Spock's world. A post-apocalypse. A famous dancer and her manager. Julia's world. Dark Derleth. A gothic fantasy romance in space. Spock and Julia get glimpses of other
strange new worlds.
⚠None.
“It’s illegal, Julia.”
Spock’s eyebrows had a permanent appearance of disappointment with their sharply downturned angle, but this time the discontent showed in his eyes as well. More than disappointment. Something akin to hurt, albeit sans the emotional construct. As though she’d betrayed him. And in a way she had. They’d studied together at the Vulcan Science Academy. They’d worked on research projects together. They had plans for improving life in the universe.
And then she went and did this.
Eugenics.
The one thing the Federation refused to offer leniency on. The one tenet next to the Prime Directive that was completely and utterly unacceptable to break. And she had done so with callous disregard for all the work they’d accomplished in the past. Work that would now be thrown into suspicion. Work that lost its meaning. Its merit.
Work that she took with her to this hidden colony which had broken more than a dozen Federation laws. Crimes that would put her in prison for the rest of her life. If—
If Spock told them where she was. But he hadn’t done that. Not yet. He came alone. Tracked her alone. Followed the clues he suspected she left for him, although he could think of no logical reason as to why.
He pursed his lips. “You have to close down this research station. You have to turn yourself in.”
He paused. A moment of hesitation because he’d once considered her to be a friend. And Spock didn’t have a lot of friends. “Or you have to leave. Leave and go very far away.”
Julia didn’t smile. This was unlike her. At the Vulcan Science Academy, she’d weaponized her smile the way some humans might say, bless their heart. Sometimes her smile was more of a secret. A way to signal she had something planned. A way to say I know something you don’t know.
But sometimes her smile had been a way to take the heat off Spock. Sometimes she played up the human act. Played up social ignorance on purpose, only to use it like a knife. To kill with kindness. Julia might have made a decent diplomat, if she wasn’t such a shit stirrer. Diplomacy was never her first love, however. It had always been science. What she could create, what she could discover. Always starving for new knowledge.
“No.”
Now she was serious, matching Spock perhaps in severity, though she was incapable of cold logic. Logic had never been the part that drove her.
“You can’t do this to me right now. This isn’t me creating some lame army of Augment soldiers. The Federation Law is illogical, it is based in fear and unevenly applied, or you yourself wouldn’t exist.”
Julia went quiet, wondering if she’d stepped too far to bring in his personal history.
“There are other applications of genetic modification that are still valid beyond the Federation’s short sighted list of allowable uses. And they’re more than happy to make exceptions when they see it’s a direct benefit to their own goals.”
Julia knew better than to plead. But she knew she needed to reign in her argument from anything emotional to reach him. Or so she thought.
Spock’s logic had become all the more persistent and steadfast since they’d last seen each other. Since their time as students and young researchers. Back then Spock had more difficulty controlling his human emotions and Julia’s manipulative energy did offer him a guise to hide behind. By being fully human she took off a lot of the pressure he received from his Vulcan classmates. Classmates who would later become his colleagues. In a way, Spock was indebted to her, although he would never admit it. Not that he needed to. Julia probably knew. But since she left the Federation to pursue her own interests, Spock doubled down on logic. He was more Vulcan than most Vulcans. Even his father was surprised by his commitment. By his ability to rid himself of his human half.
No one expected him to complete the Kolinahr. But he did.
Still, that didn’t make him immune. And when Julia mentioned how his own birth would not have been possible if not for the advances in medical technology that came from eugenics-related research, Spock felt a tingle of irritation. A brush of anger.
That was a low blow even for Julia.
“It’s a crime,” Spock said, biting back any of that anger he might have felt. His tone was calm. Composed. Decidedly serious. So black and white. So Vulcan. Always playing by the rules.
But never able to hide the obvious disappointment in those cold, rational eyes.
He took out a communicator from his back pocket and flipped it open. The communicator chirped. He pressed a button on the handheld console. “I am directing the nearest Federation vessel to our location. You have less than ten minutes to make your escape. Or you can surrender yourself to me and I will speak on your behalf to the judicial commission. Perhaps they will show leniency with your sentencing.”
