4.

'Haian.'

Haian was jerked rudely from his meditation by the voice of his second sister, his elder by only one year. He blinked, and refocused on light, and the colours of his home. He had lost track of time, lost track of the fact he sitting in a garden on his home planet, not in the swirling heat of an alien Vulcan desert.

'Haian, what were you doing in here?' Tijanas asked curiously. 'You looked as if you were out with the stars.'

'I - ' Haian dithered, wondering what he *had* been doing. 'I was meditating, Janas. I never have before. I don't know that I can tell you why.' He looked up at her properly, focussing on her to try to adjust his eyes to the light better. 'Janas, what are you wearing?' he asked, when he took in her clothes properly. 'I hope you are not considering flaunting yourself down the street in such a flamboyant outfit. The Praetor would have you banished as a nonconformist.'

His sister unfixed a veil from over her mouth and nose, and held her arms out to her sides, so as to unfurl the red material in the long dress she wore. She spun slowly, posing.

'I wondered if they would wear this sort of dress on Vulcan. I was trying to dress like a Vulcan. And I don't think it's so bad without the veil, either. I was considering wearing it.'

'To a fancy dress party?'

'To a ball,' she said grandly. 'To some special occasion, anyway.'

'It does look nice, Janas, even if nonconformist,' he admitted. 'But I doubt Vulcans would dress like that,' he told her in no uncertain terms. 'Vulcans are logical, not circus performers, or dancers.'

'They must take some form of exercise, Haian, and I thought that they did appreciate art and beauty, even with their logic.'

'We will only know if we speak to a Vulcan, and I do not expect to ever speak to a Vulcan.' He paused, looking at her. 'It is strange, though. I was thinking of Vulcan too, before you came outside.'

'Does it not often happen with brothers and sisters?' she asked him, smiling as she sank down onto the grass beside him. 'And you cannot speak of *me* as a nonconformist. You were meditating as they say the Vulcans do.'

'Yes...' His eyes clouded and became distant, as if he was trying hard to remember something. 'I was thinking of Vulcan. I was pushing my thoughts in that direction. Voices came to me, Janas, into my mind. They told me to expect something. They told me we were chosen for some purpose, and we would find out soon. Someone would come to us, from beyond the Neutral Zone.'

'Did they also tell you to worship the undergod and sacrifice yourself to him?' she mocked him. 'Or simply to visit Doctor Enaim?'

'I am not mad, Janas,' he told her. 'I'm simply telling you what came to me while my thoughts were concentrated on Vulcan. They said someone will come.'

Tijanas put her hand under his elbow and jerked him firmly to his feet. 'If you will speak of people coming from beyond the neutral zone, Haian, you should speak of it inside, where loyalists cannot hear,' she told him in a low, serious voice. 'We have already lost Sanah into the services. I will not lose you to a painful execution for treason. Come inside.'

She made sure she held his arm firmly, and virtually marched Haian back inside the house.

******

On the Enterprise, Captain Kirk strode back into sickbay, looking for McCoy. He had just finished a long, tedious bridge shift. Spock had been asleep when he had begun his shift, and he had very few illusions that he would be awake now, but he came to check on the Vulcan personally at every opportunity.

He went into the examination room, and saw the doctor putting phials into a cupboard on the wall.

'Bones,' he called, and the doctor turned around, putting a flask down on the table. 'Is he still asleep?'

McCoy nodded silently. 'But he seems more comfortable now, and he's off the life support He's coming through it.'

'How long has it been?'

McCoy thought for a moment, calculating in his head. 'Coming up for sixty-nine hours now,' he said. He shrugged tiredly. 'He's hardly stirred.'

'How is he, Bones?' Kirk asked hesitantly. 'Is there any - damage?'

'No,' he said with conviction. 'No. He's got the constitution of an Aldebaran water buffalo. He'll be okay, Jim – and he's lucky.' He paused. 'Jim, I've been worrying about whether to contact his family.'

'You say he's not in any danger now?'

'Physically, no,' McCoy nodded. 'He'll be fine.'

'Then there's no urgency to let them know without having his permission. I can't imagine that he'd want Sarek to know. Bones, you said physically. What about mentally? Will he ever really recover?' Kirk asked reluctantly. 'Will he ever be – happy?'

McCoy scratched his head, looking briefly into the supply cupboard before looking back to the captain.

