Chapter 14: Tradition
Disclaimer: Not much belongs to me, alas.
She takes a long time to choose his gift.
It has to be neutral—with no untoward overtones. Nor too expensive—that would also be suggestive of a relationship more than professor and aide.
Practical, certainly. Do Vulcans own things that have no practical value?
Even his decorative asenoi is prized for its functionality as much as for its aesthetics.
Something to eat, perhaps, that he can enjoy during one of their increasingly frequent lunches.
Or tea? They drink plenty.
But something about food or drink feels…impermanent. She wants to give him something he will have. Will keep.
Although it isn't expected, Nyota also plans to give Professor Artura a small gift at the winter party the language faculty hosts before the break each year. In a funny way, she feels close to the quirky blue-skinned Andorian professor who often joins them for a mug of hot herbal tea—or when she makes it on rare occasions, coffee so thick that it coats a spoon.
The professor's habit of gently needling Spock with sly innuendos and hints about hidden emotions is paradoxically annoying and endearing—at least to Nyota. Spock, she suspects, is simply annoyed.
The gift for Professor Artura is easy—a tin of Cuban coffee bought in a specialty shop in Sausalito, a jaunt Spock had taken her on one afternoon when she complained that she was tired of filching cafeteria tea bags to stock the break room.
But Spock's gift—she considers asking Gaila for suggestions, but that, too, freights the relationship with unwarranted importance. It's just a simple gift. Nothing more.
Still, she considers it for several days before waking one morning from a restless sleep suddenly knowing what she will give him. A good thing, too. The party is today.
Instead of sitting in the cafeteria, Nyota grabs a bagel and a to-go cup of coffee and walks the ten minutes to the ceramics shop on Kober Street where Spock bought his asenoi. There she finds what she is looking for—a tea mug matching his firepot in color and texture. Even its fat off-center shape reminds her of the asenoi.
When Spock drinks from it, it may remind him of their earlier trip to the shop. Or at the very least, he may recognize that she is paying homage to the asenoi and the importance of meditation in his life.
Slipping the wrapped mug into her backpack, Nyota threads her way back down the crowded sidewalks to the Academy gate. Since the demonstrations last week before Spock's lecture, the Earth United protesters have been quiet—at least in San Francisco. Several were arrested during the bar fight that landed Jim Kirk in the brig—possibly cooling their enthusiasm for stirring up trouble. If so, then Nyota owes a debt of gratitude to Jim.
They called me an Orion whore. That's when he hit them.
Gaila's words—the pain in her voice so raw that even now Nyota can recall it with clarity.
I already owe Jim Kirk a debt of gratitude, she thinks. She may have to reconsider her refusal to join his Kobayashi Maru team.
Already the campus looks less populated. Although the semester isn't over until next week, many of the classes have wrapped up and students who live within easy travel distance have left for the break. Just last night Nyota's mother asked her when to expect her—and Nyota had parried, begging off making a commitment until she finishes her last major project for Admiral Spaulding's xenolinguistics class.
And there's Gaila. As far as Nyota knows, Gaila never goes back to Orion during the school year. The expense is prohibitive—and Gaila doesn't seem particularly attached to any family there.
Nyota hates the thought of leaving her roommate alone for the holidays. On the other hand, taking Gaila home with her for any length of time is out of the question. The last time they tried a long visit—
Nyota gives a little shake of her head. Sometimes she is amazed that she and Gaila have managed to stay roommates for three years—but they have, despite the mess, the different temperaments, the varied interests…
She should have asked Gaila to stop in for the language department party. Of course, calling it a party is a bit of a stretch. Someone—Professor Artura's aide, perhaps—has strung blinking blue lights in the break room, giving it a garish but cheerful glow. Everyone is expected to bring a dish of food safe for everyone else—or at least with the ingredients clearly labeled.
"I suppose that means we will have to forgo the hot cocoa and the chocolate cake," Professor Artura had said waggishly the other day as Nyota and Spock sat at one of the little round tables finishing their tea. "Unless we can trust you not to partake, Commander."
"What was that about?" Nyota said when the professor shuffled back out toward his office.
But Spock had simply raised one eyebrow in what Nyota has come to recognize as his long-suffering tolerance for Professor Artura's teasing.
The party—the gathering—isn't until lunch, so Nyota drops off her backpack in Spock's office and unlocks the lab down the hall. She doesn't expect many students—if the truth is known, she hopes few show up. Spock is meeting his computer science class this morning and won't be here until the party starts. If Nyota can get a few hours of uninterrupted computer time, she can finish up her own project.
When the fourth student arrives within the first ten minutes, Nyota resigns herself to getting none of her own work done today. Apparently everyone is in the same boat, rushing to finish major projects or cram for exams. She closes up her files and reminds herself that she is being paid to be helpful.
She is so busy that she barely registers Spock's return two hours later when he stands briefly in the doorway, nodding when they make eye contact.
For another hour she manages the lab traffic and trouble-shoots a glitchy program that keeps shutting down without warning. Once she thinks she may have to call Spock for help, but with a sudden leap of insight she knows where the problem lies—and sure enough, when she looks at the code, she's right. In a few minutes she is able to reroute the program so that it no longer closes down.
By the time the lab hours end, she's almost tired from standing and walking and rushing around—almost, but not quite. Invigorated is a better word.
And hungry. The smells wafting from the break room are like a magnet. She's tempted to slip inside right away, but instead she dips her head into Spock's office.
"Are you ready?"
She almost never catches him unawares, but today she does. His back is to the door and she sees him jump visibly when she speaks. So much for that famed Vulcan hearing.
As he turns toward her she has the distinct feeling that he is pulling inward, as if he is hiding something.
And then she sees that he is.
