Spock moved into the communication booth. He had decided that now after just over a month it was time.
But after a long moment, staring into the blank screen he began to doubt once again.
He leaned back against the data booth wall. He did not bother to squelch the heavy sigh, as no one could hear him in the private comm booth.
He knew he should send a message to her.
She should know she had earned that right.
However she may never understand his motivations even if he did send the message, his voice of reason continued to battle with his unyielding sense of fairness.
Too many days of silence had made words difficult to find. And it was certainly difficult to put his thoughts into words. That was the crux of the matter.
He knew his decision was logical, but as a human, she might never understand without the words.
He paused once again. Now he questioned his motivation.
Why was here? What did it matter if she understood?
It mattered.
He could not say why, it simply did.
It was important that she understand. She had endured much in the years on Enterprise. Years of bearing the brunt of ship's gossip and scorn with dignity that befitted a Vulcan. Her poise in the face of danger, her control, it demanded an explanation.
It was unsettling how much he cared about her understanding.
Why was it so important? He was certain he would never see her again. He had no intention of ever leaving Vulcan.
Suddenly that thought pained him too but he brushed it aside.
From the moment he awoke from the healing trance in Starfleet Medical he had known he would return to Vulcan.
It was a matter of logic he told himself. It was logical to return to the one place that would bring him true control.
So he had left everything behind. Everything that had ever held significance.
It was necessary.
He cast off all that held even the remotest of passions for him. It was the only way.
No one had stopped him though he had been certain someone would try.
It was necessary. It was logical.
And yet how could he begin to explain that to her?
Why did he feel the need to?
Why did he have this one desire, this one emotion, this flickering unyielding need?
That thought was as bitter as every thought he had since awakening.
It was not the assault that drove him away from his former life. Vulcans know that the body is a vessel for the mind. It can be controlled, mastered but it did not reflect the state of the mind.
In his five years on Enterprise he had experienced only a few of the brutal tortures in practice in the galaxy, though he had seen the results of several others. This had been his first encounter with rape.
As a method of torture it was quite effective. It surprised him, in light of his Vulcan disciplines and Starfleet training that he had been so affected by it.
Indeed he had even briefly wrestled with the sensation of hatred for his Klingon assailant in the first hours after the assault. But like all other emotions he had experienced he quickly controlled it.
It was not the brutal assault that drove him away.
It was not the hatred. No, he had mastered the hatred.
It was something much more dangerous.
Joy.
He had experienced joy when he killed. It was a joyful animalistic frenzy, a blood lust. It was that which sent him in search of control.
Vulcans can kill. With sufficient logical reason they are quite efficient killers. In all of his years in Starfleet, he had killed only a few times and only when absolutely necessary.
But in the moment that the Klingon's body fell, Spock had felt an ancient rage that was stronger than anything he had ever experienced. Not even the mating lust of the blood fever could compare.
The most terrifying memory was the sensation of furious disappointment that his fingers had not closed on his final victim's throat.
How could he explain this to her? How could he find the words to make her understand?
Why did he feel the need to satisfy this one emotional desire? He had not spared a thought for his friends. He had severed those connections, those memories with a surgeon's precision. Why was this last flickering emotion so hard to kill?
He pressed his lips into a tight line and sighed once again.
Then without another thought on the issue he rose and walked silently back to his chamber to begin meditation once again.