Title: Compensations. Author: Karracaz. Series: TOS. Rating: G - Suitable for all. Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom own these characters. I merely write about them for pleasure and not for profit.
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Summary: Kirk is dead, Spock is injured - but there may still be compensations.
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Spock limped back into the main living room of the old ShiKahrii house, his home since childhood, face calm as he regarded the child sitting demurely on the floor stool where Spock had left her a moment before. She was his granddaughter, T'puchan.
Distractedly, he noted T'puchan's downcast face, the nervous fingers clasped together in her lap - the fact that the bowl of riman fruit wine on the corner of the low, black-lacquered table set beside her remained untouched.
A draught of hot air wafted the voices of T'puchan's parents into the room. The companionable sounds muted by distance as the couple made their way through the garden and back to the street, left Spock with a curiously abandoned feeling. Much too soon even those muffled tones were gone.
Without speaking, Spock took the floor stool opposite the girl-child, all too conscious of the mobile features that mirrored an alarm very similar to his own. Although she did not have the startling beauty of her mother T'pavahna, there was something wistful about T'puchan's solemnly pensive expression. It was a look that called to him from across the years, a reminder of the forlorn boy he used to be. He picked up his own bowl of riman and sipped at the syrupy juice. Only the busy hum of insects and the soft tinkling of wind chimes disturbed the growing silence.
Small talk had never been his forte. The natural eloquence and lack of formality Terrans utilized in dialogue had never come easily to one used to a more prescribed upbringing. Although he had spent many years among Humans, it now seemed that he had apparently learned nothing from the long association. A small stab of pain fleetingly pierced his composure. Spock suppressed it immediately. However, he could not squash his memories as easily as he did his emotions.
He cleared his throat, and the child fixed him with a look of mingled fascination and awe.
"I … hope that our time together will be … interesting, Granddaughter." He realized how stilted he sounded yet his undoubted intellect refused to provide anything more.
Until his return to Vulcan two months before, he had never met this only grandchild, a separation that now appeared intimidating, and a lack not to be bridged in the short time available to them.
The same situation had existed with T'pavahna. He had been away so often and for such long periods that they had never become anything but strangers to one another. He had never known his daughter and now this child of his child was a mystery to him. It was his obligation to put the child at ease but the task suddenly became an inordinately difficult one. He was clearly out of his depth. It had been a mistake to accept charge of the child for the day. Indeed, he remained uncertain why T'pavahna had made the offer. It could hardly be for want of a short-term guardian. The more probable reason he now realized was pity - pity for the hollow-eyed, uncommunicative man he had become!
While absorbed in his own thoughts T'puchan's attention had wandered. Spock followed the child's gaze to his ka'ithirah placed upon a chest by the far wall.
"Dost thee play?" He hoped that she did not; however, T'puchan answered his question with a slight inclination of her head.
Glossy black wings of hair fell forward to hide her face, "Only a little, Grandfather. My fingers still lack skill."
He could have left it there but something in the way she gazed at the old lyrette caused him to add, "Indeed? Perhaps I will be allowed to make a judgment of my own …"
If he had offered her the planet, it could have been no greater gift. Her whole face came alive, reminding him of her mixed parentage, the fact that her father was Human, though not of Terran stock.
"Thee wish to hear me play?"
"Certainly."
T'puchan rose excitedly to her feet, forgetting in a single moment the year of formal training she had already undergone, and in the process knocked the delicate kaolin bowl of riman to the floor. The bowl shattered instantly, spilling the spiced liquid over a wide area. With one hand pressed against her mouth, T'puchan watched the stain spread in wide-eyed mortification.
"Forgive me, Grandfather," she whispered, recognizing the value of the bowl, the loss of something beautiful and priceless.
Spock saw her distress, the shame her recklessness had bought, and knew that his was the blame. He had seen the vulnerability of the bowl but had left it where it was. "The fault is mine, child. The bowl is of little import - and the riman is easily removed."
In the sai'en, his place of preparing and cooking food, he rinsed a piece of clean material and found himself staring at his long fingered hands as they mechanically twisted and wrung the cloth. Even now, though there was little pain, the skin looked slick and smooth, a legacy of the grafts he had needed after …
However, that memory he refused to dwell upon. With a distinctly conscious effort he dried his hands, ignoring the lack of sensation in his palms and fingers. The physician was extremely gifted, the grafts had taken well, and the destroyed nerve endings had started to regenerate. He had recovered enough dexterity to prepare a meal, and to dress, but the lyrette remained beyond his abilities - might very well continue to do so.