In his left hand he holds a book. Although it is wrapped and he slides it into his jacket pocket, she has no doubt that it is the same book she fetched from the post office several weeks ago, the one from Vulcan. The size is the same, and the shape is right.
It must be for her.
He ordered her a book. From Vulcan. Weeks ago.
She feels herself flush.
More likely than not it is some technical treatise on the nature of Romulan dialects, say, or a comparative study of the known languages of Beta Quadrant ruminoids.
No matter. It is a book—a rarity—a treasured throwback to a more leisurely time. Whatever the subject, holding it and fingering the individual pages will be a delight.
He could not have chosen anything she would like more.
The tea mug in her backpack suddenly feels….impersonal. Utilitarian. It isn't, of course. She took a long time to choose it—gave it lots of thought.
But it can't compare to the gift of a book.
She smiles and waits for him to pull it back out of his pocket.
"If you are," he says, and for a moment she is nonplussed. Then she smiles again. Later. After the party. When they can exchange gifts without Professor Artura making some veiled comment.
Spock leans over and for the first time she notices his lyre on the top of his desk. It is exactly as she remembers it—a deep wood so glossy that it is almost maroon in the light.
"Are you playing?" she asks, and he says, "Apparently so. I have been informed that music is essential for the festivities."
He picks the lyre up by the neck and holds it out towards her.
"As you are an accomplished musician in your own right, perhaps you would care to try it?"
He is looking at her as he speaks, his eyes dark, his face a mask.
"I thought you said—" she begins, but something in his face crumples a fraction, and his eyes shift, catching the light.
"Please," he says again, his tone almost….imploring. Or apologetic.
Tentatively she reaches out and lets her fingers curve around the elongated headstock. As he lets go, his fingertips brush her own—and to her surprise, she feels…nothing.
Not the electric tingle—not the flash of consciousness she thought she had felt that day her ankle had given way and he had caught her, his arm around his waist, his hand on her own.
Nothing now. She feels a wave of grief, as if she has lost something irreplaceable.
"Hold it thus," Spock says, miming what she should do. His hand touches her own again, bending her fingers around the circular tonal modulator.
Heat, and pressure, but nothing more.
She gives the modulator a whirl and is rewarded with an eerie burr of noise—not unpleasant, but not music. In spite of herself, she laughs.
"Use your other hand for the strings," Spock says, and Nyota lets her fingers drift across the twelve wrapped wires that extend from the soundboard up the neck. This time the lyre lets out a cascading trill.
"It's lovely!"
She tips her head up to meet his gaze and for a moment neither says anything.
"I hear music!" Dr. Carson says, poking his head into the office. Like the majority of the language faculty, Dr. Carson is human. Besides Spock and Professor Artura, only one other teacher is an off-worlder, a source of consternation for some of the advanced students, Nyota included, who want to learn the nuances of language that only a native speaker will know.
"How many Romulans do you know willing to teach at Starfleet Academy?" Spock had pointed out when she had complained last year during their first class together.
"Commander," she had said, shifting from one foot to another uneasily in the lecture hall one day after everyone had left, "I don't mean to impugn your ability—"
She noted his raised eyebrow at that—she was treading on dangerous ground and she knew it.
"But you would prefer that you learn Romulan from a native speaker," he finished for her, and she nodded.
"When you find a suitable candidate for this position," Spock said, "I will be happy to forward your recommendation to the dean. In the meantime, Cadet Uhura, you would do better to spend your time practicing the submissive diphthongs."
It was a dismissal—and at the time she was angry—but Gaila concurred with Spock when Nyota relayed the account to her later.
"The Commander might not be a native speaker," Gaila said, idly buffing her nails while Nyota huffed around the room, her arms crossed over her chest, "but he's the closest thing the Academy has to one. You can either pick his brain for all he knows and be grateful, or stop whining about it."
Good advice—Nyota is glad she has taken it.
"Here, Commander," she says, handing the lyre back to Spock. "I think everyone is waiting."
The party itself is something of an anti-climax. Professor Artura insists that Nyota try some delicacies from Andoria that look disturbingly like dried slugs. Her own contribution to the meal is a large pot of tea that she keeps replenished. For the hour that everyone mingles and eats, Spock sits to the side, near a corner, quietly strumming his lyre, sometimes emitting a progression of atonal riffs that remind Nyota of certain jazz musicians, and other times playing a series of stately, harmonic chords.
For a while the break room is crowded with professors and student aides, but then they begin to drift out, in twos and threes, until only the people with offices on the third floor are left.
"As always, the tea was delicious," Professor Artura says to Nyota, holding out his cup for more. "When you return from the break, you must show me how to make this variety."
"How long will you be gone?"
This from Spock, standing up from his place near the corner.
"A very good question," Nyota says, holding one hand over the lid of the teapot so she can let the last drop pour into Professor Artura's cup. "And one my mother would like to know the answer to. I guess it depends on when I finish up my project for Admiral Spaulding. I can't leave until then."
From the corner of her eye she sees Spock waiting for her at the doorway, and she gives Professor Artura a smile and follows Spock back to his office.
Almost reverently he places his lyre on his desktop—his glance lingering on it for a moment.
Before she can stop herself, Nyota hears herself say, "Did my fingerprints ruin it?"
His face is turned away but she hears him say softly, "No. Not at all."
Something in his tone—or more exactly—in his distance…in her inability to feel him—makes her heavy-hearted.
"Here," she says, her voice deliberately bright. "I brought you something."
Leaning over, she opens her backpack and pulls out the tea mug still swaddled from the ceramics shop. She holds her open hands together like a book, the mug cradled in her palms.
Spock steps closer and Nyota can hear his steady breathing. She looks up from her hands to his face, searching for that odd sensation that is missing tonight—the feeling of him reaching to her in some indefinable way.
Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifts the mug and pulls it free of the wrapping. Only then, when the mug sits flat in his own hand, does he look away—and she sees his lip quirk slightly in amusement.
"The ceramic shop," he says and Nyota nods and smiles.
"It matches your firepot, see? The same potter made them both."
Because she is still watching his face, she sees him narrow his gaze in concentration as he rotates the mug in his hand and runs the fingers of his other hand over its surface. For a few moments he says nothing, and then he looks up suddenly and says, "Thank you, Nyota."
The only other time he has ever called her by her given name was the night before J.C.'s memorial, when they had spoken here, in this office, as Spock was planning his eulogy. His voicing her name was a tender moment she has ruminated on.
Hearing her name now—with his Vulcan inflection of the vowels—makes her conscious again of their distance today. For a moment she searches his face—but he gives her a steady look that seems to offer no subtext, no hidden meanings. Except—
He's lying.
The thought comes completely unbidden, a surprise. She almost blurts out in wonder but instead gives him a harder look, taking a step closer as she does, watching his eyes widen as she tips her chin up and says, "My turn."
She lifts her hand, palm up, in front of her, adding, "My gift. I saw you looking at it earlier. Don't try to hide it."
Spock blinks, saying, "Your gift?"
"In your pocket. The book. The one from Vulcan. I know it is there."
Before she can stop herself, she stretches out her hand toward his jacket. She feels him—more than sees him—brace himself—and she drops her hand.
The stillness in the room is astonishing. If he is breathing—if she herself is—she cannot tell.
And then in slow motion she sees his long, careful fingers rise and slide into his jacket pocket, easing the book out slowly, not dislodging the thin paper it is wrapped in. In slower motion he holds it out and she is careful not to brush his fingers as she takes it.
The paper comes away with a twitch. The cover is made from a deep purple silk, slubbed and iridescent. Rubbing her hand over it, she sighs.
"It's lovely," she says, glancing up. She shifts her attention immediately back to the book, opening it tenderly, smoothing her hand over the inside jacket decorated with rococo Vulcan script.
Squinting at the title page, she sounds out the only words she can: T'Quir, Kohlar.
"Someone's name?"
"The authors," Spock says. "The poets."
At once Nyota is delighted.
"Vulcan poetry! I didn't know Vulcans wrote poetry."
In the hitch of his breathing Nyota can tell that Spock is considering how to phrase what he says next—and she tears her eyes away from the pages of the book and looks at his face.
What she sees startles her—even gives her a frisson of alarm. He is distressed—not seriously, perhaps, but enough to let it register in his furrowed brow, in his eyes that have gone darkly opaque.
"What's wrong—" she begins, but he says, "I…it is not contemporary…poetry…but from the pre-Enlightenment period. You might…find it…interesting."
There it is again, the sense that he is being deceptive. She considers questioning him further but holds back. Something is making him uncomfortable. She takes a step away, granting him more space.
Her motion seems to waken something inside him and he says, briskly, almost brusquely, "Thank you for the mug. It was well chosen."
And without another word, he steps around her, picks up his lyre from the top of the desk, and leaves the office. Astonished, she stands and listens as his footsteps echo and fade down the hall and then down the steps, stands and listens until she hears the distant sound of the door to the front of the building open and shut.
For several more minutes she stands in the center of the office, unsure what just happened.
With a sigh, she turns off the office lights and locks up behind her.
Stop expecting him to act like a human.
But the rest of the afternoon she is troubled by a vague uneasiness, running the few minutes in Spock's office through her memory, mining it for details, searching for clues. Was he upset that she asked for the book that was clearly meant for her—did she breach some unspoken Vulcan protocol about gift giving? Or had she said anything inappropriate?
Perhaps she should call to make sure he is alright?
She squelches that impulse fiercely. Obviously he wanted to be alone.
Or, more precisely, not with her.
Sitting with her back to the headboard of her bed and pulling the duvet up around her legs, she settles and picks up the book. Did she even thank him for it? She pauses, considering. Now that she thinks about it, she doesn't think she did. After all the trouble he went to—and she didn't thank him…no wonder he was irritated.
She is at once abashed at herself and relieved to have discovered the source of his odd behavior. On the bedside table she sees her comm. Thanking him right this instant will set things right.
With her left hand she reaches for her comm; with her right she holds the book, letting it open to a random page.
Her eye drifts over the ornate calligraphy of the text as she scrolls to Spock's number on her comm screen.
I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams.
She sucks in a little intake of breath and holds her thumb still.
This is Vulcan poetry? Erotic, passionate…revelatory?
She feels her face flush.
Surely not all—
Setting her comm beside her on the bed, she flips through the book, catching a phrase here and sorting a line there.
And all of it is as deeply emotional as the first page she opened to.
I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams.
When she holds the book spine down, it opens every time to this page.
Lifting it up to the light, she sees a miniscule crease along the edge, and there, even more telling, in one corner, a smudge.
No, not a smudge. A fingerprint.
Her heart hammers in her ears and she presses her hand against her throat.
With a quick motion she puts the comm back on her bedside table. If she calls him now, she will say the wrong thing.
She looks down at the page of poetry again, her eye drawn to the telltale print.
Tomorrow. They will have to speak tomorrow.
The electricity between them—the sense of his seeking her out, of watching her—how he is so careful with her, so contained—is the poetry a way to say what he cannot say?
More likely than not, this whole thing means nothing at all—stop expecting him to act like a human.
A gift of erotic poetry from a human might not mean anything, either.
Or it could speak volumes.
What it says when a Vulcan gives it—
What she thinks she knows about Vulcans may be completely wrong—may be leading her even now to a conclusion that in the morning may be laughable.
