K'oh-nar

by AlexPrime

Somewhere, hidden on this desolate planet of ice and snow, a lost civilization reaches out to the only one capable of reaching back, and Spock discovers that first contact can have lasting, devastating consequences. He never should have come here.

14. Saglakolaya

— Chapter Fourteen —
— Saglakolaya —

Two-point-nine-one days later, he was released from sickbay.

Upon being informed, Spock ignored the doctor's grumbling and remained there only just long enough to ensure the documentation declaring his discharge and subsequent duty clearance had been signed and filed, whereupon he left both sickbay and Doctor McCoy far behind him. His first destination was to check in with Jim and inform him of his liberation, much to his captain's amused delight. His second destination was his quarters.

They were dark when he arrived, and the muted lighting was pleasing to his eyes after the harsh glare of sickbay. Spock scarcely allowed the doors to close behind him before he asked the computer to engage the highest level of privacy. It was then, and only then, that he finally allowed himself to breathe.

He was alone. Truly alone. Since he had beamed down to Seskilles VII, he had been in the constant presence of another in at least some way. At first it had been the landing party, then Jim, then the Seskille, then Jim again, then Jim and Doctor McCoy, and finally Jim, Doctor McCoy, and an entire team of Starfleet doctors, nurses, and technicians. He had not been alone in over a week, and the constant intrusion into his personal space, his emotional control, his desire for privacy, and his need for social recharge had been grating to the point of physical discomfort.

There was a comfort in the solitude of his quarters—and even more comfort in the knowledge that the half-dozen centimeters of metal composite between himself at the rest of the ship would ensure that his solitude remained uninterrupted. There were only a select few individuals who would be able to bypass his locks, and even then, only under highly specific circumstances. The captain, the chief medical officer, and, if purely by virtue of his ability to take the ship apart and piece it back together at will, the chief engineer.

The captain would respect his preference to be alone, although he would not particularly like it. The last time Spock had initiated such a level of privacy, Jim had camped outside of the door and appealed to him through the intercom for hours until Spock had finally given in and allowed entry. It had been frustrating, but it had also demonstrated that Jim would not abuse his authority or his override codes unless he had absolutely no other choice. It was true that the override codes were unnecessary; the captain had the personal code to his room, as Spock had Jim's, but the captain would understand the pointed hint for what it was and not break that bond of trust.

If Doctor McCoy discovered the strict settings, the doctor would no doubt ignore his wishes entirely and override them simply because he had the ability to do so, circumstances permitting it or not. In fact, Spock suspected that McCoy would see his clear desire for privacy as a personal challenge to thwart, for clearly a wish to be alone meant one must be hiding something. Thankfully, the last possible source of disruption was unlikely. Mr. Scott would not have had a reason to come to his door to begin with—not unless there were an emergency of some kind, and Spock was certain that he would be made aware of such a crisis long before someone had to physically come fetch him for it.

And so, finally, after eight-point-three-two-seven days, Spock was alone.

The privacy of his rooms should have been a relief after the exposure and stress of sickbay.

It was not.

They felt… off. He disliked the ambiguous nature of the identifier, but the feeling itself was ambiguous, and he lacked a more accurate denotation for it. The room and the objects within it—they were simply off. They had an eerie, uncanny sense of being entirely familiar to him in an unfamiliar way, as if everything had been somehow replaced with a facsimile of itself. An almost identical replica, but still not quite exact. His quarters felt just slightly different to how he remembered it, in a way Spock could not fully describe. It was a difficult feeling to put into words, for there did not appear to be a visual error or discrepancy that had caused it.

His belongings, from what he could ascertain, seemed to all be in place and unchanged from how he'd left them. From the strings of his ka'athyra, to the deep red skahanu lining the walls of the cabin. His possessions were as they always had been: placed accordingly and following his particular organizational system. PADDs were left where he had placed them before beaming planetside. The blankets of his bed were tucked in neatly and with exact precision. They were not moved, they were not changed, and they were not different. Why then did these rooms feel as though they did not belong to him? That they belonged to a stranger that had similar if not identical belongings, but who was assuredly not him? It was unsettling, especially after days of desiring nothing more than to be surrounded by the familiarity of his own things.

Spock stepped further into the room, tracking his eyes carefully around it for anything that might provide clarification on the feeling. There was nothing. All was exactly as it had been when he'd left it over eight days prior. He logically knew that it was unchanged. Logic did not stop the uneasy disconnect he felt for his quarters and all the items within it. It should have, and the awareness was not lost on him.

His asenoi was cold and unlit—a safety precaution in case he did not return from a mission which, in this case, had nearly demonstrated it to be a wise measure. Igniting the fire was part of his meditation ritual, smooth and fluid and ingrained, and the scent of his insilit spiced incense finally brought him a hint of the comfort that he had been seeking. The heat of the flames, the light flickering and casting shadows on the red curtains around him—it was hypnotic. Spock allowed himself to sink gently to his knees in his meditation space, adopting his preferred lesh'riq pose with his legs tucked neatly beneath him. His posture was perfect; his positioning serene.

There were approximately five hours until the debrief was to begin. He would familiarize himself with his new circumstances, and then he would meditate until it was time to leave.

Closing his eyes, Spock steadied himself.

Breathe. Control. Control. Focus.

Regardless of the peculiar quality to his rooms, it was pleasing to be back in them. Enduring sickbay had become a strained exercise in practicing patience, especially once he had sufficiently healed to his own satisfaction. It had not, however, been to Doctor McCoy's satisfaction, and the man had not been shy in letting him know it. Spock had been required to enter a healing trance twice more before his condition had been considered improved enough for discharge. It was a disgraceful example of just how far he'd fallen. Once, even only a week before, it would have taken him a singular healing trance to be performing at optimal efficiency. Two times would have been egregious, but three? Inexcusable.

Spock was thankful that his medical records were closed to all outside parties, and that family—or previous family, as it were—did not have access to them. If Sarek ever discovered that his former son had lapsed so appallingly in his self-control, he would have been exceedingly disappointed. Although, Spock considered impassively, the information was also not liable to be a surprise. There was a reason why his father had repudiated any further association with him; Sarek seemed to have known Spock was fundamentally and inherently defective since his birth, and had no doubt been disappointed in him for nearly as long. The knowledge, therefore, would only serve to affirm his instincts as being perfectly logical and sound, as befitting any Vulcan.

The spiced heat of the firepot washed over him, around him, and, as he inhaled it deeply, through him. This, at least, was familiar; it did not seem as altered as the rest of the room had been. Here, with his eyes closed and his breathing steady, he hoped he would at last find the focus he'd been attempting to achieve during his week of convalescence. In sickbay, achieving such a state was impossible; the machines had shrilled too loudly, and Doctor McCoy had shrilled even louder.

Breathe.

Control.

Control…

He sunk into the tattered remnants of his own mind, allowing the heat of the flame to act as a guide to the heat of his desert. He once would have found the act of doing so soothing; a relaxing endcap to a long day. Now, slipping into meditation resulted only in a muted sense of hopelessness.

Spock wandered the ravaged dunes and considered the churned and cratered landscape. His surroundings were in chaos; disordered and ripped through, as if the Seskille had thrashed around in his mind and thrown everything into a state of abject discord. The comparison was not entirely inaccurate. He did not know how to begin organizing it; he did not even know where anything was any longer, nor where to start if he somehow had. He'd had a system in place, one that had taken a lifetime to create. Each memory, thought, emotion—they'd all had a specific place where he could retrieve them if and as needed. All of that order had been rendered incoherent by one simple mission, and his visualization now lacked any system or structure to rebuild from.

In all probability, there was likely nothing to be done about it; he was becoming more and more certain that the damage was unrepairable. How did one find coherency in such wreckage? How did one even begin to re-establish the barriers that had taken thirty-eight years of dedicated, focused work to build?

The remains of his mindscape were disgusting to look at, and Spock observed the pillaged land with a hollow, numb sense of grief. All of his emotions, his memories, his thoughts, his desires—all of them lay bleeding and burning in the sand, exposed to the sun like the bones of some bleached, skeletal thing that had once been living. It was a pitiful and pathetic sight. It made him sick to his stomach to see it.

