Let's see if their streak of misfortune holds up. Will there be a new hope at the last minute?
The day dwindled to a close with the same sobering conclusion as the last. They continued to haunt Spock for good measure, but nothing seemed to make an impression anymore and their motivation was lacking. They found themselves in his cabin that evening with the tinsel torn down, the baubles removed, the gold stars ignored. Spock's cabin had returned to its usual state in a few minutes, with the help of Jim and Leonard. The little gold stars had remained, but they alone would not make him realise what was going on any more than the soup had.
In the evening, he lay down on his bed to meditate. The disquieting events of the past days certainly were enough cause and he was resolved to purge the unsettling feelings from his conscious mind entirely.
As he lay there, Christine stepped to his bed. "Remember me, Spock. I told you to remember me," she whispered. "I'm not gone, I'm here. If only you could see."
Spock, of course, could neither see nor hear her and remained still.
She let her eyes travel over his resting form, his lean torso, the carefully steepled hands, his slanted eyebrows relaxed in meditation. One single strand of hair had fallen out of place, and Christine got the idea of reaching out to gently tuck it back behind his ear. But reaching out was beyond her possibilities now as the veil of death seemed to have taken her from the land of living despite her being quite alive.
"I'm alive," she whispered, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm alive, Spock."
Soft steps echoed behind her and Saavik stepped next to her.
"It is illogical to cry about a circumstance we cannot change," she said, not unfriendly, and joined the doctor in her study of Mr Spock.
At least it was her and not him. It had been painful enough for her to lose him once. If he had vanished, she doubted she would have seen such attempts as theirs for the cries for help that they were. No, as much as she had wished he would understand, she wouldn't have understood either, and Spock would have been dead to them, again. The result would have been catastrophic. The ties between Spock and his friends were too many and too strong. He was too intertwined in other people's lives, too precious. She, on the other hand, had no family, and not as many people would miss her as much. This was not self-deprecation; it was simple logic. She knew this strange collection of humans would miss her and Christine Chapel as well, but Spock was the very heart of their chosen family, whereas she was merely looking in.
"Are you alright, Saavik?" the doctor's voice interrupted her quiet reflection.
Saavik straightened up. "I am a Vulcan. I am in control of my emotions."
The doctor smiled. "You know, every time I heard Spock say something like that, he was anything but in control."
Christine gingerly touched Saavik's arm with her bandaged hand, slowly enough that she could have drawn away. But she didn't.
"What is it that's bothering you?" Christine Chapel asked. "You can trust me."
Saavik took a deep breath. "Trust," she said bitterly. She didn't take her eyes from Spock. He had known how big a word 'trust' was to her, what an achievement, and what a privilege. "On my homeworld, I never trusted anybody. I couldn't. Where I grew up, everyone was left to fend for themselves. Trust constituted a weakness."
"But that changed," the doctor said. "You were rescued, grew up in the Federation, joined Starfleet."
Saavik nodded. "I have grown accustomed to the presence of other people in my life, used to being able to rely on them."
"That's not a bad thing, Saavik." Christine pressed the younger woman's arm, wishing that she would at least look at her.
"That may be," Saavik admitted. "It does, however, constitute a definite disadvantage now that their input is lacking."
She looked up to meet Doctor Chapel's eyes. To her shock, she was smiling. And Saavik could see that it was a smile of understanding. And, in the second moment of shock, she realised that she did trust Christine Chapel.
"I miss them, too, Saavik," she said. "You see, I cry not only despite it being illogical to cry about something we can't change, but I also cry because of it. Because we can't change it. And I wish Spock were here with us. He'd think of something to get us out of this mess. He would save us."
Saavik didn't find it in her to do more than nod. She would never wish this situation upon Spock, but he did have a singular ability to get out of all kinds of difficulties and save other people from fatal peril. Yes, the decision to follow him around, and haunt him had not been merely a question of logical deliberation, it had also been a question of faith. It had, in the end, been a leap of faith. And it had failed.
When Spock went to bed a short time later, they went to bed as well, under his desk. It was the night before Christmas and all through the ship, not a creature seemed to be stirring apart from the two. They sat next to each other without much to say, listening to the ambient sounds of the ship and the sound of calm breathing coming from Spock. Christine tried to imagine his face when he should discover they were alive, and the faces of all their friends at the bitterly desired reunion.
The chronometer changed to midnight.
