His head was swimming and his limbs were heavy. He reached his hand to the pain in his neck and felt the blood flowing down his fingers.

"Spock," Krall said, his thick accent booming off the walls of the dark corridor.

"You're dead," Spock declared. "This is not real."

A powerful hand wrapped around his throat, pulling him to a standing position before lifting him off the ground. His voice stalled in his throat, leaving only a staggered, whistling sound to emerge.

Krall touched his forehead to Spock's and his mind began to fray. The telepathic connection between them drove him within inches of madness. His logic melted away and the compulsion to scream rose in his throat, but it could not escape around Krall's tremendous grip on his neck.

Flashes of Krall's memories danced through his consciousness. Romulan warbirds, the sad image of Balthazar Edison transmuting into the figure of Krall, the Swarm, draining the lives of countless stranded crews.

Sadness, loneliness, anger, fear, desperation, rage.

Krall's emotions became Spock's, and with the last of his failing energy, he yanked at the man's fingers and twisted hard, listening to the synchronous popping of broken bones. Krall shrieked and threw him against the wall, causing hundreds of bright lights to streak through his vision.

He crawled to his feet, unsteady from the catastrophic blood loss. Krall inched toward him and Spock knew he lacked the energy to fight or flee. He closed his eyes and tried to center himself. He would face death as a Vulcan: without anguish or fear, accepting the natural conclusion of his life.

He longed to see Nyota just once more.

"Commander Spock?" asked a soft voice.

"Nyota?"

"No, commander," the voice repeated.

Syl. She was dead.

When he opened his eyes, a faint blue light glowed in the distance and he could see the young woman approaching Krall from behind.

"I saw you this morning," she said, a demure smile cutting across her face. "And I know you saw me too."

Spock slumped against the wall, gasping for air and struggling to keep his eyes open. He grew aware of a ringing in his ears muting all nearby sound, but he could hear Syl's voice humming through his mind. "Go, go, go."

Krall turned and grabbed her by the throat instead and slammed her hard into the opposite wall. She seemed unfazed but continued to watch Spock. Her body slowly started to dissolve into wisps of black smoke. She never stopped smiling, and her persistent joy numbed Spock's soul.

"Go," she said. "You're wasting time."

Krall continued to pummel her against the wall. Spock turned and ran in the opposite direction, his knees knocking against each other and his feet clumsy and slow.

Six red eyes pierced the darkness three meters ahead, illuminating rows of angry teeth. The monstrous three-headed dog blocked his path and he felt his gut sink again.

This was an illusion. A dream.

But then why was he in pain? Why was his shirt slick with his blood? Why was he on the verge of unconsciousness? Those things were real enough.

"Fear is illogical," he slurred. "Fear is… a waste… of critical… mental processing-"

The dog lunged at him and his knees buckled, causing him to fall forward on all fours. A familiar sound ricocheted through his ears – the chanting of the Berellian monks. He looked around the black hallway, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

The dog was almost upon him. The snapping of its jaws added to the chorus of confusion ringing through the hallway. He could feel hot breath on his face and he swung at the animal, making long strokes with his weakened arms. Several of his blows landed, and through sheer will, he struggled back to his feet and staggered down the hallway.

The scratching of claws on the hard concrete floor in the distance spurred him faster. He pushed open the door to the stairwell, slammed it in the dog's face, and half ran, half tumbled down four flights of stairs.

Blinding light pierced his eyes when he emerged from the stairwell onto the first floor of the administration building. People walked in all directions, oblivious to the horrors of the fourth floor.

"Help…" he moaned, fighting to keep his balance.

The front of his blue uniform shirt was soaked with his blood. He pawed feebly at the bite Nyota's fangs delivered to his neck, feeling his pulse pump out more blood, delivering him that much closer to death. He was so cold.

Why wouldn't anyone help him?

A woman walked in his direction, eliciting a glimmer of hope, but as she drew closer, Spock sensed she wasn't looking at him. A rush of icy air clouted his cheeks, and a moment later, she passed through him as if he didn't exist.

He was going to die.

He collapsed and rested his head against the stairwell doorframe. He shut his eyes and prepared for death, willing whatever logic remained to give him serenity in his final moments. He became aware that he couldn't hear anything. The chanting of the monks was gone, but so too was any perception of sound. Was this death?

His eyes flickered open and he watched a noiseless parade of Starfleet personnel stroll through the lobby, oblivious to the dying man in the corner.

He slowed his breathing and attempted to center himself, but just as he closed his eyes, the penetrating cry of a woman shattered his concentration.

Nyota.

He crawled into a hunched standing position and lumbered toward the exit.

