Gravitation Cannot Be Held Responsible
By Talktidy
A/N1: I would like to offer my sincere thanks to WildwingSuz, who took time out of a busy schedule to beta the first chapter for me, and whose invaluable feedback indicated a little revision was required to avoid a confusing opening and make the piece flow better.
A/N2: At last this is now complete in ten chapters — I'm toying with adding an epilogue, but it's hardly necessary for the sake of the story — and I have to offer an apology for anyone who had been attempting to follow my little tale. The delay is part due to floundering about how to end this blasted thing, and part due to the state of my health.
A/N3: One more and I shall get out of here. I just want to say that comments and feedback (or even someone hitting a favourite/alert button) make my day
Disclaimer: would that these characters were mine. They most assuredly are not.
Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
— Albert Einstein
PART I
Chapter 1
He threw a left jab at the target, followed it up. One. Two. Three. Skipped backward and came in for a left, right combination. His heart had sunk as soon as he saw the communication: the unusual formality of the data packet, headed with a formal James T Kirk, graced with a mention of some of his more prominent honours. Starfleet had sent him orders to preside at a court martial of a fellow officer.
A virtuous sweat dripped off his brow. That should shut up McCoy's bellyaching about his widening girth.
He protested. Enterprise was hip deep in a major refit and his girl needed him; those of his people not granted well deserved shore leave, were up to their eyeballs in work and his departure would place a heavier burden on his crew. All of which objections, and more, he relayed to Command, but Command would have none of it and shut him down. So he shuttle-hopped between systems, a journey spanning a ridiculous three days, until he made a tired and grumpy arrival at Deep Space Two, a paltry thirty plus light years away from his ship.
Thwump! The punching bag rocked in a satisfactory manner.
At least the workout served to blunt some of his anger at what had necessitated a court martial in the first place, a far more prosaic affair than his only other experience at Spock's court martial. He was not one to enjoy sitting in judgment of others, but at least the disgraced captain had had the thoughtfulness to make life easy for his peers. Verdict cut and dried for a captain first to sprint for the escape pods at the merest inkling of a warp core breach, the hell with the safety of his crew. How Starfleet psychological evaluations ever got it so wrong was a mystery. He resented the dishonoured captain almost as much for the disgrace to the uniform, as he did the man drawing him away from overseeing Enterprise's repairs and refit at Starbase 39.
Now he was on his way home and travelling in style. Gloriana's owners, extending every courtesy to Starfleet and eager for the cachet of a serving Starfleet captain aboard one of their vessels, offered him passage, but he would trade all of Gloriana's considerable luxuries for an uncomfortable, fast ship in a heart beat.
Still, while aboard, he'd use the amenities. Luxury passenger vessels came with well appointed gyms and, his luck was in, a fifty metre swimming pool. Another ten minutes of this and he'd ease tired limbs with a few gentle laps.
Attention fully engaged in thumping the punching bag into submission, he did not realise he was no longer alone, until he finished with one final flurry of fists and spun away to head for the pool. He came to a dead stop.
Four Vulcan males had lain claim to an exercise mat set aside for wrestling, judo and sports in a similar vein. Their presence startled him because it was near to 0300 hours shiptime. He was still on Enterprise time, a situation he saw no reason to correct, when he would transfer off Gloriana the day after next at Andoria. What was their excuse? Really, what were they doing aboard? Gloriana's ultimate destination, with minor diversions to pick up additional passengers, was the fleshpots of Raisa. Heading off to indulge in some fine dining and excellent room service? He snorted at the picture.
The sound attracted the attention of one of the Vulcans, who spared him the briefest of glances, before he trained his gaze back on his companions. If their presence aboard was a surprise, that they sparred with lirpas utterly astonished him. How did they manage to get those past ship's security? Practice lirpas perhaps. It seemed the bladed side was not edged, but even so, they could still do a lot of damage. Hard to believe even a Vulcan's best butter-wouldn't-melt demeanour would succeed in averting confiscation at embarkation.