Christine turned to the woman leaning against the wall next to her. "Merry Christmas, Saavik. It's been a pleasure, getting to know you. You're a good friend."
Saavik, who had been very quiet since their conversation at Spock's bedside remained monosyllabic. "Friends?"
"Yes, friends," Christine murmured. "Is that okay?"
After a moment of consideration, Saavik nodded. "I would like to be your friend."
For some time, they returned to a shared silence, and it was Saavik who broke it. "I do not comprehend this fixation on Christmas."
Christine Chapel considered her answer carefully. "Well, it's not only Christmas. As far as I know, there are at least fourteen different human holidays being celebrated between the end of November and the end of January. And there's a couple of non-human ones as well." She smiled sadly as she remembered past Christmases she had spent on Earth and the Enterprise. "You see, I celebrate Christmas but many crewmembers celebrate something else or don't celebrate at all."
"Why do you still celebrate it?" Saavik questioned her. "Surely the custom is slightly out of date by now?"
"Maybe," she said and shrugged. "But the values persist, and we have to hold on to those if they are worth being preserved."
In a painful imitation of Spock, her compatriot tilted her head. "What is the value of Christmas?"
"Oh, I'm sure the answer is subjective. To me, kindness and goodwill, happiness, sharing."
Saavik frowned. "Shouldn't goodwill and kindness be a permanent endeavour?"
"Oh, absolutely! It's more of a reminder in that sense. It doesn't mean those values are important only during the holidays, but we commemorate them on those days." Christine laughed softly at Saavik's curious gaze. "I suppose it is not very logical."
"Indeed, it is not," the young Vulcan answered. She met the doctor's gaze and, ever so slightly, turned up the corners of her mouth. "Merry Christmas, Christine."
They sat next to each other for a long while, in silent and resigned companionship. Only half-awake, Christine noticed at some point that Saavik had dozed off with her head on her shoulder.
"Oh, Saavik," she whispered and leaned her head on the younger woman's curly crown. "You can trust me. And I promise you, I'll stay with you, even if we have to spend all eternity as tachyon ghosts."
It struck her how young Saavik was and how vulnerable she looked. Her lips were slightly parted and she was frowning in her sleep. It was either the natural grace and elegance that many Vulcans seemed to possess or Saavik's maturity that made one forget how young she really was. Christine had not dared to ask earlier what exactly the circumstances on Saavik's homeworld had been, but even so, she had a pretty good idea. She knew from something either Spock or Kirk had said days ago that Saavik was half Vulcan, half Romulan, and had grown up on neither of those worlds but on a planet bordering the Romulan Neutral Zone. And that was all she needed to know to be sure Saavik's early years had been a constant struggle, perhaps for survival.
She didn't remember, later, when she had fallen asleep during that silent night, her head resting on Saavik's, two fates intertwined in an unexpected turn of events, the beginning of a friendship forged in the quiet hours of Christmas Eve.
The early morning found them trotting after Spock as he joined the others in the observation lounge to exchange gifts.
When Spock entered, the others were already there. It was a short get-together, squeezed in before their shifts.
Spock had little understanding of these quaint holiday rituals. Still, he partook, not all too grudgingly. He had even agreed to play the piano on the recreation deck this evening, an unofficial gathering for anyone wishing to mingle. Why this had to include him of all people, he did not know.
But even if he did not fully understand, it could not be said that he didn't make an effort. Leonard McCoy, for example, got a cosy sweater with the Yosemite National Park sights printed on it.
"You're a strange one, Mr Grinch," the doctor remarked fondly as he unwrapped the light-blue garment. "You criticise joyful festivities, and yet do your best to do it right. Thanks, Spock."
Any other day, Spock might have protested. But he knew it had been meant kindly. And it was Christmas, after all; it meant something to his human shipmates to be less quick to quarrel.
His friends appeared to have made an effort as well, and when he left the forward lounge, he was carrying a small pile of gifts back to his quarters. There was a bottle of Tennessee Whiskey from McCoy so that he could pour himself one when he came to visit, and massage oil, bath salts, and bath bombs. From Mr Scott, he had gotten a woollen tartan blanket, sheet music for his lyre from Uhura, books from Chekov and Sulu, and tickets for a concert on Starbase 12 from Jim.
He had gotten more presents than there had been people today. Jim had handed him a carefully wrapped parcel that contained a collection of new incense and tea. Lieutenant Saavik must have had her presents beamed up along with her luggage before the accident.
