Title: Wedding Vows

Author: Kerry

Email: mail@erinblackwell.com

Beta-Reader: Jenny (and a big thank you to Marla for her help with the discussion scene in the Saavik section.)

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Spock's, Saavik's, and T'Lar's points of view of the wedding ceremony in "Vulcan's Heart".

Notes: Ashau nash-veh tu means "I love you" and Buk means "Destiny" according to the Vulcan Language Institute site. Which is interesting since I didn't think Vulcans had a word for love.

Disclaimer: Star Trek is copyrighted by Paramount/Viacom. "Vulcan's Heart" belongs to Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz and copyrighted by Pocketbooks. "Just a Little Training Cruise" was written by A.C. Crispin.

Spock

The bright sunlight struck his eyes, making him squint hard and throw a hand in front of his face. The corridor might have been shadowy, but not compared to his and Saavik's room behind the blank white door at his back. Inside there, it was soothing darkness with only warm light from the firepot and recessed illumination. His eyes hadn't seen sunlight in days.

He was so aware of Saavik next to him, not noticing her straining to see in the glare or the exhaustion written on her face. Seeing instead the body lines hidden from view, the sable hair cascading past her shoulders, a silken lock tucked behind an ear reminding him of the graceful curve of a verren's shell, just as it had decades ago when her effect on him first made itself felt.

That was before he made himself stop thinking such things, believing the feelings they represented would never be returned or returned out of a sense of debt, possibly even endangering the friendship he made all efforts to keep with her. So odd to remember that lonely decision with her here, preparing to make the journey with him into marriage, her traditional silver gown shimmering in the sun until she appeared a mirage caused by the heat. So tempting to take her back to that dark room behind its bare white door and prove she was most solidly there with him, and not something that might disappear.

McCoy's voice breaking into this delicious thought was a blast of cold ice down his spine. "Spock, my friend, don't even think of trying to get your room deposit back!"

The suggestion meant nothing until his fevered brain brought back what McCoy had seen. Ah, yes, the damage. The smashed and overturned furniture… linens and bedding strewn about… no one ever said the early days of pon farr were a genteel thing, especially a pon farr as long denied as this one.

Saavik glanced at him now in a mixture of chiding and wickedness. He ignored that it was a reminder she had argued against letting McCoy into the room, claiming its state would make the man uncomfortable. All Spock saw in the playful eyes was a reminder that pon farr was not gone, only temporarily sated, leaving them enough sanity to attempt the wedding ceremony.

Enough sanity to calculate again such important things as how many steps it would take to snatch his mate back to their room -- even as they continued moving away from it, across the Medical Center's grounds with its courtyard and carefully raked sand garden, reaching the open bronzed gates…

McCoy clapped his hands loudly together, and rubbed them briskly with his eagerness. "Now then, time's awastin'! And we got a long and -- I point out – hot journey ahead of us."

… enough to calculate how swiftly he could render McCoy unconscious before snatching his mate away…

But then, that was why betrothed couples were always escorted to Koon-ut-kal-if-fee, especially once females began entering pon farr themselves. Escorts made sure couples showed up for the ceremony, and didn't run off to dark rooms and firepots and…

He needed to focus. Now that he could focus again.

That thought, strictly speaking, was inaccurate. Both Saavik and he had clear moments – brief though they were – in the past few days. One such moment led to the only time he saw her enraged over his decisions in Ki Baratan and their bed being overturned and…

I must focus. Especially as McCoy looked at them oddly and suddenly cleared his throat.

"Uh, look you two, I just wanted to say that I'm really happy for you both. I know what this day means, even if you've never said it, and I just—uh… I just – oh hell."

"Why, Doctor," Saavik drawled, "are you becoming sentimental?"

And McCoy, being McCoy, suddenly snapped, good humor gone. "You know what? Screw you both! I don't need this, standing here in this hotter than hell cooking pot you call a homeworld! But I'll just have you know one thing, Miss, before I leave! Do you know why I was on my way to this blazing planet to begin with? For your funeral! That's right! They thought you were a goner, and I headed out here on the first ship, or I never would have made it on time to see the Bride of Satan and her mate get hitched!"

Saavik spoke in honest surprise. "You would come to my funeral, Doctor?"

"Well of course I would come! I'm here, aren't I? How many goddamned years of me hanging around is going to take before you finally get it that—You know what? Forget it. I'm going. Good luck to you both, happy wedding, you deserve each other. Bon voyage to me."

Spock sprang after the retreating figure. He moved rapidly when he wanted to and Saavik was even faster. He clasped his old friend's right hand in his as he had once clasped Jim Kirk's after returning from melding with V'Ger. Saavik did the same on the opposite side, except she threaded her fingers into McCoy's. They stood there, the three of them, Spock pleased to see his bondmate so intensely respecting the doctor's friendship as he did.

