For a moment when Spock woke he could not place himself. There was light, bright and still and blue-cold, shining into the room. The chill in the air manifested itself in a distinct coldness in the end of his nose and the tips of his ears. He was lying on his side, and in his sleep he had pulled the covers up so they muffled half of his head, but he was still chilled.
He blinked and tried to assess the blur around him, remembering that he was in his one of his grandparents' guest rooms. The covering that was pulled up to his head was a brightly coloured antique quilt that afforded many textures to his fingertips and showed bright patches of white, red, blue, and green in his blurred vision. He had settled down in the bed last night not with the intention of sleeping, but of resting and acceding to Jim's human expectation that because it was night, one must sleep. He frowned a little. Perhaps the sedative that McCoy had given him was still in his system. He had been lying in the bed reviewing the completed cure for the virus on his datapadd, and must have fallen asleep at some point while he was reading.
He felt about for the padd but could not find it immediately. He sat up and the cold hit him as the quilt fell back from his chest. Since he had come here with very little luggage he had been sleeping in no more than his underwear, a black, tightly fitting undershirt and underpants. His grandparents' house was an old one and had none of the protections from the cold of a newly built place. He recalled that even the windows were simple double glazed glass of the last century, rather than the standard triple glazed transparent aluminium which allowed no more transference of energy than a properly insulated modern wall.
As he swung his legs to the floor he felt something hard and cold beneath the sole of his right foot. There was his padd, lying where it must have dropped when he had fallen asleep. He picked it up and turned it on, checking it was still working and simultaneously checking the time. It was not long past eight. He had not slept for many hours.
He felt about for his clothes and found them neatly folded where he had left them on the bedside cabinet. As he began to pull them on Sacha woke and pattered across to him, her toenails clicking on the varnished wood floor and then becoming muffled as she crossed the rug. She stretched luxuriously with a distorted whine, then pushed her nose into his hand.
'I will take you out,' he promised, rubbing his fingers over the soft, short fur on top of her head. Her skull was hard beneath, and her doggish thoughts moved close to the surface. They were not sophisticated. She was largely dwelling on the need to relieve herself, a slight hunger that seemed to be with her permanently, and the scents of this new environment. She was glad to be near him, glad that he no longer smelt of sickness.
He scratched his fingernails into her scalp, then felt for her lead and harness down by the bed. He could hear no sign of activity either from his grandfather or Jim. He was certain that his grandfather was exhausted, and since Jim's body clock was working on Enterprise time he was sure to sleep late too.
He put on his boots and then stood, taking Sacha's harness in his hand. He frowned a little. He was not sure where he was in the house. Jim had taken him to this room last night, shown him the location of the amenities in the bathroom down the hall, and then left him to it. He had not had a chance to properly familiarise himself with the place and it had been a long time since he had last visited this place with sight. But this was where being a telepath had its uses. He touched his fingers to Sacha's skull and sought out her primitive thoughts again. Sacha wanted to go for a walk more than anything else and it was easy to communicate to her that he wanted to facilitate that. She had no problem in remembering the route downstairs to the front door, and she guided him carefully and patiently despite her eagerness to be outside.
He fumbled for a moment with the door after donning his coat and doing it up. He was unfamiliar with the lock system, but he thought that he could leave it locked behind him and simply ring the bell when he returned. Sacha led him down the steps and around the side of the house, remembering easily the route that they had taken to the beach when Spock had walked there with his grandmother.
His feet stumbled a little over the loose rocks on the path. He was not sure what the path was composed of, but he thought he remembered a track hardened by nothing but the feet that passed along it, meandering due to the vagaries of human impulse rather than simply leading straight to the beach. Now, of course, the ground surface was muffled by snow, which made navigating even more complicated. Sacha moved slowly and just a little in front of him, patient as he tapped out the cane to feel what might be in his way. Then the path widened and merged into the beach, and Spock stopped, standing still with his feet apart and planted firmly on the thin snow that covered the hard sand.
He bent to release Sacha from her lead, and told her to go. She thudded off across the beach, barking joyfully. He could hear the scatter of snow from her kicking paws, and then the splash as she plunged into the water. The waves were not strong today. As he stood on the beach he could hear them surging in and sucking back across the shingle. If he turned his eyes in that direction he could make out the movement of the white ruff of foam against the darker grey-green of the seawater, running up against dull shingle and dissipating into nothing. The air that he breathed into his lungs was crisp and cold enough to hurt.
He touched his cane into the snow in front of him and walked forward with great care, carrying Sacha's harness and lead in one hand. He could still hear Sacha galloping about the beach. As she saw him move she skewed around and ran back to him, panting hot breath over his hand as she reached him.
'I am all right,' he murmured, stroking the back of her neck. Her fur was startlingly cold in comparison to the heat of her breath.
He moved forward again. Even though he did not touch her for guidance she stayed by his side as long as he was walking.