'There're some things you've got to understand, Jim,' he said. 'He's not human, for a start. A human can be ill for years. It's not like that with Vulcans. Two things can happen when a Vulcan suffers a collapse like this.'

'Which are?'

'They recover, or they don't,' McCoy said simply. 'I don't believe he really wanted to die – but I can't take that for granted.'

'You mean he could try again?'

'Not while he's in my sickbay,' he said firmly. 'And I'm going to make sure that when he leaves the idea is totally out of his mind.'

'I thought Vulcans weren't supposed to get mental illnesses. I thought they could stop anything going wrong before it's even started.'

McCoy smiled. 'That's one of those myths that humans bandy around, Jim. No kind of being can ever be exempt – especially intelligent beings. The more intelligence, the worse it can be. It's true that Vulcans can deal with most things, and cure themselves of most things, but it's not always that easy, and occasionally they need someone else's help. If you just imagine all the pressures on them to conform, and be logical, unemotional – any kind of flaw in their training can be dangerous.'

'But I'm sure Spock was trained more thoroughly than most Vulcans,' Kirk pointed out. 'They would have wanted to give him as much control over his human traits as possible.'

'Yes, but those human traits are still there, even if they are suppressed. But anyway, if he recovers, Jim, it won't take a long time. Vulcans can heal their bodies, and they can more or less heal their minds. He'll need some help, but when he's a little better, he can start to analyse what's wrong, and how to put it right.'

'And what if he doesn't recover?' Kirk asked gravely. 'How big a chance is there that he won't?'

'I've been reading up on cases like his, Jim,' McCoy said, looking grave. 'About fifty percent of the ones I reviewed recovered completely.'

'That means fifty percent don't. Why?'

He shrugged. 'Some just can't be helped with drugs or mind meld. They never get to the stage where they're well enough to heal their own minds, and so they stay in the same state for the rest of their lives – however long that is. The Vulcan doctors can tell after a time if their patient's going to recover, and they believe they should let the person die if he wants to, rather than leave him in mental suffering for the rest of their two hundred years of life. But I believe I can get Spock to the stage where he'll want to help himself,' the doctor told Kirk firmly.

'And then?'

'And then we try to work out what the problem is, and how to eliminate that problem. It'd help if I was Vulcan. Lots of their therapy is by mind contact - a sort of plugging directly into the brain. It's easier for a Vulcan to let someone feel it than have to explain in words. Vulcan healers can use their minds to soothe the patient's, and share the troubles with them. But that's by the by at the moment. Spock's not going anywhere.'

'And what can you do with Spock?'

'Well, if he plugged into my mind, the illogic in there would send him downhill faster than being kicked out of Starfleet,' McCoy half smiled. 'And I know it wouldn't do my mind any good. In fact, it'd be dangerous for a human to try to contact him while he's in this state of mind. But I can talk with him, and there are drugs that can help. If I can get him through the first stage, and find out what's wrong, he could be well in as soon as a few weeks.'

'Can I see him now?' Kirk asked anxiously.

'Go ahead,' he nodded. 'I've moved him into the ward. We can talk later.'

Kirk walked through with McCoy, and stood by the bedside, regarding the Vulcan. He was soundly asleep, curled on his side, breathing slowly and peacefully. His tightly bandaged arms were bent up near his face – a stark reminder to Kirk of what the Vulcan had done, and how far he had had to go before his best friend noticed.

'I haven't seen him like that before,' Kirk said. 'Curled up around himself like a scared little child.'

'Oh, that posture's not that unusual for Spock,' McCoy smiled. 'Not when he doesn't realise there's anyone there.'

'At least he's not so pale now,' Kirk observed hopefully.

'No,' the doctor agreed. 'He's getting stronger. The last of the sedative filtered out an hour ago.'

'That's good.'

'At least it means he's not dependent on any more machines. But, Jim,' he said, putting a hand on the captain's arm. 'If he wakes, don't worry him about anything. No pressure.'

'Of course not.'

He sat down by the bed, waiting for McCoy to return to the office. Then he looked back to the Vulcan's sleeping face. He felt strange just sitting there. But he felt just as strange speaking to someone who was practically unconscious. He looked around. No one was there to listen. He put a hand on Spock's arm, hoping that the contact might make him in some way aware of his presence.

