Even in the face of her acceptance into Starfleet Michael remains heartbroken. Spock stands at the landing of the stairwell and can hear her soft weeping from there. Soft because even though there is a great deal of passion behind it, Michael still strives to be perfectfuly Vulcan for this world and their father at the moment.

Attending the Science academy, Vulcan's premiere learning institution, had always been her dream since arriving. She would want to fit in as much as possible, be Vulcan like him, their brother and father, their mother had said when he asked over what he saw to be odd behavior.

She was human. And illogical as they were prone to be, he did not see her being any other way. Not being logic led did not stunt her intelligence. Was it really that vital that she fit in with the majority population?

As a child Spock feared what that meant for him if the answer was yes.

He clenches his teeth and slowly treads up the stairs. Michael doesn't stop crying until she hears him knocking at the door. There's quick, hushed sniffling as he imagines her wiping her face and clearing her throat. " Who is it?"

" Spock."

She falls silent. Seconds tick by before she answers him. " Go away."

He inclines his head towards the door and speaks more firmly. " I ask that you let me in."

Michael rebuffs him just as firmly. " And I told you to go away."

Her voice is right on the other side of the door. He stares at the panel as if she could feel the intention behind it. It does, however, not slide open as he desires. He inhales loudly through his nose and rests his head on the door sill. " Do not be stubborn."

" That is really hypocritical coming from you."

She's yelling. It's a good sign. Somewhat. " Stop quarreling with me Michael. Let me in."

" Why? So you can tell me to my face that I am acting irrationally and that I was never going to get in? That I am never going to be good enough. That the sooner I see that the sooner I can move forward with being a productive human member of Vulcan society?"

Spock sighs and lowers his head against the doorframe. She is more distraught than he realized. " I had no intention of saying such things. I came to offer solace."

She's silent again. In all the years they have lived together her accepting his help has still been the hardest. She wants so very much not to need help. Whether it's the trauma of loosing her parents or striving to owe anyone nothing Spock cannot say. She has a martyr complex the size of Gol and genius aside, he is only a nineteen-year-old male.

He thinks over whether leaving or sitting outside her doorway would be more ideal when Michael opens the door. She stands there in the doorway refusing to look at him. Her face is downcast, puffy and moist from crying. He tilts his head and thinks to himself it would be incredibly soft to the touch now.

" What?" she sniffs irritably down at the floor. He takes another breath and pushes past her.

An irritated growl follows him as she spins around. " Excuse me? I did not invite you in."

Spock ignores her protests and gently takes her elbow in hand. She starts to pull back away from him but stops when he awkwardly loops his arms around her. Michael's stiff posture begins to relax when he mimics a terran holovid.

In it the hero comforted the heroine after a long battle with an embrace and used his hand to rub her back. Spock does so now and is relieved to see that Michael is reacting similarly. Slowly she leans onto his chest and relaxes. He rubs her back and observes what he can of her face. Her emotions baffle him even more than his own.

He's never been around someone human or otherwise that could go from elation to inconsolable sadness so deeply or so quickly. Spock has also never had someone try to love and sacrifice for him that wasn't his own blood. So for her, for Michael, he would lower his guard and be what she needed right now. Hers.

She didn't have to say anything. He knew. She was a minority in so many respects here, misjudged and alone. In her parents' passing, there was no one to claim and raise her. No people for her to belong to before his father had took it upon himself to do that for better or worse.

And he, too, was alone. The only one that had ever been like him. He was his parents' hope and both of their people's taboo. A savant. A genetic miracle. A dyslexic half breed.

" Please don't think that."

Spock swallows but says nothing. He notices now that a finger is resting sound along her neck and she had gleaned his thoughts. It was intrusive of her to comment on his internal dialogue but the girl who was Michael lends him comfort as much as he struggles to give it. Guilt burns his hand where he touches her and he moves it down and away from her skin.

" I understood what you were doing then, don't apologize for it now." he says briskly to end that line of conversation.

Michael would say she's sorry for the whole of her lifetime if he let her.