How could you think the poetry might be a message, she may tell herself after a good night's sleep, over a prosaic breakfast stripped of any romantic notions. Stop expecting him to be human, she will remind herself as she finds him in the office later and smiles, saying, "You'll never guess what wild imaginings I had last night, sir, because of that little book."
And he will quirk his lip and signal his bemusement, saying something like, "Indeed? I apologize if I confused you—"
And that will be that. They will pick back up, professor and aide, as if nothing symbolic were offered or taken, as if the book is nothing more than a stitched together set of leaves with indecipherable markings on them, read by people who are caught in a vortex of feelings they can't control in their waking or their dreaming, people teetering on the precipice of love and desire, people not like them.
X X X X X X X
As a rule, Vulcans give few gifts.
The ones they do give usually meet some perceived need and are part of tradition and ritual. A meditation robe, for instance, when a child reaches the Age of Accountability. A year later, a personal asenoi.
Supplying simple needs such as food and clothing, technology for educational improvement and intellectual stimulation—none of these reach the status of gifts. They are expected and necessary, and as such, are given without comment.
Humans, on the other hand, give gifts frequently, and with little provocation.
"I found this in town for you," Spock's mother might say one day when he came home from school, some new data chip or a slice of desert fruit from a far part of Vulcan waiting for him beside his usual snack on the kitchen table, a mug of steaming tea sitting ready.
"It brings her pleasure to do so," Sarek explained later when Spock asked him about her habit of giving him gifts. "As does your appreciation," he added, and Spock realized he was being coached.
In fact, what he knows about gifts and gift giving are lessons taught by his father, an irony not lost on Spock.
"In diplomacy," Sarek said one evening after their meal as he and Spock sat on the back veranda watching Eridani set behind the hills, "gifts are a prelude to all that will happen. Opening an official visit with a well considered gift can lead to success in negotiations."
"That's how I won your father," Amanda said, stepping outside with a pitcher of water and leaning over to refill their glasses before setting it down on the table between them. "I opened my campaign by buying him lunch at a terrific little restaurant near the embassy. After that, he was putty in my hands."
Spock darted a glance first at his mother, who was grinning broadly, and then at his father, whose expression did not change but whose posture-leaning a fraction closer to Amanda and looking up at her—signaled his willingness to be teased.
"So you admit that the meal was a stratagem on your part?" Sarek said, and Amanda laughed one of her sudden trilling crescendos that sometimes embarrassed Spock when he was a child.
"I'm going back inside," she said, "before I give away any more state secrets."
His father's gaze followed his mother as she retreated.
"It is good to hear your mother laughing again," Sarek said quietly, and Spock knew he was remembering the miscarriage that had thrown his mother into a whirlpool of despair. Only now, months after he had gone to Seattle to stay with his cousins while his mother recovered, does Spock sleep though the night uninterrupted—the memory of seeing his mother in a pool of blood, his father directing him to call the medics, finally compartmentalized where it no longer shakes him awake.
A few weeks later Sarek took Spock into Shi'Kahr to shop for Amanda's birthday gift, and they spent much of their time together talking about the reasons for it.
"Why do humans celebrate the anniversary of their birth with gifts?" Spock asked, not a little annoyed that he was spending the afternoon walking through the market instead of exploring a dry creek bed near his house. Two days ago he had stumbled upon it with his new handheld scanner. The lifesign indicator had suggested the presence of burrowing insects but a preliminary search hadn't revealed any. He wanted to go back and look again.
"The origins of the tradition is lost in antiquity," Sarek said, leading the way into a shop that sold hand-woven cloth. "It is sufficient that the tradition exists for us to honor it. And—" he said, looking squarely into Spock's face, "your mother sees the gift as a symbol of your regard for her."
That was puzzling, and Spock started to say so, but just then the owner of the shop came up and his father's attention was diverted.
Leaving the shop empty-handed, they made their way a few minutes later to a market stall that sold data chips and scanner disks. Sarek browsed them quickly while Spock looked idly through a bin of old-fashioned books, most of them worn and dusty tomes written in a defunct dialect.
At the bottom of the bin, however, was a book unlike the rest, with a dark green baize cover and yellowing pages. When he opened to the fly page he saw a script he did not recognize—and a small printed image of a man—a human—holding what appeared to be a helmet in one hand and an axe in the other.
Sensing his father at his shoulder, Spock lifted the book up for his inspection. Sarek took it from him and turned it over first, then opened it again and leafed through it.
"What is it?" Spock asked, and Sarek handed it back to him.
"An adventure story, from Earth," he said.
Pointing to the title page, Spock said, "The language—"
"Is Greek," Sarek said. "The story is ancient, about the difficulties that a man encounters while returning from war."
Spock had never been drawn to speculative fiction, but something about the book was fascinating. Its age, perhaps, or the idea of a world where war was a recent memory.
"Can you read it?"
"Your mother can, I believe," Sarek said, and Spock had an instant image of himself sitting with the book in his lap, parsing the words for meaning, untangling the story with help from his mother. A puzzle, really, like discovering where those burrowing insects were hiding in the dry creek bed.
"May I buy it?"
If Sarek was surprised by his request he did not show it. Without a word he handed it to the merchant to have it wrapped in protective paper before venturing back out into the rest of the market.
Spock carried his prize in both hands, impatient to get home and look at it in more detail. He drifted behind his father in and out of several more stores until they finally headed back to the family flitter. Not until they were almost home did Spock realize with a start that he had not bought his mother a gift.
There was no time to consider what to do. As soon as they pulled up next to the house, Amanda greeted them at the door.
"Happy birthday," Sarek said, lifting a thick-trunked Terran cactus in a decorative pot from the storage compartment of the flitter.
His heart hammering in his side, Spock watched his mother's face flush with enjoyment as she inspected the plant.
