Chapter 18

Spock has never liked the cold, but there is something about winter that appeals to him, and there are worse places to enjoy it than San Francisco. The air is crisp and clear when the clouds roll back: crystalline, that very specific, piercing clarity that is obscured by the heat of a desert planet. It smells clean, as though the sky itself has been scrubbed to a high shine.

This year's cohort is like any other: ambitious, intelligent, and very young. There are the students whose promise is camouflaged by a crippling insecurity, and the students whose brilliance is all bluster and bravado. There are those for whom the work comes easily and those for whom each day is a patchwork of tiny victories; those who were born in the far reaches of the galaxy and those who have never left the Terran biosphere; those who are following a long line of adventurers and tacticians, and those who are following an undeniable lust for discovery. Some of them will have graduated by the time Enterprise shakes off her chains once more. He wonders if any of them will crew her.

He is used to being recognizable, set apart by difference or renown, and, if he's never managed to reconcile himself to this fact, he has learned to expect it. It's enough to erect some kind of shield against the naked staring and unwelcome familiarity that follows him like the wake of a ship. In each of his classes, there are cadets whose interest is not his knowledge, but Spock himself. Some of them are there because they want to be smarter than a man they've decided they know: as though the fact of his presence in the collective consciousness of the Federation irrefutably marks him as deficient; as though his current celebrity is indicative of artifice or error, and it's their duty to demonstrate this. They are the easiest to deal with: an unblinking stare is effective in 98.7% of cases, and the remainder are generally undone by theoretical physics. More disturbing are their opposite species: those whose adulation and uninterrogated enthusiasm have led them to a kind of hero-worship that creates him as omniscient, apodictic, infallible. He has no idea what to do with these people; the stare has no noticeable effect beyond a furious blush and a lowering of the eyes. He regards them with faint horror, and thinks, if only you knew.

Elsewhere, he's aware of a level of background hostility, and it is disconcerting at first, which surprises him. Hostility, after all, is nothing new: from a childhood spent between two cultures in which he does not belong, to an early adulthood spent consistently outmatching his peers in an academic institution with a long history of attracting the most gifted and the most ambitious, to a career that has described an unfailing upwards trajectory, even over men and women with several decades' experience and game-playing on him, Spock has had ample opportunity to accustom himself to the animosity of his peers. There is nothing threatening about it - generally, their antipathy is barely even consciously considered; simply an instinctive reaction born of his gifts and his cultural disinclination to profess false modesty. But he finds himself uneasy in these first weeks of his new assignment, and it takes him a few days to understand why. The knowledge, when it comes, is not precisely welcome: it obliges a sharp, painful review of his final five years on the Enterprise, and the ferocious determination of her Captain that respect was to be mutual, all-encompassing, and indeterminate. It obliges him to reflect once more on the fact that they have been each other's protectors for so long that Kirk's presence, and his regard, have insinuated themselves into the fabric of Spock's worldview, to the extent that their absence now - and the re-encroachment of the ambient antagonism that had haunted his former self - is discordant, jarring.

He drifts, apart, in a bubble of difference, separated from the Human faculty by a wall that used to be impermeable, and he finds, eventually, that he prefers this. He is not interested in entertaining ghosts of his old life, and the comparisons are always unfavorable. Occasionally, he will overhear fragmentary references that rattle his shields and spit him out of his comfortable detachment: a glancing comment about the Enterprise, thrown carelessly between two cadets passing in the corridor; a flash of holovid footage of their difficult arrival in the Centroplex; casual conversation in the staff canteen about Kirk, about their mission, about the Captain's adventures in Xenorelations, about his face or his physique or his smile. On a long interstellar journey, the mind detaches during hours spent contemplating the unchanging starfield, and, starved for stimulation, any small discrepancy explodes into curiosity: a dust mote caught in the starlight; a stain on the console; a fraying thread on the cushion of the seat. So it is each time he hears the words James or Kirk: he is catapulted into vigilance, straining and hungry for information, and each time he has to hold himself back. Each time, he feels the words rise in his throat, clamoring for expression: How is he? Is he contented? Is he well?

It's not hard to restrain himself, not once the initial thrill of desire has died. He does not know these people. And, in any case, this is the way it must be.

This is the way it must be.

