Wow, thank you so much for all the kind reviews! They were so encouraging and thoughtful. I'm such a sensitive, manic nut that seeing some of them made me cry. I'm sorry I've not had a chance to respond to each of them personally. Sometimes FFN's interface stymies me a bit.
So here we are. Please note that this chapter contains very, very explicit sex.
Last thing - I'm sorry about the abundance of errors in this chapter. I wanted to get it out to you on Monday, like I said I would. I will go back and edit more thoroughly tomorrow.
7.
Breath
Spock is reluctant to leave his adun'a when she is suffering the secondhand effects of Selik's respiratory distress, but his daughter is in need and he will not deny her.
Spock helps Nyota onto the bench. He takes her hand and presses it into his palm to get a more precise impression of her mental state. Intense worry. Concern. Anxiousness. Laboured breathing. Guilt.
"Nyota," he says. He longs to lay his cheek against her chest so he can hear the reassuring thump of her heart, but he feels the gulf between them is too great to impose on her body thus. He wants to kiss her doubt away, but as has been the case for over six months now, he finds that he cannot.
"I'm fine. Go," she says, and he has no other choice but to obey.
Spock catches Selik's scent on the wind and follows it, sprinting southeast toward Mount Kelek-Masu's foothills. He runs 96.2 kilometres per hour.
Nam-uh ri kwes, kan t'nash-veh. Sarlah na'du, he says, sending his daughter a warm wave of calm completely at odds with how he himself is feeling. Do not be afraid, child of mine. I come for you.
She is hypoxic.
Spock feels her increasingly desperate gasps for air. Inflamed airways and bronchospasm make her chest and throat tight. She tries to flee from Spock's mental call even as he hears her anguished cries for oxygen through the bond.
He has done this to her. He has driven her away.
#
Seven months and thirteen days ago, Spock arrived home to find a letter from his older self on top the dresser in the foyer. The sender had not written a return address on the off-white envelope, but Spock recognised his own handwriting, filtered through time and another universe though it was.
"Adun'a," Spock called upon entering his home, the scent of limonene faint bus discernible in the air. Nyota had cleaned. "Adun'a?" he called out again, picking up the envelope, slipping it into the inner pocket of his uniform jacket. It was not logical to shout her name, not when he could simply locate her through the tel, but it made him proud to say 'wife' aloud, to claim her as such.
She did not answer, but Spock followed the sound of creaking out to the back garden, where Nyota sat under a blanket on the porch swing that hung from the leafless tree, its branches jutted like the peaks of mountains. A cold wind coming from the East caused the swing to rock gently, the source of the creaking sound.
Nyota had not yet become privy to his presence, and for seven seconds, Spock watched her uninterrupted. Her hair had grown so long in the last year, far past the middle of her back. Curled in some parts, waved in others. Unbound. It gave her the look of the old Vulcan goddesses. Light from the stars revealed every perfect angle of her face and neck and ears.
Since first he ever saw her, Spock considered his wife's beauty something of a revelation. It was not logical to linger as he did on something as insignificant as her physical appearance, but neither was it logical to deny what was obvious; that she unwound his logic. Time had only deepened her splendour. Her buttocks and breasts had grown between 5.1 and 6.4 percent more robust in just the last year, a change that Spock found somewhat inflaming. This morning, when she'd still been wearing sleep attire, she'd reached up to the top shelf of the cabinet to get the girls their cereal, causing her shirt to lift, revealing the sculpted flat of her stomach, rounding into her hips, which were covered only by a pair of black girl briefs. He'd had a notion to take her right there, on the counter, though Selik and Amayel would wake in only fifteen minutes.
"You know I can hear you breathing, Spockam, right?" Nyota asked in Vulkhansu, turning to look at him full on, her warm smile jolting him out of his reverie. Her accent generally proved flawless, but when she was tired, like now, a trace of a Swahili tinged the Vulcan words, the consonants softening and the vowels shortening. Spock found it illogically endearing.
"Apologies for disturbing you," he said, walking to join her on the swing. She moved the blanket so that it covered them both, then leaned into his side, her head dropping onto his shoulder. She'd recently washed her hair. It dampened the fabric of his jacket and smelled of lavender and detergent.