'Hello, Spock,' he said quietly. 'I – thought you might want a status report. Bones says you're getting better. You're off life support. All of the drugs are filtered out of your bloodstream...'

The silence seemed to creep around him, magnifying the noises of the sensor unit above the bed and the artificial echo of Spock's heartbeat, and the soft, rhythmical noise of his breathing. Thank God that heartbeat and breathing were there for him to hear, though…

'Umm… The ship,' he continued. 'Do you want to know about the ship? Everything's running smoothly on the bridge, but we're missing you. Everyone wishes you well. You can't have visitors yet – well, apart from me. I think Bones counts me as family – but Lieutenant Uhura sends her love, and Sulu said, 'Me too'. Chekov says he'll take care of your computer and all your duties until you get back, and Scotty said he'll be needing you to help him with an engineering problem. I think that meant get well soon, and he's missing you too. Nurse Chapel said she'll be in later to sit with you. Like I said, you can't have visitors, but she'll make sure she's always on hand in case you need to talk. She won't be with you all the time – she didn't think you'd like that, but if you just call, or use the buzzer, she'll come.'

Finally, the Vulcan stirred at his voice. His face tensed with wakefulness, but he didn't open his eyes.

'Jim?' he asked.

'Spock!' Kirk smiled, then said softly. 'You're awake?'

'Obviously.'

Spock turned his face towards Kirk's and opened his eyes a crack.

'How long for?'

'I heard your voice. You were saying they miss me.'

He straightened himself out in the bed and pulled the blanket up around his chin, closing his eyes again against the light, and against Kirk's anxious face, and the reality of the world around him.

'They all do,' Kirk nodded. 'How do you feel now?'

'Better. A little better. Physically.' His voice was still dull and unenthusiastic.

'No one knows what really happened, yet,' Kirk assured him, although he wasn't sure if the Vulcan cared. 'Most of the ship just thinks you're ill in sickbay, after having a reaction to some drugs. I – wondered if you minded me letting some of them know the truth – just your closer friends.'

'If you wish,' Spock said flatly.

Kirk sighed. It was like attempting a conversation with a machine.

'Everyone wants you to get well quickly,' he said, forcing a smile.

'I heard. I will try, sir,' he said, but Kirk couldn't hear any conviction under his words.

'Spock, you do *have* to try,' he urged him. 'You can't just let yourself slip into a hole and not come out.'

'As I said, I will try.'

Then his eyes fluttered closed, and he drifted to sleep again.

******

The next time that Kirk came in, Spock was almost free from the drowsiness brought on by the sedatives. The captain came into the room smiling, holding a chessboard in one hand, the pieces in a box in the other, hoping to elicit some response with Spock's favourite game. He put them down on a table by Spock's bed, and looked at the Vulcan. He was lying flat in bed, silent, his eyes looking straight up towards the ceiling. He didn't move when Kirk sat down beside him.

'How are you now, Spock?' Kirk asked with a gentle smile.

The Vulcan didn't answer. He just continued to stare up at the blank ceiling, completely detached from what was around him.

'Spock,' Kirk said more firmly. He touched the Vulcan's hand. 'Come on. I know you can hear me.'

The Vulcan turned his head slowly, and allowed himself a glance at his captain, then his eyes lost their focus again, looking past Kirk's side.

'Good morning, sir,' he said tonelessly, as if it was simply an automatic response.

'Spock, would you like a game of chess?' he asked. 'I brought the board in.'

'No, thank you, sir.'

Kirk's heart fell at that response. He could usually tempt Spock with a game of chess, but the answer had been just as automatic as the rest of his utterances. He had not even considered it.

'Spock, you have to come out of this,' he begged. 'You have to want to live. Please. I can't – I hate seeing you like this. So – so sad, and apart from everyone.'

The Vulcan turned to him, and Kirk thought he saw genuine curiosity sparking for a moment in Spock's eyes.

'Why are you all trying so hard to make me want to live?'

'Spock, you're precious, to a lot of people,' Kirk told him firmly. 'To Bones, and me. To your mother and father. Think of Christine Chapel. She loves you. She knows you can't love her, but she goes on loving you, even though she'll never have you. That has to say something about how much you're worth to her. There's Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov. All of the crew care about you. The people you've met in other places, on other planets. The ones who were on the Enterprise before I came. They all care. Every one of the people I've just mentioned would fight, and struggle, and give up their own lives for yours – even if you're the one who wants to take it.'