McCoy gave something suspiciously close to a sniffle as he – reluctantly? – pulled his hands away. "All right, all right. It's hotter standing between the two of you than it must be on the sun. Besides, we have places to be." He coughed, attempting a laugh. "Anyway, Spock, getting in the way between you and the wife – or wife-to-be, whatever you prefer – probably isn't the best idea, is it?"

Saavik locked eyes again with her betrothed, and Spock saw that impish glimmer again. He rejoiced in how she shared such things with him and how quickly he read her silent signals.

She laid her hand on McCoy's shoulder and took a step closer, speaking in deep tones to Spock, "He is in between us, my husband."

McCoy's eyes grew wide, startled, and he slapped her hand away. "Dammit, Saavik, get off! Do you want him to kill me?"

Spock appropriately narrowed his eyes. "Doctor..."

"What? Wait a minute… All right, moment's over. Ha ha, you had your fun." He moved a few paces away before turning back, smiling quietly. "I love you both, you know."

They knew, and the deep regard was very much mutual.

Spock found when he concentrated, he was able to do more than just leave that room behind…

… and think of Saavik and the gleam in her eye, a gleam she had given him when she found he had been jealous of Dralath and the voice she had used with him. Of Dralath, Spock? Of Dralath! She had drawn closer, whispering in his ear so her breath stroked him. I think we have learned something necessary to our marriage. If we want something, simply ask for it. If you want me to use that same voice on you

The point was, he sternly reminded himself, he found he now clearly saw his surroundings and was aware of the impact of McCoy's words. "In that same vein, Doctor, take this next gesture in the way it is meant." He indicated the vehicle pulling up. "Use the groundcar."

"Did you think I would argue? Hardly!" The elderly doctor started slipping into the cooled interior and just as rapidly popped back out, the speed with which he did it belying his usual complaints about his aging knees. "Hold it a minute, you two are following, right? People are waiting for you, Spock, and my job is to get you there. Don't make me hose you two down--"

"We are following, Doctor." He pointed towards Sarek and the others in the wedding party who were en route to them. "Someone else is now taking over your job."

"All right then." McCoy clapped Spock on the arm and quickly kissed Saavik's cheek. The sudden gesture made her flush a pale bronze green. "Ha! Got you to blush. Took me thirty years since the last time. I am having a good day." He winked, managing to make it fit his serious parting words. "And I am happy for you two."

The car whisked him away just as Sarek and the others whisked them quite firmly towards their waiting guests. Spock noticed someone always kept between he and Saavik. To his amazement, he no longer resented it. The impatience of the Fires eased into the delight of anticipation. They would be alone together soon enough, this time with the chance to savor and explore each other instead of simply surrendering to their keenly hurried mating drives. They had just started to enjoy each other since the last break of sanity -- when their wedding date was set.

He tried to remember today's date, but his time sense, so long disrupted, failed to provide what day it was. He should have asked McCoy.

He also discovered he anticipated the ceremony before them. It was the last step towards making Saavik his. His. Their bonding pulsed with life like an individual heartbeat, thriving so heartily from their days of being joined mind, heart, and body. He found another thought even more heady. He would be hers; this amazing woman chose him. Would choose him when the moment came in the ceremony where she either accepted him or named a challenger. He resented the jealousy the Time of Mating brought. It robbed him of his usual confidence of his place in her life. She felt no such uncertainty; save for the one question she had asked him, that one argument that led to their bed being flipped over and…

Focus! he reprimanded himself. They were in public after all.

T'Selis was instructing Saavik on what was expected of her, and a problem arose over the order of 'properly keeping your eyes downcast'. The fiercely independent Saavik gave the directive and its giver a scathing glance, and Spock thought the whole wedding would be delayed indefinitely until she told him mockingly, "It is for ceremony only, Spock. Do not grow used to it."

"I would not want to," he replied, one eyebrow raised.

A divan chair approached carrying a shrouded figure. Not McCoy to be sure, even though the doctor must have traveled the last part of the journey in this manner, tradition forbidding modern vehicles on the ancient lands. No, T'Lar was arriving and to confirm it, the official attendants shook their systra, the banners made up of rows of tiny bells, announcing to the waiting guests that the wedding party was about to make its entrance.

Saavik unexpectedly glanced at him at the thought of being parted—

Parted and never parted.

--even for such a short period as this when they were one being – heart, body, mind, he echoed -- during their pon farr. The attendants stepped between them, indicating it was time to go, and Sarek stared at him significantly. He walked backwards hesitantly, eyes fixed to hers…

...Saavik… He thought he heard her mind whisper his name back through the bond.

…Avrách'laba… he called her self-name.

