Voices
by Satin Ragdoll
Nyota Uhura sat alone in the darkened lab, poking at her PADD. She couldn't sleep. She would've preferred spending her sleepless hours on the observation deck, but she wouldn't have been alone there.
That's where Spock spent his sleepless hours, just staring at the stars.
Uhura knew that all the crew had been affected by the destruction of Vulcan. Chekov had cried himself to sleep every night until he sought therapy. Uhura considered him a little brother, and had made sure he had gotten help. McCoy sought solace in the bottle, and the Captain just hid it away behind his bluster and big, bright smile. She wondered what other grief he was hiding. She knew he was. Uhura was no dummy. She knew the signs.
Uhura was in therapy as well. The tragedy had left scars on everyone, and since it had been offered, she was smart and took it. The problem was the people who didn't take it.
Well, for her at least, it was for one specific person who didn't take it.
Spock would not take therapy, of any sort.
Uhura had tried to get him to go. She had tried everything. She had asked nicely. She had begged. She tried logic. She tried yelling and screaming. She tried the silent treatment. Nothing worked. He would not go.
Spock was trying to deal with this by being as Vulcan (or what he believed to be Vulcan) as he could. Vulcans repressed what they could until they could pick it apart with logical analysis through meditation at a later time. That was how Vulcans processed. Normally, at least. Trouble was, that wasn't working with Spock or the other Vulcans. Depression and denial were rampant. There had even been suicides. It was too much this time. Just too much.
In Spock's case, it was even worse. He had not only failed his planet, he had failed to save his mother. A tragedy on a planet-wide scale had been made miserably personal. If it hadn't happened right before his eyes, it might have been marginally better, but it did.
He wasn't eating, and she knew that the few times he actually tried to sleep instead of meditating he was having nightmares.
Through their budding bond she had felt the echo of his misery and fear. Of the despair that threatened to drown him. It had almost made her sick, several times. She had tried to keep that fact from him, but he had found out.
That was when he started to close her out. First he shut down the bond with her, so that she ended up feeling nothing from him.
It had upset her so much that she had confronted him. In retrospect, that might have been a bad idea. Because that was when he started to totally withdraw from her.
He made excuses for it. He claimed that he was doing it for her, so as not to hurt her anymore. But, Uhura wasn't fooled. She was a communications expert, after all. Plus, she knew Spock, and knew him very well.
It wasn't just trying to avoid causing her pain. He didn't want to deal with her, because dealing with her was painful for himself. He could deny it all he wanted, but she saw it in his face. She saw it in his eyes, in the set of his jaw and shoulders. She saw it everywhere.
Uhura loved him. She understood his pain, at least to a little degree. And that very understanding caused him pain, because every time she looked at him with that compassion, he saw his mother reflected in her eyes. It was a horrible, agonizing circle.
That wasn't what worried her the most, however. What worried her was Spock was starting to swallow it all. Bit by bit she saw him internalize what had happened, with no sign of release. He appeared to be getting better. To anyone else, he looked like he was healing.
But Uhura knew better. Her own family (which was very large) had taught her that when you ate that kind of pressure, sooner or later there was a boom. And the more pressure, the bigger the boom. Something was going to snap, unless there was some kind of release. One day he was going to flip on someone. He had flipped on Kirk, and everyone thought that was horrible. But deep down inside her, Uhura had the suspicion that there was the potential for much, much worse.
At least that would have been the case if he were entirely human. Since Spock was half-Vulcan she wasn't sure. She only knew she didn't want to find out. It was a baaad situation. She had to find a way to help him.
So there she was, sleeplessly browsing through her PADD, trying to find something to help.
~oOo~
Rubbing at her aching eyes, she typed in "survivor guilt". Scanning through the results she saw something that caught her eye, "Challenger Explosion - Hawkeye and Daydreamer Correspondence".
Uhura's brows drew together in confusion. What the heck? "Hawkeye and Daydreamer?" Her psychology class had gone over the Challenger explosion, but she had heard nothing of this.
When she opened the file, this is what she read, "This document was donated to a journalist in the late 21st Century by an unknown source. It is unknown as to the veracity of this document, as Hawkeye and Daydreamer's identity have never been discovered. However, facts on Hawkeye's side seem to be in accordance with history."
Uhura read on to discover a correspondence between authors. One asked for help with their fiction, and another responded. But it didn't stop there.
The truth of the matter came out in bits and starts. "Hawkeye" was a sharp-minded tech in ops of the space department of that time. "Daydreamer" was an unemployed woman with mental and emotional problems due to childhood sexual abuse.
Uhura's stomach turned when she read that.
What began as simple help soon became far more personal as Hawkeye revealed his difficulty in dealing with the trauma he had witnessed.
"I was part of the ground comm crew when the space shuttle Challenger blew up. None of us were good enough when it really mattered."
Uhura closed her eyes in pain for a moment. She remembered what she had learned of the incident. It was such a tragedy. The poor children that had been left behind. She had just never thought of all others who would have been scarred.
