Author's note: This is a piece I snipped from another fic (it didn't quite fit), so it's more of a sketch than a fic. I wanted to come up for an explaination for T'Pring's absence that didn't involve her being a bad match with Spock
The ceremony had taken place on a torrid day, and Spock had thought they would never stop walking. They went up the mountain and through a valley and then up the mountain some more. Finally, Spock's mother had said,
"Let's stop, I need a drink of water," and they had rested. Then they had climbed until they were inside a cave at the top. Spock saw another set of parents with a little girl that seemed equally as tired and confused.
"T'Pring!" he had heard the mother hiss, "Can't you see your collar is tucked in." And the girl straightened her collar, looking annoyed. Spock looked up at her for a minute, and then an elder had entered. He looked serious and wore long robes.
The elder had begun to chant, but the words were too ancient for a child to understand. Eventually, Spock felt his father tugging at his arm, and bringing him to the center. The girl was accompanied by both of her parents. She tripped midway, but her mother propped her up, and they continued. Spock felt his father place his hands on her temples.
"Now Spock," he heard his father say telepathically, "You need to squeeze a bit and concentrate really, really hard." He complied, and for awhile, he struggled, making no headway, but finally, his mind was filled with someone else's concentration. Hers.
"What are you doing in here?" he heard her thoughts demand.
"I don't know!" he had replied before their parents had pulled them apart.
But even afterwards, he could still hear her thoughts buzzing, albeit unclearly.
She didn't want to be here. She wished she was at home, so she could try out her new computer game. Spock wished he could tell what one it was. Then, he could have told her whether it was good or not.
*****
After the summer ended, Spock became aware of something. She went to the same school. At home, she was just a faint presence, but at school, he could hear everything. Her running up the stairs because she was late, as her mother had made her redo her hair. Her tripping half-way up the stairs. The other girls making fun of her because she had fallen down the stairs, and then again, because she hadn't noticed her skirt was tucked into her underpants. Spock decided he had to find her.
At recess, he saw her standing alone in the playground. He went up to her, and he could tell that she knew who he was immediately. He pulled out the only toy he had in his pocket – a tennis ball, and threw it to her. She caught it perfectly. He felt her thrill through the air. She was almost never able to catch balls. They began to throw it back and forth, impossibly fast, guiding each other's reflexes. Then she climbed up high on the Jungle Gym, and Spock spotted her. On the top, she did dangerous stunts. Spock never failed to catch her.
This went on a few days before a teacher saw them playing catch.
"How are you doing that?" she asked. Neither of them knew the words to explain, and T'Pring eventually went up to the teacher and guided her hand to her temple. Spock could tell that she had transmitted the ceremony, because the teacher looked unsettled.
That night, Spock heard his father yelling at the Comm. Screen,
"No, they did not tell us that they were sending her to his school!"
The next day, she was gone.
*****
Spock was twelve the next time he saw her. It was at what his father called an "informal gathering" and his mother called a "party". Certainly, his parents didn't know that she was attending. By this age, Spock had begun to understand the purpose of the ceremony. Whenever he pictured his house when he grew up, he pictured her as well. He imagined they would have a big garden (he liked working in the garden), and a big play room with a lot of toy starships. He pictured her, still as a seven-year-old, tottering around in the room. He figured he would also have to get a couple of computer games, to keep her happy.
He found her in the hosts' backyard.
"Hello," she said, before she even saw him. He could tell she was profoundly happy he was there. He felt happy as well.
"Hello," he said, as she turned to look at him. Her body was immature, her features were sloppy and she had the unfortunate habit of never combing her hair, but none of this mattered. He thought of the picture of a human bikini model he had stashed under his mattress. She had one thing T'Pring lacked, a sheet of long, black hair.
"Have you ever considered growing your hair long?" Spock asked silently.
"My parents would kill me," she replied, "They don't let me do anything different"
"When you come and live with me, I won't make you follow any rules," Spock promised.
Over the link, he could tell she liked this. They stood there for a minute, peering into each others' minds, trying to get to know each other. Suddenly, Spock decided that he had to get her alone. Somewhere private. He wasn't planning on doing anything invasive, but he wasn't planning on keeping all her clothes on either. Then he realized that she could see these thoughts. He felt embarassed, but stopped when he started to share a thought of her own.
Lately, she had been dreaming that one day he would take her to Earth. Not to the Great Wall of China or something like that, but to the dark, dank underworld of Earth. In her eleven-year-old mind, this involved violent movies and co-ed dance clubs.
"Of course I'll take you," Spock thought. They had two hundred years together. There would be time for everything.
