Spock surprised her when his exhale came out like a rattling cough, like it was tearing up his insides, clawing him inside and out. He looked exhausted, but the light in his eyes was no longer dimmed; rain-washed, almost peaceful, yet he held the same tension, the same fevered excitement in his muscles. She had to push his hand down when it reached up to hers, yet even that faint spark of touch sizzled with intense heat and uncontrollable emotions, made even more sweeping from her refusal at contact. Saavik had been watching Spock since the cough tickled at her awareness; sure enough, there it was again. Her upward-slanting eyebrows drew together in a frown. Perhaps his fever was not only of biology. The next cough rattled at her nerves; with a most uncharacteristic yelp, Saavik bolted upright.
The groan of Spock—his head had almost cracked a little against the cave wall in her haste; Saavik's eyes widened in near-primal fear, fear she could not escape for cold logic bound her to her thoughts, beat panic through her heart—caused her to look swiftly downwards, her eyes drawn to the pale moonglow of his face as compared to the dark cave. His hands opened and contracted—yes, how had she thought it was blood fever before? They were reddened strangely…Saavik froze. A droplet of blood moved as Spock's hands did. Her eyes picked out more droplets, her heart sinking as she found the long line of it that even Spock's shuddering body did not conceal.
Spock was dying.
Her heart began to race. She could not leave and find David; too much time might elapse, David might not come, David might be dead, David might hate her for…for this…and she did not want his eyes, his sad gaze on her body and on Spock's; she could not bear that on top of this nightmare.
She knelt down, heart still faster than she could hear. Cold stone shocked against her calves and feet, but she cared nothing of that and of the bruises. She would be lucky even to have those to remember him by. Gently, she laid a hand against Spock's brow—where had she learned that gesture? From Amanda, perhaps…Saavik recalled a very early fever she had had, but it was not Amanda's face that had looked down at her in concern, not Amanda who—it was burning hot, like a small, terrifying sun that would engulf every scrap of his being. Unconsciously, Saavik shivered, hot tears pricking behind her eyelids. More gently than she had ever touched him, she pulled Spock's body, not allowing it to brush the stone, so that his heartbeat rested against hers, his weary frightened head just above her breast, dazed. But the contact was like a burning star: with frightening intensity, it swallowed her whole, shaking her in this new-born Spock's rough pain, his questioning, his inward fear that now was endless. She was not Saavik; she was not one body; she could not stop herself from unconsciousness.
.
"Saavik," David whispered. "Saavik." Her eyelids did not flicker, her chest barely rose in breathing. She was not pale or lifeless, but something about her lack of response frightened him. Vulcans did not sleep this deeply. Fear for her being was only part of why he tentatively reached two fingers to her face—nothing. He would not have dared so otherwise, had she been able to wake…perhaps she never would. The intensity of that possibility, its terribleness engulfed him, and for a moment, he forgot time, forgot sound and understanding, only tried desperately again and again to wake her. She had to wake up, she had to.
It was not about them—no, not about him anymore. David recalled the sudden spurt of the ground earlier that day, near midnight; he had been wandering far, would never had seen it if not for what happened in the cave, what he could not bear to witness, what Saavik had done to save Spock's life. But Spock, now… David tore his thoughts away from that Vulcan. A volcano had opened up out of nowhere, certainly not expected.
They might all die. His hails on the communicator, urgency masked by calm, had met with nothing. Not even static. The ground beneath him had shaken warningly as embers fell in the sky from a volcano more distant, perhaps more disastrous...
.
The face of David rose like a sun into her widening vision. Why was she lying down, why was David—
In one movement, Saavik rose. The air was chill against her body, but a greater chill moved through her. She suppressed a horrible, hacking cough, for she had almost forgotten to breathe.
"David?" Her voice came out roughly, like years had passed, but somehow calm still remained in it. David's face was unreadable.
"Sp—Spock?" she continued, even more quietly.
She wished there had not been light enough to glance across the two perfect tears that trailed shamelessly across David's face. The world began and ended in that face, in that moment. Saavik, quite illogically, wished her next heartbeat would not come.
