Spock opened his eyes and saw a strange, yet familiar sight. It was the garden at his family home, but he knew that the Enterprise was parsecs away from Vulcan. Mentally shrugging, he was too tired to puzzle out any reasons for his being here. Here he was, and he was content.
He broke into a smile as he saw the figure of his mother, bending over her flowers. He had helped her plant those blooms. She had laughed so happily when he had managed to order the seeds from Earth. He had received his father's help in the purchase, but the idea was his. He was delighted that they had grown so tall.
But, that was years ago, was it not? He could not have been more than four at the time. Perhaps not, he thought, for childish feet were carrying him closer to Amanda, and a small hand reached to take hers.
"Do you like them Spock? They are beautiful, are they not?" Amanda gently asked her son. The years and care had not yet given her the silver locks, and fine wrinkles on her face. She was young and lovely, smiling down at her young son.
"They are…atheistically pleasing." Spock said, stiffly, while glancing at his mother from the corner of his eye. Her eyes were squinted in smiling lines, while she spoke.
"I'm glad you think so, Mr. Spock." She said seriously. She could not restrain her laughs at Spock's next remark.
"I do not think so. It is a fact." She scooped him into her arms and hugged him. Spock relaxed into her arms, and allowed her aura and happiness to melt throughout him.
"You shall have to thank your father for helping you purchase them." Amanda said. Spock shook his head, and squirmed down off her knees, turning away.
"I do not want to. He didn't want to help me, he thought it was illogical. But I knew you would like them." Spock beamed at her. She laughed again. Spock loved that laugh.
"My son, you have just called your mother an illogical being." She arched an eyebrow at him. He blushed green, slightly.
"I'm sorry." He sounded sheepish. She picked him up again and held him on her lap.
"Do not be sorry. I am an illogical being, and you and your father put up with me very well." She tapped his nose, then kissed his forehead. "After all, one must not fight what they are." He sobered, and looked at the ground. The grown Vulcan remembered that this was nearly the last time Spock had allowed Amanda to cuddle and hold him. Her words had resonated in his heart, but he felt unease concerning himself.
What was he? Vulcan? Human?
It was after that day that he decided to be Vulcan.
After that day, he broke his mother's heart.
The child Spock sat quietly in his mother's arms, enjoying the pulsing love and happiness from his mother's contact. He missed this. No, he will miss this.
There was a note of discord, of unquiet in the contentment. Spock heard voices calling out. It disturbed him. Something about those voices was compelling, urgent and commanding obedience. He wriggled down from his mother's arms, and turned around.
"Mother did you hear—" He turned back to find his mother vanished, the garden no more and himself standing on a dune in the sands of a wild Vulcan desert. The wind blew around him, and he choked on the dust. In the wind, he could hear panicked voices calling his name. Jim! And McCoy! He covered his nose and mouth with one hand, shaded his eyes with the other, but there was nothing visible in the sudden storm. He hoped they had shelter from the deadly wind.
The dust leaked into his mouth and down his throat, burning and scraping. Any air he took in was full of powder. Coughing and gasping he fell to his knees on the ground. He could not breathe! Regret overwhelmed him that somehow he had left Kirk and McCoy to die in the Vulcan desert, because he did not have the sense to seek out shelter.
He felt the sand close his throat. He collapsed into the fetal position, no longer gasping for he could not draw breath. He would drown in the desert. His grit-filled eyes drifted shut, and blackness consumed him.
He opened his eye to a wall of fire. It was dancing just in front of him, barricading the way for unending lengths in either direction. The fumes choked him, scorching its way down his throat and setting a blaze inside his chest. Brown eyes wide, he rose shakily, coughing. He looked at the inferno before him.
There was a familiar figure behind the barrier of flame, rippling and barely visible. It was his mother. She was standing, beckoning towards him, seemingly unaware of the danger she was so perilously close to.