Enough!
Spock shut his eyes. He stifled the small, desolate cry before it was fully borne turning his thoughts instead to the plans he had for this day, filling the hours that would otherwise stretch agonizingly ahead. They could visit the ShiKarii museum, or one of the temples, or stroll through the parklands that surrounded the city. By the time they returned T'puchan's parents would have arrived to take her home. The day would be over and he would be alone again with his unresponsive hands - and his memories.
Settling his features into their previous mask, he went back to the lanai silently accepting T'puchan's hesitant apologies a second time. She took the cloth from his benumbed fingers and knelt beside the sticky pool, carefully gathering up the shattered fragments of the bowl. Spock watched her uneasily for a moment but it soon became clear that he was no longer required. He turned instead to the lyrette - the cause of all the mischief.
He ran his unresponsive fingertips over the instruments sound-box, imagining the smoothness of the wood, the richness of sher'skah, the inlaid fineness of li'pon. How many times in the past had he watched his father take up this same instrument? Sarek always handled the lyrette with reverence. On each occasion he uttered the ritual words that acknowledged the long ago artisan who had created such a wondrous gift of enchantment - a source of both exaltation and tranquility. Even now, he could see Sarek place his hands with meticulous care, ready to draw out the fluid notes, the lilting cadences with a skill very few could emulate.
Only gradually did he realize that T'puchan had rejoined him. She looked up, her obliquely set eyes dark in her triangular face, tentative now, uncertain whether she intruded on a private moment.
"Ssa'ka-et. Tsa-ai, neh… Please, take it." Spock offered her the lyrette.
With solemn respect, she took the treasured instrument in both small hands and sank cross-legged to the floor. Spock drew up one of the nearby stools and settled upon it.
The lyrette was obviously too large for her small fingers. Moreover, it was tuned to the ancient, complicated, Stepped Mode of the Tarhana Mountain tribes. Never the less, T'puchan managed to coax out a sequence of notes that rang upon the breathless air in crystal purity. Spock nodded in approval although each resonance caused him a torment of pain-tinged pleasure. His anaesthetized fingers itched to take up the lyrette and show her how it could sound but he restrained the impulse. He knew that his hands only deceived him with earlier memories. Determinedly, he pushed away regret.
"Play something from home." He softly authorized.
Again, she bent her head tongue-tip lodged in the corner of her mouth as she changed the lyrette's setting to some easier scale and began to play in earnest.
Spock leaned against the stout wooden chest, which stood against the wall, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. He rested his head back and stared in silence at the hot, burnished sky beyond the window arch, his attention centered on T'puchan as she played.
On Vulcan, the highest esteemed music was that which sent the listener into contemplation. The silence that followed was an essential part of the music. It was believed a true musician could make the audience forget the circumstances that brought them there, forget who and where they were and permit fusion with the All. There could be no doubt that T'puchan had such a gift. Her struggling fingers had the power to hold him captive, right and left hands already willing partners, dragging him from the black despair of the last months. True, she still had not acquired an adult player's technique, but that did not matter. The fire was there, the zeal, and the necessary yearning for discipline that set aside the genuine artist…
With sudden awareness, he came back from meditation to the big, austere lanai and its sense of quiet serenity. T'puchan had finished her piece. He allowed his mouth to relax in a faint imitation of a smile.
She looked back gravely, "A'nirrhan, ites sek-ur djauah. Thee were far away, Grandfather."
He inclined his head. "I was thinking."
The small, winged brows, dark as her hair despite her father's fairness, drew together, "Dost thee play, A'nirrhan?"
Spock felt himself freeze into stillness. It was only with great effort that he finally managed to answer. "Once."
Aware that she had trespassed once more but uncertain where her error lay, T'puchan apologized, "Forgive me, Grandfather. I did not mean to disturb thee."
More gently, conforming to the strict rules of etiquette that bound them all, he murmured, "The fault was mine, T'puchan. Speak no further of it."
To forestall the next question he could see already forming, he said quickly, "I commend thy teacher. May I enquire …?"