One of the Vulcans eschewed an orderly warm-up routine, impatiently waiting for one of his fellows to engage him. A companion completed his own warm-up, took a couple of practice swings, and saluted the impatient Vulcan. He immediately retreated before an aggressive barrage of blows he only just met with his own weapon. The Vulcan, who had expressed a fleeting interest in his presence, now riveted all his attention on the pair trying to knock lumps out of each other, prowling a wandering perimeter out of range of a stray lirpa swipe. The aggressive Vulcan's technique betrayed him and he was beaten back. Whether the more defensively minded Vulcan let down his guard at this point, or he suffered a momentary distraction, was debatable. Not debatable was that he never saw coming the substantial whack to the midriff that knocked him on his ass.
The aggressive Vulcan raised his lirpa as if to bring it down hard upon his opponent's skull.
"Kroykah!" bellowed the group's referee.
The aggressive Vulcan stopped. He stared at the lirpa in his hands and looked around him as if not knowing where he was. The Vulcan's gaze fastened on the lirpa again and tracked upward, until it met with his own astonished stare. A hungry absence looked back at him.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose and a chill hand poured ice down his spine, vanquishing the heat of his workout. Emotions and half remembered impressions surged up out of his memories: an ochre tinged sky; the smell of an alien desert; mouth salty and metallic with his own blood; air choked from his lungs. A friend, subsumed beneath implacable drive, seeing only a competitor and intent on annihilating all challengers.
Pieces shifted and aligned in his mind. Gloriana's ultimate destination might be Raisa, but on the way she would put in at a Rigellian colony, a relatively short hop from there to Vulcan.
…stand with me…by tradition the male is accompanied by his closest friends.
Oh.
The Vulcans approached their friend warily, but the fight had gone out of him. The lirpa fell to the padded exercise mat with a muted thump; a second later he followed the lirpa's example and lay in an untidy heap beside the weapon, a shivering puddle of misery.
One of them swooped in with a medical tricorder. "He needs rest. Assist me to take him back to our quarters." He moved as if to scoop the stricken Vulcan into his arms, but he was pushed aside by the one who seemed to be the leader of the group, whose larger frame was more equal to the task. The Vulcan with the tricorder turned his attention to the defeated combatant, who at last had gingerly risen to his feet, but was waved away. The other might have been moving with a stiff care to nurse his bruises, but he still took the burden of the downed Vulcan off their leader in a wordless exchange, and headed for the exit. The Vulcan with the tricorder scuttled along in their wake.
The Vulcan who remained went about the business of gathering up the lirpas and putting them into carrying cases stacked against a bulkhead wall. He offered no acknowledgement of the near presence of another, no doubt waiting for this unfortunately nosey Terran to make himself scarce. Weapons packed away at last, the Vulcan bestowed a stony look upon him. He was used to that look. He strangled any mischief on his part to offer a greeting and detain the man, gave a polite, offhand nod, and went to change into swimming attire.
xxx
The following day at the same time, the punch bag suffered another pummelling at his hands and the Vulcans again trained at the mat. If he were honest, his workout was less intense because he was indulging his nosiness. Maybe the Vulcan, who was er… unwell had managed some sleep, because he certainly seemed more rested and was altogether better behaved. The Vulcans detected his curiosity and not with appreciation. They closed in about their ailing friend, shielding him from the outsider's sight. Nothing to see here.
"May I help you?" said their leader, approaching him.
"I'm good."
The Vulcan parsed that sentence, looking confused.
A laugh bubbled up. "By which I mean I require no assistance."
"The workout mat has been reserved for this time. Everything is in order."
"I am sure it is."
"Then I cannot account for your interest in the activities of my friends and I." Translation: take that nose of yours and put it where the stars don't shine.
"I am always interested in other sparring styles, looking for any moves I can copy and place in my own repertoire."
A disdainful eyebrow assessed his form, found it wanting. After meeting Spock, it had come as a shock to discover not all Vulcans were the paragons that exposure to his first officer might make him expect them to be. Yet, there was more of a desire the Terran interloper should make himself scarce, than real intolerance and calculated insult in the other's appraisal.
"Also, depends if you're amenable to some assistance. Your friend is leaving himself open, when he feints to strike from his right. I just thought I would mention it. Sometimes it takes another eye to see."
The expression on the Vulcan's face was, if possible, even more forbidding.
