Chapter 2

The following day, after his shift on the bridge, Spock decided to make a trip to engineering to check on the progress Scotty was making on decoding the alien device's functionality. The door hissed open and Spock stepped into engineering. Scotty stood over the alien disk, going over some of the readings he had acquired of the device. Spock crossed the room and stood on the other side of the pedestal that stood the disk on edge for observation. He clasped his hands behind his back, standing in perfect posture that contrasted Scotty's causal bend over the disk. "Anything new to report, Mr. Scott?"

"Aye, Commander," Scotty said. "We've determined what this Frisbee is for. That lass Ms. Meyers was down here earlier and said she's finished translating that control panel at the excavation site. She said that she's positive the disk is a fancy water filter."

"A water filter?"

"That's right. They told us they thought an old stream used to run through that canyon. Ms. Meyers told me that one of the sections on that control panel had instructions on how to replace the disks to filter out impurities. We've discovered there is a special mineral that the aliens used as a host for what the filters take out of the water. That's why the thing glows blue." He tapped the disk with his data pad. "I bet you they stop glowin' when it's time to change 'em out."

"Fascinating," said Spock. "Do you suspect this is something that could be used by colonies?"

"It's possible, sir. It's just a matter of figuring out how they built these things and whether they will work on other planets."

"Thank you Mr. Scott." Spock turned to go, but stopped. "Do you know if Ms. Meyers went back to her quarters after she left engineering?"

Scotty thought moment, then said, "No...I think she asked one of the crew directions to the ship's gymnasium before she left."

Spock thanked him again and left engineering to find Tria.

Several of the crew were making use of the facilities, but he found Tria alone in the gymnastics area, standing on the balance beam in a plain black leotard. She was doing a number of stretches and poses from various forms of dance and yoga. He stepped quietly into the area behind her and watched as she kicked one leg straight out in front of her, raising it up as far as she could manage, holding it there. A considerable amount of strain could be seen after about twenty seconds as her legs both began to waver slightly. She then stretched her arms both into the air, fell forward, shifting her weight to her outstretched leg and pulling her other leg up over her head with one hand.

Tria let her leg go after half a minute and kicked both legs over her head into a handstand. She pointed her toes at the ceiling, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, she saw Spock watching her at the back of the room, gasped, and wobble on her hands. As she tried to regain her balance, she attempted to plant her feet back on the beam in front of her. Spock stepped forward, seeing her waiver, but was not in time to keep her from slipping, cracking one knee on the beam before landing awkwardly on her side on the mat below. He rushed over to her where she lay, curling up and clutching her knee. "Are you hurt," he said quickly, kneeling next to her and rolling her onto her back. Her face was clenched in pain and though she gave no answer he knew. She exhaled sharply opening her eyes, which were rimmed with tears. Spock gently pushed her hands away from the injured leg and forced her to stretch it straight on the ground. Tria sobbed and tried to sit up from the sudden stab of pain it caused. He put one hand on her shoulder, to steady her. "I'm sorry," he said.

She looked him in the eyes and held her breath, trying not to start crying from the pain. "I think...I might have b-b-broken it," she stammered.

Spock looked down at her knee, which was becoming swollen and a dark green bruise was forming around it. "This might hurt a little, try to stay still," he ordered. She held her breath as he reached down and traced the length of her tibia with his fingers from her ankle to her knee. She winced as he reached her bruise, but managed to stay still. "I'm not a doctor, but I believe you may have a cracked tibia," he told her. Tria let out a puff of air plaintively. "I will have to take you to sick bay to have it examined."

"I can't believe I fell," she muttered.

Spock stood and pursed his lips. "I startled you, it was a reasonable reaction."

Tria sighed and rolled her eyes and reached out a hand for him to help her up on her good leg. Spock pulled her up onto her foot, but she was shaking from the adrenaline, and having trouble standing on just the one foot. As she stood griping his arm for stability, she said, "Okay," and moved to take a step. She staggered on her other leg and Spock caught her from falling forward by stepping in front of her and slipping his other arm around her torso.

Tria's breath caught in her throat as Spock lifted her back into a standing position, their faces inches apart. Spock did not catch her gaze, but said, "I don't think you have the strength to hobble to sick bay." Before she could respond, he stooped down and picked her up, carrying her in his arms.

"I feel dizzy," she said, without thinking.

"You're not breathing. You should stop holding your breath," he said in an as a matter of fact manner. Tria took slow deep breaths to clear her head, knowing that he injury was not the only reason she felt tense. She allowed her muscles to relax as Spock carried her down the corridors to sick bay and found that doing so made her injury feel considerably better.

