Title: Afterwards - Another Perspective

Author: EmGee

[mgtrek@altavista.com]

Series: TOS A/U - "Trefoil" Series

Rating: PG-13 for mature themes. No sex or violence.

Codes: Kirk/Spock/f, McCoy

Archive: Yes, with permission

Warnings: Major angst. Post-character death. Get out your hankies.

Summary: Withheld by author's choice

Comments: Follows my story "Home From the Hill." An expanded version of my drabble "Afterwards."

Disclaimer: Paramount owns 'em (except for Claire Kendall, who's my own creation) and never lets 'em do anything interesting. So here
they get to have a life (or death, as the case may be). Paramount can have 'em back later, safe and sound.



AFTERWARDS - ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
By EmGee

Afterwards, I was surprised that they hadn't come to wake me. That they hadn't dragged me out of bed as they had twice already that week.

Maybe it was just as well. There was nothing for me to do, anyway. Oh, I could have injected some cordrazine, kept him going a few more hours perhaps, but that wouldn't have given any of us what we really needed.

When Spock did come for me, the birds had already begun to sing, and I was half-awake. I heard the door but I didn't open my eyes. Then he said my name. My given name. That alone was rare enough, but I heard something in his voice and in a single motion I was sitting, my feet on the floor and my eyes wide open. And in the first look, I knew.

"Jim is dead," I said.

Afterwards, I thought about all the times I had said words so like those: "He's dead, Jim." I'd hated every one of those times but, God help me, I would give anything to say the words again. Because it would mean that he wouldn't be the one who was gone.

Spock crossed to the bed and sat beside me, heavily, as if his legs wouldn't support him any more. He laid his hand on mine, another most rare event. Afterwards, I tried to remember when, or even if, it had ever happened before, and I couldn't. Twenty years or more we had known each other, and he had never before reached out to me in this common gesture of comfort.

"When?" I asked.

He paused, thinking. "About an hour ago," he said. Afterwards, I realized how unusual it was for him to be so imprecise.

"Tell me," I said.

His fingers trembled faintly on my knuckles. "He was conscious, and able to speak," he said. "He was not in pain. He was at peace, at the last."

The words echoed in my head, the way he'd spoken them, like a mantra. I said the first thing that came to mind. "A good death, then."

"Yes," he whispered. "A good death."

Then he did something remarkable. He turned toward me and, closing his eyes, slowly leaned forward and rested his forehead on my shoulder. It was the act of a man who simply *couldn't*. Couldn't function, I mean. A grief reaction; even, I dare say, a state of shock. A completely normal reaction under the circumstances, except that this was Spock, for whom such normal reactions were completely abnormal.

He didn't do anything except lean against me. He could have been dead himself, except that I could feel his hot breath against my chest.

It scared me plenty, mainly because I didn't know what to do. If it had been anyone else, I would have put my arms around him, said a few words designed to be comforting, encouraged him to cry. But this was Spock, and none of those things seemed the right prescription somehow.

While I was thinking what I should do, the moment passed. Spock stood, and was himself again. His usual rock-like Vulcan self.

I'm a doctor. I'm not used to feeling incompetent, but I did then. I knew I'd missed an important opportunity, and there was nothing to be done about it.

"How's Claire?" I asked.

He looked at me, and I saw a fleeting glimpse of her grief reflected in his eyes. What he couldn't feel on his own behalf, he couldn't help but feel on hers.

Afterwards, I remembered that Spock always found the pain of another much harder to bear than his own.

"She is ..." he began. He had to think before he could come up with the right word. "She is coping," he said finally.

"Good," I answered, just for something to say.

"There are notifications to be made. Starfleet Command. Jim's nephew. My parents. Claire's family."

And the mortuary. The mundane, terrible details of death. Someone had to attend to them, and I wanted to take the burden of them off Spock's and Claire's shoulders. It was a way to be useful.

Besides, Jim had asked me to do what I could to help, afterwards.

"I'll take care of all that, Spock."

He nodded. "The list is on Jim's desk. There are also the instructions for disposition of his remains. He wanted the arrangements to be simple."

"Yes, I know. He told me. I'll take care of it," I said again.

"Thank you." He started to leave.

"Spock." He stopped, his back to me, listening. "I'd like to see him."

"As you wish." And I followed him down the hall to their bedroom.

I took in the scene from the door, a scene I knew I would remember as long as I lived. A bowl on the bedside table, a towel, a bar of soap. A comb. Jim on the bed, on his back, covered with a sheet. Claire, calmly laying clothes -- Jim's uniform -- on a chair. She looked up and nodded, and went back to what she was doing.

I sat beside him on the bed. Jim did look peaceful, and I was glad of that. I took his hand between mine. He was still warm.

I still found it hard to believe. Jim dead, no medical miracles or last-minute rescues this time. He had always acted as if he would live forever. And for the most part, he'd made us all believe it, too.

I felt hands on my shoulders. Claire. "We're going to get him ready," she said. "We can manage ourselves, but -- would you like to help?"

"No," I said. I didn't want to intrude on something so intimate. "I'll go make those calls now."

"There's no hurry," she said. "Take all the time you need." She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, and then she and Spock left me alone with him.

That's when it hit me. My friend of more than twenty years, my best friend, was gone. Spock's bondmate, Claire's husband, Peter's uncle, Sarek and Amanda's son-in-law -- gone. Uhura's leader, Sulu's mentor, Chekov's idol, Scotty's laddie, all gone. He would leave holes in a lot of hearts.

I cried then, for all of us. Mostly for myself and the friend I had lost, and then for Spock, crying for him the tears I didn't know if he would ever be able to shed himself. And for Claire, for all the time she'd missed with him, time they'd expected to make up when he retired.

How long was I there, my forehead pressed to Jim's hand as I held it in mine, soaking the bedsheets with my tears? Not long, I think, though at the time it felt like an eternity.

When I was finished, I sat for a while, just looking. Seeing him, really seeing him, one last time. In the silence, I thought about friendship, and love, and eternity. And then I leaned over and kissed his forehead. It was something I had done once or twice before. Toward the end, we'd not been afraid to show what we felt for one another.

"Good bye, my friend," I whispered, and left him for the last time.

For a long time afterwards, I felt him still warm against my lips.


END