It's a funny thing, about the view from the observation deck. When you're travelling at warp speed, it's the same view. The stars, the galaxy, the filaments and stardust – it all looks almost exactly the same, every day. And yet the observation deck was where I'd almost always gone, on the Enterprise, when I'd felt stressed, and alone, and the most fucked up. Maybe it was that the colours were soothing, I don't know. I didn't even know if other people saw them, the colours, I mean, looking out the observation ports. During treatment on the D for my PTSD I'd learned I had a neurological condition called synaesthesia, and so I was never completely sure that what I was seeing was what other people saw. I'd carried the habit with me when I'd been given the Titan, and in those weeks when Jean-Luc was gone and I wasn't sure he was ever coming back, I'd taken to having a drink, here, by myself. I didn't privacy lock the doors, but everyone knew I was here, even our son, and the only time anyone bothered me was in an emergency. With the wars over, and us back to exploring, those emergencies we had were more of the mundane than the life-shattering, and we were all pretty grateful for that.
I was surprised to hear the doors slide open. I didn't turn around; whoever it was would announce themselves soon enough. I sipped my vodka and continued looking at the neon streaks, feeling the tension begin in my shoulders. It wasn't Jean-Luc; I knew that right away; I'd always been able to sense his presence, even when he was just my captain and I was his First. Then I heard the light swish of robes against the deck, and I knew it was Ambassador Spock, who'd asked us to return him to Vulcan on our way back to Earth.
"Captain," Spock said, standing beside me.
"Ambassador."
"Am I disturbing you?"
The whole ship knew I wasn't to be disturbed when I was on the observation deck, so his question was merely courtesy. He was here for a reason, and I wondered what it was.
"Of course not," I lied.
I was privileged by a slight rising of the eyebrow; he'd once complained to me that I was "too loud," even when I was being quiet. I suppressed a grin.
"Would you like to sit down?" I asked. "And would you like a cup of tea?"
He glanced at the drink in my hand. "I prefer to stand, I think," he answered. "A cup of tea would be acceptable."
I set my drink on a table and walked over to the replicator. "I'm guessing," I said, "you don't drink Jean-Luc's Earl Grey."
"Green tea is fine, Captain," Spock said.
"Black?" I asked, and he nodded. "Green tea, hot," I told the computer, and carefully I carried the steaming mug to him.
"Thank you." He took the mug and sipped it, then cradled it in his hand. I'd never noticed his hands before; they were as large as mine, with long, slender fingers; a musician's hands.
"We are having a concert tonight," I said, "if you're interested. Chamber music."
"Are you playing?" he asked.
"Not this time, no," I replied. "This is our ancient music group. No brass." I'd taken to playing a little with our chamber music group, sort of exploring music beyond jazz, letting the mathematical precision of composers such as Bach and the Andorian Teraka sift through the syncopated beats that were more familiar to me. I was writing, a little bit, experimenting. It was working, somehow, as a weapon against the ever-present tug of anxiety and depression; I could sit down at the keyboard and my mind was filled with colour and sound instead of mission statistics and budgets and personnel issues. And Jean-Luc.
He sipped his tea. "I thought, William," he said, "that you might find it efficacious to speak with me."
I reached for my glass and noticed my hand had started to shake. He'd offered me friendship, years ago, when I'd been in recovery from my illness, and we'd shared the Jewish holiday of Tu b'Shevat together, on the anniversary of my mother's death. I'd found that what he'd told me that day had carried through with me all these years; the exploration of Judaism that I'd done with Lior Cardozo on the D had somehow given me a way to organise an inner life for myself that I'd never been well enough to establish before. Even though, in the end, I hadn't converted to Judaism, I'd learned enough about myself – and my connection to my mother's people – to function spiritually in a way that was a benefit to myself and my family. And so things had been okay; Jean-Luc came with me to the Titan, accepting an ambassadorship rather than the admiralty; we had Sascha, four years ago, and now Rose.
I managed not to spill and took a drink; managed to swallow without choking; managed to set the glass back down on the table. I didn't wonder how Spock knew about the trouble between us; he was a telepath; he was connected, in a way, to Jean-Luc; and despite all of my training in wall-building from Deanna, I was probably still "loud."
"I don't know," I said, "that there is anything to talk about."
"You are heading in for a refit." Spock took another sip of his tea.
"Yes," I answered.
"You continue to work on your anxiety." This was not a question, but it still required an answer.
I shrugged. "I still take medication," I said.
Spock's shoulders were unnaturally still. "In the form of what is in that glass?" He looked at me.
Synthehol hadn't been available, when he'd been on his Enterprise, and I'd heard, over the years, more than one member of Starfleet mention the puritanical streak in Vulcans. It usually wasn't meant to be a compliment.
