Another Path
Chapter 4
Ramifications
By the time the Enterprise made orbit around Vulcan, Spock's mind and body were well on the way to being fully healed. The bond that he had formed with Nyota - and strengthened through further meditation and intercourse - had saved his life.
Slipping from the comfortable warmth of his new bondmate's arms, Spock moved quickly and silently so as not to wake her as he dressed. His mind was calm, his body soothed, but his conscience roiled and raged in conflict. Leaving her a note then making his way to the transporter room, he worked desperately to quell the doubt over what he had done. Nyota had given herself willingly to him and had confessed that she shared his regard, but he still could not feel innocent over the cause of the confession. Had he not entered his season at such an inopportune time, had they not been so far away for him to keep it secret, had he possessed a stronger quantity of Vulcan blood, this may never have happened.
Some would say that the events bringing them finally together in this way was fate, but Spock was not a believer in fate. He preferred to believe himself in control of his own destiny, but he could not honestly say - even to himself - that if it were not for the Pon Farr he would have told Nyota of his burgeoning feelings for her.
It was all too late now anyway. They had been cruelly denied of the curious exploration of what was blossoming between them; the monster that was Pon Farr had seen to that. It had thrust them together, possibly against both their natures; they would never know.
Arriving at the transporter room, he stepped up onto the pad beside Doctor McCoy who had been non too patiently awaiting him. The doctor eyed him, as if trying to work out what had happened once Spock and Uhura had left sickbay, and what it was about the stoic first officer that felt so different now. Shrugging to himself, McCoy returned his gaze to Scotty and tried not to bolt from the room as the questionably sober engineer gave the two men a thumbs-up before activating the transporter controls.
Materialising on the courtyard of the Earth Embassy, the two men were greeted by a small team of Vulcan healers. They hustled the officers into the katric ark, where Spock's katra would be closely examined and his healing completed. McCoy, as Spock's attending physician, was permitted to remain in the room as his charge was surrounded by ancient, berobed Vulcans. The old men circled the taller man, touching his head and neck while murmuring questions to him in their own tongue. McCoy had been asked to turn off his universal translator before being allowed to accompany Spock, so he did not know what the men were saying, but as Spock replied in kind his voice was calm and serene so McCoy was not overly concerned.
Once what seemed like a million questions had been asked and satisfactorily answered, the elders helped Spock into a ceremonial robe and guided him to sit cross legged on a meditation cushion in the middle of the room. Once he was seated and the men had finished fussing around him, they drew McCoy out of the room with them, leaving Spock alone with the senior healer.
Spock relaxed into the cushion as the senior healer moved behind him and laid his fingertips against Spock's temples, the better to assess the damage. Despite their lack of audience, the healer spoke directly into Spock's mind out of respect for his privacy.
/You have formed a bond and your mind is healed. And yet, I sense turmoil./
Spock swallowed and made every effort not to transmit any more of his doubt to the healer /The bond was formed as an act of desperation. I am undecided as to whether it should remain intact or whether I should ask that you dissolve it./
Unseen by his patient, the elder raised an eyebrow. /A mating bond is entirely logical, Spock son of Sarek. It will enable you to retain your sanity more easily during your next Pon Farr; I advise that you keep it./
/I am sorry to report, Elder S'kar, but I fear that this bond was not made entirely for the logical purpose of self preservation. There was an emotional intent attached to the instinct to form it./
Spock could have sworn he heard a snort of amusement from behind him as the old man replied, /Mating bonds are often not logical in their source, but their use thereafter remains to be. It is not against the Vulcan way to care for one's bondmate, Spock./
He could almost hear his Human half singing to the tune of I-told-you-so as the elder's words echoed in his mind. /Would there be any undue side effects if the bond were dissolved? While I can justify its existence logically, I cannot ethically support what I have done./
/It is uncommon for mating bonds to be released, Spock son of Sarek, and I have never been one to do so. I'm afraid that leaves me ill-equiped to advise you. However, there is another day in which you may make a decision before the bond becomes too strong to remove safely./
Spock nodded. /Thank you, Elder S'Kar, I shall speak with my Father and return to you with my decision before the day is through./ The old man withdrew from Spock's mind and the younger man rose from the cushion. He gave a short bow of respect and exited the chamber.
Instructing McCoy to return to the ship, Spock took a transport to his father's dwelling, a modest building on the south face of the A'tja Mountain. One look at Spock's troubled eyes was all Sarek needed to see that his son was in turmoil. He ushered him into his private study, away from prying eyes.
Both men preferring to stand while they conversed, they moved to the large window that dominated the room and gazed out over the rocky landscape of their home.