The Vulcan's eyes met his again, and Kirk thought he saw something other than the terrible emptiness. Then that was gone. But at least Spock was looking at him now, connecting with the world. His eyes weren't quite so empty.

'I'll just sit with you, then,' Kirk decided.

He flicked the computer screen on, and put in one of the discs from the storage slot in the arm. He took in the title of the book, and began to read. He wasn't sure if Spock was listening, but he read until the Vulcan's eyes closed and the sedatives took effect again.

******

It was five days before Kirk gained a more positive response to his presence, but that improvement was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, simply for the hope that it brought to the captain's heart. The Vulcan was more awake now, and sitting up a little, his eyes looking brighter than they had done in weeks. He actually greeted the captain with a very faint smile.

'Hi, Spock,' Kirk greeted him quietly. 'How are you feeling today?'

'Stronger, Jim, and perhaps brighter,' the Vulcan replied. His voice did have more strength in it, and more of the tone it used to have. 'McCoy prescribed me a course of drugs which he hopes will lift my spirits. He anticipated their effect beginning to gather strength today, and he seems to be correct – as you can see.'

'Spock, are you sure, are you absolutely sure, that this isn't another Vulcan thing?' Kirk asked earnestly. He was pleased to see the Vulcan raise an eyebrow at the words, 'Vulcan thing', even if the gesture didn't look quite as enthusiastic as normal.

'I am not sure,' Spock replied, beginning to looked puzzled. 'I can never be sure. It does feel – strange. But not like a problem of my own biology. Not like anything I have been told of. We do learn of these things. But it is not like that.'

'In what way, then?' Kirk asked curiously.

'My mind,' he said confusedly. 'It is – as if these feelings are not entirely my own. As if I do not own my own thoughts.' He looked at Kirk briefly with genuine fear in his eyes. 'Jim – has Dr McCoy made any suggestion of – schizophrenia?'

'No!' Kirk said immediately. 'No, Spock, he has never once mentioned any indication of that – and he's done some pretty comprehensive brain scans on you. The only thing he's picked up is severe depression.'

Spock nodded, looking as if that was, in a way, a comfort to him.

'Spock,' Kirk began cautiously. 'Bones said, maybe by the time you actually – When you – When you cut your wrists, you might have been too drunk to know what you were doing. That you might not have set out to commit suicide.'

The Vulcan's forehead creased. He seemed to be looking inside himself.

'It's hazy in my mind, Jim,' he said eventually. 'I – remember considering suicide. Just considering it, as an abstract concept. I had been trying all night to sleep without medication. I meditated, I tried established relaxation techniques. I tried everything. I was tired – more tired than a Vulcan should be – and I knew that I had a shift in a few hours. I had a small drink. Then I had another. I wanted so desperately to sleep, and let my mind rest, so I took some of the sedatives. They didn't work. I kept drinking, and swallowing the pills. Nothing would make me sleep. I - I just felt - I began to feel – '

He broke off, unable to verbalise his feelings.

'I wanted to sleep, in any way that I could,' he continued, finally. 'I drank more – purposely trying to consume an amount that might render me unconscious. I took a whole handful of the sedatives. Then I broke one of the wine bottles on the edge of a cupboard, and used the glass, because I knew that the blood loss would make me sleep...' His voice began to lose its more confident tone, starting to shake. 'Jim, I don't know why. It was as if I didn't have any control. Everything seemed logical. Even the ideas of suicide. I felt a terrible need for something, for – my home sun above me, the warmth and reassurance of home – but there was no way to be there. No way but to sleep...'

'Spock, it's okay,' Kirk said quickly, reaching out to take the Vulcan's hand, seeing a trembling setting up through his body. He gripped the hand hard, forgetting about the cuts for the moment. 'It's okay. Don't talk about it any more if it's too hard for you.'

The Vulcan took a breath, steadying himself with great effort, and said, 'Thank you, Jim.'

He pulled his hand away, falling into a long, deep silence, dark eyes fixed intently on some invisible spot on the ceiling. Kirk sat by the bed, staying silent too, seeing that Spock was thinking deeply this time, rather than just staring vacantly.

