Before Spock prepared himself for the meld he carefully transmitted all of his latest findings to Dr Rowlands in the lab, flagging his newest deductions as 'important' and explaining to her what he was about to do. She would probably be annoyed, in her human way, that he was not about to sleep, but he could do nothing about that. The best that he could hope for was that she would continue his research while he was attending to his grandmother, and perhaps come to some kind of efficacious conclusion.
'Is there anything you need, Mr Spock, to help you perform this procedure?' his grandmother's doctor asked him in a low voice once he had set the padd down and told him he was ready to begin.
'Nothing but a chair at the head of the bed,' he said. 'But it is important that you monitor her blood pressure and other readings.'
'So I pull you away if she gets – '
'No,' Spock said quickly. 'In her condition it's imperative that you do not sever the meld abruptly. If the situation becomes dangerous for her, touch my shoulder and speak to me. If you touch me I will hear you, then I shall withdraw safely from the meld.'
'Very well,' the doctor said.
Spock recognised that doubtful tone. He had heard it from many human, or at least non-Vulcan, doctors in the face of this process that they understood so poorly. But he should be able to trust the man, at least, to monitor his human grandmother successfully.
'Here you are, son,' his grandfather said, touching his arm lightly with uncertain fingers. 'There's a chair by the bed like you want.'
'Thank you,' Spock said.
He felt the fingers on his arm and allowed himself a moment of human regret again for the distance that there was between himself and his human grandfather. He did not know how to breach that gap, and was confident that it would be there until the man died. But he could not allow himself to dwell on that thought. His grandmother was the important one at this point in time. His grandfather took him to the chair and then let go of his arm, and the momentary contact was ended.
The seat by his grandmother's bed was comfortable, but Spock did not notice how hard or soft it was. His grandfather and the doctor were murmuring in the background, but he did not notice that either, or the presence of Billy just a few yards away. He closed his mind to all of those things, letting his mind release all of his current thoughts so that he could concentrate only on the meld.
He could hear his grandmother's breathing very close to him. Through blurred vision he could make out the flesh colour and grey-white hair against the pillow. He reached out a hand to that blurred shape and touched hair that was thin as cobweb, skin that was dry and papered with age. He touched his fingers to the meld positions with great care. He could feel the blood pulsing beneath her skin and the rhythm of her breathing that was kept artificially steady by a machine. Her skin felt cool, the bone of her skull hard beneath.
He closed his mind a further level until he ceased to see the blurred colours around him. He saw nothing at all, although his eyes were open. There was nothing but the touch of his fingers on her skin, her blood, her breath. He let himself sink, catching on to the tendrils of her mind, trying to find that place where her consciousness resided.
She was dreaming. He caught glimpses that were clear and sharp, unlike his damaged sight. She was in a house that bore some resemblance to her own, and grandpa was there, younger and wearing clothes of a different era. She herself was younger and filled with a kind of fury at something that Spock could not discern.
He took hold of that fury. She would need this determination. He recognised something of his mother in it. He saw in his own mind his mother's mouth set straight and firm, the many times that she had disagreed with Sarek and stuck to her own opinion until her husband had come around. Grandma was so like that. She was so like his mother.
That was enough. He could not allow himself to become distracted. He refocussed himself on his grandmother, taking hold of her thoughts and gently introducing his presence to her. He could not predict how she would react. Some people were very accepting of melds. Others fought, even if they had given consent.
There was an initial jerk as she realised that Spock was there in her mind. He felt shock, and an anger that spilt over from the fury in her dream. She pushed at him, and he stayed still and firm, probing no further, but simply allowing her to understand that he was here and he would not move.
A sense of shame, of folding down. She was trying to close away her most private thoughts to him. Her mind flitted between thoughts like a bird. Everything that she was trying to hide was pulled to the fore in her attempt to identify it and push it away. Spock turned himself away, trying to impress upon her that he was not here to intrude. He had to wait for her to calm so that he could properly impart his intent.
He was a child to her. He could feel that. She was aware of who he was and saw him as a child cracking open a bedroom door and looking in. He had caught her naked and unaware.
Grandma, I am an adult man he tried to impress upon her.
Her thoughts were chaotic and hard to connect with. There was no chance of direct communication. Instead he tried to find those wholly unconscious parts of her mind which controlled her bodily responses. He mirrored himself alongside her, seeking to strengthen her awareness of those responses, to convince her body to set itself wholly to healing. She was wasting energy on these chaotic and confused dream thoughts. There was no discipline to a human mind. He could not fathom how they ever got well from severe illness without the ability to focus. Perhaps the truth was that they did not. Too many humans died from ailments from which Vulcans would recover.
There. He was alongside those deep and buried places that governed the very cells of the body. She was not aware that they existed. He brought them slowly into her consciousness and a kind of startlement rippled through her mind. Her thoughts were veering again, focusing on the strangeness of this revelation rather than on the ability to heal itself.
