these are the days

Jim woke up as the door opened.

“Captain?”

The first thing he saw, of course, was Spock’s face. Jim blinked, trying to orient himself. He was still on the observation deck. Good. That’s good. That was where he had fallen asleep. And Spock—Spock stood just inside the doors, holding a PADD and some sort of scientific device. Jim couldn’t parse it. He blinked again.

“What time is it?”

“Forty-two minutes past midnight,” Spock said, without checking. Of course he knows. He looked at Jim with—not an expression, Spock tried not to have facial expressions, but Jim could tell he wanted to ask a question. Probably something along the lines of why are you sleeping on the observation deck.

“Go ahead,” he said.

Spock opened his mouth. Then he hesitated. “Am I disturbing you?”

“What?” Spock hesitated again. Jim’s brain caught up with him, finally, and he waved the question off. “No, it’s fine. I’m already awake.” He pulled himself into a sitting position, wincing at the kinks in his neck. Spock stared at him a minute longer before moving.

He crossed the deck to the viewscreen. He set his PADD down on a table and began assembling the other thing—a telescope, Jim realized, later than he should have. It made sense. The Enterprise’s observation decks were meant for stellar observation first and foremost, though in Jim’s time aboard they had functioned more as overflow space. The telescope stood on a bulky tripod, so Spock could use it with his hands free. He picked up the PADD again.

“Is something… happening?” Jim said. Spock looked back at him, and he winced. “I mean… I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

He didn’t mean to be sarcastic, hand to God, but Spock’s face looked like a block of granite. Jim’s stomach turned over. “I mean—” He tried again. “Do you need… help?”

Spock turned back to his telescope. “I do not require assistance,” he said.

He ignored Jim after that, in favor of taking observations and recording—something—on his PADD. Jim sat on the couch, tense as a wire. There had to be another corner of the ship he could crash in. He didn’t have to bother Spock. He didn’t want to bother Spock. He had done enough to Spock for one lifetime.

He slid off the couch. His back popped as he stood up. He stretched his arms out, a reflex, and saw movement at the corner of his eye. Spock, facing him again.

“I apologize,” Spock said. It was, somehow, the last thing Jim wanted to hear.

“Don’t,” he said. “It’s—” It’s fine was a copout, so vague as to be undefinable, and he had a feeling Spock was catching on to that. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Nor did you,” Spock said. “I did not expect to find anyone here. I meant no offense.”

“None taken,” Jim said. He glanced at the telescope, the blanket of stars outside the viewscreen. What the hell. He was already awake. “What are you looking at?”

There was a brief pause.

“At 2000 hours,” Spock said, “Lacalle’s star appeared to enter runaway fusion, preceding a supernova. It would benefit our astronomical records to observe and record such an event, should it occur.”

“A supernova?” Jim said. “So… you stayed up to watch it?”

“To observe and record it.”

“Right.” There must be a million stars visible from the viewscreen. Jim had no hope of picking out the right one.

Spock turned back to the telescope. Jim drifted closer to the viewscreen, trying to guess which quadrant Lacalle’s star might be in. It was possible—probable—that the supernova would be invisible to the naked eye. They were lucky to be within observation distance at all. Astronomically lucky that a supernova might occur in the middle of their voyage back to Earth.

The observation deck settled into quiet. Spock leaned over the telescope—noted something on his PADD—and resumed observation, his movements precise. Jim stood still, listening to the rumble of the impulse engines. For the first time in days, no one needed anything from him.

He thought of an old corvette, parked in a field in the middle of nowhere. Him and Winona laid out on the hood, watching the full moon turn from white to rust-red. Talking about lunar nodes and Rayleigh scattering, and nothing else, nothing but the moon and the stars and the wind brushing through the grass.

“The event is beginning.” Spock’s voice cut through the silence.

“That’s so ominous,” Jim said. He glanced over and saw Spock looking back at him, one eyebrow raised. “I mean—it sounds….” He made a meaningless gesture at the viewscreen, unable to explain himself.

“Would you like to observe it?”

Jim looked back again in surprise. Spock held eye contact. “You’re serious,” Jim said—another pointless comment, because Spock was always serious. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Spock stepped aside. Jim went to the telescope. He leaned over it. His eye lined up to the observation chamber, and he saw a white star, surrounded by spectral light. It glowed—so bright it outshone anything Jim had ever seen, star or planet. He swore he saw the field around it flickering.

“That’s incredible.” He stood back from the telescope, letting Spock resume his place. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Not live.”

“Lacalle’s star is approximately 10.6 light years from our position,” Spock said, his eye on the telescope. “What appears to be a synchronous event, to us, has already occurred more than a decade ago.”

A foregone conclusion.

Jim spotted the supernova through the viewscreen—a vivid white star that hadn’t been there a minute ago, shining brighter than Sirius or Polaris. It happened so quickly. One minute, an unknowably ancient star, and the next….

He was tired. That was why his throat ached and his eyes felt wet. He was even more tired than usual. In less than six hours he would be up and putting out fires, and instead of sleeping he stood and watched a star burn itself out in slow motion. He blinked hard and kept his face to the viewscreen.

It’s beautiful.

Spock spoke up again a few minutes later, with his eye still to the telescope. “The event will likely continue for several hours,” he said.

“Are you going to stay?” Jim said. “We—we have other science officers. If you need a relief.”

Spock was quiet. Jim glanced at him, searching for some hint of a reaction to guide him. The viewing apparatus hid most of Spock’s face. He stood straight as always—bent slightly at the waist to look through the scope—but he looked relaxed.

“I will stay.” When he spoke, his voice was soft. “I want to see it.”

“Okay,” Jim said. He looked at the viewscreen again—Lacalle’s star in the distance, large and bright. He was tired. He needed sleep, before the next catastrophe. He thought of the rec room on deck eleven. The captain’s ready room—his ready room, though it didn’t feel like it. Nothing onboard did. He still felt a jolt of surprise every time someone on the bridge called him Captain.

“Do you mind if I stay?” he said. Spock lifted his head; Jim avoided his gaze. “I won’t bother you, I promise. I just need…” Somewhere to sleep, he almost said, but that might invite questions, and he couldn’t put words to his dread of the captain’s quarters. He didn’t want to talk about it. “…somewhere quiet.”

Spock looked at him for a moment longer; then he nodded, once, and returned to the telescope. Jim let out a long breath. He returned to the couch in the corner of the deck. Sat down, leaned back, closed his eyes.

The observation deck was quiet.

⁂