦" She doesnāt finish the sentence. How illogical. Sheās a girl, Spock, let her be. That may mean death for us both, Doctor.
Leo looks at the girl. Her hands shake, but her spine is straight, and her gaze level. āI trust you.ā
She blinks. āLie down, Doctor McCoy.ā
~
Extracting a soul is precise work, Leo learns through the bond with this girl (and she is a girl, to her own people and his, making her young indeed). When Spock died, he had not been thinking clearly. He had made quite a mess of inserting his soul into Leoās.
Still, this girl, Tālar, after he grandmother, was a sure touch. She claims, through the bond, she is borrowing Leoās surgical skill. Spock had chosen wisely.
Spock claims to know this. Leo knows better.
Because Leo can feel it now, how Spock had fought death, fought hard so that a pair of deep blue eyes would smile again. To wipe away the fear that should never cloud that radiant face.
Jimā¦
Leo fought, too. He fought so many times, to bring those blue eyes back from death. Jim seemed to be drawn to it, honestly. The way he looked as he was dying (a look Leo had seen far too often) was like a boy in love: longing.
And maybe Leo had been so concerned with keeping Jimās eyes off death, he forgot that another pair of eyes also watched death like a boy in love.
I did not intend to die, Doctor. I had just found a reason to live.
There is a flashback to a windy cave. It had been hurricane season, which in that godforsaken desert meant sandstorms. The sky and air a muddy, bloody color with fine disk-like granules that left tiny razor cuts in the dermis. Static electricity made the air taste like ozone and feel alive. Jim had burst out laughing five minutes in as Spockās hair stood perfectly on end like a pin cushion and Leoās became a mess of cowlicks.
Jim wasnāt laughing ten minutes later when a sand creature drops from the sky and Spock pushes both him and Leo into a crevasse. Jim is clawing at Leoās chest to get free, to help Spock, who is clearly losing this battle, but Leo saw the determination in Spockās eyes, and the knew from his glance at the tricorder readings on the things electrical signals that Jimās human nervous wouldnāt stand a chance. Spockās wouldnāt hold much better, but if it were a choice between Spock and all threeā¦? So he bites the bullet and holds Jim down, and knew when Jim started sobbing in desperation that he would never be forgiven.
Together like that they listen to Spock die.
When the sandstorm peters out and all there is left to hear is Spockās labored breathing, both scramble out of their cover. It takes Leo five seconds to determine the electrical burns are far too much, he canāt do anything.
Jim mustāve read that off his face. Leo wishes he could say hatred was Jimās next emotion, but all he saw was raw, infinite anguish, his entire expression twisting in grief. Jim cries like a child, and it breaks Leoās heart.
He doesnāt realize theyāre both griping Spockās hands until heās shocked, and they go limp.
[Spock joins in here. The shock was his katra. Spock was fighting, fighting to protect his brother, his lover, his friend. Fighting so the clouds will clear and the sun will shine. But he could not win this fight. He was going to die. Curiously, unlike his previous near-deaths, he did not want to go. Just as curiously, he felt it was no longer an option.
There is one option.
He can store his katra in a vessel. But it was dangerous, and a sacrifice of a loved one, something most would prefer death to.
But Jim cries like a child, and that breaks Spockās heart.
Already he feels his katra pulling from his body. He can slip into death, or he can slip into one of the hands holding hisā¦ Which? Jim? Leonard would neverā¦
But a warm soul draws him. One of love, and of heartbreak (Jim cries like a child, and that breaks their heart). The soul calls to him. Fight, Spock. Come back. For Jim. And so Spockās katra listens, he fights, and slips next to the warm soul, which envelopes him like the Vulcan sun and lulls his tired katra into rest.]
That is it. That is the moment of coalescence. You are now separate.
~
Leo feels a shock, and Spock is gone.
And strangely this body built for one felt too large for only his soul. The two men blink and rise as one, their eyes searching each other out. Leo can no longer feel what Spock feels.
And yet when Spockās eyes fill with guilt, Leo feels it as well, muted, distant like a radio connection over miles, but there.
Spock blinks. Confusion.
"I felt that." Leo says.
"Yes." Spock answers.
Tālar is unconscious. Moving her seemed polite enough, but they couldnāt stay, they had to find Jim. Leo kisses her forehead and mutters thanks, something Spock calls Illogical and unnecessary, but is grateful for.
Leo would stay longer, he explains, but there was a growing sense of urgency.
Jim.
He was probably halfway across the galaxy by now. Maybe on his way to Earth to burn every bridge between him and Starfleet and the memory of Spock and Leo.