The work is not challenging, but it is satisfactory. As a member of the Faculty of Sciences, he is automatically alloted lab space on a rolling schedule that, he quickly discovers, is not immune to the lure of celebrity when apportioning extra time to various supplicants; as a Professor of Astrometrics, he has access to the vast sensor processing array in the Marin County campus, through which scientific chatter flows from outposts and starships in every sector of the galaxy, and which, on any given day, is actually slightly more reliable than Starfleet subspace transmission protocols. His A7 classification recommends him to a series of top-level consultancy projects designed to streamline the Starfleet cortex: to corral and pacify roiling, tumbling rivers of data, to make their duotronic capacity match their ambitions. It's not quasar-mapping or stellar gravimetrics, but it's sufficient, and, if it's not especially stimulating, neither is he bored. In the absence of any demands on his time beyond the pursuit and taming of knowledge, Spock decides that this is his chance to catch up on some of the more theoretical projects he'd sidelined on accepting promotion to First Officer seven years ago, and, on a good day, he is able to sublimate the discrepancy between then and now to a background haze of regret that can be easily walled away from conscious thought.

He thinks about the Enterprise often, but this is only to be expected.

In the evenings, he lights the asenoi as the sun disappears behind the horizon, and crouches, cross-legged, with his back to the window. As a younger man, he might have allowed the lengthening shadows outside his apartment to catch at his thoughts and pull them down into the twilight world of the trance, but years spent in the black wastes of space have broken the habit, and, besides: Eridanus may not be at its brightest in the Terran sky this early into the year, but he knows it's there. So he arranges himself on the meditation mat so that his eyes fall on the blank wall of his quarters, or the flagstoned floor, or the hands folded in his lap, and he scrambles inside himself for peace.

This is the way it must be. Kaiidth.

Kaiidth.

This is the way it must be.

-o-o-o-

There are three other Vulcans on the Faculty: Saaral and T'Var in Warp Mechanics and Subspace Geometry respectively, and a quantum singularity physicist on secondment from the VSA. Mostly, they regard Spock with cool indifference, but faculty business occasionally creates situations from which neither party can extricate themselves without a serious breach of decorum. A joint early-morning lecture on relativistic conjunctions in warp particle transducers ought not to oblige either professor to engage in social niceties beyond greetings and parting salutations and, potentially, a request to pass the laser pointer, but serendipity has dictated that Spock's next port of call is the Marin County observatory, while Saaral is due in the engineering bay simulator in the adjacent building. A communal airshuttle ride looms large in their joint future, and telepathic contact is not necessary to determine the precise moment that Saaral understands this; it is only fractions of a second after the realization hits Spock like a direct phaser-blast to his equilibrium.

He folds his hands behind his back. Saaral folds his in front. Spock realizes, with weary resignation, that the opening honors will necessarily fall to him, by virtue of the fact that he is almost certainly better at this than his counterpart. It's either that or walk in silence to the airshuttle port, and stilted conversation is the lesser of two particularly malevolent evils. So he steels himself and goes for science; at least they have this in common.

"I found your application of H'Krzzk's Dynamic Particulation theory most interesting, trensu," he says as they fall into step together along an interminable corridor. "I believe the more promising students found your argument quite intriguing."

Saaral inclines his head. "I had the opportunity to observe the formation of the matrix during an ion storm while I was aboard the Fai-tukh in Torektra T'dahsu," he says. There is a long pause, punctuated by the soft, even fall of twin pairs of feet along the empty floor. Presently, he adds, as if as an afterthought, "Your explanation of the polarity of plasma residue in a destabilized warp field was no doubt most illuminating to those less experienced members of the group."

The barb is subtle, and so smoothly delivered that Spock is not entirely certain it is intended to insult. In his mind's eye, Kirk's shadow bristles by his side, spits diplomatic vituperation in a lightning-flash of vicarious offense, but Spock simply acknowledges the faint praise with a nod, and says, "Our collaboration has been productive, then."

They pass out of the Laikan Center, through a high, arched entryway that leads into a damp courtyard. On the other side of the heat-field, the chilled winter air envelopes them like rushing water and Saaral sinks deeper into his thermal cloak.

"You are cold, trensu?" says Spock.

Saaral regards him levelly. "Constantly," he says.

Perhaps it's the affronted shade of his Captain; perhaps it's Amanda's genetic legacy, which makes its presence known at the least opportune moments, but some buried mischief makes Spock stand a little taller and say, "I am given to understand that acclimatization to the Terran weather is challenging to those who are not accustomed to a cooler climate."

"Indeed," says Saaral. "I wonder that you would choose to return, trensu."