Spock stepped into a turbo lift and ordered it to take them to sick bay. The doors closed and the lift began to move to the appropriate deck. Something occurred to Tria that she felt safe there and wanted to say something to thank Spock, but wasn't sure what to say. To anyone else, she knew she would be talking away, having no problems being herself; but the Vulcan made her self-conscious and afraid she might do or say something that would make her seem deplorable. Regardless, she took a proverbial leap and let one of her hands fall on his where it clutched her ribcage. His eyes flickered down to hers, but he said nothing. Feeling bold, she simply looked back at him directly, maintaining the silence as well.

Something strange seemed to be happening. Tria's heart was already racing, but she sensed that Spock's was beginning to run faster as well. His face remained stoic, but she felt his arms tense around her. She knew that it was not discomfort or an aversion, it was something more fervent and Spock was having trouble hiding it.

The lift doors opened and Spock stepped out into the corridor, carrying her the short distance to sick bay. The front room of sickbay only contained a few medical instruments and was mostly dedicated to Doctor McCoy's desk. The doctor was there, sitting at his desk reviewing some files. He glanced up as Spock stepped cautiously in the door, careful not to hit Tria's legs on the frame. As soon as she saw the doctor, Tria subtly dropped her hand away from Spock's.

McCoy lept from his chair at the sight of them, exclaiming, "Good lord, Spock! What the hell happened? Poor girl's knee looks like an under-ripe pumpkin!" By then, Tria's leg had bruised in a range from emerald green to a pastel shade resembling oxidized copper. The doctor gestured for Spock to go into the nearest ward.

"I believe, doctor, that she has a broken leg," Spock said evenly. He brought her over to one of the black operating tables and carefully laid her down on it.

McCoy produced his tricorder and began to scan her injury. "She sure does. Broken tibia and a cracked patella. How did you manage to do that?"

"I lost my footing in the gymnasium," Tria explained, "and fell off the balance beam."

McCoy looked at Spock, giving him a sly stare. "And how did you end up carrying my patient in here, Spock?"

"I was present when she fell, Doctor," Spock replied plainly.

McCoy was clearly trying to garner a reaction from Spock, but to no avail. Spock would not provide McCoy the ammo the doctor wanted so that he could chide his Vulcan colleague at every opportunity. He put the tricorder back on his belt and picked up a hypospray sitting on the nearby instrument table. Opening the drawer in it's front, he picked out one of the small liquid vials that lined the drawer. McCoy clicked the vial onto the hypospray and pressed it just above her knee. It hissed and Tria instantly began to feel the numbing agent do it's work on her overtaxed nerves. "I'm sure that feels better, eh? I'll get the bone-knitter, it will just take a moment."

McCoy left the ward briefly. As soon as the doctor was out of sight, Spock glanced down at Tria and caught her gaze. He moved seamlessly to the head of the table, characteristically clasping his hands behind his back. "I apologize for breaking your concentration in the gymnasium, Tria," he said stiffly. "I did not intend to cause you to fall."

Tria smiled up at him gently. "Of course you didn't."

McCoy returned, nurse in toe, and got to work setting up a steri-field around her legs and got to work repairing her broken bones. "Well, you've certainly got the green blood," McCoy remarked as he worked. Tria dared not look down, she had no desire to see what had to be done to mend a broken bone. The surgery seemed to be over in a matter of minutes, though it was more accurately the better part of an hour. Tria was surprised when McCoy declared; "All set," and deactivated the steri-field. Tria risked a glance at her leg, craning her head up to see. It looked almost the same has it had when they arrived, only the swelling around her knee had subsided a great deal.

"Now," said the doctor, "I can't guarantee you'll be in perfect condition right away, so no more gymnastics for a week."

Tria sat up. "Of course, Doctor."

"Go ahead and try standing on it," he said. Tria slowly swung her legs around over the edge of the table. She caught Spock shift his weight in the corner of her eye and knew he was preparing himself to catch her if she fell again. "Easy now," McCoy encouraged. Leading with her good leg, she lowered herself off the table and tested her weight on her newly healed leg. The sensation was strange after the surgery, but she felt sturdy and allowed herself to let go of the table and stand of her own accord.

"Good?" asked McCoy.

"Yes, thank you."

The doctor gave a terse nod. "Okay then. Well, other than a stroll back to your quarters I want you off it for the rest of the day. Give your bones a chance to adjust on their own."

"I will see to it that she makes it back to her quarters safely, doctor," said Spock. A strange, playful look spread across McCoy's face before he stepped aside and and said farewell.

Spock escorted Tria back to her quarters. "Spock," Tria said slowly, "why did you come to the gymnasium in the first place? You don't look like you were getting ready to do any exercise."

"Mr. Scott informed me that you had asked a crewman where the gymnasium was located, I naturally assumed that you were planning to go there after you were done in engineering."