'T'Si,' Spock said suddenly, a fevered urgency in his voice. 'The child T'Si. I must see her, Captain. Something is wrong. I must go to Vulcan.'

'T'Si?' Kirk echoed.

Spock had rescued the Vulcan baby only weeks ago, when a hostile alien ship had attacked Vulcan villages, killing her parents and every other person in her village. But now she had been adopted by a Vulcan couple, and was settling well with them. He knew that Spock had grown close to the child, but not this close.

'How do you know something's wrong?' he asked. 'How can you be so sure?'

'I can, Captain,' he said firmly. 'I cannot say how. But I am sure. She needs my help.'

'And that drove you to suicide?' Kirk asked, trying to keep incredulity from his voice. It was difficult to take this sudden, certain need seriously, coming from one as disturbed as Spock seemed to be at the moment.

'I – don't know,' he said heavily. 'But, Jim, I must return to Vulcan.'

He put his palms on the mattress, and tried to push himself up further, trying to get up.

'Not yet, Spock,' Kirk told him gently, putting his hands on the Vulcan's shoulders. 'You're not getting up yet. You're not that strong. You're not well. Anyway, what are you going to do?' he asked with a smile. 'Walk from here?'

Spock exhaled, and shook his head tiredly. 'No, of course,' he murmured.

'You're not going anywhere further than the ward head right now, Spock,' Kirk continued, 'and that's what Bones would tell you. I don't even know if you could get that far.'

Spock resisted for a moment, then let himself be pushed back down onto the mattress.

'Yes, Jim, you are right,' he said. 'I hardly have the strength.'

'Spock, would you like me to bring some things in?' Kirk asked to steer the subject away from this irrational need to return to Vulcan. 'Books. Your lyre.'

'I can order up any book on the computer screen,' Spock pointed out.

'What about the lyre? It might cheer you up to play it a little. I thought it always relaxed you.'

'I cannot play it, Jim,' Spock said tiredly. 'My hands and fingers are quite stiff from the wounds. The bandages prevent me from moving my wrists. And - '

He lifted a hand, and Kirk saw it tremble violently. He tried to pick up an empty cup, and it shook from his fingers.

'I take your point,' the captain told him, picking the cup up off the floor. 'I'm sorry.'

'There is no need. It was self-inflicted. I think it may take more than a lyre to 'cheer me up' anyway, Jim.'

He looked up as McCoy came through the doorway.

'Good afternoon, Doctor.'

'I think your internal clock needs resetting. It's morning,' McCoy smiled, the smile underlayed with the permanent expression of concern he tried to hide from the Vulcan. 'Spock, I'd like to speak to you. Would you go, Jim? This is patient and doctor. Confidential, even to the captain.'

'Okay. I'll come back later, Spock,' he said softly.

McCoy sat down by Spock's bed as Kirk vacated the chair.

'Spock, may I ask you some questions?' he began, once they were alone.

He nodded slightly, his dark eyes focussed on his bandaged arms. 'If you wish. It is your right.' He looked up abruptly, meeting McCoy's eyes for the first time. 'You think I am having a nervous breakdown, Doctor.'

'I think something's very wrong, Spock,' he said honestly, trying not to flinch from that intense, troubled gaze. 'I'm not sure what yet. That's why I want to talk to you.'

'I am not insane,' he said, his gaze dropping again. 'Only slightly depressed.'

'Trying to kill yourself doesn't come under the heading 'slightly',' McCoy said acerbically.

'Doctor, have I done any irreversible damage to myself?' Spock asked, beginning to sound irritated.

'You're damn lucky there's no permanent damage, Spock. Your heart was weakened, but it's fighting back to full strength. Your hands'll be fine once the cuts have healed. You might find some lack of co-ordination for a while. It might be difficult putting your finger on a spot, or holding a pen.'

'And the tremors?' Spock asked hesitantly.

'It's a side effect from the alcohol and the drugs, but it'll wear off. Spock,' he began cautiously. 'Spock, I want to talk to you about what caused this. I know you were withdrawn, and showing signs of depression. I know you were having trouble sleeping. Have you got any idea what might have caused that to happen, and what brought it to this point? It's incredible for a problem like this to develop and get to this point over a matter of a few weeks.'

Spock closed his eyes as some of the helpless, black feeling seeped back into his mind.