"Oh, Sarek," she said, smiling up at him, "it's beautiful! And my Aunt Maria had one just like it in Tucson. It will remind me of her."
"I am glad," Sarek said. Then he turned to Spock, motioning him forward. "And your son has a gift as well."
Spock struggled mightily to keep the shock from his face. The book. His book. For a moment he imagined himself explaining to his father that he was mistaken, that the book was not a gift for his mother at all.
But his imagination faltered, and he handed the wrapped book to his mother.
"What's this?"
It was, Spock knew, what she called a rhetorical question—not something she really wanted answered. He stood silently as she pulled the book free of the wrapping.
"The Odyssey?"
"It…."
He cast about for something to say.
"It...reminded me of you."
There. Technically true. And his father's cactus had been deemed acceptable because it reminded his mother of her favorite aunt. Perhaps that was the goal in giving birthday gifts? Calling someone to mind?
To his astonishment, his mother's eyes watered and she reached out and tugged him into her arms. From her embrace he looked up at his father, silently asking for clarification.
Over their bond Spock felt his father's curiosity.
"Reminded you of your mother? Because the book is from Earth?"
But before Spock could reply, his mother released him and put both her hands on his shoulders, snuffling loudly and saying, "Because he knows, Sarek. Because he understands how homesick I feel sometimes. Like Odysseus—so far from home."
Another wave of astonishment—and then over the bond he shared with his parents, Spock felt his father's soothing presence, telling him to be still, moving past him to comfort Amanda.
"Humans," Sarek said to him later in private, "assign meaning to gifts, whether you intend that meaning or not."
"But Mother assumed I understood her feelings—"
"She understood something more," Sarek said, raising his hand to stop Spock from speaking. "She understood that you selected the gift with her pleasure in mind. That you put her desires before your own."
"But I…didn't."
There. His confession sounded raw and incredibly selfish. He didn't dare look his father in the face.
For a few moments neither spoke, and then Sarek said, "Be that as it may, knowing what you know now, do you see that the symbolism your mother reads into your gift makes it worthy? That it brings her pleasure to feel understood this way?"
Was his father condoning his near lie when he let his mother believe the gift was for her? Or that it represented something about her own life—something he was only now beginning to comprehend?
Apparently so. Spock nodded and felt a weight rise from his shoulders.
Another birthday gift a few years later got him into equal trouble, this time with his cousin Chris.
On the morning of his 13th birthday, Spock found a small package at his place at the kitchen table when he sat down to breakfast.
"A gift?"
"Happy birthday," Amanda said from across the table where she was nursing a cup of Terran coffee—something she did on rare occasions. "Your father went to a lot of trouble to get one for you."
Over the past few years Spock had learned to navigate the bond with his parents at will—almost as if he were a traveler, able to set up road blocks when he needed privacy and respecting the alleys his parents lived down, not venturing too close unless they beckoned to him. This morning he sent out a tentacle of surprise to his father, already at work in the city, and was reassured that the gift was freely given—and that although it did, in fact, incur a great deal of effort on Sarek's part, his father had not minded.
Feeling his mother watching him, Spock opened the box and looked at something he had longed for—he was not ashamed to admit it to himself.
Inside the box was a Starfleet scanner, a handheld tricorder that was capable of analyzing biological and geologic samples with a single pass. The data storage was tremendous—Spock flipped the scanner over and opened the back. The ports were right—with a little tweaking, he could set up telemetry access and tap into the computers of passing starships—or if he was diligent, he could figure out the code to most Federation outpost data banks and set up a subspace connection—
His mind was racing. The models of scanners available to civilians didn't even compare—his father must have used his contacts at the embassy—
He likes it, he felt his mother say, and the warmth of his father's satisfaction flooded him.
When Spock began packing for the annual winter trip to Earth to visit with Amanda's family, he made sure to put the scanner in his duffel. Chris, he knew, would be interested in it, and he was eager to show him some of the scans he had taken of the more exotic flora in the piedmont west of Shi'Kahr, a region both boys had discussed camping in as soon as Chris could finagle a trip to Vulcan.
Because Sarek was leaving soon for an extended diplomatic trip to Altair 12, the family's yearly trip was moved up a month—still cold and wet in Seattle, Spock noted wryly as they disembarked the shuttle.
In some ways, an earlier visit was easier. Rather than centering around various mysterious religious holidays, the family gatherings were more casual and less stressed—dinner at Cecilia's, usually, the children still in school during the day and Spock free to wander in the woods behind the Thomassons' house.
Which would have been far more informative if Chris hadn't confiscated Spock's scanner the first day.
In retrospect, Spock understood what happened, but at the time he was mystified. There he was, unpacking his duffel in the attic room reserved for him, all three of his cousins talking and moving and touching his stuff as he set it down—and then Chris let out a whoop and held up the scanner.
"You got it!" he said. "I don't know how you did it, but you got it. I've been reading about them, too—but just the declassified stuff. Have you tied it into the Vulcan Science Academy library? Have you gotten the telemetry set up?"
And for the next two hours Chris talked of nothing else, resting the scanner in his hand when he wasn't honing in on something to analyze.
By that evening Chris and Spock had established a connection to the Starfleet library and were busy downloading technical manuals when Chris' mother Cecilia called them to dinner.
"Hurry up!" she said. "We have a surprise!"
The surprise was a birthday cake, already lit with two candles.
"Since your birthdays are so close to each other," Cecilia said, "we thought we'd celebrate together."
Judging from Chris' face, he was as startled as Spock was.
"But my birthday isn't until next week," Chris said, and Spock added, "And mine was two weeks ago."
Cecelia threw her hands up in the air.
"Good grief!" she said. "Don't be so literal minded!"
"Any excuse for a party," Spock's youngest cousin Rachel piped up, sticking her finger in the frosting and hooking a taste.
