by Jane Seaton

Ensign Harry Kim tried to still the over-rapid beating of his heart. The wormhole was drifting at a rate of a few hundred thousand kilometers per second, and the shuttle was matching it, keeping it under observation. There was nothing he could do until he heard from Voyager.

The new sensor protocol he and Captain Janeway had developed was proving to be a sensitive and reliable method for locating potential shortcuts home, but when it suddenly found three wormholes simultaneously, they'd been faced with a difficult choice. The captain had responded by sending Chakotay and Kim in shuttles to investigate two of them, while Paris stayed at the helm of Voyager. If any of the three wormholes checked out, he'd have to do some fancy flying to round up the strays and get Voyager in position as quickly as possible.

Janeway hadn't even allowed time to pick a co-pilot for Harry. That hadn't bothered him, but he could really do with someone here now, just to talk with, to bring down the tension.

He checked again that the computer was repeating his signal to Voyager. Why was there no answer? The wormhole they'd been allocated was only a fraction of a light year away.

"The wrong wormhole," Harry muttered. "You're chasing the wrong wormhole, Tom. The right one is here. This is the one, the one that'll take us home. Why won't you answer me?"

While a very few wormholes had been known to stick around, making themselves useful like the one at DS9, most were shortlived. This one bore none of the hallmarks of long term stability.

But it did lead back to the Alpha Quadrant. The probe Harry had just sent in confirmed that.

"Answer, dammit. Answer. You've got to collect Chakotay and get here before it vanishes. We can't afford to lose a moment. Answer me, answer me..."

A sudden spike in one of his sensor readings stopped his heart altogether for a split second. "What the hell... No, you can't..."

And then a flash of brilliance flooded the shuttle's cockpit. When Harry opened his eyes again, the readings that had confirmed the wormhole's presence had subsided to ripples of rare particles.

"May Day! May Day!" the comm station warbled.

"What?"

"Receiving a Federation distress signal. Bearing two seven four mark four, range twelve million kilometers. Receiving..."

Harry knocked off the computer's audio switch and threw the shuttle into warp. It was obvious to him what had happened. The wormhole he'd been watching must have had more than one exit in the Delta Quadrant. He'd never heard of such a phenomenon, but he didn't question what his panic was telling him. Voyager, or Chakotay, had found the other exit and sent a probe in too. Or actually gone in themselves... (which didn't make sense either, but he was too strung out to notice). The wormhole had become unstable when Harry's returning probe and Voyager had tried to get past one another. It had collapsed, spewing the remains of the starship back out. But there was a may day. There was a may day. Something, and therefore maybe someone, had survived.

Starfleet ships didn't use Federation may day signals. Only civilian ships did that.

Harry stared down at his hands, which were gripping the edge of the console. He was behaving like a stupid cadet.

'It's only a wormhole, Harry,' he told himself sarcastically. 'You don't even know it led to the right time, or even the right universe...' Stellar Cartography had only recently pointed out the possibility that wormholes might jump dimensional boundaries. The crew's reaction was that the Delaneys were looking for excuses to prolong a mission where men out-numbered women three to one. Janeway's, that they'd worry about it when -- if -- it happened.

The red warning light flashed insistently. Whenever -- whichever -- reality the wormhole led to, it had delivered a little piece of the Alpha Quadrant right into Harry's back yard.

"Life signs. One. Humanoid."

"Injured?" Harry queried, staring out of the viewscreen at the twisted wreck that span lazily just a few hundred meters from his shuttle.

"Insufficient sensor resolution. Background radiation is at hazardous levels."

"Can you read registration marks on the ship?"

"No external registration marks. The ship's computer is inoperative. No response to our hails. No automatic identification codes are being emitted."

"But it must be a Federation ship, so it should..."

"Negative."

"Huh? It's not a Federation ship?"

"The ship is of Romulan design."

Harry watched the Romulan shuttle tumble a couple more times. "Romulans... again." He rubbed at his chin, then pushed his fringe out of his eyes. He was alone on the shuttle. He still hadn't made contact with Voyager, and the residual radiation from the wormhole's final convulsions made it unlikely that he'd be hearing from them any time soon.

On the other hand, a lone Romulan, possibly injured, was out there, marinading in lethal particles.

"Beam the survivor aboard."

