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From: "Keith & Jessica Bratcher" <campbratcher@psci.net>
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Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:55:04 -0500
Subject: [ASCEM-S] NEW TOS "The Shell" 1/1 (K&S, angst) [G]
Reply-To: "Keith & Jessica Bratcher" <campbratcher@psci.net>
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Title: The Shell
Author: Mrs Spock (missus_spock (at) yahoo.com.au)
Series: TOS
Codes: K&S, angst
Part: 1/1
Rating: G
Summary: Spock's POV directly after he "killed" Kirk in "Amok Time".


THE SHELL
By Mrs Spock

He is hollow. 

The flesh and bone case which once held a half-Vulcan soul returns 
from the place of Koon-ut Kal-if-fee empty. 

That which it had contained spilled painfully onto the sands of 
Vulcan, along with the treasured life-force of a human t'hy'la. One 
soul would not - could not - remain without the other, tied together 
as tightly as they are. And the ultimate agony of responsibility for 
the other's demise is enough to wrench a pained katra from its 
fleshy shell. 

Had that part remained - the part that cared - he would never have 
been able to face her with such equanimity. 

T'Pring. She who would have been his wife. She who challenged. She 
who forced him to face his best friend in mortal combat.

Had that part remained - the part that reasoned - he would have 
considered that someone other than he was to blame.

He returns to the ship or, rather, the shell returns, leaving 
everything of value behind, to be consumed by the oppressive heat 
that has nothing to do with Vulcan's climate. 

"Mr Spock." The transporter chief greets him with the reverence due 
the executive officer.

A vacant nod is given for reply.

He walks into the bare corridor, mechanically taking the required 
number of steps until he arrives at his empty cabin. It would be 
easier to let it end here, to let the shell crack now, but even in 
this void state, he knows there is a duty to be performed. A final 
duty - before he can relinquish the little he now holds onto.

He hesitates at the door to sickbay; here is where the unfilled 
shell of his t'hy'la lies. Duty propels him forward.

An automaton, he begins what he believes will be the last 
conversation of his existence. It is a handing over of his last 
responsibilities, his final obligation.

There is a voice behind him. 

//Impossible! He is dead.//

The shell turns to confront the ghost, grabs its arms.

"Jim!"

But, even as he knows it can't be real, he feels its essence - Jim's 
essence - golden and complete and bubbling with life. 

And, suddenly, he is filling; that which he believed lost is flowing 
back into him through the contact with his t'hy'la. 

Very quickly, he is overflowing: joy and life and completeness. 
Those things that make him more than a shell have filled him and 
spilled over. The joy, more than he has ever known, is too much for 
the Vulcan shell to hold and leaks through to be seen so clearly on 
his face.

Vulcan propriety, aghast, quickly staunches the emotional flow and 
reasserts its dominance. 

But he will live with the consequences of his public emotional 
display.

Because he is full.

FIN  


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