'I don't know what caused it… I – found myself unable to stop thinking - ' He broke off, and began again. 'I felt – I began to feel that my thoughts were not my own. I could never block them from my head. When I tried to sleep, the thoughts were there, and I could not block them out. Thoughts of despair, of purposelessness.

'Soon I found I was only sleeping for a half-hour each night, and sometimes less than that. Sometimes I could only gain five minutes of sleep. My mind wouldn't let me rest. But when I tried the sedatives, and slept, I dreamed, continuously. Nightmares, about the ship, my friends coming to harm. About T'Si needing my help. About needing to go to Vulcan. I kept seeing T'Si, and blood.'

'Spock, why couldn't you come to me?' McCoy asked him sadly. 'You could have come to me, told me what was happening, and I would have tried to help you.'

'I did not *know* what was happening,' Spock said with a sudden, deeply repressed anger. 'I didn't understand. I have never felt like that before. I was – very afraid. The thoughts would crowd in. Worry about T'Si, a great need to go home to Vulcan, as if that was the only place I would be safe… I didn't understand why, and I knew if I came to you, you would deem me mad. I was not even certain that I was capable of carrying out my duties. And then there was the shuttle mission…'

He paused, looking at McCoy almost as if for absolution.

'But that wasn't your fault, Spock,' McCoy insisted. 'It wasn't your fault the turbulence panicked them, and it wasn't your fault that you were the only one to get a suit fully on before the hull breached.'

'They were all so young,' he said in a low voice. 'Young, excited humans. I should have thought of their emotional reactions in such a situation. If I had not been operating below my usual parameters…'

'Spock, the logs, the video, the damage reports – they all completely vindicate you,' McCoy assured him. 'Believe me. The storm was completely unexpected, the emergency developed within a few minutes. According to the reports, you did everything absolutely correctly. They hadn't had proper survival suit training, but that wasn't your fault. All the paperwork indicated that they'd passed all the requisite tests. You did the logical thing, and got your own suit on, trusting that they'd be able to do the same. You can't be blamed for doing what is natural to you.'

'A Vulcan ghi-van does what is natural to it when it builds its nest - but that doesn't alter the fact that it kills hundreds of other birds to use the bones and feathers in the building.'

'If you'd acted like a human, and fluttered around trying to help them, no one would have survived,' McCoy said firmly. 'Now, you know it wasn't your fault. All the reports back that up. So you can scratch that off your list of things to regret.'

Spock's eyebrow rose. 'Doctor, you speak as if I had decided to become depressed, and assembled a list of reasons why. I did not. The feeling simply – came upon me – and the shuttle incident merely compounded it.'

'You say it just came upon you? How?'

Spock shook his head. 'I – feel – '

He hesitated, looking deeply reluctant to speak.

'Spock,' McCoy assured him. 'This is completely, utterly confidential. You can tell me whatever you like.'

He nodded slowly, focussing his eyes on the wall opposite his bed.

'I – felt as if there were voices, speaking in my head, that were not mine,' he said. 'They simply – began – but I had no thought of questioning them until the drugs you have prescribed in the last few days began to take effect.'

'Do you still feel as if those voices are there?' McCoy asked carefully.

'To a lesser extent, since this drug regime,' Spock said.

'Spock, some of the drugs are neuro-suppressors,' McCoy said, trying to keep the tone of eagerness out of his voice. He couldn't help but worrying that he was clutching at straws. 'They help to dampen down the more acute responses in your mind. They also have a residual effect on your telepathic ability.'

'Do you mean to say that they suppress it?' Spock asked curiously.

'Yes, Spock.'

'I am not certain why, but T'Si figures strongly in my thoughts at the moment,' Spock said slowly. 'Is it possible that the uncontrolled thoughts of a child – ?'

'Spock, we're awfully far out from Vulcan for telepathy to work, aren't we?' McCoy said doubtfully. 'And wouldn't you know if it was T'Si?'

'T'Si herself may not know. She will not have finite control of her own thoughts. She knows my patterns - the fingerprint of my mind - and she can link without touching, over distances. Not a link as you know it. Simply - It has not been described in words, Doctor.'

'But you know when she needs you, when she's in trouble, and the same with you for her?'

'Something like that, Doctor. But – I find myself more and more certain that she does need me. She is calling for me - right now.'