He should have felt uncomfortable with Spock's sudden absence. Instead, he was… relieved. He could feel T'Shan's presence, patiently waiting for him to… he wasn't certain what she wanted, why she waited.

Her answer to his unasked question also came without words. Still, he knew, almost instantly, what was needed. Christopher fell back into his memories, sensing that T'Shan followed.

/ I never had children of my own, but…/

The Vulcan kid was lost. He didn't have that slack jawed, wide-eyed confused expression a human would have had in the same situation. But he'd stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he'd come through the gate. After briefly scanning the twenty by twenty meter enclosure, he fished a small map out of his pocket and scanned it just as quickly.

Chris was surprised to see a fleeting look of frustration cross his face before the kid turned, clearly intending to go back the way he'd come.

Never saw an annoyed Vulcan before.

For some reason the thought pulled a shout of laughter out of him. Short, but loud, it got the kid's attention. When the tall, gangly cadet turned around again, Chris stood up from the alcove bench and stepped out into the open.

"Your map probably says the Computer Science buildings are through this gate," he said as he stepped forward. "Those dumb fucks in Admissions keep forgetting to update them. Command approved this memorial garden six months ago, and it's been here for two. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes to add the garden and the new route to CS, but somehow it just doesn't get done."

He reached the kid and thrust out a hand. "Christopher Pike."

The kid only hesitated a heartbeat before shaking the proffered hand. Then he immediately stepped back and stood at attention. "Spock, Cadet Fourth Class, Commander pike," he said stiffly.

Pike chuckled, shaking his head. He was out of uniform and the new cadet class were only just arriving on campus. Orientation started tomorrow, classes a week after that. But this cadet already knew his name. Creepy. Chris Pike wasn't exactly a household name…

Of course, everyone always said Vulcans were eerily intelligent, and the handful he'd met certainly had been… The thought trailed off as two facts snapped together. The kid was a cadet, and he was Vulcan. Starfleet Academy's first Vulcan. And he'd gone and made the kid shake his hand!

The kid didn't look particularly perturbed, but Pike figured he should try to make amends, anyway. In the name of interspecies peace and all that. Awkwardly, he held up his hand and contorted his fingers into the Vulcan salute. Just barely.

For a moment, he could have sworn the kid wanted to laugh. A second later, when the kid held up his own hand — thumb stretched away from his index finger — Pike was sure of it.

"Dif-tor heh smusma, Commander," Spock said without revealing a trace of the amusement Pike was sure he was suppressing.

Grinning for both of them, Chris said, "Uh, you too, Spock. Want me to show you how to get where you need to go?"

/ Spock ended up needing a lot more than directions over the years. They should have issued him a map for navigating humanity./

/ Such a 'map' provided itself, Admiral. Spock was fortunate to have encountered you so early in his time here./

T'Shan was right, he knew. Years went by before he learned the full extent of Spock's estrangement from his father, but hints appeared within months.

Aside from an occasional visit to his mother's family in Washington State, the young Vulcan spent all of his time in classes or studying. He didn't even leave the Academy during the school breaks, preferring to take extra classes so he could complete his four major areas of study in the time his classmates would take to complete one.

At first, it was just curiosity that made the officer seek out the cadet's company. Pike had only accepted a two-year teaching assignment to avoid another long mission before getting his first command. He'd worked hard to earn his ship, and didn't want to be halfway across the Beta Quadrant when they finally finished building her. But life could be boring, dirtside. Regurgitating policy and theory and reliving his experiences chasing new life and new civilizations for green kids eager to take his place wasn't challenging or the least bit interesting.

But the half-Vulcan puzzle of a cadet was.

Christopher Pike hadn't set out to become mentor, surrogate father or friend to Spock, but he'd become all of those things in the two years they were at the Academy together.

By the time the first eighteen months were behind them, Pike knew that instead of enjoying the best of two worlds, Spock was living like he was alone in the universe.