"Nam-tor du sanokik ertaya," she said, repeating back something he'd once said to her. You are an agreeable disturbance.
"The girls are already in bed?" Spock asked.
"Ha. Krol-tor n'Surak."
Yes. Praise Surak, indeed. Both children were in an anti-bedtime phase of their development, and it could be quite trying some evenings. But it was nearly midnight now. They were no doubt sound asleep. Once the two of them succumbed to slumber, not even the eruption of a volcano could wake them.
Nyota curled more into Spock's embrace, her hand slipping under his uniform jacket, a single finger slipping through the space of two buttons on his shirt.
It was a light, innocent, feather touch, but still he felt a growl erupt in his chest. He only just managed to stop it.
She teased her finger along his skin through the gap in his shirt, pulling at the hair below his belly button.
"You tease me, Nyota," he said.
"Vi? Nash-veh?" she asked.
Who? Me?
Yes, her, always her.
Another harsh, icy wind came westward, and Nyota shivered. She pulled her legs up onto the swing, buried her face into his neck.
Spock removed her hand from his stomach so he could properly remove his jacket and shirt, then pulled her to him to warm her with his body heat. She pressed kisses against his chin, scraped her teeth along the bottom of his jawbone.
"You were missing from me today," she said. "I found myself longing for you more than usual."
"Fourteen hours, thirty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds without you took a similar toll on me," he said, not wishing to admit that it was likely his own longing she'd been experiencing, not her own. Selik's recent hospital stay upset his emotional balance, and it ultimately had a cascading effect. Once one emotion was out of check, so then was another. He needed to work on shielding himself more effectively from his adun'a. He did not wish to violate her mind in such a way.
"Vi-mashal nash-veh ne'sai-vel k'keshtan-ur-masu du nahan," Nyota continued in a whisper, her tongue flicking lightly against his earlobe. I soaked my underwear through with come thinking of you.
Spock tried to swallow but found his throat and mouth curiously dry.
"I almost called you during the midday meal, but I came to my senses."
"You should have contacted me, adun'a. I would have come to you. I would have satisfied your need with my tongue, in turn easing my hunger for you, as well."
She trembled in his arms, made a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat. Spock kissed her temple, nuzzled his nose into her hair. Brushing a finger against her wrist, he shared with her his desires: an image of her thighs draped over his shoulders whilst he feasted on her keshtan-ur, his tongue parting her open and drinking what she offered.
He took the top curve of her ear into his mouth as he showed her his thoughts and bit down, hard. She cried out weakly and threw her arm around his middle, trying to get closer.
"Can you be quiet, Nyota? Whilst I pleasure you?"
Quickly, she nodded her head.
He bit her ear again, then lapped at the tiny marks he left, working his way down to her neck, then back up to her mouth. Once he divided her lips with his tongue, Spock could feel the heat of her stifled moans.
Nyota's thigh pushed against his erection with the slightest amount of pressure, and he felt his hips move into her, grinding to relieve some of the ache in his groin. His free hand worked his way down her side until he reached the elastic waistband of her leggings, the ones she typically wore as pajamas because they were worn and thin and left little to the imagination.
He knew that that if he slid his hand several centimetres downward, he'd feel the lovely slickness of her folds, hot and wet against his fingers. He wanted to push inside her with his fingers, feel the tightness over him. He would come as a result of the stimulation to his sensitive hands.
Before he could manage it, Nyota straddled him, a leg swinging over his lap, the swing rocking from the force.
"Spock," she said, moaning his name. "Need you." Her tongue was soft and wet in his mouth. Her teeth nibbled his bottom lip. His hips jerked up between her legs, both of them still dressed below the waist, he in his uniform trousers and boxer-briefs, her in her leggings.
Nyota rubbed herself against the length of his hard lok as she kissed him, already delirious with desire. Did she not know how much she tested his control when she behaved thus? He would have her on the ground, if need be, the cold surrounding them, their writhing bodies the only source of heat for kilometres.
He reached down between them and unbuttoned his trousers effortlessly as she dry fucked him, his cock already springing out through the space in his underwear. Her moisture had saturated her leggings where they covered her centre, slick against his penis as Nyota rubbed back and forth tantalisingly slow, his pre-come mixing with her arousal.