The cake was far too sweet for Spock, though he took an obligatory nibble. His father, always the diplomat, ate more—and his mother finished her own piece and the part his father left on his plate.
"Now," Cecilia said, waving her fork at Chris and Spock, "I've let you eat dessert first as a tribute to your special day. Any other special requests?"
Spock was unsure what she was asking, so he said nothing. Special requests? He eyed Chris closely to see what he would do.
"Only one," Chris said, holding up Spock's scanner. "I want one of these."
"Try again," Cecilia said. "There's no way I can ever get you something like that."
Chris laughed and said, "No, really. I'm not kidding. This has everything. You can do a scan down to the molecular level on just about anything. Or you can broaden the matrix and map out stars as far as—"
"She's not joking," Chris' sister Anna said, her face pinched suddenly in what Spock had learned was her serious, concerned look. He noticed a reaction from Chris—some indefinable flutter in his motions, his eyes darting to his sister and back to the scanner in his hand. A shadow passed over his features and then cleared, like a cloud scudding past the sun.
"I know that," he said, looking directly at Anna. "I was just…fooling around. Here, Spock," he said, shoving the scanner into Spock's palm.
Some aftershock—like a ripple in a pond—continued between the Thomassons for a moment. And then Rachel declared, "We could have another birthday cake on your real birthday. That's my special request," and the tension around the table dissipated.
Later that night after everyone had dispersed to their separate rooms, Spock picked up the scanner and carried it with him to Chris' room down the hall.
He stood for a moment outside the door, listening, and hearing soft music and sounds that indicated that Chris was not sleeping, he tapped softly.
In a moment the door swung open and Chris said, "Am I keeping you awake?"
He was, in fact, keeping Spock awake—or at least, thinking about Chris' longing for the scanner—his palpable desire for it—was keeping Spock from being able to rest easily.
A gift, his father had told him, should show the receiver that you put his desires before your own. Should symbolize, if possible, the regard one felt for the recipient. And according to Vulcan tradition, should meet some need—and should be associated with a ritual.
"I can get another," Spock said, holding out the scanner.
Chris' eyes widened as he looked from the scanner to Spock's face.
"No, I couldn't," Chris said, swallowing. "It's worth too much—"
To his shame, Spock felt a wave of relief. The scanner was, truly, irreplaceable. Saying that he could get another was a lie—or at least, a wishful fiction.
He glanced down at the scanner on his palm and let his gaze drift to the jagged scar on his thumb.
Reaching for Chris' hand, he turned it palm up, placing the scanner in it. An electric buzz zipped between their fingers and Chris laughed.
"Are you sure you want me to have it?"
"Yes," Spock said, and he was surprised to realize that he was, in fact, sure.
The rest of the visit was far less eventful, except for the uncomfortable moment when Amanda saw him wandering around in the backyard too aimlessly to suit her.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Spock replied, leaning over to inspect an unusually large beetle that was carrying a leaf on its back. Briefly he considered capturing the beetle so he could scan it when Chris got home from school this afternoon—but the beetle looked so intent, so purposeful in its motions that stopping it seemed illogical.
"Where's your scanner?" Amanda asked, and Spock jumped. How had she noticed? No matter. His mother was forever surprising him with what she did and did not remark on.
"I…lost it."
Not quite the truth, not quite a lie.
Spock wasn't sure how his mother would respond to his having given the scanner to Chris. Would it diminish the pleasure she had received in giving it to him?
She was angry that the scanner was missing—he could feel it through their bond—but she said nothing. Later he overheard her saying to Sarek, "If he can't take care of his things—" and his father coming to his defense.
"That does not seem characteristic of Spock."
Not until they got back home and his mother was unpacking their luggage did the topic of the scanner come up again.
"I thought you said you lost it!" he heard her exclaim, and he wandered into the foyer and looked down at his mother, kneeling beside his unzipped duffel, the scanner in her hand.
He was so shocked that he couldn't think what to say. Obviously Chris had put it there, though Spock couldn't fathom why.
Late that night after his mother went to bed and Sarek sat up drinking tea and sorting through the mail, Spock confessed everything to him—how Chris had wanted the scanner so intensely that Spock had given it to him—and then had returned it without explanation.
Sarek sat quietly, listening, and then said, "Your cousin accepted your gift because he desired the object itself. Perhaps he learned that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting."
"Perhaps," Spock said, but something about his father's explanation did not feel right.
"You disagree?"
"I am uncertain," Spock said hesitantly. "His…feelings…about the scanner did not change. He continued to enjoy it…"
"But his feelings about you outweighed his feelings for a mere object," Sarek finished. "Your happiness became more important to him than his own pleasure."
And suddenly he knew. Chris had given the scanner back for the same reason Spock had given it to him in the first place.
To show regard.
To bring the other pleasure.
To mark a ritual—and meet a need.
Much later as Spock lay in bed, he picked up his mother's copy of The Odyssey he had not so freely given her long ago, mouthing silently the rhythmic march of the Greek vocabulary, rubbing his thumb across the new stubble on his cheek, lulled by the sound of his father strumming the ka'athyra in the living area, his mother sleeping dreamlessly in the other room.
He felt a twinge of shame that he had regretted giving the book to his mother—just as he had let his appreciation for the scanner keep him from giving it to Chris without reservation.
"Sometimes," Sarek had said before Spock retired to his room, "we have to let go of something to calculate its value. Those are the gifts worth giving—and worth having. I am proud that you learned this lesson, Spock."
His father's praise was so unexpected that Spock was caught off guard, unable to reply.
In his imagination he has rewritten this scene many times, and in each one, he remembers to tell his father thank you.
X X X X X X X
He carries the book with him everywhere.
