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LOG ENTRY 01

STARDATE: 5543.7
LOCATION: Acantha III – Subterranean Zone

There’s a sound to fear when it’s quiet—when phaser fire’s long since faded and all that’s left is your own breath echoing off stone. That’s the sound I remember most from Acantha III. That, and Spock’s breathing beside me. Ragged. Controlled. Hurting.

We were underground. A survey mission gone wrong—interference from the upper crust disrupted transport. The locals didn’t take kindly to off-worlders. The away team scattered under fire. I only managed to keep track of one other person: Spock.

He’d taken a hit. Plasma burst from a poorly rigged perimeter trap. I saw the way he clutched his arm, the way he tried to downplay the burn. Vulcans don’t lie—but they do omit, and he was omitting pain.

We found shelter in an old mining vein. Just rock and ruin and whatever supplies I had on me. I remember pressing cloth to his wound—torn from the hem of my uniform. I joked that it was probably the first time that rank had been used as gauze. He raised an eyebrow, even through the pain. That almost made me feel better.

Then the silence came. Hours of it. No one was coming. No rescue. No signal. Just me, and the man I’d given orders to for years—who I now couldn’t stop looking at like he was something I couldn’t live without.

I don’t remember exactly how I said it. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I’d just grown tired of hiding. But I told him—I cared about him. Beyond the mission. Beyond duty. Beyond command.

He looked at me like he was studying a new star. “I care as well,” he said finally. “I believe I have for some time.”

It shouldn’t have felt like a revelation. But it did. It felt like breathing again after being underwater too long.

I leaned in. He met me halfway.

We kissed in the dark. Not out of fear or desperation—but clarity. The kind that only comes when everything else has been stripped away.

When they finally found us, hours later, no one asked what happened in that cave. And I didn’t tell them.

But I remember.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 02

STARDATE: 5602.9
LOCATION: USS Enterprise - Sickbay

There are moments I’ve faced death and laughed in its face—times I’ve outwitted Klingons, challenged gods, danced through starfields of impossible odds. But nothing, nothing, has ever made my blood run colder than the sight of Spock lying motionless in the red dust of Thalor IV.

It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. A standard planetary approach. A check-in with the local governors and back in time for dinner. But the Federation’s intelligence missed something—radicals, maybe, or a rogue faction. I’ll never forget the screech of the first explosion, the flash of fire across the sky, the way the shuttle tilted sideways under my feet. And then… Spock, hit.

I didn’t think. I moved.

I remember dragging him behind a jagged ridge, phaser in one hand, pressing down on the burn across his torso with the other. Blood—green, thick, unmistakably Vulcan—was everywhere. He was still conscious, barely, and murmuring something about logic. “You broke cover,” he whispered.

“You would’ve done the same,” I snapped.

“Negative,” he said, with a tired attempt at irony. “You are more… reckless.”

And then, quieter: “Not logical.”

I leaned in. “I don’t care about logic.”

His eyes locked with mine. Even in pain, he was composed. Steady. Spock.

“I care about you,” I said.

That shut him up. For a second, at least.

We made it back—barely. Thanks to Uhura’s quick call for emergency beam-out and McCoy barking louder than the transport buffer. Spock went straight to Sickbay, unconscious by the time we materialized.

I stayed with him. Hours passed. Bones told me to leave, that he’d be fine—but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

When he finally woke, his voice was hoarse. “You did not leave.”

“No,” I said.

He stared at me for a long time. Then: “I do not wish for you to experience that fear again.”

I told him the truth—that loving him meant living with the risk of losing him. That I’d rather face that than the alternative.

His hand found mine on the edge of the biobed. “Then I will endeavor not to be injured again.”

Typical Spock.

I squeezed his hand, harder than I meant to. “See that you don’t.”

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 03

STARDATE: 5651.0
LOCATION: USS Enterprise - Observation Deck, later Private Quarters

The Ares Rift was one of those assignments that looked simple on paper: a drifting science vessel caught in gravitational turbulence near the edge of a collapsing binary star system. High radiation. Temporal fluctuations. No working comms. The kind of mission that chews through lesser crews—and even stronger ones, if they're not careful.

I didn’t want Spock anywhere near it.

