The interview room was small with barely enough space for the table and the four chairs framing it. One central light from above spilled a spotlight down, barely covering the surface of the table and not extending any further.

Security cameras were tucked somewhere, into the corners most likely. One large rectangular window was across from the lone figure at the table, but no one moved around outside in the corridor to see in. On the empty chair next to the figure was an oddly damp looking cloak.

Something moved restlessly around in the darkness just off to the left of the seated woman, and every so often, it sidled closer so a small bit of light picked up streaks of electric blue on shining, black, reptilian skin. Valeris paid little attention to the indistinct form as she looked through the window in the door. She focused on Saavik who was oddly out of uniform, barely hearing the guard tell her that her visitor authorized the removal of her shackles while in the room.

She was surprised only because she didn't know the other woman was on the planet. If she had known, she could have calculated how long before this 'visit' took place. She did the calculation anyway, using her landing on Vulcan as the first point, and came up with another surprise.

Saavik was late.

The manacles snapped off her wrists and ankles under their key, and she refused to acknowledge she felt anything so emotional as relief. The door opened, the panel blocking her view temporarily, and when it moved out of the way, she found Saavik stared at her, and Valeris felt the heavy weight of her prisoner uniform. It was like the manacles banged closed around her wrists again.

Her chin came up and she looked back defiantly. No, that was improper. She must be poised, assured, Vulcan.

The way Saavik looked.

So why did she automatically stiffen as the hybrid glanced down her length and then back up to stare again unflinchingly into her eyes? Everyone in Starfleet and on Earth said Traitor when they stared at her. The short time she was in Vulcan hands, her people said Failure.

Saavik said... nothing. Nothing. In the years they had known each other, Valeris never saw nothing in Saavik's expression. A chilling trickle of warning seeped through her. The guard left and the door locked.

She made the first move, impassively raising an eyebrow. "Inevitable."

"Perhaps."

She had once studied Saavik's movements as a template, then set them aside when her achievements put her above the woman. She saw the other's stillness, the waiting. "You took longer to arrive than I estimated."

"I was not aware you knew I was on Vulcan."

"I know much that you are not aware of."

"You should use it for better purposes."

The verbal battle screeched to a halt. Valeris had thought she could keep the conversation away from her... crimes for longer than this. The immediate setback displeased her. "I achieved things you did not for all the talk of your talents."

Saavik didn't rise to the bait. She asked patiently, "Such as?"

"I am the only Vulcan ever to graduate first in her Academy class."

Saavik didn't rise to the insult either. She mocked. "You should have used that for better purposes as well. That is, if you truly earned the position."

Valeris drew herself up, gratified she had stayed standing while Saavik sat. It was some advantage. "Think what you like. We both know your lower class ranking is not the only place where you were... inferior."

"Valeris, my years in my career have moved me beyond the point where a class standing means anything. As for the other flaws you refer to, again your superiority has gained you nothing." Saavik stood, the chair legs making a harsh, loud scraping on the hard cement floor. "Despite what you apparently think, I am not here to discuss your actions as one of Admiral Cartwright's conspirators."

"How did you find out?" The question was out before Valeris fully thought it, startling her as it did Saavik. "Oh, but of course. Spock." The name was said stringently and she waited for the older woman's triumph.

But Saavik half turned away. "No. Perhaps it will give you a sense of accomplishment, Valeris. Your actions are the talk of the Fleet. I heard the general announcement while on my ship."

"You are still not speaking to Spock?" Interesting. Those actions had gone undiscovered.

"We have not spoken in years as you are already aware." And then as if she had heard Valeris' thoughts, Saavik looked hard over her shoulder. "Do not misunderstand me. I know about your part in my cancelled transfers to the Enterprise and what you accomplished with those letters to Spock and I."

Valeris had only one way to battle back: feign ignorance. "Do you accuse me of something?"

"No, I inform you of the fact that all your crimes have been discovered. However, as I said a moment ago, for the purposes of this discussion, only one matter is important."

A reprieve? What could be so important that Saavik put aside her grievances? "And that is?"

Something metallic flashed in Saavik's left hand, still hidden, and Valeris stiffened. A padd dropped on the table with a bang and then a rasp as it was pushed across in front of her. She picked it up and read.

"The signer of this document agrees to waive away all present and future claims--"

Of course, Spock: Saavik was here for him... and Valeris suddenly realized she did hold sway over the other. Over quite a few, really.

Except, it was not so clean as that.

