Jim looked into his counterpart's eyes, holding his gaze. How different they were, and yet how the same.

"It's not like that," he said. "For one thing, no one forced me. I can control myself. And it seems you had a better handle on how things are than I did. I convinced myself..." He frowned, more of a grimace, really, recalling. "I convinced myself that it was the right thing, to give precedence to them. Lacking clear boundaries, I drew the line there. And I involved you, personally, in my own confusion about what this thing is. In the end, the problem wasn't us, or anything we did. It certainly wasn't Spock, who seems to take to the idea fairly strongly. The problem was my uncertainty, my instincts at war with what I had convinced myself was right.

"I was wrong. But I needed time to work out why that was. To establish what Spock needs from me, what the bond calls for, and what it means for him not to want me to change. I was willing to be theirs only, if that's what it took. I've done it for the ship, after all. But they're not the ship. And I'm sorry I caught you in that. It was my job to work that out before I involved anyone else."

He managed to look a little sheepish, now, his contrition as heartfelt as everything else ever written on his face.