But of course he volunteered. Of course he did. One pilot could get in and out of the interference field with a hardened shuttlecraft, re-establish contact, and pull out the trapped researchers. He was the logical choice. Highest chance of success. Lowest probability of emotional compromise.

He laid it out so calmly in the briefing room. Eyes steady. Hands behind his back. I knew that stance well—it was the one he used when he didn’t want me to see how much something mattered.

I told him I’d go instead.

He told me, softly, that I couldn’t. That the Enterprise needed her captain. That I couldn’t lead from a wrecked shuttle at the edge of a dying star.

But what I couldn’t say—not in front of the others—was that I didn’t care about any of that. All I could see was the moment I’d be standing on the bridge watching the shuttle signal vanish into static, wondering if that was the last time I’d see him.

“Spock,” I said later, alone in my quarters, voice low. “Don’t do this.”

He stepped closer, something human flickering beneath the Vulcan calm. “If there were another option, I would take it. But I will return.”

“How can you be sure?”

He hesitated—just for a moment. “Because I must.”

When the shuttle finally broke back through the rift, hull scorched and barely holding, I didn’t wait for protocol. I ran to the hangar myself.

He emerged, alive. Whole.

I barely remember what I said. Only that I grabbed his arm and pulled him into my quarters later that night without even taking off my uniform. The adrenaline was still coursing through me, too raw to be hidden.

“You said you’d come back,” I murmured.

“And I did,” he said. “But I was not calm in the final moment.”

I turned to him. “Because of the risk?”

“No,” he replied. “Because I thought I would not see you again.”

I kissed him then. Deep, desperate. It was the kind of kiss that says: I thought I lost you. I can’t lose you. I won’t.

His hand gripped the back of my neck like he needed me anchored, like I was the only solid thing in a world that kept spinning too fast.

We didn’t speak again for a long time.

We didn’t need to.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 04

STARDATE: 5745.6
LOCATION: Risa - Cliffside Cabin

I’d been ordered—ordered—to take shore leave. When Starfleet Command themselves insist you get some rest, you know you’ve pushed things too far. So, for once, I didn’t argue. I stepped away from the bridge, away from the endless stream of crises, negotiations, anomalies, and chaos.

I invited Spock.

I don’t think he was expecting it. We’d been… us, for a while now. Quietly. Carefully. But we’d never taken time. Not truly. Duty always came first, and we let it. But this time, we both said yes.

We rented a small cliffside cabin overlooking the coral waters of Risa’s northern continent. Simple. Quiet. No advanced tech beyond a replicator and a basic comm. The air was thick with ocean salt and silence. And for once, there was nothing demanding our attention but the way the sun looked on each other’s faces.

He brought a collection of Earth poetry. I caught him reciting Yeats by the open window one morning. Voice barely above a whisper. I stood there listening, unnoticed, heart clenching at how soft he let himself become in that moment.

In the evenings, we’d watch the stars together, fingers brushing. Sometimes we’d talk. Sometimes we’d just exist.

One night, while the twin moons rose over the cliffside and the fire pit flickered low, I asked him: “Do you ever think about… retiring? Leaving Starfleet?”

He stared into the flames for a long time. “I would miss the mission,” he said. “But I would miss you more.”

That stopped my breath.

I laughed a little. “That almost sounded romantic.”

He turned to me. “It was.”

I didn’t speak. Just leaned in and kissed him—slow and certain.

We didn’t sleep much that night. There were no alarms, no red alerts, no impending diplomatic disasters. Just quiet skin against skin, murmured words between kisses, fingers tangled together until sunrise.

In the morning, I woke to find him already sitting outside, staring out at the sea. I wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and sat beside him. He leaned into me without hesitation.

I asked him what he was thinking.

He said, “That I could grow used to this.”

So could I.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 05

STARDATE: 5798.4
LOCATION: USS Enterprise, Orpheon V Orbit – Post-Away Mission Debrief

We weren’t meant to intervene. Orpheon V was a pre-warp society, one of those quietly developing civilizations on the brink of an industrial age. We were only meant to observe. A science detachment, cloaked sensors, low-orbit scans. In and out.

But Orpheon’s atmosphere had other plans. A solar flare disrupted our shields, and an energy pulse overloaded the observation drone—sending it plummeting through the sky in full view of half a city.