She read through the document, calmly absorbing it fully even as her mind recoiled from the memory: the long fingers against the psi-points on her temple and jaw... the strength in them and that strength transmitted into the meld, forcing her mind open, tearing it open when she sought to block him. All his gentleness gone, buried by his hurt and yes, anger over her betrayal -- realizing he was her key to accomplishing all she had, that he had been used -- and then his pain nothing in comparison to the screams she gave first mentally and then physically as waves of agony tore through her disciplines like they didn't exist.

She put the padd down calmly and pushed it back towards Saavik. "No."

"Sign it."

"No."

"Valeris--"

"I will pay for my crimes, and he will pay for his. Is that not logical?"

Saavik sat back down -- almost dropped really -- and Valeris noticed the other's composure slip. Some of the haunting memory drifted away as she regained sway over the conversation. "Do you have any argument to my question?"

Saavik looked up. "On whether it is logical? I could point out this problem never would have happened if you had acted on logic and not been part of the conspiracy."

Valeris drew herself up rigidly and her voice was ice. "Meaning I deserved it?"

Saavik glanced up and her eyes were... sympathetic? "No. I can think of very few -- perhaps no one -- who deserves a forced meld. I merely refer to the truth that this was a chain of events beginning with your traitorous decision."

"If I used your logic, I could say all this began with you. You after all introduced me to Spock."

"Do not remind me."

"Can you not see? What I did, I did for the benefit of the Federation."

"Rua Penthe."

The unexpected comment threw her off, and she couldn't think of anything intelligent to say quickly enough.

"Do you consider implicating Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy wrongly of murder, of their incarceration and possible deaths on Rua Penthe a benefit to the Federation? Or assassinating a leader of peace because he was a Klingon and then later murdering your fellow conspirators -- were these all benefits?"

Valeris frowned. "They were unfortunate byproducts, a necessary price to pay for ensuring our safety from the Klingons." She did not sound so cool now; she made a plea and it puzzled her. Why try yet again when no one listened?

But Saavik might. She understood an enemy's cruelty. Valeris' own initiation to it began in her childhood during her parents' unorthodox scientific expedition near Klingon space. Her mother named her after a Klingon heroine and deliberately didn't teach her much of Vulcan ways. For all this... open-mindedness, her mother was raped and killed by Klingons, and then they turned on her...

Her father went insane with his family's destruction, yet he continued to mind meld with her as a child, twisting logic to exonerate his coming here despite the Vulcan government and scientific body's objections. He ended up killing himself, and she was left alone at their research post until the supply ship came, sitting by herself with her parents' bodies... and all her lessons from the Klingons.

The most horrible story she knew -- until she met the half-Romulan. "You would have done the same in my place."

But she had wrongly assessed Saavik's earlier slip in composure. She was as strongly self-possessed as ever as she rose halfway from her seat. "Never."

"You most likely will or do you sincerely believe Spock will not make peace with the Romulans his next ambition?"

The other's hardness hitched, turned to momentary doubt, and struggled to come back. "I will not do what you did."

"Indeed. I was not aware you had... embraced the Empire in your heritage."

Saavik's hands lay on the table and her fingers pressed cruelly against the surface, the tips and skin under the nails paling with blood loss. Valeris flicked up an eyebrow. So easy for everyone to point accusations and to cry their piety over her deeds, so much more difficult when she pointed out the cases where their sanctimony failed.

"There is a difference," Saavik said. "I may not believe in his cause, but I believe in Spock. I would never betray him."

That's what Spock had said to her, that she should have kept her faith in him over her conviction against the Klingons. "Wouldn't you? I wonder if your belief will be enough for you or him. Or will your faith waiver when held against seeing Romulans freely enter the Federation under the guise of allies? Or will Spock demand more than a show of faith in him such as a full adoption of his cause? Interesting. We will see. Be sure of it, Saavik. He will make the Romulans his next goal."

Saavik's eyes darted along the table's surface. Valeris raised an eyebrow and dug her dominance in a little deeper. "I will keep a place for you in my cell."

The older woman sank back into her chair wearily. The sign of tiredness was shocking and Valeris faltered.

"Friend Saavik, you waste your words with this one."

She had forgotten the Carreon who now made her way out of the dark corner on Valeris' right to come around the table and stand in front of her. The black skin and blue markings gleamed in the light as the nostrils widened as if assessing her.

The resulting snort obviously found her wanting. "She has no honor, Saavik. I thought as much."

Valeris stared down haughtily, not bothered by the judgement. "Rrelthiz, correct? Saavik spoke of you."

The tip of the Carreon's tail shook like a rattlesnake's off to the side where Valeris could see it. "She spoke of you too. You were friends, she said."