"No!" she screamed. "Please!"

He discovered some previously unknown reservoir of strength and broke into an awkward jog. He was aware of another voice, distant and hollow in the far reaches of his mind, but he heard Nyota with astounding clarity. She was terrified, and he found he was no longer able to restrain his own fear.

He burst onto the plaza, finding it completely empty. His frantic eyes scanned and his ears filled with a low droning sound. And then there she was, twenty meters away, beautiful and shapely in a coral dress.

She leaned against the railing of the balcony, her back toward him, observing the lower decks. The humming sound grew louder and pulsed with harmonic vibrations.

"Nyota?" he gasped.

She turned. She could see him.

He noticed the shiny stream of tears rolling down her face and felt compelled to comfort her, but then the plaza exploded.

Splintering glass and screaming metal littered the floor as the Swarm teemed in through space. He never lost sight of her, and as he reeled forward, he saw something else that made his blood grow colder still.

Krall.

The massive man grabbed Nyota by the back of her neck and began to drain her. The deafening sound of the Swarm drew nearer, drowning Spock's screams of rage. He couldn't lose her. Not again.

"Spock?" he heard Nyota scream. "Spock, please!"

"Nyota?" he choked.

The pain in his neck grew unbearable, but he found he was becoming more alert. His strength was returning and he closed his eyes and broke into a run straight into the heart of the chaos on the plaza.

"Spock!"

When he opened his eyes, all he could hear was the blood rushing through his ears, the sounds of her frantic panting, and a metallic clinking behind him. His lids were heavy and slow, and he couldn't process the scene.

"Spock?" she whimpered. "Oh, thank you."

She was sitting beside him in her bed, clutching his hand with more force than he would have thought she possessed. He was naked excepting a thin sheet covering the lower half of his body.

He heard the familiar whirring of a tricorder and turned his head to locate the source. Pain ripped through his head, forcing an involuntary groan.

"I think the cordrazine is gonna do it."

"Dr. McCoy?"

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he grumbled.

He stepped into view and Spock was stunned by the sight of bright red blood flowing from his nose and down around the corners of his mouth like a gruesome mustache. He held a medical tricorder in one hand and a hypospray in the other.

"What- what has-"

His mind was foggy and foreign and seemed to be having trouble forming words.

"What's wrong with him?" Nyota cried.

"He's coming around," the doctor replied, studying the medical instrument in his hands. "It's a combination of the ambizine and the cordrazine. Give him a few minutes."

"What has happened?" Spock croaked.

"That's… harder to explain," Dr. McCoy admitted. "I'd like to get you to sickbay, but if I know you as well as I think I do, I'm sure you'd prefer to go in somethin' other than your birthday suit."

"Birthday suit?"

"Naked," Nyota moaned. "He means naked."

He glanced down at his bare chest and noticed Nyota cringe. His consciousness grew more vivid with each passing second, and he started to reconstruct the events of the past few hours. They no longer made sense in the context of his current setting.

McCoy's inhaled through his teeth, rolled his eyes, and inched toward the lavatory. "I'll give you a bit of privacy. I'm curious to see what you did to my nose, anyway."

"Are you suggesting that I-"

"Broke my nose?" the doctor finished. "Yeah, who knew you had such a mean left hook? I never took you for a southpaw."

Once the bathroom door closed, the muffled sounds of hissing and swearing began. Spock stood on trembling legs and Nyota tucked her body under his right shoulder to steady him. He could feel the effects of the stimulant and sedative coursing through his body now, and disliked the feeling of simultaneous lethargy and excitement.

Once Nyota was satisfied he could stand on his own, she hurried to dress herself. He sat on the edge of the bed to don his underwear, blinking several times to focus.

"What happened?" he finally asked.

"I don't really know," she replied, her voice thick with anxiety. "We had sex, you fell asleep, I started stroking your face and then you started having a seizure or something. Your eyes rolled back in your head and you were choking."

"What did we do before that?"

"We went to dinner with the captain."

"On the plaza?" Spock asked, shuffling on the bed to put on his slacks.

"Yeah, why?"

The scientific explanation he'd been hunting for all along – a psychedelic dream. Relief was illogical, but it rushed over him anyway.

"Are you decent?" the doctor called from the lavatory.

"Yeah, we're dressed," Nyota shouted.

McCoy emerged with a piece of cotton shoved up each nostril and proclaimed, "Jeez Spock, you look terrible."

"I… apologize for assaulting you," Spock said.

"All in a day's work," he grumbled. "Now that you're not literally chokin' on your tongue, can you tell me what happened?"

