Defying Gravity

by MidKnight Rider

Introduces my OC and the beginning of her relationship with Spock.I developed my first crush on Spock when I was 14, so did she. ;-

In the course of his service to Star Fleet, and to the Enterprise in particular, Spock had seen many parallel Earths. The phenomenon had even lost its strong curiosity at this point. As his captain has observed, "It seems impossible but there it is."

But just when the idea of parallel Earths had become almost common place, they had discovered a parallel Vulcan. The former inhabitants - Vulcanoid as evidenced by the bits of broken statuary and other artwork - of this scorched dry desert planet had not found the Path of Logic, of A'rie'mnu - Passion's Mastery- however. There was nothing left but ruins, blackened, jagged against the blood red sky, the civilization destroyed by violence and by combatants driven irrational and suicidal. His ancestors had once balanced on that knife-edge, where hatred of your enemies outweighed your own life, when it no longer mattered if you died so long as the enemy died too. Spock's own clan had once embraced the saying "Au lau-fnu-ven vah tor vah au isha ptha" - "Let them hate so long as they also fear."

It had taken judicious use of his Vulcan training, clamping down hard on emotions that had struggled to emerge, to view the destruction with his normal calm. In the end, as always, his greatest weakness had been his greatest strength. His scientific curiosity won out over his sense of horror.

Almost on a whim they had named the planet Hephaestus, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Vulcan. Though in Greek mythology Hephaestus was lame and disfigured. He had also been the one to create the goddess Pandora, who in turn released all evil into the world.

Spock had been on Hephaestus for six Federation standard weeks, leading a scientific team from the Enterprise in a preliminary excavation of a major settlement. The location had been chosen for no better reason than the lack of radiation. Some places on this planet were still unapproachable, as they had been for thousands of years and would continue to be for thousands still.

He had brought with him ten of the best and the brightest from his science department, anthropologists, and geologists. He had also brought his unofficial protégé, Chekhov, because the young ensign needed the experience; and of course his assistant Science Officer, who was in her own right one of the best archaeologists in Star Fleet.

It was that officer who currently occupied his thoughts, distracting him from the tricorder adjustment he was supposed to be working on. She was crouched not far from him, speaking in an animated fashion with Lt. Farrand the anthropologist, gesturing and checking a tricorder, listening intently when the lt. spoke.

There was no denying she was beautiful, to do so would be illogical. McCoy had once described her as "stop and stare gorgeous" and though Spock had remained silent he had agreed. Her face was composed of delicate, classic angles, high cheekbones and a jawline that was both strong and feminine. Rich, thick, lustrous and currently unbound - colored like honey, like spun gold, like iridescent sunlight - her hair tumbled like a waterfall over her shoulders and back. A heavy double sweep of dark lashes drew attention to wide-set lion-gold eyes, bold and alluring at the same time. With those eyes she could laugh, consider, probe, as dazzling as diamonds, deep and mysterious. Clinically, scientifically, he understood that her lovely skin color was due to her blood being based on a combination of copper, iron and gold that made it flow red-gold in her veins. Another part of him was simply dazzled by the way she glowed, like Vulcan razor flowers lit by T'Khut. Her smile was like the sun touched clouds that ran ahead of a storm. He doubted any man had ever seen her and not wanted her.

Including him.

But it was not physical beauty alone that drove him. She challenged him scientifically, shared his fatal curiosity, and surprised him with insights. Their first chess match, played only weeks ago in the small geodesic dome they had shared since setting up base camp, had ended in a stalemate. No one, other than the computer, had ever played him to a stalemate before. The thought was fascinating.

In this place of death, insanity and destruction, Daphne Caras had become the sunlight that flooded into the dark, cold spaces.

He dragged his attention back to the tricorder and made one final adjustment. Daphne, in the meantime, had uncoiled from her crouch and started towards him. They had abandoned their Star Fleet uniforms for the desert soft-suits common to Vulcan. Hers clung to her in all the right places, hid other places just enough to be alluring. She wore the soft-suit as if she had been born in it. She might well have been. The daughter of the Thracian ambassador to Vulcan, Daphne had been raised on Vulcan. She was no stranger to the desert, the blazing sunlight and merciless heat; or to the insidious nature of sand.

"Did you make the adjustments, or have we lost another piece of equipment to the sand?" she asked.

Spock glanced at her, and hesitated. He could remember when simply glancing at someone had not required the immediate application of several Vulcan Disciplines, but that occurred with Daphne quite often. Even standing in the shade, she burned with her own light. Like the enthralled adventurers of The Odyssey he was in danger of forgetting all his other obligations to give himself only to her.

"This one will function again, though it should be resealed." He handed it to her and she slipped it over her shoulder, letting it settled on the soft curve of her hip.

"I'll see to it," she said, starting to turn away.

"Lt. Caras," he said and she stopped and turned back to him. Spock had the oddest sensation that he was about to step off a ledge with no way of knowing if there was a soft landing below - or a drop into an endless void. "Will you walk with me for a moment? There is something we need to discuss."

Her dark, delicate eyebrows lifted under the fringe of her bangs, a sure sign that her curiosity was piqued. She nodded and fell into step beside him as they walked away from the main excavation, up a ill and over the rise until they were overlooking the single body of standing water they had discovered on the planet.

Waves driven by a rare desert breeze lapped quietly at the shore as they walked. When they were a short distance from the camp, and any chance of being overheard, Spock spoke at last.

"I would have come to you with this sooner, but I had to be certain of something first," he said.

She turned to face him, looking up. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. She had put up the hood of her soft-suit once they left the shaded protection of the ruins. Tendrils of luminous wheat-blond hair had escaped from it to play lightly along the delicately sculpted bones of her face.

"It is always best to have one's facts straight," she said, lightly.

He nodded shortly. "Twice, in the last year, before you joined the crew, I have come under the influence of an alien presence. Both times my memories, my brain chemistry and my control have been altered and I was made to believe that I had ….strong feelings for someone. One was my former assistant science officer, whom you replaced. The other was a woman from my past that I had not seen in many years."

Daphne stopped walking and turned to face him. "I believe I know which times you are referencing: at the colony on Omicron Ceti II and Alnath II. I found the idea of the spores of Omicron less interesting than I did the stone on Alnath II. I read the log entries but those are ….discreet in terms of how the crew was specifically affected individually. Are you telling me that these alien influences made you believe you were in love with these women?"

Spock drew a long, slow breath and then nodded again. "Yes."

Sympathy crossed her features and was just as quickly gone. "They must have been extremely powerful to break down Vulcan disciplines."

"It is not unprecedented," his voice sounded flat even to his own ears." There are other things in nature that alter Vulcan brain chemistry."

Unbidden came the memory of Pon Farr, but he did not elaborate. It has also occurred to him that his attraction to Daphne was due to some kind of odd prolonged Vulcan "puberty" brought about by the plak tow he had endured months ago. It would not be the first time his unique hybrid nature had reacted in a way not formerly known by Terran or Vulcan biological science. His body had ultimately been denied what it had craved at the time.

But if biology truly were the case Spock had decided he no longer cared. He felt no desire for any other. For the most part his life was still dedicated to Star Fleet and the almost fatal curiosity that had driven him since birth. But Daphne caused a madness inside he could no longer fight, different than Pon Farr but no less insistent.

Daphne stood still, watching the subtle play of shadow and light on his expression. She had to look up at him, as he topped her by a good nine inches. Smooth bronze skin, highlighted with a greenish cast, stretched over the hollow where his throat met his jaw; a hidden, almost defenseless place.

She remained silent. Any further question or comment on her part would be a serious breach of Vulcan etiquette and if there was anything she understood it was Vulcan etiquette. Finally he continued, "In the case of the spores, they worked to enhance memories of a former relationship. The stone on Alnath seemed to find me to be a challenge. It split me into my logical and emotional selves. But now, I find that I once again have developed a strong attraction for someone, and I had to examine whether this was natural, or from an alien influence."

Daphne seemed hardly to be breathing suddenly. "And what," she paused and swallowed against a sudden dryness in her throat, "have you decided?"

