Chapter Text
Spock holds on tight while the crew works reverently trying to find a way out of the explosion Nero’s ship caused. A thousand calculations flash before his eyes as he stares across the bridge at Jim. At the man he now sees as not just the broken t’hy’la he can never have, but also his Captain he will gladly serve under.
It was tedious, the past couple of days, slipping into a rhythm as the world propelled around them with a crazed, grief-stricken romulan leading the tornado. After an awkward conversation with his father, which revealed that his beloved mother have been his father’s t’hy’la, and a round of verbal threats from Doctor McCoy, the ship had been running at a breakneck speed trying to save the world.
His father had been understanding when he told him that the man who had accused Spock of never loving Amanda was his t’hy’la. In fact, he had shared a memory of Amanda through their familial bond.
“I’m so sorry!” A voice peels out from the girl who had just crashed into Sarek. The Vulcan looks down, a little affronted, as she scoops up her dropped PADDS. He remembers that it is polite to help when another is in a situation such as this girls, even if it was her fault, and he kneels to pick up the remainders of the mess. “You really don’t have to do that, really. It was my fault I was on my way to Xenolinguistics and I noticed I had left the essay due in a different folder and I was either gonna have to run all the way back to my room before class starts or I was going to have to hack into the system and get it from the PADD on my desk, and I just wheeled around the corner not paying attention...”
Sarek got a little lost after that, he also had other things on his mind such as the diplomatic meeting later that afternoon, and thus missed her introduction.
“Hey.” A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face. He stood up immediately, disliking the noise as it was too loud for his ears, and thrust the objects he had taken back to the girl without looking at her. “Hey, man, are you alright?”
Sarek just looked at her in return, confusion pulsing through him as he tried to name this new feeling. Where was T’Grea’s bond? Why couldn’t he feel it in his head? Was that a new bond?
“Hey!” Suddenly the entirety of Sarek’s thoughts zoomed in on the hand on his arm, and the woman it belonged to. She was searching his face for a sign of something, anything, and apparently he wasn’t giving it to her because she started to tug at his robes. “Come on, I think you need a doctor.”
He didn’t move, didn’t respond, just stared.
What the hell was wrong with freaking Vulcans?
Amanda let go of his arm. If he wasn’t going to do anything to help himself than she wasn’t going to miss class over his weirdness. There was a doctor she had dated once sitting over at the table on the other side of the room, maybe she could ask him to help out with-
“Excuse me?” Amanda snapped her head up at the sound of the man’s voice. She raised an eyebrow at him. Now she was good enough to talk to?
“Yeah?” She prompted when he didn’t go on. She’s in for a real reaming when she finally gets to class.
“I apologize for my earlier behavior, I have been compromised.” He said softly, still watching her with that strange expression, as if she was the only thing in the world. It made her a little uncomfortable. At the same time, though, was compromised some Vulcan thing for sick? Did this guy actually need a doctor?
“Do you need help?” She asked slowly. What if the guy was a total freak and he kidnapped her and sacrificed her to a Vulcan God or something? Nobody knew a lot about Vulcans, they were super secretive, so what if he-
Geez, xenophobic train of thought or what, Amanda? Get a hold of yourself. She scolded herself. He’s probably just busy and distracted.
“I am unsure.” He said finally. She shifted from foot to foot for a minute, guesstimating how much class time she would miss if she took this guy all the way down to the infirmary. “May I inquire your name?”
Amanda was a little stunned, to say the least. First he ignored her, then he stares at her and now he wants to know her names. If she gets the job she’s hoping for - she wants to help improve the Universal Translator - than she is going to stay the hell away from Vulcans.
“I’m uh...” She looked around a little desperately. An Orion, a friend of hers actually, glanced over and caught her eyes. After a brief eye battle that was probably really weird looking to other people she got up and walked towards Amanda. “Hey, Yulla.”
“Hey, you alright?” Her new best friend wrapped a strong arm around her, pushing her own chin up and leveling a penetrating stare on the Vulcan. He didn’t even flinch. “Who’re you?”
“My name is Sarek.” He said evenly, accepting her challenge. “I work under the Ambassador to Earth, Sasak.”
“Well I’m Yulla, I work on keeping random dudes away from my friends.” Amanda kind of wanted to facepalm right there, but she settled for turning bright red instead. Sarek raised an eyebrow.