"I go where I am assigned," says Spock mildly.

A loaded silence twists his head to towards his companion, and he finds that Saaral has quirked a quizzical eyebrow. "It was my understanding that you were offered the opportunity to lead the gravomanipulation trials on the Delta-03 science station," he says.

Spock meets the stare with equanimity and raises an eyebrow of his own. "I was not aware that it was within my capacity to influence the admiralty's decisions in this matter," he says.

"Indeed," says Saaral, but it is a moment before he looks away.

Spock's office is housed in the building to his left, up an impractical staircase that has all the traction of oil-slicked ice whenever the lightest of rainfalls dampens the soles of two dozen pairs of passing feet, and which is set into a glass atrium that sucks the limited heat out of the cavernous space on a dull February day. His dihydrogen conversion experiment is approaching completion, and Orbital Observation Station Epsilon Epsilon 74-C will achieve optimal alignment with the Megarthi system's central antimatter singularity at 1107 hours, but the thought crosses his mind that these are, perhaps, points worth conceding in favor of escaping his colleague's company for the immediate present.

So he says, "My apologies, trensu; I must return to my office momentarily." It's not a lie: he actually must, though it's disingenuous to pretend that there's anything waiting for him there that isn't the conspicuous absence of Saaral. "I do not wish to delay your arrival at the simulation facilities."

Saaral offeres a patrician nod. "Your consideration is appreciated, trensu," he says, and Spock would almost swear that a shadow of manifest relief ghosts across his face. Spock raises a ta'al, and Saaral mirrors the gesture, before pulling his cloak a little tighter about himself and turning to leave. But he hesitates in the act of taking his first step.

"Ah," he says. "I believe I have observed the source of your diversion."

His diversion has an actual source? This is news to Spock. But he nods smoothly, as though he has expected some such statement from his companion, and follows his line of sight with interested eyes.

Ah.

-o-o-o-

McCoy has the beginnings of a beard, and it is presently stalled at that point between neglect of personal hygiene and patchy crops of bristly fuzz. Spock cannot imagine why the Doctor should choose to follow this path of personal grooming, but he has long since reconciled himself to the fact that many of McCoy's decisions defy Vulcan comprehension, and so he elects to say nothing as his erstwhile colleague follows him along the corridor to Spock's office, stroking unconsciously at his chin with a sound like rustling sandpaper. They have not spoken during the walk from the courtyard, beyond perfunctory greetings and McCoy's acerbic, Got a minute?

Of course, said Spock, since there really weren't many other options open to him at that point, though he suspects that this is an interview he would be better advised to avoid.

Spock unlocks the door and stands back to let the Doctor enter. It occurs to him that they've never really been alone on Spock's territory before, and McCoy is awkward, uneasy, as though the same thought is heavy in his mind. He steps inside, eyes swooping up to take in the high ceilings; the bare desk pushed to one corner of the narrow room to allow for a meditation mat and an asenoi in the other; the rain-swept, uncurtained windows. On the back wall, Spock has hung a large IDIC that he's had in storage for a number of years, waiting for such times as he might have space to display it again, but otherwise the room is unornamented.

He gestures to the single guest chair. "Please sit," he says. He's uncertain of the protocol, but something is clearly required. "Perhaps you would care for some tea?"

"Tea, huh?" says McCoy, and huffs an inexplicable laugh.

Perhaps not.

Spock moves around to his side of the desk and sits. McCoy follows his lead, pulling the spare seat back from the desk and lowering himself into it.

"Not gonna ask me why I'm here?" he says sourly.

"I assume you are preparing to tell me," says Spock.

McCoy shakes his head. "Goddamn, but you're one cold-blooded computer sometimes," he says.

Even allowing for the Doctor's typically circuitous conversational style, this seems incongruous. Spock waits a moment to see if an elaboration will be forthcoming. When it is apparent that it will not, he says, "I fail to see the connection."

"I show up here outta nowhere, and you don't even flinch," says McCoy, with a familiar fire in his eyes. "Damn it, man, we've got one person in common in the whole damn universe, it doesn't occur to you I might be here to tell you somethin's happened to him? Maybe he's lyin' injured somewhere - or worse?"

A flash-flood of cold fear washes down Spock's spine, but hot on its heels is the simple, illogical idea - insupportable, but no less insistent - that nothing has happened to Kirk. This is not possible. Spock would know.

He raises an eyebrow. "Is Captain Kirk unwell?" he says.