"That it is natural," his voice was very low and husky now, "I have only now to find out whether it is reciprocated. Daphne. It may not be rational. A Vulcan and a Thracian empath may not even be a sane or natural attempt at a relationship. I only know that I can no longer picture my life without you in it; nor could I spend another night sharing the dome with you and remain silent."

Hung suspended in time, Daphne forced herself to exhale. Though she spoke as a scientist, hiding behind that which she had been all her life, her voice shook, "There are things in science that are natural and irrational and very necessary. Pi for example," she glanced up at him through black lashes tinted with gold and Spock would have sworn the entire planet tilted. "I love you. I have loved you since I was fourteen."

Both Spock's eyebrows went up and his dark eyes grew wider. "Fourteen?"

"Do you remember one of the first Babel conferences that we both attended? I was with my mother. You were assigned as the pilot of the shuttle that was taking some of the delegates there."

"I remember," he said, "The conference was to debate the question of Tellarite succession from the Federation."

"Yes. Do you also remember that I sought out the helm during ship's night and we talked? About the helm controls. Navigation. The Academy, what it was like. We talked about the stars too and what was out there, waiting to be seen, discovered."

Spock only nodded. He did remember. Daphne had always been easy to talk to. The children of diplomats often sought each other's company, away from the seriousness of the functions their parents attended. She had come in and out of his life at various stages over the years. It seemed they had always somehow talked about the stars.

Now she looked up at him, golden, shining. Breathtaking.

"I fell in love with you on that trip," she looked down, shrugged in a self-deprecating way. "I convinced myself it was just a teen aged crush after a while. I went to the Academy. I concentrated on my studies, on becoming an officer. I went in search of my father's family and my Terran heritage. I concentrated on becoming the best archaeologist I could be…… And yet, you were always there somehow, as close my next heartbeat but unreachable. I really thought it was just leftover feelings from childhood, until six months ago when I was assigned to the Enterprise, to you, "she hesitated briefly and then shook her head as if she couldn't even believe it, "I love you," she paused again and looked up at him,

"Why did you never tell me how you felt?" he asked.

Spock was slightly mystified and secretly delighted, though he would deny that even to himself. His experience with emotional human women, and with his ex-fiancé, had made him distrustful. On Omicron Ceti II Leila had not been able to accept him as he was and had wanted only the emotional half of him, even if it was only an illusion. She had not thought or even cared that the spores might have killed him. Her sorrow in the end had been for herself. The fact that he had been hurt had been secondary to her own loss.

T'Pring had scorned him from the beginning, scorned the law and Vulcan tradition in the process. She had not cared if he died or his career lay in ruins as long as she got what she wanted. He had come to the conclusion that T'Pring, through their decades-old mental link, had somehow forced the sudden onslaught of plak-tow that had assaulted him. It had ended as oddly as it had begun and its ending had coincided with T'Pring getting everything she wanted. He would never be certain, and had no way of proving it, but he was well rid of her.

Christine Chapel had invaded his privacy, entered his cabin uninvited, checked his files without permission, eavesdropped on him and in every way violated his being. She had meant well. She had done it out of concern. But any trust he had for her had dissolved. Christine wanted to mother him. Spock had no need for another mother, especially since of all human women his mother baffled him the most.

Spock had always been caught endlessly between his parents. His mother was as disapproving of Spock for not being Terran enough as his father was that he was not Vulcan enough. His father had made this clear with eighteen years of silence; his mother, just the opposite. Indeed, she was far more likely to tear into him with the emotional energy of a Shakespearian drama.

Yet here was Daphne, with whom he had worked for closely in partnership for the last six months and he'd had no indication she felt anything for him at all. He wondered if all Thracians had that kind of mental and emotional control.

He may have been mystified, but she looked amused. "Tell you? And join the long line of women who are hopelessly in love with you? The ones who make you uncomfortable even if you won't admit it? Have you list me among the women who only want you for their own sake and don't know you, or who want to change you? No. That is not how I wanted to love you, or be thought of by you. That secret was my own," she hesitated and became serious once again. "Besides, until recently you were still bound by the koon-ul, in the Vulcan tradition. I would never have breached Vulcan tradition until you had willingly ended that connection; and I had no real hope that you would."

She was right, of course and Spock had to acknowledge it. Of all the human women he had known Daphne was the only one who truly understood what she would have to accept to have a relationship with him: Vulcan culture, not just the Path of A'rie'mnu, not just ritual and language but all the things that were and had been from the time of the beginning. He had discovered her grasp of what it meant to be Vulcan during one seemingly endless shift when they had compared and contrasted the teachings of Vulcan's Surak and T'Plana with the philosophy of Earth's Plato and Thrace's Glykeria. Of all the human women he had known Daphne was the only one with whom he would willingly walk across Vulcan's Forge. She was all but D'velnahr - Vulcan by choice.

She understood his culture far better than he understood hers, but he had never been one to walk away from a challenge. Thracian culture had created the exquisite creature to whom he was now attracted. He could not ask for a mate who clearly understood what it meant to be Vulcan and yet reject what her culture meant to her.

Lost for words, he reached for Vulcan mastery and remained silent.

"Spock," she said, and now she looked rather lost and confused, "What is happening here? What are we doing? What now? We can't take back what we just said, and I am not one to set myself up for disappointment."

Spock took a step towards her and reached for her hand. Affecting the Vulcan V of spread paired fingers he ran his hand from her wrist to her fingers. Her hand spread to match the gesture, running easily along his palm. The heat coming from his body matched the heat shimmering up from the sand beneath their feet.

"I believe we are going to take our relationship from one that is entirely professional to one that is more personal."

Daphne shivered in spite of the heat as he pulled her another step closer. Her pulse went wild. "We will challenge the rules of our individual cultures," she warned. "Only our shared Terran heritage may be strong enough to accept the idea that a Thracian Empath and a Vulcan can form a bond."

"It should be no challenge to Vulcan culture, not if it embraces the concept of IDIC."

She tilted her head and he knew suddenly that he was about to be ensnared by the steel trap of her considerable intelligence.

"I grew up and was educated on Vulcan," she said, her perilous power of scientific observation rising up between them, "By itself the philosophy of infinite diversity in infinite combinations has no defining content. It implies that anything is acceptable. Yet we both know that it is not acceptable on Vulcan to reject the mastery of passion, to reject logic. We know that it was not acceptable for you to join Star Fleet. We know that it was not acceptable for outworlders to be educated in Vulcan ways. We know that your parent's marriage, while a shining example of IDIC, was not and still is not entirely accepted. You have now abandoned your koon-ul to pursue a relationship with an empath, an outworlder. Thracians rarely form permanent bonds of any kind with a mate and hold fiercely to the idea of purity of race and tradition. I am already barely accepted as a Thracian because of my human blood. The idea that I would fall in love with someone so alien to our vibrant and very human culture will not be easily accepted. We are going to defy both our cultures if we pursue this. In some ways we'll be defying gravity."

He regarded her, trying to ignore her tantalizing closeness. "You have thought about this," he said.

She smiled. He was temporarily blinded. "I've been in love with you for fifteen years. I've had a lot of time to think about it."

He lowered his head, his mouth inches from hers. His sensitive hand was still drawing erotic patterns against hers, searching for her thoughts and her feelings. "What conclusions have you drawn?"

"I think," her eyes closed and she brushed her cheek against his, whispering intimately, "that if people from both our worlds, had not been brave enough to defy gravity that we would not have the stars ….. Or ever known each other."

Pressure built in him like water behind a dam, controlled without a conscious thought by disciplines instilled in him from birth; there could be no concession to blind emotion, particularly when the temptation was the greatest.

And yet, this emotion was not blind. It had been well considered and thought out, by both of them apparently.

One kiss. Just that, he thought, for now.

Then, abruptly, his attention was seized by something in the distance, beyond the lake and the jagged broken ruins on the other side. The sky had turned ominous, deep deep red. Spock tensed, like a lamatya that had been sleeping by a waterhole suddenly coming alert. There was a sound, still unheard by the humans in his command. He knew that sound.

