Pain
Before, she believes she knows what pain is.
She has been injured; she has lost pets. She has parted from a boy she thought her 'one true love'.
She has mourned, and wallowed in her misery.
She lost a grandparent; then, suddenly, a friend. She thought then that her pain was the only pain there was – the most real, the most intense that there has ever been. She thought that no one could ever suffer as she did.
Before, she believes she knows what pain is.
She believes she's lived it.
After, she finds out how very wrong she has been. She has loved in loss, in grief, in pain. But pain is even worse – infinitely worse, she discovers - when you aren't the one feeling it.
Spock says nothing, and she can see him thinking through the pain, walking through the pain, breathing through it – living.
He says nothing; and she wonders whether that means the pain is less – or more.
She wonders whether that makes the pain less, or more. Even thinking about his pain is almost too painful to bear; and she finds herself weeping, when he so clearly will not.
She reaches for him, touches him - and sees the slow blink before his eyes slide away. She curses his culture for denying him tools to deal with this in a way she can understand.
He reports to the Bridge, and sits still, a moment, before raising his hands to work. She praises his culture for giving him the tools he needs to breathe - and go on breathing.
Spock lives - and she contemplates what he needs, in his pain… But in her heart, she knows.
The one thing he really needs is everything: It's the very thing he's lost.