The BLTS Archive - And About Damn Time
by Ruth Gifford (ereshkgl@cyberg8t.com)

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There are several people to blame for this.  Like Gryewolf, and Killa,
and  t'amen and raku, and Judy, and all the rest of you TOS perverts.
After almost three years of writing TrekSmut for public consumption
(which was after two years of just writing it), I've finally paid a
little homage to the roots of my craft and have written a K/S. OK so
it's only PG-13  (for a  description of mild groping), but still, it
is K/S. A certain lupine  pal of ours wants me to do a more smutty
K/S, but I don't know . . .

Oh let's all do the Paramount Shuffle, shall we?  These are
Paramount's characters, in an interpretation of those characters that
goes back to the early '70s, damn me if there isn't a single original
idea here.  And if there is, it's mine.  Mine, do you hear me?
BWHAHAHAHA!  Ooops, sorry . .  .  A brief note about time: this takes
place between ST:IV and ST:V.

This is for all those people who looked beyond canon and started a new
literary genre.  Our lives would be very different without them.

(c)  1997

---

It's quiet.  Finally things have calmed down after my rather
absentminded  surprise inspection, and this place is as quiet as it
ever is.  I've been  heard to say that I wish I'd gotten a less
stressful assignment, like maybe  heading a trauma unit on a mining
colony.  That's a joke.  As Spock would  say, " A very little joke,
Doctor," but a joke nonetheless.  It's bullshit, not the joke, but
the wish that Starfleet in it's wisdom had sent me somewhere else.
Like there *is* anywhere else?

Well there was somewhere else, of course.  There was the Enterprise,
the  NCC-1701, I mean, no extra letters.  She was a trooper, that ship
was.  Listen to me talk about her like she was alive or something.
Jim taught me to see her that way, only I didn't let the sight of her
blind me to everything else the way he did.  Not that I'm saying he
was wrong to do so  . . .  Then again, I am saying exactly that.  It's
easy enough to say  *now.*

Now.  Now we're finally all settled in and the shake down mission is
under our belts.  This one is a trooper too, this Enterprise-A.  And
she's a lovely graceful lady, but she won't blind him the way the
other one did.  Of course I can't say that to him yet.  I probably
won't say it to him, to  either of them, come to think of it.
Surprisingly enough, I do have *some* tact.  Not much, but enough to
know that Jim will always be touchy about  the old Enterprise, and
enough to know that anything Jim is touchy about, Spock will be
silent about.  And of course, Spock cared about the old Enterprise in
his own way.  Not that he'd admit it.

Damn, but it's impossible to imagine two more stubborn men.  And
that's saying a lot, coming from someone who's always prided himself
on his stubbornness.  But look at the two of them, both so proud,
both so stubborn.  Both such idiots.  You can be as brave as ten
heroes, or as smart as a roomful of philosophers, and yet you can
still be a fool.

I tried; God knows I tried.  A nudge to Spock here, trying to bend
that Vulcan control a little.  A hint to Jim there, trying to get him
to see that being married to one's ship was all well and good, but
look around you, man, and see what you're missing.  I like to think
that maybe it did  some good.  I like to think that maybe, someday,
one of them will say "I remember when you said this or that.  Why
didn't I see what you were trying  to do back then?"  But they won't.
And they won't have to.

I read somewhere, can't remember where, that Human men aren't
matchmakers.  What a load of crap.  *Humans* are matchmakers, we can't
help it.  Particularly romantic Humans like myself.  It's ironic of
course, after all, I'm hardly an expert on happily-ever-after, but
there I was, doing my  damndest.  I was too subtle, I guess.  Now
isn't that the strangest thing  you've ever heard? *Me,* too subtle?
Well I was.  I shoulda locked them in a room together without their
clothes or something.

At first I tried for Jim's sake.  I got tired of watching all the
women come and go, each of them thinking that she was the One.  If
he'd devoted half the time and effort to his relationships with any
of them as he did to his relationship with Spock, he'd have been
married long before now.  Some of the more intelligent ones thought
it was the Enterprise that was their rival.  Ha!  She was the excuse.
So I nudged Spock, hoping he'd unbend  enough to pay attention to
Jim's signals.  Fat lot of good that did.

And then, after that fiasco with T'Pring on Vulcan, I realized that I
was trying for Spock's sake as well.  I'm hardly the fool he took me
for then.  I know what he felt when he thought he'd killed Jim.  I
tried to pretend along with him that it was friendship that he was
concealing behind that glacial Vulcan mask.  Like he'd have been
that distressed if he'd  killed another friend, me for example.  Oh,
I suppose if I'd died, he'd have been  broken up some; you can't go
through what we've been through and not care about someone.  But
that kind of emotion?  That goes beyond friendship.

And so I tried for both their sakes.  And damnit, it was like pounding
my head against a pair of brick walls.  I tried getting them drunk
together.  No dice.  I tried hints and suggestions and out and out
innuendo.  Nada.  Finally, and I still feel guilty about this, I gave
up.  Once Jim let them promote him, once he walked into *that* trap,
I had to wash my hands of it.  It hurt too much, seeing my friends
trying to be noble, trying to pretend that what they felt was
something that the other couldn't understand.  I watched Jim try to
throw himself into his work and I said goodbye to Spock as he went to
Vulcan to try to tame his unruly Human half.