Daphne was looking up at him, just as alert. Star Fleet training had kicked in immediately at Spock's sudden change of mood.

"Get everyone inside," his voice was gravel, demanding no question or hesitation.

A blast of super heated air came across the lake, full of sand and fury and they ran before it. Daphne sprinted across the burning sands until she reached the side of the geodesic dome she shared with Spock and hit the alarm by the door. A harsh, blaring sound erupted over the rising howl of the wind. It was a claxton repeating over and over, like the cry of the red alert on the starship. Red lights flashed at the tops of all their equipment. It was a sound and an image all Star Fleet personnel reacted to instantly.

From all over the ruins their team came running in. Some paused to throw covers over equipment, as Spock was doing. Daphne saw Chekhov wrestling a metal cover over their generator. Without it they had no heat or air conditioning, no lights or water. She rushed to join him, holding it while he snapped it in place.

Then she went to Spock's side, shielding the last of the electronic signal conveyors that marked their search grid.

"Get inside," he barked at her. But she waited, at the risk of insubordination, until they had the cover in place and then turned to race back towards their shelter. The wind was on them now, announcing the full fury of the sandstorm that was coming. Blinded, Daphne stumbled. She was hauled back onto her feet by a single strong arm around her waist. She turned her head and hid it against Spock's side as together they went tearing across the short distance to their shelter. They crashed to a halt just inside the door. As it slammed down in place behind them, Daphne paused over the floor grate to catch her breath and shake sand from her hair and clothing.

Spock crossed immediately to the desk area and answered the incoming calls as his team checked in and waited for instructions. Assured they were all in their respective domes, safe for the moment, he told them to stay inside and wait for it to subside. They wasted no time or energy asking him questions they knew had no answers - how long would it last, how would it affect the ruins and their excavations. There was simply no way to do anything now but ride out the storm. Spock faced the situation with the self-possessed equanimity his science department - indeed, all of the Enterprise - had come to expect from him, and they were reassured by it. Giving them last instructions to check in with him at regular intervals and tell him immediately if they had an emergency, Spock signed off.

All that time, Daphne has stood suspended over the grate in the floor as if she could no longer move. She had shared the officer's dome with him for weeks and yet now it had changed. She knew only that it had changed, but not exactly how. The uncertainty kept her frozen.

She watched Spock closely, so familiar to both her professional training and her restless heart. She felt for the first time almost supernaturally alive as a part of her soul, long repressed, came surging forth to rival the sound and fury of the storm lashing against their shelter.

Tall, lean, more certain and somehow more masculine at 34 than the 20 year old cadet she had first fallen in love with, Daphne felt her soul turn a slow somersault as she gazed on him now. She had never allowed herself to be anything but professional in his presence, never allowed the traitorous flame of love to burn in her eyes when she looked at him. She'd seen too many other women on the ship looking at him that way and simply refused to betray her feelings in such a manner. She had locked it away into a place that was sacred and innocent, pure and unrequited.

The cool set of Spock's expression betrayed a lifetime of control and discipline, of responsibility to clan and culture. Had he not escaped into Star Fleet, Daphne suspected that his keen intelligence and burning curiosity would eventually have been beaten down by tradition, position and Vulcan morality. The thought made her heart ache. He had defied so much in his short - by Vulcan standards - lifetime. How could she ask him for more rebellion, and for no more reason than that she loved him?

Still riveted in place she watched as he lowered the additional shields over their transparent aluminum windows. Outside the world had vanished in a maelstrom of swirling red, gold and black, lit with blinding flashes of lightning. A crack of thunder shook the ground as the wind threw a clatter of rock and grit at the small dome.

Daphne crossed her arms tightly and shivered. Sand fire storm. One of the most destructive forces on Vulcan.

"Daphne?"

She looked up into velvet black eyes and could not look away.

"Are you injured? You haven't moved?" It usually did not bother Spock when he could not sense anything from the humans around him. Usually he had to block the unwelcome emotional residue that rolled from them as naturally as waves to the shore. But it seemed that the mental disciplines taught to Thracian children were the equal of anything Vulcans had ever developed. Daphne was a mystery to him. Her emotions and thoughts locked tight behind mental shields, he was left to interpret her moods by body language and expression; and when it came to those two things she was normally as inscrutable as any Vulcan. He found the mystery irresistible.

"No, I," she hesitated, smiled again, shaking her head so that the light glinted from golden blond hair, "I just told my commanding officer that I am in love with him. I confess to not being completely certain how to proceed from there. I never imagined that I would ever have the chance to say such a thing …… And I forgot how much I dislike sand storms."

"You lived most of your life on Vulcan," Spock pointed out, "Surely you had time to become accustomed to sand storms."

"I grew up in the Thracian Embassy in Shi'Kahr. The area is not known for its sand storms. They are dispersed by the surrounding mountains. But you know that. "

The dome rattled and shook violently and Daphne closed her eyes and trembled with it. When she opened her eyes he was standing in front of her. She jumped slightly, startled. Unbidden she set both hands on his chest to steady herself. The coiled strength of him rose up into her fingertips. He felt solid enough to be the foundation of the world.

"Damn, Spock," she whispered, "You could teach stealth to a cat."

"I spent a great deal of time alone in the desert as a child. One learns stealth swiftly there."

Daphne looked at him again, appraisingly. A child in the Vulcan desert, alone. The thought made her shiver again. He misread it.

"The domes were constructed to withstand the planetary conditions. Their foundations are sunk into the bedrock. We have homing beacons on each dome and the Enterprise will be here in less than a week. If nothing else we would survive until beamed out," he said, "There is nothing to fear."

She smiled at him. His heart stuttered and then resumed hammering. Why did her smile have such an effect on him? In this he had no hypothesis or training to guide him.

"You have mastered the understatement," she laughed. "I think that if a rabid, enraged, denevian slime devil came bursting through that door you would tell me his intentions were 'less than benevolent.' "She was teasing, seeking solace in humor and in how well she had come to know him. But there was also the idea of being in here, alone, with him, until the storm was over; or worse until rescued by the Enterprise. The person she had once been with him was gone. In its place was one who had laid bare her soul. He was Vulcan. She did not expect flowery words of love or gallant gestures now. She did not expect poetic declarations of undying devotion.

But she didn't know what to expect.

Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his desert suit, and she let her forehead come to rest on the center of his chest. She repeated the question she had asked at the lakeshore.

"Spock, what are we doing?"

Long fingers ran through her hair and then came to cradle the side of her face. Ever mindful of Vulcan strength, slow, gentle and cautious, the gesture caught her off guard in its tenderness. Something in the natural thoughtfulness of it made her tremble again. How many times had she dreamed about a touch just like that from Spock and dismissed it as childish fantasy? Her heart contracted with an almost desperate longing. Her body reacted with a flood of desire that challenged all of her Thracian training to conceal.

Gods, what was she doing?

His warm serene voice said, "Perhaps we should just eat something? It is earlier than we normally come inside, but we can make something more substantial than that which we usually cobble together."

Good, she thought, yes. Something utterly normal.

Ordinarily Daphne was an excellent cook, though she got little time to do more than program the most basic food, even on the Enterprise. Here, there had simply been too much tantalizing data to analyze to waste time on food. Tonight, they took their time checking to see what was on hand and what they could do with it. All the time they had shared quarters, Daphne had been scrupulously careful not to wait on him, despite his position as commanding officer. Vulcan etiquette would never tolerate a woman serving a man to whom she was not bound, nor the opposite. That was the reason Spock had declined a yeoman. Unable to discriminate by requesting a male yeoman, he had simply refused one altogether. If she made something she offered to make extra and if he wanted it, she had left it where he could get it himself.

Tonight, she convinced him to try a Thracian vegetable stew that was served over bread and topped with cheese. Then she threw herself into creating the meal, steadfastly ignoring the throbbing storm outside and the one growing inside her.

She was relieved that he was going to help prepare it. It would prevent the appearance that she was already waiting on him. But did he have to sit that close to her?

He was quiet, which was not that odd. But she found she wanted the sound of his voice, something soothing over the fury outside. She had watched him steady an entire nervous Bridge crew just with his voice.