“I am a Vulcan, therefore not a ‘dude’.” Amanda really couldn’t help the little snort that expunged from her nostrils. It was just the way he had said dude, like a disease, it was too funny.
“Well then, I’m Yulla, I work on keeping random dude Vulcans away-”
“Oh my gosh, Yulla, stop.” Amanda laughed, pushing her away a little. Yulla inclined her head, asking if she was okay, and Amanda nodded in return. She decided internally to buy the Orion a drink for her help. “I’ll see you in Star Charting, all right?”
“Whatever.” Yulla said, throwing her hair over her shoulder. With one last glance at Sarek, and the classic ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ gesture, she walked back to her table. Amanda rolled her eyes and turned back to Sarek.
Okay, so he probably wasn’t creepy, just focused on trying to make the connections between Vulcan and Earth a little smoother. Amanda decided. Plus he’s kinda cute with the ear thing.
“I apologize if my behavior has offended you.” Sarek said suddenly. “It was not my intention.”
“No no, you’re fine. I don’t know it’s just a little weird to not say anything when people talk to you.” Amanda said. She immediately internally smacked herself, though, upon hearing the words tumble out of her mouth. She’s probably gonna cause a diplomatic incident or something if she doesn’t shut the hell up. “Sorry, uh...let’s start over? I’m Amanda.”
She stuck her hand out for a handshake.
Spock had learned that his father had actually shook her hand back, daring to touch her just to confirm that she was indeed his t’hy’la. Then his cousin, whom was the Ambassador at the time, Sasak had seen and he was verbally reprimanded and Amanda hadn’t talked to him for three weeks until finally he cornered her in the library and explained what t’hy’la was.
“Why did you wait for so long to speak with her?” Spock had asked.
“She was a stubborn woman, you know that, and she was only stubborner when she was younger. I tried to tell her I was not ‘copping a feel’ as she put it, simply attempting to confirm a hypothesis, but she refused to hear my words.” Sarek got the closest to a smile Spock had ever seen when not around his mother. “Finally I asked her intimidating friend Yulla to tell me her location after three weeks of fruitless advances. Naturally, the Orion girl lectured me and slapped me across the face,” Spock almost slipped and smirked at that. “before I told her everything and then I met with Amanda in the library.”
Spock had absorbed all of this like a sponge. Knowledge of his mother was more important now than ever before, and although he had heard many times before that his parents had met at the academy they had never gone into detail.
His father had given him his mothers side as well, from what he cultivated from their bond, for which Spock was grateful.
Later, looking back on their conversation, Spock wishes he had asked his father more questions so that in this moment, when everything was going to hell around him and he still could not move or do anything but stare at Jim, he would be able to imagine how Jim might have felt if they had met at the academy. If Spock had decided to bring Jim into his office instead of making a scene with the charges for the Kobayashi Maru, and Jim had accidentally touched his hand or something when he was handing over a PADD.
What would have occurred if Spock had invited Jim to dinner? If they had dated for a while, it was legal for a cadet to engage in a romantic relationship with an instructor as long as said cadet was not in the professor’s class, and Spock told Jim about t’hy’la over a candlelit dinner instead of strangling him? How would the world be different if Jim had been there to comfort Jim when his mother died instead of Nyota?
“Spock!” He was yanked from his montage of ‘what ifs?’ by his captain calling out to him. He rushed forward, holding onto the chair Jim was sitting in. “What do we do? I don’t know what to do!”
Spock opened his mouth, a string of automatic instructions falling from his mouths on the possibilities of the ship surviving an explosion such as the one they were being sucked into.
“Shut up and tell me what to do!” Jim shrieked, seizing Spock’s wrist. Spock yanked it back, he was not worthy to touch his t’hy’la in such a way, and missed the hurt expression on Jim’s face.
“Mr. Scott-” Spock tried instead, but was cut off.
“Scotty’s stuck trying to keep the engines from over exhaustion, he can’t help us.”
The hull started to crack and a few crew members let out shouts of anguish. Spock and Jim watched in matched horror as the ship propelled into the explosion after the wrecked Narada.
“It was a pleasure working with you, Jim.” Spock murmured on a whim as the glass cracked more and more. His captain turned in his seat and looked at him, opening his mouth to speak when everything went dark.