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Emotionally Compromised

Ch. 3

The lights in Spock's quarters were dim; a dull red glow that reminded him of Vulcan. The incense burned on the altar table, and Spock knelt, meditating eyes-open, allowing probabilities to cascade through his mind and away in a state between thought and no-thought. He heard the door open. Knew it was Nyota: no one else had been keyed to enter without his permission. He tried to stay in trance. He would not wish to admit it, but he was afraid. His last encounter with her had been of her final, scorching words before she stormed from these quarters earlier, having sent Shahtau away with both efficiency and passion. At the time he had not been sure she would ever return. Now he was afraid to discover she had returned only to tell him she had made the logical choice and determined he could go to hell, and his entire species with him.

Unfortunately such thoughts did not allow for trance. Still he knelt, unwilling to open the door to rejection.

He heard Nyota moving behind him, heard a soft chuckle. So sweet…such a sweet tone!

"Oh, lover," she murmured, "you're faking it, now. You can't fool me."

He felt the smile she was always able to trick out of him. "I am, then, still your…lover?"

"Yes, love."

"In spite of…"

"Yes, love. I can't say I like everything about the situation. But it's…logical. And I don't want to help extinguish a species. She can stay."

"No, she can't," Spock said, firmly, as he rose from the floor. He moved across the room, stood before this woman who always surprised him with her intelligence, her sweetness, and her honor. "I have sent word to Kaiidth. I will not agree. If they want genetic material they may have it with my blessing. But they may not rearrange our lives thus. I will not have it so."

She cocked her head, letting one hand come up to cradle the curve of his jaw. "Spock, you can't do that. They'll either fight -- or deny you. You need your people. And they need you."

"I have made the choice once before, Nyota. I have made it again."

He did not choose to comment on how bitterly the elders might fight. Did not choose to think too hard about the suppressed anger of the leaders of a species so riven already by the tragedy of destruction and helplessness they suffered. He had already made his decision. So instead he simlply leaned down and gently kissed his beloved, rejoicing that, in this, they were alike: loyal beyond words. He would be loyal to her until he died, or time ended.

He would have it so.

***

***

***

"So Jim's there with this six-foot-three Genagari sex-pot in the lab supply room, and I'm at the front of the class trying to pretend I have no idea, because I'm the TA and the professor has me filling in for him on basic emergency first aid because God knows the cadets are gonna need it someday, and every few seconds Jim's arm is there in the doorway dropping a new item of clothing on the floor, and the next thing I know I'm explaining to the class how to tourniquet a leg injury with red silk stockings, which was the last thing he dropped."

She didn't laugh…Vulcan had imprinted that much control on her. She never laughed, but the laugh was there anyway, just silent, like a cat's silent meow. She tipped the glass of bourbon and branch in a mimed toast, and took a sip. "And you say this is the man in charge of this whole ship?"

"He's grown up. A little," McCoy said. "Don't ever let him take you bar hopping on shore leave, though: he still gets into more barroom brawls and picks up more hot women than is good for anything but his shock-and-awe factor in the fleet. He has a reputation to maintain."

"I doubt I will have the opportunity," she said, her voice seeming to float in the air of his office, "and if I do, I doubt that it would be appropriate for the first officer's….woman… to go bar hopping with the captain, leaving the children to cry in their cradles."

"Ah, Schatzi, you gotta get out of this. Believe me, it's stupid. What you want to do is stay here just to get away from those po' faced elders of yours, but forget the whole thing with Spock. Hell, the man's got a life. Tell the old buggers to leave him alone and let him live it. And you, too."

She looked into the amber bourbon as though she could find an answer there. "I should leave him alone?"

"No, dammit, you should live! Schatzi, dammit, you deserve better than this."

"Who does not?" she asked, far more sober than her three shots of bourbon would have justified. "I am afraid this is not about deserving. It is about…the end of dreams and the beginning of actions. There are no dreams left, Leonard McCoy. Just duties." She put the glass down on his desk, and leaned back in her chair with her head dropped back and her eyes closed, holding the little dog in the turn of her arm like a baby. He could imagine it easily, his memories of his ex-wife with Joanna blending with an imagined past in which Shahtau had held children of her own.