"Look, you've done enough work to complete three degree by the end of next term," Chris told him one day. "Spend your third year out there." He pointed up to the stars twinkling in the night sky. "I talked to Commodore Komack and he's willing to pull some strings. We're calling it an internship. You can come back here for your fourth year and finish that fourth degree."

Chris was surprised, but pleased, when Spock agreed to the scheme. He hadn't wanted to leave the kid behind.

/ Taking care of him kept me from becoming a cynic. When I agreed to teach, I thought I'd just be making time until I got my ship. Meeting Spock changed all of that./

/ Accepting responsibility for another in such a capacity often has that effect./

/' Welcome to parenthood', huh?/

Rather than answering, T'Shan encouraged him to dig deeper.

A few years went by before he took a personal interest in another cadet. And, even then, the relationship was nothing like the one he shared with Spock. There were no fatherly undertones to his mentorship of Georgia Melia. But the experience was enough to make him rethink his attitude towards teaching. When Command offered him the new flagship in exchange for another stint at the Academy, he accepted. And not just because he wanted Enterprise.

Spock had also accepted a teaching position when Pike chose him as his first officer, even though the young officer's career was well on its way by then. Pike was pleased to be able to spend time with his friend again, but Spock didn't need him…

/ The definition of need is subjective among humans, is it not?/

/ He was holding his own by then; I didn't feel like I needed to watch over him anymore./

T'Shan's mind remained silent.

Spock hadn't needed Chris anymore. Leonard McCoy, though… McCoy had been a special case. Still was. Grief, Pike was coming to realize, manifested itself in many forms.

Len hadn't been a recruit so much as he'd been a rescue.

No one had been more surprised than Chris when Philip Boyce decided to retire from space duty to teach at Starfleet Medical. He'd planned on asking the veteran doctor to serve as his CMO. Ever practical, Phil had a replacement lined up even before Pike could tell him just how he'd ruined his plans.

"You're gonna want Purie running your Med Bay," he said, deftly preparing one of his signature cocktails. "Can't make a martini to save his life, but he's a good doctor. I'd trust him with my life and four hundred or so others to boot."

But his advice had come with a price. Phil slid a PADD over to Chris along with his drink.

Pike took his time scanning the contents while sipping on his martini. He wasn't even halfway through before he realized where his friend was going with the information. Looking up from the screen, he met the doctor's knowing gaze.

"No one says joining Starfleet is a cure for an ailing spirit anymore," he said.

"They don't," Boyce conceded. "In this boy's case, maybe they should. Look, I'm not asking you to invite him onto Enterprise. Just meet with him. Feel him out. Let him know the universe is bigger than one man whose wife up and left him."

"He's afraid of flying, Phil! And a drunk, too!"

"Not yet, he's not," the doctor protested. "He will be if he keeps going like he's been going. If someone doesn't step in and give him something else to work towards, that is.

"He's an amazingly talented physician, Chris. There's more to him than what you're reading there, though."

According to Phil's dossier, Leonard McCoy wasn't even thirty yet, but he'd already started making a name for himself finding treatments for "incurable" diseases. His star had started rising even before he'd graduated from medical school.

Apparently, his dedication to his career had cost him his marriage. Or, at least, that's what the wife claimed in the divorce papers. Pike read further. Jocelyn McCoy had conveniently neglected to mention her affair with her husband's cousin until after the divorce was final.

That revelation, and finding out that a last-ditch hook-up towards the end of the dissolution of their marriage had resulted in a pregnancy, seemed to have driven the young doctor to drink. Jocelyn planned on raising the baby with the cousin.

"His daddy put an end to that notion," Phil told him. "David and Mary have been helping take care of little Joanna these last few years. John McCoy didn't want to raise some other man's kid, anyway. But Len's falling apart, Chris. He's got to pull himself together if he wants to be a good daddy, himself. Go see him. Before he's so far down he ends up breaking his little girl's heart."

