Chapter Fourteen

It had been two weeks since Star Fleet had first started monitoring the Klingon's and their conflict with Chandra V. The situation had seemed to, surprisingly, escalate quite slowly; Klingon's were not known for their patience. It was only very recently that Star Fleet had decided to act.

Spock was currently in his office, gathering several things for the mission. Unfortunately, he had assigned essays to several of his classes prior to discovering that there was indeed a conflict in need of resolution. His classes hadn't complained about the essays, though; Spock had been in far too good a mood of late to assign excessive amounts of work to his students. He attributed his generally pleasant demeanor to Zuria. He was sure that, had his many students known that she was the reason for their good fortune, they would most likely have thanked her multiple times on many occasions.

The only problem now was that he had been left with the work of correcting them. Fortunately, however, as Zuria had been stationed for duty aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, the task would not need to be done alone when he had the free time to accomplish it.

At the moment, though, Spock was feeling less well than he had been. Nausea currently caused him to work a little less efficiently. He formed a fist with his hand, pressing it lightly against his mouth, almost as though he could banish the feeling that way.

The sound of his office door opening caused Spock to look up. He knew that it was Zuria; he had programmed the DNA scanner to accept the print of her hand as well.

"Good morning, Zuria." He welcomed. Surprisingly, as he took several steps towards her and pulled her into an embrace, his nausea nearly vanished.

"Good morning, Spock." She replied, pressing a kiss against his lips, one which he readily returned.

Zuria pulled away first. "How are you feeling, Spock?" She questioned, examining him.

"I do not feel greatly unwell." He responded. "What is it that prompted you to inquire such a thing?"

"Well," She began, lifting a hand to stroke the tip of his ear. "You look a bit green. Are you sick?"

"No," He assured her, taking her hand in his. "I will admit to having felt a small amount of nausea several moments ago, but I remain largely unaffected by it."

"Are you sure? I can take your temperature, if you'd like." She offered. A small grin tugged at the corner of his lips; he tended to forget that she was a xenobiology major, and thus, she was eager to tend to those with any ailments.

"No, I am sure that I will be just fine within several minutes." He told her. She nodded in acceptance.

"Okay. As long as you don't lose your breakfast on board the Enterprise." She said with a chuckle.

"I will not." He promised, placing a kiss on her forehead. She gave a small smile, one that lasted very briefly.

"What are we going to do when we're on the Enterprise?" She inquired. "Is there anything different that we should do to hide… us?"

Spock gave thought to her question for several moments before speaking. "Presently, no one suspects us, which means that we must be doing an excellent job." He began. His mind flashed back to their classes; Zuria had seemed to enjoy teasing him lately by crossing her legs, causing her skirt to lose several inches in the process. His eyes only lingered on her for a second more than they did on his other students, but he enjoyed her actions nonetheless; they reminded him that she loved him- only him.

"I happen to agree with that; we have been doing an excellent job." She agreed, resting her head on his shoulder and speaking into his neck. "Commanders have their own private sleeping quarters, do they not?" She asked. In that moment, an intense wave of lust crashed over him; so intense as to be painful. It was not merely desire that he felt; it was a deep, biological need to engage in intercourse with her. Spock pulled away as subtly as he could, a short burst of pain having shot through his gut.

"Yes." He replied shortly. Why? Why did this have to happen now?

"Good." Zuria grinned. She pressed her lips against his, giving him a kiss that nearly caused him to tear her clothes off and take her in his office; something that, under normal circumstances, he would never have had the intense urge to do.

"See you on the Enterprise, Spock." She said, moving to the door.

"Yes, I will see you then." He returned, sitting down in his desk chair and covering his eyes with his hand. He could not believe that he had been so neglectful of his bodily needs. Had it really been seven years already? The last time that he'd had the blood fever, he'd rid himself of it with many hours of intense meditation; of course, he'd had no mate at the time, so meditation was his only option. This time, though he did have Zuria, he did not want to subject her to the consequences that came from assisting him in banishing the fever, should she be at all opposed to them.

As Spock saw it, the pon farr gave him three options: meditate, engage in intercourse with Zuria despite the pon farr's requirements, or die.

Oh. My. God. I am SO sorry. I had no intention for this to take such a long time to get up. I had such a busy few weeks that, by the time I would be able to write, I was so entirely burned out that I couldn't do anything without it being crap. I also apologize for the length of this chapter; it really was a necessary transitional chapter, though. Hopefully you guys can forgive me; I'm really looking forward to writing the next chapter. It should prove to be very entertaining. There's only six chapters left, though, so I'll try to get most of them written before I go to off to college.

Again, I apologize. Thank you for being patient, though. As always, reviews are welcome and provide fuel for me to continue writing.

Thanks,

Harley