Everything about his adun'a overwhelmed his senses. The thrumming of her heart and the heat of her mouth and the shortness her gasps. He felt her pleasure through the bond, the yearning between her legs only he could fulfill.
Spock ripped a hole in the crotch of her leggings and slid into her, entering her fully with one stroke, stretching her.
"Spock," she moaned, too loud, loud enough that those on the neighbouring compound would hear if their windows were opened, but all he wanted to do was make her say it louder, so that no one in Shi'Kahr doubted who it was Nyota Uhura belonged to.
He slid his hands under her shirt and lifted, tossing it away. She arched, leaning back, pushing her breasts out. He took a hard nipple into his mouth, circled it with his tongue as Nyota rose up and down over his cock. There were few things that gave him as much pleasure as the look on his beloved's face when she rode his cock.
He stood, his hands tight around her and her legs squeezing around his waist, his lok still inside of her. Spock lay her on the ground, and she shivered from the cold. Unmoving, he watched the play of light across her face, the heaving of her chest and the length of her eyelashes. She tried to move her hips up, but he held her down.
"Tell me what you want," he said.
"Du," said Nyota. "I need you. Please, please, please." He felt her desperation through the tel, a coiled spring in the pit of her stomach.
"Do I please you, Nyota?"
"Yes."
"Could anyone else please you as I do?"
"No."
"Would you ever have another?"
"No."
"Tell me you are mine."
"I am yours."
"Do you want me to take you here even though mine kin in the neighboring compounds might here the way you cry out for me?"
"Yes, God, please, Spock."
He slid out of her slowly, the head of his lok barely inside enough to spread her open for him, then he drove in hard, her gasps inciting him to go faster, more roughly.
When he leaned down in bit her neck, she came, her muscles tightening, igniting his own release. He pulled out, letting his semen spurt out on her belly, his groan shocking him in its ferocity.
He lay next to her for several seconds in the dirt, licking her ear and her cheek as she comes down. He scents his release on her as a breeze comes, combined with the intoxicating smell of her wetness, and it is like a sickness how blood begins to swell his penis yet again.
"Turn," he said, sitting up onto his knees.
She nodded because she knew what was coming, familiar with his appetites.
"Take those off," said Spock, nodding toward what remains of her leggings. She pulls them down easily, revealing the beautiful expanse of her legs.
Nyota flipped onto her stomach, her forearms positioned on the ground, and Spock lifted her ass into the air toward him, so beautiful. He bit her there, then licked downward until he reached her wet keshtan-ur, still throbbing from her orgasm.
He tasted her, a teasing lick to her clit with the tip of his tongue, and the sound she made undid all the hurts he had ever endured. The smell and taste of her drove him to such madness that he confused it for plak-tow the first time he'd ever experienced it. He slid his tongue between her folds and up to her clit, no longer able to force himself to go slow and savour it. In seconds, his mouth is buried between her legs, taking its fill of her as she pressed back into his face, her sounds further enticing him.
When he felt her clitoris swell and tighten with impending climax, he was tempted to pull back, to let her come down again and build her back up so that he could enjoy her for longer, but he needed to be inside of her again. He flicked his tongue until she screamed and thrashed against his mouth, and even before she finished, he pulled himself up and put his lok into her, taking her from behind.
He lasted barely a few minutes before he roared with another orgasm, his come spilling into his wife. They both collapsed, exhausted, and he pulled her into his embrace.
When they were touching like this, hands clasped, cheeks pressed together, he could feel everything she felt so clearly. Her satisfaction and contentment, also her exhaustion.
"We should sleep now, k'diwa."
She said nothing, but he could sense her agreement.
"Did you see that letter?" Nyota asked, reaching over to grab the blanket they had long-ago abandoned in the midst of their lovemaking. She covered them both. Naked, bodies pressed together, they were something close to comfortably warm.
"Yes," said Spock. "That is why I came to you in the first place. I wondered if—I wondered if he had delivered it in person, the man who is simultaneously me and not me."
He could feel rather than see Nyota shaking her head, her hair moving against his lips and neck.
"Would it have upset you if he had?" she asked.