Chris hadn't expected much, but he'd taken Phil Boyce's advice and gone to visit Leonard McCoy. He knew all about fathers who disappointed their children and didn't really expect that he could help McCoy. He didn't even expect to like him.

/You prejudged this man./

/Yeah. And that taught me a lesson, too. I thought getting to know Spock killed the cynic in me. But it was really meeting Len that finished opening my mind./

Leonard surprised him. He was as different from Spock as a man could get, but within hours of meeting him, Chris knew he was as hooked as he'd become when he met the Vulcan.

Underneath his prematurely curmudgeonly demeanor, Len cared about everyone around him. Maybe caring a little too much was where he'd gone wrong. Still, he was willing to do anything for his little girl. Even if that meant taking himself out of her daily life until he was strong enough to act like a father again.

Chris knew being away from Joanna was hard for Leonard, even if the other man refused to talk about it with anyone.

Yes, grief manifested itself in many different ways. If she wasn't currently staring daggers at the man (even with his eyes closed, Chris was dead certain she was), he might have recommended Helen to treat the other doctor on a professional basis.

/It is as I have told you: when one acts in a parental role, it is not unusual to consider offering advice and assistance, even after the young ones are ready for independence./

/I didn't know Vulcans got the urge to nag./

/We have learned to control the urge./

.

/I wish you'd teach Hel-cat how to do that./

/Doctor Noel offers advice she believes will benefit you./

/That's the problem. She's trying to take care of me when I should have protected her from the start./

It took less than ten minutes for Helen Noel to convince him that she belonged in Starfleet. She'd spent the first five cheerfully telling him what he could do with his "peacekeeping and humanitarian armada."

"We still haven't done enough to explore the human psyche," she told him at the three-day career conference where they first met. "That and trying to patch up the abnorms should be more than enough excitement for a lifetime."

"That's exactly the kind of attitude Starfleet needs on the inside. We could use someone with your perspective looking at how we do what we do."

She shook her head, not even affected by his best "Starfleet wants you" smile.

"Why would I want to restrict myself to a giant ship with a population the size of a tiny village in the name of exploring worlds I don't care about with a bunch of abnorms who would probably be my patients, planetside?" she asked in all seriousness. "I'm just here to make sure you uniforms don't brainwash my best friend."

But her polite refusals, and a little digging, told a different story. Fortunately for Christopher, Helen hadn't succeeded in convincing her best friend of the evils of Starfleet. And since the other young woman had managed to impress Spock at the event, it became easy enough to learn more about Hel.

/This memory is painful for you, but I sense you did not experience that emotion at the time. Why does remembering distress you?/

Deciding that showing would be more effective than telling, Pike allowed the memory to play out for T'Shan.

The first life-altering event of the young medical student's life had come when she was orphaned at six. Meeting Nyota Uhura three years later had been the second.

After both her parents died in some kind of a fool daredevil accident, Hel was shunted around relatives all over Earth and its colonies before a distant cousin living in the United States of Africa had agreed to take the young girl in. She'd ended up attending the same elite school as Ambassador M'Umbha Uhura's youngest daughter.

On paper, the two little girls had nothing in common except their need to succeed. That hadn't stopped them from becoming inseparable once they realized they were on entirely different career trajectories.

Young Hel had spent nearly as much time in the Uhura household as she did with her mother's third cousin, twice removed. And sometimes that had meant going on off-planet holidays with Ambassador Uhura and her kids. She'd traveled to worlds most children of Earth only ever got to read about. Some of her best work in med school was based on those travels.

They talked again the next day. Noel continued to insist that she wasn't going to enlist, and her eyes kept wandering worriedly over to where her friend was talking to Spock.

More than a year went by before he saw her again. She and her friend hadn't showed up to the last day of the conference. But he kept in touch and kept abreast of her studies, always believing she Belonged in Starfleet.