“I don’t accept that.”
Another flash, strung together by four words. Julia Wicker’s last words. Julia Wicker’s first words. This time they weren’t in the far future on some far away planet. This time Julia walked side by side with Spock on subway tracks that had not been used in twenty years. Rather than walking through a dead world, this post-apocalypse seemed more alive than ever.
She beamed, her elbow nudged gently into Spock’s side. Julia rarely got him to smile back, it seemed. He was always so severe, so serious. Somehow she liked that about him.
Last humans on Earth (give or take with the 2-3% of the population that had survived) and Julia could still find reasons to smile.
“Survival isn’t the end game. Living is the end game. Look around. We already survived. We can work on expanding your brilliant power grid and enjoy a play for one night. It’s not a one or the other thing. It’s both. —Ooh! Horseweed!”
In any other group, Julia would have been cherished as the resident genius. With Spock, she relished in merely trying to keep up. The two of them together? A living library of Alexandria. One of her strengths? Foraging. It was amazing how much more was edible around them that humans had taken for granted. Julia pulled out a bag and started plucking at what would have otherwise looked like a very ordinary weed. But the plant was sweet and would make pretty good candy that made her popular with the children.
“One night off from rebuilding civilization. Please?”
Jokingly, she batted her eyes at him. If she couldn’t get him to smile, maybe she could get him to raise one eyebrow at her. He had very distinct dark eyebrows that almost pointed upwards. Another feature she enjoyed about him.
Spock had never been one to smile before the end of the world. It seemed, despite the admittedly upbeat nature of his company and circumstances, somewhat contradictory to smile after it. Not that he remembered much of the time before. He’d been young then. Most of them had been. Old enough for fleeting memories. Emotions. Scents. Nostalgia. But the context was more imaginary than truthful. Perhaps because it was too painful to dwell on the past. That’s why they were part of the troupe, after all. To bring hope and optimism for the future. To revive the beautiful aspects of mankind. Not to rebuild so much as to re-nourish. To re-inspire.
Although Spock still held fast to the belief that a power grid would benefit everyone in a positive manner. If only he could get the damn thing to work.
“I do not wish to feel like I’m wasting time,” Spock said, stepping over a thick vine which had grown over the subway tracks. The world had settled into a strange in-between. Nature slowly took over the remnants of civilization, creating an almost poetic thoroughfare from one landscape to the next. “If I could simply devote a few more hours of the day to the power grid, I know I could work out why it fails to maintain a constant flow of—”
He stopped because he knew she didn’t want to hear the technical jargon. Not that he really understood the technical jargon. It was more like a feeling. He had a natural knack for technology. For building things. But in a world that was a spectral image of itself, those weren’t always the best qualities.
Spock slowed his gait to a halt when she crouched down to collect the herbs. It was hard not to let her positivity affect him. Spock secretly craved those jovial moments with Julia. Perhaps one day he’d find a reason to smile and laugh. But he wasn’t quite there. Maybe tonight’s play would crack that hard exterior of his.
And he did quirk a brow, just before exhaling a sigh that was meant to sound more irritated than he actually was. Spock’s dry form of playfulness. “Fine. One night off. But first thing tomorrow morning I’m going to readjust the connection to the solar panels. That must be where we’re losing power.”
He paused. “And you won’t convince me to drink with you again tonight after the performance. I’m still recovering from the last play.”
She rolled her eyes at a few more hours. Always the same complaints. But they were deeply comforting and familiar to her. Like a favorite bedtime story.
“Yeah, because who needs sleep?” she teased. Julia gave him a look. But her gaze intensified until her eyes were more pleading than teasing. When he finally relented, Julia barely withheld the yes! or any number of triumphant gestures she could have made. Instead she pressed her lips firmly together to keep herself from smiling too pleased. Too broadly. She couldn’t allow him to change his mind now.