Spock considered the question a moment before coming to a conclusion. "I find myself unreasonably disconcerted by the idea of you near any other who would have you, and I know that he would have you, as he is me."
Nyota sat up, stretched her arms into the air.
"Will you tell me what it says, when you're done reading it, I mean?"
"Given that the nature of the letter is not private, of course," he said.
She took the blanket from him to wrap her naked body, her leggings effectively destroyed and her shirt nowhere to be seen. "I'm going to go pack lunch for the girls then go to bed. You'll come sit up with me until I fall asleep?"
"I will," he said.
She smiled that wide grin of hers, the one that showed how open and giving and generous her love was.
After Nyota slipped into the house, Spock went back to the porch swing, removed the envelope from the pocket of his uniform jacket. It would be illogical to linger, so he slid his finger to unbind the glue, removed the note inside, and read.
Dear Spock,
It has been thirteen years, two months, two days, nine hours, seven minutes, and three seconds since our last encounter. In this time, I have been tempted to seek you out so that we might share a meal and converse on matters of fascination to us both, of which I am sure, given the circumstances, are many. I have resisted that urge until now.
I am aware that you have two daughters who are approaching their seventh year, a significant time in the life of a V'tosh child. It is my hope you do not consider it too much of an intrusion that I am frequently in touch with Sarek regarding their welfare. I find myself overwhelmingly invested in their well-being. They are, from what I have gleaned, intelligent, curious, kind, and compassionate children. Kirk informs me that they are already 'little heart-breakers.' This is of no surprise to me given who their mother is.
You will notice that this letter is meandering. Forgive my lapse in logic and decorum. It is difficult to supply energy to such tasks when you have reached the age I have.
I reach out to you through this outmoded form of communication because I wished you to have the proper time to consider my request without a sense of pressure to reply in a timely fashion, as I know you would feel to do with any sort of electronic medium.
I wish to see her, she who is your wife.
I need not talk to her, if you would not desire it. However, I would appreciate the opportunity to spend some time in her presence, in the same room, if only for one minute, or if you are amenable, for two.
I have been contemplating writing this letter for thirteen years, two months, two days, nine hours, and seven minutes.
Peace and Long Life,
Spock
Spock folded the letter and returned it to the envelope, its contents committed to memory. He located Nyota's discarded clothing, considered throwing the ripped tights into the recycler, but decided on second thought to keep them. He would leave them unwashed, and next time she was away on a mission, make use of them.
"Spockam? Are you coming?" she asked from down the hall, her voice echoing against stony walls.
"Ha, adun'a."
He joined her on their bed, tugged her tightly into his stomach and did not let ago.
"Is everything okay?"
"Ha."
"May I ask what he wrote you?"
"It is no matter."
"Are you sure?"
"Ha."
"You would tell me if it was something important, right?"
Spock did not answer her, and Nyota tried to pull from his embrace. He could hardly bear to let her go, but he did.
Like she tended to do when upset, Nyota switched to speaking Standard. "You are hiding something."
"I simply do not wish to discuss the matter at this time."
"You just said there was no matter."
"You are tired. You should sleep."
"I'm actually feeling quite awake now. What did he say? Was it about—does he think you're doing something wrong? Off course"
Since first finding out that it was Spock Prime who'd encouraged Captain Kirk to provoke an emotional reaction in Spock on the day of Va'Pak because it was Kirk who was meant to be the captain of the Enterprise, Nyota had held an illogical fear that Spock Prime might seek to influence the course of events in this world again, in a way that would draw Spock away from her. What if you find out he left me? For someone better? she had asked. Spock had wondered at the time if it was some sort of joke.
Now, Spock understood that despite her supreme confidence in matters of intellect and academics, she remained uncertain about her worth in other regards, for reasons he would not ever be able to fathom.
"It is nothing that should concern you, my adun'a."
"But I am concerned. Can't you see that? A few minutes ago you were fine. Now you're clearly not. I can feel your unease, baby."
"Do not call me that," Spock said. He did not know what provoked him to snap as he did, especially when he generally found Nyota's use of affectionate endearments pleasant.
"And now you've just closed up on me. What're you thinking? I hate it when I can't feel you."
"I am thinking that I wish for you to sleep."
