For a genius, you’re a goddamn idiot.

He's not himself. Then, though his face doesn't move in the here and now, he feels himself give a low, soft chuckle. He hears it, and doesn't recognize the sound. Then the older Kirk claps his shoulder and squeezes it and says through the laughter, "Spock, you didn't really think I--"

"I shall begin again. I have successfully initiated relations with the remaining elders of Vulcan, beginning talks of colonization, of rebuilding our people. Though they show no outward signs of suspicion, and take my word that I had been living in a hermitage since my Kohlinar, only just beaming out before the event, I sense that they are not completely at ease with my story."

Kirk was born in space, he sleeps best there. Lately, though, he has felt a new kind of restlessness in his bones. His sleep is interrupted by dreams, by reliving moments of a life that isn’t his.

As much as Kirk tried not to let himself be influenced by old Spock's memories of the future, even he had to admit that he was having difficulty. It wasn't any specific event that bothered him, but the whole tone of the bridge was different. Spock was different. In old Spock's memories, Kirk had felt the two of them like two halves of a single whole, two sides of the same coin. They worked together like a well-oiled machine. He barely had to give an order before Spock had already carried it out, often anticipating him even before Kirk himself knew he was going to make the request. But that was old Spock and his Kirk. This was different, and after experiencing that sort of connection, the difference was frustrating.

He is somewhat reluctant to admit it, but he and Spock still aren’t actually friends. Jim doesn’t fight with him any more – they work together well enough on the bridge, and there’s been no punches thrown since that first time. When he turns to Spock after Scotty (or, God help him, Chekov) has explained something that would be incomprehensible even without the accent, Spock translates. He’s even lost about fifty-percent of the mild condescension. Jim can deal with the other fifty-percent; he’s had enough women berate him for his arrogance to understand a healthy pride in your own abilities. It’s the other times that bother him.

"It isn't until things quiet down-- really quiet down-- that Kirk is able to let his brain come out of action mode and start processing everything that's happened to him."

"You showed a remarkable ability to function commendably even after enduring great physical stress."

Spock had not intended to watch them. He had only been at the dock because he had been unable to resist the temptation of seeing the Enterprise again, as illogical as that was.

Uhura wasn't ready to give up, not by a long shot, but in the end the only destiny she could control was her own.

Jim was never prone to insomnia. Not during his incredibly rigorous course-load at the Academy. Not the night before he broke into the lab to reprogram the computer to let him beat Spock’s little no-win scenario. Not ever, when it came down to it. So the idea that Jim was having sleepless nights because the Enterprise was on its first mission, which was a simple ferry ride to bring the Andorian Ambassador back to Andoria, was ludicrous in the extreme. Especially in light of the fact that it was only a few weeks since Jim and the Enterprise had saved Earth and pretty much the rest of the Federation along with it and that hadn’t kept him from sleeping. Then again… he was only acting Captain then and this mission was official…

Jim is-- it hurts. It fucking hurts and he's going to die, this time-- he knows because Bones is shouting and Uhura's eyes look too shiny and Spock is leaning over him, saying "Captain, you--" and nothing else and his father always said command was a heavy burden but this is-- more."

It's just rough, is all. He goes to bed at a reasonable hour, dreams all night about soulbonding and mindmelding true love shenanigans, then wakes up every morning to the realization that none of it is his own life. He likes his life, he does-- but he's pretty sure the Ambassador had not intended to turn him into a frustrated monogamist loser in the momentary span of their little information session.

They had taught him all about the physical size of it in the Academy, of course; he knew that the Galaxy was about twenty-five kiloparsecs across, which was the length of the old Route 66 about 2 x 1014 times over. He'd worked that out once, doodled in the margin of his notebook in class, but he still hadn't really comprehended it. Because every time it was impressed on him just how monumentally vast space was, all he heard was the potential for new planets to explore, new life and civilizations to find. And while that was true, he had never really grasped that in between lay vast expanses of emptiness.

