Chapter Text
Aurie’s revelation that the former lead singer of LLAP had not died a hero during the war and in fact was involved in a terrorist attack on the great and good of Starfleet is confirmed by Tyler and his crew, and the mystery now interesting enough for them, Jim and Aurie find themselves turfed out of the security tent.
“Can they do that?!” Aurie says, incredulously. “We broke it wide open! Now they get to just take it and what, do the easy part and take all the credit?”
Jim laughs. “From your mouth to the chain of command’s ears,” he says.
Aurie harrumphs. “Well I just don’t think it's very fair.”
“You can’t say anything,” Jim says as they walk away. “Not even to Sam.”
Aurie touches his arm and nods. “I have kept secrets before, don’t worry about me. Sam never liked Lyras much anyway.”
They go in search of Sam, and find him in the makeshift lab that had been constructed, having an argument with a Tellarite in full hazmat gear.
“We should get back to SB1,” Aurie says, waving her husband off. “Jim, you were going to go see David tomorrow, right? Do you want to come with us now? There are hourly shuttles from the spaceport, and there’s always seats at this time of night.”
“I should go find McCoy,” Jim says. “But I will come before I ship out. I still want to see your new shuttle, take it for a spin.”
“In your dreams,” Aurie says, and hugs him. “Love you. Don’t be a stranger.”
Jim and Sam hug, neither saying anything. Sam nods, and Jim nods in reply, and Aurie rolls her eyes and leads her husband off into the night.
He watches them go, and takes a deep breath of the cold night air. It’s freezing and he’s still in his Fred Astaire costume, though with the open de-studded shirt it's far more high-class stripper than anything he would have worn.
Jim looks at the sparkling night and thinks about how many heartbroken men in formalwear must have looked out on this city, feeling the same way he does, standing in the discomfort of making a mistake, making multiple mistakes, and wondering how to undo it.
He had hoped that once McCoy gave him the antidote his feelings for Spock would dissipate, float away on the spring breeze, but of course, the feelings he had are still there, the nauseating, gnawing awfulness of heartbreak and anxiety and regret.
Like so many of those besuited men in history, Jim looks at the shining lights of the city of love and makes a decision.
It is nearly three when Jim finds McCoy sitting on the steps of the Palais, staring at the lights of the Eiffel Tower.
“Where have you been? Some of us are thinking about going to karaoke,” Len says. “You wanna come?”
Jim shrugs, but doesn’t answer. “I saw on the group chat. Are you leaving now? Will there be alcohol?”
“Is the space pope reptilian?” Len says. “Come on. And don’t think I didn’t notice you dodging my question. Tell me about it on the way.”
“One minute,” Jim says, and gestures for him to turn around, and when Len finally looks away, he types a message, takes a picture, and with his heart in his mouth, presses send.
Pike’s quarters light up with the flurry of condensing particles until they are restored to solidity, still locked in an embrace.
“I’ve never kissed while transporting before,” Una says against his lips, before she kisses him again. “It's nice. Fizzy?”
She pushes him to sit on his couch, and stands there in her finery, and puts her hand on her hips.
“You’re due for a freak out round about now. Say your piece.”
Chris looks at her like a deer in the headlights. “I’m not freaking out,” he says, but then grimaces at the wobble in his voice. “Okay, fine, maybe I am freaking out a bit.”
Una looks to her imaginary audience and smiles smugly. It says a lot about him that he finds it incredibly attractive.
She knows him too well, because he opens his mouth to say something smooth and debonair but instead he says, “I just think we haven’t accounted for all the variables? We’ve had a very stressful day, we’ve been under the influence of a sex pollen bomb, I literally just got dumped, I don’t want to ruin your chance of command, I don’t want you to get a reputation, because the brass are still sexist even in 2260, I’m not good enough for you, you’re too beautiful to be with the likes of me, I’m your commanding officer and I’ll never be able to send you to a dangerous mission if I finally accept that you are worth more to me than the rest of the ship -”
Una rolls her eyes, and strokes the shoulder seams of her dress, and then the whole thing drops to the ground like magic.
Chris feels his mouth drop open. “You know what? Forget I said anything.”
“I thought as much,” Una says, and steps out of her dress and into his bed, well, couch, without looking back.