"I have said to you before, Spock, that you have the power to choose your own destiny. What would you choose now?"
Spock's lips thinned and he stared out at the land spread before him, his eyes unseeing. "Logically the bond is sound; as Elder S'Kar told me, it would be a great help come my next season."
Sarek looked at him from the corner of his eye. "And yet?"
Spock sighed imperceptibly, his belly roiling in guilt. "And yet I feel I cannot absolve myself of the selfishness of my actions. Lieutenant Uhura and I had been enjoying a casual relationship before I was stricken with the fever; I took advantage of that arrangement to suit my own needs. While it may not have been an illogical thing to do, it was certainly not ethical. I have now bound her to me in something she may never have wished for even if we had pursued a deepening of our mutual attraction."
Sarek may have squirmed in discomfort at the topic of conversation at any other time, but his child needed his support now more than he ever had, so he fought the urge back. "Have you consulted with your wife about removing the bond?"
Spock whipped his head around to stare at him, surprise evident on his wide-eyed features, "My w-" He shook himself and reigned back on his small outburst; he had not thought of Nyota as his wife, but as the not-so-proud bearer of his mating bond she technically was. "I have not consulted with my... with Lieutenant Uhura. I left the ship before she awoke this morning."
"Hm." Sarek went back to examining the view.
-UFP-
Nyota awoke alone.
At first she sat bolt upright and panicked, her first thought being that Spock had not recovered at all and had in fact gone off on a mad, sex-crazed rampage through the ship. Then she saw the PADD he had carefully placed on the night stand for her to find when she did finally regain consciousness and relaxed.
Activating the PADD, she leant back against the bed's headboard and read the brief note:
Nyota, I will be on Vulcan by the time you read this message.
Do not be concerned, I am quite recovered and will return to the ship once my business on the planet's surface is concluded.
-Spock
Smiling in relief and stretching lazily, she dropped the PADD back onto the night stand. Throwing back the covers, she rolled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. It was a good job that McCoy had signed her off from active duty until she reported herself ready to return, because Spock had given her a thorough seeing to and she could barely walk in a straight line.
Flexing her newly-acquired telepathic link, she frowned daintily when she couldn't feel Spock on the other end. Shrugging to herself, she stepped into the shower and set about making herself presentable. She probably couldn't feel him because he was planet side; maybe these bonds had a maximum range and he was out of it.
While she showered, an unfamiliar rhythm slowly emerged in her mind and she started to tap it out on her head as she shampooed her hair. Humming along with the beat, she quickly finished up and dressed.
Her stomach grumbled, punctuating a pause in the beat and she laughed to herself; breakfast would be divine right about now. Quickly stripping the bed down and throwing the used sheets into the recycler, she set off for the officer's mess, still humming softly to herself.
By the time she arrived at the mess, and the irresistible scent of bacon assailed her nostrils, she was positively ravenous, and failed to notice that the song in her head had stopped.
*
Spock returned to the ship in the evening.
Elder S'Kar had kept him in the katric ark for seven hours while he worked at dissolving the bond between the two officers. The old man had required support from his aides to leave the room once the deed was done, the amount of energy required to remove the bond had drained the poor healer. Spock had not fared much better, standing on shaky legs once they were finished and beaming back to the ship as soon as he had cleared the ark. Once he was aboard he returned immediately to his quarters to rest.
But the sleep that he so craved would not be so easy to attain.
Because Nyota was waiting for him.
Upon seeing her in his quarters he steeled his resolve and reminded himself that what he had done had been for the best. As he entered his living area, Nyota rose from her clearly uncertain seat on the firm, utilitarian sofa.
"Hello, Spock."
Nyota forced herself to stop shaking, she had been nervous about seeing him again since just after breakfast. Doubt and desire had been warring within her all day and now that he was here, the strange rhythm that had begun in the shower had returned. It beat loud and disconcertingly in her head and she had to blink hard a few times in order to focus on him. "Did you have a successful trip?"
Her voice sang within him and he swallowed; it would appear that this plan to return to normality would not be as straightforward as he had thought. "I did. We must discuss what has transpired." He gestured towards the sofa she had vacated. "Please, take a seat."
She sank back down and turned her body to face him as he sat beside her. "Did we do something wrong? Are you still ill?"
Every innocent query from her lips ramped up the tension winding tighter and tighter inside him. He took her hand to stop her entreaties and held back a gasp, as a shock of static jolted up his arm. What was going on? Had the severance not worked? Was the bond still in place?