He or she (Hawkeye never indicated gender) had internalized it over a good deal of time, and tried to use it to give him/herself strength. But when Hawkeye tried to write fiction, he or she saw that other writers didn't give major characters the depth of pain that major trauma really induced. "It amazes me in some ways that writers who evoke such honest emotions in other characters believe that clarity and logic can dispel the damage from watching fate prove us all incompetent and inadequate.
We train a lifetime for those singular moments where every ounce of skill and art are needed to snatch victory from defeat's jaws. We have that 'surgeon's arrogance' - that false swagger necessary to perform something so scary that, without the swagger, we would crumple under the realization that when we screw up, people die.
I can speak from personal experience; we continue but we don't really move on. Those of us with no military background relive it every day in some way. There is something to be said of the training to kill as an automatic salve for processing death.
But the rest us just hide behind the swagger and hope the liquor store doesn't close early. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of great guys who couldn't do it anymore, not once a life that mattered - that was dependent on them - slipped through their fingers as they frantically tried to stop the inevitable."
All the feeling had gone out of Uhura's fingers. She was numb with shock. It was there. All the helplessness. All the grief. All of it.
Daydreamer's response was that few actually knew that kind of trauma in their life.
Hawkeye then proceeded to scorch him/herself with shame, "I was at the ceremony when they gave that poor woman's kids the flags and the naming thing. My mind replayed the comm links from the headphones during the disaster in my head every time I looked at those kids. Their mother was gone and it happened on our shift. I wanted to slash my wrists watching those kids stand there without tears and pretend everything being done was enough to make up for the death of their mother."
Daydreamer's response was adamant, "Did YOU, personally, do the best you could? You have to be honest with yourself, now. Did you? If you DID, then you bear no guilt! Do you hear me? You...bear...no...guilt! And if not, then I'm sure that you can see plainer now what has to be improved on in the future.
Self flagellation cannot help the dead. Self flagellation cannot help the children. Self flagellation cannot help you. Self flagellation cannot help anyone. Stop doing it. Forgive yourself! You have to."
Uhura nodded her head. That was it! That was it! That was absolutely the truth.
Hawkeye had been so rattled by the whole thing, he debated giving up writing, entirely. "Fiction should not affect a rational person this way. So clearly I have lost perspective.
I was tough as nails, friggin' cold blooded and clear eyed, until I watched those kids process their mother's death on our shift. Because our best wasn't good enough. We just frigging weren't good enough.
I can't write that. I can't put that kind of shame in writing. Might be time to stop writing at all."
That upset Daydreamer a lot, "*face-palm* Okay, I'm going to try to keep my calm, here. I know I'm not your therapist or anything but I have to say some stuff, and some of it might not be too pleasant.
You... cannot... forget... what... you've... been ...through. Got that? Good! Okay. You don't think that fiction should affect a person emotionally the way it has affected you. Um...why not? DON'T YOU GET IT?! When you read good fiction, you let your guard down. The emotions that you have buried way down deep about the messed up, traumatic mess that you've had to deal with comes out in such a fashion that your real life doesn't go boom! That's why people like good fiction! That's why we cry at sappy heart-breaking movies! That's why our blood pumps hard when we think a character needs to get the ever-living crap beat out of him! People NEED that kind of release!
And YOU? You don't think you need this kind of release? My dear, I would think people in your kind of work need this kind of release most of all! It's NATURAL to want to fuss when you think a character hasn't gotten the respect he or she deserves. You fuss at that because you can't go tell someone that you think their incompetence makes them a menace to society!"
At the end of it, Uhura found herself shell-shocked. The seriousness of their situation had been hit home with a sledgehammer. Hawkeye and Daydreamer. They might as well have been Spock and herself. And she knew that she had to get Spock to read this, by any means possible.
~oOo~
Uhura joined Spock where he was watching the stars. Her heart sunk a little as his shoulders tightened the slightest bit, but she knew she had to go through with it.
She stood at his side, without touching him, and stared at the stars with him. Very slowly, Spock's tension receded.
Uhura waited a few moments after Spock was at ease again to casually remark, "The stars are so beautiful, spinning in space. Everything in its order, in its cycle. Sometimes I believe that everything that is runs in cycles, even time."
Spock's tension totally eased. Uhura wasn't going to speak of anything personal, or painful. General subjects he could manage. Curiously, he raised a brow at her, "Research indicates that time usually runs in a linear fashion. There are exceptions, such as my older self, but those are unusual circumstances. You know this, Nyota."
She turned wide, brown eyes on him. "How do we know, Spock? How do we truly know? Perhaps the scope is so wide that we can never know. Space is curved, after all. And perhaps it is so subtle that most people never see it. I just...I just wonder sometimes."
Uhura left it at that. She had caught his attention. Phase One was complete.