"Fine, Spock. Good night." She let the matter lie for the evening, but the next morning, when Spock awoke the next morning, he found her already gone, a note on the kitchen counter.
Spock,
The girls' lunches are inside the fridge unit.
Wake them at 7:00am because they did not take baths last night and will need them before the driver comes to take them to school at 8:00.
Do not let Selik wet her hair.
There's some plomeek soup on the stove if you'd like.
Please stop by the chemist today to pick up Selik's prescriptions. I know I said I'd do it, but I'll be working late tonight. Don't wait up.
Nyota
He understood the note for what it was, a bid for space, or in more colourful Standard terms, an instruction list that loosely translated to, 'go fuck yourself.'
#
Spock sees Xerxes' paw prints in the dirt, most of them blown over by wind and covered with brush, but he makes them out.
At the speed her runs, Spock locates his daughter in less than ten minutes. Xerxes howls, high-pitched wails into the night, trotting a circle around Selik's body.
"Selik!" Spock shouts and goes to to his child. Her eyes are closed and she is pale. He rips open her top and puts his ear to her belly, listening for the sound of her heart. It is pulsing, faintly, slowly.
Spock knows mouth to mouth resuscitation is useless, not when her throat is closed and her lungs half-functioning. He places his thumb, index, and middle finger on the psi-points of her cheeks, and enters her mind—in a way that he knows she would hate but he has no other choice at this moment.
He keeps his touch light, avoiding her emotional centres, instead focusing on her bio-controls.
Samekh, she cries in his mind.
I am here, ko-fu.
He removes an inhaler from his pocket, pokes it between her lips and squeezes, but the beta-2-agonist does nothing to relieve the contracted muscles of her bronchi, swollen and inflamed, refusing to be soothed. He needs to get her home. She will need magnesium sulphate intraveneously. He can already feel bacteria gathering in her lungs, her airways unable to clear mucus inflamed as they are. She would get pneumonia, most certainly, for the third time this year, weakening her yet more.
Spock closed his eyes, focused on his daughter's chest. He placed his free palm on her chest, sending psy-shocks through her skin and ribcage to help relax her bronchi. He felt her responding, the slightest bit of air getting through to her. He prioritises her blood flow so it goes to her brain first. It is exhausting, but when he focuses, he forces constricted passages to open and clear. For such minute yet powerful functions, it requires all of his energy, and he senses his body weakening as he opens up her bronchioles with his mind, unclogs her broncholiotes. He flattens her diaphragm so she might inhale, contracting her abdominals to encourage large, deep, healing breaths.
He feels her rising to consciousness—not to wakefulness entirely, but to a state like sleep, and Spock allows himself to remove himself from her mind. He collapses next to her, shaking with the effort he's expended. His brain aches like a snapped bond. His lungs seem to seize. His heart beat climbs.
In the distance, Spock hears voices. "Honoured One!" they call.
Spock thinks it is S'harien and Zhi'rev, two of his grandmother's attendants. Perhaps others approach, as well, judging by the number of footfalls. He cannot muster the energy to call out to them and give away his location, but he is confident they will find him.
Spock pulls Selik's body toward his and holds her, comforted by the sound of her breathing as he falls unconsciously into a healing trance.
#
Spock is haunted by nightmares of p'pil'lay, of broken bonds. Distantly, he feels that he is being seen to by one of T'Pau's men. But it is too far away to consider. He thinks only of she who is his wife.
It is a precarious undertaking, attaching one's self inextricably to another.
Non-Vulcans misunderstand telan—bonding. It is not a bridge between two minds, nor is it a 'link,' as it is frequently (and falsely) described in Standard. It is meil-tel, a chemical join. The same electrical forces that fuse atoms together to form various elements and compounds causes the mind to merge with another.
A piece of Nyota's unique neurophysiology is entwined with his, and a piece of his with hers. The connection he feels to his daughters, and to his other kin, is significant as well, but it does compare to the reality of having another's mind be an inherent part of your identity, like another hemisphere in the brain.