"I am quite well, the healers on Vulcan were able to verify that my fever has fallen into remission and will remain there for the next cycle." Her relief was almost palpable and he took a deep breath before continuing with the painful part of this conversation. "Nyota, there is something I must tell you." Mustering all the logical cool he could, he met her gaze and held it. "I had the bond between us dissolved."
She blinked at him, the beat still drumming in her head. "I don't understand."
"I took advantage of your good will and of our arrangement."
She laced her fingers through his and looked down at their entwined hands. "You didn't take advantage of me, Spock. You needed me and I wanted to help."
His lips tightened. "By helping me, you were bound to me as my wife." Her eyes shot up to meet his in a similar manner as his had to his Father's upon mention of that term. "Vulcans mate for life, Nyota. I did not have time to inform you of this before I lost control of myself."
Her eyes dropped back to their hands and as she spoke her voice was softer than he would have expected it to be, "If Vulcans mate for life and you chose me, that has to mean something, right?"
He retrieved his fingers from hers and straightened before he replied in a neutral voice, "You were the logical choice."
The drumming in Nyota's mind abruptly stopped and she snapped a glare up to drill through his head, starting with his eyes. "Logical."
He inclined his head. "Yes."
Nyota stood, forced an equally neutral expression onto her own face and drew herself up to her full height. Managing to resist the urge to narrow her eyes at him, she could not help but spit, "I'll see you on duty." Her lips flickered, fighting back a sneer. "Good evening, Mister Spock." She spun on her heel and marched from the room, refusing to stop until she was back in her quarters.
Once she arrived in her rooms, she took a moment to stand in the middle of her living space, closed her eyes, breathed deeply and released the tension in her fisted hands.
Logical.
Had she really expected any outcome different to this?
Before the Pon Farr they hadn't been anything more to each other than a convenient, attractive outlet for work-related stress, and then they had only come together when he had been unable to find the peace to meditate.
He had dictated everything. Had she ever really had a say in any of it?
-UFP-
Spock's plan to return his and Nyota's relationship to normal was not to be as straight forward as he had first envisioned.
Despite the severance of the mating bond, there remained lingering tendrils of telepathy between them. Elder S'Kar had warned him, before he returned to the Enterprise, that there may be complications with maintaining a clean break. The proximity of the two mates being the most important and unavoidable one. The last time a severance of this nature had been attempted, it had been on Vulcan, between two Vulcans and the two were kept in isolation for three months to be certain of the final result.
Spock and Nyota did not have that luxury. Two senior officers serving on a deep space mission aboard a star ship could not avoid one another for the amount of time necessary for the severance to become solid and permanent.
-UFP-
Christopher Pike's stomach was threatening mutiny.
An asteroid field was usually nothing to get excited about on the Enterprise, she would easily plow through with her trademark grace. However, on this particular occasion that legendary grace was nowhere to be seen.
Scotty, in his infinite tinkering wisdom, had decided that the gravimetric stabilisers needed, in his own words, 'tweaking'. Said tweaking required the main shield generator to be put on standby, but as they were in friendly space and would continue to be so for several days, Mr Scott assured the Captain that they did not need their full compliment of shields and that all would be fine.
Then they had hit the mother of all asteroid fields.
On reaching the edge of the field, Scotty's assistant head engineer had gone to turn the main deflector array back to Green, but something was failing to connect. Once Pike had finished yelling at his soon-to-be-demoted Chief Engineer, Scotty had cleaned out his ears and rigged a simple repulsor field around the ship. The only problem with this was that the repulsor was only enough to clear a safe path through the smaller asteroids, the larger ones had to be dodged manually. Sulu had cracked his knuckles in glee at receiving the order to navigate the field by hand, and had immediately set to the task of making the entire crew lose their collective lunch.
So here they were, being jostled through space by their adrenaline junky pilot who was thoroughly savouring the absence of the inertial dampeners that usually hampered his work. McCoy was up to his armpits in space-sick crewmen, and regularly contacted the bridge to tell them so, but Sulu clearly could not care less.
Pike scowled at the back of Sulu's head as the excitable pilot hunched over his control panel, muttering to himself and manipulating the controls with gentle fingers, like he was making love to the damn ship. Pike closed his eyes and wished not or the first time that he had accepted the admiralty that Command kept offering him. He swallowed back a wave of nausea; he was going to kill Scotty for this, and where the hell was Uhura?
The aforementioned communications officer paged him from the level seven long range communications array. She informed him that space traffic control at star base five had given permission for them to reroute from their original flight path and dock at the station for repairs to the deflector emitters. Pike sighed a silent exhalation of relief; Scott would be spitting nails at having to hand over repairs to another engineer, but as far as the captain was concerned the bristly mechanic was lucky to be keeping his commission at all. He thanked Uhura and signed off, just in time for the computer to chime the end of alpha shift.