By turning her head, she could see the other woman in her chair. "We are."

Some note made Saavik look up.

"Are?" Rrelthiz spit. "You call yourself a friend? She gave you much! Lady Amanda said Saavik welcomed you when your own people didn't. From the first day, she helped you."

That first day when Valeris stood in line at the government offices in ShanaiKahr, applying for citizenship. She saw Saavik in her Starfleet uniform, serene and Vulcan, and knew it was everything she wanted to be.

And then, even better: the Vulcan was not Vulcan after all. Saavik was robbed of citizenship by her krenath birth on Hellguard as Valeris' was stolen by her parents' insistence to turn their backs on everything Vulcan. Yet, Saavik escaped her past, becoming what she wanted; she reached Vulcan's acceptance based on merit. Valeris had found someone who understood.

And who gave her Spock.

Valeris nodded, looking back at Saavik. "She did help me. A great deal, in fact."

"So the Lady Amanda said--"

Amanda never approved of her. It wasn't just her preference for Saavik above the others she took in for instruction, for help, or for simple introductions into Vulcan's ways. Even at the end of their initial meeting when Saavik introduced them, and despite Spock's acceptance and growing interest, Amanda originally gave politeness and then silent disapproval to Valeris, even putting an end to Ambassador Sarek's opening goodwill. She never understood why. Or why it bothered her.

"-- And why your false friendship is even worse."

"It was never false." Valeris spoke to Saavik. "Friendship, however, means accepting one of you has more strengths than the other and rejoicing in the fact. It means accepting their attempts to improve you, even though the attempts bring discomfort."

Saavik asked, "And you believe I am the one who failed in our friendship because I did not accept these things?"

"We both chose the Vulcan path later in our lives instead of being raised in it. However, we reached the time where I... surpassed your abilities in the disciplines and your growth in being Vulcan. I later exceeded your accomplishments in the Academy, and most likely in your career had the situation been different. You should rejoice in my victories as my friend. T'Pau surmounts Sarek and yet no discord exists between them."

"I never was bothered by your accomplishments, Valeris. It was you who had the need to be superior and to remind me of it."

"You once said--" No, wait. That was Spock ...and her Vulcan tutors ...and her instructors at the Academy. If one were human and Spock's protegee, the comparison was with Pavel Chekov, but in the last ten years, if one were Vulcan, the comparison was with Saavik. Saavik who was actually lesser was counted as greater.

And so Valeris began distinguishing her superior status -- except around Spock who frowned when hearing it.

"You see, Friend Saavik? No defense, she makes none!"

The Carreon was growing annoying. "I may be wrong in attributing certain attitudes to her. I am not wrong in what I did."

The tail beat the air angrily. "You are very wrong! You took friendship and violated it!"

"It only appears that way to you. You cannot understand." She turned back to Saavik. "You will."

"You are so sure?"

"I did it for Spock."

Rrelthiz made some noise that Valeris took as scoffing.

"I know I benefited from it, but Saavik, it was for him."

"Stop."

"Saavik, listen to me--"

The raised hand silenced her, but it took a moment for the words to come. "If you want to tell me something, tell me how--"

Valeris waited, but Saavik was apparently taking her own advice and had stopped. "How?"

The words were haltingly, the strength gone from them. "My letter... how did you know?"

"I know you." Even now Valeris saw her mind was the greater, otherwise how did Saavik think she never reasoned this out? "And I can ascertain what aging at a certain pace means to Vulcan biology. On Genesis, Spock aged, but it could not have been as rapidly as you reported it was later -- after Dr. Marcus' death and before Captain Kirk's arrival. If he was constantly aging rapidly with no stable periods, he'd have gone through his entire lifespan and died. And you would have noted the growth in your reports on your tricorder. So, like Genesis, he surged, stopped for some time, and then surged again. In the end, the planet's destruction sped faster and so did Spock's aging. Correct?"

Saavik said nothing, nor did she look at her.

"So he aged to adulthood, stopping at certain points. One of them must have resulted in--" She paused, remembering the Carreon. She spoke in Vulcan. "-- in pon farr. What were your choices then? Let him die, of course. You would reject that even without knowing Enterprise was on its way. Let him fight Marcus with the prospect of combat stopping the Fires. That results most likely in Spock killing Dr. Marcus or the slim possibility Marcus kills Spock. You would reject both instances. Meditation? An impossibility with Spock's mind in its state. Again, you would not risk Spock's life when you... had a means at your disposal of sure success."