Spock, like everyone else who was mostly unaffected, has been volunteered for the kind of long, tedious busywork that always has to be done in the aftermath of a Situation. For him, the bagging and labelling of samples, the taking of atmospheric data, the endless swabbing and processing of the mysterious stains that litter the whole Palais compound is noble work, an essential part of the scientific method. The part that ruffles him is then having to label it all to be shipped off to the gleaming central sciences laboratory in Berlin. He packs the last crate, finishes with security, and then is told that as everyone has been removed from the building, he should return to his ship.
It's a cold night, well past four in the morning, the darkest hour before dawn, and he realises he never went back for his robes. He walks along the pathway towards the transporter point with his arms wrapped around himself for warmth. A buzz on his communicator interrupts his reverie. There are a lot of missed calls and messages, but buried an hour ago is a message to his work number, a blurry picture of Jim, staring at the camera like he wants Spock to come back and touch him, his mouth still red and kiss-swollen from Spock’s mouth.
“Come find me,” the message reads.
Scrolling up in the girls night group chat, Spock finds the name of the bar, and turns around and heads in the other direction.
Spock makes it into the bar after a ten minute brisk walk, just in time to hear a familiar chaotic hooting that sounds like Port Galley on a Saturday night.
The bar is in an old building, the walls are thick stone, and the place is strung with lights that glimmer and twinkle in the darkness. It is packed full despite the hour, with the large round tables near-impassable because of the crowds. He spots his colleagues over by the stage. They look in good enough spirits, probably helped by the shots on the table.
A crying woman finishes singing a desperately sad and desperately off-key song on the stage, and everyone applauds politely.
The emcee comes back onto the stage. He is a bearded drag queen dressed as Marianne, who speaks with an even more exaggerated French accent than the Major, “Up next! We have…Jhim…singing ‘New Regs’! Everyone, put your hands together for Jhim!”
The enterprise crew goes wild, and Jim stumbles up onto the stage. He is clutching a bottle of champagne, and looks rakish and dishevelled as the driving synths of the backing track start.
The first verse is a mess of slurring, but once McCoy climbs up on the stage and jabs him with a hypo and slings his arm around his shoulders he finds the tune somewhat. “Come on everyone, you know the words,” McCoy cheers into the microphone, and Jim gives him a kiss on the cheek.
The crowd does in fact know the words, and a lusty chorus kicks in, which gives Jim his second wind.
One, don't pick up the comm, you know you're only calling ‘cos your drunk and alone
Two, don't let him in, you'll have to do the form again
Three, don't be his friend, you know you'll only wake up on his ship in the morning
Cos if you serve with him
you ain't getting over him.
We got new regs, I count them!
Jim looks up, and sees Spock standing at the back of the bar.
Time seems to stand still, but the music continues. Jim doesn’t say anything, is frozen, and when someone grabs the microphone from him, and starts to sing, he just steps aside for them.
I keep pushing forward but he keeps pushing me backwards
Now I’m standing back from it I finally see the pattern
But my love, he doesn’t love me so I tell myself
I do, I do, I do…
Jim jumps down from the stage and walks through the crowded bar to Spock. Standing before him, champagne still clutched in one hand, the other flexing nervously.
Spock turns and walks out.
“Wait, Spock! Spock!” He hears Jim call after him.
In the street, Spock stops. It has started to rain.
“Jim. I do not think we should talk now,” he says, as Jim catches up to him. “We are both tired and are liable to say things that we wish we had not said.”
Jim shakes his head. “Spock, we got into this situation because we didn’t talk. Maybe we should start talking, and maybe now isn’t the right time, but when will be?”
Jim looks at him like he has been flayed open already. His face is red from the alcohol, and he’s wobbling slightly. There are dark circles beneath his eyes but his lips still look thoroughly kissed, despite the hours. Maybe he has been biting them to keep the memory going.
Spock feels words well up inside him. There’s so much he could say; but he kisses Jim instead. Seizes him and pulls him to him tight, so tight, but the kisses he gives him are gentle, and as the spring rain falls around them Jim kisses him back, and it is lovely, a beautiful, perfect moment.
Letting go, Jim has his eyes closed, which makes what he has to do next easier.
“I can’t,” Spock says, and turns on his heel and walks away.
Behind him he hears Jim sputter, then hears him call out, and then starts running, his impractical shoes slapping on the floor. Spock hears him stumble and trip, and then hears another voice shouting after him, and by the fury and accent it has to be Doctor McCoy, but he resists the urge to look back, opens his communicator and orders a transport back to the Enterprise.