"The lady T'pavan has taught me most, A'nirrhan" He should have known; T'pavan, distant relative, friend-from-childhood, a Daughter of House Es'sarhan, and head of a Family that bore an ancient lineage equal to his own. She had once also been his bond mate and was the mother of T'pavahna. [1]
"Thee hast played well, T'puchan. I am honored."
"It is I who am honored, A'nirrhan!"
Spock inclined his head. The bleakness nibbled at his mind once again, as he took the lyrette from her and placed it back on the wooden chest behind him. "Perhaps thee would like to visit the parklands? There is time before thy parents return."
"Very well, Grandfather Spock."
She brightened as soon as they left his gardens and entered the broad, tree-lined, pedestrian way. All about them was the calm efficiency and aesthetic beauty of ShiKahr, the city of his birth. Unlike the hodgepodge design of many Tehr'n cities or the symmetrical waterways of Nevas'ashar - Vulcan's sister-world - the severely geometrical buildings here were precisely ordered. Ascetic lines were softened only by delicately blossomed flora riotously trailing over high walls that discreetly separated the private households and gardens from passers-by.
T'puchan, at first grave and subdued, perhaps overawed by his austere presence, soon lost a measure of her restraint, buoyed by the sudden freedom of this unexpected outing, and some inner joyfulness that would take more than Vulkhanir decorum to stifle entirely. Spock recalled absently, her mixed parentage, the reality of her upbringing within what amounted to a royal household on Vulcan's sister-planet.
With ironic equanimity, he allowed the unconfined, unconsidered chatter to wash over him, remembering his own tormented childhood, the doubt and pain of not knowing how he should behave. While such freedom had never been his, he could not resent T'puchan's high spirits although he was unable to evade entirely the oblique glances from fellow pedestrians. Yet, when she reached to take his hand he stiffly declined, explaining coolly that such demonstrations in public were a breach of protocol. It was not his only reason, however, to forbade such intimacy. His hands, injured as they were, mocked him, shamed him with their lack of response, and reminded him of all that he had lost.
His rebuff did not silence her for very long, for she was too interested in all about her for that. This was her first visit to Vulcan, so different from her own planet and yet so alike! She launched herself wholeheartedly into the role of tourist, her enthusiasm impossible to disregard as she asked questions, pointed, touched, and examined everything that caught her attention. Her inborn humanity showed in every toss of her head, every wave of her hand and in each charming smile that she bestowed upon him. Spock tried, unsuccessfully, to remain strictly aloof, fearing rightly enough, that she would awaken the buried curiosity, the ability to find in all things something fascinating that had so enriched his former life. He did not wish to remember that other life, did not wish to recall the past spent almost exclusively with hi friend and Captain, James Kirk.
It therefore came as something of a revelation to find himself willingly kneeling in the scorched red earth of the lush band of park and wood lands that served as a buffer between the raw desert and the urban city area, calling out the names of various fauna and flora to the wide-eyed, receptive little girl. He rose to his feet, the muscles of his injured leg protesting, sudden colour staining his pale cheeks.
"Granddaughter," he began warily, but the child had already jumped up to investigate something else, stopping to touch a flower here and a fat succulent there, until she disappeared within a thick stand of ruby-leaved kor'iun trees.
Spock knew what she would find, for this place had been a haven of comfort for him as a boy, a place to run when he needed something to bolster his dwindling courage from the difficult path he had chosen. He followed T'puchan a little more slowly. His injured leg dragged tiredly as he pushed through the smokey indigo foliage, dark shadows sliding across his skin. Eventually a small rise brought him in turn to a slight hollow in the surround land. Thick vegetation enclosed it around like a living wall, shielding the place from the outside. A path of stepping-stones overgrown by salmon -pink moss led to the centre of the glade where a diminutive pavilion stood, its screens thrown back and open to the hot breeze. It was a shrine, constructed of stone, raised a foot or so above the ground, the emphasis placed on the harmony between city and nature. It called to a part of Spock that he thought suppressed long ago.
T'puchan waited for him in the shade of the narrow colonnade, a shaft of bright sunlight illuminating her in a blaze of fiery vermilion as she knelt lightly upon a cushion, a very young sehlat nestled in her lap. Beside her, Lady T'psehir'lii, the Keeper of the shrine, watched him approach luminous dark eyes alight.
