DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters
are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc and Viacom. The story contents are
the creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2004 by Djinn. This
story is Rated PG-13.
Communion in Dust and Sorrow
by Djinn
Sand swirls at the foot of
He keeps waiting for Spock to
emerge. Whole. Happy to see him--or if not
happy, then relieved or satisfied or pleased in some acceptably Vulcan way. But though Spock does emerge just enough to
stare down at him, he never makes a move for the stairs. Nor does he tell Kirk to come up, to join him
and talk or play chess or just be there for him. Spock is alone because he wants to be. Kirk is alone because Spock wants him to be.
Kirk sighs, then forgets to
take a shallow breath and inhales too deeply.
Dust fills his mouth and nose, and he coughs. He hates it here. Hates the dust and the heat
and the god-awful thin air. He
feels as if the sky itself is pressing down on him, trying to make him give
up. But he cannot give up, he cannot
stop himself from walking out here, cannot release the hope that Spock will
someday look down from the mountain and actually want to be with him again.
Besides, what else does Kirk
have to do but wait? It's not like he or
the rest of his faithful friends are going anywhere. Not while Sarek tries to intercede for them
with Starfleet and the Federation Council. Not while there's still a chance they won't
all go to the stockade. They know they
aren't getting off this hellish world any time soon, but they still work on
their stolen bird-of-prey, fixing it up as if it might become their new
ship. He's even had Scotty lower the
center seat a little; he might as well be comfortable in his new command chair.
He coughs again and feels a
water jug being pressed into his hand. He
turns, expecting to see Bones or Uhura, and is surprised to see Saavik standing
quietly behind him.
"Drink," she says,
her voice the same calm tone that broke his heart not too long ago.
"David is dead,"
she told him, and his world spun out of control, and he realized he had traded
his son for nothing more than the chance of getting Spock back. And he still doesn't know if that was a good
trade or not, and hates himself for not knowing. And hates Spock a little
bit too.
His son. His life that could have been.
His friend. Up on the ledge. Staring down at him. Some
days, Kirk wants to yell up at him. "My
son gave his life for you, you bastard!"
But he doesn't. Of course, he
doesn't.
"Sir,
drink." Her eyes are soft and sad and dark the way
Spock's are when he stares at him over chess.
"I didn't expect to see
you, Saavik." She is due back at
command. Not part of the
conspiracy. Welcome to take her career
back up and leave him and the others far behind.
"I am not going back to
Earth. I have taken a leave of
absence. Under the
circumstances..."
"Yes, of
course." So much
tragedy, and now this, her mentor, alive. And she is important in that; she kept him
alive on that planet. Kirk knows what
that means; he can count to seven very fast, the way the planet must have made
Spock's body count the years far too fast.
He wonders what Saavik would
say if he told her he knows. He imagines
she would simply look at him with those dark, fathomless Vulcan eyes and say,
"I cannot discuss such a thing."
"Has he come out yet?"
she asks, surprising him with the question.
Does she stand here also, staring up at the man she loves and wondering
why he will not come down? Unlike Kirk,
she can go up to Spock, but she seems to spend more and more time with them, on
the Klingon ship.
She is looking at him,
waiting for an answer to her very simple question. Has Spock come out yet?
"It's been dusty."
"And you could not
see." She actually sighs. "A blessing
perhaps?" She looks back at
the ship, then up at the cave.
"There is nothing in
between," he murmurs.
She does not smile, but there
is something in her eyes, some dark amusement that he feels parts of his body
responding to. It is most
inappropriate.
"Nothing
in between, but there is something to the side." She takes the
water container from him and drinks deeply.
"Come."
He follows her away from the
ship, away from the steep, wind-blasted steps.
She leads him around the mountain, and into a depression in the
rocks. It is cooler there, dark and out
of the wind.
He sighs in relief. "I hate it here," he says, unsure
if he will offend her.
"As do I," she
replies, her eyes meeting his. "I
stay for him."
"I know." He grins at her, feels as though the expression,
once so much a part of him that he could pull it out at whim, falls a bit
short. "As do
I."
"I know." Again the dark amusement shines in her eyes,
and then it changes to something he understands better: sorrow, grief, anger,
hurt. "I wait," she says. "Everyday. And he looks down. And he sees me. And I do not matter to him. At all."
"I know."
"David died. So that he and I would not. And yet, that does not matter either."
Her words strike him to the
heart, yet he cannot say she is wrong.
David is dead...and for what?
This endless vigil for a man as dry and barren of relief as the desert
he looks down on?
"I know," he says
again, amazed when she sobs.
"Saavik..."
"I do not
understand." She cries, and he
remembers how she cried at Spock's memorial.
She is volatile and soft and everything that his friend who stares off
that damned cliff is not.
"I feel too much,"
she says. "I am not like the people
here."
"Join the
club." He tries to hit the light
note, the cute note. She does not appear
to appreciate it; she does not appear bothered by it either. It is as if he has said nothing.
Her voice is a whisper as she
says, "I have this anger inside me."
