Love is a Battlefield

No sooner had Spock stepped into the corridor headed for the sick bay did the rumors start racing him to sickbay like a game of telephone. Someone in the gym told someone in engineering who told someone in communications, who told a friend in sickbay and so on.

News of the 'lovers spat' spread around the ship like wildfire and by the time Spock reached the sickbay Dr. McCoy had clearly heard all about it over the com. Luckily nurse Chapel was nowhere to be seen else his humiliation would be complete. Having two women on the ship angry with him was two too many. One had just tried to bash his head in, he didn't need the other one wielding sharp instruments around him at the moment.

"What were you thinking letting that girl fight you like that?" Bones started in on Spock as soon as the door shut behind him.

"You've got bruises forming all over your torso and face," he said as he examined Spock.

"Just treat my nose Doctor I will attend to the rest later."

"With a healing trance or whatever? I'll want you to say here for me to monitor that. I don't trust your state of mind at the moment.

Damn fool, did you think to let her break your face would sort everything out and all's forgiven?"

"Certainly not, not exactly."

"Not exactly? Then what?"

"I don't know," Spock said. "Nyota is..." Spock lost steam and was silent.

"Spock I never thought I'd see you at a loss for words." Bones laughed. "Boy oh boy, do you have it bad! Shes got you by the er...nose." He joked as he patched Spock's nose.

Spock did not find anything amusing with his situation. His wayward wife had just attacked him. Not for the first time, Spock felt a new kinship with his father. How did Sarek keep his sanity whilst being married to a human female for over forty years?

"Spock, what the devil has gotten into you lately? I've never known you to box."

"I have observed that humans often need a physical release of pent up frustrations. I attempted to be a target of that frustration for the Lieutenant. It was an error."

"You think so? Why don't you leave psychology to us medical professionals hmm? Now I'll have to file a report about why the first officer is on the disabled list."

"That will not be necessary Doctor if you will mend my nose I will be ready for duty in a few hours."

"You're not fit for duty until I say you are. No, you are going to stay here and do your healing thing and I am going to give you a thorough examination. Could be some internal damage."

"Doctor she did not hit me that hard, I was merely unprepared for the blow and did not have time to brace for impact."

"Most people duck. And I see she didn't beat any sense into you. Maybe I should sign you up for another round or two. And another thing, what made you do such a thing in public? There are already enough rumors going around about you two. You've got the gossiping tongues full throttle. The story is that you were jealous of Sulu pushed him out of the ring and Uhura cleaned your clock."

"That is absurd."

"Is it really? You weren't a tad jealous of Sulu spending time with your wife?"

"No." Spock was as indignant as a man could be with a busted nose.

"Mmmhmm, if you say so." Mccoy didn't believe it for a second.

"I do say so, Doctor."

"Spock, if you want Uhura to ever speak to you again you need to stay out of her hair until this all blows over."

"And how long will that be Doctor?"

I don't know, I once had a woman mad at me for 10 years."

"How did you end the embargo?"

"We got divorced, far as I know she is still mad. That's women for you."

"I wouldn't know Doctor, I seem to drive them away."

"You'll find out soon enough. When a woman is mad just let her be. You know what they say happy wife happy life."

"I did not know that 'they' said that doctor. I find it curious that you humans reduce every complex relationship into simple colloquialisms that offer no genuine advice."

"Colloquialism or not its a true sentiment, you'll see."

Spock wished McCoy would stop alluding to a time when he would see, or understand the workings of the female mind, presumably Uhura's mind. It was beginning to irritate him.

"Spock, are you sure you didn't let Uhura beat your face in, order to assuage a little of your own guilt?"

"Guilt is illogical Doctor."

"You don't mean to tell me you don't feel even a little guilt or regret over what happened on Vulcan?"

"Doctor it would not change the situation for me to do so. The actions I took were an unfortunate result of the illness from which I suffered. I lost control of my emotions and therefore behaved irrationally. I would have preferred not to have experienced the incident in question, but I don't see how belaboring the issue with guilt or remorse will undo the harm suffered by all parties involved."

