Jim came back weary but satisfied from the tree house where Peter was holed up. The boy wasn't ready yet to come into the house but they had shared a long talk and quite a few tears, too. It had seemed to help the boy to see that his strong, adult, starship-captain uncle was capable of breaking down over the loss of Peter's parents too. Jim had promised to come out again in a little while to check on him, but he was happy that he would be all right there for a while. He just needed time alone, time he had had precious little of since waking up in sick bay and being told of his parents' deaths.

He walked into the kitchen to see his mom sitting alone at the table, nursing a cup of coffee that looked as if it had gone cold.

'Where's Spock, mom?' he asked instantly, registering the absence in the room.

'He's upstairs having a rest. Meditating,' she said tiredly. She looked down at the surface of her coffee, jiggling the cup a little so that ripples set up across the surface. 'I know they say Vulcans don't feel emotion, but there's a man with a lot on his mind,' she said, almost as if to herself. 'He's quite – Well, I don't know how to define it with a Vulcan. I think he's got a whole sackful of troubles on his shoulders, Jimmy.'

'What happened, mom?' he asked, concerned now.

She laughed quietly, but it was a sad sound. 'He broke your father's mug for one thing. You know the old brown one he always had his coffee in.'

'Oh, mom, I'm sorry,' Jim said sadly. He could still remember seeing dad sitting in his chair with that mug between his hands, warming them after cold winter work outside. 'You know, he's not used to being blind. He's – well, he's a little clumsy sometimes. He's trying so hard... Too hard, I think.'

'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'I've got all the pieces and I'll take it to the restoration shop on Monday. They fix at the molecular level, you know, good as new. It's not the first time it's happened.'

'No, I know that,' Jim said guiltily, remembering an incident with a baseball that he should not have had in the house. Mom would insist on using the mug. Didn't want to make it into a museum piece, she said. Dad would never have wanted to be an exhibit.

'Anyway, he didn't knock it onto the floor,' she continued. 'He broke it with his bare hands.'

'Spock did?' Jim asked, amazed. 'Spock?'

She nodded, looking up at him. 'Vulcans are strong, aren't they? He was just holding it and – well – who am I to judge what's going on in his mind, but I suggested showing him around the house and he just seemed to deflate. Got very frustrated, I think. He just clenched his fists. I think he'd forgotten he was holding the mug – and it shattered. He said he needed to meditate and I took him up to your room, but – well, I don't know, Jim. It's an alien culture he's from and maybe meditation is exactly what he needs, but I can't help feeling what he really needs is someone to talk to.'

Jim felt torn horribly. He knew that his mom also probably needed someone to talk to, and he needed that just as much as she did. But Sam's death had happened over a week ago. Although he was still grieving the death itself was in the past, something he was trying to get over. Spock's problems were happening right now. He had been waiting for something like this, something to crack that monumental façade. Spock had been too composed since the first shock of what had happened had faded away. He had been right to expect the storm, he realised, and here it was, in full force. For someone like Spock, breaking a mug between his hands was tantamount to throwing a full on tantrum.

'Yeah, I'd better go to him,' he said. 'Pete's in the tree house still, mom. I told him we'd leave him alone for a little while. He's hurting quite badly, but I think he'll come round.'

'All right, I'll leave him there,' she nodded. 'You know, the boy could even sleep out there if he really wants to. Don't worry about me, Jim. Go to Spock. He needs you.'

Jim squeezed his hand gently on his mother's shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was almost entirely grey now. Somehow in his memory it was always brown.

He sighed and went up the creaking wooden stairs. Despite all of the trouble that was encircling him at the moment, it was good to be home, good to be in a place with fresh air and real wood, with stairs and wooden floorboards, glass windows looking onto the fresh green of wheat starting into life, and a blue sky scudded with clouds.