Spock elegantly bowed, one eyebrow raised as he glanced at his errant grandchild. "I apologize for disturbing thee, Lady. We ask forgiveness."
"I am not disturbed, Son of Sarek," The Lady bowed in return, indicating a further cushion left for him to occupy, her voice almost drowned by the tinkling of wind-chimes that transmuted the hot breeze into song. "It has been known to me for several months that thee had returned. I had expected thee sooner."
Spock inclined his head in acknowledgment of the gentle rebuke. He favored his wounded leg as he lowered himself stiffly to the cushion. On his first visit to the temple at the age of five, Ee-chiya in tow, T'psehir'lii had sat exactly as now, back straight, eyes calm and all-seeing, her ageless face serene. Despite the intervening years, she appeared not to have changed at all, untouched by the passage of time. Her long hair, braided with tiny star-shaped me'metl blooms, remained black and lustrous, her mind still sharp, her serenity unshakeable. She had been an unexpected ally, a friend and counselor, the years that separated her from Spock having little meaning.
Troubled by his unique difference and insoluble problems, he had returned to the shrine hidden away among the screening smoke bushes to ask and be answered. Possibly, it was his unconscious desire to return that had made him bring T'puchan to the parklands.
"Lady, I am shamed."
"In the Family, all is silence, Spock-neha." She inclined her head, dark eyes radiating a tranquil warmth. "No more will be said of it."
For a long moment, she allowed her gaze to linger upon T'puchan's dark head, the sehlat cubling still at ease within the child's encircling arms. But soon her gaze returned to Spock.
"I see suffering upon thy face, child-neha. Thy heart is not at rest."
"It is so, Lady." And Spock felt the pain of loss strike at him, so deep a pain it could hardly be borne. "I grieve for the loss of a friend."
"This also I have heard." Her voice was low, compassionate. "Would thee speak of thy grief?"
Spock glanced at T'puchan, relieved to see that both child and cubling had fallen asleep, curled around each other like nest mates, but the words still came hard, diffidently, as if to speak of the pain would make it infinitely more real.
To be a serving officer in Starfleet was a hazardous occupation; to be part of the exploratory fleet was to expect danger on a daily basis. It came from any number of directions; marauding Romulans, deviant spores, rampaging super beings, or the environment of space itself with its attendant risks; warp core breaches, radiation poisoning, and a host of other perilous states and situations too numerous to mention.
Spock, in his long career aboard the Enterprise, had met with quite a few including his own death and subsequent rebirth! Through all of the dangers, Captain Kirk, had led what appeared a charmed existence. He had cheated fate so well and for so long that it seemed he would live forever. However, paradoxically, the Guardian Angel who looked after Starship captains had called a halt only after Kirk retired from active service.
The Captain, Spock, Scott, and Chekov had attended the inauguration ceremonies of the Enterprise B among a blaze of publicity and press interest that, naturally, Spock had evaded by shunning the bridge. Not long after setting out the ship had received a distress signal. A space anomaly known as the Nexus had swept in from nowhere, capturing two passenger transports in the subspace flow. The Enterprise B, in an endeavor to free the ships, had also become imprisoned. Kirk, acting alone to get the engines back on line and save the ship, had been sucked out through a breach in the hull. His body had never been recovered. Spock, who had been touring the extensive science laboratories, found himself caught up in the aftermath of the disaster as the deck he was on disintegrated in a welter of fire and hot metal.
"Thy Captain died as he had lived - unselfishly and with dignity," The Lady of the shrine murmured quietly, bringing him back from his memories.
"So I was informed."
"His life was not wasted, is this not so? A true Vulcan would find such an end acceptable. Kaiidth. What is, is."
"If I had been there with him… he could have lived."
T'psehir'lii's eyebrow rose. "Or the could have also perished. Death is part of life and cannot be turned aside. Thee knows this."
"It is how we are taught."
"So?"
"It has been said in the past that I was always a poor student."
T'psehir'lii inclined her head and there was a moments silence which seemed to widen around them until, at last, the Keeper spoke again, "Once, as a child, thee came here disturbed because others said thee were not truly Vulcan. Thee did not want to be different."
"That is so. Yet I am different."