What Julia didn’t state was her fear that the panels themselves were bad or damaged. She thought it. She lost sleep about it, even when she didn’t let on. Because damaged solar panels weren’t something she had a solution to fix. Why bring it up? Why not focus on the things that they could do?
And they could enjoy a play together.
Any concern that started to etch away at her temporary triumph disappeared when Spock mentioned drinking. Julia laughed remembering…
All good memories. Even the hangovers afterward.
“We’ll see,” she said innocently. She couldn’t promise not to convince him to drink with her afterward. That would be lying, and Julia would never lie to her best friend.
Julia liked to dance. She was tone deaf. Couldn’t sing to save her life. But she did love to dance.
Spock, on the other hand, hated dancing.
“Julia! You’re on in five minutes!”
Another flash. Spock knocked on the door to her dressing room. Still no answer. Most people would have been concerned, but he wasn’t. He knew Julia well. Too well. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just being difficult. Taking her prima-donna reputation to the extreme. He knocked again. The sound echoed on the opposite side of the corridor. Julia was supposed to be in the wings fifteen minutes ago. Makeup had already given up hope that she would be on time, but two young interns were standing at the side of the stage with powder hoping they could quickly slap something on her face to prevent a glare from the house lights. Then they could do a more elaborate job during the intermission.
But if Julia didn’t come out of her dressing room it wouldn’t matter. If she didn’t come out then the theatre was going to be out thousands of dollars in tickets, not to mention both of them would probably be dropped from their contracts.
Again.
Spock tried to withhold his temper. As a manager he was actually quite calm and reserved. It was one of the reasons he was so good at negotiating new leads for Julia who had a reputation for being ‘difficult’. But the longer he worked with her the more he wished he’d gone into theatre than dance. Actors were easier to deal with than ballerinas.
And they made more money, too.
“Alright, I’m coming in. So, if you’re not dressed then grab a towel.” Not that it mattered. If she wasn’t dressed then they were both out of a job.
He turned the handle on the door knob and stepped inside.
The good news:
She was dressed. Perhaps they’d both live to have a job another day. She had always been difficult to work with, but then Julia did not take anyone’s shit. Bad treatment or mediocrity— it didn’t matter. She’d long given up on getting credit or respected for making things better. And they were better. Julia’s standards were impossibly high, often irritating, but almost always right. It was why she needed him. Spock could appear to to talk her down while also being positioned to get her everything she wanted in the first place. The good cop to her bad cop.
The bad news:
This wasn’t a tantrum. Julia was pale. The air was so thick with her grief that it made breathing difficult, and all sound vanished. What happened outside of her dressing room might have been another planet. She shook her head, as though she were trying to speak. Her hands gestured, but the words did not follow, and her fingers trembled so terribly that it wouldn’t have mattered.
If she said the words, it would make them true. If the words were true, she would cry. If she cried then no amount of makeup would be able to cover her face— Julia was an ugly cryer— and she would not be able to perform.
She held up her phone for Spock to read the text message instead.
I am so sorry to inform you that Quentin Coldwater died this morning at… Q, her idiot best friend that attended nearly all her performances and only tried to awkwardly ask Spock out once until Julia had shut that down fast. Her one emergency contact since she’d had cut off most of her family and wasn’t especially prone to making new friends.
Quentin Coldwater would not be in the audience that night.
Julia could no longer feel the ground beneath her.
There went the evening.
Spock didn’t even read the entirety of the text. He didn’t need to. After the look on her face he already knew what followed the first four words. Because there was only one person in this world who could collapse Julia like this. Only one person who could destroy her from the inside out. And it didn’t matter that Spock had never really gotten along with Quentin. He tolerated him because he kept Julia sane. Kept her grounded. Kept her from walking out on jobs that were beneath her. Because he made her happy in ways that other people—Spock included—could not.
Tonight’s show would not go on.
Spock took out his phone and texted the director to bring out the understudy. His message was short. He made it sound like there was an illness. That would prevent any journalists who might be snooping. The last thing they needed was the world monetizing her loss before Julia had the chance to breathe.