"What are you contemplating with such seriousness?" she asked.

"IDIC," he responded.

She glanced up. "Again? How we will compliment IDIC, or how we will challenge it?"

"I am considering the best combinations to see if we fit a successful pattern," he answered.

It was such a logical, mathematical thing for him to be doing that she had to bite back a smile and rivet her concentration on the pan of vegetables she was gently sautéing over heat. It was also out of sync with the sensation she felt coming from him. Obviously, she knew from having been raised in the culture, that Vulcans had children; and that they were produced in the same way all biological mammals produced children. Her scientific mind had already grasped that Vulcans clearly had intimate physical relationships with their bond-mates, as well as something intriguing called "seclusion" - into which Vulcan couples vanished sometimes for days at a time.

Pain could be acknowledged and ignored, she had been taught this in both Vulcan and Thracian disciplines. Pleasure, however, especially sexual pleasure, should be acknowledged and allowed to build to its logical conclusion. Anything else was racial suicide.

She had not expected that intimacy to involve the extreme heat of desire that Spock no doubt felt he was controlling, simply because it didn't show on his face.

He had much to learn about living with an empath.

"Have you come to any conclusions?" she asked finally, hoping her voice sounded normal even to sensitive Vulcan ears.

Spock was perched on a high stool by the counter. He set down the knife he had been using to chop a long piece of Thracian bekrah and steepled his fingers together, his brow set in thought. "The most obvious quality that you bring to this, as a natural empath, is emotion. The most obvious quality I bring is logic. We can then use E for emotion and L for logic. These are qualities not quantities so it is pointless to use them more than once in any combination. EE would still represent only emotion."

She followed his line of reasoning while still finding the entire thing vastly amusing.

"Of course," she acknowledged, her eyes dancing. "But then in combination we would be EL and LE," she observed, "Those are virtually the same, and we will not be the same. Even in combination we will maintain our own separate identities. Our diversity is not infinite. That is actually a very finite combination. It can also be argued that we are both already individually EL and LE. Thracians are not only emotional creatures. Indeed we have almost the same control over our emotions and how they emanate from us as Vulcans do. In much the same way as Vulcans, it would have been impossible not to destroy ourselves had we not developed those controls. I doubt you would insult me by telling my culture is not capable of reason; nor would you insult my intelligence by claiming Vulcans have no emotions. Vulcans certainly have emotions, or there would be no need for the Path of A'rie'mnu. I know your planet's history as well as you do. If Vulcanoids in general were not a passionate species, often driven to violence, we wouldn't have those ruins out there to investigate. So the question now is what do we create together?"

"If we agree, in spite of your contention that we are both EL and LE already, that in combination a quality can be absent then, we should add a zero to indicate which quality is lacking," Spock observed, "This would make you E0 to my L0, and thus we would always remain. In combination then we would create the whole equation of EL0, or LE0, while still maintaining our separate identities."

"But then we are left with a combination 00. The two qualities you propose, with the addition of zero, have four possible combinations: one, the other, both and neither. So what is our "neither"? What does 00 represent in our form of IDIC?"

Spock arched a speculative eyebrow as he considered her observation. She saw the humor of the situation lying deep in his warm eyes.

He leaned forward on the counter, closer to her. Daphne almost burned her hand on the pan. It was all she could do not to hurl herself into his arms. He appeared to not notice.

"The first entity, EO, has mostly emotion at its disposal. The second, LO, mostly logic. The third, that which we create, has both and is theoretically stronger. The 00 that you point out must logically exist. The zero in mathematics is indispensable. In this case, the 00 is much weaker than the other three, but surely exists as background. It is the slate upon which the other three are written."

Daphne was trying hard to concentrate on her cooking and the paradigm Spock had presented her. He was close enough for her to feel the feverish heat of his body. The fabric of his soft-suit lay taut against muscled arms. The overhead lights played off glossy black hair and his eyes, hooded in thought, were a dark chasm she could easily fall into. Falling into Spock's eyes. Defying gravity. Gods.

Suddenly, lightning flashed and a deafening crash of thunder seemed to split the sky over their heads. It rolled away into a threatening growl. Daphne clenched her teeth and refused to tremble. She didn't ask him what would happen if the sand began to cover the dome. Undoubtedly he knew exactly how much weight the structure could stand, down the last kilogram and decimal place, and would not hesitate to tell her. She didn't want to know.

She glanced at him just as he focused on her and the air seemed to sizzle between them.

No wonder they were seeking refuge in reducing their relationship to a mathematical equation. Only two devoted scientists would do such a thing to avoid the sexual tension growing in the inescapable closeness of the dome.

"Then," she began but had to pause and clear a sudden dryness from her throat, "if 00 is background, it is our backgrounds. It is the culture of Vulcan and Thrace, and to a certain extent Terra. The one thing we have in common is our human DNA. We have defined ourselves as Thracian and Vulcan, yet we are each of us Terran too. These are the things we will draw from if we move our relationship from professional to personal. These are also the very things we will be defying in our attempt to form a relationship. If we take the next step to making our relationship more personal than professional, our 00 will be our foundation and our challenge."

"When," he corrected. His voice was husky, "When we move to a more…personal level."

He watched her hands as they added the last of the vegetables to the pan. They were delicate, graceful hands, stronger than they looked and yet they still felt as fragile as a baby bird when he held them. The steam from the vegetables had tinted her cheeks to pink, highlighted the soft gold of her skin and curled the tendrils of hair escaping around her face. The soft suit clung to the swell of her breasts, unzipped just far enough to reveal the beginning of the shadow between them. She looked up at him and her mouth was ripe, delectable and smiling at him.

"When? We seem to have already crossed that line," she said. "At least we have determined that mathematically, we should succeed. Our mathematical equivalent is 2 squared. Next I imagine we'll have to calculate the odds."

Had he been fully human he may have laughed. As it was she caught the glint of humor that again lit his eyes just before he quelled it. By bringing their shared half-breed heritage into the equation Daphne had made him consider that for the first time, he may have found someone who understood what that meant. If he had never truly had a home, surely it was worse for her. She was not fully Thracian, nor fully Terran and she had been raised on a world alien to both. In her eyes, for the first time, ever since she had come aboard the Enterprise, Spock saw unconditional acceptance. He did not see the not-so-subtle-looks that said, 'we know you are really just like us' that he got from almost every other human in the galaxy. He did not see what he got from other women: 'I can help you. I can fix you. I can free you.' Daphne did not want him helped or fixed or set free; nor did she believe he needed any of that. In Daphne, he saw the absolute conviction that he was not just like anyone else and the absolute certainty that she would not want it any other way.

Daphne knew what it was like to have a dual nature, and she knew the struggle of daily grinding them together in the crucible of one's soul. It was not just her beauty that had the blood running hot in his veins. It was the almost incredible accident of having met someone who matched him so perfectly.

He swallowed to clear the dryness from his throat and dragged his thoughts back to more practical matters of the relationship, "We also have an example set for us."

"We do?"

"My parents. They were more truly EO and LO than you and I. My mother complements my father. She can rage when he cannot. She can grieve when he cannot. She can laugh and cry when he cannot. On the other hand, he is rational when she cannot be. He is calm, better in a crisis, more thoughtful. Together they have been a formidable diplomatic team. The credit almost always goes to my father alone, but I have witnessed the influence my mother has been and it is not to be dismissed lightly. Together they created the perfect LE. It has worked for them for nearly four decades."

"Is that what you want?" she asked, and her voice was like cool water, like shade at midday, low, sensual, pitched for Vulcan hearing, "Someone to rage for you? Laugh for you? Cry out in passion for you?"

Spock had hoped that speaking of his parents would somehow quell the reckless and relentless reaction of his body, but the intimate tone of her voice shattered that illusion. Duty and discipline had defined his life and he had absolute faith in his self-control and sense of honor. But almost from the moment Daphne had confessed her love for him, his body had seemed blind to such things as conscience and honor. His pulse was thundering with heightened awareness of her. Desire was making short work of duty and discipline. He drew a long breath to steady the rampant fire suddenly flowing in his veins. After the blazing madness of Pon Farr, endured many months past, he was more than a little relieved when his body responded, albeit reluctantly. Passion's Mastery seemed just short of attainable at the moment.