A bare minute later, Harry had broken out an emergency medical kit, purged the shuttle of any troublesome radiation that had come aboard with the wreck's pilot, and was leaning over his patient. The survivor was wearing a hooded cape, which the ensign now peeled back carefully, to reveal the craggy face of a Romulan male in late middle age.

A defector, perhaps, Harry decided. Fleeing the Romulan Empire in an unmarked short-hop shuttle, hoping to be picked up by a Federation ship before he ran out of fuel and air. He couldn't even be much of a pilot, Harry theorised, or he wouldn't have let himself be sucked into a wormhole.

The man stirred a little. His eyes flickered open and he stared up into Harry's face. The ensign tensed. His patient wasn't too severely injured, according to the medical scanner. He could probably put up a fight.

"Can you understand me?" Harry asked.

"Ensign... I can understand you. Should I not?"

"You've been in a shuttle accident. You're aboard a Federation shuttle now."

"Did... Did Captain Kirk send you?" The Romulan blinked persistently, as if he couldn't make out Harry's face very clearly.

"Captain Kirk? No. I'm Ensign Harry Kim, from the USS Voyager. Captain Janeway..."

"Kathryn Janeway?"

"Yes. How do you know..."

"I have met her. It was... some time ago. I'm not sure... exactly how long.

Harry slid his thumb over the controls of the scanner, activating it again.

"I thought you were Romulan..."

"No..."

"You're half Vulcan, half human."

"That is correct."

"You're Ambassador Spock."

It took half an hour to treat Spock's minor injuries, a cracked rib, some bruising, but there was nothing Harry could do about the radiation poisoning. That would have to await Voyager's return. For now, it didn't seem to be troubling the Ambassador. He had accepted a little water and appeared comfortable.

"I had understood that Voyager had been lost," Spock said.

"Well, yes, we were... um, I suppose we still are."

"Clarify."

"Your shuttle arrived here via a wormhole. We were hoping to use it to get home, but something collapsed the wormhole as you came through..."

"Home? Why? Where are we?"

"In the delta quadrant. About... oh, sixty eight thousand light years from Earth."

"I see," Spock said lightly. He was silent, then he added, "I am sorry."

Harry continued tidying away the medical equipment he'd been using. "I thought it was... illogical, to apologise for something you're not responsible for."

Spock looked up from his seat. Harry still wasn't too sure how clearly the Vulcan was able to see.

"I have never spent much time... anywhere that I could call 'home'. I am sorry."

The silence burned uncomfortably. Harry gave in to his curiosity. "May I ask... what were you doing in a Romulan shuttle? And getting mixed up with a wormhole?"

"I have been working on Romulus for some years, incognito. My cover was breached. I left quickly. Had the Romulan security services caught me, I would have been questioned. I did not wish to endanger my colleagues. I was pursued, and when I detected a wormhole, believing capture inevitable, I decided to take a chance and enter it. I discharged a neutrino beam, to collapse it and prevent any pursuit." Spock stared down at the deck. "I could have simply initiated a self-destruct routine, but

"Of Captain Kirk," Harry filled in, almost automatically.

"Yes," Spock said softly. "Such... serendipity. It reminded me very much of Jim."

"He was... At the Academy, they told us, never let yourself believe you can inherit Kirk's luck."

Spock turned on Harry an expression so serious, it almost had to be read as a smile. "And yet, here I am. Greeted by a shuttle from the only Starfleet ship in the quadrant. Perhaps I have inherited a little of Kirk's luck after all."

"That's not really luck," Harry said, then wondered if he should just let the man believe what he wanted. "I mean... a wormhole is just about our only chance of getting home alive. We're pretty good at spotting when they're likely to develop. Given that we were within... a dozen light years of here..."

"The odds are still..." Spock paused as if calculating, but he shook his head after a moment. "Adverse. Perhaps, if I have inherited the captain's luck, I can leave it with you. I should like to think that you will get home. I should like..."

"Are you feeling okay?" Harry moved forward with the medical scanner, but Spock waved him away.

"The radiation poisoning. The ability of my blood to transport certain vital enzymes is declining."

Harry sighed. He hadn't mentioned the radiation to Spock, but the Vulcan had been a Starfleet science officer. He would know.

He was surprised to feel a hot touch on his hand. "Ensign. I have died of radiation poisoning before. Kirk's luck... I'm still here. But perhaps... it won't work a second time."

