For a long time Spock felt like an alien dropped in on an amazing new world. He found vision hard to believe, despite all of the logic in his mind that reminded him of the physical process of having the lens and cornea replaced in each eye, and that the result of that must be sight. Even with that knowledge, every time he opened his eyes he was amazed. He had grown to accept that he would never see again.
He woke the morning after the operation in the small apartment in his grandparents' home town, and slipped out of bed very quietly, so as not to wake Christine. This morning his sight was better than it had been the day before. Objects in the distance were still somewhat blurred, but everything close to him had a crystal clarity which was amazing. He thought he could have sat still and looked at the whorls on his fingertips for hours.
After he had dressed he moved softly out of the bedroom with bare feet, and shut the door. Sacha had followed him, and he sat down on the sofa and held out his hand to her. She did not seem to understand what had happened, but it was obvious that she was aware that something had changed.
'Come here, Sacha,' he said.
She walked over, wagging her tail, and he stroked her head, marvelling at the colours of her fur, at browns merging into black. Her eyes were a soft brown, a little lighter than his own. Her ears were dark-tipped, as if they had been brushed in soot. She stared up at him and whined a little. When he closed his eyes his full awareness of her flooded back. When he opened them he was caught by his visual impression of her, and her scent and sounds and mental emanations faded.
Her harness had been put on the sideboard by the door. Spock walked across the room and picked it up, turning it in his hands. The luminous yellow fabric across the handle was printed with, Don't distract me. I'm working. He had not known that there were words on it, and he wondered why in light of these words so many people did see fit to distract the dog. He traced his fingers over the letters. He had lost the ability to read instinctively. He had to look at each individual letter and remind himself of what it meant. He knew that in a few days that would all change. His brain was already adapting back to a sighted world with remarkable swiftness. Perhaps in time Braille would seem as cumbersome and slow as these visual letters did now.
He put the harness back and picked up Sacha's lead instead. She whimpered at the prospect of going for a walk, and he shushed her.
'A moment, Sacha,' he said, looking about for his boots and his coat. He found himself having to touch objects just to reassure himself that they were the correct thing. He was not entirely sure of his coat until he had felt the thickness and texture of the material between his fingers.
The snow was falling thickly again outside. He stepped out with Sacha on her lead and looked about at the dazzling world. The sky was so white that it made him blink, and the world seemed so full of possibilities that he did not know which way to turn. Eventually he decided to walk towards the beach, which was only a few blocks to the east. When he reached the hard sand below the shingle he removed Sacha's lead, and watched her bolt across the beach. She seemed to have caught joy and run with it.
Spock stood still for a moment, assessing the ground surface that he stood on, and then he, too, ran. He had not run for months, beside the occasional workout on one of the ship's running machines, or what always proved to be an awkward jog, holding onto Jim's or Christine's arm. This time he ran with nothing holding him back, the air sweeping into his lungs, his feet pounding into the ground. Perhaps this was what it would be like to suddenly have the ability to fly. It felt as profound. The snow fluttered like moths about his face, striking his skin and melting, and Sacha ran alongside him, barking with joy at this sudden change in the master that she adored.
He stopped finally, heaving in breath, and just stood on the beach, staring at the waves crashing on the shore, the snow whirling about him, the individual grains of sand at his feet. Jim had asked him numerous times in the past eighteen hours how he felt. He did not think that he could encapsulate it for anyone.
He crouched down, and Sacha came to him and pushed her nose into his hand. She had been the most invaluable aide to him.
'I am sorry,' he said in a low voice. He knew that she could not understand him, but he had to say those words. He could not take her back to the Enterprise now that she was no longer needed. It would not be fair to her, and regulations did not allow pets.
Today he would have to look into options for her future. He was not certain that she would be able to move on as a guide dog for another person. She was so attuned to his needs, and used to working for a master who could speak in some way directly to her mind. A human would not be able to use meld to connect with the dog.
Later, he knew, a party of sorts had been arranged. The humans seemed to be trying to keep it as a surprise, but he had overheard Jim and Christine talking about it, and McCoy asking where the nearest liquor store was. Christine was well, his grandmother was just out of hospital, Billy's wife had been out for some days now. There was apparently much to celebrate, and he accepted the human need to formally acknowledge what had happened. It was not as if Vulcan was free of ritual.
'Come on,' he said to the dog, straightening up.
She looked up at him and wagged her tail again. He had often been aware of her performing that action – after all, the tail of a German Shepherd was not low key – but it was different to be able to see it, and to see the loyalty and joy in her eyes.
'I will miss you,' he said honestly.
He looked around, his gaze falling on the houses that backed onto the beach. He had last seen this sight decades ago and much had changed, but he thought that he recognised his grandparents' house despite the fact that details were blurred at that distance. He briefly considered visiting them, but he reasoned that it was still early and with his grandmother not long out of hospital he did not want to disturb them. It would be better to return to Christine, who might be waking up now and wondering where he was.