"Commodore Kirk, you mean?" says McCoy. He shoots a sharp glare upwards, but turns it back down to his hands where they are folded in his lap, thumbs circling each other absently. He lets loose a long breath. "Well, that kinda depends on what you mean by 'unwell', doesn't it," he says. "Don't know as I've ever seen him in this shape before, Spock."

There's a naked emotion behind the Doctor's gruff words that Spock finds unsettling. Anger, he knows how to deal with. But this is not anger; at least, not solely anger.

He says, "But he is uninjured?"

"No, Spock, quit frettin'," says McCoy, and Spock blinks to clear the dust from that conversational hair-pin turn. From cold-blooded computer to quit frettin' in four sentences. This is a new record for the Doctor. "Guess you haven't been talkin' to him, then?" McCoy laughs humorlessly. "What am I sayin', of course you haven't been talkin' to him. Two of you've got this whole stupid, stubborn pride goin' on, and God forbid you should let that go, huh?"

Spock steeples his hands in front of him on the desk to buy himself a moment's composure. He is certain that McCoy doesn't know about the events on Vulcan, and he doesn't believe that he has guessed, but the Doctor is very definitely not stupid, regardless of what Spock might imply in the course of their retaliatory verbal gymnastics. It doesn't take a particularly incisive mind to see that Kirk has been… different… these past months, and a less gifted man than McCoy could infer that this is attributable, in some way, to Spock.

He says, "I am uncertain as to what you are suggesting, Doctor. Perhaps you could elaborate."

McCoy sighs. "He's… I don't know, Spock." A beat. "Truth is, I don't know. Some lights, he's the same old Jim Kirk; turn your head for a minute and… I don't know. The heart's gone out of him. And this goddamn promotion…"

They've put me in the Flag Officers' quarters, says the Captain's shadow. The words are steady but there is raw, unadulterated emotion behind the expressive eyes. At the time, Spock thinks it is sadness, but now, with the Doctor sitting, tangled in confusion and discomfort, across the desk from him, he wonders. Could it have been - fear?

"It has been ratified," says Spock. It's not a question. Neither he nor, he suspects, Kirk expected that the admiralty would fail to follow through. It's only that… it's a step further away from the way things used to be; a reminder that the past is a river, forever flowing out of reach.

"Yup," says McCoy slowly. He hesitates. "If they take that ship away from him, Spock…"

Spock says, "There are precedents. As recently as Commodore Decker, Starfleet has conferred starship command on the lower flag ranks…"

"Yeah, and look how that turned out," says McCoy bitterly. "Doesn't exactly inspire you with confidence that they're plannin' to try it again, does it? Spock," he says, and leans forward, "You know him 'bout as well as any other body alive right now. You see him behind a desk for the rest of his days? What d'you think that'll do to him?"

Spock can imagine all too well what it would do to Kirk, and a sharp spike of pain stabs his chest. Mercurial hazel eyes dulled by apathy, athletic mind left to stagnate, the fire of command stripped and banked and left to eat out the heart of the greatest man he knows…

"Spock," says McCoy. "Our boy's in trouble."

-o-o-o-

The fact of the matter is that, in the days after they warped out of orbit around his homeworld, Spock wrestled with a black and pervasive misery the like of which he has never known. The taste of his Captain lingered in his mouth, the scent of him lingered in his nose, and arousal was his constant companion, boiling deep below the surface in a place that his shields could not entirely reach. Meditation eluded him completely and sleep, never a particularly Vulcan refuge in any case, was beyond contemplation. Instead, hollowed out by darkness, he walked the ship like an automaton, mechanically performing his duties as though he was controlled from afar, and every second of every day was a perpetual fight to slough off the memories that choked him.

You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting, he said once upon a time, in bitterness and disgust, to a man who thought he'd won something precious, and the words haunted him in those long and lonely days. Love, as it turns out, is one thing; it can be smothered and denied, sublimated to a persistent background ache, but it can be managed. Requited love, though, once abjured, is like a black hole in the center of one's self; to turn away from love that is returned, to casually deny it and watch the flare of bewildered hurt in the eyes of the one person he would protect above all others, is an act so unnatural that for several days he believed that he might very well become lost inside himself with the effort it took to suppress the raging torrent of distress.