David glanced downward and a little to the side.
"Dead," he did not have to say.
Her heart shattered, palpitated, gripped her breath away. And yet all she could do was be calm and frozen, though she felt her eyes would roll back in her head and the ground yawn up and claim her.
She had known something was wrong. There was no connection like a heartbeat she had grown so used to, no faintly reassuring presence in her furthest awareness like an unborn child's. She reached for the connection but it was gone. Yet…something stirred in her mind, something she hadn't thought to look for before. Indeed, it had not been there before…
That instant expanded. It was not like underwater, but sharper than almost any moment of her life; sight narrowed but became more vivid, heartbeat and feeling and memory rushed through Saavik.
Her voice took on purpose and she wondered at it. "David, you must not touch me or in any way interfere unless I tell you to, or this is over. If you do, it could mean all our lives. Not even if I do not respond."
She struggled to carry Spock's body—twenty-one forever, no, it could not be—for David had frozen where he stood, as if a single movement would change everything, doom them all. The rain had stopped outside; it was barest midnight, and slightest clouds hung in the stark enormity of the star-filled sky above the darkened outcroppings of rock outside the cave. The ferns and strangely familiar trees had taken on almost lifelike shadows, but Saavik could not fear, and did not—she was stronger than the night, she must be. She had to be. She paused in thought, set the sprawled, lifeless body there, then walked with measured step back to the cave. With steady hands she dressed herself, and, for she journeyed beyond anything she had ever known, stared into David's eyes for a single burning moment she hoped would console him if things went the way they likely would. If she, too, died in the process.
I would die for you, his own gaze seemed to say. In the gravity of this nighttime, she did not question it.
`.
The night air had taken on a hush, the whole world silent but for the faint sound like voices in the distance—perhaps only the wind, for only David and Saavik had beamed down. Saavik stood straight in the darkness, lifted her arms to the sky, to the moonlight, to a planet farther than she could see. The moonlight shone in a line across her fingers and forearms. Irrationally, illogically, Saavik felt a faint hope. She brought her hands down, one reaching up to grip the remembered points on her own face, one to Spock's. And fell into blackness, into star-dazed light beyond understanding, into many voices and one…into thoughts without words and without time, like a vast sea. She did not hear herself speaking the words…only woke into a reddened dawn like Vulcan and yet not. The sun stretched endless, timeless into her eyes.
.`
Gradually sound, feeling and wonder came to her; she was on Genesis. She was alive, the green and the blue and the brown around and beneath her.
She could feel something against her hand, turned her head to investigate, then caught her breath. The robe-covered chest rose and fell, breathed. Saavik moved so that she could see his face under her grip; she daren't fall out of the meld. His eyes opened, reflecting infinity for a moment. The hoarse voice rose and fell, almost beyond hearing, as Spock's dazed eyes focused on her face.
"Saavikam…forever…always…my…"
Saavik felt a dizziness as a weight, a part of her mind that was not hers yet that knew her almost with a sort of dignity, fell back into her own mind and then was gone. She saw the young Spock beneath her, tentatively removed her hand. His eyes truly seemed to see then, though he knew no words.
A gaze that held worlds, however, a gaze that had been soothed by the wonder of a myriad million stars, the instantaneous, abstract awareness he had grasped upon as their minds touched that he was not alone. And yet, not alone encompassed the one who was before him, she and nothing more.
A gaze that held worlds, the sudden shocking warmth of his hand meeting hers equal to the voice that could speak, the voice that lay in the mind of someone else, far beyond and yet not far.
A wordless connection, almost…deepened somehow, that she felt could not in any way be torn from her.
The light in his eyes akin to stars.
Alive. And, Not alone. And somewhere, further back still, memories that were not his, but with the same strange wonder: in Spock's mind, a desert without end, a place of joy and home. The sun rising, setting. Myriad images, feelings dwarfed beneath what overwhelmed him now and pushed through to her, a closeness like a new sun rising.
Not alone.