Spock began to relate the events of his bizarre dream state and was explaining about seeing Ensign Syl in the dining facility when McCoy stopped him.

"So… he just had a bad dream?" Nyota scoffed with an awkward laugh.

"No, I don't think so," McCoy replied. "I think the dream was just a symptom of a larger problem. Are you on any medication I don't know about?"

"No."

"Eat or drink anything unusual?"

"I consumed a single malted beverage at the captain's party as is customary, but as you know, alcohol has no effect on my physiology. I ate a Ktarian stew for dinner. Other than that, I have only had water."

"Hmmm," the doctor frowned.

"The stew," Spock remarked, observing the plastic bowl by the entry table. "Nyota ordered the same stew but did not eat it."

"I tell you what, let's go to sickbay," the doctor murmured, pulling out his communicator. "Bring your stew."

The disappeared into the matter stream of a site-to-site transport and were met by the sparse night staff of the walk-in clinic at Yorktown. McCoy ushered them into a private room, ordered Spock into an inclined biobed, and began a neural scan on Spock and chemical analysis of the Ktarian stew.

Nyota grabbed McCoy's communicator, flipped it open, and said, "Lieutenant Uhura to Captain Kirk."

She repeated the call twice before a garbled voice answered. "Yeah? What?"

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah," replied the captain's voice. "What's wrong?"

Nyota exchanged glances with Dr. McCoy and she explained, "He ate it too."

He snapped his fingers at her, holding out his palm to accept the communicator.

"Jim, have you experienced any unusual physical symptoms?"

"Bones?"

"Yeah, the symptoms, Jim. Seizures, night terrors?"

"I was asleep! What the hell is this about?"

Spock's ears were tuned to the conversation, but he was exhausted. He drifted into a dreamless sleep, and awoke what felt like second later to Nyota stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. Her lips parted into a smile when she caught his eyes. Contentment.

"Good to see you again!" the doctor called. Annoyance.

"Doctor," Spock acknowledged, turning his head to see McCoy standing at the foot of the biobed with a PADD in his hand.

"Turns out, you ate some bad stew," Dr. McCoy explained. "Well, Jim tells me it was actually pretty delicious, but apparently it comes with some nasty side effects for Vulcan biochemistry."

"Explain."

The doctor illuminated a screen to Spock's right and flipped through a chemical database, stopping at a complex steroidal compound.

"This is an analog of a chemical you Vulcans call gal-en. These groups here," McCoy said, pointing to several side chains, "They target specific receptors in the Vulcan brain. In small amounts, it works as an analgesic. Moderate doses cause vivid hallucinations, and larger doses cause unconsciousness and potentially death from respiratory arrest."

"My boyfriend, the druggie," Nyota scoffed, shaking her head.

"I did not knowingly consume this substance," Spock argued. "I would never-"

"I know, Spock," she said, leaning her head on his chest. "I know."

She sat up so the doctor could begin taking readings with his tricorder, and Spock detected a tiny frown spread across his features.

"Is anything wrong?" he asked.

"Your cortical scan is all over the map," McCoy explained. "One reading normalizes, and then another one spikes. At first I thought it was residual effects from the gal-en, but I can't stabilize it."

Nyota's hand tightened around his.

"I just got done running a blood sample, and your body's emitting some strange hormones which I've never seen during any of your physicals."

Spock's attention shifted from McCoy's words to the innermost part of his mind. He was not certain, but it would explain so much. He had been more emotional at Altamid but had attempted to rationalize it with his anguish over Ambassador Spock's death and disintegration of his relationship with Nyota.

Since returning to Yorktown, he'd been eating less – the stew was the first meal he'd taken in days. He wasn't sleeping well and suppressing his emotions had grown more difficult. When it came to Nyota, he'd never hungered for her quite like he had in recent weeks. The doctor's tests only helped confirm his hypothesis.

He was entering pon farr.

He had never experienced pon farr, and therefore, he hadn't recognized the symptoms in himself. Due to his unique biology, he had been unsure if he would ever experience the unsettling condition that would strip him of his logic and reduce him to a an emotional shadow of his former self, a creature acting on impulse and instinct. Now he knew.

He did not know when he would enter the plak tow, as pon farr often slowly emerged over a period of months. When he considered his symptoms holistically, he estimated the blood fever would be upon him within the next several weeks.

"Spock?" McCoy asked, his eyebrows raised in concern.

"I do not believe I am ill, doctor. I wish to return to my quarters."

"Are you kidding me? I get called to your room in the middle of the night because you're havin' a seizure and stopped breathing, I take you to sickbay and find out your brainwaves are on the fritz, and now you're tellin' me you're fine. Like you're just going to walk it off?"