She mouthed his in return, and he watched in fascination as her lips parted to form the syllables.

He drew his shoulders back. Only one way to keep the time apart as short as possible. He continued backing up until he reached the perimeter of the first semi-circle of dark, weathered rock, then swung around purposefully, striding across the plateau gazing at no one as he passed into the second semi-circle. He went straight for the center pillar and powerfully struck the ritual, jadeite gong. Its deep resonance spread like a wave, the vibrations passing through him and out across his ancestral lands… The ancestral lands held by his family for millennia.

All of a sudden, the gong, the primeval stone circles, and the ritual became more than a way to summon Saavik back to his side as swiftly as possible. Suddenly, he sensed all the men in his family who had stood in this same spot on this same land, striking a gong just like this one for the same reason.

This is the Vulcan heart, this is the Vulcan soul.

T'Pau's past words to James Kirk. Put aside the modern cut to his deep-red robes, his logic, and the centuries of civilization, and see instead the jewels marking his ancient House, the primordial instinct rising in his soul and heart passed to him from all the ones who came before. Sarek once stood here and waited for Amanda. His grandfather, Skon, had stood where Spock's feet were now, the gong's reverberations passing through him and out on the land just as his father, Solkar, had stood and waited for his wife. Spock's mind went rapidly through the names, his clarity recalling each one to the very first who won this land in PreReform times. He was tied to them, those men who had signaled to their heart's mate Come to me…

As it was in the beginning…

The words T'Lar would say and he finally understood their significance. From across the millennia to him, the men of his family called through the bloodline. How fortunate he had these past days to satiate the pon farr so this moment was not lost to its fever, so he may feel the moment for what it was.

The systra signaled that the bridal party approached. First T'Lar, then his father, and Spock looked at Sarek in a new light and thought something in the return gaze showed his father realized the same moment. Or perhaps he just remembered when he had stood in Spock's place and Amanda was the heart's mate the gong sounded for.

Then T'Selis followed by Frances Stewart of the Enterprise-C, women to whom he owed Saavik's life and therefore his own. But now he was impatient, caught in his moment, having given his call and waited for its response. Atavistic, yes. This was a day that acknowledged and celebrated the atavistic, the recurrence and reversion to the ancient ways.

At last, Saavik entered, remembering to keep her eyes down, but only briefly as she cast them up unerringly into his again and never broke away. He saw her part in this as she took her place in the long line of people who answered the gong's call and dedicated their lives to the continuance of his House.

Someday, my Saavik, it will be our child standing here, in this same exact spot. A son who will wait for his mate, or a daughter who will come to her choice.

The bells sounded once more before being stilled, but the shrill cry of a hunting shavokh sounded far above their heads, another resonance heard from past to present. It pleased him.

The moment came when Saavik might demand a challenge, and his heightened senses imagined hearing McCoy's anxious intake of breath. He almost smiled because Saavik's eyes only beckoned as the deep timbre of the gong had: Come to me. Finally he was allowed to, meeting her in front of T'Lar. Peripherally, he saw McCoy relax, and tied to images of the past as he was, Spock almost glimpsed a man in an old style Starfleet tunic of command gold and captain's braids standing next to the doctor. For that matter, he almost glimpsed a petite human woman with bright, sapphire eyes next to his father. Illogical thoughts. He didn't care. He was as intensely thankful for the idea of the other images as he was for the ritual that froze he and Saavik in a moment as T'Lar began.

Saavik… Avrách'laba… lover… friend…

He waited, keeping the last word for later, when he was able to call her it fully.

T'Lar's words bathed them. He paid them enough heed to know what was expected of him, to enjoy his new awareness of why they were said and how they had been said through the years. The rest of his attention belonged to the woman before him who never once took her eyes off of him.

He admired her. The strong intellect that always challenged him, ruthlessly logical as he first thought it and always meant as a compliment. The boundless energy harnessed to her determination to see what she wanted herself to be and then stride forward until she reached her goals. The complex levels of personality kept behind walls of privacy that surpassed his own, but kept open for him. One foot planted in the stars and the other willingly rooted to Vulcan. And so very beautiful.

This vibrant woman was committing herself to him.

T'Lar's words called him back. Time to kneel before the Vulcan elder as she touched their temples and waited as they raised their hands and touched each other as well.

At that exact moment, lightning and thunder flashed from Mount Seleya, giving his fanciful mind the idea that it mimicked the power of his bond to Saavik. He was thoroughly satisfied with the day.

At this point came the cup ritual, only T'Lar was signaling wait to T'Selis and speaking to him instead. "We always had a plan for thee. Thee shall fulfill it."