A plan made in haste by her immature mind to protect the ones she loved and cared for only had landed her with scarring everyone. Sarek thought it was par for the course with younglings. Amanda thought herself to blame. Spock knew most of the truth. He was there that night but even now he felt her shying away from introspection.

He knows the wealth of her remorse because he can feels it. Each time he is tender with her in words or gestures Michael folds in under its weight as if she's boneless. It's Spock's reason for his growing distance and rudeness. His proximity hurts her but he can't stay away for too long. He loves her. It's that reason too, ha growing, unyielding affection, that he has tried to keep his distance.

Spock knows very well what he feels for her and he's certain now that Michael knows it too. If she doesn't then he's been better at masking it than he thought. If she does know, however, he wonders why the little confrontational, chaos-making female he calls sister hasn't cornered him and berated him about it. Michael's never been one to hold her tongue.

Spock moves his hand back to her neck and captures it in his grip. Michael startles for a moment and gasps as his mouth falls over her. Spock can almost hear the tears as they run down from her face onto her robes. He doesn't know how to feel about her happiness but he knows he hates it when she cries.

She cried when he was betrothed to T'Pring. She told him she had felt alone then, with no bondmate of her own. " I don't belong here and it shows now."

" Do you want a bondmate?" he had asked her. When she shook her head and shrugged Spock felt himself getting frustrated. He let it go then because his mother insisted he do so and sought to comfort Michael herself. He never found out what was said between them and heard nothing more about it after that. As he kisses her now and holds her like any bondmate would his cherished he wonders. Michael feels herself under his inspection and draws away. " What?"

" Then why did you cry?" he asks softly. " Because father did not have you bonded as well?"

Michael swallow audibly and shakes her head. The straight hair of her bang brushes along her face as she does. The severe cut is a far cry from the curls she wore when they first meet. She and their parents agreed that taking on a Vulcan hairstyle might ease her transition but Spock had always been opposed. He loved that hair and the happier human girl it represented. " If not that, then what?"

" I lost you. Was going to loose what we had. Or I felt that way at least."

" Do you still feel that way?"

She steps away from and pulls her arm free of his hold. " I've lost so much and you all were my family. I always felt that everyone wanted me to feel comfortable but- you wanted- you have been my closest-"

Michael struggles for a word to describe him and Spock uses the time to retrieve her hand. He feels at a loss without the information her mind provides him. If he touches her he reasons, he'll know. He'll know because she's thinking and feeling it and working to mold her understanding of it so she can share with him. Telepathy will be the bridge to joins them.

He takes her hand and freezes. Michael's whole body goes rigid as he takes in her thoughts. His breath feels shallow but he can't draw it deeper. She loves him. A whole Spock and not just a brother or Vulcan or friend. To Michael, Spock is doggedly loyal, ceaselessly annoying and-

Michael snatches away her hand and tearfully cradles it to her chest. Spock gives her a hard look, clearly offended. " Do not hide from me."

She casts the same look back with hope dying in her eyes." What you saw doesn't matter. We can't do this. We can't have each other like...that." she says flatly.

" Why?" he asks shaking his head. " Because of T'Pring? We have long since forsaken one another. Do you have someone that you-?"

" No." she answers hurriedly. " I don't have anyone."

Spock doesn't rebut and say she has him. He retrieves her hand and shows Michael for herself. In the exchange something changes yet again and Spock thinks that Michael might become his.

She's in her senior year in the academy when she gets his call. He is sick and wishes for her to visit. He is insistent that he does not need transport to the clinic. He's even more emphatic that she not inform either parent of his current condition. He just wants her company for comfort.

She thinks he's being hard headed but all the same heads to the apartment they've rented blocks away away from campus. He is shivering when she finds him, huddled over his bed with his duvet over his shoulders. A thin, sleeveless undershirt and maroon pair of sweatpants are all he has on but Spock shakes like he needs more clothing on in the stifling heat of his bedroom. He looks up when she opens the door and reaches out to Michael as she enters his room.