Pike turned to Lieutenant Sulu, knowing that he would most likely have to physically prise the man away from his controls.
"Mister Sulu, you've done an-" he coughed into his fist, "-excellent job so far. Take a break and come back later."
Sulu did not move from his station and gave no indication that he had heard the order.
"Mister Sulu, did you hear me?"
Sulu's shoulders tightened and his fingers curled into the controls. "I'm fine, sir. I don't remind remaining here to work extra until we clear the asteroid field."
Pike hitched an eyebrow at the seated man's subtle indicators of agitation and glanced at the chronometer. "Sulu, that won't be for another seven hours, you can't pilot manually for that long without rest. Take a break."
Sulu hunched further over the controls as Lieutenant Folkes approached the pilot's seat, the female pilot cracking her knuckles herself at the prospect of flying the star ship manually.
"I'm fine, Sir, really; I don't mind working into Beta shift."
Folkes' face fell and she looked at the captain to watch his response to the borderline subordination. She attempted not to bounce on the balls of her feet in excitement, the chance to pilot the fleet's flagship in this manner was almost unheard of and she was having to rein back quite hard on the urge to simply shove Sulu out of the pilot's chair so she could have her chance.
Pike's expression did not change but his countenance darkened by several degrees and the officers nearest to him took an unconscious half step backwards away from him.
"You will take a break, Lieutenant Sulu."
Sulu blinked, the captain's rarely called his bridge officers by their rank and those that he did, knew in that moment that they were in trouble. He shot up out of the seat as though someone had set fire to it. Whirling to face the captain and standing at attention - resisting the urge to kick Folkes as she slid into the vacated chair - he gazed steadily over the taller man's shoulder. "Sorry, Sir. I request permission to leave the bridge."
Pike relaxed a fraction and the storm cloud that had been gathering over his head dissipated. "Granted, Lieutenant."
Sulu shot past him and was almost to the door when Pike called back to him, "Sulu." Sulu turned gingerly, half expecting a stripe to be ripped from his sleeve.
Pike smirked. "Relieve Lieutenant Folkes in fours hours."
Sulu's face lit up in glee, even as Folkes made a disgusted sound from behind the captain's back.
*
Spock, having not yet returned to full, active duty, was meditating.
Doctor McCoy had ordered that the Vulcan work only limited hours until he was happy that his unique patient had fully recovered from his physical and mental trauma. Spock had done his best to continue the work that Elder S'Kar had started, by doing a little each day to smooth and fix the wound in his soul.
He was buried deep inside his own mind when the door chime sounded. It took a second chime for him to realise that the sound was not in fact a manifestation of the discord in his head. Drawing out of himself, he unfolded his long legs and rose, smoothing down his robes as he called out for the computer to admit whoever was waiting outside.
He blinked as his visitor entered the room.
Damn.
He should have checked before letting her in; she should not see him yet, the work was not yet complete and only when his own mind was healed could he go to her to heal hers.
"Nyota." Lieutenant Uhura, the correct form of address was Lieutenant Uhura. His voice had caught on the second syllable of her name. She had to leave, she had to leave right now; he felt his human half begin to panic.
"Hello Spock."
She began to approach him and he swallowed. Her perfume was subtle but he could scent it from here. Helplessly he drew in a long, slow lungful. He shuddered as his blood warmed and his heart rate picked up speed, his stimulated sense of smell transmitting tiny pleasurable signals through his whole body.
She noticed.
"Spock." Her voice had lowered, was nearly a whisper, her eyes raked over him, then dilated. She took a long breath of her own.
He took a step backwards.
He had to get away.
The severance had to hold, for the sake of their careers, their friendship, their very sanity.
She took a step towards him, refusing to allow him to escape her.
His iron-clad control was wavering. That last bastion of his unerring Vulcan logic was flickering like a dying candle as Nyota drew closer.
This was impossible.
The bond had been dissolved, yet he could feel it - or something like it - vibrating in the air between them.
As she stepped into his personal space, gazed up into his eyes and placed a hand on his cheek, he felt an impossible, illogical bolt of heat shoot through his center. He blinked, his throat tightening as his body - already attuned with hers - began to react to her proximity, to her touch. No-one touched a Vulcan uninvited, not without hand coverings, and certainly not on the face. Not unless they wanted one of two things.
Death.
Or sex.
He made a sound in his throat, it was low, quiet and completely involuntary as his instincts screamed for the latter.
