Disclaimer: Star Trek and its characters belong to ParaBorg/Viacom, I'm just giving them some exercise. All original content and characters (T'Rela, Sudek, and the Akaren) are © 1999 Roisin Fraser. Okay to post at ASC or archive. Please do not post elsewhere without my consent. Constructive comments welcome, send to Roisin_Fraser@hotmail.com.

Chronology: This is the first story in a series dealing with Spock and his family.

Author's Note: I'm a historian, not a doctor. If any of the medical details seem grossly out of whack, blame me and not my betas. I also have no idea who invented lung-lock fever, but thanks to them as well. Thanks also to my beta readers T'Aaneli, Islaof hope, and PernFancy. They are most definitely the "without whom" department.

Rating: PG for adult situations, implied smut, and some h/c, TOS, S/f,.

Summary: Spock finds the one thing he never expected.

Brief glossary: Ahve'he is the Vulcan term for bondmates, similar to "husband" or "wife." It can be used for heterosexual bondmates, as well as homosexual bondmates. Most Vulcan nouns have no gender, so ahve'he is not gender-specific. D'reth is the ancient Vulcan term for deep love between bondmates. Think Shakespeare and you've just about got the concept. D'reth'nae is the term for one who is loved in this manner. Again, it's not gender-specific.

----////---indicates a major scene or viewpoint change

*** indicates an interjection. Just go with it, I promise it'll make sense

// indicates telepathic thought

>>Indicates non-telepathic thought

I'm so afraid to love you

Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose

Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night

You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light.

----Sarah McLachlan

"I Will Remember You"

Hope and a Common Future

"Father?"

Spock started at the word, after three years still unused to the title. To everyone else, he was "First Officer," or "Mr Spock, " or "you pointy-eared hobgoblin." But to Sudek, he was just "Father." And it was reassuring, on a level Spock didn't analyze too closely, to hear him say that.

"What is it, my son?" It was well into night, and Sudek spoke out of the shadows of the hallway, a small boy with the promise of his father's height and his mother's dark purple eyes. Spock reflected that there was far too much Akaren in their son for Sarek to ever be completely comfortable, and yet the knowledge gave him no concern.

Sudek emerged from the hallway. "Mother is very ill."

Spock nodded. "I know, Sudek. The healers do what they can." >>But will it be enough?<< he wondered but did not say.

It had all begun quite mysteriously a few days earlier. A fever which Spock felt through their bond, a deep wracking cough, and Amanda's urgent message. The shuttle trip home he barely remembered. For five days now, he had sat in vigil, either at the hospital or at home with his son. And Spock did not know who he was more concerned for; T'Rela, suffering with some unknown illness, or Sudek, who was not physically ill but was suffering along with her nonetheless.

Absently, Spock consulted his time sense. 4.6 hours before dawn, and Amanda's return. Since T'Rela's illness, Amanda and Spock had been splitting their time so that Sudek was never alone. If he could calm Sudek, the child would sleep, and would allow Amanda to do so as well. But how was he to calm this child he had seen irregularly, as a father in Starfleet, for much of his short life?

One of McCoy's bits of wisdom filtered through his memory, a late night discussion when Sudek was newly born. Though he and T'Rela had wanted Sudek, Spock had been feeling slightly unnerved, and McCoy with his usual instincts, had of course picked right up on it. "Just be a father to him," McCoy had said. "Tell him stories, make him aware that you're involved in his life. The rest will follow."

And so it had. Spock studied his son, wondering what he could do to calm a frightened child, a child whose empathic abilities gave his fear real dimensions. Inspiration struck. "Sudek, would you like to hear a story?"

An eyebrow lifted over an eye the color of polished amethyst. Spock almost smiled at the gesture; clearly Sudek had picked up some of his mannerisms. "Which story?"

A logical response, for which his father had no logical answer. "Which one do you want to hear?"

Sudek climbed into his father's lap, and after a bare second's hesitation, Spock's arms encircled the child. It felt reassuring in a way that was scarcely logical, reassuring to know that his son could come to him for comfort. Sarek, the indomitable spirit of Vulcan, had never been able to do so, nor understand when his half-human son needed him. But he was not his father, and Sudek, raised within the boundaries of three different cultures, was most certainly not the child Spock.

That his son was so relaxed was T'Rela's doing, Spock knew; he had not been home for long periods since Sudek's birth. It was the life of a Starfleet officer, and although T'Rela had known of it, it still left her with the larger share of the parenting. Yet she had done what they had planned; Sudek was being raised with all his cultures, with the culture of his human grandmother, his Vulcan father, and his Akaren mother. >>And what will Sudek do, if his mother is dead? What will I do?<< The thought filled him with a fear that, until his bonding, he had never felt. T'Rela had given Spock the one thing he had never had: someone to come home to.