He nods. He understands that. He wishes he were back on Genesis, fighting Kruge. At least then
he was doing something, fighting the good fight, about to win again. Smack, his foot could go down again. Smack, and smack, and I have had enough. Of. You.
Sometimes he wishes he fell
into the pit instead of Kruge. The lava of Genesis would have burned him up
far faster and with more mercy than this slow roasting at the hands of his best
friend's planet.
"What are you
thinking?" she asks.
"That sometimes I wish I
were dead." It is inconceivable
that he has just said that to her. He
never gives up; he never, ever gives up.
Yet now, he wants to give up.
"I wish that too. Sometimes." She meets his eyes. "The Klingon's
blade would have been for me. If David
had not tried to protect me, I would be dead.
And you would not have lost your son."
He is not sure that is
true. David might have died no matter
who took the blade first. "What is, is."
"How
very Vulcan of you." She leans against the wall of their small
cave. "I had feelings for your
son."
"He had feelings for
you."
"He told you
that?" She sounds as if David never
told her that.
"A father
knows." He smiles. "And he couldn't keep his eyes off
you."
She looks away. "Thank you. I am not sure it is true, but it
is...comforting."
He nods. He is not sure that David cared for her the
way she appears to have cared for him, but it does not matter anymore. It will not hurt for him to say David did care
if it makes her sorrow less, her guilt that David died for her not so hard to
bear.
He sees her watching him and realizes
that she still does not entirely believe him.
She closes her eyes.
"Saavik, he did
care--"
Her hand on his arm stops the
make believe. They will never know if
David loved her, or loved Kirk, or even if they would have loved him if they'd
gotten to know him better and not had him ripped away
before they could decide. All they have
is a handful of possibility. David
himself, they probably never knew.
She is watching Kirk, her
hand still tight on his forearm. "I
think I know you better than him," she says softly. She points up and back, where Spock might be
standing even now. "Certainly
better than I know him any longer."
Her grip on him slackens, and
he reaches out, pulling her close to him, into an awkward hug. "I'm sorry," he says, even though
he is not entirely sure what he is sorry for.
Maybe just in general--he is
sorry for her, sorry for himself. Sorry
that he couldn't have done better, gotten his ship back sooner, made his way to
Genesis a little faster so that she could be here with his son and not him.
She looks up at him, her arms
coming around his back. "I
am...lonely."
"I am too."
"He does not care." Her voice is broken and utterly Vulcan, so
pragmatic. It is just a fact, even if it
kills her. Spock does not care.
"I know." He brushes her dark, coarse hair off her
face, letting his hand run over her skin.
It is soft. Soft
and warm and so damn young.
She sighs, and he wonders if
her lips will be as soft. He runs his
finger over them--they are like silk.
She is watching him, no
expression on her face, and he wonders what she is thinking, what emotions are
at work under the Vulcan mask she is showing him.
"I saved him," she
whispers. "Spock. On the planet."
He nods; he knows. Let her think, though, that he does not
comprehend the full measure of her words.
She frowns, as if she knows
he is pretending for her sake. "He
burned. His body burned and his spirit
was elsewhere. I made love to him, my
mind locked to nothing as he burned."
Kirk can feel her shuddering. "No emotion, no intellect. Just the fire?"
She nods. "And now I freeze inside. I thought that when he came back, I would
find warmth again. I would live
again. But he has not come back, and I
am dying of cold on Vulcan. Is that not
an irony?"
He kisses her. He is not sure why he does it. Or even if she wants it. But it is the only thing he can think to
do. When her hands clutch at him, and
her lips press back against his fiercely, he knows he has done the right thing.
Or the right thing for the
moment, which may be all there is left to either of
them.
She pushes him against the
wall, undoing his pants and her own. Her
body is strong, and she presses against him, taking him into her, holding him,
supporting him as their bodies crash together, and the ghosts that stand around
them fade away for a moment.
But just for a moment. She is the first to pull away, her face
confused. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Shhh." He gently does
up her clothing, smiles as she returns the favor. "Maybe we needed that."
"Yes."
He touches her cheek. "You're warm, Saavik. You're warm and alive and that's how you're
meant to be. We can't bring them back."
She is crying again, and he
holds her and kisses her, and her lips against his are gentle and somehow sad.
"I would tell you of
your son, if you wish it?"
He smiles at her, a tender
feeling, the first tender feeling he has felt in a long time. He thought Vulcan had sucked away his
capacity for tenderness, but this young, grief-stricken Vulcan has just given it
back. "Tell me when I leave this
place. I can't...not while I'm
here."
She seems to understand, and
her hand squeezing his is a promise to wait with the truth. Then she turns and leads him back to the base
of the mountain.
They look up. Spock is there. They cannot see his expression, but Kirk
knows what it will be. Empty. Cold.
He looks over at Saavik. Her head turns, and their eyes meet, and then
she nods before walking back to the bird-of-prey.
Kirk looks up again, but
Spock is gone. Back into the cave, back
into the core of Vulcan.
Back away from him.
Sighing, Kirk stands in the
swirling dust. And
waits.
FIN