"Naturally," she repeated, amused.

When they reached her quarters, Tria opened the door and started to enter, but realized that Spock was no following her. "Do you have to go back on duty?"

"My shift technically ended precisely five minutes into your surgery, but there are a number of responsibilities I could attend to if I needed to," he said.

Tria gave him an irresolute stare before saying, "Well if you don't have anything to pressing to do, would you like to come in for some tea?"

"If you wish," Spock said flatly.

Tria ushered him in and asked the food replicator to produce a hot pot of water for her. "I'm in the mood for rooibos, if that's fine with you," she said. Spock gave her an inexpressive confirmation. She produced her tea set on the table and a small wood box with a red lion burned onto the surface. She picked a heavy pinch of dried leaves out of the box, dropping them into the pot, and pouring the water over them. "Excuse me a minute," she said, "I'd like to change into something normal." Still in her leotard, Tria was beginning to feel a bit overexposed. She disappeared into the bedroom area.

Spock picked up the box she containing her tea and examined it. The design was simple, organic, even primitive. After a minute, he picked up the tea pot, removed the lid, and sniffed it. Satisfied that it must be done steeping, he poured it into each cup. Tria skirted back into the room as he was setting the pot down. She returned wearing a simple gossamer frock with short, over sized sleeves and a red and black motley pattern. She sat down and thanked him for pouring the tea.

"Mr. Scott said that you had finished deciphering the Brondus alien inscriptions. What did you find that allowed you to complete your translation?"

"Well," she answered, "I decided that the best method would be to break down the phrases from their least important elements and then work to fill in the grammatical holes from what made the most sense in comparison with the other phrases I had already managed to translate. It was just a matter of working with all of those possibilities and finding the ones that made chronological sense with the rest of the inscriptions."

"Interesting method."

Tria nodded. "The only reason it took me so long was I had so little to work with, as far as nouns and verbs go. Some of them I had to make an educated guess and make sure they fit, but I'm confident that they are all correct."

"I'm sure that the scientists at Alpha 1 will appreciate your efforts."

"I hope so," she smiled and took a sip of her tea.

Spock sat forward. "Tria, I suspect your motives for asking me to have tea with you are not entirely casual."

She looked surprised, like a cat caught with one paw in the fishbowl. Her cheeks started to flush a deep olive green. "I may have."

"What is it that you wished to discuss?"

"I'm...." He raised an eyebrow. She frowned. "I might have crossed a line, earlier."

"I see. You refer to in the turbo lift."

"It was a chance I need to take. I'm sorry if it offended you."

"There was no offense. While your curiosity is most likely emotionally driven, I believe I understand why you decided to pursue it."

Tria looked down to her hands uneasily. Spock's steady composure now was so dramatically different than what she thought she sensed before, but she couldn't be sure if she imagined it. "What do you think happened," she said slowly, "when I touched you?"

"I hypothesize that when you are experiencing high degrees of emotions or are significant distress you are able to project those feelings onto others through tactile contact. However, since you are not significantly trained in your Vulcan telepathic abilities, the phenomenon is occurring unconsciously and yielding interesting results. Today was not the first time I recognized the sensation. It also occurred yesterday, when you asked me to play the ka'athyra for you. I suspect you did not notice that occurrence."

She shook her head. "I didn't. I just assumed that you were flattered."

"Flattery is a human emotion," he reminded her.

She looked frustrated. "But, you're just as human as I am," she argued. "And look at me!"

"You merely lack the training that would permit you to control your emotions."

She tisked. "I don't think my emotions are out of control, Spock. I think I just feel them, like a person should."

"Emotions are not logical, Tria. It is why Vulcans choose to suppress them in order to maintain logical thinking."

"But I could have sworn I sensed something from you! It was strange, difficult to describe."

"I do not know what it is to which you refer, Tria. Any sensation I experienced logically would have been projected from you."

"It was different than how I felt, though." She hesitated, embarrassed to share, but it was the only way to support her own argument. "I felt excited, charged even. I kept thinking how safe and happy I was, even though my leg was broken. What I felt from you...was different. Like the most raw emotions screaming to escape." Spock sat up straighter, affected by her choice of words. Tria noticed and assumed he didn't like the way she said it. "I'm sorry, it's just be best way I can think to describe it." Adrenaline rushed through her veins as her nervousness rose. She poured more tea in her cup to warm it and drank deeply from the cup.

Spock sat uncomfortably still for a time, thinking. Finally he said, "If you are correct in assessing that these emotions you experienced did indeed come from me and not yourself, then I would speculate that your innate telepathy is much more complex than I originally assumed. It is possible that you have highly sensitive empathic senses, which could allow you to experience the emotions that Vulcans to not consciously experience as we are trained to suppress them."

