Spock strode onto the bridge as if he owned it. He was purposeful, direct, moving straight to his science station without a word or glance. The Bridge was running smoothly, efficiently. He knew that without looking. Beta shift had been performing at well over 100 % efficiency. They were determined to do well, making up for the temporary loss of the Alpha shift. Spock did not understand the impulse. But he had seen it before, and in this case it worked to his advantage. They snapped reports to him about course, speed, and estimated time of arrival at Star Base 11 without being asked. Lt. Brent slid out of the center seat and resumed his position at navigation, but Spock went to his science station, inserted a disc into a slot and bent over the viewer.
The last few hours had produced little in the way of useful information. The explosive had been composed of items common to a starship but mixed in just the right proportion to be lethal. It indicated someone with a working knowledge of chemistry, or at least of explosives. They had begun questioning the members of the science division, though the idea that it could have been a member of his own team had filled Spock with a rage so terrible it had taken him long long moments to contain and conquer it. He had remained utterly still, barely holding on to the foul impulse, white-hot and tearing inside him. The stress of mastering that passion and holding the ache of his bruised body at bay had nearly driven him to his knees. So he had remained still, reached for disciplines that had kept Vulcans at peace for millennia, and finally been able to move and function again.
But even now he had to school himself to dispassion before studying the images in the viewer, images of the Officer's Mess – a place of peace, laughter, camaraderie, a place the humans in his life had cherished, in which they had felt safe. He was looking for evidence that would lead him to the perpetrator of the destruction that had taken this room from them and almost killed them all. There was no place for emotion in the investigation.
Still, the while the sight of his own blood splashed across the wall did nothing to excite the ancient need for vengeance in his DNA, the liberal pools and streaks of red did. The Vulcan mantras for peace repeated over and over in his head as he looked for the truth among the twisted ruins.
Perhaps it was his concentration on peace that disturbed the iron fist he had kept locked around his injured body. Shudders began to convulse down his back and legs. Pain shattered the inside of his skull and brilliant lights exploded behind his eyes. Nausea rose so quickly he barely stopped it. Pain uncoiled and crashed over him like a wave breaking on the rocks.
All that time Spock was riveted in place. No one watching would have any indication that he was doing more than focusing on his viewer.
Control, even his thoughts seemed like the crunch of boots on ground glass, What is, IS. What must be done, MUST be done. Control conquers pain. Control transcends…..
"Commander?" Daphne's voice cut across those thoughts like the rush of a cool breeze across the midday sun.
Spock straightened slowly, like a panther disturbed at a kill. He had not heard the lift doors open, but Daphne was standing in front of them, having clearly just arrived on the Bridge.
Her clear gold eyes met his without flinching; and though he looked directly back at her, lights and shadows still danced in his vision and he could barely see her.
"There is new information in the investigation. I had it transferred to the computer in the Briefing Room. If you would join me there at your convenience?" His sharp ears focused on her voice and let it guide him across the Bridge to her side.
"I will come now. Lt. Brent, you have the con."
He heard the lift doors swish open, walked forward on instinct alone, and knew that Daphne walked beside him. He waited until the doors closed before falling back against the wall and sinking to the floor, groaning involuntarily. It was like a giant had slammed a fist into the sunset, sending shards of red light and black darkness to explode inside him. He drew his knees up tight, clamped his hands on either side of his head and dropped his head forward.
Hands, silken and cool, gentle but firm, covered his. Daphne. Kneeling before him, reaching for him, touching him, leaning forward, her face close to his, her forehead…..
"No," he dragged the single syllable out of his dry throat like it was being dragged over gravel.
"You can put me on report later!" she snapped, and then her forehead was pressed to his.
The moment her empathic receptors touched him, the pain ran molten into her essence, dissolved like metal in the fires of the god Vulcan. It dissolved into her, pulled from him. Desperately he sought to shield it from her, but she was strong in her empathic power, determined and would not yield. She had reached the Queens level and the eighth square and checkmated him.
Daphne cried out, once, and the sound pierced his hearing and went straight to the protective depths of his Vulcan heart. He came to his senses to find that he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. A glance told him the lift had been taken off line.
Daphne, his soul's bond-mate, lay collapsed with her head on his thigh. Normally she was beautifully, vibrantly alive. Life radiated from her golden eyes and the smile that lay in them, even when it did not touch her generous mouth. Now she was limp, her body rising and falling in deep ragged breaths. Silence lay between them like the scorched air after a lightning strike.
He stroked one hand over her wheat blond hair, moving it away from her face. The curve of her neck seemed almost hopelessly vulnerable beneath the upswept golden waves.
His body still whimpered to him of injuries that needed to heal but it no longer hammered and roared. He took a moment and regained control; and in that moment she also recovered, sitting up shakily but meeting his gaze with her typical fearless courage. He continued brushing her hair with his fingers, long, strong, masculine fingers filled with mystery and mastery.
"You knew," he stated it, bluntly.
"Specify," she requested.
"About the pain."
"Your shields are slipping," she replied, matching his honesty and level tone," though not so badly yet that anyone on board with the slightest telepathic ability would know." There was still boldness in her eyes, but not accusation, "It would take someone in an intimate relationship with you, someone who knows you well and shares a connection. Only someone who loves you would know."
He nodded. She put her hands on his shoulders and bent her head to fit in the hollow beneath his collar bone. She rested there for a while, trying to forget the memory of the searing agony he had been enduring. Tears blurred her vision but she denied them, refusing to let them fall.
"Spock," she whispered.
In his dimly lit recovery room, Jim Kirk stirred for the first time in hours. His head tossed. His body tensed and shuddered as if he would rise. His lips formed one single word, "Spock…."
The monitor in McCoy's office that was connected to Kirk's biobed went off with no warning. McCoy leaped to his feet and dashed out the door. It might be Kirk's monitor, but somehow McCoy knew – he knew – it wasn't Jim he needed to find.
That green-blooded devil's spawn…..
"Spock," he muttered it under his breath like a curse.