Spock was the biggest science nerd many of his acquaintances had ever met. Even on his free time, Spock liked to putter around in one lab or another, conducting experiments designed only to prove things long proven, so that he could witness their truth with his own eyes and know them for certain.As a small child, he had filled a large bowl with water--a precious commodity even to a Vulcan as rich as his ambassador father--in order to find out which tiny household objects floated and which sank. The young Spock had carefully recorded his data on his child-size PADD, learning about his world from the world itself, not only from texts and teachers.
Now that he was in the middle of his fifth decade, not to mention his second life, Spock had not lost his love for discovery. He now stood in Lab Number Twelve, carefully removing the lid from a petri dish.
Very small creatures, analogues to Earth's one-celled zooplankton, swam within the murky waters inside. They were among the smallest inhabitants of Xeon, and Spock was observing them in order to create precise biological diagrams of their structure. Over the past two days, he had spent those of his off-hours which did not coincide with Captain Kirk's in intense study, training the lab's microscope computer on the creatures in the petri dish.
But now it was time for a more discerning look. The flagellate and ciliary motion of the various alien plankton made it impossible for the microscope computer to focus with the highest accuracy, so a few specimens of each species must be sacrificed in the interests of science. Spock used a dropper to place a small bead of fluid from the petri dish upon a conventional microscope slide. Then he reached for a cover slip.
As he pressed the glass cover slip down upon the water droplet, a memory flashed before his eyes. Instead of a glass cover slip, he saw visions of a glass wall, and beyond, instead of one-celled alien creatures with whiplash flagella, he saw his favorite multicellular alien creature of all, Jim Kirk. He remembered the glass wall that had stood between them as death dragged him away, preventing what could have been their last touch if not for complications of the Vulcan soul. It was only one simple step to imagine that, had the one-celled organisms any kind of social behavior, one of them might be feeling now just as Jim had--and as he, Spock, had himself.
He imagined one of them pressing its little flagella or cilia up to the glass--
Spock shook himself and placed the slide on the microscope stage. Bizarre metaphors like this were one of the reasons Vulcan eschewed emotions in the first place. But it was an interesting novelty to allow himself to experience them from time to time.
When he had finished drawing each organism beneath his scope to the best of his abilities and with sufficient detail for his scientific aesthetic, he put everything away in the lab and hurried off to Kirk's ready room.
There had been no such office in their younger years, but one of the conveniences Starfleet had awarded them on the new Enterprise-A was this suite where Kirk could separate work from repose. He was holed up in there now with his paperwork, completing reports and drinking coffee like it was oxygen.
Spock was the only one on board who had the privilege of entering without knocking, so when Kirk heard the door slide, a smile was already on his face as he looked up. "Look what they're burying me with," Kirk said, gesturing to the stack of data cards he had yet to examine.
"There is an equally formidable stack in your 'out box', as you call it," Spock pointed out encouragingly. He drew closer. "I know you are busy, Jim, but I required your assistance. May I borrow you for a moment?"
"Sure--it'll be a pleasant moment. What's on your mind?"
"In the science lab this evening, I pressed a glass cover-slip down upon a slide of microscopic organisms," Spock explained. "The similarity in material reminded me of another piece of glass--the glass wall--"
Kirk nodded. He already understood. "That--terrifying moment." He took a swig of his coffee as if forcing an uncomfortable blockage down his throat. "Bones says my... nightmares will go away as I get used to you being alive again. I believe him because it says "Dr." before his name."
"This may help." Spock approached his desk and simply held up his hand. "Do you remember--"
"We reached for each other through the glass." Kirk lifted his hand to mirror Spock's, just as he had on that awful day.
This time there was no glass in the way. Spock drew his hand to Kirk's and pressed their palms and fingers together.
"No glass," Kirk said in a barely audible voice, more to the universe and himself than to Spock. Slowly, he brought his other hand up and clasped Spock's entire hand in his fist. "I remember something else. 'This simple feeling', you called it. This simple feeling..."
"Has only grown more gratifying with age," Spock completed for him.
"Yes."
Kirk's door chimed, and the handclasp evaporated into their hearts. "Come."
The door slid open to reveal a crew member armed with a fresh pot of coffee. "Ah! Yeoman. Bless you." Kirk motioned toward his desk.
"Until dinner, then, Captain?"
Kirk gave Spock a nod. "I should be finished by then."
"Good. I find your chess game suffers when you feel anxious over unfinished paperwork."
Kirk opened his mouth to say something smart, but Spock was already out the door. "That's my Vulcan," he murmured to himself with a grin as he drank his first sip of the new batch of coffee.
"Sir?" the yeoman inquired.
"Nothing, Yeoman. Thank you." Kirk replaced the cup on the desk. "That'll be all." He dove back into his data chips with renewed vitality.
More Kirk/Spock romance
or were you on the friendshipper-only menu?