One night, shortly before Sudek's birth, he and T'Rela had stayed awake far into the night, watching a rare thunderstorm. Even now, three years later, he could not forget the way the lightening had played off her face in the dark. "I am glad the Enterprise is home to you as well," she had said softly, her words almost lost in the murmur of the rain. He had been startled; it had never occurred to him that he now had two homes, he who had once had no home.

Spock realized with a start that Sudek was waiting. "What story did you want to hear?" he asked, knowing that Sudek must have already told him, but also knowing that he hadn't heard the answer.

The expression of affectionate amusement that crossed the child's face was T'Rela's; it made Spock's breath catch to see it on Sudek's features. "K'Far and the Wandering Sehlat."

Spock almost sighed. Sudek had heard the story of K'Far four times already today, according to Amanda's report just before she left. "Is there another one you wish?"

"Aliset and the Night Visitors." This time, Spock did sigh. Obviously, being a Starfleet officer did not prepare one for tale-telling. The legend of Aliset was an Akaren story, one Spock had never heard in its entirety. And improvisation never had been one of his strongest abilities. "Are you sure there is not another story?"

"I want you to tell me how you and Mother met."

Spock's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. At least this was a story he could tell, but what had possessed Sudek to ask for it? Ruefully, he acknowledged that one of the drawbacks of being away so much was that there were parts of his son's personality that he did not understand. Maybe T'Rela would explain it to him but for now, he had made a promise. He sighed audibly, and said, "Very well."

-----////------

I met your mother purely because of a fight your Uncle Jim and I were involved in. I had…defeated him rather badly in combat with Vulcan weapons.

***

"Why were you fighting with Uncle Jim?"

I hesitated. I couldn't exactly tell him that the combat I defeated Jim in was the ritual combat of the Kalifee; Sudek was only three. Or that Jim, disconcerted by his defeat and impressed by the lethality of traditional Vulcan weaponry, had wanted to learn how to use the lirpa and the ahn-woon properly. But I could answer his question. "T'Pring said that we must."

Sudek nodded. Young as he was, he was old enough to know that her name was not spoken with favor in the house. "So then what happened?"

 ***

We were fighting in the gym when I collapsed on the hard floor. I had not ever felt so weak. The next thing I remember is waking up in Sickbay. Doctor McCoy told me I had some nerve damage to my heart caused by the initial combat.

***

McCoy had actually been more blunt. But this was my son, and I could not bring myself to shatter his innocence about what one day could happen to him.

"Spock," McCoy said, "if you don't get that treated, Starfleet Medical will certify you as being medically unfit for duty." It was progressive nerve damage that was slowly destroying the ability of my heart to transmit electrical impulses. He theorized that it occurred because of the severe nature of my first pon farr.

Because my first pon farr had been highly atypical, ending in the Kalifee rather than a marriage, McCoy thought that lingering amounts of the pon farr hormone had acted to stimulate an auto-immune response. It was this auto-immune response that was slowly killing me. T'Pring, it seemed, in refusing to become my bondmate, had sealed my death sentence in more ways than one.

There was no treatment on the Enterprise. McCoy said that he had a classmate who was a cardiologist now at the Vulcan Science Academy. She had been doing experimental studies on regeneration of nerves through a modified healing trance.

 ***

Sudek knows that his mother is a cardiologist, a respected healer, an Akaren healer who has taught Vulcan healers the ways of Akaren healing. "So that's how you met mother."

I nod. That there is so much more to the story is not yet for him to know. I will tell him, when he is a bit older, about how his mother saved my life and my spirit. But not now, when my son is growing tired and his grandmother will be home soon.

I put Sudek in bed. He falls asleep almost instantly.

"Just like you, when you were his age," a female voice says. It is Amanda, returned from the hospital. At first, I cannot think but that T'Rela has died. But our bond is still strong, so that cannot be it. "Mother, what are you doing here so early?" I ask gently, hoping I do not reveal my fear.

There are lines around her blue eyes that were not there five days previously. "T'Preth sent me home. Told me I couldn't do T'Rela any good if I collapsed myself." T'Preth is my wife's colleague, one of the first Vulcan healers trained in Akaren techniques. Though she is a gentle woman normally, T'Preth rules the ICU at the Vulcan Science Academy with an iron fist.

"I regret that you had to do this, Mother." And it is true. My mother is not as young as she once was, and I know the past few days have not been easy.

"There are no regrets between family," she says softly in the Akaren she must have learned from T'Rela. "Besides, it gives me something to do besides worrying about your father." It is her own brand of logic that worrying about my wife and her daughter-by-marriage should somehow be easier than worrying about my father, gone now for several weeks on a diplomatic mission that still shows no signs of ending.