“...two…dun let him in, have to break the bond again…” Jim mumbles against McCoy’s shoulder, 45 minutes later as they stand on the public transporter pad. Jim is now clutching two champagne bottles like they are treasured childhood toys.
“We’re almost there,” McCoy says, soothingly. Tamsin, standing across from them, grimaces sympathetically, but she cannot look either of them in the face.
“Is he going to be alright?” she whispers.
“I can give him a hypo for the hangover, but a broken heart is a tough thing to heal,” McCoy says, “but he’s strong. This isn’t the first, and it probably won’t be the last.”
They arrive into the Farragut’s transporter room and say goodnight. The Captain is there, and Len smiles anxiously at him, suddenly aware of how it looks to be dragging a clearly drunk Jim back home in front of his boss.
“Oh Jim,” Rubin says, patting him on the shoulder. “It's never easy with you, is it? Take him home, Doctor. Tell him I’ll see him for lunch, and not a moment before.”
“Aye sir,” Len says, and hooks Jim’s arm around his shoulder and drag-walks him to the turbolift.
Spock beams back to the Enterprise and goes straight to his quarters. He strips off his clothes and climbs straight into the shower, cranking it to the highest setting and leaning against the wall.
The hum and lights are enough that it momentarily blocks out the horrible roiling feeling in his chest, the nausea he feels when he thinks about the road not taken. He could have bought Jim back here, an echo of their first night. He could have taken him to bed, slept with him, been here in this shower and had Jim’s skin against his. They could have done it, thrown caution to the wind and rebonded their minds for better or worse.
It all seems so simple, once the decision has been made. It cannot be made again.
Or can it?
Jim sent that message, the pictorial evidence of Spock’s mouth on his mouth, and Spock came running back to him. Everyone saw him walk in and leave with him; for all they know they are currently making love in the gardens during the spring rain, or have eloped to Vegas in the next transporter window. For all anyone but Jim and his friend McCoy knows, there was a happy ever after to this terrible, awful day.
Spock gets out of the shower, and looks at himself in the mirror. He looks so different from just that morning. This morning he had hair on his chest and a regulation haircut with regulation sideburns, and now he looks plucked and half-shaven, like some kind of fancy pet.
The haircut is especially terrible now bereft of its product and professional styling. He takes his razor and attempts to make it somewhat even, but after making it worse, just gives up and buzzes it all off.
He washes off the hair clinging to his shoulders, and goes back into his room. His communicator is flashing at him, and he pulls it out and with a fortifying breath, and faces the music.
T’Pring to Spock: Spock, your father has arranged transport back to Vulcan for those affected by the gala. The shuttle leaves at 0730 from Paris Gare du Haut. I request that you be on this transport, if at all possible with your duties.
In all of this, Spock has barely thought of T’Pring. However difficult this is for him, this rank emotionalism and sexual messiness must be abhorrent to her.
He acknowledges her message, and then sits there on his bed, and makes up his mind.
At 0700, Spock squares his shoulders, leans on all his training and human experience, and presses the buzzer on the captain’s quarters.
The soundproofing is good enough that even Spock’s Vulcanised hearing cannot make out what is happening, and so he doesn’t press it again until the sound stops.
There’s a distinct sound of swearing, and then Pike comes to the door.
“Captain, I am aware it is early,” Spock says.
“What's up, Spock,” Pike sighs, leaning across the doorframe casually. “I like this hair better than the last.”
“Thank you. I understand that it is early. However, Commander Chin-Riley is not answering her door and I need approval to leave the ship and time is of the essence as the transport leaves in 30 minutes. I wish to take leave to return to Vulcan to attend to some personal matters.”
Chris leans against the door and shakes his head. “Spock...you have to let her go. You gave it a try, but she isn’t good for you.”
Spock inclines his head. “Sir, Chris, my apologies for not being clear. I am going to go home to visit my mother. I wish for some...home comforts.”
As expected, Pike's face splits open into a broad smile. “Now that is a great idea! Please pass on my regards. Enterprise got hold in place orders for the next 48 hours minimum, but between you and me, the aftermath of last night is going to drag on and on. Someone already leaked footage to the press, and they’re saying we’re all moving command clusters at the minimum. They want me down there coordinating it, so we will likely be on extended leave, so you should be able to have two weeks, no problem.”