So we went down—Spock and I, disguised in native dress, to retrieve what we could before the locals picked it apart. It should’ve been a quick in-and-out. But we got separated in the winding alleys of the capital.

And I lost him.

For twenty-seven minutes, I couldn’t find him.

I told myself he was fine—logical, capable, trained in ten different ways to hide and escape. But it didn’t stop the panic. Not when I saw the smoke rising from the direction he’d gone. Not when I heard shouting. Not when I saw guards dragging an off-worlder-shaped figure into the old archives.

I didn’t wait for backup.

It wasn’t protocol, but I’ve never cared much for protocol when it comes to Spock.

I found him bound in an interrogation chamber, bleeding from a split along his temple—green against pale skin. But his eyes lit up when he saw me, and for a second, I forgot what fear tasted like.

We escaped—barely. The drone destroyed. Memories wiped. Our interference… minimized. Starfleet will review the report. They always do. But this log isn’t for them.

That night, back on the Enterprise, he came to my quarters.

He didn’t speak, not at first. Just stood there at the threshold, uniform jacket folded over his arm, blood cleaned away but the exhaustion still etched into his face.

I didn’t say anything either. Just stepped aside to let him in.

He stood in the center of my quarters like he was still trying to calculate the weight of everything that had happened. I poured two drinks. Set them on the table. He didn’t touch his.

Finally, he looked at me and said, “You should not have risked your safety.”

I smiled. “And you should’ve stayed on the ship. But here we are.”

He gave the smallest of nods. Then: “I felt… something. When I believed I would not be found.”

“That’s called fear,” I said, stepping closer.

“No,” he replied softly. “Not fear. Loss.”

I don’t think either of us moved for a moment. We just stood there, the hum of the ship around us, the silence stretching between two men who had gone too long pretending what they felt was secondary to duty.

So I closed the space between us.

I reached out, took his hand—cool and steady, but shaking ever so slightly. And then I pulled him in. No words, no orders, no ceremony. Just him and me. The two of us, still standing after all these years, all these missions, all these moments we weren’t supposed to have.

When he rested his head against mine, I felt his breath steady.

When he whispered, “You are… irreplaceable,” I didn’t laugh or joke or deflect.

I just held him tighter.

Because he is too.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 06

STARDATE: 5801.2
LOCATION: USS Enterprise, En Route to Starbase 24

It’s a strange thing, how even the most profound shifts in your life can ripple through the crew in small, almost imperceptible ways.

Spock and I never made an announcement. There was no meeting, no memo, no sudden behavioral change to alert the bridge that anything between us had altered. But the Enterprise notices everything. And her people—even more so.

Uhura, of course, was the first.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. There was a look she gave me across the bridge one day—just a glance, steady and knowing, as Spock and I stood a bit closer than necessary at the science console. Later, she passed me in the corridor, leaned in slightly, and said, “About time,” before walking on without a second glance.

Sulu picked it up shortly after. I caught him smirking during a particularly tense strategy meeting when Spock and I finished each other’s sentences a little too precisely. He didn’t comment, but that smirk lasted until the end of the day.

Chekov asked outright. Blurted it out in the mess hall, with all the subtlety of a warp core breach: “Keptin, are you and Commander Spock… dating?”

The table went dead silent. Even McCoy stopped chewing.

I looked at Spock, who merely raised one eyebrow.

“We’re together,” I said simply.

Chekov blinked. “Together where?”

McCoy groaned so hard he nearly choked.

Speaking of Bones—he’s been… complicated. As always. It’s not that he disapproves. I think, in some strange way, he’s known longer than we have. But he worries. About our safety. About command decisions. About hearts breaking in the wrong moment, in the middle of a firefight.

He came to my quarters one night, pulled up a chair, and poured himself a drink from my bottle of Saurian brandy.

“I’ve patched you both up too many times,” he said. “Don’t make me have to put either of you back together emotionally.”

“I think we’re past pretending this is just proximity and adrenaline,” I told him.

He stared at me for a long moment. “Well,” he muttered. “You’re both idiots. But I’ve seen worse choices.”

That’s Bones-speak for approval.

Even Scotty weighed in. Patting me on the back after a systems update, he leaned in and muttered, “You know, I always figured it’d be you two. No one else could keep up with either of you.”