A Starfleet officer knew better than this. He backed away and offered a polite nod. It really, really wasn't any of his business. What the hell was wrong with him? Just because he was bored, he couldn't impinge on the privacy of others, especially Vulcans. Pool, right. He laid in a course for the exit, still castigating himself, when all hell broke loose. The ailing Vulcan, spotting the stranger in their midst and presumably perceiving him as an enemy — scratch that, a rival, more likely — launched himself in a ferocious attack. In seconds, hands were around his throat.
A nasty case of déjà vu.
"Siran, no!"
"Kroykah!"
If anything, the bands of steel around his throat tightened and only released when his assailant succumbed to a neck pinch. His own knees hit the deck and he drew in a lungful of air, while he delicately probed his neck with his thumb and index finger. That would teach him to be inquisitive. Not too much damage, bruised and tender, but he was breathing without difficulty, though his respiration had escalated. Fight or flight. He concentrated on calming his body's outraged reflexes.
"Allow me." The Vulcan he presumed to be a healer fell to his knees, avoiding invading his privacy with touch as would a human physician, examining his throat by both eye and with the benefit of the medical tricorder. "The damage is not life threatening," he told the leader of the group of Vulcans, "but it is likely very sore." He looked at Kirk, as if registering the subject of his assessment should have a stake in the information, too. Some work needed on that bedside manner. "I regret I have not the equipment to treat your bruising." Was that worry that fleetingly showed on his face?
"Never mind," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll live."
The Vulcan leader attempted some fast talking. "I apologise for my brother, sir. He is in need of medical treatment… and not quite himself." Disaster lay in the offing if this human were to press charges. If his brother were detained, he probably would never make it home in time. Hence panic, or as much as a Vulcan would ever allow of himself. "If you require recompense for this unfortunate affair, I am prepared to discuss terms with you."
"Never mind. My fault. Shouldn't have butted in. In his condition, who knows who he thought I was."
The Vulcan's face was scrupulously absent of emotion. Nevertheless, body language told its own tale of shock that this Terran might comprehend what ailed their companion and had the temerity, no matter how obliquely, to address what might be wrong. "Who are you?"
"James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise, at your service."
"Ah, Spock."
Kirk grinned. "My esteemed first officer."
"I am Tay," said the Vulcan, unbending enough to allow himself this. "I will take your advice about Siran letting his guard drop. I wish to keep my brother alive." Again the momentary birth and death of an expression and one of out-and-out fear, at that. Young and under a lot of stress, more than sufficient to erode control. It was difficult to estimate the ages of Vulcans, but on closer acquaintance he thought Tay much younger than Spock, and in Vulcan terms Spock was still barely into adulthood. Yet Tay indisputably led the little group, which prompted him to wonder at the ages of his companions.
Had other female bondmates taken a leaf out of T'Pring's book? Or was this hoo-ha all about young Vulcans working themselves into a lather over the big bad wolf of pon farr. Then again remembering his own experiences at Spock's wedding, maybe it did indeed warrant outright fear and revulsion.
"You suspect your brother's bondmate will challenge?"
Tay shifted posture. Affront warred with a desire to unburden himself to someone. Affront took a hike. "The number of challenges have increased of late."
That was a yes on T'Pring copycats, then.
"Should T'Kar forsake my brother and challenge, I do not know that he has either the skill or the desire to survive. Your immediate experience to the contrary, my brother is a gentle creature, who would harm no one," and added, as if it sealed the deal. "He is studying to be a mathematician."
"I am not sure this is the reassurance you seek, but I know of another Vulcan, normally gentle of temperament, who changed on the challenging grounds."
"Is it true that Spock talked while in the plak-tow?"
He hesitated. This was not his business to recount, no matter that he had been there.
"Forgive me, that was intrusive and impolite. I have no right to invade another's privacy."
"Perhaps I might trade you in the intrusiveness and impoliteness stakes. Are you not married yourself?"
"No."
"Oh, I thought your brother was the younger?"
"He is." At his evident surprise, he added, "These matters do not follow a strict timetable." As if remembering he was speaking to an offworlder and regretting the impulse to confide in a stranger, he drew back into a carapace of Vulcan rectitude. "I must check Siran is well."
He scuttled away before hearing any response to his farewell.
xxx