"I forgot," Harry said, embarrassed. Everyone knew that story, Starfleet or civilian. Then the implications hit home. "Ambassador..."

"You are seventy years from Vulcan, Ensign. Leonard McCoy carried my katra for only a few weeks, and nearly lost his mind as a result. Do not consider it."

"There are three Vulcans on Voyager..."

"Tuvok is too vital to the operation of the ship. It would be improper to expose him to such a risk. Vorik is young, as is T'Kel. Their minds are immature, too malleable."

"How... do you know so much about Voyager's crew?" Harry asked hesitantly.

Spock snatched his hand back. "Forgive me."

"I thought... I thought using touch telepathy was taboo." The ensign immediately felt guilty. What right did he have to criticise Ambassador Spock?

"It is allowed in certain circumstances. In self defence or the defence of others. And with... a bondmate."

Harry turned the scanner off. "Are you thirsty? Is it warm enough in here?" He slipped the scanner into its place in the kit and closed the case.

"Forgive me, Ensign. I did not mean to disturb you."

"No... I... I don't mind."

"I am dying. My mind, and my eyes, are... unclear. You remind me a little of someone who was once... a source of great joy to me."

"I understand."

"I don't believe you do, not in full. I am aware, of the rumours..."

Harry looked at him, worrying at his bottom lip. The Ambassador was dying. He probably wanted to acknowledge things that had been important to him. "Captain Kirk was your... lover. I know."

"James Kirk... On the few occasions when he alluded to the matter at all... told me that he considered homosexual relationships to be a sign of physical and moral weakness. It was a great flaw in his perception, but I think, an innocent consequence of his upbringing in rural Iowa."

The ensign gulped. "But everyone..."

"Believes it. I know. Leonard McCoy always found the situation hugely amusing. But for others... it was because of the Admiral's great respect for Jim that he never allowed me to publicly acknowledge my feelings for him, or his for me. I would like to put that right."

"The... Admiral?" Harry mouthed helplessly.

"And since his death... I no longer... require... the physical presence of my partner."

"Pon farr, you mean?" Harry broke in, the concept being fresh in his mind.

Spock drew in a disapproving breath through flared nostrils. "Indeed. My time for that is past, due perhaps to my human heritage. But I do... yearn for him, sometimes."

"Admiral... McCoy?" Harry had occasionally seen the old man around the campus at the Academy, sometimes hectoring an unwary student who had infringed some archaic rule, or more often, sharing a cup of coffee at a crowded table of medical cadets, hanging on his every word.

"I was not aware of that rumour," Spock said crisply.

"I'm sorry, I thought... when you said 'the Admiral' ..."

"How old are you, Ensign?"

"Me? Twenty six, sir."

"He was twenty four, when I... neither of us truly knew what we were doing. Vulcan courtship, if one can call it that, is so different to the human norm. We spent time together, we became... comfortable in each other's company. I forgot to be formal, and he never knew that it was necessary. We..." Spock reached out his hand again, and Harry unthinkingly took it. "...touched, one day, and found that our minds..."

// flowed together, so that quite without warning, he was looking out of the Vulcan's eyes. He only knew because he was looking down at the top of his own head, bent over the padd, his hand -- guided by Spock's -- controlling the stylus and making precise amendments to the adinotronic circuit diagram. The quality of the light was marginally different, blue tinged.

"Mister Spock?"

The tutor's hand was snatched away, the stylus clattered to the deck and the padd blinked protests.

"I apologise, Ensign. I did not intend..."//

"But you did intend..." Harry said wonderingly, fascinated by the unexpected glimpse into another mind at third hand.

"Indeed. And we both knew it. After that, there was very little reason to pretend otherwise. We became lovers."

"And..."

"And remained so, with interruptions. I made a mistaken choice, to enter the Kolinahr. That came to nothing. I missed him more intensely than I can put into words. When the Enterprise was recommissioned, and I knew he was assigned there, I found an excuse to return to Starfleet. A crisis happened to develop..."

"Veejur," Harry interrupted.

"Indeed. It appeared to be another example of Kirk's luck, the excuse he needed to take command of the Enterprise once more, but to me... it was my luck. The five years that followed were the most... serene I have ever experienced. Then he was offered a position on the Reliant. We... discussed the situation. The Reliant was not a deep space explorer, as the Enterprise had originally been intended. I took a teaching role at the Academy, and then took command of the Enterprise myself. We saw each other frequently, until..."