When the Enterprise is asked to transport Vulcan colonists to their new home, Spock Prime comes with them. His presence changes everything – and leads to life-altering revelations for Jim and Spock.

At times, the images anger him. The man who put them there angers him. What gave him the right to leave him shaking and weak and compromised? What right did he have to force his own, alternate reality onto him? Where did he get off making him see things he could never…

"Spock. Just say 'I don't trust Starfleet not to mess up the only captain in the fleet who I can train up to my expectations and enjoys running into danger wearing a blindfold as much as I do'."

He has spent ten long years attempting to reconstruct what was nearly destroyed, and now he is lucky if he can last from breakfast to lunch without nodding off. Spock will die before his father and that both comforts and terrifies him in ways he does not care to closely examine.

James T. Kirk doesn't get passionate about something unless it has breasts. Leonard McCoy knows this. And then something changes.

"It was also brought to my attention that after marooning you on an ice planet and attempting to strangle you to death, failing to speak out for your defense would make me, in the popular vernacular, a douche."

Two years later, the pon farr finally catches up with them.

Detective Spock, born on Vulcan and resident of San Francisco, is assigned to the Midwest police bureau. I think everyone can guess what happens next.

The first time Spock woke up with the captain in his bed, it was because of the very strangeness. There was some sort of cool, clinging blanket wrapped around him. There was also a smaller point of heat pressing against his shoulder blades, but that he easily identified as Tribble, Ship's-Cat 3rd Class (Under Fifty Pests Exterminated). He and the ship's-cats did not, exactly, get along, but they frequented his quarters because of the higher heat, and often curled up around him when he was in the rec areas. He did not find it unacceptable to share his bed with them or allow them to sit near him. He was always slightly cold, and the creatures were a welcome source of radiated heat. The other presence, however, was unexpected.

He is four years old. His father is dead, his father’s people glad to be rid of the traitor. He has only his mother and his mind, and both seem liable to break.

The Federation and the Romulan Empire have been on the verge of war for what sometimes feels like forever; this is the place where what passes for peace might end.

The answer is √π233/hy7. Has been for all three months of the first semester. Jim's not sure why the galaxy's best and brightest haven't realize that, but it's not his school, not his problem.

The Enterprise is ordered to pick up a Vulcan Healer and transport him to the new colony. Once there they are scheduled to remain and assist with the early stages of setting up the colony. Kirk's liaison is his 'old friend' Ambassador Spock, now known as Elder Sepak, who takes the opportunity to help Kirk and Spock become better acquainted.

When he says she got the planet in the divorce, he means it.

When he'd lost Jim, he'd thought that that would be the greatest death he would be forced to face; to endure.

Seven months into their five year stint aboard the Enterprise, Jim's meld with Ambassador Spock comes back to bite him in the ass.

Of course Spock is the one who programmed it, and of course, he's there at the trial. Kirk will look back on that later and realize it's not as accidental as it seemed.

AKA 'The One Where Spock Prime is a Matchmaker'; but be warned that it's as much about Spock Prime and matchmaking as TOS is about modes of technology in the 23rd century.

He's been a good Captain. It isn't his own ego talking, although it does tend to echo across the galaxy on a good day. He's seen the peer reviews his crew sent in, seen the overwhelming praise that's been sent to Starfleet on his behalf. And yet here he is on his mostly deserted ship filling out paperwork to send them scattered across the universe because not one of them wishes to remain with him.

Transitioning from "hating each other's guts" to "friends" to something more takes a lot of work, on both their parts, but it isn't until after they start spending the bulk of their free time together that Jim actually bridges the gap between the theoretical knowledge that Spock is a humanoid alien and truly understanding it.

The first time they have sex is the ultimate conglomeration of several cases of intergalactic clusterfucks finally coming to a head. Or maybe just Jim and Spock colliding.