Michael hisses out a curse when she feels the heat of his hand and scowls at him. " Spock! You're burning up. We have to go. Come on, let's-"

She's stopped short when he grips her hands and knocks her off balance. She falls towards him and he catches her quickly. Spock pulls her closer and begins to nuzzle his face into the space between her head and shoulder. He grips her tighter and shivers, smothering her petite frame in his grip. " I don't need to go. I just need you. I need you close so I can concentrate on you."

Michael inhales sharply as makes a tentative lick at her collar bone. There's a possessiveness there that's - concerning, as well as intriguing. Nothing he's said or done makes any sense to her. " What? Stop scaring me. You don't need me you need a hospital!"

He tightens his grip and slowly shakes his sweltering head against her shoulder. Vulcan cannot sweat but Michael can't help but think Spock would be drenched with it if he could. It's for this reason his fever scares her. She could lose him; Spock could die.

He shakes his head at her deepening fear and nips her shoulder. " No. I just. Need. To know where you are-and that you are with me. That should be enough."

Michael shakes her head and fidgets in his hold. " What the hell is the matter with you?"

She sees him blush as if he could grow more flush than he already is and avert his gaze. " It is, something- I did not think would happen to me. This condition- we don't speak-"

He stops and shakes again. Michael feels his shame and relief in having her near with the heat of his fever. He doesn't want her to see him like this but that she came and she's safe and chose to be here with him might have him overcome the biological imperative he faces. She wriggles her arm free from where he has it barred against her side and places her hand at his face. An ineffectual way of taking temperatures but luck would have it she gleans a bit of what has him ailing.

Her eyes flutter and her body smolders at his appraisal. He wants her, has always wanted her but desires Michael especially now. He needs and he despartly wants her- as a bondmate would have its chosen. She's shocked. " Spock? Is this what I heard about in school?"

" What did you hear?" he rasps. That appraisal she felt earlier deepens as Spock focuses on her face.

He's so close like this that she looks away from his glassy stare and answers down between them. " Female Vulcans use to say that the males would get, sick. That they would get illogical. Is-" Michael stops herself from being insensitive or crude. It is neither the time or place to be so. She think he might actually die but his sense of assurance is the only thing weighting her down.

"- is there a time where you would need a female? To couple with? Is this what they were talking about?"

She looks up to see him nodding miserably at her. Even now he tries to assure her. " I don't need you like that. I- don't think. I just need you close because it helps me think and- I can meditate until the condition passes."

She licks her lips and barely hears her own voice when she speaks next. " And what then if I wanted to help you the...traditional way?"

Spock shudders and she feels the muscles of his arms flex around her. " Then I would welcome everything you desired to give."

And for the first time in their relationship Michael kisses him as hers.

A flash of something, dizzying and euphoric tickles her stomach and she parts her lips to chase it. Spock follows her leads and curls his tongue over hers in hot reception. She pushes the comfort that's around his shoulder off and helps him shed his clothing. He does the same for her, kissing her in between garments. His shivering has reduced to small tremors by the time he pulls them both onto the bed.

The heat rolling off him is stifling but Michael can't find any sense to care. The fever raging through him has her squirming from another. Anyone that could care about what they do now is lightyears away or clueless beyond their rental and not in her head the way Spock is right now. She brings her hands to the back of his head as he drags his lips up her sternum and across her throat. " Spock."

He's never touched her like this and the thrill of it frightens her. It feels as delicious and maddening as she thought it might. Not that she has tried to entertain these types of thoughts.

But you have. A voice, hers or his, she's not certain but Michael knows that she has thought about it. The voice knows too, that she's thought of him and her, in bed like this and for all her thinking she's done she still doesn't know what to do. She settles on wrapping her legs around him and closing her eyes to concentrate on what she feels.

He's mouthing at her neck when he finally pushes forward. Her eyes at flutter open then shut softly back close, furrowing into pained lines with tears welling in the corners. " Spock!"

He pauses immediately, leaving the prize of her neck while holding his hips braced flush against her own. Guilt, fear and uncertainty start to gnaw at the lusty fog hovering over his brain as he begins to assess her.