Likewise, there was a present from Christine. It was a small oil painting, of the old Enterprise, already framed to be hung on the wall or placed on his desk.
These gifts had been regarded by all that were present with quiet remembrance of those who could not join them, those who had left them too soon, too sudden, and undeserved.
Uhura had expressed that she found it quite nice, to have these last presents of them, to have something significant to remember them by and that it seemed as if they were saying goodbye by leaving behind these gifts.
This was an utterly romanticised way to see it, but Spock had nodded as she had said it, if only to acknowledge her need for closure.
When he returned from his shift that day, he took a bath.
"Doctor's orders," McCoy had said earlier, adding that it would help against the stress.
Spock had insisted that he was not under stress and that he was feeling quite well.
McCoy had kindly reminded him that he had been the one doubting his fitness for duty a mere day before, and Spock had agreed to take a bath, if only to put a stop to the doctor's interference.
But in private, he had to admit that he continued to be bothered, as he reflected, not for the first time since the accident, on the strange way in which Saavik and Christine had vanished. Something about the situation irked him, and he could not pinpoint it. This, of course, was the most frustrating bit about it. But as neither meditation, nor a sickbay visit, nor continued vigilance, had led to any improvement, especially not since yesterday, he brushed it off as his human side interfering in his process of mourning. And for his human side, a bath might indeed prove soothing. So, he took a bath, trying out the doctor's gift.
While Spock was bathing, Saavik and Christine remained in the main room of his quarters, waiting listlessly. What exactly they were waiting for, they could not have said. On the surface, they were waiting for Spock to finish in the bathroom. But there was more to it than that. They had not made any plans for today. They had spent the day with their friends as they normally would have, quietly witnessing life go on without them.
Christine wasn't sure if she was imagining things when she thought they were mentioning them less already and were smiling more again. They were moving on. Slowly but surely, they would recover. They had to, it was the bane of human existence and their service.
In time, the physical reminders, too, would vanish, bar a few treasured artefacts. Perhaps the book she had given Spock would remain, perhaps the painting would stay as well, and her goodbye message. Leonard would keep one or two things, and Nyota would probably take that sweater she had always been slightly envious of, to the point that Christine had told her that she could have it if she tired off it or it didn't fit anymore. Nyota would smile sadly because she had never imagined that Christine would relinquish possession of it this way. But she would keep it, and it would remind her of her friend, at least for a while. As quickly as the Christmas decoration had vanished, she doubted Spock would keep much more than the book and the painting out of the physical reminders of her.
But there was something. Something out of place she had not noticed before, over his desk. It was a small brown paper package, tied up with string, labelled 'For Christine'. He must have put it there in the morning as he took the other presents out of their drawer, then left it here because the recipient had departed.
Saavik had noticed her look. "Your present," she said. "Do you know what it is?"
"No, I had no idea…" Christine shook her head and smiled at the bathroom door. "I am curious, though. Think I could open it?"
"It will perhaps make little difference. It is, after all, addressed to you."
Christine nodded, but she turned away from the gift, deciding not to open it. It was a silly notion, but the value of the present was less if Spock could not give it to her. As for her curiosity, she was sure the gift was thoughtful and that was all that mattered. Spock had thought to get her a Christmas present. That was enough.
He emerged from the bathroom with a cloud of steam following him. Mentally, Christine complimented Leonard's taste, as the smell of vervain wafted after him.
Having donned a fresh meditation robe, Spock crossed the room and reached up to take the undelivered present from the shelf, ignorant to someone jumping out of his way. He carried the present to the recycler, then thought otherwise, and stowed it away, incidentally with the record tape. Perhaps he could find some use for it still, even if the original recipient would never get it. Jim, or perhaps Commander Uhura would perhaps like it. He could still recycle it then if no one wanted to keep it.
Having sorted this out, he walked over to one of the low seats, grabbing Mr Scott's present from his desk on the way. He put the tartan blanket around his shoulders and sat down to meditate. Yesterday's session had helped to soothe his unnaturally ruffled thoughts, and he decided to continue on that path until all the illogical notions such as feeling haunted and being reminded of the deceased by inconsequential events had vanished.
Christine and Saavik continued to watch him. There wasn't much else they could do. The doctor took a step forward and reached out with her uninjured hand. The Vulcan's blanket had slipped from one shoulder and, more out of instinct than consideration, she grabbed it to pull it back up. At least she tried. Her fingers slipped through the edge of the fabric and she sighed heavily.