She pauses. "And T'Preth gave me a message for you: don't even think about going back to the hospital until you've had at least six hours of sleep." I sigh; after years of experience with Dr McCoy, and six years of marriage to a healer, I know far better than to argue. And Healer T'Preth has judged accurately; I have not slept since T'Rela became ill.

We sit at the kitchen table she brought from Earth, and drink tea. I can sense that T'Rela is resting comfortably now; in the morning I will go back to the hospital. A spark lightens my mother's blue eyes as she looks at me over the edge of her mug. "Aren't you going to finish the story?"

"What story?" I say innocently. I know that much of what I told Sudek is unknown to her as well. Relations between Sarek and I were still strained when T'Rela and I bonded, and I did not wish to involve my mother in my dispute with Sarek. So much of what happened then I never told her.

She snorts into her tea. It is such an unexpected sound that I almost laugh. The look in her eyes is almost McCoy's, when he wants to know something and I refuse to tell him. "Oh, come on, Spock. I never even knew you were bonded until you came to the Family Council and announced it. You owe me."

I realize that my unexpected bonding must have caused some difficulty for my father. I was his only son, sole heir to the House of Surak, and it was his responsibility to find me another bondmate. He had called the Family Council to convince me, except that T'Rela and I had already been bonded for six months by that time.

I also see what my mother is trying to do now. Amanda wants to distract me, much as I distracted Sudek. She knows, somehow, of the fear that coils in my stomach like a serpent ready to strike. She knows that I never conceived of having a bondmate, and now, I cannot think of my life without her.

***

"As I said before, McCoy had a classmate who was now a cardiologist at the Vulcan Science Academy. Her experimental treatment for nerve degeneration had already won awards in the medical community, and McCoy thought it was my best chance to get treatment. "

"Did you know she was an Akaren?" my mother asks.

I think about it for a time. "It hardly seemed logical to suppose that she would be, although I suppose it should have occurred to me." There are few Akaren that choose to leave the desert, but those who do are highly valued for their skill at the healing arts.

I notice that my mother does not question me about why I did not tell her I was on Vulcan. Relations between my father and myself at that time had not changed for eighteen years. I was forbidden, as the old phrase went, "to seek the shadow of my father's door." I am a father myself now, I understand how difficult it must have been for my mother to stand by and watch us withdraw. Knowing that, I cannot but admire her courage in not mentioning it since.

 **

McCoy had said his classmate was a Vulcan healer. Clearly she was not Vulcan, but Akaren. The doctor's mistake did not truly surprise me; if it had pointed ears, it was either a Vulcan, a Romulan, or a "pointed eared hobgoblin." But she was a Vulcan healer, in the sense of a healer of Vulcans, and with that thought I introduced myself.

There was such a sense of warmth about her that it immediately struck me as intriguing. The healers I have known have almost always been reserved and distant. This healer was anything but distant. "Commander Spock," she said, smiling, "I am Healer T'Rela. Dr McCoy has sent me your medical records." The smile, and her purple eyes, were jarring on that otherwise Vulcan face, but they give her features a peculiar sort of grace.

She paused, then, the smile fading. "I grieve with thee."

I raised an eyebrow at her. Why should she be expressing grief at the end of my betrothal with T'Pring? Then it came to me: the only patients she must see with my condition were those whose bondmates had died during pon farr. McCoy had sent her my medical records, but not the circumstances. Healer T'Rela had made a logical assumption. And I have made an illogical one, that McCoy would be unable to keep a secret.

"I thank you, but there is no necessity," I reply, and although I can tell she is curious, she does not pursue it. T'Rela is, however, a healer; I know that she will eventually ask.

She sits down behind her desk, and gestures for me to take a seat. I look up, and there is the smile again. Friendly and open, it is doubtless intended to put me at my ease. The illogical thing is that I am reassured by the smile and her openness of expression, evidence that I am not dealing with a traditional Vulcan healer.

***

"I wondered what drew you two together," Amanda says.

I raise an eyebrow at her. My mother flushes slightly. "Oh, I don't mean it like that. But your father and I did wonder how you two found each other. When you told us T'Rela was an Akaren, I kept picturing the whole Lawrence of Arabia scenario. You know, the foreigner meeting the fascinating desert culture." My mother, like many of my crewmates, has an affinity for old Earth movies, and I have seen Lawrence of Arabia enough times during my childhood to quote the dialog. The image of myself in the T.E Lawrence role is rather disconcerting, however.

Obviously, her tea has grown cold; she makes a face at the mug and goes to put the teakettle on for more hot water. Her voice drifts in from the kitchen. "And then when she told us she was an Akaren healer, we couldn't decide if you'd been ill or if you'd met her at a scientific conference."

Amanda drops another teabag into my mug; the heat from the water wafts up, curiously comforting. "And what did you both decide?" I ask, interested.

