Title: Buhfikat
Author: Hypatia Kosh
Pairing: K/S
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After Spock reintegrates the human side he suppressed at Gol, Kirk and Spock must reintegrate their lives on the Enterprise.
Note: Thanks to my exacting beta, the pugnacious Lyra.

Buhfikat

"Is this for real? I can hardly believe this is real."

Admiral Kirk pulled Spock back towards the bed after they broke from the most intense kiss on record, until Kirk was sitting on the edge of the bedspread and could pull Spock on top of him.

Spock seemed uncomfortable. He touched the admiral's hair, briefly and softly. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Who said anything about apologies?" Kirk said defensively. "I'm just glad you're back."

Spock looked away. Kirk got frustrated and pulled Spock's chin back in his direction.

"No 'sorry.' I'm sorry too. Sorry doesn't cut it."

"I am aware of that," the Vulcan stated flatly. Then, gathering his efforts, he said more gently, "There is no way to undo what I have done."

"So why should you be ashamed? I have just as much reason, if not more."

Spock looked directly at him. "Forgive me. I did not mean to imply--"

"Just shut up and screw me, dammit!" Kirk demanded with a barely concealed grin.

Spock's face became unreadable as he leaned forward to kiss Jim. He lost no time divesting him of his garments.

"No fair, you too," Kirk reminded when he finally got his tongue free. Spock complied, stripping in his usual efficient manner.

They climbed under the covers of the admiral's comfortably large bed. The bed was one aspect of the new captain's quarters on the overhauled Enterprise about which Kirk would not complain. It was fortunate, as Kirk was in no shape to contend with his tiny bunk of yore. Cushioned by the latest in Dewshish sleep technology, they set about relearning the taste and feel of each other's bodies.

When they came, it was with relief, glued together in a sweaty glob of bare skin and itchy body hair.

"I missed you," Kirk finally admitted.

Spock answered very softly. "I thought of you constantly, from waking until sleep, and even into dreams; whenever there was space to think of nothing, I thought of you instead."

Before sex, Kirk might have taken offense at the perceived one-upmanship, but the cobwebs seemed to have been cleared from his mind; he recognized that Spock was admitting his secret shame.

Kirk found a hand and squeezed it. "Something good came out of the experience, right?"

Spock looked away. "I was a fool."

"Maybe it was all for the best. If things had gone differently, V'ger would still have come for Earth and we might not have been so lucky."

"Anything is possible."

Kirk heard the hint that Spock wanted to drop the subject, but ignored it. "What if Ilia and Decker hadn't been on the Enterprise?"

"Did it ever occur to you that V'ger's 'solution' was predicated by having absorbed a Deltan?"

"No." Kirk became more animated, taken by this novel look at the situation. The original problem still bothered him. "But, what if Ilia hadn't been there? What if Voyager had taken someone else? You?"

"What of it?" Said rather coldly.

"Don't take that tone with me!" Kirk sat up, furious.

"I don't know what you mean," Spock said, sliding away from the volatile human.

"You know damn well what I mean. Maybe you don't care if you live or die, but I do care, I care very much. What happens if you die? Am I just supposed to just soldier on, as if nothing happened?"

"You would continue to perform your duties as an officer of the service."

"Well, I'm glad you care."

"We are Starfleet officers. We are not guaranteed continued safety."

"I know that. That's no reason to walk all over my feelings--with--with cleats."

"This is a pointless argument. If I am alive, there is nothing to discuss, and when I die, I will be incapable of taking any action by definition."

"You could at least pretend to consider my feelings. It's common courtesy if you're going to sleep with somebody."

Now Spock was offended. "I do not care to be treated lightly."

"Okay, fine. It's obviously I'm the bad guy here. I'm just a big human chauvinist pig. I'm going for a walk."

Spock watched silently as Kirk picked up a spare uniform and went into the shower cubicle. He sank down into the sheets, feeling quite helpless. It was possible he'd forgotten how to maintain harmonious relations with a human while at Gol. The retraining of his habits, manners, and speed patterns had been quite thorough. What a fool he was. For a long time Spock lay there and thought about kohlinar, and Jim, and finding a way to settle his internal conflicts.

Kirk came out of the sonics fully dressed. He turned the lights down and came over to where Spock was. "I'm surprised you haven't left, after that outburst of mine."

Spock looked up quietly, his dark eyes almost impenetrable in the dim light.

"I just want to say I'm sorry," Kirk continued. "What I said was totally uncalled-for." Kirk sat down on the edge of the bed, near Spock's head. "Everything is a mess right now and I guess deep down I"m still angry at you for leaving me."

"Justifiably so."

"No, no, you had the right, and the need, to go and . . . to do what you did. I think I misjudged--I think we both misjudged your maturity level at that time. I knew who I was and where I was going, and you didn't. It's just that . . ." Kirk's hand, which had been idly traversing the pillow, went still. "I loved you more than I had any right to. I love you more than was sensible, more than was . . . logical, and when you weren't there any more, I felt like my heart had been ripped out."

"Jim," Spock breathed, and sat up, touching Kirk's arm. "I am ashamed. I fled from you because I experienced fear and guilt for the emotions you inspired in me. I accepted without question the idea that these emotions were wrong, that no true Vulcan would indulge them. I was so convinced of this that I did not consider your welfare. I did not examine my own motivations.

"When I was a child, my father told me that I would not only have to succeed but excel to be accepted by my peers. A failure that was excusable for one of them would not be for me.

"I could not fail. I did not."

"Of course not," Kirk soothed, placing an arm around Spock's shoulders.

"Over time I cultivated a certain attitude in order to . . . cope, and I gradually forgot the purpose behind the rigid control I imposed on myself. I made an icon of non-emotion, of being completely Vulcan, of the imaginary true Vulcan ideal I had constructed for myself.

"While I was at Gol, I pondered many paradoxes. I realized that my pursuit of kohlinar was purposeless. Logically, I should have left that very day. Please forgive me."

"Oh, Spock." The admiral hugged his delicate prize close to him. If Spock sobbed or trembled in his arms that night, Kirk would never tell.

"C'mon, get dressed and take a walk with me."

"Are you certain you wish to?"

"Of course. Neither of us is perfect. If you can accept imperfect me, then I can accept imperfect you."

"Logical."

"I take it that's a 'yes'?"

--//--

They wandered the Enterprise during the graveyard shift, speaking softly and standing very close together but never, quite, touching. Over the course of several late nights and evenings they staked out every refurbished deck of her. On the last night they completed their tour watching the stars streak by from a lonely section of Deck 17, and there Jim asked Spock to marry him.

Spock smiled and said yes.