Saavik noticed her frustration and remained silent, standing some steps away. But when the doctor wrapped her arms tight around her own torso and shuddered, she crossed the distance and placed a hand on the other woman's arm.
Christine's look shot up, surprise at the unaccustomed touch quickly replaced by an affectionate smile.
"I just feel lonely all of a sudden," she said in answer to the Vulcan's gaze. "Everyone seems so far away. Untouchable, in more than one sense." She shook her head and drew a shaky breath. "Oh, you must think me silly, whining about how I can't touch people. I'm afraid I'm not reacting very logically."
"Humans seldom do," Saavik murmured. She kept her hand on the doctor's arm and held her gaze. "How is your injury?"
"Which one?" Christine asked with a chuckle. "Well, I assume you mean my hand. It's fine. Still hurts but it'll be fine."
Saavik nodded shortly, aware that the quality of the doctor's recovery depended on the quality of the medical attention she got, and that the latter was utterly lacking.
"Concentrate on the weight of my hand on your arm, Christine," she said calmly. "Concentrate on the warmth coming from it, and the sound of my voice." Doctor Chapel's breathing calmed down, and Saavik continued. "You are not alone. To feel this way is a natural human response to sensory and social deprivation. You have been very brave."
Christine nodded and took a deep breath. Saavik was right. She hated feeling powerless, though, to be forced to look on helplessly. But there was nothing to be done right now.
"How long?"
Saavik tilted her head.
"How long will we stay?" Christine asked. "When's the time to decide we won't be saved and it's better to go, to disembark at the next planet and leave them?" She pointed over to Spock, then got another idea. "If our bodies can take this state that long. Maybe we'll just drop dead one day, right here." She shrugged and laughed bitterly. "At least we'd become visible, then."
Saavik was not ignorant to the unspoken questions: 'What are we waiting for? When have we reached a point at which we're just waiting to die?'
"The time for giving up has not arrived yet," she told the doctor, managing to adopt something of a reassuring expression.
Christine smiled. "Optimism, Saavik?"
"Trust," Saavik answered. "One of Mr Spock's maxims was that there are always possibilities."
At the mention of Spock's name, they looked over at him just to notice that he had left his position. They had not watched him for some moments and he seemed to have finished his meditation and was now crouching by the door, examining something on the floor.
Spock had finished his meditation and, just as he was getting up, caught sight of a strange stain on his cabin floor. He had not noticed it before, but as the corner was not usually brightly illuminated and at least from the desk, the support strut was in his line of vision, it could have been there for a while already. Then again, it couldn't have been there very long because his cabin had been cleaned some days ago.
He crouched down to examine the stain, suspecting that he would have to add just another inexplicable occurrence to the growing list. Then he noticed what it was. It was a stain of blood. Red blood.
He jumped up and hurried over to the intercom, the candles flickering in the breeze.
"Spock to McCoy. Please come to my quarters immediately and bring equipment to collect a blood sample for lab analysis."
He closed the frequency before the doctor could answer and walked back to the stain. He kneeled down next to it, narrowing his eyes at the small but unmistakable proof of someone, someone who wasn't him, having shed blood in his cabin. This could be it, the proof he needed to find out who had thrown his cabin, and probably sickbay into disarray.
"Spock! What the devil happened?" McCoy rushed in, panting, carrying the ordered equipment, along with a medkit, and dropped immediately to the Vulcan's side. "Are you injured? I can't see what's wrong, talk to me." He was running his medical scanner over Spock, frantically looking for the reason for his agitation and why he was crouching on the floor. "Are you in pain? Can you stand up?"
Spock held up a hand. "Doctor. I am uninjured."
"What is it then? Why the fuss?" McCoy glared at him, just regaining his breath. "Why did you tell me to bring this equipment?"
Spock pointed at the floor.
McCoy frowned. "It's a stain."
"It is a stain of blood," Spock said. "Human. I want you to take it to the lab and see whom on board it matches."
"Alright." McCoy set to work collecting a sample. "Why? There's more to this. What do you intend to find out?"
"The cause of at least some of the recent events. I suspect the blood is from the person who broke in to decorate."
"Huh. Okay, then. I'll need a while." McCoy pulled himself up from the floor with Spock's help. "I'll come back when I have something."
"Saavik!" Christine whispered when Leonard had left. She had been tugging on the other woman's sleeve for a while now. "Saavik. That blood is my blood. It must be from when I ran into the door. If Leonard examines it for a match…"
Next to her, Saavik's eyebrow shot up. "The Chapel factor."
