Work Text:
Jim Kirk sat alone in the dark of his cabin. He had not moved in hours; his mind kept turning in circles, smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter.
Someone knocked on his door.
He did not answer.
A pause. The knock again, a little louder.
"What do you want?" he cried. "Leave me alone!"
The door opened, and Carol stood silhouetted in the light from the corridor outside. She came in and closed the door.
"No, Jim," she said. "I won't leave you alone. Not this time." She knelt before him and took his hand in hers.
He slumped down; his forehead nested on their clasped hands.
"Carol, I just don't… I keep thinking, there must be something I could have done, that I should have done—" He shuddered and caught his breath, fighting the tears.
"I know," Carol said. "Oh, Jim, I know." She put her arms around him. As Jim held her when she grieved for her friends, she held him.
When he slipped into an exhausted, troubled sleep, she eased him down on the couch, took off his boots, and covered him with a blanket from his bed. She kissed him lightly. Then, since there was nothing else she could do for him, she did leave him alone.
I think Carol really knew…In the novelization..Carol had a lover and he died by Khan's hands…and to see Jim so devastated by Spock's death…well, what else can be said, by this written scene.