Still he was sorely tempted to finish leaning towards her and claim the kiss that had been stolen from them earlier.

"I do not rage or laugh," Spock answered, "and I can cry out in passion for myself. There is a difference between the emotional and the sensual."

Eyes down, Daphne turned down the heat under the pan and covered it so that it could simmer for a while. Though confident she could prevent Spock from reading her mad sensations of desire mentally, she was alarmed by her unsteady pulse and shaking hands. She knew Spock's mental discipline was superb. Certainly he had more than mastered the degree of shielding necessary to survive on a planet of touch telepaths. He could not entirely hide from her empathic senses however, his calm exterior not withstanding. He was vitally alive and struggling with nerves flayed raw with desire.

She couldn't claim to be doing any better. He reached for her hand and his fingers branded her flesh as he pulled her towards him. She made note of the strength in his hand. It could easily crush hers. But she trusted him and concentrated instead on her own power, which seemed to be taking his breath away.

"So, Thrace, Terra and Vulcan will form the background of what we will become together, for good or ill." Only the midnight velvet of Spock's hushed voice could make such a statement sound seductive.

Daphne was drawn into the circle of his arms, willingly stepped forward between his open legs to lean against his solid strength and rigid exquisite promise. Her mouth was inches from his again. She inhaled everything about him that was magnificent and male and had to set her teeth against the whimper that rose in her throat.

She forced herself to speak, seeking math and logic once again as a rabbit seeks a warren.

"Thrace and Vulcan have no qualities on their own, only what we draw from them," her voice was shaking, so low only his Vulcan hearing would catch it. "We rise or fall on our own. We become whole with each other's help, or we do not. The choices are ours and ours alone."

Then they kissed, at last; blindly, passionately, aching with tenderness and years of caged need. Intensity, silken and exquisite, enveloped them until a crash of thunder and flickering strobe of lightning startled them apart. Daphne gasped in spite of herself and pressed closer to him, shaking as much with pleasure as with fear. She drew her arms in tight, hid her face in his shoulder and murmured a breathless apology.

Spock had no clear idea why she was apologizing. If not for her body language he would not have known her feelings. It made him feel empty, as if a part of her was being hidden from him. He wanted her and he wanted all of her. Vulcan at his core, he craved the mind touch as Vulcans craved water.

He took her hand again, paired his first two fingers with hers in invitation. She swallowed, hesitated. Beneath those strong, elegant fingertips lay the telepathic receptors that would break down the barriers between them. To accept that invitation was to lay further emotions bare, to share thoughts in a way that was impossible with words.

Then, the decision made, she put one strong, delicate hand on the back of his head and drew his forehead down to touch hers, to brush against the empathic receptors that lay beneath her feathery bangs. The pure white flame of love leapt between them, seared them together heart, mind and soul. It burned away doubt. It burned away duty and left only devotion. It burned away culture and differences; even math and logic.

She knew his desire, hot and hard; and he knew hers as her body melted into liquid silk in response. But he also knew her fear. It was not of thunder, or lightning, or wind or sand or noise. It was of being buried alive, crushed beneath the weight of something she could not escape. He had never known she was claustrophobic. His confusion over it passed along the link and he felt her self-mocking acknowledgement of the phobia. Why, she asked him, do you think they call it an irrational fear? His response was more than she had hoped for. In emotional species, like yours, fears need to be neither logical nor rational in order to be real.

He pulled his fingers from hers and leaned back, dragging his ravaged senses back into the disciplines that had shaped his life. Daphne gave a small cry, adrift suddenly, and pressed closer to him.

"Spock, please," she whispered, "I need you. I want you. I have waited half my life for you."

His arms came around her, sure and strong but lose. She could easily break free. His mouth sought hers again but now it was chaste, gentle.

"I have been in your thoughts. You need to be held. You need to be made to feel safe and reassured," he said, "You do not need to be ravished. Not now." His hand cradled the side of her face, and repeated, "Not now. Not with fear in it. I may want you trembling beneath me, but not in fear."

She looked up into dark, unfathomable eyes. Her body was in flames and pressing tight enough against him to know that he was still afire for her. Her mind reeled, but she knew he was right. He would not be her first lover, nor, she suspected, would she be his. But their first time together, as the entity they would become, should be all love.

She rested her head on his shoulder and fought for calm breath. For the rest of her life this would be a memory of him she would cherish: aroused and holding her close, raw with need, discipline challenged by desire - but opening his arms and letting her go.

*^**^*^**^*^^*

The evening progressed as none other that she had ever had with Spock. They normally sat at the desk, at parallel computer stations tucked into the slope of the honey combed walls. The mechanical heart of their small dwelling stood opposite the door, with separate sleeping nooks on either wall. A recessed cushioned couch and low table was the only thing on the wall with the door. Tonight they chose the couch, curled up against each other with notepads and tricorders and styluses, going over previously gathered data. The much-loved path of duty and science distracted them from the other events of the day.

That path did not entirely prevent the occasional soft caress or tender kiss though. His eyes still became black pools of intensity when he looked at her; and she still alternated between yearning for him and the certainty that they were going to be buried alive. The day had been emotionally draining; the strain of ignoring the howling storm was taking its toll. It seemed that a very slender mental bond had formed between them and Spock was now very well aware of her growing exhaustion.

She had slumped against his shoulder. He took the pad from her limp hand and gently tilted her face up to his. He kissed her and she responded, this time without fire, as if fatigue and fear had robbed her of everything but tenderness.

His fingers brushed against her forehead, along the tentative bond they now shared; then over her eyelids.

"Sleep," he murmured.

She barely stirred when he lifted her and stood, carrying her to her bed. She only protested a little when he covered her with a blanket. He brushed her hair away from her face and when he kissed her goodnight, she was already asleep.

Spock's circadian rhythms rarely put him in sync with his human counterparts, or even with the established pattern of "day" and "night" on the Enterprise. The same events that had exhausted Daphne had brought him to a new alertness, a new heightened awareness.

On the ship, Spock slept in very little clothing, if he truly slept at all. He laid out a robe in case of visitors and a clean uniform in case of an emergency and then put himself into a deep trance that Vulcan found more effective than sleep. Sharing quarters with his assistant he had realized more in the form of sleeping attire was going to be needed. He stripped, tossed the desert suit into the recycler, laid out a clean set of clothes and then put on a soft tunic and leggings. He had no need for sleep at the moment and he lacked a meditation stone and flame, but he could make do with what he had. He lay down on his bed under a blanket and slowly drifted into a deep meditative state.

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

As if sensing that she was awake, Spock came out of his meditation more quickly than he normally did. She had left her bed and gone to stand by the window above the computer and command station. She had changed out of her desert suit into a light shift that appeared to have no shape of its own but clung seductively to hers. The faint glow of the night time lighting cast a gleam along the bare golden flesh of her arm, and gave a halo to a careless spill of golden hair. The silvered shimmer highlighted the beauty of her feminine form but she was seemingly unmindful of the image she created.

As if instantly aware of him, she turned.

"Did I wake you?" she asked.

"I wasn't asleep," he said.

Even in the dim light he saw her smile softly, "Meditating then. Did I disturb you?"

He shook his head, even though he wasn't entirely certain that was true.

"The storm is abating," she told him, "and we still have power to everything, and water. The generators are unaffected so far."

"I would not expect anything less from generators modified by Mr. Scott and his engineers," Spock observed.

A frustrated blast of dying wind lashed against the dome and a growl of thunder, farther off now, echoed behind it. He did not fail to notice that this time Daphne made no outward sign of discomfort. She might be less unnerved now that the storm was ending and they had not been buried alive.

Spock threw back the blanket and shifted onto his side.

"Daphne, come here," he said.

She was too conditioned to instantly obeying that voice though she did hesitate a moment.

"Was that an order?" she asked, lightly.

