CHAPTER 5

I clicked off the monitor on my desk. It wasn't very late, however I was uncharacteristically drowsy after the previous night's insomnia.

I got lightly to my feet.

My insides still felt wonderfully airy. I wasn't used to the symptoms of lovesickness, and i wasn't sure how long they would last.

I had not seen Ensign Perry all day. This worked somewhat to my advantage, because I could not form one logical idea or sentence lately. I was quite sure that love is the emotion I was encountering, however dealing with it is a whole separate concept. The customs of human courtship seemed fascinatingly illogical to me.

I sat on the edge of my bed, preparing to take off my boots.

Perhaps I could avoid the computer lab for another day.

Immediately I knew that would be an irrevocably illogical course of action, because if I didn't see Susan soon I hypothesized my heart might give out from the palpitations.

I was startled as a soft knock sounded at my door.

I stood, curiously.

The doors slid open and a figure stepped awkwardly into my quarters.

"Ensign Perry?" I noted, taking a few steps closer, "Am I needed on the bridge?"

"No sir."

"Very well. What is the problem?"

"There is no problem, Mr. Spock...I-I have been sick and I wanted..." She looked down at her boots and rocked nervously back and forth, "I wanted to know if the cataloguing system was ever fixed, or if you lost the file."

I looked at her strangely.

It was at least midnight.

"I suppose I was also in search of some company." She admitted. She looked up, and saw that I had one boot in my hand. Realizing that I was about to sleep, she blushed a very angry shade of red. "I'm so sorry!" she turned to go.

"Susan."

She turned back around and looked at me.

"If you wish to stay, I can provide this....Company."

She nervously smoothed down her bangs with her left hand.

"Oh, I-I couldn't...."

I motioned to my desk chair.

With a crooked smile, she sat.

I sat back down on the edge of my bed, and put my boot back on.

I looked back up at her. She was staring wide eyed at my numerous Vulcan decorations. I hypothesized that some of them would be appearing in her next dream cycle.

She looked back at me, and our gazes met.

"Do you miss Vulcan, Mr. Spock?"

I folded my hands on my lap.

"To miss something involves feeling emotional attachment to it, which I cannot do. Also, after spending many years serving Starfleet, I feel more at home on the Enterprise."

She turned her gaze to another decoration.

"Oh how I should like to make it there someday."

"Vulcan's aren't very receptive to humans on their planet."

She slumped over a bit and sighed. "What a pity."

"I don't find your desire to see Vulcan logical at all. You, as I have observed, are a very emotional and nonsensical person. Both of these traits in Vulcan are considered to be in bad taste. I cannot see you thriving there."

My words sounded harsher than I had intended. I had wanted to convey my opinion that her captivating and lovely personality would be wasted on my harsh home planet. It would me a crime against humanity to cage a being such as Susan in a society that rejected her talents. It was hard enough on my mother, who had never been one to have a particularly light sense of humor.

Susan seemed to have misread my words, and promptly stood, eyes on the floor.

"You're quite right as always, Mr. Spock. Goodnight."

She walked over to the door, and I stood as well.

"Wait, Susan."

I strode over to her, and grasped her shoulders with both of my hands.

I spun her around to face me.

Her eyes, so blue and so deep, seemed to engulf me.

In one swift, fluid, highly illogical movement, I leaned forward and kissed her lips gently.

I pulled away and looked at her, my hands still on her shoulders.

From my desk, the intercom crackled to life.

"Spock, this is Kirk, you're needed on the bridge."

The words seemed so far away.

I felt as though I wasn't on the ship anymore.

I was deep in the glittering regions of Susan's galaxy.

She smiled, and placed her hand gently on my cheek.

"Kirk to Spock, Kirk to Spock, acknowledge."

I put my hand over hers, smiling crookedly.

Logical or not, this token of human admiration was certainly glorious.

Her thumb rubbed gently against my skin.

"You'd better get going, Mr. Spock."

-------------------

The lights were dim in the lounge, due to the estranged hour.

However, Susan and I still sat there, in a rambunctious silence. I had just won my 5th consecutive game of chess, and I believe she was very close to abandoning hope. Our friendship-relationship-emotions.... Whatever you would choose to refer to it as, was not easily explained and therefore most of the time we spent alone together occurred after the rest of the crew was asleep.

The stars shone mistily through the large window, twinkling lazily, as if they were asleep as well, helpfully turning their blind eye to our interplanetary abomination.

We were leaving the planet of Babel, where we had just deposited a cargo of multiple planetary senators.

The tensity between the species- as well as the 3 unexpected deaths- only intensified our hopelessness of ever exposing our affections.

And yet here we sat. My body was still replenishing my green blood cells that I had donated to my father just yesterday, and I was still unbeatable.

I took her queen.

Her nose crinkled, and she moodily removed the piece from the board.

"This is a lost cause."

She moved her rook into a completely exposed position to protect her king.

"There is still a 3.553% chance that you could eventually win." I took out the rook, "Just not this game. Checkmate."

She giggled, and flicked down my king, just for emotional closure.

"Vulcan, do you ever get bored with winning?"

I began to reset the board.

"I do not plan on winning. I simply execute the move that seems the most logical."

She started setting up her pieces again.

For a fleeting moment, our fingers brushed.

She blushed and knocked over a few pawns in her hasty retreat.

She looked at her hand for a moment, as if expecting to see something there, lost briefly in thought.

"Mr. Spock?"

I looked up.

"Why is it that Senator Sarek and your mother always touch their fingers?"

She put the two first fingers of both hands together, mimicking the action she was inquiring about.

"It is a Vulcan symbol of trust. Vulcans are touch telepaths. In a typical Vulcan relationship, access to eachother's mind and personal thoughts are the closest thing they have to expressing affection."

Susan nodded slowly, her eyes gliding over to the window at those winking stars.

She turned back to me, confused.

"But your mother is a human. She can't read Sarek's mind, can she?"

I shook my head.

"No. It is only he that knows her thoughts." I paused, also stealing a glance at the stars, "I theorize that she does it just to remind him that she is his."

I looked across the table.

Our eyes met.

Slowly and simultaneously, our hands reached out to eachother.

Gently, Susan spread her fingertips out to touch my own.

Immediately I could see, feel, and sense everything that she was.

"Never and always touching and touched." I muttered to myself.

I opened my eyes, surprised that those words had come out of my mouth.

It was the second phrase of the pon farr betrothal vows.

"Did you say something, sir?"

I was still wrapped up in the essence of her, and the question seemed to come at me from many places at once.

I slid my fingers into the spaces in between hers, lacing them together tightly.

I shook my head, a smile slowly spreading across my face.

----------