It’s been strange—and oddly comforting—to see how little our crew needs reassurance. Their loyalty has always been ironclad, but this… this is different. It’s not just trust in me as their captain, or in Spock as their first officer. It’s trust in us, as we are.

There’s something beautiful about that.

It makes the Enterprise feel a little more like home.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 07

STARDATE: 5803.6
LOCATION: USS Enterprise – Medbay Recovery Wing
MISSION: Liraen IV – Post-Anomaly Debrief

We encountered a phenomenon in orbit around Liraen IV—a psychic resonance field unlike anything we've catalogued. The science team had barely begun analysis when we received a distress signal from the surface. A civilian research vessel had crash-landed. Spock, myself, Uhura, and Lieutenant Zhao beamed down.

The field affected us the moment we stepped into it.

Time unraveled.

Memory thinned.

I remember flickers—a dense, electric fog winding through the jungle, shapes that whispered, words I couldn’t understand echoing in the back of my mind like something forgotten in a dream. Then—nothing.

When I woke, I was in sickbay.

Bones was leaning over me, visibly shaken. Spock stood to the side, arms crossed, still and silent, eyes dark with something unreadable.

They told me I’d been under for three days. That the psychic field—something the locals called the Veil of Echoes—had induced a deep, involuntary hypnotic state in the entire away team. It didn’t just dull our perception. It rewrote parts of us. Memories.

I didn’t remember Spock.

Not as more than a name and title.

I remembered the missions. The diplomacy. The debates. The science reports.

But not the warmth of his voice in the early morning. Not the taste of our first kiss. Not the way he touched my shoulder when no one was looking. Not the night on Risa. Not the look in his eyes on Orpheon V. Not the moment I knew I was in love with him.

Gone.

Bones said the damage was reversible. “Give it time,” he said. “Memories like that don’t go quietly.”

And maybe he was right.

Spock didn’t pressure me. He kept his distance, but not his care. He was... patient, in a way that hurt to see. He stayed in the medbay when I slept, spoke to me softly when I was half-awake, never crossing any line, never reminding me of what he already knew we’d had.

But I saw it. In his restraint. In the ache behind his logic.

And then, three nights in, I dreamt.

I saw a flash of gold light on the cliffs of Risa. Felt the weight of a hand in mine. Heard a voice in my ear—not words, but warmth. Something familiar. Something lost. And when I woke, Spock was there, watching from the chair beside my bed.

I said his name.

He looked up, composed as ever, but there was a fracture of hope there. Quiet. Waiting.

“I think,” I said slowly, “you mean something to me.”

He didn’t smile. But his voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it. “You once said I was everything.”

I closed my eyes.

And in the dark behind my eyelids, I saw stars.

I remembered the feeling—not fully, not yet—but enough.

Enough to know I’d said that because it was true.

END LOG

Chapter Text

LOG ENTRY 08

STARDATE: 5804.2
LOCATION: USS Enterprise, En Route to Starbase 32 - Captain's Quarters

I’ve been reading my old logs.

Not the mission reports—the real ones. The private ones. The ones I never expected anyone else to see. I thought maybe if I read the words I left for myself, something would come back. And maybe it has. Not in full. Not like turning on a light. More like... the slow return of warmth to frozen skin.

The first entry that struck me was one from Thalor IV. I’d written about Spock stepping into harm’s way—standard procedure, a calculated risk. But the way I described it... the urgency in the phrasing, the ache under the words... I didn’t write that as a captain. I wrote it as a man in love, trying not to say it out loud.

Then there was the one after Orpheon V. That one hit harder.

I remembered none of it consciously—not the mission, not the fear, not the moment I found him bleeding in the dark. But the words were mine. Raw. Unfiltered. “I forgot what fear tasted like,” I wrote. And reading it, I felt something twist inside me. Not memory exactly. But longing. A muscle that remembered how to ache, even if it had forgotten why.

I asked Spock to come by my quarters tonight.

He didn’t hesitate. He never does.

I showed him the logs. Sat with him in silence while they played—my voice echoing back at me like something from a past life. I watched his face as he listened. He didn’t flinch. But there was a softness in his eyes I don’t know how I ever missed. Or forgot.

When they ended, I asked, “Why didn’t you remind me? Push me?”

