look. here are my thoughts on what Spock does for Jim in The City on the Edge for Forever.
he builds a computer from scratch. in 1930.
he does this because Jim Kirk asks him to. he does this while also working ten hours a day at manual labor. I know Vulcans need less sleep and Spock’s really good at hyperfocusing, but still.
and then he has to rebuild it. so he does it AGAIN, after the first one catches fire on account of being made in 1930.
he does it again because Jim Kirk needs to know what happens to the woman he’s in love with. he does it faster.
and he finds out Edith Keeler must die. but he doesn’t find out that Jim’s in love with her, because he knew that all along, didn’t he?
so after Jim, with his usual subtlety, announces this, Spock blinks. Twice. He’s looking at Jim, even though Jim’s facing away from him.
He knows, of course, that Jim’s many loves don’t make a difference. He knows he’ll always be the one at Kirk’s side, even Edith knew that, but believing it is another story.
Of course, everyone knows that the hardest thing in the world is to watch the people you live in pain. In the next episode it’s Kirk’s turn for this. Spock watches him anyway. He hardly looks away from the back of Kirk’s head. Maybe he’s
You can almost watch him shut down, revert to plain old facts, to repeating what he said already to see if this time it makes sense. Edith Keeler must die.
and then in the hallway, when he is once again logical to the point of callousness, because he just watched Jim kiss her. Spock knows it is cruel to suggest he should have let her break her neck instead. he’s just sealed himself behind so many layers of logic he’s forgotten to be kind.
He’s hiding from both his pain and Kirk’s. He’s watching Kirk’s heart break at the same time his own is getting a beating.
And then he bounces when he sees McCoy, most uncharacteristically, and ten seconds later it’s back to heartbreak, and he makes up for earlier callousness when he speaks for Jim.
“He knows, Doctor.” So does he. But he, unlike Kirk, was not in denial for days. He faced it all three times — sitting behind Kirk in their room, in the hallway next to the stairs, and finally on the street with Kirk and McCoy. And so, by the time Kirk actually has to face the tragedy, Spock has faced it for him, more than once.
And to quote another piece of media I adore — if that’s not love, what is?