Spock could see none of that. He bit his lip into his mouth. How could he wrap his mind around the magnitude of that? Could it be that he hadn't quite realised it himself? Spock was utterly, utterly blind. He did not even have light to help him. He never would have, if McCoy was right; and there was no reason to believe he was wrong. How could Spock, bright, independent, ever-curious Spock, be cut off from so much, so swiftly and irrevocably?

He put his hand on his bedroom door. This was all so familiar to him that it pulled deep in his chest, making him wish he could be fifteen and without care. Then he pushed the door open and saw Spock there, curled on the bed on top of the bright patchwork quilt that Jim's great-grandmother had made. He was still clad in his charcoal grey jacket and black polo neck shirt, but the faded jeans he wore were slightly too short, and showed a small gap of flesh before the black of his socks.

'Spock,' Jim said softly. He could tell that his partner was not asleep, although one hand was resting over the side of his face so his eyes were obscured. 'Are you okay?'

'Quite fine, Jim,' Spock said, without moving.

Jim stood there for a moment, just looking at him. That bare patch of skin between jeans and sock made his heart flutter. Then he moved forward and sat down on the edge of the bed near Spock's head.

'Don't tell me fish stories, Spock,' he said, putting a hand on his partner's shoulder. He almost winced at the raw jolt of emotion that hit him through the touch. 'You and I both know that's not true.'

Spock sighed and straightened out on the bed, resting his hands at his sides. His face looked pale and drawn.

'I was attempting to meditate,' he said. His eyes were empty, apparently focussed on the ceiling but in reality seeing nothing.

'You may have been attempting to meditate before,' Jim said, 'but how often do you meditate curled up with your hand over your face?'

'I did not claim to be successful,' Spock countered.

'Spock,' Jim said in a soft, low voice.

He bent over so he could kiss the Vulcan on the forehead, the cheek, the lips. Spock turned his head away.

'Spock, I'm not trying to seduce you,' Jim said with a touch of impatience. 'I'm not that insensitive.' He took the Vulcan's hand, held it hard. 'Let me in, Spock. Please, let me in.'

He fell into a dark and sucking pit. The emotions clamoured at him, beating against him, confusing his thoughts and making them into wordless beasts. There was no way to turn, no way to fight. He gasped, fighting for breath, flailing out, but to no avail. Everything was hopeless. There was nothing he could do. He could not breathe –

Abruptly the enveloping horror cut off. He could see again. He was sitting on the bed again, gasping, pressing a hand against his abdomen, heaving in air and relishing the light. He pushed a hand over his face, feeling the slick of sweat. Spock sat up, reaching out for him, wrapping his arms about him and holding him, pressing his face against Jim's neck.

'I am sorry. I am so sorry, Jim,' he murmured, half muffled, and Jim felt his emotions again, muted this time, veiled behind layers and layers of control, but still there. Spock felt guilt, enormous and enveloping. He felt that he had assaulted Jim with his mind.

'It's all right, it's all right,' Jim repeated as if he were soothing a child. 'No, Spock, it's all right. I asked you to let me in. You didn't hurt me. You're hurting so badly, that's all.'

'So are you,' Spock said, almost in a whisper.

'That doesn't matter right now,' Jim said. 'No, it doesn't. Spock, mom told me you got frustrated and came upstairs. She told me about the coffee cup. I came up here for you, not for me.'

Spock stiffened, and Jim could feel him trying hard to pull back discipline and mind rules and eradicate the crushing emotion.

'You don't have to do that, Spock,' he said softly. 'You don't have to be strong in front of me.'

'I must be strong for myself,' Spock said in a voice which trembled with the effort of driving away the errant emotions.

'Talk to me, please,' Jim urged him. 'Before you shut it all away, talk to me. It doesn't always work, you know, locking these things up in a closet. One day the door bursts open.'

Spock drew in a shaking breath. 'I am full of self-doubt, Jim,' he said quietly. 'I doubt my ability to live in this way. I doubt my fitness for duty. I doubt – my relationship with you. I am no longer an equal. I am a dependant.'