The damage was not only devastating in the potential for long-term consequences, but it was also highly problematic for the present ones. The emotions that resulted in his unacceptable and flagrant display towards the captain should have been buried deep beneath his mind. He had tried in sickbay two days prior, and he tried again now. The memory, the feelings, the wanting, the lust… he attempted to push them beneath his conscious thought, to submerge them far below awareness where they could no longer haunt his mind. He attempted to shove them back, shove them away, so that they could not influence him any further, because he simply could not allow a repeat of it.

But the sand spilled from his fingers as if it were a liquid, and Spock could do nothing but watch the granules catch on a hot breeze and blow away from him.

There was nothing to be done here that he had not already tried. The ruin was definitive and absolute, and to continue in the same manner was both illogical and futile. One could make a scientific argument for the benefits of repeating a failed experiment to get a potentially different outcome, but to do so in this instance bordered on the wrong side of asinine. No progress had been made, or he would surely have already seen the result of it; seen some kind of effect, even the most minute one. No, to expend further energy here was a waste of both time and resources. Spock would have to sink deeper into himself, to a deeper level of meditation, if he had any hope of salvaging this.

The visualized desert of his mindscape existed on multiple planes, each requiring their own technique to influence. His standard meditation was useful as a sort of catch all, one that allowed Spock to organize and structure his day-to-day effectively, but it was not the only option available to him. There were other mental disciplines that he could apply, ones more comparable to a healing trance than the lower form he normally utilized. Perhaps not as entrapping, but with similar potency and control.

It would take skill to do so, for the deeper forms of mental examination required much more of his energy and ability. They could be potentially dangerous were he to be reckless with them. His healing trance, for example, was not strictly limited to only healing, although such a skill was rarely utilized for any other purpose. To control the body in such a way, he could influence his body to shut down just as surely as he could influence his cells to regenerate. He could tell his brain to die, he could command his lungs to collapse, he could force his heart to simply stop beating. That depth of physical control carried a certain amount of risk, and controlling the mind to such an intimate level was similar. It was only here, in the safe silence of his quarters, with the fire of his asenoi flickering shadow over his closed lids, that he would be able to manage such a focus. The concentration needed would have been thoroughly impossible to achieve in sickbay, with the threat of physical contact looming ever-present. There had simply been too many distractions. Silence, stillness, centering, and patience were essential.

This, Spock thought, was what he needed more than anything else. It was the only solution he could think of to conceivably even begin to heal from what had happened to him. He would go into the source of the pain, the deeper source, and attempt to mend what he could from beneath the rips. Meditation was well-suited for sorting his mind, but the foundation to do that had been broken. To repair it, he would need to achieve a more specific kind of trance.

Spock centered himself and breathed the spiced heat of his quarters deep into his lungs. The stone statue of the Yon'tislak—the hybrid fire-beast of Vulcan legend—provided a targeting focal point; a symbolic object he could use as a guide to navigate the reaches of his mind. The griffin-like creature had always resonated strongly with the particular structure of his mind, and he allowed his senses to drift to it. Allowed his thoughts to become shapeless, to become fluid, to become without form. The fire had heated the stone of the statue, and he felt that heat radiate outwards against his skin. Focus. Breathe. The temperature of the flames, the incense, the dance of shadow and light on his eyelids; he let it fade around him, fade through him, fade away—control, control, control. He sank down and—

—and with a harsh cry, Spock recoiled away from the screaming, piercing sensation of painpainpainagony!

Something horrible and intense—a spiking pain—stabbed at his mind like a blade; sharp, cutting, and wounding to the core of him. No, this was… wrong, something was—something was wrong. He felt scoured and bleeding, like he'd opened up something inside his mind and ripped the contents out through a gaping, oozing, gutted hole. No—it overwhelmed him, the searing anguish of it lighting his nerves and reverberating throughout his mind so deafeningly that he could not help but clap his hands over his ears to try to block it out. No, no! Stop, stop, stop—please, get out, get out—

Spock slammed his eyes open and reeled back from his meditation spot as if he had been burnt by it, body falling in a writhing tangle of limbs. His ears rang from the remains of a guttural, tortured sound; the echoes of a choked scream still lingering in the quiet of his room. When he lurched up to unsteady feet, he stumbled against the room partition so roughly that he heard a crack in the composite. His breaths came in ragged gasps; the room faded in and out, and he rested his head against the partition to gather himself. Fingers clung to it to keep himself upright.

The pain itself had fled the moment he pulled himself from the half-formed trance, but his head rang from the jolt of cutting the connection with himself so abruptly. A headache—a pounding and quaking throb—beat at his temples and behind his eyes like a new pulse. Spock rested there, breathing, and tried to push it away. His mind felt raw and swimming, overwhelmed with vertigo and the stunned, dazed sensation of shock.

That… should not have happened. That had never happened. Spock had been achieving such levels of meditation since his youth; to be suddenly unable to access his inner mind should have been so unlikely a possibility as to be nigh impossible. And yet, plunging to such a depth had felt like an open, gaping wound; like an injury that had been forgotten and allowed to fester and go septic. The pain had been agonizing in a way that only the mind could achieve; impossible to describe simply because there was no physical sensation possible to which comparison could be made. It hurt to think. It hurt to focus. He felt like his mind had been flayed; like it had been—

… like it had been shredded apart.

A cold pit formed in his gut, heavy and weighting. The headache did not subside exactly, but a curious kind of numbness spread through him like an awful wave. The feeling was almost like apathy, drowning him from the inside out. For a long moment, Spock simply leaned against the partition and did not think anything at all.

Time passed. He was not certain how much. He stared at his meditation spot, at the curtains of his room, at the familiar-yet-foreign objects on his walls, and he felt like a stranger to it. As if his quarters were no longer truly his but now belonged to someone else. Everything was too sharp, too blurry, too vibrant, and too dull, all at the same time. He felt disconnected from the very concept of his surroundings. He breathed in, and he breathed out, and he stared at the fire of his asenoi, and he thought nothing, did nothing, felt nothing.

Eventually, Spock moved to snuff the flames out. He operated the tools with hands that did not feel as if they were his own, and he stared at those too, for a time. The motion was a familiar one; he had done so after Vulcan when he truly understood just what his hands had been capable of. After a moment, he watched the light of the fire die out, watched the smoke of his incense lessen and then fade away, and he finally had the vague thought that the Seskille had taken this from him too. They had stolen the calm tranquility of his quarters, and they had stolen the one mental and emotional outlet he'd had available to him on the Enterprise. His meditation, his mind, his rooms… there did not seem to be an end to it. More than a week had passed since the attack, yet they still continued to affect him; still continued to take and take and take…

The solitude of his quarters felt suddenly stifling, unpleasantly so, despite his longing for exactly that when he'd been in sickbay. His belongings, the curtains, the heat—all of it had taken on an oppressive edge. It was as if the air he breathed had gone stagnant, and each inhalation did not quite manage to reach his lungs. Spock suspected that such feelings had nothing to do with his rooms and everything to do with himself. Awareness of the logic did not change the constricting sensation asphyxiation.

It was an irrational and unreasonable impulse, especially after he had spent a solid week desiring isolation, but Spock realized that he did… not want to be alone at the present.

He turned neatly on his heel, disengaged his locks, and exited his quarters.

The hallway was empty of crew, but even without the immediate sight of others, there existed the awareness of life around him; of murmured conversations, faint laughter, bootsteps, machinery, and clatter of movement. It did not truly help, not in any meaningful way, but it was easier to ignore his emotions when there were other focal points, other distractions. The headache still throbbed in his mind like a second pulse, and that numb and hollow sensation still felt like a void in him. He still felt like his mind had been scoured raw and green, but the audible sound of the Enterprise and her crew was a balm in and of itself. It was home.

Spock blinked, refocusing as he realized he'd allowed his feet to carry him to room 3F 121. The captain's quarters, only a few doors down from his own. It had been such a natural action, and one he had taken countless times; he had gravitated to Jim's quarters without even thinking of it. And, after considering it for a moment with a mind that ached and throbbed, he felt it might be a temporary solution to the problem.

