Chapter Four

Standing, she shed her cover-up and eased herself into the pool at the end of his lane. She waited as he made his turn and began charging back toward her.

His head twisted from side to side, his strong arms sliced through the water with powerful strokes and so caught up was he in the relentless, mindless, back and forth of it all that he didn't see her until the last minute. He floundered, his forward momentum pushing him into her and shoving both of them against the side of the pool.

"What the hell are you -" His breath escaped him in huge, heaving pants. "I could have hurt you!"

"Stop!" she cried. She braced a hand on his bicep. "What are you doing? Are you trying to kill yourself?" Her eyes bored into his, trying to figure out what was driving him. This was more than just a perceived failure to live up to other people's expectations.

"Tired," he gasped. "I'm so tired."

"Of course you are!" She rapped a fist against his shoulder. "You can't keep doing this to yourself every night."

He wrapped his fingers around the lip of the pool and lowered his head between their bodies. "No," he said, chest heaving. "You don't understand."

"Then make me understand. Tell me what the hell is going on with you!"

He struggled for breath. "Everyone's watching me, waiting for me to make another mistake." He looked up, his eyes desperate. "I'm going to lose it all," he cried.

Caught up in his wild despair, she put her hands on his arms.

"Tell me," she said softly. "Just tell me."

"I don't sleep. And there have been days when I'm so tired, I can barely function." His breath began to even out. "If I wear myself out with physical exertion before bed, sometimes I can get a few uninterrupted hours of sleep. So I run or lift weights or I swim laps or read reports until I'm so exhausted that I just… collapse."

"Why don't you go to McCoy? There are plenty of things he could prescribe to help you sleep."

"No, I can't go to him… I don't want…" He shook his head violently.

"Why not? He's your best friend." She was at a loss to understand. "Lots of people suffer from insomnia," she told him. "I don't… you're not making sense. You said that everyone is waiting for you to make a mistake. Are you worried that McCoy will note your insomnia on your medical records and Starfleet will find out and try to use it against you? To strip command of the Enterprise from you?"

"No." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "If Bones gives me something… I don't… I'll be trapped. I won't be able to wake myself when it starts…"

"When it…? What are you -?" She stopped talking when she realized he was whispering something under his breath. She closed her eyes and worked to block out all of the surrounding noises – the quietly lapping water, the hum of the pool filter, the distant and barely discernable thrum of the overhead lights.

"Ptha. Vash. Tr'krei'ses. Lak'tra. Ak'sh'iz."

She was startled to realize he was speaking in Vulcan. Her eyes popped open and she looked up. His gaze was unfocused, distant, as he continued to whisper and her brain raced to keep up.

"Fear, terror," she translated silently. "Anguish, grief, ashamed."

She tightened her grip on his arms and gave him a tiny shake. "Kirk," she called.

He continued to mutter softly. Vulcan words of rage and grief, terror and sorrow.

"Jim!" She shook him harder and with a soft gasp, his focus returned to her.

"I didn't know you spoke Vulcan," she said.

"I… I don't." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger in response to the headache blooming there. "I… Spock…"

"Spock has been teaching you Vulcan?" She was more confused than ever.

"No. The Ambassador…" He paused, trying to remember who exactly knew about the elder Vulcan."

"The other Spock," she prodded. "He helped you get back to the Enterprise."

He nodded, relieved not to have to explain. "Have you ever heard of a mind meld?"

"Yes. Sometimes when we… Spock and I would…" Embarrassed, her voice trailed off. Some things were too intimate to share.

Kirk cleared his throat and in a voice he might have used during a debriefing, tonelessly filled her in on what had transpired between him and the elder Spock in the ice cave. He was unable to maintain his detachment and by the time he reached the end of his tale, Uhura was aware of a faint trembling in the arms beneath her hands.

"He saw his planet destroyed," Kirk whispered. "But he also heard them – billions of his people - crying out in fear as the planet collapsed around them." He shuddered. "He felt their collective terror and he blames himself for not getting there in time to save Romulus and in turn to save Vulcan."

"And you felt it as well… through the meld," she realized with dull horror.

His head dropped between his shoulders. His voice was tight with suppressed tears. "Until that day, I always thought that Vulcans didn't feel," he admitted. "But I learned the hard way - from both Spocks - that when a Vulcan loses control over their emotions, it can be a fearsome and soul-wrenching thing to behold." His hand lifted to brush over phantom bruises around his throat.

He lifted his gaze to hers. "I can't sleep," he repeated. "I close my eyes and I hear them crying out. I feel them dying. And I feel the Ambassador's pain and guilt and I know that I was too big of a coward to admit the truth."

"And what truth is that?"

"That if anyone should be blamed for the destruction of Vulcan, it should be me."

TBC