Jim felt as if he had been punched in the chest. For a moment he imagined the bond pulling, dwindling, snapping and leaving him drifting with a hole ripped through his ribs.

'Spock,' he said, faltering. He strengthened his voice, and tried again. 'Spock, never, never think that you are a burden. Never think that I'd be better without you. Never think anything that puts you in a separate place from me. We are together, and we stay together. I love you. There's nothing more to it than that. I know those words, I love you, are hard for you to say. I don't expect to hear them, and I don't need to, because you show me through your actions and through your mind. But I can say them to you. I love you, and I will not leave you, no matter what.'

Spock exhaled, and an almost-smile touched his lips. He reached out, fumbling, and Jim took his hand, relieved that this time there was no fall into a vortex of emotion. Jim kissed him again, on the cheek and on the forehead, and then on the lips, and Spock returned the kiss, seeming to relax in gratitude at the loving touch.

'I will help you get through this,' Jim promised. 'I will do whatever it takes.'

'I know, Jim,' Spock said very quietly. He was silent for a moment, then asked, 'How is Peter?'

Jim shrugged. 'So-so. He's still out in the tree house. He had a good, proper cry – the first he's let me see. It's hard for him, all this change coming at once.'

'Of course,' Spock said, as if he entirely understood this reaction to catastrophic change.

'Spock, do you want to stay up here for a while, or do you feel up to a walk around?' Jim asked, anxious to get the Vulcan out of this room and distracted by other things. 'You haven't had the guided tour of the farm yet.'

'Some elements may be lost on me,' Spock said cynically, 'but there is nothing wrong with me physically, Jim, beyond the obvious. I will come for a walk.'

((O))

Outside the wind drifted lightly over the first silk of wheat in the fields, rustled the new leaves on the trees, pushed light clouds across the sky. It was so perfect it made Jim's chest hurt. The days of the past seemed to unfold for him, showing themselves in glimpses like pages being blown in the wind. There was where he had made a den with Sam and spent most of one summer, curled up out of sight with toys or books. There was the maize field where he had walked through rows of growing corn that were taller than his head, pretending to be in an alien jungle. There was the barn where he had taken Patsy Cunningham that time after school and he had got to second base before she had freaked out and run away.

He sighed, and Spock turned to him.

'Jim?' he asked.

They were walking arm in arm, like a couple, not a guide leading a blind man, and Spock appeared to be more content like that, although it was obvious to Jim that he was experiencing difficulty at times when they stepped onto uneven ground or the ground level changed suddenly.

'Oh, just memories, Spock,' Jim said with a smile. 'But hey, maybe we can make some new ones of our own.'

Spock allowed a subtle smile onto his face. 'Perhaps,' he said.

The open air seemed to be doing him good. Jim was not doing much by way of describing their surroundings, but both men were content just to walk along the field edges for their first time on a planet in a non-duty setting in months. The scent of the earth rose around them, and the more Jim concentrated on those things that Spock must be sensing the more he noticed. Grass releasing a bruised scent underfoot, the damp smell of a recent shower of rain, the distant sound of a dog barking, and closer, birds and insects so hidden in the trees that Jim could see them no better than Spock.

'I take it the funerals will be soon, according to your American customs,' Spock commented.

Those words jolted Jim back to reality.

'Yes, in a few days,' he said. 'It's already been a while and mom made a lot of the arrangements once she knew our ETA. I've told her to make it as easy on herself as she can. We'll get a caterer and have the gathering in a hall near the church. You know, I don't expect you to come, Spock. This is an entirely human thing.'

Spock stopped in mid-step. 'Jim, of course I will be there, unless you wish me to remain absent,' he said, sounding almost shocked.

Jim laughed, and the laugh almost turned into a sob. 'Hell, Spock, I never want you to be absent from me. Never at all. But I thought you might find the service illogical, and I'm sure a room full of grieving humans is going to be a strain on your shields.'

'I will be there,' Spock said firmly. 'I wish to stand at your side.'