He turned the lock on the door so no one could barge in on them. Then he pulled up a chair beside her. Spock was not the best person for emotional trauma. He locked up all of his own feelings in a dark place inside of himself. A place he refused to revisit. A place where he hid his tragedies and losses and all of the horrible things that made him the man he was. A man who was good at compartmentalizing, but not good at sharing grief.
“What do you need me to do?” Spock asked. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Close, but not too close. He could have offered her a handkerchief. Something to wipe off her face. He could have placed a hand on her arm or offered her a hug. But that wasn’t Spock. Spock’s affection always came at a distance. Wrapped in professionalism. “Should I call a car to take you home?”
The offer felt so useless. So small in comparison to what she must have been feeling. “I’m sorry, Julia. I just don’t know what to say…”
“Say you’ll help me.”
It was never going to be over. Not after destroying Fillory. Not after making a New Fillory. Not after even finding the mystical land and reuniting with their friends. Life didn’t work that way, certainly not Julia’s.
Magic had a way of creating more problems than solutions, and Julia maybe enjoyed the clean up a little too much. She should have been home. With her daughter, with Penny. Her rush to always be the hero, to fix things had put considerable strain on those relationships.
But Julia couldn’t bring herself to retire.
Quentin didn’t.
She was surprised, then, to find the demigod she needed at MIT. The professor was the son of Vulcan, maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised to find out the god of fire and the forge sired a son of science.
Did he even know who or what he was?
She’d found him during his office hours and had little time to make a very big ask work. To convince him to possibly upend his life in addition to pissing off every god still alive. Not that she’d said as much. Not that she would tell him all the risks in advance. Because she didn’t know him and the end result was worth risking him, wasn’t it? To be fair, she’d already determined it was worth risking herself.
“Your father created this device. I think you’re the only one that can help me find it.”
It was a gamble. Julia was either going to come off as an insane person or maybe not. The ancient papyrus was put in enchanted archival sleeves to protect the drawings and information in an ancient form of Latin describing what was last known about the MacGuffin dujour. Julia unrolled the old world documents out on the professor’s desk for examination while scrutinizing his face for recognition or possibly denial.
She wore a blouse, heels. Julia was well put together. Hair styled, makeup tastefully applied. It was a far cry from her early days as a hedgewitch, dressed all in black and outwardly as much of a mess as she felt. These days… she was either back to being fully herself, the overachiever, hyper type A personality or she was better about lying about it.
When she first entered his office, Spock feigned ignorance. He’d grown very good at that. At pretending not to know that there was a world beyond the one that most mortals existed in. He was an expert when it came to scoffing at the mere notion of magic and gods and magicians. Nine times out of ten, he was believed. He didn’t look like much, after all. Not compared to his father. Not compared to that particular god. Side by side no one would have believed they were related. But there was always that chance. So, to cover his tracks, Spock had done his homework. He’d changed his name. He’d built a real and honest life among mortals. He’d avoided that world at all costs. And he made sure his father never found him.
So, on the rare occurrence that someone did find him, Spock was usually quite good at making them believe he was a nobody. That whatever source which had led them to him was a trap or a trick or a false clue. But this woman didn’t look like she was going to fall for the deception.
That was why he looked at the ancient papers and drawings. But like a true professor—and someone who understood that magic could be woven into all sorts of objects—he was cautious not to touch anything with his hands. He wore gloves like an archivist. Like someone who was accustomed to dealing with old manuscripts and historical artifacts. Not like someone who taught in one of the most high-tech scientific laboratories in the country.
“Hmm.” Spock was careful not to reveal too much in his expression. Funny how he was almost the exact opposite of his father in that science. Fire was explosive. It was animated. It was unpredictable. Science was not. Science was scrutinizing. It was calculating and cold. It defied emotion and embraced fact.
Spock turned over one document and leaned in close to inspect another. He adjusted his thick-framed glasses on his nose. “Why do you want to find it? What do you intend to use it for?”
