*

21. Someone

*

It was the earliest moment that could be considered morning, and Spock was awake. He was not agitated, nor poorly organized. In fact, he had an atypically pleasant feeling, indefinable and without reason. He thought that, ironically, it must be the rain that was spattering against the windows. His strong dislike of rain was softening as he spent more time on Earth, but he was still surprised there was any aspect of the wetness and indignity that he actually enjoyed.

He had not counted on the sound.

The singular sound made by the solidity of the water, in units the perfect size as to effect a tapping, or if they coalesced and exceeded a size of 3 millimeters a deeper, wetter, slapping sound. Irregular, sometimes in gusts or tiny squalls, sometimes rhythmic. Hitting upon glass the droplets crashed and exploded. The secondary tones, coming from pudddles on the ground below, carried the resonance of agitated bubbles and tens of thousands of liquid collisions. He had not known the complex beauty of this range of sounds.

He listened at his window, where he stood on these nights when, frequently, he awoke in the dark and rose to simply be at home in his quarters. To feel at home in his body. That Human phrase, he had heard somewhere, was odd and yet apt. For nearly every hour of every day his body indeed felt like someone else's house. In the very early mornings, long before the day, when he was alone and quiet he could walk with less deliberation, allow his face to soften, let his hands be free.

He looked at one now. His hands always seemed very far from him, nearly luminescent in their paleness, their shapes oddly unfamiliar, fingers longer than seemed right. When he focused on them specifically, they almost seemed to be not his. They must belong to someone, he thought, and then laughed at himself in the half-light. Laughed at the many layers of humorous illogic and also at the freedom of thought.

He placed one palm against the window and watched the rain appear to fall on and over his fingers. It would be hours before light came.

*