Whew, the tension in this one! That's such a mysterious (and potentially devastating) time, in your timeline. I know that mine wasn't all that invested in living when he went into the transporter, and mostly was doing it for Matt Franklin's sake, but I don't know that the same could be said for yours, given what he was doing out there. (Which was, IIRC, not retiring!)
This is all sharp edges. The whole testing thing, which seems half-cruel, though aye, as Scotty reflects, it's understandable. The how, by using the favorite tea blend of an extraordinary women they both loved. Pfft, Admiral. Adore this line:
“A posthumous rank,” Scotty complained, rolling his eyes with the expected theatrics. In another timeline, either a brother or a lover would remark in answer to the eye-roll, "Melodrama." It's played up, put on, but not dishonest.
The way they sort of slice and dice one another, though, whew. Like, it's subtle and build on a whole language they worked out between them over the many long years: They know exactly how to twist the knives. I'd be fascinated to see what Spock saw in Scotty's head someday, because you absolutely do get the impression that post multiversal crossover, when yours is stabilized, there probably was either very little or no mental contact thereafter. So, in some ways he would be intimately familiar, but in others-- maybe not so much. There's a line in The Stand (one of my favorite novels, just for the epicness and atmosphere) where the mother of one of the main characters said there's something in him like biting on tin foil.
I imagine there is something in Scotty, after all he's lived, that's like running into a steel wall.
Anyway, this is properly emotional and aching, the last bars of their conversation are just-- ouch. And given I know how they come to say goodbye, it's all even more poignant.
I think the hard times for mine are very much behind him, mental health wise. The multiversal encounter is incredibly stabilizing, and he proceeds to spend the rest of his career and life making Starfleet crazy, absolutely a steel wall, and even more so now that he’s gone stable. He was working on the Romulan supernova project when he went missing. He wanted to live. Didn’t think he would, mind, but it was a shot, and your pattern just fading is better than suffocating.
The expected melodrama. Like you said, a bit put-on, but not dishonest. It’s in them both. Friends and lovers see it in them. they know they do, and sometimes put in on because it is expected.
I do think that the mental contact with Spock and Nyota stopped, because Scotty didn’t need it anymore, and because he was so often gone. So it’s been—maybe a 100+ years for Spock since he stepped into that particular mind. A strange intimacy in that, familiar but not—probably changed as well.
They would be barbed, I think, until Spock is satisfied. As far as Spock is concerned, this is an imposter, and someone playing a game that enrages him. How dare you disturb his soul, and so soon after Nyota died?!? Scotty sees the mistrust, and it puts his hackles straight up. So they punch at each other, very hard, as only they know how, with a very subtle bit of knife-twisting. I think the next ten or so years until their final parting are—hard, for them both. But also somehow a kind of comfort.
I wonder, sometimes, about the possible encounter yours may have had with his Spock. Whether some Federation official slid up to Spock after and asked: “was it really him?” And although there wouldn’t be the mental contact, the entirely scathing look Spock would give them, because Spock absolutely recognizes him: “of course it was.”
Thanks for the comment. I wandered around lost on even getting started on this one. And suddenly at 10 pm I went Ah!!!
Comment on Here I Sit Like a Beginner
SLWalker Wed 13 Sep 2023 08:53PM UTC
Last Edited Wed 13 Sep 2023 08:54PM UTC
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daraoakwise Wed 13 Sep 2023 09:56PM UTC
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