The welcome he always found in the captain, that sense of belonging… it would help, of that he was certain. Jim had always had an effect on him, often a highly positive one, and he thought that might be exactly what he needed right now. Companionship, warmth. A voice to bring him out of the depths of his mind, where he could no longer take refuge in. He wanted his friend; he wanted Jim. There was something uniquely soothing about being around his captain; a kind of tranquility that he had never found elsewhere. Spock cherished every moment he spent around him, whether those moments were spent playing chess, pouring over documentation, or theorizing over drinks. He wanted the company, and right now, he wanted the escapism that Jim would provide.

His hand hovered over the door chime, hesitating. Jim would not turn him away, Spock tried to remind himself. Jim had never turned him away, and he would not do so now. He had spoken to the captain when he'd been released from sickbay only an hour prior, and Jim had smiled him warmly. He would not have changed in attitude so quickly without sufficient cause, and Spock had not yet given him one.

Spock pressed the chime and waited.

The captain did not answer.

He did not answer the second chime either, and Spock did not bother to attempt a third one. Jim was not in his quarters. Spock reevaluated his internal chronometer and quickly understood that he had spent more time his in rooms than he'd first thought. Jim was not in his quarters, and the reason Jim was not in his quarters was because he was scheduled to be on the bridge at this time. Had it been a standard day, Spock would have been up there with him, but Doctor McCoy had made it clear that he was to ease back into work gradually. It had been compositionally phrased as an order, but the audible tone had implied an unpleasant threat. He was not afraid of the doctor in any fashion, but after a week of McCoy's constant interference, needling, and incessant hovering, Spock knew he dearly needed a break from the man. It incentivized within him a certain reluctance to encourage further interaction unless absolutely necessary.

Spock folded his hands neatly behind his back, uncertain what to do with himself.

He wanted Jim, because Jim would have provided him with a suitable distraction and, admittedly, Jim's very presence was of enormous comfort to him. He would see the captain at the debrief, and Doctor McCoy as well, but that was a little over four hours away. He could go to the bridge, but he had a suspicion that he'd be shooed away were he to attempt it, and so Jim was still not accessible to him at the moment. That was… disappointing. Spock was forced to reconsider his options. He wanted Jim. He wanted to feel something other than empty, muted chaos. He wanted—he did not know what he wanted. His mind was still too sore and too stunned to make much sense of his thoughts. He could not even be certain his thoughts were rational. In fact, he rather suspected they were not motivated by rationality at all.

The lab, then. Certainly, he had plenty of work to catch up on, and the familiarity of performing his job would provide him with an appropriate level of respite. He could go back to his normal duties and… pretend that nothing was wrong. He could pretend his mind wasn't bleeding; that it wasn't infected by the injury the Seskille had ripped through him. It was not a solution to the problem, not in the slightest, but it was the only way to find some measure of relief from the humiliation and pain. Eventually it would catch up to him… but eventually could wait a while longer. He would work until it was time to debrief, and then he would go from there.

Shift. Work. The labs. Spock clung to the idea like a fervent hope, grasping and begging, because he had so few avenues left to him.

(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)

Control.

Control.

The labs, as it turned out, were a mistake.

The moment he entered Lab 4, doors closing softly behind him, it became immediately apparent that the peculiar sense of wrongness to his quarters was not, in fact, caused by an actual problem with his room. No, it was quite obviously caused by a problem with him, as he suspected, because the lab felt just as, if not more, off to him. He had been in this very space more times than he could count or measure, but it felt as if he somehow did not belong here anymore. He felt like a visitor. He felt like an imposter.

"Mr. Spock!" Ensign Beatriu exclaimed, and her loud voice was excited when she spotted him. It caused a rippling pause as the other occupants of the lab turned to look at him as well. It was more crowded than he'd expected, although this particular lab was a popular choice for collaborative work due to featuring a large, scenic viewport on the lefthand wall. Spock would have chosen a quieter one, but his previous projects were still set up at a station in the back of the room and he did not wish to abandon them to begin something new elsewhere. "Sir, welcome back!"

"Thank you, Ensign," Spock said agreeably, offering a polite nod to her smile.

Genuine greetings and words of welcome from the rest of his attending department followed him as he moved towards his desk, each delivered with an air of audible relief. They appeared to be pleased he had returned, and their reaction was warming, if also mildly uncomfortable. The response was not altogether unsurprising; the Enterprise's science division was, by his last check, considered the most accomplished and productive in the fleet by both statistical evidence and popular opinion. He was not prone to false modesty; Spock was aware that his presence aboard the ship had a great deal to do with that success. As chief science officer, he had been exacting in his expectations, demanding nothing short of his team's very best regardless of circumstance or challenge. They'd not only met those high standards, but they had exceeded them to a level unmatched by any other starship crew.

Although he'd not said it in so many words, Spock was proud of his department. He suspected his team knew it regardless. They demonstrated an obvious level of pride in themselves, in their ability, and also in their commander. They respected him, which was still somewhat of a novelty, and it caused an understanding to form. It also caused, to his great dismay, an awkward sort of reverence towards himself to emerge amongst some of the younger, more excitable scientists. Jim had teased him to no end about it when it had first been discovered, and occasionally still did. McCoy had merely looked disgusted. There had been mention of mandatory psychiatric evaluations.

"We're all so glad you're feeling better, Mr. Spock!" Yeoman Boyle said to him earnestly as he passed her.

"Thank you," Spock replied again, and he walked slightly faster to avoid further interruptions. Had he known his attendance would cause a decrease in productivity, he'd have had second thoughts about coming to the lab at all. He hada great deal of work to get done, and he hoped his division's emotional displays of verbal delight would be short lived.

Spock had not been allowed—by McCoy's orders, of course—to so much as check his inbox during his convalescence, and he was certain the amount of work waiting for him was immense. It was just as well, he thought absently, that he was not planning on sleeping much in the near future. His attempts to do so had only caused disturbing dreams, with little actual physical rest resulting from it. Spock felt it was best to simply stop attempting to sleep altogether, or at the very least, to significantly reduce the duration. He was not extracting any benefit from the effort, and in the end, it yielded only frustration and time wasted. Time, he knew, that could be better applied elsewhere with far more productive results.

Doctor McCoy would disapprove.

Doctor McCoy did not need to know.

"It is good to have you back, Commander Spock. Sign this, please," Lieutenant Shams al-Din greeted as she approached, not allowing space for a response before promptly handing him a PADD. He had always appreciated that of his Second; her straightforward, no-nonsense nature and her ability to do her job without being overly verbose. She knew him well enough by now to keep unnecessary conversation to a minimum and, while she was far from the ideal Vulcan stoicism, her direct approach made working closely with her both efficient and straightforward.

Spock signed. The lieutenant gave him a small smile, a warm nod, and then moved back to her own station with no further display.

And so his shift began.

For the first hour, he attempted to focus on going through his inbox to sort out an order of operations. What needed to be addressed immediately, what documents required his signature, what could be delegated, what required further action, and what required no action at all. Although he had only been out for a day over a week, the amount of work waiting for him was… staggering. Had he not been a Vulcan, poor excuse for one though he was, he might have even considered it overwhelming. Working at optimal efficiency, and with double or even triple shifts a day, he estimated it would still take approximately fourteen-point-three-seven days to catch up to both a level and optimal standard he was satisfied with. The calculation could not be any more precise than that, unfortunately, as it attempted to factor in the unpredictability that was called humanity. Their inconsistencies were difficult to estimate around.

Of course, he did not even bother trying to factor in the charming, chaotic variable of Captain James T. Kirk who, by his very nature, caused nearly all of Spock's mathematical certainties to become notoriously and decidedly uncertain.

Falling into his work like this, into the rhythm and pattern of documentation, felt like the first true breath of air he had taken since beaming down to Seskilles VII. It was a return to everything he had desperately needed: organization, stability, predictability, logic, and control. Even as he was interrupted not once, not twice, but eleven times by well-meaning crewmembers, a kind of peace settled over him. The foreign, off feeling of the lab did not fade, but he felt as if he had established some hazy, comfortable spot within it. It was ordered and structured in a way that felt like a solace to his mind—like a cool compress. Slowly, the headache began to ebb from his temples as he found a routine, and falling into it after a week of being without one was refreshing.