"You don't see? You don't see! Well, I'm glad for you that you've recovered completely and are back to your usual stubborn pigheaded self. But maybe the rest of us aren't so lucky to have selective memory or to be able to ignore our emotions. Spock what you did to that girl-"

"Doctor! Spock interrupted I don't wish to discuss this any further."

"Look Spock I more than anybody knows you didn't mean Uhura harm. In fact, I know you would have harmed her least of any of us and it's tearing you up inside about what happened, but you can't fix it like this. No matter what you say about being Vulcan I know for a fact that even Vulcans feel emotions whether you acknowledge them or not. I've seen you emotional with my own eyes. And you are half human too you know?"

"Doctor I see no need to sit here and listen to your continued insults..."

"Now you listen to me you pointy eared goblin, this is not one of the times for our petty squabbles. There is a woman in pain here, you're in pain too..."

"Doctor, I do not wish to discuss this. My 'pain' will diminish if you repair my nose and allow me some peace. Now if you are finished, I will retire to my quarters."

Spock walked away calmly but Mccoy wasn't fooled by his composed exterior. He knew more than anyone that beneath the surface of cold Vulcan beat the heart of a good man, a feeling man, and a vulnerable man. Uhura wasn't the only one in pain. And like a good doctor and a friend it was his duty to alleviate that pain where he could, but getting these two stubborn fools to work out their differences outside of a sparring mat was going to take more effort than herding a ship-full of tribbles. Dammit, he was a doctor, not a matchmaker.

/*-/*-/

Spock left his meeting with Mccoy in an agitated state though anyone who saw him calmly yet purposefully walking down the corridors of the enterprise would never guess as the emotions roiling beneath his placid facade. He made his way to his quarters without encountering anyone who might stop to engage him and began the soothing ritual of preparing for his evening meditations.

Whenever something was bothering him or weighing heavily on his mind meditation was always his solace. Other Vulcans might meditate to center their minds or purge excess emotion by working through them but Spock used it as a time to simply forget, to get lost in the nothingness of the Vulcan mind at rest. It was therefore quite frustrating as he took his seat on his ceremonial meditation mats that his mind continued to churn up unwelcome thoughts and emotions without end. Try as he might, he couldn't find his center, what his mother called the "happy place" when he was a child. And there was another reason it was so important for him to find his center.

He was taxing his mental shields to their very limits. He was always under a constant barrage from the normal jetson and flotsam of human emotion aboard the ship, but since his ordeal, on Vulcan, he was now also subjected to the emotional projections of his bondmate. A bondmate who had not yet mastered the art of fully blocking the link, a bondmate who was constantly feeling things he'd never been subjected to before; things he didn't quite know how to deal with. He needed his "happy place" and it was denied him. His bonding with T'pring had not been nearly as taxing. T'pring rarely made her presence in his mind known and when she did it was benign and emotionless. Just stray thoughts that she let slip. Nyota was not T'pring. He could feel Nyota in his mind constantly like the buzzing of a bee that he could not shoo away, could feel when she was near, when she was angry, frustrated, when she as very sad, when she was very afraid and even when she was aroused. But though he could feel these things he could do little to comfort her or ease her troubles because Nyota had managed to block his mental messages even as she still leaked all her emotional baggage to him.

Spock was caught up in his own personal hell. He thought he truly understood the meaning of the ceremonial words of the mating ritual for the first time in his life, "parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched." Nyota was his bondmate but they had never been more distant, he could feel her in his soul yet she was as if a stranger to him. The fires of the pon farr were cooled but the desire to possess and claim his mate rode him constantly, and it didn't help that they worked side by side every day on the bridge. So close and yet so far. Parted from him but never truly parted. Spock had a wife but not a mate, somehow in life, he always managed to get only half of what he desired.