We have to find him.
(There is the memory of a flash of agony as Jim walks away, a tiny falter in his step, and the shaking line of his shoulders. Repressed sobs. Spock had almost missed them, but Leo had read it loud and clear. And it broke their hearts.)
~
Jim does not go back to Earth.
Jim throws himself into the black.
This is far worse than either of them anticipated. He doesnāt want to know anyone. He doesnāt want to risk death taking yet another.
But he is not dead himself.
We must find him. Spock thinks, curled into Leoās chest.
I know. Leo thinks back.
Neither of them acknowledge the bond. Neither of them think about how Spockās katra had, in soul, pressed against Leoās chest like they were now. Neither acknowledged what was growing between them. This was the same way Leo didnāt aknowledge they were hurtling through space in a thin metal box with a nuclear reactor a few feet away, or that his fatherās voice still haunted his dreams. It was the same way Spock did not acknowledge he left home and could never return because it did not exist, or that his motherās warm hand on his shoulder was not real and could never be real again.
They did not acknowledge. They merely slept, and worried.
Jim.
~
When they find him, he is drunk.
Inebriated, Spock thinks as Leo thinks, Wasted.
He canāt say who connects the the slang to that of a dead man, but Spock glares at him, and Leo takes the term back with an apologetic nod.
Spock walks across the room, but Leo stops. He wonāt be forgiven. Especially since the electrical burns have not yet fully healed, and the twitch in Spockās walk and in his left shoulder (nerve damage, literally fried nerves) were immediately obvious.
Spock looks back, his step jerking away. He and Leo had yet to be more than a yard from each other in weeks. Leo shakes his head. Itās not me he wantās to see.
He would not be so anguished if he had lost just one of us. Leo shakes his head. Spock sends him an angry look. You are being childish! He did not love just me!
"Spock?" Itās a low whisper, disbelieving, tangible in a way Leo and Spockās communications have ceased to be. The words fell heavy through the air.
They both break eye contact, and their mental argument, to look over. Jimās eyes are wide, panic-stricken.
"Yes, Jim?" Spock asks quietly. Their Captain relaxes slightly, but spots Bones. When he does, his mouth curves into a bitter smile.
"Bones? So youāre haunting me, too, now? I guess youāve finally died, then. Took you long enough."
Worry floods the bond, more so from Leo than Spock. āJim, Iām not dead.ā
"Yes you are," Oh lord, heās maudlin drunk. This is bad. āYou left me.ā
"No, we didnāt." Spock says, trying to correct him. Itās not going to work.
"You donāt count when youāre ghosts. I mean, I see ghosts all the time."
Spock looks alarmed. Doctor, what do we do? Leo takes a step forward, reaching out, but Jim scoots back, waving a finger.
"Ah ah ah. No touching anymore. Youāre ghosts. I know how this works. You touch, and I get my hopes up, but itās never real touching."
Spock, thatās it. He thinks he canāt feel us. Weāve got to prove weāre physical. Spock nods in his peripherals, which isnāt lost on Jim.
"Oh, what, are the dead telekinetic, too? That must be a drag, having to listen to everyoneās thoughts. Especially for you, Bones, you hated mind-reading."
"Itās unnatural," Leo supplies, stepping closer. Spock does the same. Jim shoots Leo a look, one part anger and two parts grief.
"You sound alive. But you always did." How do you sound dead? Leo ponders, and gets a mental kick from Spock. they close in on the blonde.
"Hey no fair, I thought you two were against tag teaming-" He stops when Spockās hand closes around Jimās wrist. His eyes blow wide. Leo steps back. "Youāre alive."
"Yes."
Jimās eyes lock on Leo, trying to retreat. āBones?ā
One word, but theyāve never needed anything more.
("Are you alive, too?")
He wouldnāt believe Leo without being touched. So Leo sighs, and reaches out to place one warm palm on Jimās shoulder. Jimās eyes close, and all the anger and grief drain away. He almost appears to collapse in on himself.
Relief. Spock reports. And anger. But mostly relief.
He spoke too soon, because when Jimās eyes open, theyāre blue fire and angrier than a cobra with itās tail trodden on.
āYou left me.ā
"To protect you."
"No, donāt give me that, itās always been to protect me. I donāt care. You. Left. Me.ā
"We know."
"We?! What the hell is this?" His eyebrows shoot up in realization and his neutral mask flies up. "Youāve bonded."
Jealousy, Spock tells Leo, with a hint of see I told you.
Shut up, this isnāt a good thing. āHis soul was in my body, Jim, you donāt get much closer than that.ā