"Walk it off" was not technically correct, but he had no desire to discuss such a personal matter with Dr. McCoy.

"Spock, I know you're stubborn, but you should stay here until he figures out what's wrong," she urged.

Her request was logical, based on the limited information she possessed, but he refused.

"I do not wish to stay."

"I can order you to stay."

"I ask that you do not."

"Dammit, Spock!" the doctor growled, his southern accent growing thicker as his anger swelled. "It's like you know what's goin' on but won't tell me."

"It is none of your concern."

"To hell it isn't! I'm your doctor!"

"Yes, my human doctor. My situation stems from my Vulcan physiology."

Well then, if you know what it is, why don't you give me a hint rather than make me spend the rest of the night up to my elbows in the Vulcan medical database?"

"What's the problem, Spock?" Nyota chided. "He's only trying to help you."

"He is not capable of helping me," Spock tried to explain.

"Are you questioning my skills as a physician?" the doctor asked, his voice cold and low.

Humans – so temperamental.

"Your expertise is not in question. You have saved my life on numerous occasions and I am grateful, but-"

"Then stop acting like a jackass and let me do my job," he interrupted.

"Will you allow me to speak with Lieutenant Uhura alone?"

"Spock, I'm not the doctor," she sneered, motioning toward McCoy.

"Do you believe I will die within the next several minutes without some form of medical intervention?" Spock asked the physician.

"No," he answered, his tone biting and sarcastic.

"Then please allow me a brief, private conference with Lieutenant Uhura," he insisted.

The doctor crossed his arms and glared at Spock but eventually left, engaging the privacy force field on his way out.

He glanced at Nyota. Her face was stony and her fingernails dug into her biceps. She seemed relieved, irritated, and concerned all at the same time.

For years he had considered how to broach this subject with her, but had never found a reasonable occasion to do so. He did not wish to upset their newly reformed relationship. She often teased him for his rational mind, but he knew she loved him for the man he was anyway, and he was on the verge of becoming something completely unfamiliar to her. The loss of logic was terrifying enough, but the loss of Nyota would be more than he could bear.

"What is it?"

"This is a very… delicate issue to discuss," he began.

"Considering we've spent almost as much time naked as we have clothed today, I don't know why you feel like you have anything to hide from me," she retorted. "Or Dr. McCoy, for that matter, who woke up in the middle of the night and raced to my room to save your life, no questions asked. And he could have asked a lot of questions, given that when he showed up, you were naked in my bed. I think it's safe to say he can be discreet."

"I do not question his professional ethics," Spock argued. "But my condition doesn't concern him."

"He's a doctor-"

"But it does concern you," he interrupted.

"Me? What are you talking about?"

"Every seven years of my adult life, I experience a temporary loss of my logical faculties. It is a condition known as pon farr."

"Ok, so?"

"It is very private. It simply isn't discussed, not even among my own people."

"Not even with your own doctors?"

"No."

She gaped at him and snorted. "Then how did you find out about it?"

"My father explained it to me when I reached adolescence. I have never spoken of it since."

Her eyes narrowed and her hands wrapped more tightly around her arms. She sighed and sat back down on the biobed. "I'm sorry, you're trying to talk to me about something that's obviously very difficult and I'm getting frustrated with you."

Her hip was nestled by his ribcage. She was warm.

"So, how do you cure this… this pon farr?"

"I only know of three ways to resolve it," he explained, choking down irrational feelings of anxiety.

"Then is sounds like you have options, at least."

He inhaled, holding the air in his lungs until his mind quieted, and continued. "The most practical solution for resolving pon farr is to take a mate."

A smile crested her mouth but reverted into a grimace. "When you say 'take a mate,' are you referring to any mate, or just a Vulcan one?"

"Not just any mate, Nyota," he said. "You."

"I thought I was your girlfriend, your mate."

"For a Vulcan, taking a mate concerns more than just the physical act of mating. It includes linking the minds together through a telepathic bond. Pon farr is as much about forging telepathic connections as it is physical ones."

"So then let's do that, if that's what you need."

"I have no wish to deceive you," he continued. "It is more complicated than that."

"How so?"

"Establishing a telepathic mating bond links two individuals together with a moderate degree of permanence. In Vulcan culture, entering into a mating bond is the equivalent of marriage."

Her eyes widened and she sat back, observing the features of his face.

"Are you asking me if I want to marry you, or are you asking yourself if you want to marry me?"

His language had been deliberately imprecise as a means of judging her reaction before proceeding to ask the question. "I believe I already explained I never wished to be parted from you again."