"Indeed, neither Vulkhanir or Tehr'n, but a mingling of the two. Thee believed a choice had to be made, did thee not? And when this Tehr'n, Kirk, offered thee his friendship, was there a choice also?"
"There was a choice." Spock agreed.
"But now, perhaps, thee regrets this friendship because it has caused thee pain?"
"By no means."
"Thee found joy both in the giving and the taking…?"
"Indeed."
"And do those memories remain?"
"They do."
Then is it not illogical to grieve? Thee has lost nothing. In truth, thee has gained considerably. Remember thy friend as he was in life. Forget him not and he lives still."
T'psehir'lii's serene gaze held him motionless as he digested her words. "I have much left to learn, Lady."
"Indeed, but it is a poor teacher who expects perfection immediately."
Spock inclined his head. He had feared that once the ache of his grief had passed, he would lose Jim Kirk entirely. Many times since the accident, he had felt Kirk near him, so close that once or twice he had actually looked over his shoulder expecting to see him there. That could never be, he knew, but within his memory and the memory of all those others who had known him, Captain Kirk would live on. For Spock to turn his back on what he had shared with Jim would be a dual betrayal.
"All life is one, Spock-neha, inseparable like grains of sand in the desert, different manifestations of the same source. Thee hast not lost thy friend for he is all about thee."
"I shall try and remember, Lady."
The sehlat cub had awakened and was trying to wriggle up onto his knee, its rope-like tail whipping frantically at his thigh.
T'psehir'lii's eyes lit with an inner fire as Spock took the cub into his injured hands and held it gently against his heart.
"His name is I'seyin, Gift of Life, Spock-neha. He needs a home if thee is willing."
Spock hesitated, not feeling ready for this new responsibility but the cub and T'puchan seemed to have a different view. The child, roused from sleep, was looking at him longingly,
"Please, A'nirrhan. Please."
Her insistence was hard to deny, and Spock found that he was unable to stand long before it, though he guessed the cubling would cause him dear in endless patience and time.
"Very well," he capitulated at last and gave I'seyin into her eager hands, hoping that he would not come to regret the act. It was time to leave. He raised his hand in the ta'al. "Peace and long life, Keeper."
"Live long and prosper, Spock." She regarded him keenly in return. "If thee considers this teacher has something left to teach, then give up thy own belief - and learn."
Spock inclined his head in acknowledgement of her advice and turned away from the shrine with T'puchan trotting at his heels. He did not look back as he left the hidden glade but followed the path of carefully placed stepping-stones until they were again in the open parklands.
What was left of the day passed with extraordinary swiftness due mainly to their joint interest in I'seyin, who kept them both busy. Then, abruptly there came the sound of voices from the garden and Spock's whole day crunched to a halt. The child heard it, too. Her parents had arrived. She looked across at him and then down at the prick-eared bundle of soft fur that was contentedly gnawing at his left sandal. A small silence held them. Finally, she said, "I thank thee, Grandfather. It has indeed been an interesting day."
"I have been honored by thy company, Granddaughter."
She looked up at him mischievously as if they shared a secret. "May I visit again?"
Spock considered, one eyebrow flaring upwards. "Perhaps it would be the wisest course. I'seyin will need distracting - if I am to keep the rest of my sandals intact."
He crossed to the old wooden chest by the wall and took down the lyrette once more. Holding it in his scarred and disfigured hands he realised that the music did not have to stop, it could continue even if different fingers worked the strings.
Without hesitation, he gave the priceless instrument over to T'puchan. "This lyrette has been held by our Family for over a thousand years, passed from one generation to the next. I ask that thee accept it now."
The child looked at him with wonder, obviously appreciating the worth of the gift - and how much it had cost him. She fingered the polished wood as he had done, delighting in the feel of it as she held it close.
"Grandfather --- may I keep it here?"
"Here?" Spock questioned, one eyebrow climbing swiftly upwards.
"Yes. It belongs here and thee can show me how to play it when I visit. It will be mine, but thee can look after it for me."
His voice was somber but a smile curved his lips as he inclined his head, "A logical solution, Grandchild."
"Indeed." Delicately, with a shy grace, she reached up and placed her small fingers between his larger ones and this time he did not dissuade her or try to pull away. "Shall we be friends now, A'nirrhan?"
Spock acquiesced. "No doubt we will."
----------------------- [1] See Debt of Dishonour
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