The snow seemed to lend the shingle some solidity, a fact for which he was grateful. Then the stones beneath the snow began to dissipate, until there was nothing but snow-skimmed sand, and then sand that had been washed dark and clean by the action of the waves. He could see the colour change as a definite line between white and dirty brown.
He crouched and touched his fingers to the wet, freezing sand, feeling the soft slick of grains between his fingertips. How odd it would be to see. He looked down at his hand, a pinkish blur against the darker sand. Where his fingertips were dirtied with the tiny grains his hand seemed to merge into the ground beyond. He tried to recall how his hand would look with perfect sight. He knew intellectually about the whorls of his fingerprints, the shape and size of his fingernails. He knew that the sand was made of up tiny fragments of rock, each a slightly different shape and size. He knew these things, but his mind would not conjure a perfect image from memory. It had been too long, his brain had spent so much time reconfiguring its pathways to make him as efficient in his blindness as possible.
He wondered how long it would take to learn to see again, to understand all the visual input from normal vision. He recalled melding with T'Pring months ago and the confusion he had felt at the images she saw. Depth had made no sense, shapes had been confusing. But in his recent meld with his grandmother he had seen, seen without wonder or confusion. It had all made sense. But away from the meld that felt like something of a dream. His perception and understanding had been modified by hers, borne along as he shared her dream. He had not seen through her eyes, but only seen the images she was creating in her dreaming mind.
As he stared ahead of him he could see the white bars of waves and the dark swell of the sea, blending into the grey block of the sky. But that was an abstract painting. It was nothing but a suggestion of what was there. He closed his eyes and tried to see the waves in his imagination. It was little use. The shapes started to form, and then slipped away.
Into the darkness behind his eyelids an idea of Christine manifested itself. He did not see her in his mind. Instead he caught her scent and the sensation of his fingers on her skin and in her hair. He heard her voice, but not distinct words. He imagined her as she would be if she were safely back in the apartment, sleeping while he took Sacha for her walk. She would be wearing some scant silk negligee that would be cool and slipping under his fingers. She would smell faintly of sweat from a night sleeping beside the heat of his body. When he returned she would stretch and yawn and mumble something in a voice muted by sleep. Perhaps he would slip back into bed beside her and explore the ridges and valleys of her body with his hands. Perhaps he would leave her and return with coffee so that she could wake up properly. To be honest he preferred the idea of the former this morning.
He missed her. It had not been long between the onset of this virus and this morning here on the beach, but he missed her. He wanted to have her safe and well and to hear the smile in her voice and feel her presence close to him. They had been separated by unconsciousness on one side or another for too many days and he had missed her presence in his mind. He could not feel her now. Likely she was sleeping. Perhaps when she awoke he would feel the faintest awareness of her consciousness, despite the distance between them. What was a distance like this to a bond of the type he shared with Christine? Sometimes he was aware of Jim even across the empty fields of space. A few miles were nothing between himself and Christine.
He felt something cold on his cheek, then on the tip of his ear, then on the back of his hand. He held his hand out, palm up, and caught another flurry of snowflakes. When he opened his eyes and looked toward the sea again he could see that the darkness of the water was becoming ameliorated by the white haze of snow that must be coming down thick and fast and moving in to shore.
He exhaled sharply and stood, brushing the cold sand from his fingertips. He had been outside for long enough and the cold was starting to penetrate his coat and get through into his bones. If he stayed out much longer without moving about and creating his own heat he would start to become sluggish, and then dangerously cold. Impaired reactions were far more dangerous to him without perfect sight to help him compensate for lack of balance and poor decision making.
Sacha had run off again and he could hear her pounding along on the wave-cleaned sand. She had had a good run. He should return to the house and see if Jim or his grandfather were awake and could assist him in contacting the surgeon that McCoy had recommended. The sooner he was booked in for treatment the sooner his speculation would be settled with the reality of sight.
'Sacha, come,' he called aloud. His voice sounded thin and fragile in the great open space, against the sound of the ocean pushing onto the shore. Nevertheless, she heard him, and raced back to him. He refixed her harness and took hold of the handle.
'Home, Sacha,' he said, touching his fingers to her skull again, letting her know that he meant the place they had just left, not the rented apartment some distance away.
She was panting, and he could feel her joyous agitation from her run on the beach. The scent of salt water rose from her fur. He wondered just how wet she had allowed herself to get. He knew that swimming full bodied in the water was not beyond her, even in this cold. He did not want to touch her to find out, though, and further chill his already cold hands. He should have worn the gloves that were in his coat pocket, but he did not like to muffle his sense of touch in that way. He rubbed his hands briefly against the fabric of his coat, chafing some warmth into them, then walked on.
She led him unwaveringly back to the house. The closer they got the thicker the snow lay on the ground, but she was leading him back along the path they had already broken. She began to climb the steps to the porch and he followed her, then felt about for the doorchime to the right of the door. After a few circles of his hand across the doorframe he found it, and pressed the bell. A few moments later the door was being opened by Jim and the warmth of the house hit him as he stepped inside.