Julia wasn’t sure how much Professor Spock knew. It sounded insane, even among the magicians to say: “So Fillory is real…”
Starting with either the most or least shocking revelation, depending on what the demi-god was aware of. She didn’t even go into the fact that Fillory had been destroyed, rebuilt-- if he knew, he knew, but Julia had more important information to get to.
She was frequently like that: rushing to get to the answer, rushing to be right, missing the forest for the (Our Lady of the) trees.
“But its gods Ember and Umber are dead. I don’t know what your relationship with your dad is like, but Fillory deserves a chance to be its own place, to make its own fate. Half the time, Ember and Umber fucked with Fillory for their own amusement, and when it stopped being amusing, they tried to destroy it. So…”
Though Julia was telling the truth, she knew the device could be used on any world it was placed to lock the gods out, including Earth. She straightened the front of her blouse, knowing that she wasn’t the best at making great first impressions. She rarely gave herself the time to care, but this time his help mattered.
“...It’s also the source of magic for everyone not a god or a magical creature so…” Perhaps if Julia admitted to some selfishness, her story would be more believable. Or perhaps it would turn him off to helping her at all. “...Protecting it is important.”
Julia’s eyes met his, to try and get a measure of him. To see if she’d convinced him or alienated him. The last thing anyone needed in their life was a quest. Julia had been on several at this point. They seldom ever worked out well for her.
She felt like an asshole asking him.
But she still asked.
“Will you help me?”
“You must think me weak and foolish to believe your lies.”
Spock held Julia by her throat, shoved up against a wall inside Dexter Hall, one of the few buildings left in Derleth that hadn’t been turned to rubble and replaced with a monolith. He peered into her eyes. Those lifeless, uncaring eyes of the infamous shadeless Julia. Or, at least, that’s what she used to be. Although there was some debate as to whether she actually retained the shade from her counterpart. Nevertheless, the name still held fast. That’s what his group continued to call her. Spock, the Captains (which included Tilly,) and the other members of the Terran Mirror Verse. They called her The Shadeless. Because that’s what Julia was to them. Nothing but a woman without feeling on the other side. His side, no less. Well, at least, at one point in time. Ever since the epic failure which had occurred when they joined with the other Derleth, the power control had been upset. The balance was out of whack. Everyone was scrambling for the top of the proverbial food chain. It was difficult to say who was with who nowadays. Needless to say, old histories died hard. And Spock didn’t trust her. Not that he really trusted anyone. It didn’t take much of a keen eye to recognize that even his faith in Kirk was wavering.
Maybe Spock was just tired of being a second-class citizen because of his half-Vulcan blood.
His lips pursed into a thin line. The goatee gave his already stern expression a harder edge. But despite his logic and his good reason, there was still some passion in those eyes. It was difficult remaining a student of Surak in a world of incessant chaos and destruction. Especially when he couldn’t trust anyone but himself.
Distrust led to horror. This Spock had to do a lot of frightening things to survive. And whilst he did not enjoy the prospect of snapping her neck, he would if he had to.
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to infiltrate our base. Trying to manipulate our hierarchy of command so you can let your foolish god slither in here and take back what he lost.” Spock leaned in close to her face, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We will never follow him again. It’s time for new leadership.”
It took everything in Julia’s being not to react violently on a magical level. Physically? She was small and almost frail, with no self-defense training. Even if Spock had been merely human, she would have been no match. Her toes were barely still touching the floor. She realized it wouldn’t have taken much from him to lift her completely off the ground.
Though her nails did bite into his hands at her neck, it was mostly unintentional. She sputtered and grasped for air, as her fingers let off dangerous sparks of energy that barely managed to avoid catching fire.
She could have used magic to defend herself. Should have used magic.
But she didn’t. It was a risk. The only way she could prove she didn’t mean him harm was to do no harm. But if she looked weak in the eyes of the predatory creatures surrounding her, they might all decide to make her the next meal instead. It was why she’d tried for so long to pretend she was still shadeless. To protect herself, to protect what she had, to figure out what the fuck they were supposed to do next? It didn’t stop the rumors, but it held the rest of Derleth back for a short while.