Amusement sharpens my mother's blue eyes. "I believe your father's response was that it must have been a 'logical response.'" I raise an eyebrow at her; this is an unusually open-minded response from my father. For all that he is a diplomat, he can be rigid when it comes to the boundaries of Vulcan custom. Perhaps it is not only that I have changed, perhaps my father is learning to change as well.

"And you?" I ask. "What did you think?" It is not logical for me to ask my mother's opinion of a woman I have been bonded to for nearly seven years, but I cannot restrain my curiosity.

Clearly, the tea agrees more with my mother this time; she takes a swallow, then puts it down. "Well, I didn't really get a chance to know her until she was pregnant with Sudek, she came to live with us. But I think T'Rela is one of the few genuinely good people I have ever known." Years of marriage to a Vulcan, of life on Vulcan have taught my mother to be undemonstrative; this is high praise indeed. Her smile then is close to that of T'Rela's, the first time I met her. I realize that here is the evidence of their friendship; I can see in my mother's smile the friendship forged during my absence. "And she loves you. What more could I ask?"

At one time, I would have claimed that Vulcans do not know how to love. I could claim it now, but it would still be a lie.

The hot, spicy scent of cardamom emanates from the tea; it reminds me of the tea T'Rela's father Siret served to welcome our son when we visited him just after Sudek's birth. The Akaren had welcomed Sudek where my clan, in the main, had been more resistant; the old ways, the old fears, die hard. Though there are some traces of me in Sudek, his face tells of his mother's people. The coiled fear tightens again; every time I look at our son, I see his mother. What we will do if she should die, I do not know.

Sensing my agitation, my mother's cool hand tightens on mine. "Spock, it'll be all right. She's young, she's strong. And you know the healers are doing all they can." Ironically, these are much the same words I said to Sudek this evening. Hearing them, I realize just how unreassuring they are.

The comm center beeps abruptly with an incoming message from Siret. It is just past dawn where he and the Akaren are; I realize he must have waited up all night. I go to answer the message. His face fills the screen; there is not much resemblance between he and his daughter, except for the eyes.

Like many healers, but unlike T'Rela, Siret is short in his speech, economical in his choice of words. The few times I met him, he reminded me of Dr McCoy, in the sense of his barely contained energy. "Spock," he begins without preamble, "how is my daughter?"

I am immediately grateful that T'Rela taught me Akaren; as a point of honor, many Akaren refuse to speak either Vulcan or Standard. "She rests now, Father by Marriage."

Siret sighs, and I notice how exhausted he looks. "That is well. I cannot stay on here long; some of the outlying clans have contracted lung-lock fever and---" There is a shout, nearly out of pickup range. "I must go. Spock, will you tell her Truth for me?"

I nod. "Tell her I would be with her now, but my duties call me elsewhere." Siret smiles once, tiredly, and the connection is cut.

All at once, I know I cannot stay here. I know there is little, logically, that I can do for T'Rela that T'Preth and the other healers are not already doing. But still, I must go.

Amanda seems to sense my decision. She stops me with a gentle hand on my arm. "Spock, you have found d'reth with her, haven't you?" D'reth, the ancient poet's concept of deep, all-encompassing, love between bondmates. The concept has largely disappeared from the modern Vulcan language, but my mother, the linguist, knows the ancient ways. She is not wrong in her assessment.

"I have," I answer softly.

"I'm so happy for thee, my son," she answers in the Ancient Tongue. "Go now to your d'reth'nae, that she may know of thy presence."

I nod briefly, and the door shuts behind me.

----////----

Healer T'Preth waits for me at the hospital ICU. Beyond her shoulder, I can just barely smell the ionization of the isolation field which encloses my wife. It is true, then; the healers do not know why she is sick.

T'Preth's eyes are a hard, brilliant green; they fix on me with her usual intensity. Clearly, she is displeased that I did not get some rest. "Spock, it is not logical for you to be here."

"Logic has its limits, Healer T'Preth. May I see my wife?" Her eyes measure me, and she clearly comes to the right conclusion. T'Rela is my d'reth'nae, my ahve'he, and though I can do nothing to help her, I am not leaving.

"Very well. Go into decontamination, and I will key you into her room."

Decontamination does not take long, and I am soon alone with my wife. It is so odd to look at her there, lying so still, a larger blur among the whiteness of the sheets. T'Rela is pale, and were it not for the dark wings of her eyebrows and the black mass of her hair I should be hard put to find her.

I pull up a chair next to the bed. The only sound is the steady bleep of the monitor above the bead. Heart sounds, but slow, too slow. A healing trance would not help; it is no good against viruses.

I want to tell her so many things. I want to tell her how grateful I am that she came into my life. I want to tell her that I love her, that she is my d'reth'nae. I want to say all of these things, but the words fall silent, unheard in the silence of the room.