They spoke very little in those days, and every time, every single time their eyes met, he read the question in Kirk's. Every time he was obliged to turn away, out of the glare of that sharp, burning sadness, and later, when the shadows had cleared enough to be able to function once again, Spock found that things were not as they had been. Time, perhaps, will patch over the cracks; time heals Human emotional wounds, and so, he suspects - he hopes - it will be for him. Time and distance are necessary, but the latter was unconscionable, even in those days when proximity was torture, and the former, it now appears, must be ceded as well.

He sits for a full four hours and 38 minutes on his meditation mat, staring resolutely into the flames of the asenoi as the city darkens behind him and Luna paints a silver-white window-square across the wall beyond, before he concedes defeat and allows his spine to slacken, his shoulders to slump forward, his head to loll towards his chest. He is worse than fatigued: he is exhausted, but the trance will not come. The firepot swirls heavy incense-smoke into the air of his narrow quarters in a manner that would certainly alarm the fire detection system, had it not been quietly reprogrammed by an A7 computer expert to ignore certain specific chemical compounds; the corridor beyond his doorway is quiet; the mat beneath his folded legs is neither too soft nor too hard; but still the trance will not come.

He stands and extinguishes the flames with a glass of water that hisses and pops on the superheated embers. His head aches and his muscles are tight from their hours of motionless contemplation as he crosses to the bed, lowers himself stiffly onto the comforter, and closes his eyes. It is not yet 2200 hours; perhaps sleep will find its own way to him if he lies quietly and runs through simple antimatter conversion equations. Perhaps a kohl-tor will materialize once he stops seeking it. Perhaps the darkness will soothe the ache behind his eyes.

V equals W cubed times C, where V equals Velocity, W equals Warp Speed and C equals the Speed of Light.

Energy In over Antiproton Mass equals C squared over H.

G equals one over the square root of one minus - parenthesis - V(E) over C - close parenthesis - squared…

But they're too familiar, too banal: they're not enough to prevent his his mind's eye from idly sketching in a background figure in command golds, leaning carelessly against the railing that brackets off the upper tier of the bridge. A grin, two parts indulgence to one part provocation, lights his face as he prepares to make some comment about his Science Officer's encyclopedic knowledge of warp core mechanics, and Spock turns over his shoulder into its radiant warmth, contentment coloring the air between them. The background chatter recedes, as it often does, and it's just them in their private world of companionable badinage, hazel eyes glinting with poorly-concealed amusement and reflected pleasure. And surprise: always a little bit of surprise, because it should never have been this easy. It should never have been possible for them to find this place where they slot together like two missing pieces of a puzzle…

Enough. Spock opens his eyes and the image scatters into the shadows.

He rises, with difficulty, and crosses in darkness to his office area, where a series of earthenware tea canisters are meticulously arranged on a shelf above the synthesizer. He selects bar-kas and opens the lid, releasing tumbling clouds of sharp, sweet perfume onto the air, as the synthesizer gently announces the production of a steaming mug of hot water. This is not how it ought to be done, of course; there ought to be a fire at least, an urn buried in its depths and allowed to boil slowly over many hours, then ladled into a waiting strainer filled with freshly ground powder and served to the clan in descending order of age, but he's one man, a long way from the planet of his birth, and he doesn't have any of those things here. He has a synthesizer and an earthenware pot, and a fire alarm system that's already on the lookout for any more funny business. Spock heaps a spoonful of the spice into the beaker and stirs: it's close enough.

You can't tell me you're any damn happier than he is, said McCoy, and Spock quirked an eyebrow.

I do not recall making any such claim, he said.

You know what I mean.

But no, in point of fact, Spock is not sure that he does. Happiness seems to him to be a volatile quantity - a zero-sum binary that necessarily devolves into joy and not-joy. Happiness is precipitous, like a sine wave whose amplitude is always either above or below the gradient. Spock has experienced happiness only once, and its absence was like a blow to the gut once it was removed: contentment seems to be the more sensible aspiration, a steady, maintainable state of satisfaction with the world and one's place in it. He considered explaining this to McCoy, and decided that the inevitable argument wasn't worth the effort. The Captain would understand.

The Captain did understand. For the first time in my life, I was happy, said Spock as they broke orbit around Omicron Ceti 3, and Kirk was very quiet for long moments after that, thoughtful eyes fixed on his First. McCoy broke the silence in the end with an irascible comment about grinning hobgoblins that provoked the anticipated response from his CO, and business as usual resumed with a convulsive jerk, but Spock was not surprised, later that evening, when the buzzer sounded at the door to his quarters.