Two shots in he had realized he was in big trouble. Such very, very big trouble. Every time she made him laugh -- which was often -- and every time he realized she was seeing right through his ploys and silently laughing at him -- which was even more often because the bourbon brought out the blarney in him -- he wanted to lean across and find out if kissing her would solve the world's problems or at least send them yelping into the shadows for the night.

Not good, son, he thought. Oh, so very not good. All right, every man dreams of at least one or two flings with a mysterious, tragic older woman. McCoy, being a dyed in the wool romantic for all he hid it under twenty feet of sarcasm and gloom, had dreamed that dream more than once, along with dreams of sweet young innocents and lithe, tawny tigers between the sheets.

Hell, might as well face it, he thought. I am doomed to chronic heterosexuality. It is a curse I must bear.

Preferably not alone, mind you.

Pretending to be idly fiddling with a PADD on his desktop he punched in the figures for comparative aging rates. His current age was mid-thirties, he thought, to her apparent mid-to-late forties. But, bless Vulcan age differentials, when he was in his mid-to-late forties she would still look…in her mid-to-late forties! And when he was old and doddering she would still look…

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Or at least gorgeous to him. But then he had discovered an unexpected fondness for short, brown haired, tired looking Vulcan women who were more wholesome than exotic in spite of the ears and the brows.

I am over my limit, he thought. Two shots of aged Kentucky bourbon and a bad case of wanting to play the hero over my limit. I am no longer safe at any speed.

He stood and closed the decanter, saying, "I'm afraid it's bedtime for little doctors, ma'am. Got to work in the morning and try to live up to my own ideals of clean living and bright-eyed energy on duty."

Shahtau stood, too, cradling her dog. "Wise. And I must beam back down to the station and attempt to determine whether to call Kaiidth and indicate I am returning, or attempt to discuss this issue with Lieutenant Uhura one more time."

"I tell you what, I'll beam down with you and walk you to your room."

"I am afraid there is no point, Leonard McCoy. I have no room. I was intending to remain awake until this interlude is complete. I can sleep on the return to Kaiidth."

He nearly strangled as he held back the immediate offer to let her sleep in his quarters. He knew perfectly well where his own libido would try to take that. Instead he said, simply, "There's a spare bed in isolation. You'd have privacy. Why don't you sleep there until either Spock or I can arrange for you to use a guest room?"

"I do not want to intrude on Spock and the Lieutenant's territory. They deserve a sense of safety here in their home."

"Dammit, woman, I promise you, neither one of 'em thinks sickbay or a guest room is 'their territory.' Give it a rest, and yourself one, too. I mean, come on. You even get a really tacky nightgown with a breeze in the back, and a shower in the morning. All right?"

She gave another silent little laugh, and nodded. "Very well. Your suggestion is logical."

"Good. Glad to know you can see a bit of common horse sense. Now come on this way. Room's down the corridor and to your left. Lavatory and shower off the entrance." He keyed open the door and added the code that would let her come and go as she wished, recognizing her bio readings. He stood to one side to let her pass, then smiled as she turned. "'Night, Schatzi. Sleep well. See you in the morning."

"And you…Leonard. Good night, Leonard McCoy."

He nodded and left, walking briskly down the corridor.

He got halfway down, and stopped.

"Dammit."

He turned and prowled back, stalking into the room.

She jumped at the shhhsh of the door, and looked at him with big, questioning eyes.

He sighed, and stood in front of her. "Look, Schatzi. I don't have a clue what the hell is going to happen, and I am probably just making things worse. But…if you dare try to tell me you're going to forget all this because I was drunk, well, you're wrong, because I'd do it stone cold sober in the middle of a fire-fight."

He slid one hand along the nape of her neck, cradling her skull, then met her eyes and waited an eternal moment to see if she would draw back or object.

She didn't. She stared, but seemed neither shocked nor upset. Almost as though her own heart was hovering in free fall, the way his seemed to be. He leaned in and placed a kiss on her lips.

