Beyond the Darkness (original) (raw)

Title: Beyond the Darkness (1/?)
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter – may go up)
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble
Disclaimer: Characters and canon belong to Paramount, Roddenberry, Abrams and many others but not me. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.
A collection of vignettes centered in, around and after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness told in no particular order.

Goodnight sweet prince/
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Uhura is not sure what she will find as she races to Engineering after Spock, but it’s not this. Never this.

She lifts trembling fingers to her lips as she watches the captain and Spock exchange a final, silent goodbye – hands straining to touch through the barrier between them.

Sick to her soul by the rare sight of Spock’s visible grief over the loss of a friendship he has only just begun to understand, she reaches out and clutches Scotty’s sleeve between her fingers. He draws her into his arms. His body is tight with tension and his eyes are desolate as he locks them on his dying captain.

Through a veil of tears, she stands witness as the captain takes his last breath, his hand slowly sliding from the glass which isolates him from the rest of the ship.

Spock’s cry is the enraged sound of a wounded animal and sends a shiver down her spine. Like a child who thinks that something isn’t real if she can’t see it, she looks away and buries her face in Scotty’s shoulder.

//////

She watches Spock race from the room and her instinct is to follow and offer comfort. She takes a step toward the door then turns her head to see Scotty, joined now by Chekov, kneeling before the glass barrier. Scotty’s face is a rigid mask of pain and tears run unchecked down the young ensign’s cheeks. She looks beyond them to the sight of her fallen captain slumped against the door and is unable to abandon him.

The door warning light changes from red to green indicating that the decontamination process has been completed and she sees Scotty’s hand tremble as he lifts it to the handle.

She crouches behind the two men and lays bracing hands on their shoulders.

“Let’s get the captain out of there,” she whispers brokenly. Scotty nods tersely and with barely restrained fury, tugs open the door latch.

She tenderly cradles the captain’s head in her hands as the men move together to gently guide the rest of his body free of the warp core chamber. Scotty exhales slowly as he reaches out to draw the lids over the captain’s staring, unseeing blue eyes and she hears Chekov’s choked sob.

Eyes swimming with tears, she looks at the captain’s still face and thinks he looks like a sleeping boy. So young, she sighs to herself. So beautiful. And she’s grateful that by some miracle his face does not show the ravages of the radiation poisoning which had destroyed him inside. She’s thankful that they have been spared having that ruined image seared on their collective memories.

She blinks, startled when Sulu’s voice echoes over the comm, calling her to the bridge. Gently, she eases the captain’s head to the floor. Tears splash over his face, baptizing him with her grief as she leans forward to press a tender kiss to his chapped lips.

“Goodnight, sweet prince,” she whispers in a tear-clogged voice before pushing to her feet.

She stops. Turns and looks at the lifeless body of her captain and the grief-stricken crewmembers who have steadily gathered around him to mourn and resolve floods through her. At this moment – here and now – she has a complete understanding of what drove the captain to demand permission to go on this godforsaken mission in the first pace.

For just as he had stolen Pike from the captain, Kahn has surely stolen the captain from each of them.

And he must be made to pay.

Steeling her spine, she strides with fresh determination toward her post.