If he snapped her neck, next reset, Julia would be The Shadeless once more.
“We f-fucked up,” she wheezed. The words barely came out. “It wasn’t … just … him …”
Julia had to admit her culpability as well. How else would they listen to her? How else would she convince them not to repeat the same mistakes they already made? That they kept making.
Spock was relatively new among them. But she’d gambled on reason. She’d read all the posts on the networks, studied his interactions. She hadn’t expected this display of anger, of wrath.
Julia put her faith in logic anyway.
Spock’s anger—or perhaps more appropriately, his defensiveness—had nothing to do with Julia or their failed attempt to switch Derleths with their counterparts. That was part of the ruse. The part he had to play in order to keep up his position which had always been tentative among the Terrans. It was all about survival. He had no personal qualms with The Shadeless or even with the god she kept company with, although on a deeper level Spock would admit that he didn’t like much of her crowd. His behavior was rationally chosen in order to ensure that the others of his group didn’t decide to turn on him. Had he been the only one from the Mirror Verse in Derleth then this conversation might have gone differently. Perhaps it still could. As long as wandering ears weren’t lingering nearby.
After all, there was never any guarantee of privacy in Dark Derleth.
When she spoke, however, Spock hesitated. Because she was right. Beneath all of the play-acted fury and tough guy appearances, he was a man of logic. A man of reason. And he was not so naive as to realize that their circumstances were the fault of one man. But if that was the propaganda the Captains were spouting, well, Spock had very little recourse other than to agree with them. At least when he thought they were watching.
He loosened his grip on her neck, but kept his hand in place. Just in case Kirk decided to walk around a corner or Tilly stopped torturing some other poor soul in the kitchen.
“The others will not be lenient with you. You’re at the top of their list. The one that says shoot to kill.” It was obvious from Spock’s tone that he found this methodology to be considerably inefficient. A small remnant of sarcasm. The resets made death a temporary fix for a permanent problem. Killing her now wouldn’t do them any good next week. If anything it would just make her people strike at them faster. And while they had technology from their universe, it wasn’t always a match for the magic on her side.
The sound of pots clattering in the kitchen caused him to glance quickly over his shoulder. Then he returned his attention back to her. “Is there a new plan for improving our circumstances? A more sensible one?”
“I think so.”
Julia stood on the deck of a spacefaring ship, though it more closely resembled that of an ancient galleon than something created by science and engineering. The ship itself was alive, an extension of a large sentient tree that made up its wooden frame.
It should not have been possible. Scientifically it wasn’t, and yet, there the two of them were. Floating within a protective pocket of air, carried on a current within the ether of space. Not that it mattered to Julia. Her hand was cold, pale. She slipped it into Spock’s. Her eyes had taken on a red tinge to them.
She changed the subject to him. “You didn’t have to come with me.”
She felt a draw, a pull of his life force into hers, and Julia immediately withdrew her hand as though he’d been the one to hurt her and not the other way around. She tried not to show how much it hurt her, that she could no longer touch him. Not safely. Not for long.
“We don’t even know if they can help me. If this will work. If anything can be done.” Julia’s hands clenched into fists, not out of anger, but hunger. She looked back toward the tree, the beating heart of the ship, its life source.
Her emergency food source. The real reason they’d picked such a ship. It was still technically space-worthy, even if dead.
May the gods forgive her.
“Yes, I did.” Spock’s voice was more affectionate than normal. He’d always been good at holding back most of his feelings, but ever since the start of this journey he could feel his emotional barrier weakening. It wasn’t that he had to hide how he felt about her and about this trip. Or about all of the pain that had come between them since her change. Spock had always felt stronger when he showed an image of calm towards other people. It gave him confidence to deny how rattled he often was. Even if it was nothing more than pretense. It usually worked. Most people thought him cold, incapable of any deep well of feeling. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. He felt more than most and that was why he chose to hide his emotions. Because they were his weakness. His vulnerability.
As was Julia.