Not for the first time, the human and the Vulcan within me are warring at the prospect of expressing emotion. Not for the first time, I ignore the discord. I told Jim some months ago that there are some things for which logic is not adequate. This is one of them.

T'Rela moves restlessly. I can feel the fever, a dim sense of heat, through our bond. Though she is under medication for the fever, it is only to keep it from getting too high. I take a cool cloth from the station in the corner and wipe her forehead off. She relaxes, and I sit down again.

There is little I can do now, except watch her sleep and think of her.

T'Rela, my ahve'he, be well.

***

"What is the nature of your treatment?" I ask her. McCoy had mentioned a modified healing trance, but that was all I knew.

"You were told it was a form of healing trance." As she speaks I cannot help but notice the way the light shines on her blue-black hair, falling past her waist. I tell myself this is madness, and yet, I cannot look away. "It is a healing trance, but there is more to it than that. The technique requires the formation of a mental link."

I just barely stop myself from flinching at her words. My mind is raw, my shielding unstable, from the way T'Pring ended our bond; I cannot think of even trying to meld with someone. "Why does it require a link?"

She smiles a bit at my reaction. There is much I do not understand about Akaren healing; their society is largely closed to Vulcan ways. Healer T'Rela continues, "The formation of a link is necessary because it is my mind that will initiate the healing trance. The trance is initiated at such deep levels that your mind will reject me if there is no link."

This seems logical to me, although I am still uneasy at the thought of linking my mind with anyone. I remember her earlier words and ask her, "Is this an Akaren technique?"

She is intuitive, this one. "Indeed. That is how I knew, as if I had any doubts, that you were not an Akaren. No Akaren would be so uneasy." The words are said gently, with a light touch of humor.

I would like to protest that I am not, in fact, uneasy, but there is no point in lying to a healer, especially an Akaren healer. I wait for her to begin.

The healer laughs, a sound like rain on the desert. It should sound incongruous, this woman with her Vulcan features and Akaren eyes, laughing, but it does not. "Spock, not even among the Akaren are such links made so precipitously. Your condition is serious, but there are a series of tests I need to do first."

I can see that her hands are arranged in the configuration for a mind touch. "Will you let me Touch your mind?" she asks. "I will not form a link; I just need to decide how best to proceed with your treatment."

The request seems logical, and I nod, lowering the tatters of my shielding. This was some of the damage T'Pring did to me.

The healer's hands touch my forehead lightly, and I feel the blurring of the minds as our barriers merge. Her Touch is sure and certain, as might be expected from an Akaren healer, but it is still all I can do not to flinch. Parts of my mind where the bond was feel as if they have been scorched by acid.

//I ask forgiveness// the healer says in my mind.

//It was none of your doing// I say, feeling the throbbing where the bond was. Her presence is balm to the pain of a severed bond.

//I did not realize// Healer T'Rela says. //The damage is extensive.//

There is a peaceful fading, and the Touch is over.

I open my eyes, to see my own pain reflected in hers. "I ask forgiveness," she says again. "I did not realize this was done to you."

Through some remaining thread of the Touch, I can feel her own anger at suffering. It is an anger I share; had T'Pring wished to end our bond, there were less painful ways the Kalifee. But that was ever T'Pring's way; she was nothing if not direct.

The healer looks down at her hands for a moment. They are healer's hands, strong and graceful. "Spock, I must be honest with you. I do not know that this technique can help you. Because the severing of your bond was not treated, your mind will reject me."

>>T'Pring,<< I think bitterly, knowing it is a human response and not caring >>my wife-who-was-never, you have destroyed that which you hated. I salute you.<< I am under medical orders to stay on Vulcan until the condition is treated. If it cannot be treated, I will be discharged from the Service.

She seems to sense a little of my desolation through the tatters of my shielding. "I can treat the effects of your Severance, but it is necessary that your mind trust me. Will you try?" Trust a woman I barely know, or face a medical discharge from Starfleet? It hardly seems like much of a choice.

I was not to learn until after our marriage that T'Rela's telepathic abilities were much stronger than my own. She had, indeed, seen much that I would have kept hidden. I had, as McCoy might have put it in that quaint human way of his, been "scalded" by T'Pring's betrayal. And worse, I feared the accusations T'Pring made after the Kalifee might well have been true: that my lack of Vulcan abilities had broken the bond, not any action of hers.

The healer came and sat next to me. Quite close, in fact. "There are questions I need to ask you, and I need you to answer them honestly." She looked me straight in the eye, and I was struck again by the intensity in her amethyst eyes. Her speech took on the measured cadences of her native Akaren. "Will you speak Truth?"