It was good, this return to familiarity. It was exactly what he needed and, for a solid hour, Spock was able to pretend to even himself that nothing was wrong.

It was in the beginning of the second hour that everything fell apart.

It first began as a sense of unease when he thought of the upcoming debrief.

He considered what questions he would be asked and what his answers to those questions might be. He considered what reaction those answers might cause to his human peers, and he considered what he could say or do that might… mitigate some of the fallout. As he read through a PADD, mulling over the faintest possibility that he could get through the debrief with his dignity intact, he felt a strange sense of familiarity with what he was reading. It took approximately eight-point-seven-two seconds—exactly eight seconds too many—to realize that he had not only read the same paragraph already, but that he had read it three times and had retained none of it.

It was oddly difficult to gain control of himself and refocus on what he was reading: a list of department requests. This specific section was requesting a new gravivariable scope to replace the current one, which had somehow developed a hairline crack in the secondary lens. He would have to cross-reference with acquisitions in order to approve the request, as it was not a piece of equipment that saw regular use, but provided they could backup the application with evidence for its necessity, he did not foresee it being denied.

The debrief was not for one-point-two-three hours, but Spock felt the seconds ticking down with a sense of fatalistic inevitability. He dreaded the thought of it, and that dread formed a hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no delaying it further, and he had to prepare himself accordingly. He would list the facts, he would answer the questions without emotion or biasness, and then he would be able to move forward and forget about the Seskille entirely. He desired nothing more than to put both their frozen planet and their overwhelming, destructive presence firmly behind him, figuratively and literally.

Spock had hoped to spend his time meditating before the debrief; to stabilize and center himself for the stress he knew he'd be put under, but that was no longer an option for him. And that was… troubling. He had never failed to enter such a level of meditation before, and he could find no reason why that might be the case now. There had been nothing wrong with his quarters, or his firepot, or his focal guide. Even had distraction been the cause of his unsuccessful trance, it should not have caused him pain. It should not have hurt him. The pain had been searing, blinding. Admittedly, Spock still felt shaken by it hours later.

No. No, he was not shaken by it, nor by anything else. There was no reason to be irrational or emotional.

Control.

Control.

The matter of his meditation would be a problem for a later date. Until then, he would do his best to pretend there was no problem at all. All he had to do was get through the debrief, and then he could address the problem. Until then, he was fine, Spock told himself sternly. There was nothing immediately, critically wrong. His mind was in a satisfactory enough state to perform his job duties, and that was, if not ideal, at least sufficient enough to function.

Spock blinked at his PADD, pausing as he realized he had not followed his own progress and did not know where he had left off. That he had left off at all, particularly without his conscious notice, was a deplorable lack of awareness. He refocused. Astrometrics were requesting a new gravivariable scope to replace one that had developed a hairline crack in the secondary lens. He would have to check with acquisitions for budgeting allowance, but he did not foresee it being an issue. The astrometrics team as a whole did not often make requests and he was inclined to grant them it.

There was a loud clatter of someone mistakenly knocking over their chair. Spock flinched, the PADD nearly slipping from his fingers before he was able to catch it. Awareness of the room flooded him as if his surroundings had only just become audible, and although Spock did not turn from his work, he couldn't help but become attuned to the various conversations taking place around him. It was difficult to block out; his hearing was sensitive.

"—should have double gloved. I don't feel a bit sorry for you."

"Yeah, yeah, can you please just pass me the—"

"—the karyofuser, and see? If you set it just slightly below level three, it provides a bit more clarity than the standard dial—"

"—hovering around and it's seriously creepy. I swear, we should give security a heads up, 'cause if that smug bastard so much as breathes around me, I'm going to—"

He took a breath and did his best to tune it out. Focus. Concentrate. Control. Spock checked his internal chronometer. Zero-point-five-three hours until the debrief. Time had slipped away without his notice, and the meeting was closer than he'd been expecting or wanting. He wanted to meditate, but that was not a workable option. The level he needed was inaccessible, and the level he could achieve was useless to him. There was little he could do to change it at that exact moment, but the constant awareness that there was something truly, deeply wrong was an endless, spiraling concern. He had never been blocked from his own mind. It was intriguing, if profoundly disturbing. And also, more than a little ironic. Had he not just been worried about being trapped inside his own mind? And now he could not get into it.

Refocusing his attention, he saw astrometric's request for a new gravivariable scope and, while he would have to check acquisitions for budgeting constraints, he—Spock paused, blinked at request, then set the PADD down entirely. He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers against his chest.

He… did not understand what was wrong with him. This amount of inattention was not only unacceptable, but it also had the potential to become dangerous. Equipment requests were not strictly a life-or-death matter, at least not in this instance, but if he were to forget himself like this on the bridge the results could be disastrous. Spock suspected that meditation would have helped, as being unable to structure and order his mind for over a week would naturally leave him feeling scattered, but meditation was not a feasible option for him at present. He was running out of alternatives at a rapid and troubling pace, and he did not know how to solve it.

("What else would you expect from a simpering, devil eared freak—")

Focus. Focus. Spock lifted the PADD and stared intently at the words, forcing himself to read them very slowly and deliberately so as to perfectly retain the information. He managed to get through the rest of the requests, forward budgeting inquiries to acquisitions, and sorted the document among those that required later follow-up. He did the same with the next task, and the next one after that. He took on each one with careful and purposeful intent, moving at a disgraceful thirty-point-five-nine-two percent of his usual speed. A shameful, abhorrent decrease in productivity, and he hated himself for it.

Spock was able to work for another fifteen minutes and, after ten had passed, he was even able to find something approaching a cohesive rhythm. It did not last. His concern about the debrief and resulting inattention may have stressed the already present cracks, but it was the microscope that, in the end, truly catalyzed the actual disaster.

"Excuse me, Commander Spock?" Ensign Hanna Vaughn interrupted at his side. She was one of the younger officers; having been stationed to the ship only three months prior and straight from the academy. Her large blue eyes were wide with excitement and she was smiling at him. "Sir, we were wondering if you could come take a look at this and tell us what you think. We're having some trouble with identification; hoped another set of eyes could help and, well, you've got the best eyes out of any of us. I think you might even find it fascinating."

She was lightly teasing him, as his department frequently did. Spock had never sensed anything ill-natured about it, certainly not in the same way he had from his own peers on Vulcan, or even his classmates at the academy. This was, based on his limited observation and even more limited experience, something his human crewmates engaged in as a form of bonding. An unorthodox method to build camaraderie with others, which, to his own way of thinking, seemed entirely counterintuitive. How did mocking others establish rapport? For whatever reason, perhaps due to humanity's irrational and intrinsic need to be at all times contrary, it did appear to be effective. He had seen Mr. Sulu and Mr. Chekov engage in the behavior on the bridge countless times. And he supposed that, to some degree, Jim and he had a similar dynamic, although he had not been the one to first initiate it.

He considered where Doctor McCoy fell in the equation. There was certainly teasing, but very little of it seemed lighthearted. The insults and barbs they traded fell just slightly on the wrong side of personal, often more pointed and jaded than the spark of harmless fun in Miss Vaughn's eyes. At the same time, there existed a certain degree of affection in him—deep down—for the game he played with Doctor McCoy… although he would never admit to it aloud. Perhaps, then, the reason was not the way the mockery was delivered but rather who it was delivered by. He did not take offense to the comments McCoy made about him, for all that they outwardly and objectively appeared ill-natured. He also knew those same cutting comments, if said to him by another, would not have evoked in him similar warm feelings. It seemed that only the doctor could insult him with no detrimental consequences. In fact, it was when McCoy acted kind and professional towards him that Spock rather found he did not know quite what to do with it, nor how to respond.

"Sir?"

Spock blinked, refocused, and set the PADD down.

"We shall see. Lead the way, Ensign."

Spock acknowledged geology's cheerful greetings and expressions of gratitude with a nod as he approached their station. His department had long since become accustomed to working alongside a touch telepath, some having been with him for years; they had already stepped aside to allow him a respectable amount of personal space, aware of his aversion to physical contact. He appreciated it now more than ever, because even the mistake of accidentally brushing his hand against another would be disastrous. And since he could not trust in his ability to control himself lately, either in body or mind, he was thankful that the possibility for such a mistake had been removed.

