And here we end, just, by a remarkable coincidence, in time to kick off next week, I assume with the final season of Picard. See you… Out there.
Epilogue 3: Vulcan
The door emitted a little atonal chime in response to Pike’s approach, and he waited pensively. The door opened after an interval long enough to make Pike suspect it was deliberate.
“Stonn,” Pike said, in what he hoped was a neutral tone. It bothered him to be greeted at the door by the man, even if he had made his peace with Stonn’s presence at house S’chnn T’gai.
“Admiral,” Stonn answered. He did not move, did not invite Pike in, nor question his reason for being there. It was an open secret that he was the lover – not that a Vulcan would use the term – of the lady of the house. Pike had taken longer than most to adapt to this reality. But it was logical. She fulfilled the duties demanded by law and tradition. In the decades since Ambassador Sarek and his wife had died to a Romulan-hired assassin at the last Babel conference, she had served as the head of one of Vulcan’s most respected families, and she had cared for her husband when it would have been acceptable to have him quietly institutionalized, even, under Vulcan law, euthanized given his condition. It was too much to ask that she forswear companionship altogether.
“May I speak with her?” Pike asked.
“Very well. Enter.”
As Stonn stepped aside, it occurred to Pike that the Vulcan’s demeanor was even colder than he had grown to expect. Sending her lover to answer the door was dismissive, but of whom? Pike mused grimly that getting what one wanted was not always satisfying.
Stonn guided Pike to the usual sitting room, where T’Pring was waiting for him. Pike bowed. “Greetings, T’Pring,” he said, adopting his most formal tone and trying not to show any emotion, out of respect.
“Chris,” she said. Pike’s long relationship with her let him recognize the familiar and paradoxical mix of warmth and iciness. For T’Pring, their interactions held both value and cost.
Pike sat. Stonn moved to stand beside T’Pring, but she dismissed him with the tiniest nod of her head, and he shrunk away, defeated.
“Has there been any change?” Pike asked.
Her eyebrow twitched. “Chris,” she said, “This is your thirty-seventh visit. In all that time, my husband’s condition has not changed. It is illogical that you persist in hoping for an alternative outcome.”
“Surely, it would be illogical to dismiss as impossible that which is merely highly improbable,” Pike answered.
T’Pring’s eyebrows narrowed slightly. She was not impressed. “The distinction between logic and sophistry can be difficult to discern without extensive training,” she said.
Pike’s composure faltered a bit and he asked the question. “Why did you marry him?”
Her head tilted. The breach of decorum was enough to throw her off guard. Something changed inside T’Pring and she relaxed visibly. Pike and T’Pring had known each other for a significant time even by Vulcan standards, and they were both too tired to continue the ritual.
“It was my duty.”
“Not for love, then,” Pike observed.
“Duty was more important to Spock than love. I choose to honor that. It was the logical thing to do.”
Pike’s eyes flashed briefly toward the archway where Stonn had disappeared. She did not miss it. “It was not my preferred outcome, but the balance of the cost and benefits has been and continues to be favorable. I have honored my commitment to a man I respect, at no serious impediment to the life I have chosen to pursue. May you find your own way as… Pleasant.”
Pike stood, suddenly uncomfortable. “May I see him?”
“Of course.” She rose imperiously, and with a sweep of her hand, guided him to the next room. “Stonn will escort you out when you are finished. Peace, and long life, Chris.”
The response stuck in Pike’s throat. He moved on.
T’Pring’s husband sat motionless, facing the window. “Spock,” Pike said.
The time before he received any response could’ve been hours or days. It was impossible to tell how much he heard or understood. Scans confirmed that his mind was active, but the communication centers of his brain were so badly damaged that even a mind meld couldn’t make contact. Slowly, the chair swiveled toward him.
Pike forced himself not to look away. Spock’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, but they tracked movement sometimes. The lower half of his face was a mass of scar tissue. The Vulcan healers would not perform cosmetic reconstruction without informed consent, which wasn’t possible in Spock’s case.
“We lost Sam,” Pike said. There had been no point in pleasantries with T’Pring, and there was even less with Spock. “And Una’s hurt. I don’t know how bad. Erica too. And there’s others. Another one of my mistakes caught up to me.”
If he was expecting an answer, Pike was disappointed. He went on. “I never got the chance to tell you what happened to me on Borteth. What I saw.” He paused a second.
“Do you remember when I turned down the promotion to Fleet Captain? It was about a year before…” He caught himself. “Before the war. I was supposed to accept it. And six months after that, I was supposed to sacrifice myself to save five cadets in a training accident.”
Pike thought he saw a flicker of a twitch in Spock’s eyebrow, but it was almost certainly wishful thinking. “I thought I could fight fate. I turned down the promotion. Sent some letters. Rearranged some schedules. No one was hurt in the accident. I saved them. I saved more of them than I was supposed to. I thought I won.”
He couldn’t bear it any longer and walked to Spock’s side, looking out the window rather than at his former Number One’s ruined features. “They’re all gone now. The war. Someone told me once that time is the fire in which we…” He trailed off.
“It won’t let me go. Ever since outpost four, I’ve felt like I traded your life for mine. And there’s been others over the years. Sometimes it feels like everyone I get close to. Batel. Sonak. Will. Sam. They don’t always die; some just carry the scars. Nyota. Christine. Una. You.
“This whole world feels wrong, Spock. These last twenty years, the war, all of it. The Federation is doing things that go against everything we stand for. Sam’s nephew, he was working on a weapon. Like nothing… Spock, it’s a planet-killer. I saw what it could do. It… It could be a tool for creation, but never for peace. And if the Federation gets something like that, I don’t know how we live with what it would turn us into.”
He turned back to the door. “I’m sorry I failed you, old friend. I’m sorry I traded your life for mine. This isn’t right. None of this is right. And I’m going to fix it.”
He hesitated a moment, then walked back to the door. He summoned the courage to look Spock in the eye. “The Federation will never allow it. They’ll try to stop me. But I have to end this. I have to change things. I’m going back to Boreth. I don’t care what it takes or what it costs, I’m going to make them give me a chance to change things. To stop the war, to save you, to save everyone. Even if it kills me.”
Pike turned and left. As the door slid shut behind him, the light on Spock’s life support chair blinked in time to an audible alert. BEEP BEEP.