LupinLuver

what is a katra, exactly? a soul? memories? a sense of self, of identity, a personality, not the id or the superego but the ego? what is a katra, that spock could leave it behind and still be enough himself to save the ship, to say goodbye to kirk?

what would spock be without it?

he doesn't have to know, not here—mccoy doesn't make it back to the glass wall, doesn't place his hand on it, doesn't say any goodbyes.

spock still knows the exact moment mccoy lets go.

he can feel the connection burning between them—a connection he's long been aware of, a connection that stretches between spock and kirk as well, a connection that spock has considered, several times during his deepest, most troubled times of meditations, as something he might be able to follow, if he had to. a string he could pull taut until it led spock back to him.

the string is taut, now.

taut, and then it snaps.

his katra, all the mental energy undamaged by the radiation, crawls back slowly towards spock, a pet not understanding the loss of its master. or perhaps understanding all too well, and unwilling to accept it.

there are footsteps behind him, shouts. scott is telling kirk to come down to engineering.

spock reels the katra in.

it comes slowly, and then all at once surges into him, taking him off balance, and that is what he blames his unsteadiness on as he presses his hand to the glass wall. mccoy's body is still turned away. spock cannot tell if his blue eyes are open or shut.

kirk lets out one brief, sharp cry as he sees the crumpled form of their friend.

they will have a fight several days from now, where kirk, often regrettably cruel in his grief, will blame spock for mccoy's death.

spock will not know, at that time, how to explain his katra. he will not know how to explain his own selfish impulse to give himself to mccoy. to leave some part of himself with the doctor.

he will only nod, and say that kirk is correct.

kirk will storm out, and then find him again later that evening, and apologize, and say that he was wrong.

spock will not push the issue, because it would hurt the captain worse than he will already be hurting, but he will still know that kirk had been correct. he did cause mccoy's death.

spock, watching mccoy's body through the glass now, considers that mccoy has, on particularly morbid nights, spoken of his wish that his body will make it back to earth, that he will be buried where his father was buried, that he will decompose in the dirt that he loved as a boy.

his body is full of radiation. there will be no homecoming, no body for his daughter to say goodbye to, to bury. he will have to be set out into space.

there is a new planet out there, though. new life. fitting, spock thinks, still unable to pull his gaze from the doctor. not the dirt of his home world, but somewhere new, and alive. perhaps he would like that.

spock turns to kirk, finally, and the grief in kirk's eyes is difficult to take in. spock is vulcan, and therefore better able to compartmentalize. kirk, despite being human, has often needed to be able to do so as well, as captain.

somehow, neither of them stir until scott approaches.

after they send mccoy's body into space, spock, an unfamiliar anger welling inside him, will systematically break every piece of glass in his quarters, and then he will hear, deep in his subconscious, mccoy's warm laugh.

he'll hear mccoy say, don't tell me you miss me, spock.

it will take him weeks to realize that the impossible has happened—that when the connection between spock and mccoy grew taut, his katra, so familiar with mccoy's mind, refused to let it go.

it chose, instead, to wrap around him.

what is a soul, exactly? is it like a katra? a sense of self? of identity? the doctor's laugh, his stubbornness, his determination?

in this case, it's what spock's katra gathered in itself.

it's what, when the string snapped, it dragged, impossibly, back into spock.

mccoy's body, filled with radiation, drifts toward genesis.