Later he would be surprised. Now, it felt right, linked as it was to his feeling his place in time. Buk, he thought. The Vulcan word for destiny…

T'Lar spoke to Saavik, proclaiming her guardian and Spock suddenly quailed, losing the tie to antiquity, for Saavik was more than capable of sacrificing herself for him. He did not want her taking on the danger of his battles. Refuse! he pleaded, but she was lost inside herself, even as she stared into him.

T'Lar passed him the plain, earthenware cup, and the sense of ritual returned even as he kept the feeling of the present and what Saavik gave as she vowed to bind her life to his. She chose him. He offered her the cup with its water, the greatest symbol of life to a desert people. She took it, sipped, eyes sparkling as the water did. They shared the stimulating feeling of minds already joined, the anticipation of more to come, of being each others as they made this commitment.

A memory struck of something he once heard: he rotated the cup until he drank from the same spot as her, his lips were hers had been, the only physical joining they had for the moment, and the banked, inner spark threatened to leap to life.

T'Lar's words brushed over them like a cool breeze across the Forge. "Thee will need that deep a bond."

That deep a bond? He had no doubt they did.

"Now recite thy vows."

Most certainly.

"Parted and never parted," he spoke, his voice deep and low. Nothing kept him from Saavik, not anymore. Not the lightyears of space, not the people who caused rifts, tearing at their relationship no matter what it may be at the time; not the fear of rejection or losing what precious bit they had to go further. They fought all that, slowly, at times pushed to do so, until they were ready to be here.

"Never and always touching and touched," Saavik said, husky. Their bond pulsed, alive and thriving. Amazing how it was so much more than it had been, when it had been so much already.

T'Lar gestured for them to rise. "Thee are wed, Spock, son of Sarek, son of Skon, son of Solkar, and Saavik, Vulcan's Daughter."

Excellent. The elder emphasized not Saavik's krenath status, but what she achieved with her place here, her link to all of Vulcan, the best of what it was and meant.

The ceremony's end also ended his mood and he found he had been surreally, and uniquely, barely sane. He did not care. The long observance done meant he was fully sound and Saavik with him. And at last he called her that last word: wife, wholly joined by words and deeds.

His wife!

He was thoroughly pleased with the day.

He watched as she turned away from the sight of Ruanek and T'Selis, and calmly returned her teasing about the obvious chemistry between the exiled Romulan and the Vulcan healer. Suddenly all sanity, the one he just enjoyed and the one that carried him inimitably through the wedding fled. The Fires claimed them both.

Sarek made their escape, stopping only for that one simple message before setting them free. And then, they were alone, walking hand in hand like all lovers, gazing at the beauty of a sunset over a desert, marking this moment as other sunsets over deserts marked other moments in their lives.

He held her and they spoke their vows again. Then she settled against his chest, her head finding the spot she discovered she enjoyed most, the one particular curve under his chin along the side of his neck. She sighed and it teased his collarbone, her open mind spilling her utter contentment into his senses.

They savored the delicious thrill of anticipation, of the Fires slowly building but not so high they couldn't just be here, together. His arms settled around her waist and she laid hers on top. No words, just thought and feeling and the wonderful expectation of more.

His hand brushed down from the curve of her jaw, around the side of her breast making her inhale with pleasure and settled on her abdomen for a moment, before dancing down hip, thigh, and knee, the farthest he could reach. The weight and warmth of her made him feel complete as she stretched languidly full length against him.

"We should go," he finally murmured. Not breaking the moment, but continuing it with the anticipation intensifying.

She turned in his arms, playing with him in a way she discovered. She brushed the psi-points along his temple and jaw with her own, abruptly dropping her mental shields so her desire for him coursed through the sensitive nerve junctions as she did the same with their hands, stroking them, making them jolt with pleasurable shocks.

"Saavik," he growled, but she ignored him as she continued her game until he couldn't speak, barely could think, snatching what measure of thought he had to send to her, My wife, unless you want to indulge in public displays

Her throaty chuckle helped not at all. The heat grew and his hands were only still because she wouldn't release them from her sensual torture. He persistently tried to get her to stop for the moment or grab her so he may return the rapturous torment she inflicted. It wasn't until she caught the image in his mind of how soft a cushion the sand would be and that no one was in sight that she answered him. Sand gets into everything.

He was too far gone for banalities. I prefer we not return to the hospital.

They shared their mutual displeasure at the thought of another room with medical sensors silently monitoring them to make sure they lived, when their pon farr ebbed low enough to be told they were being wed today, and so on.

Ruanek is at the estate, Sarek at the townhouse, he continued. Where else?

I know. She fully embraced him, ending her teasing, her fingers slipping into his hair and pulling him ardently against her. "Come with me," she purred against his mouth. Not in the voice used on Dralath, that provincial, placating tone Evaste spoke in. This was Saavik's voice, pitched for him, husband and lover.

He went with her.