The microscope was set up already, lit and dialed to exacting specification. The group was eclectic blend of geology sub-departments; a collaboration of astrogeology, lithology, geochronology, and petrology. They had been working for hours now; he'd been aware of them conversing in low voices from their corner of the room. They were, if he remembered correctly and he was certain he did, studying samples of rock taken from the surface of Seskilles VII. He'd been informed that the first landing party had not been the only one; in the duration of his convalescence, multiple away teams had been sent down to take drilled core samples for further geologic analysis. They had been far better prepared and clothed for the weather, and there had been no further reported injuries.

Of course, none of the humans comprising those away teams were psi sensitive, or there may have been a different outcome.

Spock hesitated at the sight of the slides, and the slivers of rock samples on them. The thought of being that close to any part of the planet, even small slides of it, made him faintly ill. The planet had not harmed him, at least not irreparably; he had been harmed by the freezing conditions, but the fall from the cliffside had been a result of his own clumsiness. Seskilles VII itself had done nothing; the land and rock were barren and without sentience. There was no justification for his irrational faltering, no explanation he could give for why his pulse had sped up. He considered the possibility that his discomfort was caused more, perhaps, by what the planet represented than anything it had actually done. The hollow moan of the wind, the vast, empty plains, the radiation in the air—all of it implied that the world was empty. The abandoned stone city; the skeletons of buildings sticking from the snow. It echoed signs of life where life no longer existed. A dead planet with dead cities from a dead race.

Control. Control. Control.

There was an anxious, crawling feeling beneath his skin as Spock finally bent to the microscope. Lieutenant, Junior Grade Gonzales began to speak to him about their findings in his usual deep, clear voice, but it was uncommonly difficult to make out the words. There was a buzzing sound in his ears; an almost high-pitched ringing that began to drown out the world around him. His head hurt, but not in the same way as a headache. No, it started to throb where his skull had been fractured; a pain that he knew was not real. Psychosomatic. In his mind, not in his body.

Control. Focus.

His hand quaked as he placed it against the coarse focus adjustments, so minutely that only he would notice. Unacceptable. Spock swallowed heavily, blinked to clear his vision, and grit his jaw. He pressed his eye to the ocular lenses with slightly more force than normal.

The samples on display were rock thin slices, taken down to such a fine sliver that light was able to easily penetrate though them. Around the opaque flecks of metallic sulfides and other solid minerals, the cross-polarized light caused extinctions to become visible. Spock could immediately define quartz, olivine, graphite, pergium, and chromite. He'd been expecting those results, or at least similarly unremarkable ones, but then he identified an unusually large quantity of thorite for such a thin sample, and his interest was piqued. Thorite, of course, was a nesosilicate of thorium, which meant this sample was quite radioactive. He would not have called it fascinating, but it was certainly intriguing.

What was fascinating, however, was the nearly imperceptible specks of silvery particles that did not behave in the same manner as the rest of the thin slice. It caught the light and shifted at the slight vibrations of the table, moving in such a way that it occasionally blocked the edge of the flecks of minerals around it. Spock arched a brow and adjusted the fine focus, admittedly more than a little interested now.

"Curious."

"It's weird, right? Computer analysis hasn't gotten back to us yet; seismotectonics is hogging it all to themselves and being seriously greedy about sharing, as if their rocks are somehow more important than our rocks. We can't figure out what it is, but we're pretty sure it's not a solid."

"It isn't," Spock confirmed, moving the dials for a closer look. The cover slip made it difficult to be certain beyond all reasonable doubt, but he was fairly positive that— "This is liquid latinum."

An immediate hush fell within the group, followed swiftly by an excited flurry of movement as PADDS were snatched up and notes were written down in rapid shorthand. A half-shouted whispered exclamation of "Holy shit!", and then the thud of boots across the floor as Lieutenant Bellamy ran towards her friends in Magnetostratigraphy to share the news before he could reprimand the unprofessional language.

Spock almost—almost—smiled. Moments like these always reaffirmed his decision to go into Starfleet rather than the Vulcan Science Academy. While there was no place in the universe that he enjoyed more than at his Captain's side, whether that place be on the bridge, planetside, or even walking down the hall, he felt an enormous amount of satisfaction and pleasure at being in his labs. Science was, after all, his primary area of focus; command had been introduced later and more by chance than any true desire to lead. It was in these labs, surrounded by his crew of geologists, astrophysicists, and exobiologists that he'd always felt a sense of belonging. Even two different members of two entirely different species could look through a microscope and find common ground in the exhilaration of scientific discovery. There was a universal kind of thrill in the simple act of researching the unknown.

(They enjoyed their research just as much as he so often enjoyed his.)

His breath hitched.

(Was this what bacteria felt like when examined beneath a microscope? Did those infinitesimally small creatures, existing in a way so foreign to his own lived experience, feel as gutted and abused as he did now?)

The terror came upon him suddenly. Spock stilled, hand freezing on the dial mid-turn. He looked through the microscope, but he did not see through it. Instead—as his illusion of peace, of wonder, of contentment cracked and shattered—all he saw was an impossible, unfathomable landscape.

(Horizons he could not rationalize, made of colors that did not exist, all clouded with emotions that flooded him like oceans. No gravity, no time, no sun. Planets the size of water drops, and drops of water the size of galaxies, all intangible and made of shapes that twisted and merged—in and out and in—all of it writhing and beating like a pulse. Landscapes of emotion that fizzed and popped and whined in that terrible, ear-splitting way, because it wasn't physical at all. It didn't really exist. Objects that did not hold form, but also held properties. Creatures that were not… not—)

He ripped his hands away from the microscope with such abrupt, desperate force that it sent the desk sliding with a loud screech of noise. The group of scientists looked at him, some with surprise and others with concern.

"Commander Spock?" Miss Vaughn bravely asked, and her eyebrows were creased in faint worry. "Is… everything alright, sir?"

Spock straightened and offered her a stiff nod, folding his hands neatly behind his back in parade rest to hide their sudden quivering.

"I am well," Spock assured in a tone that, even to his own ears, sounded strained. He stepped away from the table and the microscope on it, already planning his immediate exit. His limbs began to tingle, like static beneath his skin. It itched. "Your prediction was accurate. It is a fascinating discovery, as you said. I look forward to reading the results of the computer analysis when they arrive, and I shall be certain to speak to the seismotectonic department about the allocation of shared resources. In the meantime, however, please excuse me."

He was halfway to the door before Spock was forced to change his mind. He was not going to make it to his quarters. He was not even going to make it across the lab to the hallway. Already, he could feel the first shudder of pressure in his chest, and he only just managed to smother it with an imperceptible flinch before it could burst out of him in what would likely have been an audible and unbecoming wheeze. He abandoned his efforts to get to the door and instead pivoted for the storeroom to his immediate right.

The moment he entered the dim room and the doors slid shut behind him, the exact instant he was out of sight, Spock crumbled against the wall with a wracking gasp.

(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control.)

(They enjoyed their research just as much as he so often enjoyed his.)

He could not draw in breath. His head hurt where it had been fractured, and his ribs ached where he had broken them. Spock did not understand, as the capacity for understanding had seemingly disappeared with the air in the supply closet. His lungs burned. His side throbbed. He pressed one hand against his abdomen where the tricorder had pierced his skin, to apply pressure to where he was surely still bleeding out. He couldn't feel the blood, but he could feel the pain there, sharp and stabbing. Distantly, he remembered to mind where his fingers were placed, so as not to press the fragments deeper in. He adjusted his grip to compensate for them, but his hands felt numb and clumsy, and they trembled so badly that he couldn't keep consistent pressure. McCoy would be upset if he drove the shards further into his body, but he was equally certain that McCoy would be upset if he bled out, and so he was at an impasse. If he could draw any breath, any air at all, he might have comm'ed the doctor to ask his preference.

(He felt suffocated here, in this strange place between awareness and memory. He could not breathe. He did not have lungs. He did not have a body. He could not explain this feeling to them, because they did not have a word for it. They did not have words like he did.)