I know what she is asking me: the promise of absolute, complete honesty. It struck me that I had never been completely honest with anyone before. I have been honest with Jim, of course, but even our deep friendship was always tempered by the realization that there were places in my soul that were utterly alien to him, and that he would not enter. There was always a barrier that neither one of us could cross, for all that he is my t'hy'la.

What this healer is asking is far different. From the mind of a healer, there is no hiding the dark places. She asks to be my friend so that she may better be my healer. It is the Akaren way, and I find that I do not desire to refuse. I nod.

T'Rela folds her hands. "This question is not terribly difficult. Do you have guestright somewhere?"

I blink. I have not thought of it. As an Outcast, I am forbidden "to seek the shadow of my father's door." In essence, I am alone on the planet of my fathers. I could, of course, have stayed in one of the hostels that dart the landscape, but this month is Irensh'da, The Festival of Peace, a Vulcan holiday that customarily involves traveling. I have been away from home too long to have remembered it, but the fact remains that there is no lodging within 300 kilometers. I am inwardly embarrassed; it is not the Vulcan way to be so forgetful. But since my father's decree, I am no longer truly Vulcan; perhaps it is as well that I forgot.

I could have returned to the ship, except that the Enterprise is long gone, to mediate the latest dispute between the Kzin and the Orions.

A lock of hair drifts over her face. She brushes it back impatiently. "I offer you guestright if you have made no other arrangements."

I nod, once, and we leave together.

***

The annunciator beeps, startling me from my thoughts. Dimly, I realize that I will have to spend more time on the Disciplines so that I am not so easily distracted. But right now, with sleep a distant memory, I cannot think of it.

In deference to the late hour, the annunciator is not audible. Vulcan glyphs form on the screen; I have an incoming message from the Enterprise. Jim? Or McCoy?

With one last glance at T'Rela, I cross over to the other side of the room and key up the incoming message receiver. I should not have been surprised that it is both Jim and McCoy. "We thought we'd call you now that we're both off shift," Jim says. "How's T'Rela? And Sudek?"

I glance over my shoulder at the sleeping form of my wife, whose temperature has once again dropped to Vulcan normal. "She has stabilized, but she's still in a coma. Sudek...is as well as can be expected."

The look on Jim's face says that this was not the news he expected. Like me, he cannot truly picture T'Rela being still for very long. McCoy looks dazed as well, and I remember that he has known her since their medical school days.

"Spock," McCoy asks, "do the healers know anything yet?" There is a delayed fear in his voice I have come to know well, the fear of losing a friend and a colleague.

I remember T'Preth's tired eyes as she delivered her last update. She had looked quite possibly as tired as I felt. "It's a virus of undetermined type and origin. That is all they know."

The doctor is keying something up on his terminal, his back to the pickup. Jim gazes at me silently, and I can tell he wishes he had an enemy he could fight, instead of a virus that would respond to none of his threats or bluffs. Jim is a man of action; inaction ill suits him. "Spock," he says, "tell that nephew of mine to brush up on his fastball."

I nearly smile at that comment. During Jim's last shore leave, he had taught Sudek how to play baseball. Or rather, he had tried to; Sudek, though he was tall for his age, was not quite tall enough to swing the bat effectively, with the result that he had nearly injured Jim in a most sensitive area. Jim swore right then and there that my son would be a pitcher, with the result that Sudek, with his untrained Vulcan strength, had broken one of my mother's windows.

Though it had not been one of Jim's more successful expeditions in his role as uncle to my son, I was unexpectedly touched that he even tried. Carol had prevented Jim from seeing David, with the result that Jim's own son was a complete stranger to him. So Jim, who had been accepted formally as my brother since my ill-fated marriage to T'Pring, had stepped in as uncle to my son. "I will tell him, Jim," I say, grateful to be able to think of something other than the still figure in the bed, even if only for a few minutes. "However, I hope you understand if I tell him to practice it far from the house."

Jim chuckles, with some satisfaction in his eyes; he has clearly said all this to distract me. And it has worked; the weight around my heart has lifted some.

McCoy turns back to the pickup. "What was the name of T'Rela's healer? T'Preth?" I nod, wondering where this is going. "I'm sending some disease reports from the Federation Centers for Disease Control on viral fevers with resultant coma. It might give her some more avenues for research." I am touched by this as well; McCoy cannot be here, but he's still trying to help. I can only hope that his information does help T'Preth and the other healers. And that it is not too late.

The incoming hail sound beeps, and Jim goes to answer it. McCoy and I are left staring at each other. Our relationship has frequently been volatile, but I cannot fail to honor him for trying to help. Though he has rarely spoken of it, I know also that McCoy once loved T'Rela when they were students. It had been during the time of his problems with Jocelyn and, as McCoy said once, "the timing was all wrong." They have remained friends, and I am pleased by it. It might, after all, be this friendship that saves her. Aloud, I say only, "Thank you for your information, and for trying to help."

