An away mission gone very, VERY wrong. Shameless H/C. Spock under stress turns to his captain. First published in T'hy'la 30

Bottom line: he knew his Spock, thus he knew, unequivocally, that Spock was sick (and being rather shifty about it).

Spock receives an unexpected gift.

Kirk makes a discovery. And then some. An all-dialog fic.

It’s a question of biology. Vulcan biology.

The problem with falling in love with a member of an insanely private species is that it just might take you the best part of a five year mission to work out that the feelings are requited. And then you might discover that he’s already decided that the two of you can never be together.

And what are you supposed to do if he won’t tell you why?

~*~

Written as a response to T'Lara’s ingenious challenge, which is noted when it shows up in-text. Huge thanks to my fantastic betas Frodolass, penguin_attie and miloowen for being, well, fantastic. Any mistakes that remain are all mine.

If you'd like to download a PDF copy of the full novel (minus the author notes but including the translations from Vulcan), click here.

Also, the talented veta_black has created a fanmix for the fic, which you can access here.

"Friendship and pain. He hasn't always thought of them as connected. He'd spent so long looking for the subtleties he'd missed the obvious; open is just another word for vulnerable." 

Post TWOK and Kirk has lost everything that matters to him. He seeks to escape from his memories and from a guilt that haunts him but has to deal with an unwelcome visitor. A mixture of angst and flashback. This is about friendship and grief. It's not overtly slash and it does feature Chapel -- you have been warned.