She waited with no more result than before. "I overheard Dr. McCoy speculate on this once with Captain Kirk when he was unaware I was in the room. They said your response to Spock looking at you after the fal tor pan was..." She raised an eyebrow. "...curious. You will not answer me, will you? All right. After I realized this chain of events on Genesis, I recognized an important point. Spock doesn't know. You never told him. You saved his life in a way the Elders give respect for, and yet, you never told him. I did not know why, however I knew whatever the reason, you were vulnerable in this action. So I used it for your letter."

She took a breath. "If you would let me explain--"

"Friend Saavik, what does she say? Lies to justify herself? You know better than to listen. She diverts you from her guilt."

"What reason are you here?" Valeris asked Rrelthiz tightly.

"As a friend, a true one, and as a healer."

"I have no need for a healer."

"Not you."

Valeris saw Saavik in a new light: the weariness, the breaks in composure. "Are you ill?" No answer and she whirled back on the Carreon. "What is it? Why bring you to Vulcan?"

Rrelthiz gazed with worry at the bowed dark head on the other side of the table. "It is the Romulan hybrids disease."

Valeris almost repeated it in shock. "Saavik -- they said you would not contract it."

"They were wrong."

She'll die. So hard to believe that Saavik, that figure in uniform in ShanaiKahr, the one who gave Valeris the strength to keep her Klingon based name, who helped fight the battles and took her to Spock to sponsor – Saavik was dying?

When those eyes looked back this time, they said Traitor. Or was it that Valeris finally saw it for herself? If only she'd be allowed to explain!

Rrelthiz darted in between them making Valeris aware she had unconsciously reached across the table. "You fake your concern! She does not need it!"

Valeris pushed the Carreon out of her way. "Saavik, I know you think I did all this for myself, but it was for him." That face stayed turned away, the line of the jaw tight, stubborn. Why wouldn't she listen? "You always said you would sacrifice for Spock. Then accept that what I did to you both was out of friendship and my concern for him." She paused. "You bring him shame."

The other woman turned away again and victory was back within grasp.

"It is unfortunate, but true. You do him... harm, Saavik, and neither of you saw it. The ones who did see it -- other than myself -- allowed it to continue."

She caught Rrelthiz glancing at Saavik and when no argument came from that quarter, the Carreon hissed, "You lie!"

"No, I do not. Do you remember the ball in ShiKahr, Saavik, when the Federation president came to Vulcan?" Valeris remembered it vividly. She had discovered Spock would be there and used the blanket invitation to her family to gain entrance.

Oh, the first sight of him. Where she once saw Saavik as the embodiment of what she should be, she found she was wrong. Spock achieved more, was more! Where she thought Saavik a kindred soul, it was Spock who came from unfortunate parentage and an unusual Vulcan upbringing. More than that, his intellect which Saavik spoke of with such a wealth of appreciation was something that had to be experienced to be cherished. She discovered it even watching him from a distance, learning the thrill of that dark gaze and deep voice.

Saavik was originally to be offworld during the ball, so when they announced her name, Valeris was surprised. She was already outdoing the half-Romulan and was eager for the other's acknowledgment. Only when Saavik entered, no one saw Valeris. Spock had stopped still in the crowd as McCoy whispered to Kirk, and Amanda murmured to one of her aides and Commander Uhura. Even T'Pau complimented Saavik as T'Lar nodded in recognition!

And Spock crossed through the crowd to Saavik's side and they spent quite some time talking between themselves. Valeris watched them and realized with alarm, The boundaries of his being her teacher are gone. When she worked her way to them, she found them in deep discussion on a project of Saavik's, and Spock was giving all the strength of his intellect to her.

"You introduced me to Spock for the first time." Not that he paid much attention… then. "I saw how he placed importance on your opinion."

"Which gained you his mentorship."

A valid argument, but why did Saavik make it so quietly? "True, and again, I appreciate your efforts on my behalf."

Rrelthiz interrupted. "You do not show it."

The Carreon was getting very annoying! "She abused her position," Valeris said coldly.

"Another lie."

If she says that once more...

Saavik finally showed a reaction. "How?"

"That night at the ball, some of the most noted scholars in the Science Academy sought to discuss matters of importance with him, and you dominated their time instead."

"Spock asked my opinion on their questions, and encouraged me to ask my own. They did not suggest I not give them."

"T'Pau and T'Lar sought him out to confer on the importance of his fal tor pan. You interceded."

"I was asked about his mental state on Genesis. ...Was that when you first noticed my reaction?"

She was not going into digressions when she was building her case. "You danced with him, a human waltz requiring you touch him when you were not his to do so."