“That is fortunate,” Spock says. “Therefore I will let you go back to what you were doing, and update you once I am on Vulcan.”
Pike nods and watches him go, before checking the hallway and closing the door behind him. He slumps on the other side of the door and exhales deeply.
“Do you think he saw me?” Una asks, ducking back up from where she was hiding under a blanket.
“I don't think so,” Chris says. “But I might need a reminder.”
Una’s laugh as she dramatically throws off the blankets is beautiful, and Chris takes in her glorious nude body, everything he ever dreamed of, and so he dives back into their nest of blankets and the thoroughly ruined couch, before he has time to think through what Spock was really asking for.
Jim is proud that in his career he has never once been late to a shift, but his lunch meeting with Captain Rubin is the closest he’s come in a long time.
“Jim, come in,” Rubin says, clearing his desk. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll survive,” Jim says, wincing. “Probably. Maybe? Sorry, sir. I took the hypo, but I think whatever was in those flowers probably did end up affecting me in some way. I feel like death.”
Rubin shakes his head and chuckles. “Well, I’ve got some news. Everything’s gone to shit!” He waves his hands around like a magician presenting a particularly terrible trick. “Trust the admiralty to panic, I don’t know why I’m surprised, it's been a long time since any of them were in any danger, but the events of the gala have got them spooked worse than the war. Not to mention that it’s looking like it was the Romulans, and considering we know so little about them? So the admiralty have already announced that what we need is a root and branch investigation as well as a full-scale reorganisation. I don’t know the full impact yet, but they’ve already announced a complete reorganisation of the command cluster system. We’ve got new orders,” he tosses a PADD across the table. “Beta quadrant.”
Jim takes it and reads it carefully, absorbing everything. “Okay. Wow. When do we ship out?”
“Six days. We’re under Takarai now. Do you know him?”
Jim shakes his head and looks at the PADD.
“He’s alright. The main big change is that our new sister ship is the Potemkin. No more Enterprise for us.”
Jim is careful to not let any of his emotions show on his face. “I know their XO. He’s good,” he says. “We were at the academy together. Gary Mitchell.”
Rubin leans back and tosses the PADD onto the couch. “It’ll be a long time until we’re back in this part of the galaxy,” he says, faux casually. “Do you have anyone you need to see before we go?”
Jim looks at his hands, and shakes his head. “No, sir. You should go see your daughter. I’ll look after the ship.”
Rubin gets up, and Jim mirrors him, but wobbles slightly as he does. The captain clasps his shoulder. “It’ll get better. If anything changes before I’m back, take it. Seize it with both hands. Carol, Spock or whoever. Promise me,” and Jim promises.
His shift is a busy one, and he doesn’t get a chance to look at his personal comm until he’s half way into another shift. The announcement about the changes to the structure and the associated free-movement order means that there are a lot of requests from crew wanting to transfer both off and onto the Farragut, and it is long past dinner when he finally reaches a logical stopping point.
The hangover is still throbbing in his head, so he gets another hypo from sickbay and goes back to his quarters to change.
The room is dark when he gets back, save for the blinking light on his personal comm announcing he has new messages. He stares at it for a moment, then stalks across the room and removes the power cell, and shoves the whole thing in a drawer, and then leaves to go and get dinner.
aq/fedpolitics
- BREAKING: Terrorist attack at the Starfleet gala - all you need to know
- Biologists: Sex Pollen Bomb “badly named”, actually much more boring than that
- Romulans: what this means for colony investments in neutral zone border settlements
- LLAP: their top albums: ranked!
aq/fedpoliticscirclejerk
- Romulans: their top atrocities: ranked!
- Did Romulan terrorists pretending to be Vulcan pop stars attack the gala in order to break up Spock and T’Pring? Idiots on the Commnet Have Theories
- The thread you’re looking for: Master list of who fucked who at the Gala
aq/starfleetgossip
- [Serious] Ceremonial Uniform: WTAF
- I was at the gala: AMA
- Serious discussion of fraternisation regs
- Mapping the incident: Network analysis of interactions at the gala
- What the command restructure means for your next commission
aq/spockwatching
- STARFLEET GALA MEGATHREAD: Who wore what, who fucked who, and so much more!
- EMERGENCY: SPOCK SPOTTED EN ROUTE TO VULCAN WITH T’PRING - THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
- ARE THERE TO BE WEDDING GONGS IN SHIKAHR THIS SPRING???