When he returned to the house he discovered that in fact Christine was still asleep. He opened the bedroom door very softly and saw her there, lying in bed, the blanket pushed down from her upper body due to the warmth in the room, which was set to accommodate Vulcan needs. He stood in the doorway, just looking at her, at her out-flung arm and her breasts and the curve of her flank from ribs to hip. Her lips were a little parted and her eyes closed. Something very human rose in him at the sight. Last night had been the first time that he had seen her naked.
He could not resist. He slipped back into bed beside her, and gently woke her up.
'Oh, you've been out. You're cold,' she murmured, opening her eyes and blinking against the light.
Spock allowed a smile to touch the corners of his mouth. He looked into her eyes. In the past few months he had invented a number of fictions about her eyes, not truly aware that they were fictions. They had either been bluer than this, impossibly blue, or else much more ordinary, closer to grey. Now he looked down at the black of her pupils and the striated blues of her irides that were something like blue flame radiating in a perfect circle, and he was gratified to see that they were in the middle of his imaginations, neither ordinary nor impossible.
'You do have the most beautiful eyes,' he told her.
'Don't all the men say that?' she murmured. 'Did you bring me coffee?'
'I did not,' Spock told her. 'And I most certainly hope that all of the men do not say that. That is my privilege.'
She laughed sleepily. 'Spock, you're more human than you like to admit.' She reached out a hand to touch his cheek. 'You have been out, haven't you?'
'Yes, I walked Sacha,' he said, ignoring the insult with considerable grace.
'What was it like?' she asked him.
'Cold,' he replied. 'It is still snowing.'
'Oh, Spock, you know what I mean,' she laughed. 'It's the first time you've been out alone since the operation, isn't it?'
He nodded, thinking of a way to encapsulate his experience for a human reception. 'I took her to the beach,' he said. 'I watched the snow fall. I examined the sand. I admired the view. I ran, Christine.'
'Oh,' she said in an awed, glad voice. 'Oh, Spock.'
He had put very little joy into his intonation but he knew that she had understood his emotions surrounding a simple walk on the beach. He leant towards her and kissed her, and she reached out and caressed his flank. It was unusual for her skin to feel warm to him, and he revelled in it, even though she flinched at the chill of his hands. He could feel the need for her beginning to burn through him, bringing blood back to the surface of his skin, bringing his temperature back up to Vulcan normal.
She kissed him again and he felt as if he had been lit on fire. He pulled the covers back up to insulate them against the air of the room and sank into the semi-darkness with her, tracing the lines of her body with his fingers, following the movement with his eyes. A thousand comparisons flashed into his mind as he explored the shape of her body, cellos and ripe fruits among them. It was so fascinating, so liberating, to be able to draw upon visual comparisons again. But those comparisons ceased to matter as he closed down on the sense of sight again, pushing it aside for the much more vivid and visceral ones of scent and touch. Intercourse had never been a situation where he had missed sight.
He stroked his fingers across her breasts, down the flesh-softened solidity of her ribcage, across her stomach to the softness between her legs, and she gasped. He could feel himself stiffening in response. The world had narrowed down and there was nothing but Christine, the scent and feel of her in this microcosm of the bed. He growled, losing his last vestiges of logical restraint, and applied himself to her body with full Vulcan passion, until eventually he settled himself over her and let himself go.
Later they lay spent in the tangled covers. Christine stroked a hand over his forehead. Her fingers were damp with sweat, but Spock was shivering a little in the air. She pulled the cover back over his lower body and kissed him.
'I do love to see you with your hair all mussed,' she smiled. 'It's never mussed. You know, for years I thought you used some kind of special Vulcan hair gel to hold it in place. I thought you could do a headstand and it would still be in place.'
Spock reached his hand up to his head, sweeping his hair back from his forehead in a way he rarely allowed.
'Vulcan hair does have some unusual properties,' he agreed. 'But it is quite possible for it to become mussed, as you say, given the right circumstances.'
'I like these circumstances,' she smiled.
Spock stretched in bed, feeling the sensation of the covers moving over his naked skin. It was pleasant on occasion to abandon himself to a wholly animal way of being. Christine's hand was flat on his abdomen, and he covered it with his own. Given the chance he thought that he would be quite capable of becoming aroused enough for a second bout of intercourse.
But, 'You still haven't made me coffee,' Christine said.
'Is it not the woman's place to serve the man?' Spock asked with deliberate innocence.
She pulled her hand out from under his and swatted him. 'On what world?' she asked. 'Not on mine any more. And certainly not on yours. My, what would T'Pau say?'
'I don't believe I want T'Pau to intrude on my thoughts at this moment,' Spock told her.
'I'll go and make you coffee,' she said, lightly kissing him on the lips. 'I'll bring you some breakfast too.'
Spock lay still and watched her sashay out of the room, entirely naked and flushed to a delicate pink, and delighted again in his newly restored sight.