Why did it hurt her so? He did not want it to, took his time in touching her. Such stimulation should have mitigated or got rid of the pain entirely. Should have but then again Spock had only theoretical premises to rely upon. Experience always counted for something and in this case would have proven invaluable.

His heavy brow tilts up forlorn making its own apology. " I am sorry." he croons at her. " I did not mean to."

Michael catches his arm when he tries to pull away and shakes her head. " Stay."

She takes his hand and places it back at her breast with a push of encouragement. " Stay."

She sees his throat move with the motion of swallowing as his excitement rekindles. His flagging erection returns full force as he puts his mouth onto the breast in his hand and suckles hardily. He lifts his hips and draws away from her, halting a bit as he hears her hiss once more in pain.

He releases her nipple from his mouth and frowns. She can feel his desire to stop at her pained consent. He wants to continue but...he had not thought it would be like this.

Ever the strategist, Spock reaches towards her face and splays his hands over it. Michael gasps as his mind rushes over her. Fine frills of titillation assail her until she can no more feel the sting of his length from the immensity of his pleasure.

He tests the link, with a slow glide back in and is rewarded with a low moan from her throat as she bares her neck to him. He growls silently at the display, luxuriating at his masterful play over her body.

Michael swallows thickly at the air and claws at his shoulders. A muffled umph huffs through her nose as he adjusts further.

Spock begins a rhythm, trying alterations in depth and speed. She moves to curl her legs back around his waist in a manner that they both find agreeable. Spock's splayed fingers relay the sensations of his bedmate and threaten to have him spill soon after. When the pain has abated enough he retrieves his hand and returns it at her side.

Their unclothed undulations is nothing like their stolen moments of heavy petting. The pleasure they found in rubbing their clothed crotches together was akin to patting at an itch. It merely annoyed the affected area. This sinuous coupling of their bodies is the actual scratch that they've been craving.

Michael tosses her head against the pillow and lets her jaw hang slack. Spock rushes forward to lean his head into the space. His ear is angled at her mouth this way. Delight in each brush of her lips against them along with her warm, little throaty noises she makes peppers his movements inside her.

In each passing minute he gains an air of confidence with her. Michael feels his hands slid low around her hips, tilting her pelvis to alter the angle. The difference of it is instantaneous.

She wails against him as pleasure streaks through her. Her hands at his shoulders clutch Spock to her as she falls apart. Around, against, beside, below, she quakes with Spock in a way she's never found with her fingers. Spock grunts suddenly and does a sharp withdrawal to take himself in hand.

She sighs in disappointment at the loss of fullness, wishing that he could have stayed within her as he spent himself. Instead she finds her belly and breasts being coated in hot, sticky blobs of white as his fist ushers out the last waves of his bliss.

She tilts her head a bit and watches it pulse in his hand as if it has become its own little entity, trembling as it spews spunk like molten lava onto her body.

Spock shivers like a wet dog above her before lowering himself on top of her. He's braced by his forearms but his weight is enough that the bulk of it soothes her into a sleepy sorta of meditation.

Michael closes her eyes and sighs blissfully. It's short lived. Worry over when either her father or Amanda will sense their tryst chips away at her languid reframe. She wants to stay like this for hours, to sleep with him or possibly have him between her legs again.

Spock twists his head to kiss her. It's awkward and full of sentiment like everything he does towards her now. He does it because she likes it and he wants her to enjoy such things from him, enjoy him as hers.

He kisses her again and the press of his skin belays the thoughts lingering just beneath the surface. I want you too. I want you again. I want to sleep and rest beside you and fuck you once more.

Her body twitches as the thought of him with his head there at her center, his tongue and lips and alien teeth, nipping and teasing her to pleasure passes between them. " You're no help."

Spock raises his head and tilts it with a mock suggestion of being wounded by her words. " I would beg to differ."

" I will get my son myself."