Static tingled beneath his skin like white noise, itching and trickling through his veins with a jittery rush of adrenaline. Spock stared at the equipment on the shelves opposite him. He did not see it. He did not understand it. He did not understand anything, because it had all drifted away, like it had been caught by a breeze. The sand in his mindscape swirled and spilled out, and he couldn't hope to catch it when his hands were busy trying to apply pressure…

(He got the sense that they were delighted by what they saw; that they examined him with as much fascination as he did a new species of bacteria.)

There was a noise in the air; some kind of choked, ragged sound that reminded him of a weak and injured animal. It was only after he ran out of the air required to make it that Spock realized it was coming from himself. Immediately, he pressed his other hand over his mouth to stifle any further noise. He would be heard and, when others came to investigate, he would be seen. To be discovered behaving in such a way was unthinkable. If Jim could see him right now, acting out like this…

Well, there was a limit to anyone's patience. Jim would only tolerate so much for so long…

(Jim dangled heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless, and everything in Spock froze.)

(They were right about him: about his inability to control himself, his illogical reactions, his lack of worth, his weakness, all of it.)

(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)

(Jim died in front of him again.)

He was in satisfactory condition, he tried to tell himself, to rationalize through the panic. He was fine. There was nothing wrong; certainly nothing that should have ever caused this kind of reaction. He was not physically damaged; he was not truly injured. He was not under attack, nor was he harming anyone else. There was nothing wrong, so why was it that he could not get his breathing under control? Why was it that he could not stop shaking, or stop making that horrible, frantic sound?

Spock leaned against the wall, pressing his left hand against his uninjured abdomen, and his right palm against his mouth to muffle his breath. He tasted blood. He stared at the ground, but it seemed so far from him, as if he were not touching it. The room had grown distant, as if a tide was pulling it further and further away. He was drowning again, or perhaps he had been for some time and just hadn't known it.

And he didn't understand, because there was nothing wrong.

Control, he tried to tell himself. Control. Control. Control.

His body did not respond. It only began to shudder as if he were freezing cold, shaking and shivering and swaying. Spock took his hand from his side and tried to press it to the wall for stability, but his hand moved slowly, as if it were caught in a thick substance, and it got lost halfway there. Something was defective in him; something inherently, inexcusably flawed. Sarek had been correct in his disappointment, and Spock was growing increasingly disappointed in his own behavior as well. A disgusting, humiliating, reprehensible display of emotion. He should have expected nothing more of himself, but it was unacceptable all the same.

("What else would you expect from a simpering, devil eared freak—")

Spock slid down so that he was sitting, uncertain what else to do with his body. He knew that outwardly, he likely did not appear to be nearly so affected. He knew his face was likely impassive and barren of emotion. He knew his trembling was not as violent as it felt, and that his gasping would not be as loud to others as it was to him. He knew that he was not showing the overwhelming sense of dread that consumed him from the inside out, but knowing and feeling, although sharing some commonalities, were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Knowing did not change feeling, and right now, he felt as if he were dying. The thought of that, he realized distantly, was not necessarily appealing to him… but neither was it unappealing.

How fascinating.

He wanted to meditate. He wanted Jim. He wanted neither. He did not know what he wanted. The idea of sinking into his desecrated mind was horrifying, and the idea of Jim seeing him like this was even worse. Swallowing, Spock realized his throat was tight and his eyes had begun to burn with a suspicious sting. He had not felt such shame over his behavior since he had murdered his captain on Vulcan, and the mortification sunk into his skin and burned. The shame of panicking affected him more than the panic itself did. Control. Please, control.

(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)The sensation of being watched—of being exposed—prickled his senses. He felt scoured and opened; all of his insides displayed like a vivisection. He was not being watched, because the room was empty of all but himself. But then, Spock realized he could not be entirely certain of that—not definitively and beyond all doubt. The possibility existed that he was being observed. What if this was another memory for them to rip from him? What if this room existed nowhere but in his own recollection? It was possible, and how could he possibly confirm or refute it either way? The room didn't seem real. He didn't even seem real. More and more, Spock felt as if he were becoming little more than some blurry, indistinct fog…

(It was blending together. Spock. The Seskille. It was all blending together, and he could not make sense of it any longer. There was no separation. No single entity.)

(The Seskille reached into him again, like picking at a specimen with sharp tweezers, and ripped—)

(Was this what bacteria felt like when examined beneath a microscope? Did those infinitesimally small creatures, existing in a way so foreign to his own lived experience, feel as gutted and abused as he did now?)

(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control. They forced him to feel. The confusion, the grief, the horror, the nervousness, the pleasure, the tenderness, the amusement.)

(They enjoyed their research just as much as he so often enjoyed his.)

(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control. They—)

(Again and again, they violated his mind—)

(Again and again—)

(Again and again—)

(Again and again—)

For what seemed like years—time he could not calculate, for his internal chronometer was no longer functioning—he sat there and stared at a room that felt increasingly hazy. He breathed with lungs that didn't feel like his, blinked with eyes that didn't see anything, and his mind raced with thoughts and emotions that he should not have been capable of thinking or feeling. He breathed and sat and thought and felt, and at the same time, he registered none of it. His rational mind had left some time ago, and the rest of the world had faded along with it.

But… eventually, reality trickled back into his awareness like a slow drip. Eventually, the buzzing in his skin began to fade. Eventually, the walls around him took on solid form. Eventually, he realized he was actually present in the room, and that the room was real. It took time—maybe minutes or hours or days—but wearily, sluggishly, he was able to finally lift his head from his knees. His surroundings swam into view, just as tangible as they always should have been.

He was no longer gasping for air, Spock realized distantly. He was still shaking, but it had slowed to a faint tremble, noticeably reduced from the frantic shiver he'd previously been afflicted with. The room had come back to him, but his mind had not. At least, not in the way he thought it should have; not in a way that felt natural. His body and head were curiously drained, as if something in him had been siphoned or depleted by some slow, steady leak. He was exhausted. Which… was absurd, he thought, as all he had done was sit there and been an embarrassment. Yet everything in him positively ached for rest. He was tired physically, and he was tired mentally. He was so very tired of himself. The world around him was solid once more, but he didn't feel as if he was. It was a surreal sensation; like he was dreaming. He was not. He knew he was not.

It was the same issue as his quarters, and the lab. The problem was not with the room, nor the things within it. The problem was him.

Spock removed his fingernails from the skin of his palm, vacantly acknowledging the smears of green there. Doctor McCoy would be disappointed if he knew, but he had no intention of telling him about it. There was a first aid kit in his quarters; he could tend to the cuts on his own if they bothered him. As it so happened, they did not bother him. The stinging was grounding, and it was that persistent stinging that eventually helped him catch his breath. Using the wall to assist, he heaved himself to his feet and stood. He wanted out of this room. He wanted to meditate. He wanted the captain. He wanted to go to sleep for a very long time to stop the humiliation, and quite possibly forever.

(Live Long and Prosper, T'Pau had said to him. Spock had not intended to do either.)

He did not understand why he was so very drained…

Spock took a moment to smooth down his uniform, adjusting it with ingrained neatness so that he would at least look professional and dignified, even if he did not feel anything like the sort. For not the first time, he was immensely thankful that Vulcans lacked the eccrine, apocrine, and apoeccrine glands that were responsible for perspiration in humans. He certainly felt ill, and perhaps his skin had taken on a different pallor than his typical standard, but he was not covered in sweat in the way he thought a human might be after having such an episode. One of the few ways his half-breed physiology had benefitted him, rather than the usual side-effects of a detrimental nature. It was concealable this way; he could pretend there was nothing amiss.

However, appearance or not, he had been in the supply room longer than he should have been; far longer than was excusable, and Spock knew he had no explanation for it. He cast his eyes around for something that might justify his presence there but found nothing adequate. If someone questioned him on it, he would have to employ the skill of deflection and do his best to steer the topic away. He wished he was a better liar.

Taking a deep, steading breath—which only quaked minutely—Spock exited the storeroom with as much poise as he could. His body did, at least. His mind felt rather distant from the rest of him. There were more than a few glances in his direction, and a small scattering of outright stares. He spotted Lieutenant Shams al-Din hovering by his desk, and her dark eyes watched him from across the room in concern. Loyal to him though she was, she had initially begun her career in medicine and would not hesitate to contact the doctor if she judged it truly necessary.