At first it is just to meals at the diner near his apartment—easier to slip into his pocket and pull out to read—a hedge against any unwanted intrusion while he eats—than the bulkier PADD.
But soon he takes it with him to the office, and even to the lecture hall, the slight pull on his pocket steadying him.
The poetry itself has become a tantric meditation—the words both erotic and mundane from repetition. At some level he hopes that they will soon become ordinary from rereading—and when they do, he will feel a measure of release.
The last computer science class of the semester affords him time to peruse the book—the seventeen students work without incident on their final exam, all of them finishing before the bell. Tucking the book into his pocket, Spock gathers up his materials and his ka'athyra and heads to the language lab where he hears Nyota's distinctive footsteps before he ever sees her.
For more than two minutes he stands in the doorway and watches her, unobserved. She is leaning over and talking quietly to a cadet sitting at a computer, her hair cascading over her back before dropping off the cliff of her shoulder.
As he often does, Spock imagines his fingers sliding along the filaments of her hair—
And just as often, he feels a flash of shame that his control is so poor.
At that moment she looks up and sees him in the doorway, her glance sending his hand to his pocket, touching the book like a talisman.
A hasty retreat to his office and the relative quiet there—and for 46.5 minutes he is productive, grading the computer science exams.
Distantly he is aware that the party participants are beginning to gather in the break room, their greetings to each other full of upbeat tones. He looks at the ka'athyra on his desk, glad that he can use it to discourage the inevitable chitchat that makes these gatherings such a chore.
Feeling his anxiety rising, he slides the book from his pocket and lets it fall open to a page.
I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams.
An image of Nyota in the lab, leaning forward, her hair in his fingers—
"Are you ready?"
He jumps at the sound of her voice. Fortunately his back is to the door; he lets his expression go neutral—and with it, he buttresses himself with his shields, corralling his emotions almost ruthlessly.
He cannot afford to slip. She must not see him slip.
In his left hand he still holds the book. He slides it back into its paper wrapping and into his jacket pocket.
Even if she saw it, she wouldn't know what was inside. He forces his heart to stop racing, and he turns around slowly.
Nyota is smiling.
"If you are," he says, and for a moment her smile fades, as if she senses how hard he must struggle to contain himself. Then she smiles again.
Spock leans over to pick up his ka'athyra and Nyota says, "Are you playing?"
"Apparently so. I have been informed that music is essential for the festivities."
Her eyes linger on the ka'athyra and he remembers the first time she asked to hold it. He had hurt her feelings then—not that she had said anything, but her face had fallen and her voice had been short. Here is a chance to offer her a small apology.
He picks the lyre up by the neck and holds it out towards her.
"As you are an accomplished musician in your own right, perhaps you would care to try it?"
He is looking at her as he speaks, but he is careful to keep his face from giving himself away.
"I thought you said—" she begins.
"Please," he says again, suddenly fearful that she will refuse.
Tentatively she reaches out and lets her fingers curve around the elongated headstock. As he lets go, his fingertips brush her own—and again he holds his shields firmly in place.
To his amazement, he feels her reaching out—not physically, but mentally—and he redoubles his efforts to stay focused.
"Hold it thus," Spock says, miming what she should do. His hand touches her own again, bending her fingers around the circular tonal modulator.
No electricity—no stray thoughts betraying him across a nebulous connection. His relief is tremendous.
She gives the modulator a whirl and laughs.
"Use your other hand for the strings," Spock says, and Nyota lets her fingers drift across the twelve wrapped wires that extend from the soundboard up the neck. This time the lyre lets out a cascading trill.
"It's lovely!"
She tips her head up to meet his gaze and for a moment neither says anything.
"I hear music!" Dr. Carson says, poking his head into the office.
"Here, Commander," Nyota says, handing the lyre back to Spock. "I think everyone is waiting."
From his corner of the room Spock watches the professors and their aides come and go, most staying long enough for conversation and a sampling of food. Nyota has given herself the job of brewing the tea—a seemingly never-ending task. From time to time she brings him a fresh cup, setting it on the table near his elbow, then stepping back into the busyness of the party, at ease with the shifting chaos in a way that makes him marvel.
The ka'athrya is an excellent prop, functioning like a book at dinner, keeping unwanted conversations at bay.
But as he plays, Spock is aware that the music itself is a comfort to him—that watching Nyota from across a crowded room is possible with the ka'athyra in his hands, the music echoing his longing, and assuaging it, too.
He wonders again why his father sent it to him.
Sometimes we have to let go of something to calculate its value.
T'Pring comes to mind—and his anger with her, diminished from meditation but not completely gone. In the calculus of gain and loss, is that relationship of value? Does he prize its worth?
He glances up and sees Nyota pouring tea for a student aide, her wrist graceful, her fingers tapered in a most aesthetically pleasing way—
As if she can sense his thoughts, she looks over at him and he feels himself respond, disturbingly, with an uncomfortable arousal.
He launches into a riff of frenetic chord progressions.
Eventually only the people with offices on the third floor are left in the break room, milling about.
"As always, the tea was delicious," Spock hears Professor Artura tell Nyota as he hold out his cup for more. "When you return from the break, you must show me how to make this variety."
"How long will you be gone?"
He had not known he would speak—had not thought beforehand about asking her anything about her holiday plans. Yet he does, before he can stop himself.
Another slip.
"A very good question," Nyota says, holding one hand over the lid of the teapot so she can let the last drop pour into Professor Artura's cup. "And one my mother would like to know the answer to. I guess it depends on when I finish up my project for Admiral Spaulding. I can't leave until then."
As a preemptive strike against any of Professor Artura's witticisms, Spock heads to his office.
Setting the ka'athyra on his desktop, he slows his breathing and listens as Nyota follows, her footsteps stopping right behind him.
