Christine struggled to calm her trembling hand as she accepted the steaming cup of tea from T'Pring. The petite woman was even more exquisitely beautiful than she had been on that terrible day so many years ago, when she stood on the Bridge of the Enterprise and heard Spock say the seven words that had broken her heart.
"She is T'Pring. She is my wife."
Even after nearly three decades, the memory of standing on the bridge of the Enterprise and praying to every god of the universe to open the durasteel decking to open up beneath her and swallow her whole remained. Only seven words, but enough, enough to break her sprit-enough to crush her dreams.
.
She stole a furtive glance at her husband, attempting to gauge his reaction to seeing his former bondmate after so many years. But of course he was Vulcan-the whole point was not to show a reaction. She shifted her gaze to the silent man seated beside T'Pring. Christine lowered her eyes and kept them on the cup of bitter tea before her. She would not cause dishonor for Spock by gawking at T'Pring's husband. T'Pring, apparently had no similar concerns as her eyes seemed to blaze a hole right through T'Kirk.
"After the…incident, it became necessary to relinquish our family position on the Council and take leave of our home in ShiKahr. It had been our hope, after time had passed, to return there, but the elders did not see the wisdom of that hope. We made discreet overtures toward a number of families in the hopes of securing a bondmate for our son…but none proved fruitful."
The incident indeed-well Christine would give T'Pring one thing, the woman was the master of understatement. She had betrayed Spock by invoking the ancient challenge to the bonding so that she might marry the grim stone faced man seated beside her. That heartless duplicity had almost cost Jim Kirk his life and Spock his sanity. Now they were all sitting down to tea like long lost friends. It was just so very Vulcan.
"My son has withdrawn to the desert to await that which is to come."
"I grieve with thee, and with thy house." Spock bowed his head toward Stonn and T'Pring, as if by falling back on the traditional formalities he could ease the uncomfortable situation.
"We must find him, father," T'Kirk said as she sprung to her feet.
"This is a private matter," T'Pring said, fixing T'Kirk with the Vulcan version of a glare.
"My child, retake your seat," Spock said. It was the third time she had risen, and Christine could sense Spock's concern over their daughter's restive state through their bond. Was it possible, that even now Stovan's mind was calling to T'Kirk? How could that be, without a complete bonding, and their daughter not a full Vulcan? And yet, she, not a Vulcan at all, had felt Spock's call to her from much farther away.
"Is the tea not to your liking?"
Christine realized that T'Pring was addressing her. "It is fine, thank you."
"Yet you do not drink it?"
"My mother takes honey in her tea, as do I," T'Kirk said.
Spock's lips had barely parted to admonish her for her breach of Vulcan etiquette when T'Kirk rose again from her chair and walked purposefully into the kitchen. She opened the small cabinet near the chiller and took out an opalescent glass jar. She hesitated for a moment, and Christine saw T'Kirk remove something from the cabinet, which she secreted in the pocket of her robe.
Returning to the dining room, she placed the jar on the table before her mother, smiling graciously as though she was the hostess here, entertaining in her own home. "I believe, mother, that that you will find this to your liking."
Christine eyed the viscous substance with thinly veiled suspicion, but lifted the exquisite vessel and poured some into the nauseatingly bitter tea. She took a cautious sip of the now tepid beverage and was rewarded with a sweet almost citrus taste.
"You have a surprising familiarity with the domestic arrangements here," T'Pring said.
"Stovan was not much of a cook," T'Kirk said. "I did most of the shopping and cooking."
"My son took his meals at the shi'oren yokul-mahr-kel with his colleagues."
"He has not dined there in many months. We preferred to take our meals here," T'Kirk answered, her eyes cool and imperious.
"It is illogical that my son would prefer to take his meals with qomi…" the word escaped her perfectly painted lips before she could contain it.
"T'Pring." It was the first time the taciturn Stonn had spoken.
"We shall take our leave," Spock said. He rose from the table and touched Christine's arm.
"No offense is intended," T'Pring said, bowing her head slightly and adopting the formal Vulcan tone.
"I continue to find your bigotry most illogical, T'Pring. It is an affront to the IDIC. It is an affront to the teachings of Surek."
"I must appologize for my wife." Stonn rose from the table and cast a stern glance at T'Pring. "Her logic has been compromised by her regard for our son."
"The cause is sufficient," Spock responded, slipping back into the ritual. "Wife, daughter, attend."
Stonn walked them to the front door, then followed them out to the stone path.
"T'Kirk," Stonn began hesitantly. "My son spoke of you in his most recent communication to me. He held you in the very greatest regard, child. It is my belief that Stovan would wish for you to have this knowledge."
T'Kirk's eyes softened. "Thank you."
"One does not thank logic, child." Stonn stared off into the orange afternoon sky. "You were correct, Spock, the wanting was indeed more pleasing than the having… but Stovan… somehow he made the having pleasing."
He turned back toward them raising his right hand in the ancient Vulcan salute." Live long and prosper"
"Peace and long life, Stonn."
T'Kirk stole silently into Sarek's deserted study. She could still hear her parents and grandfather in the dining room discussing this most recent turn of events. It had been a day of mind-boggling revelations. During the ride back to the ShiKahr townhouse, T'Kirk had been able to piece together some of the facts gleaned from her parent's cryptic conversation.
Stovan's mother, T'Pring, had been her father's bondmate, the one who had chosen to break the bond using a centuries old, and rarely used tenet of Vulcan law requiring her bondmate to fight another to the death for the right to mate.
It seemed to T'Kirk an unthinkably barbaric tactic for one who claimed to hold to the Vulcan ways. Because of T'Pring's invocation of challenge, her father had been forced to fight his captain, a man who was like a brother to him, the man for whom she had been named. Somehow, her father had won the fight, but Uncle Jim, quite obviously, had lived. But rather than mate with the conniving little witch, her father had given her to Stonn, Stovan's father.
Stovan? Gone? No. She could not accept that. She reached into the pocket of her tunic and withdrew the tiny data chip she'd found in the cupboard in Stovan's quarters. She turned it over in her hand, looking at her name written on the casing in Stovan's tight, precise script. Carefully she popped it onto her grandfather's computer and the screen came alive with the image of Stovan's face.
"T'Kirk," he said, then bowed his head for a moment as if gathering his thoughts before continuing, "I hope that you are not experiencing excessive grief for me. It has been most pleasing for me to know you and experience your friendship. It is ironic, that in the last of my life, even as death was waiting most impatiently for me, I have felt more alive than at any other time in my life. The time that we have spent together has meant more to me than I would be able to express, so I will not attempt it.
"I know that I hurt you with the things I said. It was the only way that I knew to make you leave before I did something that would have hurt you far more. It is my last hope that you will find it within yourself to forgive me. I have gone to the desert to spare my family the dishonor of this madness, this curse that is the Vulcan legacy.
"I would ask you a favor, little one. Stop trying so hard to be Vulcan. Do not extinguish the sweet flame that burns within you. Marry a man who can be the husband to you that I could never be.
"Goodbye, my friend, I go to dance with the goddesses."
T'Kirk sobbed, touching her fingers to the face on the viewscreen. She heard the soft hiss of the study door opening and the soft footsteps that brought her mother to her side.
"Oh mother, how will I ever marry another man? How will I love any man but him?"