She met the kiss. It was nearly chaste on both sides. Nearly. Gentle, pensive. They stood that way, and then drew back. He nodded, almost surly with the sweetness of it. "Well, that was fine. Pretty successful on this side, anyway. And just so you know, if we can get this damned crap worked out I would like to do that again. You understand? I am not leaving because I didn't like it. But if I do anything more we are so screwed. Literally. Now go to sleep. Doctor's orders."And he spun and stormed out at full warp, muttering, and wishing he could stay.

***

***

Captain James T. Kirk gave his head a shake, much as a swimmer does to clear water from his ears. "I must need another cup of coffee. I just can't have heard you right. Try again, slooooowly, Bones. And this time less dammits and more nouns and verbs, ok?" He was pacing his quarters dressed in a pair of tighty whities and not much more, shaving with a depilator, drinking coffee, and looking fairly confused.

McCoy couldn't blame him. He hitched his butt on the edge of the table to one side of the room. "Ok, from the top: the Vulcan elders at Kaiidth want Spock to make little baby Vulcans. They want them raised within a Vulcan family, so they want -- well, they wanted Spock to marry this woman Shahtau. But since he and Uhura are an item they want him to take Shahtau as a concubine. Only Shahtau's already messed up from losing her family, and they're insulting as hell -- to her and to Spock, for what it's worth. And I think she should just tell them to take a long walk off a short pier and stay with m… with us. On the Enterprise."

"Bones, this is a working ship. Not a shelter for little lost Vulcan hotsies."

"She isn't a hotsie. She's a lady. Too old for Spock and deserves better than to be farmed out for breeding purposes. Not a hotsie. Not a totsie, either," McCoy grumped.

"It's still a working ship. And I still don't get any of it. Do the Vulcan elders think Starfleet lets us keep our favorite squeezes on board? Which, by the way and if you asked me, which no one ever does, would be great for morale, mind you….Anyway, she can't stay on board. Not if she marries Uhura…I mean Spock, and not if she is a concubine and not if she tells everyone to go get screwed and just leaves the whole thing for a bad deal. The only married couples we have on board are Starfleet officers on both sides. Or is she going to enlist?"

There had to be something she could do as a noncom, McCoy thought. Damned if he knew what. Unless Kirk wanted to learn something about Oz or Danielle Steele. On the other hand maybe the fact she couldn't stay and play house the way the elders seemed to expect would get her out of this mess. He added it to his mental list of escape clauses, then frowned. "Jim? You follow current events more closely than I do. Just how much clout do the Vulcan elders have since Vulcan went phoomp and proved that space really does suck?"

That apparently hit whatever switch existed in James Kirk's head that shunted him from smartass professional delinquent to Starfleet Academy genius. He paused, depilator in one hand, cup in the other, and frowned. "That depends on what you're talking about, Bones. Economically? Rich as sin. Most of the planet had holdings in the inter-Federation banking system, and the Federation Council declared the survivors sole inheritors of all the estates. So….rich. And they have a lot of moral leverage. I mean, come on, they were founding fathers already, and the great wise guys of the universe and all that, and now they get to be victims, too. In terms of representation, though? They're down to one courtesy rep on the council, and that's just because no one could quite stand telling them they didn't have enough population to rate a rep of their own. The colony should have been part of a regional election and shared a rep with twenty other colonial planets. But…I mean, they're _Vulcan_ and who's going to tell them they can't even have their own rep thanks to Nero?"

"So if Spock and Shahtau tell the elders to stuff it up their bony Vulcan asses they can't really do anything about it?"

Kirk looked at Bones like he was mentally deficient. "You want Spock -- our Spock -- to tell his only surviving people to get stuffed? Tell his father and his elders to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? He wouldn't. He couldn't. I mean, he could, but… Come on. Not happening."

"Yeah, but if it did: it's not like they can make hell for us all, is it?"

"Bones, they're Vulcans. If they want to make you miserable they have the brains, the brawn and the brass balls to pull it off."

McCoy closed his eyes, thinking of three people who'd already been made miserable enough. "Damn. There just has to be some way out of this. Wish I knew what it was."

End Ch. 3