"Did my fingerprints ruin it?"
The ka'athyra. Sorrow that he hurt her once before…
"No. Not at all."
He feels himself about to fall, about to give in to his impulse to gather her in his arms and press her close. No one would know, would see…letting his shields buckle like sand under the pounding of a wave…
"Here," she says. "I brought you something."
He hears her rummaging in her backpack and he turns to see her holding a package in her hands.
He steps closer, not sure what he will do, trying to measure his breaths, slow his heart. Once again he senses her searching for him—and with a jolt he pulls himself from the brink.
How can he be so selfish?
He can offer her nothing but censure and pain.
Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifts the mug and pulls it free of the wrapping. Only then, when the mug sits flat in his own hand, does he look away.
"The ceramic shop," he says and Nyota nods and smiles.
"It matches your firepot, see? The same potter made them both."
The mug is a wonder—both smooth and rough, oddly misshapen in the same pleasing fashion as his asenoi.
Her care in selecting it shakes him.
"Thank you, Nyota."
His words have a surprising effect on her. Giving him a hard look, she takes a step closer, tipping her chin up and saying, "My turn."
She lifts her hand, palm up, in front of her, adding, "My gift. I saw you looking at it earlier. Don't try to hide it."
Spock blinks, saying, "Your gift?"
Her gift has caught him off guard—and he has nothing for her.
"In your pocket. The book. The one from Vulcan. I know it is there."
To his horror he immediately understands—and he sees her reaching toward him. If she touches him, he is certain he will lose himself—
But she pulls away at the last minute.
He can hardly breathe.
Giving her the book would be reckless, foolhardy. He has to think of an alternative, an excuse.
Without looking away, he feels himself, like a sleepwalker, pulling the book from his pocket and holding it out to her.
She unwraps it with a single motion. As she runs her hand over the cover, she sighs.
The familiar, miserable arousal floods him.
"It's lovely," she says, glancing up.
Squinting at the title page, she sounds out the only words she can: T'Quir, Kohlar.
"Someone's name?"
"The authors," Spock says, glad for a chance to gather his thoughts. "The poets."
"Vulcan poetry! I didn't know Vulcans wrote poetry."
For a moment he panics, worried that she will read it out loud. Now that the book has become a gift, it is transformed from a private musing to something more…symbolic.
What if she is offended by it? Or worse, if she considers it an invitation?
"What's wrong—" she begins, but he says, "I…it is not contemporary…poetry…but from the pre-Enlightenment period. You might…find it…interesting."
His dodge is transparent, even to him. If he had any sense at all, he would take the book back, apologize for the confusion. Before he can, she starts to move away, and he beats back his dismay by saying, "Thank you for the mug. It was well chosen."
And without another word, he steps around her, picks up his ka'athrya from the top of the desk, and leaves the office.
If he doesn't get away—
He cranes his hearing backward as he makes his way down the three flights of stairs, both relieved and disappointed that she doesn't try to follow him.
The late afternoon air is cold—something that he usually finds mildly irritating, but today welcomes. He walks so quickly that his lungs soon burn, and that, too, is welcome.
The situation with Nyota is becoming intolerable—he really ought to tell her before the break that she needs to find another position for the second semester. She will be upset, naturally, and may take his dismissal as a referendum on her abilities.
He will have to be careful not to let her think that he is in any way displeased with her performance—that he is dissatisfied with her work.
But even as he runs this scenario in his imagination, he knows he will not follow through.
Her presence in his life, as confined as it is, as limited in its expression, is the best part of who he is.
No wonder that he has been unable to exorcise her with meditation, with exercise, with poetry. Even his anger at T'Pring feels anemic when compared to the intensity of his emotions for Nyota.
K'diwa.
He's never called anyone k'diwa before. Has never been tempted to. And still has not, not really. A slip of the tongue does not count as a declaration of emotion.
Even if it is.
A gift should show the recipient your regard.
He squirms, thinking of Nyota reading the poetry, his fantasies laid bare.
If she asks, he will have to lie.
Otherwise, he will be tempted to tell her that what she thinks she knows about him is all wrong, that he has come close to sacrificing their safety—thoughtlessly throwing their careers on a pyre, all because he cannot master the feelings that continue to betray him.
Time for a healer, perhaps, someone to bolster his resolve, or ease his obsessive thoughts.
By the time he gets to his apartment, he is actually short-winded and shaking with cold. He palms the temperature to its highest setting and strips, standing in a shower with water so hot that the automatic warning keeps signaling.
Warmed at last, he stops the water and dries off, slipping on sleeping clothes and swaddling himself in the duvet from his bed. Wearing it like a robe, he heads back to the living area, looking for a moment at the picture cube of himself and his mother, feeling a strange spasm of homesickness worthy of Odysseus, before settling himself on the couch, reaching for his father's ka'athyra.
With a flick of his wrist he dials the tonal modulator and adjusts it, but before he can let his fingers settle on the strings, he sees a mark on the headstock, a singular smudge darker than the maroon wood. Holding the ka'athyra up to the light, he inspects it—his own fingerprint, he is sure, like the ones on the soundboard—but no, this one is not his.
It is small and oval, and almost so fleeting that he hadn't noticed it at all.
For a long time he stares at it, lost.
Sometimes we have to let go of something to calculate its value.
This has to stop. He has to let go, to make her a gift of a future without complications.
With a deliberate motion he presses his own finger over Nyota's print. When he pulls his finger away he doesn't look for her mark. It is enough to know that it is gone.
A/N: One more chapter in this story! Thanks to everyone who has stayed with it through the twists and turns and experimental structure. I hope you enjoy it to the end!
Thanks, too, to StarTrekFanWriter, whose "Accidental Intruder" is also winding down. If you haven't found that fun ride yet, it is in my faves.