Did I do you a disservice, Mr Spock? Kirk wanted to know. The Captain is rarely troubled by uncertainty, and he does not generally second-guess himself after a decision has been taken, but there was doubt in his eyes that night. Should I have left you as you were? What right do I have to interfere in your happiness?

And Spock could have pointed out that, in fact, he had every right, where that happiness threatened the safety of the ship or the integrity of the mission, but Kirk knew this, of course, and the question was redundant. It was logical to infer, therefore, that it was motivated by another concern, something unspoken. So he said, slowly, You proceed from a false assumption, Captain. A questioning eyebrow erased a little of the apprehension in Kirk's face. You assume that 'happiness' is a state of mind to which I aspire.

Surely every sentient being seeks happiness?

A beat. It was important to get this right. Every sentient being seeks the absence of pain, said Spock carefully. The absence of pain is not 'happiness'. It is simply the absence of pain.

A self-deprecating smile. I would hope for more than simply 'the absence of pain' for you, my friend. But I believe I understand.

There is an irony, of course, in the fact that there came a point where Kirk's very presence was enough to banish the absence of pain from Spock's consciousness, but this is not the Captain's fault. Pain, it seems, is the natural byproduct of strong emotions, happiness amongst them. The happiness Spock felt on Omicron Ceti 3 was artificial and easily reversed, but it was enough to create a wave cluster on the seismograph of his life; he would not choose to repeat the experience.

Leila teaches now at USF and guest lectures occasionally at the Academy on Exobiology in the Mira system. He has seen her name on teaching schedules, but their paths have yet to cross, and he has found himself hoping, rather self-consciously, that this does not change. Moreover, he suspects that she shares his opinion on this matter. The recollection of her open, smiling face, the scent of her skin, the soft press of her lips on his, is enough to shoot a momentary spike of white-hot shame through his cortex, and he cannot imagine any circumstances in which their conversation will be other than excruciating. The memories that her name engenders are heavily infused with remorse, but that sentiment does not attach to her. Rather, his regrets are saved for another part of the story entirely.

The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity…

He remembers puzzlement, because this was not how the Captain thought. Even when they existed in a barely-civil haze of antagonism, it was Spock that was its focus, not his collective culture.

You're a traitor from a race of traitors, disloyal to the core…

And here he was truly confused. Disingenuous, he'd heard his people called. Slippery, even, or supercilious. But no-one had ever suggested that a Vulcan couldn't be trusted. Loyalty was prized highly among every clan on his planet; so deeply ingrained into the cultural psyche, in fact, that it had become an aphorism among the worlds of the Federation.

…rotten like the rest of your subhuman race…

His race had never classified itself in relation to Humanity. If anything, they rated Humanity against themselves. It made no sense to call them subhuman, because human had no relevance to the construction of Vulcanness.

And you've got the gall to make love to that girl!

Make love? They had not made love. They had kissed, and she had run her hands over his clothed body, stroking, caressing, trailing a tidal wave of pleasure beneath the tips of her fingers as she explored his contours. He had pressed the length of himself along the length of her, pinning her to the warm grass with his weight and tasting her unfamiliar flavors, twisting his tongue against hers and clutching her small, warm body against his. She had straddled him, rocking provocatively against his sensitized groin as her knees gripped his hips and her hands clutched at his chest, and he had thrust up against her, helpless in his need, and she had whispered, Not here. Later. And now, suddenly, snatched from the hazy clouds of illusion and transplanted into the sharp, white light of the transporter room, he realized, with an rush of ice-cold clarity, that there couldn't be any later. He could not touch her like that. He could not make love to her; not later, not ever. Reason had slipped from his disconnected grasp, and he had forgotten the simple, biological fact of the matter. His mother's face, stripped white with camouflaged pain, swam dizzily before his eyes, and the dream was suddenly, abruptly, over.

That's enough, he said.

Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks, who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man? Ugly, poisonous words, designed to wound. Spock saw the moment that the Captain realized that he'd hit home, but he thought it was the invective that hurt him, not the sudden, horrified thrill of understanding as he realized what had almost done. You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship - right next to the dog-faced boy…

He cannot do what McCoy wants him to do. This is the way it must be: for the Captain's sake, and also for Spock's. If it were only his own desire that must be contained, then perhaps it might be possible, but that fiction was laid to rest in a rose-scented garden under the milky light of The Watcher, and he is certain he cannot turn away a third time from the answering hunger in those eyes. He is certain of it.

He sips at his tea.