The Cleansing
Spock's father had found him alone in the transporter room looking down at the space on the pad left vacant by his mother.
"Speak your mind, Spock."
"That would be unwise."
He was not able to look at his father and kept up his vigil. His back was to him not out of disrespect but not wanting his father to disapprove of him for showing any weakness.
"What is neccessary, is never unwise."
"I am as conflicted as I once was as a child."
"You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for this. And for you." Warmth was emanating from Sarek's voice as he spoke.
Spock now looked onto his father with a gaze decidedly human. It revealed his pain and his indecision but also his disbelief.
His father had slipped away from logic to comfort him. Figuratively, Spock was of two worlds but now he literally only belonged to one. He realized that his father too was experiencing the lost of not only his wife and bondmate but also the lost of his homeworld. Sarek was Spock's last link to Vulcan and Earth was his last link to his mother.
"I feel anger for the one that took mother's life. An anger I cannot control."
Channeling though words that would have been from his mother, it was the first time his father had spoken to him as a human would speak to their son.
"I believe she would say do not try to."
"You asked me once why I married your mother. I married her because I loved her."
Hearing these words from Sarek made Spock swallow hard the lump in his throat.
Love, to his father was not an abstract concept, he had led Spock to believe. Sarek would never be able to -- if they had ever passed his lips before -- say those words to his mother and now, neither would he.
***
The talk with his father had a positive effect on him. It helped to quell his gnawing anger. Spock was now in need of deep and complete meditation. He needed solitude. His quarters was out of the question. He was sharing it with his father. All other crewmembers had gladly volunteered their own quarters, to double-up, even triple-up.
If it was not for the serious reasons for humans and vulcans to be thrown together, he would have been amused.
He otherwise sighed. He was missing his Nyota, if she was still his. He had shielded his mind from her so she would not feel the full extent of his pain, his anger and his shame. He wanted no pain to reach that beautiful mind of hers, his jewel. And her heart to him was too priceless to measure. He hoped that she was not feeling that he had blamed her in any way or that he was rejecting her. After he meditated he hoped he could open his mind to her once more.
Thinking of her was calming. She brought out that response in him even when she would tease him or try to unsettle him. He longed for her and for those quiet moments they alone would share. He lingered on the feeling of her lips on his in the turbolift and holding her safe against him. It had been a long while, before that, since he was able to touch her. A kiss was not enough. His fingers and other highly sensitized projections from his body were in need to be satisfied. To be able to feel her with his mind as well as his body. He had grown tired of hiding his feelings for her from others.
***
There was only one place available for him to meditate, undisturbed. He went to his quarters to gather the necessary items for his meditation: loose clothing to meditate in; his firepot; and his incense.
He punched in the sequence of security codes that would allow him access to the Stellar Observation deck of the Enterprise. This area was at the very apex of the ship and only made available to officers high in the chain of command and those with high-level scientific credentials. He qualified on both counts.
Once inside and locking the door behind him, he pressed on the control console for the preference settings of the room. He elevated the temperature and desensitized the smoke olfactory sensors so that his incense will be barely perceptible to its readings. Also he sent a comm-mail to Nyota's comm unit that he was fine so she should not be worried if she was not able to reach him.
He hurried himself. He did not have that much time before all the crew would be ready for battle and this area would become off-limits.
"Computer, alert me when we reach the destination of the star cluster Ursa Major." "Affirmative, Commander Spock," the ship responded with an automated but feminine voice in Standard.
80 light years from Earth* will give him enough time to prepare before the Enterprise would reach the Sol system. He had calculated the time, the warp speed by the over-taxed engines due to the current over capacity of 10,000 life forms as additional drain on resources.
"A drain on resources." It made him flinch that his people, proud, highly-evolved and self-sufficient were reduced to this.
The room was warming satisfactorily for him to strip out of his uniform. In his nakedness he stretched and savored the freedom of being relieved of the responsibility that came with the uniform. He put on the loose clothing he had brought with him.
He climbed up to the main elevated deck of the room. It was approximately five meters in width. He tapped on another console to open the inner panels of the dome above him. With a sound barely audible above a whisper, they pulled back displaying the stars in all their glory. The iridium** glass dome allowed all infrared light to shine through causing even the most weakest star he could see with his naked eyes to blaze brightly. Most stars where going by too fast at the warp the ship was traveling, so he only focused on the larger ones.
On a flat raised surface, he placed his firepot down and lit the incense.
The smoke wafted about his head and he took in a lungful of its scent. He recognized the smell as some of the now extinct indigenous herbs from his homeworld. It was the incense his mother had sent him. At this recollection, his vulcan, no correction, his human resolve was now crumbling. He was now ready to grief.
As if the gravity of the room increased, Spock fell to his knees. His back then bent over from the sorrow he carried. "Mother!" He had called out her name weakly. His body convulsed causing him to curl up into a fetal position. He had to let her go or his vulcan mind will literally will himself to death.
His internal clock could not tell him how long he had stayed in that position but the enormity of it all finally released him to allow him roll over onto his back. He looked up at the stars.
His thoughts deepen.
"The Vulcan's superior capacity for memory can also be a disadvantage, if the Vulcan also possesses human frailties."
'Disadvantaged....frailties..."
His failures stood out in his mind to present themselves. He summed them up so they could finally be discarded.
"To keep control of oneself and one's crew."
The words reverberated through his mind.
Spock had not heeded his own words. Words that he had berated Kirk for at the Starfleet Academy Board's hearing of Kirk's possible cheating on the Kobayashi Maru simulation test, just days before.
His actions had displayed arrogance as he had stood at that podium as he had taunted Kirk on the death his father. Now they both shared a death of one's parent at the hands of a similar adversary.
How could he have blamed Kirk for using the same device he had done, as a vehicle to gain control of the ship?
He will have to return to the bridge to offer his assistance. Show his support. Quell any opposition.
Kirk is right, though foolhardy and could possibly result in the final extinction of the remainder of his race. Vulcans would not be safe until this Romulan, Nero, was dealt with. Since the chances of their success were slim, when he is done with his meditation, he will have Nyota send a communique off to the Academy Board at Starfleet to withdraw his complaint against Kirk for cheating. He would not want Kirk to die with dishonor.
He also hoped that Kirk and RPE report will expunge his own record.
"Ohhhh! Nyota!" She had seen a precursor of his nature and its possible results. He had seen the frightened look in her eyes after he has attacked Kirk. It shamed him.
"K'diwa!" He had called out to her even though he had not opened up the link between them. He was afraid, although, that was illogical, that their telepathic core of communications had been permanently dissolved. She would not want him. And would he let his responsibility to own his race also tear them apart.
But she had looked in his eyes searchingly before he had left the bridge. An empathy, he as never before seen directed at him. It was something he must learn to emulate as well as feel. She was projecting her feelings in a human way, the only other way she was able to reach him. This would give him reason to hope.
He must now do everything he could to make sure that the woman that he loves, his father, his people as well as the Captain and the crew of the Enterprise would cheat death. Even if meant giving up his own.
Feeling cleansed, he closed his eyes.
-------------------
* I have no idea how far Vulcan is from Earth, so I am taking liberties here.
** Iridium, I learned is one of the most common elements in the universe. I thought I would make the comparison to sand as sand is used to make glass.
A/N: I am sort of a pseudo-nerd, so from time to time I will try to put in some science. I am ignorant of technical jargon, though.
I am nearly finished with my third chapter for Those Who Would Be Among the Stars. It is getting long thought. There are funny bits in that one.