"A request," he clarified, "You look cold."

She smiled faintly, wondering at the accuracy of Vulcan eyesight that it could see 'cold' even in the nightlight. Vulcan was rarely ever dark, being lit either by its sun or by the reflection of its sister planet. If Spock had a weakness it was his night vision.

But it was far too tempting an offer to ignore and she slipped gratefully beneath the blanket and settled her head on his shoulder.

"Gods, you are so warm," she murmured.

"Are those your feet or did you bring two blocks of ice with you?" he asked.

"Those are my feet. You were quite correct in your observation that I was cold."

"Have you ever considered an invention called socks?"

She laughed. "I hadn't intended to do more than change out of my desert suit and go back to bed. I was distracted by the storm breaking up."

And now she needed to be distracted from the very odd reality of lying next to Spock in bed. She expected to wake up at any moment to discover this had all been some kind of fantastic dream. She fixed her gaze on the skylight above them and watched the spattering of stars on velvet sky begin to appear as the storm cleared. She had always loved that - the unfamiliar star patterns above a newly discovered world. She pointed upward.

"That star cluster could almost be the Thracian constellation of Amythrian," she said.

"The Lovers," Spock translated and she wondered once again if there was anything in the known Universe that Spock didn't know.

"More literally the Soul Twins," she answered. "Thracians believe we are all born with half a soul and we may spend our lifetimes trying to find the other half."

"I will have to become familiar with your language, and with Thracian customs," he observed.

She shifted in his arms, onto her side and looked up. His face was cast in shadow, his eyes darker than the night sky.

"I'll teach you," she whispered, reaching up to gently stroke his cheek.

She ran her hand from his face to his throat down his arm, over his wrist to his hand. All the serenity won by meditation threatened to come undone. He closed his eyes and struggled for some shred of integrity.

In the next instant she damned him to a heady, willing surrender. Slowly she pulled his hand to her lips, kissed his palm, rubbed her cheek against it and then pressed it between her breasts, over her beating heart.

Her lips now millimeters from his, her breath soft on his face she said, "Ka'thira'zon. My heart."

Spock wanted to repeat it but all the blood in his body, including that which usually ran his formidable brain, seemed to be rushing headlong to his groin. Seemingly of its own volition his hand moved to cup her breast through the soft silk of her tunic. The tip pressed upward against his thumb as he kissed her again. Somehow her shift slipped off her shoulder and his mouth trailed a line of icy fire down her throat and over the newly revealed skin.

He was being so slow and gentle, so tenderly reverent, though she could feel the crushing power being contained. It was as if something sacred to him lay beneath his hands and beneath the fascinated wanderings of his lips and tongue. The heat of him burned away the last of the cold and left her trembling with a different sensation altogether. She kissed his forehead and hair and tried to breathe.

As he began to push the shift further out of the way, Daphne suddenly came back into her own mind, though not to draw away or deny him.

"Spock," she said, breathless, gripping his forearm, "Wait. Wait." She saw the steel control dropped over him, the dispassion return to his feature. She laughed softly and rubbed her cheek over his. "No, I haven't changed my mind. I'm not quite sure I'm not dreaming but I haven't changed my mind. I cannot deny you now, or myself. I just need to tell you something, before we go any further."

The beginning light of dawn was starting to spill through the skylight above them and she saw one eyebrow move upward in curiosity. His eyes were hooded and dark, waiting.

"I …have a tattoo," she confessed.

The eyebrow rose sharply and disappeared under his bangs. "It is hardly unusual in your culture," he said.

"No, it isn't, but I wanted to tell you first. It's a Thracian lialla."

"A firebird," he remarked, thoughtful and she wondered once again if there was anything he didn't know. "Also known in some places on Thrace as the feathered dragon. It is one of the most successful species on your planet. There is even a version of the lialla that exist in the thermal caves in Thrace's polar regions," he paused, then added, "They are also one of the few bird species on your planet to mate for life."

"They are on my family crest," her thoughts were scattering again. Reassured that she had not wanted to stop him, Spock had resumed his tender exploration of her body.

"Will you show it to me then?" he asked, his voice a seductive whisper against her throat. She could only nod as he raised his head to rain kisses onto her face and delicate, alien shell-shaped ear before settling on her eager, compliant mouth. She slipped her arms around his neck and for the first time felt him tremble as much as she. Daphne sighed, her heart clenching. Ah, Spock…..

"It's all right," she whispered, against his mouth, "It's all right to let go. This is only you and I, only love, not madness.

Spock inhaled, as if the air had left the room. How well she understood him, his culture, the desperate control that was all that had saved his race and the reluctance to let that control slip even for a moment. The evidence of the need for that control lay just outside their shelter in the form of a shattered civilization. He was overwhelmed by desire, a fierce protectiveness he had never experienced with anything else in the Universe. For the first time he understood why Vulcan men, even those not being driven by the blood madness, would fight for their bond mates. He suspected, from what she had just said, that Daphne even knew about the plak tow. He did not see how it was possible to be raised on Vulcan and not know something.

His mouth closed over hers again, hot and searching. She was right. This was nothing like the plak tow. His body might be wildly insistent, but his mind was still in control. The first rays of dawn were now streaking through the skylight, painting her in molten light. He shifted her closer to him, their thighs pressing together. Spock moaned then, as if wounded.

Desire pooled in her at that sound, urgent and dominant. Her breast once again being subjected to the tender mercies of his palm, she could feel his pulse, rapid with masculine force. She melted against him, heat flashed over her body, searing her with joy and need and deep elation.

The sound of the communication whistle from just over their heads was a shocking interruption. Chekhov's voice speaking into the intimate space around them was even more jarring. Spock drew back slightly and she could almost physically feel the mantle of control fall over him. She dropped her head against his chest, closed her eyes and fought for calm breath.

He flipped the switch that opened the comm channel and said, "Spock here," and Daphne wondered how he could possibly sound so placidly normal.

"Commander," Chekhov on the other hand sounded like he was standing on a live wire. His Russian accent was thick, "The storm has revealed much more of the city. I think you and Lt. Caras really should see this, sir."

Spock somehow managed to change expressions without moving a single muscle in his face. Even in the shadowed dawn Daphne could see that his curiosity was piqued. Even she was now torn between her relentless scientific nature and the desire to remain in bed and finish what they had started.

There was no question of doing the latter however, and in a way it was their own fault. Desert-raised, they had ordered their crew to be up at dawn and ready to take advantage of the cooler temperatures.

"I suppose we should just get used to that," she observed, noting that her voice was still shaky and far from normal.

"Being interupted at dawn by Mr. Chekhov?" Spock asked and she laughed.

"Not exactly," she said, resting her head on his chest again and rubbing her cheek against the soft fabric of his tunic. "But, certainly being interupted at any moment. There aren't many officers on the ship who have to be available at every second but you certainly are one of them." Her words held the promise of other future moments that could be interupted.

She drew back and started to get out of bed but he caught her wrist and stopped her. Once again she was mindful of the bone crushing strength of his hand. Red dawn was now bursting through the skylight, bathing him in the same crimson glow as his home planet. A green-gold flush of desire burnished his cheekbones. His eyes met hers and she realized he was not as unaffected by the interruption as his calm demeanor suggested. Her heart beat heavily, torn between duty and desire. Passion poured like liquid crystal into the air, pooling between them. She knew he could feel her frantic pulse. He could probably hear it.

Reluctantly she rose from the bed and this time he let her go. She felt barren without him, without that tall, solid form to lean against. His presence was now vital to her, like air and water. For a fleeting moment she wanted to fall back onto the bed, to feel the wild beat of his heart under her hand, his long, long legs stretched out against hers, inhaling the rich scent of him - desert heat and spice and something very Vulcan and very male. Such a thing had been only a dream to her for a decade and a half. Now she felt as if she were waking up too early.

Resolutely she pulled a clean desert suit out of the drawer and vanished into the bathroom to dress. When she emerged Spock had also changed and was once again speaking to Chekhov over the comm system. The ensign's voice was rich with excitement, urging them once again to come out and see this "marvelous thing." Spock assured him they were on the way and switched off the comm. Was it her imagination or did Spock seem just the least bit impatient?