He smiles for a minute then. The blue eyes grow sharper as he looks at me and I know what is coming. "When was the last time you slept?" Without waiting for my answer, he continues. "Never mind, you're not going to tell me. I know, I know, you don't really need to sleep, or at least that's what you're going to tell me. Just take a word from your kindly family doctor: you can't be there for her if you're exhausted yourself."

"I promise I will try, Doctor."

Jim enters the screen again. "Spock, we have to go now. Take care of yourself, and we'll see you when T'Rela recovers."

The screen goes dark. I return to my place by T'Rela's side, and to my thoughts.

***

I am somewhat disconcerted at the idea of sharing a dwelling with a healer, an unbonded healer. Among Vulcans, such occurrences are frowned upon; unbonded men and women do not share living space. Yet one of the things I have learned in Starfleet is to be flexible; there is no logic in refusing shelter when none other is available.

I had been surprised to find that T'Rela was unbonded. She had told me that it was not the custom for the Akaren to bond their children, so their marriages were somewhat chaotic by Vulcan standards. Fresh from my ill-fated marriage, I could wish my parents had allowed a little chaos in my life, but what is, is.

Her apartment is architecturally indistinguishable from thousands of others I have seen on other planets: a bedroom, a kitchen, a small living space. She has decorated it with brightly colored textiles that I know are Akaren, giving the apartment a feeling of uniqueness. It is much like the woman herself; there is no room for Vulcan formality here.

The healer offers me the choice of either the couch or the bedroom. Not wishing to inconvenience her, I take the couch. It is comfortable, and I am more tired than I realized. Sleep overtakes me, but not for long.

It is the dream again, the one I have had since the Kalifee. Jim and I fight, but this time, his death is real. I have lost my captain and my friend.My t'hy'la is gone. I awake with a muted shout, the intensity of my emotions overwhelming me.

This time, I do not awake in the safe isolation of my cabin. T'Rela comes out of the bedroom in response to my shout. I note dazedly that the gown she is wearing does little to conceal the curves of her body. I notice, and do my best not to notice.

"What is it, Spock, that troubles you so?" she says softly. Her gaze is gentle enough, but penetrating.

I have not told Dr McCoy about the dreams, and I almost refuse to tell this healer. Except that I have promised Truth, and I cannot refuse to tell her what she needs to know. I tell her then about the Kalifee, about Jim's near death on the red sands of my ancestors.

"I had wondered why your mind was so wounded," T'Rela says then. "You are fortunate she did not kill you, ending it the way she did."

"Ah, but she has killed me, in one way or another," I say, and though I try mightily to retain my Vulcan dispassion, it escapes me. Not for the first time, I wonder what my parents were thinking when they bonded us, but kadiith! What is, is.

"I had thought to start the healing meld tomorrow, but I think it might be better done now, with your consent." I know if any other healer had suggested that, I would have refused. A healer's touch is cold, professional; hers is professional, but it is anything but cold. I nod in agreement.

Her hands touch me then, little islands of heat. Her thoughts are ordered and calm, and I rejoice in her coolness, in the equanimity that I have tried hard to regain since the Kalifee. The healing balm spreads gently over my mind, water over scorched earth. The low throbbing agony where the bond once was subsides into nothingness.

"The healing can begin," T'Rela murmurs as she breaks the link. She smiles then, and, illogical though it is, I am utterly captivated by it. She touches the side of my jaw with a gentle motion; it is not a gesture a healer would make. "The nightmares will end when the healing is done."

At that moment, I want nothing else but to take her in my arms. The compulsion to do so is almost overwhelming; I have never felt its like before. But I do not; she is my healer and I am her patient. She goes back to bed, but I do not sleep again.

***

Of course, T'Rela was right about the course of the healing; I have never once, in the 6.8 years of our bonding, known her to be wrong about any aspect of her healer's art. The healing meld she began that night cured the last effects of T'Pring's Severance. When T'Rela was finally able to establish the healing link to regenerate the damaged nerves of my heart, I knew that when I left the trance we would no longer be healer and patient.

***

T'Rela had, of course, signaled the Enterprise that I would be fit for duty in a week. The day after our last treatment, when all the heart monitors had signaled complete nerve regeneration, she had insisted on preparing dinner in her apartment.

"Do you do this for all your patients?" I teased her; our relationship had progressed to the point where I could do this.

She canted an almost-grin back at me, open and relaxed. "Certainly not. It would be much too crowded."

To this day, I cannot remember what we ate, though I am certain the food was excellent. What I remember is the candlelight reflected on her hair, flickering in her eyes. I remember the touch of her hand on mine, the feel of her lips against mine, the softness of her hair in my hands.