"No," I said. "In the form of the same anti-anxiety medication that I took when I was on the D."
"William."
"Yes?"
"You are perhaps transposing your anger with Jean-Luc towards me."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I have an intrinsic connection to Jean-Luc which you lack, through the mind-meld he had with Sarek, and through the mind-meld he had with me, on Romulus."
"I wouldn't want a fucking mind meld with Jean-Luc," I said, and realised that I had, in fact, proved his point.
"You are afraid of what you would find," Spock said. "Do you think that this was your fault, in the same way that you have always blamed yourself for what your father did?" He waited for me to say something, but I'd picked up my drink and had taken another swallow. "Or is that what you fear? That you are to blame for his behaviour?"
"Why are you talking to me about this?" I asked.
He took the glass from my hand and set it down. "Is that not what friends do? William?"
I took a breath. I hadn't forgotten that he'd offered me friendship, but it was still a difficult concept to grasp: friendship with this austere man.
"Have you spoken to Jean-Luc?"
"I am speaking with you."
"I wondered –" I didn't know how to finish.
He waited. Why did Vulcans have to be so damned patient? He reminded me of Stoch, the Vulcan who'd been assigned to me by Dr McBride, to help me during the worst of my illness; Stoch, whose mute patience with me had helped me overcome the embarrassment and helplessness I'd felt over the indignity of being ill.
"I wondered if he'd told you it was my fault," I said. "That I was neglecting him, or something. We – we were less intimate…." Why was I telling him this?
"You have two small children."
"I know," I answered, "and a ship to run. I still –"
"You still blame yourself, a tendency that you have had as long as I have known you," Spock said. "The human tendency to blame is neither logical nor is it efficient in resolving problems. Whatever reasons Captain Picard had for his actions are no longer important. What is important, William, is how you intend to proceed."
"I don't know what you mean," I said. I wasn't being disingenuous, or at least I didn't think I was. I was finding myself slipping back into that space where words were becoming difficult, and I was trying to understand what Spock was saying, and what he was meaning underneath what he was saying.
"I once had," Spock said, and his tone was suddenly almost human, "an epiphany about human emotion. My human emotions."
I wasn't breathing.
"I was faced with a being which considered human emotion to be error," Spock said, and I realised I was listening to living history. "You might consider breathing," Spock told me, without irony.
I took a breath.
"It is not, however," he said. "Error. The being Vger had made that error, as had I. That simple feeling – love, William – is the most important gift that humans have. It is an error I came to regret, but one I was able to correct, for a brief time."
My hand was shaking again, and when he turned to look at me, the shadows canting across his face, I remembered that Lior Cardozo had called him a tsaddik, one of the righteous, once. He took my hand, the same way he had when I'd celebrated the holiday with him, and I felt the current travel through my fingers and lightly up my arm.
"Do you remember what we talked about, during the seder we shared?" he asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and not knowing whether I had the words to speak anyway. He waited again, my hand still in his. "We talked about the open gateways," I said, remembering, "and about the pathways along the branches of the Tree of Life."
"Yes."
"You said in praising what was before me I could learn to put away the pain, and that the gateway would be open for me."
"Yes. The gateways are always open, to those who would need them."
"The fruit in its infinite diversity…." I was there, in his quarters, listening to the music he'd composed for the lyre, watching the candles flickering, reflecting in our glasses of wine. "My mother loved him," I said. "My father. I think she knew – or had some knowledge – of what he was, but she still loved him. He told me that."
"Your mother must have been an extraordinary woman, William," Spock said, "to have given you the gift of love, which you were able to hold onto, even in the face of evil and the great harm which was done to you. Your capacity to love, in spite of all of that, is what sets you apart, and it is your gift to those around you."
He let my hand go, and we turned back to the stars. I was still caught up in the remembering; the Yahrzeit of my mother's death; the silvery sound of the lyre; the taste of the mixture of red and white wine.
"In praising the life around you," I repeated, "you will lessen your pain."
"Yes."
"It is why you do your work on Romulus." There were colours all around me.
"Yes. Restoring the fractured sherds of light of the universe."
"Jean-Luc," I said, and I could feel that I was breathing again. I collected my words. "He is still who he has always been. The man I fell in love with. Strong. Decent. Kind. A good father. A man who gave up so much to be with me."
"He has always been so," Spock said.
"I understand," I said, and I found that it was true. I did understand. Praise the goodness, and the pain drifts away. That simple feeling. Love. "Thank you. Spock."
"If you live your life, William, as a blessing, then that is what it will become."
"Live long and prosper, Spock," I said.
"Live long and prosper, William," he replied.
I left him standing against the stars, and found my way home to Jean-Luc.