He turned from the comm and she asked lightly, "I suppose there is no time for chala before we go see Mr. Chekhov's marvelous thing?"

Spock shook his head. As they left the dome together he remarked flatly, "Whatever has been uncovered, I've no doubt there is something just like it somewhere in Russia."

Her laughter was like a scattering of falling stars. Outwardly dispassionate, Spock felt his world tilt at the sound of it, as if he were about to tumble off the edge and fall headlong into her. Defying gravity she had said. Well all right, as long as she would catch him when he fell.

The rays of the rising sun were piercing over the distant jagged landscape and reflecting off the lake, forcing Daphne to squint as they walked forward. Spock's desert-bred eyes adjusted instantly, so he saw the change in their surroundings before she did. In spite of his Vulcan training he was startled into an abrupt halt.

The revealed city was at least twenty times the size it had been. Sand had been scoured away to show that it was actually set into a deep bowl carved from a cliff face. Their domed shelters now perched on the edge of the cliff, looking down and out over the city. Protected for unknown centuries beneath its blanket of sand, more of it seemed to have been preserved from the ravages of time. The hill upon which they had stood and confessed their love was gone, revealing more of the ruins. The city must have at one time perched magnificently on this shore, with a commanding view of the lake and the sister city on the other side.

Daphne had turned sideways to view the new ruins without interference from the sun.

"Gods on high," she whispered, "Spock……" She was clearly caught again between scientific professionalism and profound personal elation. She glanced up at him, her golden brown eyes twin pools of delight. "I don't care what he says, there is nothing like this in Russia."

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

They worked into the heat of the early afternoon, when the relentless sun of Hephaestus poured heat down on them without mercy. The heat of midday was merciless, when even the cooling nature of their soft suits and the shade of the ruins gave humans no relief. Though Spock rarely understood human emotion, passionate scientific curiosity was something he did share with many of them, especially with the scientists under his command on the Enterprise. They had all gone out into space for exactly this reason. However, when Chekhov had to catch Ensign Crey just before she fainted from heat exhaustion, Spock was forced to order them inside.

He of course could stay out easily for the rest of the day and was sorely tempted to. However, as he strode towards Daphne with the sole purpose of ordering her to cease until the evening, his resolve to remain on the site faltered. He had never spent a day like this in his life - torn between science and a simmering erotic need he seemed to have no control over. She was hugging a bit of shade, trying to open a door set into a wall. It appeared to be some kind of safe, with a triangle set in the center to act as a lock and no visible handle.

Her features were set in concentration. Though she had caught up most of her thick golden mane in a careless ribbon, damp had soaked the edges of her hair, plastering loose curls to her skin. She was flushed nearly golden with the heat and a sultry, sensual loveliness that fired his most primitive cravings. He took a deep breath and looked down at the sand. His pulse throbbed and he allowed himself the indulgence of being glad that McCoy was no where in sight with that damned medical scanner. The doctor would certainly be convinced the Vulcan was on the verge of some kind of stroke.

"Lt," he said, in his best controlled command voice,"You must go inside now. The temperature will soon climb beyond a level acceptable for humans."

"Is that an order?" she asked, looking up at him through heavy soot-black lashes edged in gold, eyeing the double row of gold braid on his sleeves.

"If I must make it one, yes," he answered. He clasped his hands tightly behind his back to keep from reaching out to touch her.

She glanced once more at the enigmatic metal box and its unfathomable lock, torn as much as he between duty, discovery and deep desire.

"It will still be here," he reminded her, "In the evening when it is cooler. It has been here untouched for thousands of years already. "

She moved towards him and lowered her voice, "Come inside with me."

The request rolled over him like wildfire, set his skin alight.

"Do not tempt me," he said in a husky purr, "I burn for you."

She moved a step towards him and unleashed just enough of the stranglehold she kept on her desire to let him experience a brief whisper of it.

"Then let us quench it, before we are destroyed by it."

Her desire fanned his and he felt the world around him go down in flames.

"Go inside," he said," I'll follow you once I have made sure everyone else has followed my order," he paused, "Humans obsessed with a new discovery can be quite illogical."

Daphne quirked a smile at him but wisely remained silent. She gathered her tricorder from where it was lying against a fragmented wall and hurried through the blazing sun to the safety of their shelter.

It took him no more than a few minutes to determine that his order had indeed been obeyed and then he followed Daphne. He paused with his hand on the sensor that would open the door, without the vaguest idea what would happen once he opened it. He paused and glanced once more over his shoulder at the great scientific discovery behind him.

Then for the first time in his life he turned away from science and went in the opposite direction. Drawing a deep breath he keyed the sensor and stepped inside.

She was standing, barefoot, by her bed. Sunlight haloed her and made it look like she burned with her own light. She turned as he came in, moving with the controlled feminine grace he had come to associate with her.

His heart lurched beneath his ribs. Though he stood as if turned to stone, desire for her shook him from head to toe, passed in hot waves through his body, flooded him to his soul.

Spock crossed the distance between them in long feral strides and seized her by both arms. His mouth came down on hers, hard, demanding, all masculine force and pure carnal need. Anguish and desire flowed from him like lava as his violent aggressive Vulcan nature warred with his impulsive human half.

A moment later he pulled away, his eyes closed. His hands dropped away, opened, closed into fists until he forced them open again.

"Daphne, I…" he stopped, visibly trying to control himself, "I must beg your forgiveness. I have never done anything like that in my life. I….."

She stopped his words, placing her paired fingers over his lips. She shook her head, smiled softly and then tilted her head up. Her hand was cool on the back of his neck as she pulled him down, brushing her lips against his. Willing, even indulgent, her mouth opened under his, welcoming and tender.

He surrendered to her in an instant. His arm slipped around her, his hand in the center of her back. Drawing her close he found her supple and pliant, and now his kiss caressed and whispered of seduction.

"I think," she said, when their lips finally parted, flushed, breathless, blond hair spilling down her back and over his hand, "that we will probably now do many things we have never done before in our lives."

For several heated moments they stared at each other. Her eyes were perfect circles of golden brown, rimmed in the thinnest circle of black and framed by thick lashes. His smoldered with the fires of Vulcan's distant past, burning with power and passion and some dark knowledge. No one had ever looked at her like that and she certainly had never had reason to hope Spock ever would.

Dream and fairytale had suddenly invaded her ordered scientific world. Hot awareness of his body flooded her: the bronze-green glow of his skin, the pulse thundering in his throat just above the edge of his desert suit, the scent of Vulcan spice and desert that clung to him and reminded her of home. Light and shadow played over his features, highlighting his hawk like intensity. She shivered and he pulled her closer.

Spock had gained control over his earlier, wilder impulse. He was still urgently aware that she was in his arms, willing, and that she was achingly composed of warm, sensual feminine curve and muscle. She was beautiful, with the concentrated passionate raw beauty of the Terran lioness; a beauty made of full lips, uncompromised courage, perilous intelligence and an exotic alien quality he could not resist.

His hand found hers and briefly he paired his first two fingers against hers. Feelings flowed between them in slow hot rivulets that lit their veins afire. Then he drew her hand to the neck of his soft suit and left it there. After his previous aggression, he wanted the next move to be hers.

She slipped her fingers into the opening that would split the front of the soft suit and let the two halves fall apart like a wave rushing back from the shore. He wedged his feet out of his boots as she pushed the fabric from his shoulders and let it drop so he could step out of it. It pooled uselessly on the floor and he kicked it aside.

He was erect, hard as titanium, wanting her. Her heart pounded. Her body ached as it turned to liquid gold with need. He was the loveliest man she had ever seen -tall and lean, broad-shouldered; muscles beneath taut green-gold skin spoke of casual Vulcan strength. She instantly knew the true meaning of desire. She was slick and throbbing with it. She would have sold her soul at the moment, given up her career, her own life, to have him.

His long, powerful fingers reached out to thread through her hair and then cup the back of her neck. The fingers of his other hand brushed the top of her soft suit where the opening started, a silent inquiry.

