a_mused | (no subject)

"Mr. Spock." Jane grins and almost laughs at the stiff way Spock seated himself in front of her. "I didn't know what you wanted, so I ordered, well, I probably ordered more than I should have."

She shrugs and leans back in her chair. There are multiple pots of tea steeping before them. She's pretty sure there's at least three in there that might accidentally kill her. But what's life without a little adventure?

Tea counted as adventure today. In between teaching a few tactical classes and checking in with Scotty to make sure he wasn't adding anything too illegal to their new ship, she's been doing some self-reflection.

And self-reflection led to tea somewhere at the edge of a nebula. Not everybody can say they've done that.

Spock eyes the teas, opening a few to get a better smell. He eyes Jane and then proceeds to arranges the pots so that all the ones that Jane can't have are on his side of the table.

It's not long before he has his fingers wrapped around a nice hot cup of tea. He relaxes then, and really looks at Jane...

"It is... nice to have so many options. You were not in error to order so many."
God, he's trying here.

"But apparently I was in error in ordering those." She points lazily at the ones he'd swiped from under her nose and grins a little. Saving her life even in a boring tea house. Jane leans back and drapes her arm along the back of her chair and tilts her head.

Damn. She really had missed him. It wasn't much of a stretch to realize how a good deal of the separation was her fault. She'd been pushing everyone away, trying to make as clean a break as she could.

"Scuttlebutt tells me someone's tried to poach you out from under me." A number of someone's. Literally not even a week after they'd learned how long the new ship would take to complete rumors were flying.

It was kind of offensive.

She wouldn't have blamed Spock for taking one of those offers, but he hadn't. And now here he was sitting across from her as ridiculously Spock as always.

Spock idles with his tea...

"I will not deny that when my counterpart died, I had made plans to leave the Enterprise, and continue his work on New Vulcan. But in the end I could not bear the thought of leaving."

He looks at Jane then, he had missed her too. McCoy had assured him that she needed her space though, and waited until the right moment.
"After I realised where I wanted to be, the other offers were easy to refuse."

What he's trying to say is that his spot will always be, and has always been, at Jane's side.

"The Enterprise and its crew have become my home."

"I'm...Jesus, Spock. I'm glad you didn't." In a very real, very selfish way. She needed him to be on that new ship with her because, frankly, she's a goddamn hot mess. She grips the cup in front of her, taking strength in the warmth against her palms. It should not have taken a near death experience to shake her from her malaise, but no one ever said Jane was good with handling her own emotions. "I'm glad I didn't."

Spock’s eyes narrow. “You almost left?”

Without telling him? He didn’t assume that Jane would tell him everything, but he had thought at the very least she would tell him something like that.
“Why did you not tell me that you were considering leaving the Enterprise?”

‘Leaving me’ went unspoken.

"I imagine for the same reason you didn't tell me." Jane shrugs one shoulder and stares down at her cup. "We weren't really talking."

She quickly held up a hand, forestalling an obvious argument. "Ship business doesn't count."

Spock has the decency to look sheepish as he practically fidgets with his teacup.
"I did not wish to disappoint you."

"My decision to stay was threefold. One, the ship and its crew has become my home, and I am disinclined to leave it. Two, the work that I can do as CSO is more fulfilling to me than anything that I could have done on New Vulcan, and three..."

"The thought of leaving you... I... uh..."

Spock blushes green, and he's actually stuttering.

Jane listens. Listens and nods because her reasons weren't-They weren't far off from his. They were the ones she told herself before-

Before she started crashing.

They still mattered, remembering that, that was the trick.

She glances up at him when he falters. "I'm part of your decision to stay?"

"I would not call you merely a part, but the driving reason why I could not, nor wished to leave."

She is integral, and she always has been.

"My place is at your side, for however long you wish for me to be there." Has he said to much? He just stares at his tea, it suddenly becoming the most important thing in the world right now.

Jane can hear ceramic cracking beneath her fingers and she puts the cup down with a clatter. She drags her hands back through her hair and stares at him. There is nothing simple about any of this, was there? This was-

They were-

God, they were so messed up.

She hesitates. Hesitates and then carefully rests her fingers on his wrist.

"Spock."

Spock stays still, feeling that the moment was fragile....

... like these blasted teacups.

"What made you decide to stay?" His other hand twitched, wanting to return the touch.

"I remembered. Why I went out there in the first place. And it wasn't-" Jane settles her hand more firmly, too aware that if he wanted he could feel-

He could feel how lost she's been. Drifting.