He took a step forward, intending he knew not what, when the flames parted before him, and a pathway was cleared directly towards Amanda. He nearly sobbed in relief, and took another step.
Then, he pulled up short. There hidden underneath the crackling fingers of fire, were two voices. They were voices he had forgotten, he realized they had always been there. They were calling to him to come. Their voices surrounded him, and he turned, searching.
Suddenly the wall of flames encircled him with a great rushing noise that momentarily drowned out the friendly voices. Spock was now standing, immobilized, in the center of a circle of heat and flames. Ahead was the clear path that led to his mother's safe arms. She held them out for him. To all other sides were roaring, tongues.
The voices picked up intensity, fearful, panicked. He now could see that two figures stood, behind the flames directly opposite his mother's safe corridor. They were familiar. So familiar.
The answer came to Spock in a jolt of clarity so intense that he fell to his knees. He knew them! Jim! McCoy! They were his friends, and they were looking for him.
-Spock- his mother called him. He turned and could now clearly see his choice. To walk to safety and his mother's arms. Unburned, and forever in peace, accepted. Or, to walk through a wall of flame to stand at the side of his captain at the cost of pain and hurt.
-Spock! Spock!- The voices of his dear friends came to his ears. He realized his error. He was accepted there as well, with his friends, his brothers. And it was not yet time for his earned peace. It would be hard, and painful, but he was ready. He rose, back straight, decision made; he searched his mother's eyes. There he found acceptance and love.
-Go- She whispered.
He turned and walked into the barrier of fire.
Jim's arms shook as he continued the rescue breathing, regardless of the fact that his panic made his trembling breaths almost useless to Spock's greater lung capacity. He had fallen into an eternal pattern breathe out, gasp another breath, and repeat. He grunted with each repetition. Kirk's eyes were shut against his tears, and his lips quivered against Spock's cooling skin. Breathe in, breathe out.
He was only aware of McCoy protesting when he physically pulled him back by the shoulders. Kirk flailed, trying to get back to his friend, his brother, but Bones wouldn't let him go. He instead pulled Jim to his chest, stilling his frantic movements.
"He's gone, he's gone." was the whispered mantra, and Kirk's heart rebelled to hear it.
"No!" He lunged again, and got free from McCoy's shaking arms. Kirk gently cradled Spock, raising his head and pressing it against his heart. He sat there, not moving now, frozen in disbelief. McCoy stood where Kirk had left him, looking anywhere but at the dropping life signals readings. There was nothing he could do and the thought killed him. Tears flowed, from two pairs of eyes.
Then Kirk raised his head, looking in shock at Spock's face. There was movement and minute expressions, where before had been almost a death mask. Kirk again was frozen. Then abruptly and terrifyingly violently, Spock arched his back, gasping, eyes wide and crazed. He thrashed and nearly knocked Kirk off the bed. Spock's body convulsed, he coughed loud, and harsh, spilling bloodied liquid from his lips.
McCoy jumped into action, Kirk only a second behind. Kirk lifted his friend's body upright, pounding on his back. McCoy grabbed a hypo and then commenced to clean Spock's face and catch the remaining expelled substance. Spock coughed harder, and they clung to him as he writhed, and shuddered. Then they watched, in amazement, when, after the frenzy, he fell into a deep, but living sleep.
Now they sat, staring desperately at each slow, but strong breath that lifted the Vulcan's ribcage. It could not be, he had been dying. McCoy at least, was sure of it. He had seen the falling life signs. He was a doctor, for heaven's sake, and if he couldn't tell when a patient was fading away….
Never had he been so glad to be wrong.
He was strong, Spock. He had fought his way back from the very brink of oblivion. He had come back to them, to form their threesome, their brotherhood.
There was still a long way to go. He would be terribly weak and ill for weeks. There may even be permanent damage to his lungs. There was still the possibility that he would not survive, even after this rally. But he lived now! And damned if McCoy wasn't going to keep him that way.
Now if the hobgoblin would just wake up.