a_mused | (no subject)

(no subject)

It was real funny how time just...kept on going. Moving. Even when you were still trying to grasp on to a feeling from a moment that defined you.

From her spot in the tea shop, Jane watched the residents of Yorktown pass by a large window, fingers drumming against the porcelain of the cup before her. Tea in deference to the preferences of her overly punctual companion.

Tea because she was done drinking away her larger problems.

This was totally not a date.

It was a meeting between two friends who haven't properly talked since her birthday a month ago, if that counted as talking. There weren't many words said. She was still getting used to civilian clothes again and had aimed for casual, but might have missed the bar. The dress was a little too snug.

This totally wasn't a date.

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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?"

"By realizing that I had to come to terms with situations that were out of my control. I could have kept you on the ship that day and listened to you. Then maybe more Vulcans would have been saved. But then again, who really knows? Everyone on the Enterprise is there because they want to be, and they know the risks. No one is encouraging you forget the ones that we have lost... that would be an impossible task. But realize that more would have been lost had it not been for your leadership."

"We want you to share the burden, Jane. You have a dedicated First Officer, and a CMO many others on the command crew that are there to help you. You are not alone in this."

Spock lifts Jane's hand as though he was about to kiss it, but stops and regards her. "Do you hate me?"

"Well, sometimes you're a complete dick." She tilts her head, like she's seriously contemplating that question and not lost absorbing what he'd said before it. It made sense. The choice to attempt that kind of internal and external honesty was all on her. She'd have to try.

He'd made it a challenge.

Damn it.

"But no, God, no, of course I don't hate you."

"And you are stubborn."

Spock does that almost grin, where his eyes smile to show that's he's happy or amused.
"And for the record, I do not hate you either. Quite the opposite in fact."