I learned that night why Vulcans place such restrictions on the expression of love. The love I felt for T'Rela as her lips returned their gentle pressure on my own was powerful and all-encompassing, disordering all my logical Vulcan ways and scattering them in its wake. I had never sensed anything like its power. The fire her touch created burned me from within, and I could not find it in myself to care.

"It is mutual, then?" I asked when we had to stop or risk anoxia.

"Silly Vulcan fool," she said then, affectionately, placing one hand on my face. The light in her eyes almost blinds me. "We are linked." I know through the contact that she fought the expansion of the healing link that first night even as I fought not to take her in my arms. But she is no longer my healer, and I am no longer her patient.

The waning threads of the healing link expand in my head, and I see her how she is, a woman who loves me as well but could not express it while she was my healer. A woman who demands nothing of me other than that I be who I am. A woman who does not want me to change, to be more Vulcan or more human.

The fire of our touching pulls us both towards the center, our personalities are merging. We are One.

Outside, the rain begins to fall.

***

 The buzzing at the airlock door startles me out of the first sleep I have had in over a week. I glance at my ahve'he; she seems cooler now.

It is T'Preth, passing through decontamination. She checks T'Rela's readings then comes to sit beside me. T'Preth shakes her head; I can see the exhaustion in her green eyes, and the olive circles under them. "We have the fever under control, and are administering drugs to break up the mucus in her lungs, but I do not know what is causing the coma."

Something about the description begins to bother me. "There is mucus in her lungs?"

Healer T'Preth nods. "Yes, of course. Did I forget to tell you that?"

It is hardly surprising if she did, given the sudden onset of T'Rela's illness. The conversation with Siret comes back to my mind. An outbreak of lung-lock fever, he'd said. "Siret said there was an outbreak of lung-lock fever in the Akaren lands," I say.

T'Preth raises an eyebrow. "Vulcans are immune to lung-lock fever. The Akaren are as well." Her eyes lighten suddenly. "But, this could be a new strain. Where was Siret when he contacted you?"

I have to think for a moment. "He was calling from Aliset."

"T'Rela went there a week before she became ill, to visit her aunt." T'Preth goes to the terminal and keys up a page of Vulcan glyphs. "The problem is," she murmurs, "that we have been immune to it for so long that treatments are no longer widely known. Ah, here it is." She recites a spate of medical jargon that makes me wish illogically for a translator. "It should not take long to synthesize, even with the variant strains. I will contact Siret to make sure this is his virus."

***

"Spock?" The whisper is dry, but so very welcome. T'Rela, my d'reth'nae, my ahve'he.

"I am here, my wife." Her hand clasps mine weakly, and I feel the narrow band that was my grandmother's wedding ring. I gave it to her at our bonding.

"...Thirsty." I help her to sit up and bring her a small glass of water. Her voice returns to something like its normal even tone. "How long have I been sick?"

//A lifetime, my love// I say into the warmth of her mind. Aloud, I say only, "Six days."

"What did I have? I remember trying to engage the healing trance and failing."

"You were infected with lung-lock fever. There was an outbreak in Aliset two days ago." I cannot get enough of looking at her; wan as she is, my wife is alive.

"Gods, no wonder the trance didn't work." She is clearly remembering the visit to her aunt. "Is Sudek all right? He was with me in Aliset. And what about my aunt?"

"T'Kail is recovering. Sudek is fine, he was immunized as an infant." An immunization that she herself would not take, due to Akaren beliefs about the ill effects of mixing two different systems of medicine.

T'Rela looks at me then, and I feel the gentle flame of the bond at our center. Her hand shifts position within my own, in a gesture which, though restrained, is more than a little suggestive. It is a whisper of a promise and I think to her //Soon, when you are rested//

Her amusement reaches me quite clearly. //Spoil-sport//

We move apart then, for T'Preth comes in, to take her readings. Her green eyes fix on me in a manner reminiscent of McCoy's glare. I wonder if it is something they teach in medical school. "I want you to go home and get some sleep." She turns to my ahve'he. "And I want you to do the same. Coma doesn't count, sorry." T'Rela obviously feels well enough to protest, but T'Preth cuts her off. "If you do as I say, I'll have you discharged in two days. Argue and you'll be here for a week."

***

T'Rela did indeed come home in two days. The outbreak of lung-lock fever was quickly contained in Aliset, due in no small part to the cure T'Preth found.

The day T'Rela came home was the same day the Enterprise put into port, so we were able to have Jim and McCoy at the house. The evening was a pleasant one, but it was also tinged with the fact that in the morning I would be leaving.

But as I look at my wife and my son, the lines of our bonding vows come back to me. "Parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched."

T'Rela, looking over the head of the sleeping Sudek, and mouthed the ancient response back. "I await thee."

THE END.