Spock decided that he had to touch her. He reached out and grabbed her hands. It made the link so much stronger. He began to realize why the matchmaker had put them together. He was the unfortunate part-human son of an important family. She was the clumsy, untalented, disappointing daughter of an important family. For the first time, it felt like someone understood him.
"Spock!" he heard a voice behind him. It was his father.
"Come with me," he said sternly, grabbing Spock by the arm. He felt enraged. She was his, didn't he know this? What right did he have to pull him away?
"I like you, Spock," he heard her think from the distance.
*****
Spock began to plot about how he would see her again. He could tell when she was sleeping and when she was angry. She often slept in, and was usually angry afterwards, probably because her parents had scolded her for it. But there were some days she slept in and wasn't angry. He assumed that meant that she was alone.
Spock decided he would wait until one of these days coincided with a day he was home alone and then go out to the hills. He walked there sometimes with his mother, and he could always feel T'Pring the strongest, just as they were walking by. She must live somewhere nearby. He would always think her name as they passed, and he always swore he heard something faintly back. He was sure he could draw her to the hills if he was out there long enough. He wasn't planning on doing anything bad he told himself. His desires were nebulous, and he wasn't quite sure what he was after, anyhow. He just wanted to see her again. There was nothing wrong with that.
He waited for the perfect day, until one evening at dinner, he felt her. It wasn't the usual feeling, cheery and bumbling, it was strong and sickening. He stood up.
"I need to find her!," he said out loud.
"Who?" his mother asked, confused.
"T'Pring!" he said, starting to race around in panic. His father grabbed his hand.
"He is not going into Pon Farr," he said to Amanda.
Spock didn't know what that was.
"She is hurt!" he yelled, "I can feel it."
"Maybe she just skinned her knee," Amanda said gently, "She is very accident prone."
"She did not skin her knee!" Spock yelled indignantly. He had never felt anything like this. He felt physical pain.
"Perhaps we can go downstairs and call her parents," Amanda said, looking up at Sarek for permission. He nodded.
Spock ran downstairs as his mother turned on the Comm. Screen. She called several times without an answer, as Spock sat next to her anxiously.
"Does it feel any better?" she asked finally.
He looked inside his mind and then spoke out with horror,
"She is gone."
"You mean she's better."
"No, I cannot feel her at all."
Spock lowered his head into his hands in despair.
"Don't tell your father," Amanda said suddenly, and Spock was confused until he looked up and saw that she had covered her head and was motioning him out the door. It was a few minutes until he realized that they must be walking to her house.
He heard chimes in the distance, and saw a worried expression on his mother's face. She started to walk faster. Then there were the chimes again. She seemed to jolt every time she heard them. Finally, they were in view of the house, and he saw her family carrying her out on a stretcher with her arms crossed. She was dead. Deep down, Spock had known this for awhile.
His mother seemed frozen, but Spock walked toward the group. He reached up, and a young man, perhaps a brother, put a finger to his temple and showed him what had happened.
T'Pring and her mother had been fighting, as usual. She wanted to go to her friend's sleepover. No, she had really, really wanted to go to her friend's sleepover.
"No," her mother had said, "Her family is so emotional they are practically Romulan! It would be a bad influence."
T'Pring had decided that the best thing was to climb up onto the roof of the house and refuse to get down until her mother said she could go. Her mother had said that she could sit up there all night, she wasn't changing her mind about anything. She had never thought that sitting on a roof might be a bad combination with her daughter's clumsiness. T'Pring had still been yelling profanities at her mother when she had fallen off.
Spock nodded respectfully, and walked back to his mother. He grabbed her hand and transmitted the story the best he could.
"That's so awful!," she gasped as soon as he finished, "How her mother must feel!"
Amanda cried all the way home.
"At least you didn't know her very well," she said at the end of the walk, putting her hand on this shoulder, trying to console him.
At this point, a very logical reponse occured to Spock. He turned around and hit her.
*****
"Spock seems so depressed lately," Amanda said sadly.
She didn't know he was listening. He hadn't bothered to go downstairs after dinner, sitting at the top of the staircase, moping.
"Perhaps we should bond him with someone else," Sarek suggested.
Spock got up and walked into the kitchen,
"No!," he spat.
That ended the conversation.
A few days later, Spock approached his father.
"I want to undergo the Kholinahr," he stated.
"What?" his father asked, unsure if he had heard correctly.
"I want to be purged of all emotion," he stated.
"That is usually only done by the oldest, most experienced Vulcans," Sarek responded, but then he looked at his son's face, and added "Of course, I could inquire with the elders ... I'll do that."
"Please, father ..."