He stayed rigid, bringing her mind back to what was necessary. He stayed with her, guiding her, teaching her with great patience how to focus, how to direct every cell to hold on, to heal. She could not do it alone. He knew that. Once he was gone from her mind she would lose the ability to even be aware of those parts of herself, even if she retained some of the technique. He was tired and this tired him further, but he had no choice. She felt like a flower plunged into liquid nitrogen. She was frail and ready to break. He had to stay and give her his strength.
''''''''''''
On the outside the humans in the room watched with fascination and doubt intermingled in equal measure. The doctor flicked his eyes to and from the readings above the bed and wondered if he had been right to let the Vulcan even begin this process. He could see no change in the old woman's readings apart from a slight elevation in blood pressure. He would have to watch that. It was not pushing into the red yet, but he couldn't count on it. This was a totally unknown process to him. If he'd had more time he would have gone away and sat down at his terminal and researched what he could. As it was he had not had the time.
Spock's grandfather sat on the other side of the bed to his grandson, watching both of them intently. His wife's face was pale and her skin was like old tissue, but he could see in the lines of her nose and brows the woman that she used to be. Often he looked at her and barely saw the age that had settled on her. She was the woman that he had courted and married. He looked through the skin and bone and saw what she was beneath. But when she was sleeping, or now, unconscious, he saw the frame, the thing that held her. She was old, unbelievably so. They both were. He could hardly believe it. When he closed his eyes he was twenty, thirty maybe. She was she same age. But the thing that held her was so old that he was terrified that it would break. It was a fear he had to hold inside. He could not let Billy see it, or this young doctor.
He wondered if Spock knew. He had never really found out just how much these Vulcans sensed with their telepathic minds. He hadn't wanted to. If Spock knew how scared he was, would he care? He saw Spock as he had been thirty years ago, a small, upright boy, intense and unapproachable and so damnably repressed. He hadn't been able to play ball with him like he had with his other grandchildren. He hadn't been able to induce him to run on the beach or laugh at the waves. It was as if he was plated off behind a glass wall. He was always focussed on something that should have been the concern of much older minds. Not the waves but the pattern and frequency of them. Not the sand but the microscopic make up of each grain. He wondered if Spock had ever been able to sit on the beach and just accept the beauty of it. He wished that in some way he could connect, but perhaps he never would. He was old, just as old as his wife. It was too late now.
He jerked his eyes back into focus. He had drifted away and had been staring at nothing. Nothing seemed to have changed. Spock was still sitting there with his hand on her face, his eyes glazed. He didn't understand the readings up above the bed and didn't want to try. He depended on the doctor to do that. She looked just as still and sick as ever, her breathing coming slow and shallow between her lips, the machines softly bleeping around her. She did not seem worse, at least. Thank god she did not seem worse.
Billy found himself pacing. He didn't know what to think. It seemed useless to stay here but he didn't feel right leaving. He felt bad for all the things he had said to Spock, even if he had felt them at the time. He didn't understand Vulcans and he felt he should, since he was related to one. He had always tried to get along with Spock but it had just never quite worked. He had always felt as if he were slipping past him, missing the mark, not making the connection. And now Spock was involved in this – whatever it was. He didn't want to call it mumbo-jumbo. His mind instinctively called it that but he knew that was not true. He was scared of it. He could admit that to himself. He was scared of any process where a man could read another person's mind. His thoughts were his own. The idea of someone else getting into his head made him feel dirty.
He had to stop himself thinking like that. No matter how angry he had been at Spock, Spock was doing his best to help grandma. He couldn't fault him for that. It must be hard for him. He knew it had been hard for him going blind like that. He couldn't imagine. And he knew how private Vulcans kept themselves. What was it like for Spock peeling back the layers and letting his own thoughts into another person's mind? If this worked he would have to do something. He would have to say something. Apologise, make it better. If this worked. If it didn't work – well...
He couldn't take it any longer. Abruptly his pacing took him to the door and he found himself out in the corridor, standing between the doors to his grandmother's room, Chrissie Chapel's room, his wife's room. It all seemed deathly quiet. It all felt like too much. He was pulled in too many different ways. He walked briefly to Chrissie's door and looked in through the small glass window. She was lying unconscious. She looked hot and fevered. He put his hand on the door but let it slip. His wife was in the room across the corridor. He stood there looking through the window. It was the same little rectangular window as into Chrissie's room, but it showed him a completely different person. Her hair was dark and messy on the pillow. It needed brushing. His heart beat fast as he remember how he first bumped into Spock and Chrissie in the snow and had felt an upsurging of those feelings he had always felt for Chrissie. It was a childhood crush. He had been with Lisa for so long he had forgotten how special she was. She meant so much more to him than Chrissie. His anger at Spock suddenly felt like jealous idiocy. He would go in to Lisa and brush her hair and make her comfortable and bend his head down and pray that the research Spock had been doing worked.