"Another example of Kirk's luck."

Spock raised a trade mark eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"He loses his first officer, and friend, and commits his body to the only planet in existence that can bring him back to life."

Spock shook his head. "Arguably. I was fortunate, but Captain Kirk did lose his son. I believe that hurt him greatly. And the consequences of the incident were undesirable in other ways. While carrying my katra, Leonard McCoy frequently became confused. He spoke to Jim concerning matters I would have preferred to remain private. The captain... had a great deal of influence. And of course, on Vulcan, homosexuality is regarded as a severe error in logic. My parents decided, with Jim, that when my katra

"You mean..." Harry couldn't believe it. "What happened?"

"Immediately? Nothing. The Klingon Warbird which we... appropriated... was cramped. There was no privacy. We were all sharing quarters. It simply never occurred to me that there was anything amiss. And once we had saved the world, again, Jim suggested I take leave with him, and I accepted. He never said anything. We were recalled as a result of the incident on the Planet of Galactic Peace..."

"The crazy Vulcan who wanted to look for God at the centre of the galaxy?"

Spock nodded. "An unparalled error in logic, and Sybok was not beyond a little psychological vandalism, when it suited him. The commander, as he was then, was particularly vulnerable to Sybok's quackery because of my behaviour, which seemed totally inexplicable to him. Along with some other tampering, Sybok restored my memories. I am not sure of the details, but I imagine they were still available somewhere in Leonard's mind. At a time, therefore, when we were dealing with a dangerous madman -- I do!agai n. He died, as you will know, on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise B. The commander was on good terms with him. It was curious. It never seemed to occur to him that he could tell Jim what to do with his peculiar ideas. 'He is the captain,' he would say, as if that was the end of the matter." Spock shook his head. "Even after Jim's death, for which he contrived to blame himself, he would still say, if I raised the question of a public affirmation of our feelings for one another, 'He was the captain,' and the discussion would stop."

A spasm of pain tightened the muscles of Spock's face.

"Ambassador? Are you in pain? Perhaps you shouldn't talk any more. You need to rest, until Voyager gets here."

"No. I am beyond medical aid. I won't conserve my strength for no purpose. He died seventeen years ago. With him, I lost my anchor and my guiding star. I threw myself into the cause of Romulan re-unification, but it has been a hollow endeavour. There is no satisfaction in it for me. They are both gone, and they have taken the light with them. Everything is dark now."

"Your eyes," Harry blurted out. They had clouded over in the last few minutes. He passed a hand in front of them, but Spock didn't react.

"My hearing too... is growing faint. I think I have run out of luck. Ensign, I would ask you... one last favour..."

"Of course..." Harry cleared his throat, then in a flash of inspiration, seized Spock's hand and willed agreement at the Vulcan as if it was some kind of mental red alert.

"You are..." Spock paused, struggling for breath. "...very like him."

The colour was draining from his face, leaving him a curious shade of peppermint green.

"What can I do?"

The Ambassador offered his hand, two fingers extended together. "Help me, Harry, to remember him...."

Some years later, Harry Kim stood beside a freshly dug grave, watching the groundspeople tidy away the duckboards and tarpaulins, and surreptitiously remove the broken and wilted heads from the abundance of flowers. Fine drops of moisture clung to his hair, whitening it. Commodore Janeway shivered. Dress uniforms were poor protection against a cold late November morning in San Francisco. She stepped across the bruised green of the lawn to stand by the lieutenant commander and offer him the warmth of frien

"I think we're in disgrace, Harry," she said softly. "For bringing him home, I mean. Not really Starfleet tradition, carrying bodies around."

Harry shrugged. "I was never sure, if it was what he wanted. I couldn't decide where Ambassador Spock would consider was his home. Until I came here the day we got back..." A groundsman finished placing the foundation for the marker stone that was being moved so that it lay centered between the new grave and the one next to it. A mason was using a light industrial phaser to cut a new name and date in the broad space below the existing inscription. "Then I knew that the Admiral must have hop

Janeway nodded. Her eyes, Harry noticed, were teary. "I thought that. I checked the records. He left very clear instructions."

'Together, now and eternally...' Below it, the mason had cut the phrase in elegant Vulcan script, and was half way through painstakingly incising the cyrillic.