"Just not how I expected." Christine grinned at her, and at the still oblivious Spock when they stepped out of his way as he walked to his desk. "There might be hope for us, yet."
Saavik nodded. There might be a way out of this, now, even if she had not expected this turn of events. There were always possibilities.
When McCoy had tested the blood sample for a match and taken a look at the result, he did a double-take and repeated the examination. The result was the same. He sighed into the emptiness of the lab and stood up, stretching his aching back. However little help this might be, he'd promised Spock he'd be back.
When he returned to the Vulcan's quarters, he was immediately called in. Apparently, its occupant was eagerly awaiting the results. What he didn't know, of course, was that two more people were waiting for him, awaiting the results even more eagerly than the resident Vulcan.
He was sitting at his desk and McCoy approached him slowly. "I'm sorry, Spock."
"What is it, Doctor?"
McCoy furrowed his brow. "I can't help you with your investigation," he grumbled. "I have the results and the blood is not from the intruder. It can't be."
"Did you get a match?"
Solemnly nodding, the doctor said, "I did. With Christine."
Spock stared back at him. "That's impossible."
"I double-checked. It's Christine's." Leonard sighed as this was apparently another day that had taken a turn he could have done without or a reminder he could have done without. "It must be from before she died."
To his shock, Spock suddenly turned pale. He shook his head. "Not possible." He swallowed hard. "There might be another option."
Leonard McCoy leaned over him with a scrutinizing look. "Spock, what are you hoping for?"
"Hope is illogical." Spock met his eyes for the first time since he'd come back. "But I know my cabin's cleaning schedule."
He knew that to the doctor, he sounded mad. He sounded mad even to himself, which was an entirely unsettling feeling. But an inkling of an idea had occurred to him. An idea that was so outrageous that he didn't dare believe it yet.
"What do you mean, Spock?" McCoy prodded. "You're not making sense."
Spock sighed softly and leaned back in his chair and ventured to explain, his mad hypothesis making more sense to himself with every word. "As you know, I have noticed some strange occurrences. Around myself and about the ship in general. I even suspected that my human nature was playing tricks on me, distracting me and letting me be reminded of Lieutenant Saavik and Doctor Chapel by at least some of these curious events." He paused for a moment and pursed his lips. "If the occurrences have anything to do with the bloodstain, we might know who's behind them…"
McCoy frowned perplexedly, staring down at him. "Good God, man, have you lost your mind?"
"Not at all," Spock answered calmly. "I may have just regained it." He met the doctor's still shocked look and added, "You see, all signs point to them. What if they caused all of them?"
McCoy shook his head. "Are you sure you're not confusing causation with correlation? Those things probably don't have anything to do with each other." He bit his lip thinking about his next words. "Look, Spock, I'm sorry for being so hard on you earlier. I value your optimism but we have to accept that both Saavik and Christine are dead."
"No," Spock said, suddenly decisive. Having recovered from the first shock of his idea, he refused to dismiss it now. Not when it made so much sense. "It is simple logic, Doctor." McCoy was still staring at him with a half worried, half exasperated look. Spock continued. "The human bloodstain has been there since after the two of them were lost. This has to be the case because my cabin was cleaned on the morning of the 22nd December. At that time, Lieutenant Saavik and Doctor Chapel were still on Starbase 12." He paused to make sure the doctor was still following him. "They should not have had a chance to be in my cabin because they are, as you said, dead. But at least Christine has to have been here since then because we found a drop of her blood."
McCoy was still frowning but his expression had changed from shock to cautious optimism. "And Lieutenant Saavik?"
Spock pursed his lips. "We have to assume...hope...that she is with her."
McCoy nodded slowly. Then, the frown vanished. He didn't yet understand all of what had happened. But Spock did, and that was enough, enough to choose to believe him. He grinned suddenly. "So, they're alive?"
Spock's lips tilted upwards. "Not as you or I am, and I do not know how or why. But, yes. They are alive."
Christine grabbed Saavik's arm in celebratory glee. Saavik smiled carefully back, ever so slightly. They were by no means rescued yet, but there was hope.
When Spock called an emergency meeting of the senior officers, they followed McCoy and him out of the room.
Here we are, at least their friends know they are alive! Will they find out what happened to Christine and Saavik, and will they be able to rescue them?