All Spock would say on the way back to San Francisco was that he didn't believe Ms. Uhura would be enlisting. He refused to explain further.

Chris was disappointed that Nyota Uhura was alone when she began her classes at the Academy three months later. A year after that, Helen Noel followed in the footsteps of the closest thing she had to a sister. Just like that, Pike knew he was going to end up feeling like a father again.

/You blame yourself for inviting Dr. Noel's decision to join Starfleet. Yet, it seems her primary influence was a desire to remain close to Miss Uhura. Your guilt over her choice is both illogical and unwise. Even if your efforts had some impact on her decision, her continued interest in your recovery suggests that she developed a familial relationship with you, similar to the one she shares with Miss Uhura./.

/There was a time when the Uhuras were family enough for her. Then I stepped in and she ended up with at least three more people to waste time worrying about./

Chris never meant to add George Kirk's delinquent son to his growing brood. Oddly enough, it was Hel's fault Jim ended up getting a second look.

Pike had already washed his hands of Jim by the time the boy came rolling up to the shuttle in Riverside, and he was busy enough with classes and recruiting and getting his ship built to do it again without having to think about it. Besides, Kirk didn't seem to need anything to keep him happy but a steady stream of challenges at school and warm companions in his bed.

Jim was George's genius-with-a-record son and Len's absurdly competitive, womanizing friend. That was it. And that's probably all he ever would have been as far as Chris was concerned if he'd ignored Len's repeated warnings of "Stay away from my sister."

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, Bones," Jim said, slapping a hard hand on his friend's shoulder. "You don't have a sister."

Only this time, Chris was there to hear it for himself when Len growled back, "Might as well have! Look, Jim, Hel-cat will eat you alive and Pike will rip whatever's left of you. And don't expect me to put you back together, when they're through with you. If you value your life, leave her alone."

Instead of paternal rage, Chris found himself feeling… intrigued. Jim Kirk had the mind to keep up his grades, and the tenacity to overcome no-win scenarios. But this time, he showed he had wisdom, too.

"All right, Bones," he said. "I'll keep my hands off your 'sister.' But you owe me one, man!"

Kirk grinned and ordered another drink, while Len grimaced and sipped his ice water.

Chris wondered if he was the only one who heard the wistful way Jim had pronounced the word "sister." He realized George Kirk's son might need him — might need them — after all.

/You claimed that Dr. Noel wastes her time worrying about the people you have gathered around you. Do you believe that your time was also wasted on the relationships you formed with them? Do you now discount the lessons you claim to have learned from the time you spent with them?/

/No! No, damn it! I'm saying I probably ruined their lives. I convinced them either to join or to remain in one of the most dangerous organizations in the universe. And I did it because I was too damned selfish to let any of them go! And now… now I'm useless!/

The world outside of the meld rushed up to meet Chris. He became acutely aware of his heart pounding in his chest, forcing blood through vessels throughout his body. He felt his lungs snatching in air through ragged breaths. He sensed the oxygen meshing with his blood so that his heart could pump it through his body again.

His skin was icy cold, drenched in sweat. Only the places where T'Shan's fingers rested against his face and temple weren't freezing.

Prying open his lids, feeling the muscles work in unison , he stared into dark, steady eyes.

He heard Spock move towards the bed, but he didn't know how he knew it was Spock. The world was reduced to his body, T'Shan's warm hand and her understanding eyes.

/I can't do anything for them now. They're all hurting and all I can do is lie here, knowing they're falling apart even if no one else sees it./

/Now that we have discovered the wound, we can begin to heal it./

When he reached up to cover her hand with his own, she didn't pull away.


A/N: Huge thanks to Aphrodite420 for the loan of T'Shan and for the beta. After she returned the chapter to me, I added a some new material, so any mistakes you find are my own.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, any of its characters and T'Shan is solely the creation of the fic writer known as Aphrodite420.