She remained silent for a long time. "Ok, Spock. Yeah, sure, ok."

Her face lost its serious edge as nervous laughter bolted from her lips.

"Such an informal kun-ut would not necessarily be legally binding," he continued.

She placed her index finger to his mouth. "We can sort out all the details later, but I promise you, Spock, whatever you need from me, it's yours. It always was."

He nodded, feeling a powerful wave of relief float through his body. He reached for her hand and experienced the elation of ozh'esta and an incredible sensation of arousal.

"Oh come on!" a muffled voice yelled from outside. "Are you done having your little heart-to-heart so I can go back to treating my patient?"

"Explaining this to Dr. McCoy might be a little weird," she grimaced.

"I would appreciate any discreet assistance you can provide," he admitted.

They were both skilled in the arts of persuasion – Spock with logic and Nyota with emotional appeals. Perhaps he needed her more than he realized.

An hour later they were allowed to leave. They had struck a compromise – McCoy would agree to put him on medical leave for three weeks so long as Spock agreed to wear a cortical monitor. He was very vocal with his disappointment in Spock's refusal to divulge his personal situation, but Nyota had done excellent work in smoothing things over.

She planned to request three weeks of personal leave from the captain later that morning. Because Spock could not precisely identify when the plak tow would begin, she'd offered to sacrifice that much leave to make sure she was available. She'd started to make a joke about "taking sex leave" when Dr. McCoy was out of the room, but seemed to reconsider when she saw just how uncomfortable the topic made him.

They left Yorktown's clinic and walked together through the quiet plaza in pursuit of food. It was an unusual hour for dining, but Nyota hadn't eaten dinner, and though Dr. McCoy had declared the stew safe for human consumption, she was reluctant to try it.

Despite the fact that it was nearly 0200, the Berellian monks continued their solemn chant down on the lower level. He stopped to observe them for a moment over the side of the balcony.

"It's a pretty eerie sound," Nyota mused. "It makes me feel… I don't know. Anxious."

"I heard the sound of their chanting during my hallucinations," he replied. "I agree it is unsettling."

"What else did you see?"

He finished telling her of his mind's journey into the macabre, and when he was done, she let loose a low whistle. "Wait a minute, so you're saying I tried to have sex with you in your office and turned into some kind of demon that literally took a bite out of your neck?"

Spock rubbed the left side of his neck, feeling the tenderness from Dr. McCoy's multiple hyposprays. "Yes."

"And you ran into Krall in the dark? And Syl? And my bibi's three-headed dog?"

"I just told you the story," he replied.

"I know. It's weird though. It's like you had all of my worst nightmares wrapped into one."

A curious statement. Vulcans didn't tend to dwell on traumatic experiences that often led to irrational fears in other species. Perhaps it was possible his mind was already more closely linked to Nyota's than he knew, and his mind had borrowed more visually stimulating imagery from her consciousness to supplement his hallucinations.

They hadn't all been her fears though. He remembered watching Krall siphon the life from her, and recalled the helplessness and fury and terror. Those emotions had been his.

"I bet you weren't afraid though," she grinned, leaning over the railing to catch his attention.

He stood up and replied, "Fear is illogical."

She rolled her eyes, tucked her arm in his, and wheeled him toward the handful of food vendors that were still open.

"Who knows, maybe you were only experiencing visions from Ungrenshsk," she teased.

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "The Ktarian day of the dead?"

"Hey, think of all the crazy stuff we've seen over the last three years out in deep space. Weirder things have happened," she shrugged. "Someone should probably tell her to stop serving food to Vulcans though."

Spock surveyed the plaza and didn't see her. There were more than a dozen empty food stands, but the vendors locked them after hours. The Ktarian woman's stand was gone.

They approached a Tellarite man offering pungent salads and casseroles and Nyota asked, "Hey, do you know what happened to the Ktarian lady?"

"What Ktarian lady?" the Tellarite barked.

"She was about three stands away from you yesterday evening," she explained, pointing over her shoulder.

There was no visible hole where her stand had been, and in its place was a cart that served frozen desserts.

"There's no Ktarian woman who serves food on the plaza," he insisted. "I've never even seen a Ktarian on Yorktown."

"Perhaps you have simply never encountered her," Spock argued.

"Look, my family runs this stand at all hours of the day, and has since Yorktown was opened to the public. I know everyone here," he growled. "And there is no Ktarian food vendor."

"That's not possible," Nyota replied. "We saw her last night. She served us stew."

The Tellarite sneered and shrugged. "Maybe you saw a ghost."