It's a singular statement that says so much to Michael. How Amanda regards Spock. How Amanda regards her. That Michael is unable, unfit to see to the task of saving her brother. It accuses her of betrayal. That her love of Spock is not strong enough to see this crisis through.

It says so much but there is only one thing that stings Michael in a way she finds hard to recover from. It's the only thing she cared about because it has been the only thing she feared from Amanda.

Rejection.

Her words told Michael that she is no longer apart of the family. Her betrayal of Spock, whatever Amanda feels or imagines it to be, has convicted her into an orphaned life once more. Sarek of course would not abandon her but- this is Amanda. She had welcomed her with arms and heart open and now both are closed.

Michael blinks away her tears and settles into the familiar space of having to comfort herself.

Everyone in the S'chn T'gai household assured Michael of her place among them but Michael knew the strength of blood. The trust Amanda had given her has now flown off to some distant land until Michael found some way of retrieving it. If only her mother knew. If only Michael could tell her how strong her love truly was for Spock she wouldn't have said that. But then again, such a taboo would have seen her ousted from the family as well.

So Michael watched her walk away from her instead and out of the room with the same expression she bore weeks later.

She's back at home- no, at their home. She alerts them to her presence by the doorbell. Sarek greets her warmly but puzzled. Why would she not let herself in? Surely see knew the code. Why would she ring the bell like a stranger to be let in?

He does not question aloud and Michael does not offer an answer. Thing are falling apart and she has no way to save this family anymore than she could her own but it does not stop her from trying. She loves Sarek. She loves Amanda and Sybok. And in all the ways she can she love Spock.

Though she will not be pleased to see her, Michael looks the catacomb like caves beneath their house staring at her and Spock. Amanda's disbelieving hope and Spock's vacant stare. Michael feels her chest collapse in on itself at his constant muttering. He's mad, he's truly gone mad. Her face is mournful as she steps before him and calls his name. " Spock. Spock. I'm sorry but I'm here now."

He see her but doesn't. He moves on from her to carve more numbers into the walls.

" What is your relation to my sister."

The diners in the cafeteria near enough to hear stiffen. Spock is standing in front of Ash Tyler as he sits eating at the table. His soup-filled spoon is held suspended in the air, forgotten by the unexpected intrusion.

Saru is nowhere to be seen and for a moment Tyler thinks that it was planned this way. A look at the stony Vulcan before him affirms it into a knowing. There was no way that he would have acted on emotion, not purely. He is a male of logic and Ash is now aparty to a game.

He clears his throat and lowers his spoon. " Would you like to have a seat?"

Spock spares a glance at the chair Ash gesture towards before flickering his gaze dismissively away and back to the officer. " If I would have liked to I would have. My inquiry remains unanswered. What is your relation to Michael?"

Ash pinches his lips together in an offended frown and straightens in his seat. " I… once courted her. I loved her."

Spock tilts his head and narrows his gaze. " Who exactly?"

This startles him. Ash's frown softens. " What?"

Spock's face hardens. " I believe I made my question clear. There are two of you present, which entity loved and courted my sister?"

Ash shrugs and looks down around the floor as if thinking about it for the first time. " I don't know I would say Tyler but it's not so simple."

A clicking sound leaves Spock's jaw as it cracks under the strength of him clenching his teeth together. " In the face of this complication, I will give you a simple answer. Neither one of you, Klingon or human, should approach or act outside of your station with her."

Tyler shakes his head, disbelieving and stares at him. " What?" he repeats.

Spock chuffs. " Have your mental processes been so compromised with these surgeries that you cannot understand me? Here, I will try another way."

Spock's brow lowers as he looks down his nose at him. " naDevvo' Michael yIghoS. ( Leave Michael alone)."

Ash's mouth morphs into a snarl. " Qo' ( I won't)"

A single eyebrow rises up on Spock's face. " We shall see."

" I guess we will then." Ash spits sourly. He levels a disgruntled glare in his direction as Spock turns on his heels and retreats towards the galley's only doorway.

Ash returns to his soup and ignores the hum of low whispers surrounding his table.