Yet Nyota has given her heart to another; of this, Spock is reasonably certain. For years others have coveted her. His adun'a's intellect, specifically in the field of informatics, impresses all. Her intuitive understanding of abstract scientific data allow for creative solutions to problems few even know exist until she points them out. Her accomplishments have earned her a competitive posting in the Federation Defence Network, a joint effort between Vulcan High Command and Starfleet to map uncharted space in the galaxy using an invention of Nyota's that compresses radio waves remotely and retrieves them for analysis via subspace. Her device, still in prototype form, will in all probability change how the Federation explores beyond the Alpha Quadrant.
Maresh, Nyota's direct superior on the project, personally requested her for the posting. Nyota had first thought to decline the offer. She did not trust her invention in the hands of Starfleet, still troubled by the memory of Admiral Marcus and wary of the militarism and colonialism inherent to Starfleet's mission, regardless of claims to the converse. Nyota's recent promotion to Commander allowed her some flexibility in choosing postings, and she'd wished to continue working on High Command's comm relay.
Spock thought the matter quite settled until when six months ago Maresh made a personal visit to their home to convince Nyota to accept the position. Spock and Nyota had been eating breakfast outside whilst Selik and Amayel played Storm vs. T'Vet. Amayel argued that T'Vet was a real Vulcan goddess of war and therefore would easily destroy a made-up goddess like Ororo Munroe. She did not use signs when speaking to Selik. Their twin-bond, as well as Amayel's psi-strength, allowed them to communicate completely telepathically. Spock only discerned the gist of what they were saying by prodding slightly at his own empathic link to them.
The Vulcan General known as Maresh arrived as Spock was about to refill Nyota's coffee. He rang the bell at the front gate of their compound, and Amayel and Selik had taken off running to greet him, barefoot, their feet caking with red-orange clay. "Someone is here," Selik yelled, hearing the sound of the tolling chime in the distance.
"I wonder who that is," Nyota said, her voice tight, just as it had been for the past seventeen days when she spoke to Spock, since he'd received that letter and refused to tell her what it said.
Spock turned from the door toward the sound of the bell, set down his wife's still-empty cup onto the table. "I do not know." Squinting, he made out at Vulcan male with olive skin, young in Vulcan terms, perhaps sixty-five, taller than Spock, and broader. He wore robes that signified he was part of High Command, the lan-terseht showing his rank as General.
"Selik. Amayel. Do not go any further," he called to his daughters as they dashed to the gate. They apparently did not hear though they should have been within range to do so. Both continued their sprint to meet the stranger.
Xerxes trotted after them, passing them, thinking it a game.
"Kofu-lar," said Spock, this time his voiced raised and his tone sharp. "You will do as your samekh says and go no further.
This time they stopped, slowing to a jog before stilling completely.
"Samekh, there is someone important to see us!" said Selik. "Perhaps he will explain to Amayel that T'Vet is no less made up than Ororo Munroe, and therefore that should not factor into who wins."
Spock saw the way Nyota reacted to Maresh. He told jokes. He was charming. At least twenty or thirty years her senior, he was worldly and learned in ways Spock was not yet. It was not illogical to feel jealous. Nyota was his. There was no question of this. And yet.
He saw, too, the way he easily changed Nyota's mind about accepting the position. The way Selik, who rarely opened up to those outside of her family, spoke excitedly to him about Ororo Munroe. And Maresh said that the psychic energy required to control the weather was not out of the realm of reason for a V'tosh devoted herself properly to meditation, which caused her to meditate on a regular basis for the first time in months.
Spock would never be a man who gave his affections easily, not when he'd spent the better part of his life hiding all vulnerability for fear of physical assault.
Maresh was a true Vulcan in a way that Spock never would be.
Has Spock not failed as a father and husband?
As he feels the tremulous breaths of his kofu next to him, he believes the evidence to be quite conclusive.
#
End Chapter
Notes:
There's a lot going on with Spock right now, my poor angst bear. Things will become clearer with each chapter, I hope, but hopefully this has given you a sense of some of the things that are troubling him, and why there is this distance between him and Nyota at the moment. I don't want to overwhelm you all with back story each chapter...so I hope this is both satisfying and tantalising.
Sorry about all the Vulcan! I am learning it right now, and this is my only way to practise. I hope that for the most part everything is understandable based on context.
I am wary of italics, but eh, what are you gonna do.
Your comments are so appreciated. They just...yeah. They really are.