"So, you're saying that you did feel these things, but you did not recognize them as your own."

"Correct. It is an interesting phenomenon. Understanding the intricacies of it would require a great deal of observation and some training on your own part before you would be able to use the ability successfully on your own without causing any permanent damage to yourself or your recipients."

"I could hurt someone?" She unconsciously rubbed her fingers together.

"What you are experiencing is a natural rendition of a Vulcan mind meld. The method requires a great deal of training and discipline to be preformed safely and effectively. Although it is possible for a Vulcan who is untrained to attempt a meld, they could cause permanent damage to theirs or their subjects nervous system and eventually death." He saw the shock on her face and added, "I doubt that any casual tactile contact you have with a person would do more than it does already, Tria. Melding requires one to put pressure on specific nerves and blood vessels to be effective. You are in no danger of killing anyone."

She sighed with relief, then laughed. "Good." She ran a hand through her hair. "Is mind melding something that all Vulcans can do?"

"No, not all. It is not a widespread ability."

She smiled playfully. "Can you?"

"Yes."

That spurred her smile into a grin. "Really?"

"I did say yes, Tria."

"What's it like?"

"It is a deeply personal ritual and connects the minds of the two involved, the degree of which can vary. The most simple description would be to say it is a way to read another's mind, but it is much more complex."

"It sounds amazing."

"Your enthusiasm is cause for concern, this is not something to be taken lightly," Spock responded in his most stern tone.

She settled back in her chair. "I don't mean to seem irreverent," she said. "I just never realized such a thing was possible. I mean, I have heard of some pretty amazing things, but this is a new one to me."

Spock nodded respectfully, "Understandable."

"Will you indulge me, Spock?"

He gave her a curious look, "In what way."

"I've never met someone like you, most Vulcans are loathe to interact with me. I'm sure you have your reasons, but I'm eager to know everything about you. I feel...drawn to you," she blushed, pursing her lips and shrinking back in her chair. She felt like a young girl's first infatuation, but she knew she was far too adult for such games. In her mind, it was best to cut to the chase rather than pretend she felt nothing. She knew, as well, that Spock would not react to any subtle hints or the slow torturous courting typical of humans; and she had done it enough herself in her youth that she was adverse to play that game.

"I have no cause to find you distasteful because I am aware of the circumstances under which you were raised. Vulcans whom have not had the chance to know these facts would assume that you are an outcast, most likely a rejector of Vulcan philosophies, and would not wish to have be in your presence." He noticed that she was watching him carefully now, taking in his words and boring into him with her eyes, looking for something. Her characteristic smile was gone, replaced by a contemplative visage. "As far as indulging you, I do not believe I would be capable of what you may seek. I am willing to teach you Vulcan ways, if you wish. And while I do find your company most agreeable, I doubt that anything further would satisfy you. You would most likely find me vacant and that would naturally cause you distress because of your emotional nature."

For a moment, Spock suspected that he had hurt her, because she continued to look at him in an aberrant manner. However, Tria was studying him, considering everything he was saying carefully. Eventually, she said, "You say this, but I do not believe that you are incapable of feeling."

"For you to not believe it would not make it any different," he said quickly.

"No," she said slowly. "You misunderstand me. I don't believe it not because it's something that I do not believe, but because you are not entirely sure of your convictions. I see it there, in your face. You present yourself as sure that you have complete control over your emotions, that you have locked them away like every other Vulcan has done, but you know that they're not gone. Just hidden."

"You are certain that you see these things, but you have no evidence that would support your theory," he reminded her.

It was then that she smiled again, but this time it was a sly, knowing smirk rather than her usual cordial face. "I only needed to hear what you have said and I could have known; even if something in my gut wasn't telling me." She shifted forward in her seat. "You said you didn't think anything other than simply being in your company would be satisfying. You assumed that I would be hurt because you are unemotional. See, it's what you didn't say. You didn't say that it wasn't possible. You didn't say that you were opposed to the notion."

"Impressive observation, Tria," he said. "You are correct. Although I do not deem the idea impossible, I will maintain that even friendship with myself is difficult for humans. At times they seem frustrated with logic and regardless of what possibilities exist for you and I, you must be mindful of these dangers."

"I have faith that the risk would be worth it. I would not ask you to do anything you did not want to. I think it's best to discuss it, though, rather than not."

"You candor is appreciated." She smiled graciously. "If you wish, I think it would be best to proceed as we have been. Perhaps I will bring my ka'athyra to play for you later, after you have rested." He stood up.

"I think that's an excellent idea," she said serenely.

Spock nodded respectfully and left. Alone in her quarters, Tria lounged back in her chair and poured herself another cup of tea, emptying the pot. She laughed to herself as she took a sip and gazed into her cup, amused.