The second it happens on the ship, He is restless. She certainly can't say they're making love. Not with the coveting hold he has on her hips and the fingers hungrily cupping her sex.

Michael arches into his pelvis and lets out a high-pitched mew. He's claiming her now as he always promised he would. She had taught him many years ago about being human and now he in turn instills in Michael the nature of a Vulcan. Spock besets himself upon her as soon as he comes into her quarters.

She gazes at him curiously and gasps as he pulls her to him. His mouth is over hers a moment later, stealing her breath and focus. She is working...was working...is now being crowded bodily towards the bed. Hot hands tear at her clothing and deftly unfasten any clasps, buttons or zippers they encounter.

Michaels breaks her lips away and holds her hands to his chest. " Spock? What is this?"

His jaw ticks as she watches him. Like so much of their childhood he ignores her question as unnecessary and moves to kiss her again. Michael curls her lip and baulks away. " Why are you being this way?"

" Why do you care?" he quips, dipping to kiss at her neck instead. Michael huffs and squirms as he brings them down onto her bed. His hands had been busy and now have her torso bare to him with her jacket open and her undershirt pushed up. His thoughts feel sharp against her nerves as they travel up her arm. I want to make you retract the words against my beard as I feast at you.

He rents her bra in two and latches hungrily onto her breast. Michael twists in his grip and huffs up to the ceiling. Spock, this Spock, was different. He was aggressive to her and possessive of her. Whatever had happened in the time between their deployments had made for a more ardent lover.

Her breath left her as he sat up and tore at her boots. He all but ripped off her pants and left his in no better of a condition. When he finally has her bare and above him, Spock sends his hips up to meet hers.

A soundless cry grips her throat as his lok fills each of every inch of her in a thick, searing brand. His hands hold her steady as he rushes out just as quickly and lets gravity slid her back down his length. It is mind-numbing and nerve-wrecking. It's been years since they've joined like this and she thought it would have been the last after he graduated and was assigned to the Enterprise.

To say that she was content with that arrangement was an outright lie but there was a peace over her in not being caught in such a contentious relationship with the Vulcan her adopted father wished to make her brother.

Spock senses her mind wandering and seizes it beneath his. Lust and longing pent up from years apart grips Michael and liquifies her ability to think. Spock takes a hold of her hips and moves them like this until she's crying above him in ecstatic trembling, once, twice, three times.

On hands and knees he works her next, feeling more insatiable and hungry for her in this position. His body demands as well as gives and Michael stuck riding his rut on the paltry bed below them. Mine he thinks loudly within her mind. Love, devotion, bliss, jealous, filth and a trillion other emotions burst forth behind the declaration and Michael keens beneath him.

Spock's arms reach out and catch her from fully collapsing against the bed. " I want to make you come again."

Michael whimpers and shudders around him. She's spent. Spock has worked her over thrice and made her come four times already.

True she is tired from his affection but how can she refuse him? There's no telling how long they'll have to wait to be like this again. Spock watches her raptly with his dark eyes studying her face braved to the side against the cover. He feels her resolve but desires to hear it.

" Yes." she pants, reaching up awkwardly to stroke at his face.

Spock buries nose into her and licks at her palm with purr rolling out from his throat. " Thank you."

He moves them to have her ride him again.

He's whipping his hips again shortly after. He holds her hips in places so he can thoroughly guide himself in. Michael mumbles please between moans and sets her nails into his chest. Shouldn't he have come by now? He had never gone this long before. Not since his time. She struggles to think how much time has past between but she can't in this state.

Her head lolls forward and then back as she subjects herself to the demanding wind of his hip. She's on the verge of feeling sore but the promise of another peak of her pleasure dulls the warning. " Say it."

Michael's eyes snap open to see Spock's face open to her. He's asking for her humanity to claim him just as his Vulcan half does with her. " Say it. Please…"

" What do you want me to say?"

" How you feel-" -about me…

He does not say it aloud but shares it all the same.

" I love you, Spock." She comes soon after with a sense of terror that she not only can she not take it back but that she does not wish to. " I love you."