~oOo~
The next day in mess Uhura made a show of re-reading that material very intently where Spock could see her face. She wanted him to see her expression.
She "accidentally" left her pad behind, with the material "accidentally" exposed.
Her human crew-mates knew that Uhura would never leave her PADD behind. She just wouldn't. They also knew that the only person besides her (and the Captain, of course) that was allowed to touch her PADD was Spock. It didn't take them long to connect the dots, and leave her PADD alone for Spock to take.
Fortunately for her, her ashayam was a little clueless when it came to shenanigans like this.
When Spock picked up her PADD, he noticed the title instantly. His curiosity was piqued. Was this what she had been so intent about? His quick mind noted that the article was public record. Out of politeness, he closed down the content.
Spock was a gentleman. He would not read the data on her PADD. However, it was public record.
The next evening it was Spock intently studying his PADD. Just like Uhura knew he would. She couldn't help smiling a little to herself. Fish caught. Phase Two was complete. Now, it was up to him.
~oOo~
Back in his quarters, Spock quietly put down his PADD. He had found the article...unnerving. He could see where Uhura's comment on time had come from. The similarities between himself and Hawkeye, and between Daydreamer and Nyota were what Humans would call "uncanny".
He could also see why Uhura had left her PADD, although he had not at the time. His ashayam was cunning. He still considered her his ashayam, although they had grown apart. He had just not wanted to subject her to this pain, this agony. He could not.
The pain of Vulcan's loss was one thing. If that had been the extent of it, it would have been bad enough. But the thing that plagued his nightmares was not the image of Vulcan being sucked into the singularity. It was the face of his mother.
All the pain of Vulcan's loss. All of his rage at Nero. All of his helplessness in the face of such tragedy. All of it was condensed into his mother's eyes in his nightmares. His mother's human eyes. Human eyes like Uhura's. Uhura was his ashayam, and he could not face her. Not in this condition.
He was a failure. He was a failure as a Vulcan, and as a man. He knew Uhura would disagree, but that was how he felt.
Feeling a sharp pain in his palm, Spock looked down to find his hand had curled into a fist. Opening it, he saw that his nails had dug into his palm and left little green half-moons imprinted into his skin.
Staring at the marks, Spock considered Daydreamer's logical arguments to Hawkeye. She had said basically that Hawkeye was in danger of losing his control.
Vulcans did not leave marks on their palms. Yet another failure. Spock did not want to be a failure.
~oOo~
Spock sat before his asenoi in meditation. He knew that things had not been going well for him. Those marks were only an outside manifestation. His appetite had dwindled down to nothing. He was still having nightmares. And he had to constantly, constantly make an effort to control.
Logically, he knew that the scale of trauma he had been through was almost incomprehensible, even for a Vulcan. The loss of his mother was what Humans would call "salt on the wound." He knew he needed help. He knew it. But...Vulcans were an extremely private people, and Spock was even more private than most. His Vulcan peers had either shunned him, or provoked him. Besides his father, Spock did not truly trust other Vulcans. And things with his father were... problematic at best.
Shockingly, Spock found himself grinding his teeth. He could not... could not... would not go to one of the few Vulcan healers that survived.
That left Humans. It would be illogical to go to a species that he wasn't a part of. He knew that some individuals were comfortable going to another species, but he simply could not understand it. Humans, although there were some he respected (and one he loved) were for the most part mystifying. And there were some that he had to admit were aggravating (like Dr. McCoy). In all honesty, Spock did not know if it was even possible to be helped by a human doctor. But if he was going to get help, he had no choice.
Solitary meditation was not helping him, or helping him enough. He knew it. The issue was whether the benefit would outweigh the personal cost. His health was suffering, but he knew he would survive. His professional duties were only marginally effected. Did he truly need the intervention that Daydreamer's words seem to indicate he did?
Spock concentrated fiercely. What was the one thing that it was effecting the most? Where was the place that it was hurting the most?
Uhura. It was hurting his ashayam. The image of her tortured eyes flashed into his mind. Spock's lips tightened. Any grief he could bear, in time. But hurting her he could not bear.
Something would have to change. He knew it would not be easy, but something would have to change.
~oOo~
Uhura was surprised to hear her door-chime to ring the next evening. She was even more surprised that it was Spock at the door.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, and something in his manner had Uhura's heart thumping fast. When he swallowed audibly, her heart almost jumped out of her chest. That was a sign of great emotion, for him.
Very slowly and with great difficulty he asked, "Is there anyone that you would recommend for therapy?"
Uhura nodded rapidly. She replied softly, "Definitely. I know several people. I'm sure we can find someone you will be comfortable with."
He looked up into her eyes, and she finally, finally could see the fear and pain he had been dealing with. Looking away, he softly inquired, "May I sleep here, tonight?"
Tears fell from Uhura's eyes as he curled his warm body around her. And it was okay when she felt him shivering a tiny, tiny bit.
It was a start. It was finally a start. There was hope, after all.
Fin.