His reply was simple. “Because I would not dishonor what we were by forcing it into something you no longer knew. I believed... you would find your way back, if it was meant.”

“And if it wasn’t?” I asked.

“I would still have remained,” he said. “As your friend. As your first officer. As long as you would allow me.”

That did something to me.

It’s not all back yet. The memories come like faint echoes—scents, glances, half-formed thoughts that slip away when I try to hold onto them. But they’re growing louder. Sharper.

Tonight, I remembered the color of his robe. The Vulcan one. Deep copper. He wore it on leave. I remembered the way the fabric felt under my hands.

I remembered that I loved him in it.

It's not everything.

But it’s something.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 09

STARDATE: 5812.7
LOCATION: USS Enterprise – Observation Deck

The stars look the same.

That’s the strangest part, I think. You expect that when something monumental happens—when you lose part of yourself and claw it back piece by piece—the universe will reflect it. That something will tilt or shift to mark the change.

But no. The stars don’t care. They just shine.

My memory is back.

I don’t know when the shift happened exactly. There was no dramatic moment, no final puzzle piece snapping into place with a triumphant flourish. Just… little things. A touch on my arm that didn’t feel foreign anymore. A cup of tea, and I knew without asking that he liked it hot and unsweetened. A song on Uhura’s playlist, and I remembered dancing—badly, in private, in low light, with Spock looking at me like I was the most illogical decision he’d ever made and would keep making anyway.

And then, two nights ago, I said it out loud.

“I remember everything.”

Spock looked at me across the table in his quarters. The candlelight flickered—something he’d once said was “nonfunctional but soothing.” He didn’t speak at first. Just nodded slowly, absorbing it like it was data too delicate to trust at first glance.

“I am pleased,” he said quietly. “And relieved.”

I moved around the table. Took his hand.

“I missed you,” I whispered. “Even when I didn’t know I was missing you.”

He turned his hand in mine, palm to palm. The Vulcan gesture. A touch with meaning.

“As did I,” he said. “But you were never truly gone.”

We sat there for a long time—hands still joined, a silence between us that said more than words could. It wasn’t about recovering what was lost anymore. It was about living in it again. Choosing it. Every day.

I’ve read back through all the logs now. The old ones, the ones I made during the haze, the ones I wrote to myself.

They told me the truth when I couldn’t see it.

And now, I see it clearly.

I love him.

I never stopped.

END LOG

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LOG ENTRY 10 - FINAL LOG

STARDATE: 8721.5
LOCATION: Earth, San Francisco – Starfleet Archives
CLASSIFICATION: Personal Entry | Vaulted Transmission

This is James T. Kirk, retired.

It feels strange saying that, even now. My life was warp trails and stardust for so long, I thought I might never set foot anywhere permanent again. And yet… here I am. The bay is quiet tonight. The wind off the water carries a cool bite. And somewhere behind me, Spock is tending the tea—meticulous, as always.

We live quietly now. No bridge, no red alerts, no star maps flickering beneath our hands. Some nights, I still wake thinking I’ve missed a duty shift. That I’m late for a briefing. That I’ve lost him again.

But he’s always there.

I watch him move through the space we’ve built—a little home tucked above the Academy grounds. I watch the light of the hearth catch in his hair, the same way the stars used to. I never told him that back on the Enterprise. I thought it was too sentimental. But these days, I say things like that freely.

We earned it.

When I look back now, I don’t see the battles first. I don’t see the politics or the war councils or the endless reports. I see the quiet things. The in-betweens. I see Spock sitting beside me in silence after a long mission. I see the way his hand found mine after Orpheon V. I see his eyes when I said, “I remember.”

I see what we made out there in the stars—between orders, between worlds.

He still teaches, sometimes. Lectures on logic, interstellar ethics, theoretical cosmology. The cadets are awed by him, of course. I walk the halls occasionally, offer some words about command, leadership, what it means to choose your crew again and again. What it means to love them.

They don’t teach that part in the manuals.

But they should.

This log won’t go into circulation. I’m leaving it with the archives, locked behind clearance most won’t bother digging through. But maybe, one day, someone will find it. Some young ensign, curious about what kind of man used to command the Enterprise.

And if they’re looking for answers, I hope they find this one:

It was him.

It was always him.

END LOG