Of course I said a lot more than goodbye, that day I tried to talk him
out of leaving. I said things like, "How could you do this to
yourself?  To Jim?"  I tried to remind him that, like it or not, he
*was* half Human and that no amount of Vulcan discipline would change
that. I actually got in and hurt his feelings, although I didn't know
it at the time.  It was only a lot later that I learned that calling
him a coward, accusing him of running away, and mentioning Jim's name
with every other breath, hurt him.  Ironically, the fact that I could
hurt him made him that much more convinced that he was doing the
right thing.  It wasn't one of my finer moments.

And Jim?  I tried to tell him that if *he* would ask, Spock would
stay.  He told me he had asked, but I knew he hadn't said the right
words.  And why should he have said them?  He'd never said them to
himself, let alone to anyone else.  It was one thing to know Spock's
emotions better than the half Human, half Vulcan did, but to know
Jim's emotions, at least in that one area, better than he himself did
. . .  It got real old, real fast, and after Spock went into the
desert, I didn't try anymore.  Why bother?  There was my practice and
my fish and I was happy enough.  Or so I told myself.

And when Spock came back?  Now I was banging my head against a
diamond-coated brick wall.  He had his emotions locked up tighter than
a miser's credit chip.  And Jim?  He was lost somewhere under that
Admiral's uniform.  Oh, I tried, but it wasn't the same.  They didn't
feel the same to me, and no doubt I didn't feel the same to them.

And then . . .  Oh God what a nightmare!  Events do that to you
sometimes, suddenly take off at a breakneck speed and you cling to
the reins and wonder when you'll have a chance to breath again.  You
never get used to that, not really.  You learn to cope, in your own
weird way, but used to it?  No.  And if I ever met anyone assigned to
a starship who was used to  it, I'd get them drummed out of the fleet.
Of course, sometimes your coping mechanisms are strained to the
breaking point.

*You* try wandering around with someone else's soul inside your head.
Talk about your unique experiences!  But I've talked about that unique
experience in other places, and here and now all I can say is that
Spock  learned a few things from being trapped up there.  Arrogant of
me, isn't it?  But it's true.  Sure, he was a little addlepated when
he first came back.  Who wouldn't be?  But during that whole absurd
trip back through time, I would catch him looking at Jim when he
thought no one was watching  him.  And finally, after we got back and
waited for our trial, I had my chance.

I'd always thought it would be Jim, I'd have The Talk with.  I figured
it  would be easier to talk about love and friendship and duty with
him, than with Spock.  Well, I'll never know.

"Spock," I said, "you better say something to him, now."  To any
observer,  my words would have come out of the blue, but when two
people have been around each other as much as we have . . . well I
doubt anything I said  could come out of the blue.

"Why now, Doctor."

God he kills me.  Here I'd been running around half the galaxy with
his katra in my head and he still called me "Doctor."

"Because if he gets busted," I replied, "he'll think it's pity."

"Perhaps you are right."

And that was that.  No one can end a discussion like Spock.  And what
a discussion.  After God knows *how* many years of keeping all that
inside me and all I said was *that*?  Maybe I learned something from
Spock after all.

And Spock?  Well he obviously picked up a little of my habit of
procrastinating when it comes to difficult conversations, because he
waited  until today to say something.  Always assuming it was Spock
who said  something.  For all I know, it was Jim who started it.
Maybe he finally  got it through his damn stubborn skull, and figured
that today was the day  to make his move.  I'll probably never know.
I can't imagine Spock sharing *that* with me, or even that Jim coming
up to me and saying: "Well, Bones,  it went like this . . ."

All I know is that they were damned lucky that *I* was the one who
came along and saw them.  Imagine the results if one of the crew had
seen them like that.  There I was, just minding my own business while
I was on my way to pull a surprise inspection on my poor innocent
staff.  And there they were, Spock with his back flat up against the
corridor wall and Jim with his front flat up against Spock.  That
would have been bad enough, but the fact that one of Spock's hands
was on Jim's backside, and the fact that they were kissing one
another so hard that I thought I'd need to treat them both for oxygen
loss, made for a pretty interesting public display of affection.
Which just happens to be against Starfleet regs, particularly  when
both parties are in uniform.

Well, I've never been one for Starfleet protocol, but as the senior
officer on the scene, I had a duty to remind them of the regs.  Years
ago, Jim and  I had to explain to Spock that that particular
regulation doesn't always have to be strictly enforced.  We'd
explained that there was a simple phrase that was usually sufficient
in the case of a first time offense.  Rumor even has it that Spock
used it on Chekov one time, although I think  Uhura might have been
pulling my leg.

"Excuse me," I said, doing my damndest not to sound overly smug.  "But
you  do have your quarters for that sort of behavior."

Well they broke apart and headed on down the corridor, towards Spock's
quarters which happen to be closer, without once looking at me.  As
far as  you'd have been able to tell, they didn't even see me.  But I
know a thing  or two about Vulcans and those pointed ears of theirs,
and I know that  Spock heard my final words.  He'll tell Jim, once
they come up for air.  And Jim will bust up laughing, I can just see
it now.  They'll both know what I meant when I said: "And about
damned time."

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The End