There was an electrically-charged tingle when their hands touched. It didn’t hurt initially. But the longer the physical contact, the more he could feel himself weakening. It would start in his fingertips and slowly move upward. Curving around his elbow and onward to his shoulder. Then to his neck. When it reached his chest was when he noticed the pain. When it felt like the air was being sucked from his lungs and his limbs hung limp at his sides.
Then she let go and it was like coming up for air mere seconds before gulping a mouthful of water. Like being rescued from drowning.
It left a lingering ache in his arm and a stiffness in his neck, but he did his best not to let her see it. Everything was already hard enough without Julia thinking that he had reservations. Without her believing that he was afraid.
He was afraid, of course. But not of her. He was afraid that the journey would be a failure. He was afraid he’d have to spend the rest of his life admiring her from afar.
“It will work, Jules. It has to. And if it doesn’t . . .” He let that thought linger before he looked her in the eyes. “. . . then we’ll find something that does. The universe is full of unimaginable miracles. There has to be one out there for you.”
Spock paused. “For both of us.”
“Holy...”
Julia took a step back and placed a hand to her forehead as half a dozen or so memories flashed into her head, one after the other. It didn’t pain her, even if her expression suggested as much. The line between feeling and merely remembering what it was like to feel was blurred. Somehow she expected more of those other versions of her to be shadeless, only none of them were. “...shit.”
She opened her eyes and stared at Spock in front of her, not certain if he’d experienced the same flashes. Julia couldn’t help the accusatory sharpness in her eyes, as if this was somehow his fault, even if logically she knew that wasn’t the case.
“I should go,” she said.
Loki? Carver? Those were the faces she would expect to set off a cascade of alternate lives and memories. But the new-ish arrival with the pointy ears?
Not so much.
It meant no one was safe. She could just randomly have another dozen close memories or encounters with anyone on Derleth, right?
With her shade, maybe Julia would have had another reaction. But without? There were few emotional resources she had access to. She wasn’t feeling mirth, so her choices appeared to be limited to irritation and wrath.
But that wasn’t right, was it? Julia caught herself. She took a deep breath. What would Complete Julia do?
“You good?” she asked first. See? Julia could handle her shit. Her expression made it clear she expected Spock to do the same.
Spock’s reaction was not nearly as vocal as Julia’s, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t affected by the sudden rush of memories. More troubling than the memories, however, were the emotions. When the other residents of Derleth began referring to flashes of other lives, he’d taken some time to prepare himself. He’d even managed a deep and thoughtful meditation on the matter. But that hadn’t prepared him for the possibility that he wouldn’t be Vulcan in these other universes. That he wouldn’t have complete and total control over his emotions. That was a failure on his part. A misjudgment of the circumstances. Because, in retrospect, it was perfectly logical that he would not be a master of emotional control in other versions of himself.
He was hardly a master of that control now.
Not that he let his lack of restraint show. No. Spock was very cautious when he was around others. Particularly strangers. Which was what Julia was. A stranger.
Or, at least, the version of her in front of him was.
Spock’s lips pursed as she reacted with frustration and, what Spock assumed to be, anger. His expression managed to retain its settled, stony appearance, but there was something in his eyes that suggested he too was perturbed by what he saw in his mind. Perhaps even slightly unnerved.
This was not how he thought his research into Derleth’s spatial and temporal anomalies that he had been studying in Armitage Hall would be interrupted.
If he were anyone else in Derleth, he would have offered her comfort. Maybe affection. If he were any of the other versions of himself he might have as well. But Spock was neither someone else nor another Spock. And so he merely stood there, waiting for her to regain control of her own sentiments.
“You need not concern yourself. I am . . .” He paused, considering his word choice carefully. “. . . satisfactory. You may take your leave. I will finish up here. If I uncover anything that requires your expertise, I will let you know.”
Spock thought about saying more, but stopped himself. He gave Julia one last bland glance and then he returned his attention to his calculations. Focus would keep the emotions at bay. Work would distract him from his memories. It had in the past. It would now. But he was already repeating the mantras of Surak in his mind.