She lifted her head and kissed him, mouth open and inviting. His hands pulled her closer, followed the curves of her waist and back, down over her hips, up over her ribs. Her breasts fit perfectly in his hands and he teased them through fabric, his mouth still hot and moist against hers.

The remaining cloth between them quickly became an unbearable obstacle and when it was finally removed Spock doubted anyone would wear that particular soft suit ever again. There hadn't been a seam they hadn't torn in their haste to remove it; and now he was torn between pulling her tighter against him and holding her back to look at her. A glimpse of the tattoo she had mentioned made the decision for him. It demanded that he look.

She had been right to warn him about the tattoo or he would certainly have been startled. It covered nearly the entire left side of her torso, curling and bending from her hip to her breasts to emphasize her curves.

The entire thing was done in sepia tones that complemented the golden hue of her skin. The firebird's head began on her lower belly, by her navel. It looked upwards, its mouth open as if ready to breathe fire. Its neck dipped down towards the top of her thigh and then swept back up to join the body that covered the left side of her waist. The wings were back swept; the only part that was not sepia was their inky black tips. The tail was made up of four separate flame shaped feathers that rose up over her ribs and ended curled around the underside of her left breast.

Spock reached out and traced it lightly with his fingers spread in the Vulcan V, watching her muscles ripple at his touch. Her skin shivered. His eyes met hers.

"Daphne," he drew her name out in a long breathless whisper, "She is beautiful."

"She?" Her eyes danced.

"Only the female firebird has black wingtips," he sounded distracted now, as if reciting facts from some barely functioning part of his brain.

Daphne stepped into the circle of his arms, pressed naked flesh to naked flesh. The spread of black hair across his chest tickled her breasts and his arousal became trapped against her hip. She rubbed her thigh against his.

"Is there anything you don't know?" she whispered.

He cupped her face in his hand, brushed his first two fingers across her cheekbone and then brushed his own cheek against her hair.

"I do not know how to please you," he admitted.

Her lips were pressing soft kisses down the line of his jaw and he felt her smile.

"Somehow I doubt that," she said, with laughter in her voice. Her fingers trailed over his chest, down over his ribs and the flat hard muscles of his stomach and lightly stroked the top of his thigh, tantalizingly close to the coiled center of his arousal.

"Spock," she heard his name as if someone else had spoken it, a stranger, someone standing on a precipice about to fall.

He urged her backwards against the bed and she fell willingly, her hands on his shoulders dragging him down with her. Gold hair spilled across the pillow, brilliant against the utilitarian Star Fleet grey sheets. Her legs sprawled under his. Her breasts pressed against his chest. On the edge of losing control, Spock lowered his head to tease them with his mouth and the unparalleled devilry of his touch. Sweet, soft, round and pebble-tipped, shivering beneath his tongue, all that was feminine and resilient about her.......

Daphne writhed and arched. Her hand cupped the back of his head and held him tightly. Her breath left her in a sob and ended in a long low moan. The sound went straight to his groin, mercilessly taking conscious thought with it. His hand stroked over her until it found the soft skin of her inner thigh, lingered there drawing slow, sensual circles, knowing only that she was hot and moist and ready for him and that his own control was tentative now at best.

Something wild and untamed broke lose in her. She had wanted him for so long that her desire for him now was almost agony. She rolled onto her side and put her leg over his hip. Her hand found the rigid length of him. Fingers brushed over him, hesitant at first, exploring him with no less reverence than she would an ancient and fragile artifact. He was long, hard, smooth as glass and throbbing with the shattering pulse of his Vulcan heartbeat. She shifted her hips closer and stroked the head over the slick sweet place between her legs that was aching for him.

Spock groaned and buried his head in the space between her neck and shoulder. His breathing became slow and shallow. His teeth clenched and the muscles along his jaw rippled with tension. It was impossible for either of them to experience only physical sensation. Every place his sensative fingers touched gave him not only the feeling of her soft skin and secret places but the reality of her unraveling emotional shields. She lay open and naked to him in more ways than one now. Desire and willingness, love and unconditional acceptance flooded him. She was liquid fire and now he wanted only to be consumed by it.

Spock had fought ponn farr as a drowning man fights the current. He had struggled against it with every discipline, every mental technique he had ever been taught. He had fought against it with his own personal and formidable strength of will. He had resisted giving himself in such intimacy to a woman for whom his heart and soul felt nothing. It was the only time in his life he could remember deliberately rejecting that which was Vulcan - the ritual, the tradition, the world in which sex was made secretive and nonemotional. Vulcan discipline and tradition had been his fundamental strategy to remain sane in the face of his own chaotic inner self. He had observed the confusion, uncertainty and pain humans often caused themselves by mixing sex and emotion; and yet, in spite of that clinical and scientific observation, something in him had always cried out that it should be more than just biology, more than just a drive to "swim upstream." His desire to fulfill his Vulcan identity had run full bore into his Terran need to form a bond of love and mutual respect. When he had let T'Pring go he had moved, perhaps against his will, a step away from being truly and soley Vulcan.

But now he willingly surrendered. Spock burned for Daphne, body and soul. It may be that the Thracians were right and he had found his soul's twin. It had once even been an ancient Vulcan belief. Their language still contained the phrase 'k'hat'n'dlawa' - the other half of my soul.

Undone, his own control finally shattered, he urged her onto her back and then, hard and Vulcan hot, he plunged forward.

They tumbled over the edge together, fell from the top of a mountain and rocketed straight to the stars.

"Oh gods, Spock," she gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulder blades. She pressed her forehead to his chest and he was beseiged by her emotions. Carnal, intense, wicked, passionate, overcome by love, coveting all of him, open and adoring, all drenched in the flame of her body. He thrust without restraint and she moved her hips to caress him in return, her breath catching in his ear as she quivered beneath him in ecstasy.

She drew him up into her brilliance, her certainty, free and open and giving, judging nothing, soaring with him into the soul shattering crescendo of their mutual release. Pleasure spilled in such concentration they both cried out, clinging to each other, reluctant to let go even long after their bodies were satisfied.

Instinct had kept him from collapsing on top of her and crushing her, but at last he rolled sideways and somehow landed on his back. She moved in sated slow motion to nestle against his side, stretching like a cat.

Daphne was stunned, as if something fragile in her had been touched, explored and cherished, as if he had somehow filled her with gathered starlight. She lifted herself up just enough to gaze at him in wonder, speechless, reverent. Had someone told her he was a newly revealed god she would have believed it.

Spock simply returned her gaze, calm, serene, satisfied. Only his slightly dishevelled hair and the smokey darkness of his eyes betrayed what they had just done. She was still fighting for breath, her heart pounding, sunlit locks of hair plastered to her damp forehead. He reached for her hand and pressed his palm to hers, pairing their raised first two fingers and linking the rest tightly. The essence of him flowed into her, content, enthralled and oddly vulnerable. Daphne knew with utter clarity that they had just stripped each other to the core and there would never be anything but honesty between them again.

She tilted her head back, closed her eyes and offered him a kiss. His mouth found hers again, supple and moist and warm, almost chaste. They broke apart though remained in such proximity that he could feel her soft smile. The part of him that now belonged to her ached for safe harbor in that smile.

"Spock," she murmured his name with the soft, drawn out Vulcan inflection few could master. Her hand drifted from his shoulder to his back, down over his ribs and the thunder of his heartbeat. She trailed her fingers back up to his chest in a light, intimate caress that slid slowly downward.

Her eyes opened wider as she looked up at him in surprise. "You're still aroused!" she said it breathlessly, in a tone that almost accused. She thought that a small ghost of a smile danced across his eyes and pulled at the corners of his mouth. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, " or is it 'again'?"

Spock turned onto his side again and she naturally fell back to gaze up at him. His mouth came down again, briefly on hers and then along the line of her cheekbone, to her ear and the delicate skin below it. His voice was low and sensual, rich and erotic. "You have much to learn of Vulcan Discipline," he murmured.

Slowly, exquisitely he began to ravish her again. Hopelessly lost and bewitched, she surrendered.

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