[Spock doesn't think about the other one - the older one - often. They are decidedly not the same, and while it's still uncertain if he'll become an Ambassador someday it'll be by a new path, different means. Nero had ensured as much, and the very nature of their reality meant that a great many things were different. No doubt the original crew had been assigned and weathered their missions, whereas theirs had come together, forged through crisis, well before that.]
[Yet-]
He would.
[He stares at the curtain separating the two apartments moving with the slight breeze. Up until a few weeks ago he had still been upset, he had told McCoy what he thought the doctor should have heard from someone, that he wished it'd been him, instead of Spock, at the other side of the glass. Spock thought it the proper thing to say, and now, he realises just how human of him that was, to offer comfort. Was it untrue? No. It had been what he'd thought was right, at the time, and he wasn't going to retract the statement.]
[Perhaps... he's less lost. He is definitely less scared.]
The crew is all we have left.
[He looks at Jim, with an expression of complete compassion, and mutual understanding. I can't allow you to do that, Jim says, a lifetime ago, before they beam to Nero's ship. I'm coming with you. He had melded with the other Spock, on Delta Vega, that was how-- he had known. To target Spock's mother. He'd held his tongue aboard the Jellyfish, too.]
[Their Jim, the one who's sitting on the bridge of the ship right now, back home, Spock wonders if he's thinking this too.]
[The only sound is his quiet, regulated breathing, then-]
If you still desire a mind-meld, I will acquiesce.
[Now now, he hopes, but perhaps, when they are both... calmer. Or now, since Jim says there's no time like the present quite often.]
no subject
[Spock doesn't think about the other one - the older one - often. They are decidedly not the same, and while it's still uncertain if he'll become an Ambassador someday it'll be by a new path, different means. Nero had ensured as much, and the very nature of their reality meant that a great many things were different. No doubt the original crew had been assigned and weathered their missions, whereas theirs had come together, forged through crisis, well before that.]
[Yet-]
He would.
[He stares at the curtain separating the two apartments moving with the slight breeze. Up until a few weeks ago he had still been upset, he had told McCoy what he thought the doctor should have heard from someone, that he wished it'd been him, instead of Spock, at the other side of the glass. Spock thought it the proper thing to say, and now, he realises just how human of him that was, to offer comfort. Was it untrue? No. It had been what he'd thought was right, at the time, and he wasn't going to retract the statement.]
[Perhaps... he's less lost. He is definitely less scared.]
The crew is all we have left.
[He looks at Jim, with an expression of complete compassion, and mutual understanding. I can't allow you to do that, Jim says, a lifetime ago, before they beam to Nero's ship. I'm coming with you. He had melded with the other Spock, on Delta Vega, that was how-- he had known. To target Spock's mother. He'd held his tongue aboard the Jellyfish, too.]
[Their Jim, the one who's sitting on the bridge of the ship right now, back home, Spock wonders if he's thinking this too.]
[The only sound is his quiet, regulated breathing, then-]
If you still desire a mind-meld, I will acquiesce.
[Now now, he hopes, but perhaps, when they are both... calmer. Or now, since Jim says there's no time like the present quite often.]