Spock looked away and focused intently on the door. He needed to leave immediately.

"There ye are, Commander! I thought you might be down here."

Spock turned at the familiar voice, pausing mid-step. Lieutenant Commander Scott was leaning casually against one of the tables, clearly having been conversing with Ensign Aguirre about… plans of some kind. When Aguirre hastily flipped the PADD face down, Spock was fairly convinced he didn't want to know what those plans entailed. Rather, he did not have the energy required to discover what those plans entailed. He didn't have any energy at all…

"Mr. Scott," he acknowledged faintly, and he felt his brow arch in mild confusion. It was difficult to speak; he had to concentrate to enunciate to his usual optimal standard. "I was not aware you were looking for me. Is there something you require?"

He wasn't displeased to see him; quite the contrary. Mr. Scott was an entirely tolerable presence to be around, and Spock had no objections to his company. He was competent, able, and efficient at his duties, if unusually expressive and emotionally volatile. Although, when Spock considered the incident he'd just had, perhaps he should not have judged the chief engineer so harshly. His emotional mannerisms did afford him some positive attributes. Mr. Scott would not pry, and he certainly would not ask questions that Spock could not or would not answer. If it didn't pertain to the ship or the safety of the ship, he didn't seem to care about gossip. Nevertheless, favorable traits or not, Spock was admittedly perplexed at exactly why Montgomery Scott was in his lab.

"Not exactly; I was just popping in for a tick to check on our bonnie metal lass," Lieutenant Commander Scott said, and his voice shifted towards adoration by the end. Spock knew it was not aimed at himself. "—and I heard you'd been released from sickbay. It's good to have you back, Mr. Spock."

Bonnie metal lass. His other eyebrow rose, and he felt exhausted all over again. He gave deciphering the problematic terminology his best attempt. "You are… referring to the Quantified Helioionization Buffer?"

"Aye, that I am. She's just how ye left it; I've not done more than some odds and ends while you were out. And it's not for lack of wanting to, either—I cannae wait to put that beauty together—but I know you enjoy your experimenting just as much as I enjoy my tinkerin', and I'd not deprive you of it."

(They enjoyed their research just as much as he so often enjoyed his.)

"Your restraint is noted, Mr. Scott," Spock said quietly. Lieutenant Shams al-Din looked as if she were preparing herself to approach him, and so he stepped closer to the chief engineer. Many of his scientists were too intimidated to approach him about such a thing. Sameera was not among them. He did not wish to answer questions right now, particularly as he lacked the answers. "That does not explain your presence here."

The Quantified Helioionization Buffer was not located in Lab 4.

The experiment had been ongoing for approximately sixty-eight-point-two-seven days; a fascinating collaboration between science and engineering, and specifically of himself and Lieutenant Commander Scott. The man made for an intriguing—if non-conventional—research partner, and he'd quickly learned that Scott was obsessively precise and exacting when it came to machines. He'd known of his… peculiarities with them, of course, but the degree of finesse he gave to his engineering work was quite remarkable… and borderline concerning. The Quantified Helioionization Buffer was in the early stages of development, assuredly not even close to be ready for trials, but it showed signs of promise. Enough promise that he'd proposed the suggestion of publishing their work, even if it did not turn out to be a success. The process as a whole had been intriguing.

He looked forward to returning to work on it; much of their progress had been hitherto theoretical rather than practical, and he had only just begun to develop the chemical composition before the Seskiless VII mission had interrupted it. He disliked leaving a project incomplete in such a delicate stage.

"Well, since I was up here already, I figured we oughtta go together and present a unified front. Make a show of officer solidarity, you see."

Spock blinked tiredly. He did not see.

Something about the response sat ill with him. It was not the wording exactly, for that was straightforward enough—or at least the words themselves had clear definitions, even if the context of each one was indecipherable. Instead, it was the… perhaps it was the tone of it. Possibly. It was difficult to pinpoint what had triggered the alarm. Spock was well aware that he was not—to borrow one of Jim's colorful metaphors—firing on all cylinders.

It was for that reason that it took him so long to comprehend the actual meaning of Scott's statement. He did not understand, not at first.

… and then he did.

The debrief.

Spock checked his internal chronometer, but it was… skewed. Still floating far away from him, along with his dignity, his senses, and the majority of his reason. He risked a subtle glance at the clock on the wall and, to his startled dismay, Spock realized that he'd spent nearly twenty minutes in the supply room. It was now only eight-point-four-six minutes until the debrief began. He had nearly been late—would have been late, had Mr. Scott not come and gotten him. Spock had never, not once, been late to anything in his thirty-eight years of life. The idea of it was unthinkable to the point of ridiculousness, and the fact that it had so very nearly happened without even his notice…

"Ye alright, Mr. Spock?" Mr. Scott was at the doors, clearly waiting for him to follow.

"Yes. May I inquire why we would require a unified front?" Spock asked, tucking his hands behind his back as he fell into step aside the chief engineer. He wanted to vomit. Late. Not just not early, but almost late. Were he functioning optimally, he would have already been in the briefing room for at least ten minutes. That he was not operating at his usual base standard of timeliness was unconscionable. "It was my understanding that this was to be a briefing of the mission's events and facts as they presently are, not a tribunal."

"Well… aye, and yer not wrong… exactly..." Mr. Scott started hesitantly as they exited into the hallway. "Alright, Mr. Spock… it's like this. That awful bawfaced bampot's been on a warpath lately, skulking around here to get information about you or the planet or both. I was already coming up here to check on our QHB and… well, the captain didn't order me to safely escort you to the meeting, not in so many words, but I definitely know a strong hint when I hear one."

Ah.

The meaning of the insult was not difficult to interpret, nor was the context of whom it referred to. Spock felt his stomach sink. He had been extremely fortunate not to encounter Ambassador Hammett since waking up, but that did not mean he was ignorant of the man's multiple attempts to remedy that. He'd heard plenty about his increasingly desperate actions from Jim, Doctor McCoy, Nurse Chapel, Doctor M'Benga, and Nurse Slater—often phrased in various tones of disgust, irritation, and the colorful usage of insults.

He had known that the ambassador would be present at the debrief; it was ultimately his mission and so logic followed that of course Hammett would be there. However, Spock had counted on the meeting to meet certain… professional standards, and it appeared as if those would have to be drastically lowered to fit the circumstances as they stood. That was unfortunate. The ambassador presented an uncomfortably erratic variable to his predictions for how the debrief would go, and it rendered much of his preparation—what answers he would give to the questions he would likely be asked—invalid. Spock had been able, to at least some degree, calculate the odds of getting through the meeting with his dignity intact. Those odds were no longer in his favor. In fact, they were lessening with every step he took.

"I see," Spock said softly, and he did. The sick feeling in his gut grew cold.

Behind his back, his hands began to tremble again. He clenched them tighter to compensate for the physiological reaction. There was nothing wrong, he told himself stiffly. This was expected. He wanted to meditate. He wanted Jim. He wanted to lock himself back into his rooms. He wanted to avoid his rooms entirely. More than anything, he wanted to go to sleep, whether that be for an hour, a week, or forever. He was so drained of energy; exhausted in a way he could not recall feeling in months. Five months, three weeks, five days, nine hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact. He'd felt comparable levels of fatigue in the hours, days, and weeks following his murder of the captain, and Spock suspected the comparison did not bode well. If this surge of weariness followed a similar pattern, and he had no reason to think it would not, he could not count on sleep to help him. He expected that he would only lay in bed for hours without getting any rest at all, and that it was useless to try. Experience had demonstrated as much.

He took a deep breath to center himself. His breath involuntarily hitched when he did so. Mr. Scott did not seem to notice, for he was still speaking. Spock had missed every last word of it. He forced himself to concentrate, upset that his attention had lapsed to begin with.