"It wasn't so I could be better than someone, or to prove something."

Spock, you think you're emotionally constipated check out the whirling vortex of confused anxiety that is your captain.

"It was to help people. To be better than my own self. To take care of my family."

But she needed people to take care of her too. "I probably would be dead." Again. "Without you. I don't know how to be a good captain without someone to remind me how."

Spock's eyes flutter closed momentarily as Jane's mind practically screams at him.

He puts his free hand on tops of Jane's, and makes eye contact. "You do not need anyone to remind you how to breath. You take on your role as though you were born to fill it and I have seen you sacrifice more for your crew than anyone I have ever known."
She literally died for them, what more could they ask of her?

"They love you Jane, the crew loves you. Never doubt that. Do not doubt yourself."
He squeezes her hand, his finger slipping between her own. He wants to be there for her, to fill that chasm that seems to be enveloping his Captain. If only he knew how to say it.

"I love them too." Spock. Spock. Jane's fingers are digging into his skin as she thinks of the hundreds she's let die because she jumped first without thinking and forgetting them is not an option. It's not.

She shifts her gaze to the table and their messily combined hands. "Learn from your mistakes, right?"

They'll weigh on her, heavily, but she's been letting it drag her down with it and causing her to forget everything they've done right.

"Have you been by the docks recently?"

Spock has to close his eyes at the turmoil he feels comes off Jane in waves.

"Stop."

He can feel her regret, every name of every person under her command that they've lost like a brand on her skin. "Captain... Jane...stop." He continues to hold her hand.

"Is this how you feel all the time?" He's ignoring her question, but he can't let this slide.

Jane flinched and regretfully withdrew her hand. She had been taking advantage. Some friend she was.

She drags her fingers through her long blonde hair. "Some days more than others."

Spock only hesitates for a moment before he reaches forward and takes her hand again.

"I cannot stop you from feeling, but you do not have to carry your burden alone."

Jane stares at him, leaning toward him as he retakes her hand. She can't-It's not something she's ready to think about at the moment, how nice it is to have someone touch her in a way that wasn't fleeting or courteous.

"It's my job."

"Your job to isolate yourself? To distance yourself from those who would take care of you? I think not."

Spock rubs his thumb along the top of her hand, allowing himself to feel as his predecessor always told him to.

"We all have blood on our hands, it is not just you. Doctor McCoy and I as well have made very difficult decisions... and yet you would never allow us to isolate ourselves. At our lowest moments on board the Enterprise, you were always there for us. Why will you not allow me to return the favour?"

"Because it means being honest." Have you met her, Spock? She's at her most honest when she's dying. Or practically dead. Or really, really pissed off. Right now, she's none of those things. She's a tiny little puzzle box.

She might be more emotionally screwed up than a Vulcan.

She might be more emotionally screwed up than her mom.

"I don't have the best role models for that. What does that even look like?"

Spock looks down. He's not the greatest at this either, but, lately, it's been easier. If his predecessor taught him anything, it was to embrace his heritage, human and Vulcan. To never measure himself by the ruler of others...

"It means you must first learn to be honest with yourself. Because from what I can tell, you have been telling yourself too many lies."

Spock laces their hands together.
There was so much he wanted to tell her, but he felt that right now was not the time. Her emotional state was too delicate.

Jane let's out a shaky breath and ignores the flood of warmth surging through her. She didn't realize how much she missed letting herself touch and be touched by others, she didn't know it'd make her want to cry in a public space that it'd be Spock who decided to be the one to bridge that gap for her.

"They're not lies." Not really.

Spock's eyebrows twitch in what seems to be disappointment, now seeming to scrutinize the table cloth.

"By that logic then, I am to blame for the deaths of the members of the Vulcan Council... and my mother."

It was a low blow, but it had to be said. "I was not fast enough, I was not good enough, I was not strong enough..."
Does this sound familiar Jane? He refuses to let go of her hand.
"Was it my fault?"

"No!"

Holy shit, Spock. It took them three fucking years to actually clear the air about that. Jesus fuck. Jane twitches in her chair and almost upsets one of the tea cups. She has to physically resist pulling away from him because she cannot-

"I hate you."

No, she really doesn't. She doesn't at all. And the rawness of that sudden spark of affection and wry, horrified humor traveling between them frightened her. "How do you stop blaming yourself? You've made...peace with what's happened. How did you stop?"