"The dance was a gesture towards Amanda. She taught it to us both. I noticed no one objecting."

Amanda taught you the same dance… how contrived. "Then you were ignorant. Others saw the objections and Spock is a member of an honored House. He suffers when such disapproval occurs before the Vulcan Council."

Saavik's hands were shaking… shaking! "What else?"

"Captain Kirk asked Spock who should transfer to the Enterprise and you pressed him on your wanting the position."

"The captain and I had already discussed the transfer. You missed where I informed Spock of it." But her voice was small.

The sense of victory grew in Valeris and it did much to overcome the pains endured ever since her arrest. "Possibly, but there is more. It culminated in the day Spock told the captain that you brought out the hybrid in him."

A small glow and a lift returned in Saavik's bearing. "He said that?"

"Yes."

Rrelthiz interrupted again. "And you thought that wrong. Why?"

"Because Spock spent the majority of his life striving to be the best Vulcan has to offer. It takes years of difficult study and practice to obtain the level he did. That work was being undone already by his human shipmates who strove to emphasize he seek their path instead. However, as it was put before him as a choice – be Vulcan or be human – he was not in danger." Valeris stared back at Saavik. "Until you. You undermine all he has accomplished because he believes he no longer needs to make a choice, but be both. You hurt him by defeating his accomplishments in the face of those who swore he could not reach them. Where once he strove to excel, he now considers a lesser standard as acceptable. You made him less than he was, Saavik. It had to stop."

She saw the blows hit their target, and couldn't stop the sense of success. It is wrong to heal my own wounds by causing others, but she could not stop.

Saavik wilted and Rrelthiz swung on Valeris. "And what do you do for him? You--"

"I brought him back to what he once held in high esteem. In mentoring me, he strove again for what it meant to be fully Vulcan. In my accomplishments, he saw what he used to achieve himself."

"And you turned his help into betrayal as you did with Saavik."

The Carreon's unflagging defense was… amusing now. Even she was seeing the truth and fought out of stubbornness. "As I stated before, what one does for the sake of friendship is sometimes… painful, but must be accepted for the good it does."

"Is that what Captain Spock did when you sent your fake letter? Accept his pain for the good it did?"

How he looked when he received that letter… it made her resolve stumble until he responded to her presence and offer to help. She stared coldly at the small, no longer so amusing healer, but she had no affect on Rrelthiz.

"What conversation did you overhear and exploit that time? Or did you break another system and steal its information?"

"If you must know," Valeris brushed off the attack, "I did none of those things. In fact, I was helping him. He suffered a blow to his temple during a training exercise while guest lecturing at the Academy. He was unconscious and the injury was over a telepathic point. Medical help was still some distance away and I was the only Vulcan on site. I melded with him to see if his mind was undamaged."

"And I am to think he just gave you this information?"

"No!" Really, this exasperating sub-life form was passing beyond mere annoyance. "A thought was on the surface that led me to the other thoughts. I probed deeper although why this is important to you--"

"Because you hurt and say you must! You take thoughts and honorable actions and hurt with them! You steal into the computers and use them as your weapons. All to separate Captain Spock from Saavik because you wanted it." The last was a snarl.

"For their own good, yes!"

"Thank you."

That came from Saavik. Not beaten anymore, not withdrawn inside herself: her head was up, the light from overhead shadowing her eyes, but not able to stop the fire and the relentless determination in them. She pushed back from the table and stood, her hands once more gripping the edge as if trying to escape the table's grip.

Outmaneuvered! Everything from the moment Valeris refused to sign the waiver was a battle of mental agility to draw her to this point, and she lost the battle.

Rrelthiz moved back behind Saavik's left shoulder, once more blending into the dark.

Alarms sounded in Valeris' mind. Too late. "Saavik, what phase of the disease are you in?"

As if it did not matter, "The second."

The artificial pon farr. "How… deep into the phase are you?"

"The second day."

The plak tow or rather the mockery of it. She was in danger. She flailed under the sudden change in the situation. "Why did you bring Rrelthiz with you?"

"She is Carreon."

"I don't understand that statement."

The fire turned up a notch. "So much for a superior intellect."

Her hands shaking before... anger, not anxiety. With the last bit of pride and strength she had, Valeris said coldly, "You are trying to intimidate me. It will not work."

Saavik shook her head, doing it so slightly, her eyes never broke their hold. "I am not here to intimidate you, Valeris." With the barest touch from her fingertips only, she pushed the forgotten padd back in between them. "I am here to get you to sign that release."

"No." She tried to stare Saavik down. Tried and failed.