"—been lurking around your department like a bad odor since ye got injured, just sniffin' for any word. 'Course, it's not like he's got many other options left, 'less he wants to stay put in his quarters—which would be just fine with the rest of us. The way I hear it, he's banned from medical on Doctor McCoy's orders, and operations won't give him the time 'o day what with his blundering around their systems. And I guarantee that he cannae step so much as a toe into my engine rooms. My men are near ready to fire on sight."

Spock stepped into the turbolift, turning to face the doors as they closed.

"You are proposing the assault of a Federation Ambassador."

"I'm not proposing anything, Mr. Spock—I'm predicting it! If that dimwitted fandan keeps showing his face around me, I'm more likely than not to break it."

"Deck Six." The turbolift began to descend. "To strike an official diplomat is both against Starfleet regulation and unbecoming of a Starfleet Officer, Lieutenant Commander. I believe you have only recently had a similar conversation regarding an outbreak of violence between crewmembers of both the Enterprise and the Klingon's IKS Gr'oth on Deep Space Station K-7—violence which, as I recall, you initiated. I suggest, both presently and in the future, that you exercise more restraint."

"I know, and the captain gave me the same speech about not pummeling Hammett," Mr. Scott said, amused. "He also heavily implied that he'd look the other way if I did." Spock sighed. That sounded… unfortunately like the captain. "But surely even your patience must run out at some point? You're telling me that you don't just want to hit that man in the mouth every time you see him?"

"I do not wish to, as you say, hit Ambassador Hammett in the mouth. As a Vulcan, I am incapable of acting emotionally in such a manner, and to do so would be not only be highly undignified, but also illogical and unwarranted."

The chief engineer shrugged, unrepentantly. "His entire presence aboard our ship is undignified, illogical, and unwarranted, but I do see yer point." As they stepped out of the turbolift, Mr. Scott turned to him. "Just know that if he makes so much as a wrong peep my way, I cannae be held responsible for my actions. Truth be told, laddie, I'm starting to think he's provoking it intentionally. The garbage he's spewed about the Enterprise, the crew, the captain, about—did you even hear what that dullard said about you while you were unconscious?!"

"As I was evidently unconscious at that time, I assure you that I did not." They exited the turbolift, and Spock had to dig his fingernails deeply into the palms of his hands to try to ground himself. The briefing room was in sight, and his reprieve was up. "Nevertheless, neither his actions nor comments justify the use of physical savagery. As First and Second Officer respectively, we are to comport ourselves at a higher standard."

"My standard lower with every word that comes out of that man's smug mouth, but aye, I'll do my best not to make the first move. If he starts up, though, make no mistake that I'll finish it. After you, Mr. Spock. I'll follow behind with a respectable glare his way, assuming he's had the decency to show up on time."

Spock hesitated, stopping just shy of the door's automatic sensors. It was not audible to a human's ear, but he could hear the sound of voices inside—particularly Jim's voice.

And suddenly, it was real. The debrief. His time was up. He would have to talk about it; to have questions asked of him that he still did not know how to answer. Logically, they would want a full, detailed briefing of the events on Seskilles VII. Any other mission, the debrief would have taken place within an hour of arrival from planetside. That it had taken a week was because of him, and he knew the delay was causing the captain problems. Putting it off further would help nothing, especially as he knew that Starfleet Command had become invested in the outcome. The proof of pergium had raised the mission's importance from mild to severe; the presence of liquid latinum would elevate that level to critical. He could not delay it…

But he also could not make himself walk into that room.

He was so tired…

"No," he said softly, taking a step back. "You go ahead, Mr. Scott. I… must see to something first and will be there momentarily. Please excuse me."

Spock turned smoothly on one heel and began down the empty hall as casually as he could manage it. Behind him, there was an increased volume of voices as presumably Mr. Scott entered the briefing room. He heard the captain's cheerful "Scotty! I thought I sent you to get—" before the door closed and the sound muffled once more. It was not difficult to deduce the rest.

He waited until he was certain that no one was exiting the room, and then he leaned against the wall. His breath rushed out of him; that rasping, harsh wheeze of air that he struggled to inhale back in. His chest hurt. His abdomen hurt. He had the urge to press his hands to his side, but Spock knew he was uninjured. Not even bruising remained of the wound; McCoy had been extremely efficient in repairing the damage. Spock understood logicallythat he was not hurt, and that there was nothing wrong… and yet, his lungs burned for air and his body ached and he couldn't breathe. His head hurt…

No, not his head. His mind.

They had taken that from him too, he thought. They had damaged him in such a way that he could not repair himself. He had never been unable to meditate before. He had never gone so long without sinking into his mindscape to center his thoughts and emotions, and it was little wonder that they were spilling out as they were. He should never have had those thoughts and emotions to begin with, but that was a personal defect that he had long since been forced to come to terms with. If his previous experiences hadn't made that clear enough, the Seskille had certainly completed the job. He'd always been able to bury his emotions into the depths of his mind, where they were unable to influence his actions or thoughts. Now his mind was ravaged, ruined, and churned apart, and he did not recognize it any longer.

He could not focus, he could not stop shaking, and he could not solve any of it. And… he still could not seem to breathe…

Spock stared at the wall across from him, but he did not see it. He was so tired; exhausted and drained in a way he could scarcely recall feeling before. During Pon Farr, perhaps, but his mind had been chaos, and he'd burned so intensely that he'd thought of nothing but fire. He'd been consumed from the inside out; all he'd been able to feel was heat and want and sick, pooling lust. And after Vulcan… after Vulcan, he'd been in such a state of shock that he'd not felt much of anything at all for quite some time. Eventually the emotion had returned, arriving in the ugly, messy form of grief, horror, and tears, but his capacity to meditate had not been impacted. He'd been able to conceal the appalling reaction safely out of sight, burying the feelings so far into himself that it had left him feeling empty for weeks afterwards

They had taken this from him too.

His time was up. Spock would have to go in there, sit down in front of his captain, his crew, the ambassador, and he would have to tell them what happened. He would have to tell them that the Seskille had ripped a hole in his mind so brutally that he was still bleeding even now. He would have to tell them how the Seskille only understood feelings, and that they had highlighted each and every one he should not have had. He would have to tell them that he'd responded to them with emotion, begged them to stop with emotion, and attempted to communicate with emotion. As a Vulcan, a half-breed though he was, he would have to admit to feeling at all.

He could not do it. Such a thing was an impossible task for a Vulcan. Did they not understand what they demanded from him? Exposing himself in such a manner… it felt nearly as violating as what the Seskille had done to him. Perhaps even more so, because he did not care what the Seskille collective thought of him. He cared very much what his crew thought, what his fellow officers thought, what his captain thought.

Spock stared at the wall, smoothing his expression to something blank and stoic. He was tired of panicking, tired of feeling, tired of worrying. He felt hollow. He felt drained.

(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control. They forced him to feel. The confusion, the grief, the horror, the nervousness, the pleasure, the tenderness, the amusement.)

(He felt their joy. He felt his own self-loathing. He felt their happiness. He felt sick.)

He felt… so very tired.

---

Thank you to everyone reading! I appreciate the reviews more than you know!

Chapter Fourteen is out a bit early, as I had a fair bit of time recently, and it was definitely a fun chapter to write. The mention of Deep Space Station K-7 and the fight Scotty started with the Klingons is a direct reference to the episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles', which is highly regarded as the most famous episode of Star Trek, and for very good reason. It's an absolute delight to watch, and Kirk's just downright snippy and vicious with Undersecretary Nilz Baris, and it's fantastic. My story takes place not too longer after, and I base a fair bit of the crew's reactions to Hammett on both that episode and the episode: 'A Taste of Armageddon', where Scotty shuts an ambassador's shit down with brutal efficiency.

Vulcan:
K'oh-nar — The fear of emotional vulnerability and emotional exposure.
Saglakolaya —Distraction; cause of inability to give full attention to something.
Ka'athyra — Lute/Lyre: stringed musical instrument like an electric harp; propped on the shoulder
Skahanu —Curtains; curtains; blinds; drapes for covering a window.
Asenoi - Fire Pot; used to center one's thoughts during meditation.
Insilit — Aromatic spice.
Lesh'riq — A meditation position involving kneeling with feet tucked under.
Yon'tislak — Fire beast; fire beast from a Vulcan children's tale.