Kirk/Spock Advent Calendar 2006

The Mutable Properties of Conifers Since Past

by Lyrastar; rated NC-17
Big thanks to The Galloneers for all their help!
FB: watergal @ liquidfic.net

"Bones, how's it going?" Kirk asked for probably only the twentieth time that day. He paced before the biolab counter where McCoy worked. "Scotty says he's ready with the delivery system, whenever you give him something to fill the drop packets with."

"Almost there, Jim. Ordinarily, this kind of treatment would be best administered through the water supply, but Vulcan ecosystems, methods of hydrogeneration, as well as the physiology of Vulcans themselves--the way their bodies utilize water so slowly--make that unfeasible. I've developed an airborne compound that's slightly less than half as potent, but is disseminated and absorbed at least ten times more efficiently than a water based one would be. So that seems like a fair trade."

"Sixteen point three seven times more efficiently." Spock spoke up from a corner biocomp.

"That's what I said." McCoy grumbled in Jim's direction--and pointedly away from Spock's.

"As of computer models of your current formulation. As best as I can surmise from your spotty notes," Spock added.

"Oh for--!" Now McCoy whirled. "I'm a doctor, not a dictaphone! Do you want to deliver the blasted immunization, or read about it in the next bioscience journals?"

"I am hopeful that the accomplishment of the first will lead to the realization of the second, which might then lead to the re-enactment of the first in some other necessary situation. At this juncture, plans to that end would appear to be going well."

McCoy looked over in surprise, not at the statement itself, but that it was made in his presence. Usually Spock was fastidious about complimenting his performance only when well out of earshot. At least, that's what the rumor mil reported. Spock must be more stressed than even McCoy had realized. He'd been off his food since the message about the epidemic had been received, and had left the biolab only to go to the science labs and vice versa.

Given that her chief science officer had a chip on his shoulder the size of a transgalactic cargo carrier and a helluva a lot to prove to a people he considered to have dismissed him ungenerously, Enterprise may have been the worst--or the best--choice to send. The fate of six billion of his people was essentially held in Spock's hands. It was a lot to ask of anyone, but especially someone so determinedly oblivious of the faults and cracks in his own self-esteem.

McCoy made a mental note to monitor Spock more closely. When his own job was accomplished, of course. Which, Lord willing, would be soon.

McCoy expanded. "It'll protect against the bristle pox, Jim. I'm sure of that, but I can't say as how it will affect air breathability. I've never heard of this done on such a large scale."

Spock stepped across the lab. "Fortunately, I do not suffer the same limitations of intellectual capacity as do some crew members. Computer projections and composite meta-analysis indicate no critical health compromises for any indigenous life form for this length of exposure, only a certain potential minor irritation to some more sensitive broncho-alveolar respiratory systems." Spock offered a data card, still warm from his biocomp, over to McCoy.

Now McCoy looked pissed. "I did not say I didn't know if it would significantly compromise respiration. Surely to blazes you can't imagine I would administer a prophylactic treatment that could induce an illness as bad as the disease it was intended to prevent. I just said I didn't know about the atmospheric effects: darkness, rain, smog, lightning, hail, whatever. What am I: a doctor or a weather balloon? That's your department. Shouldn't your people be working on that?"

Spock glared at him under his eyebrows. "We are. We simply had not expected your progress to be so rapid."

Two in one day? That tore it; Spock was getting a full physical as soon as they were done. If it could wait that long. McCoy started in on a benign note. "Why Spock, I do believe that's the nicest thing you've said to me all month. Want an aspirin? If you don't, I may take it myself. At this rate, I'm going to get a swelled head."

"No problem. I'd probably be a little out of sorts too if it were my friends and family on the firing line." McCoy pressed a little harder. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Firing line?" Spock offered his poker face, but maneuvered past the obvious bait. "I am certain I do not take your meaning. Vulcan has not been the target of a hostile attack in millennia. Unless one counts the unfortunate introduction of banjo 'music,' although, I use that last term in its most general sense."

Better. From the sidelines, Jim chuckled, and Jim knew his Spock better than anyone. Though why he should trust a heartlander who didn't like bluegrass, McCoy didn't know. But that was definitely better. He wouldn't strap Spock to a biobed right now, but if he didn't settle down soon....

The thing about Vulcans is that they almost never bent under pressure. For a commanding officer, that was a tremendous asset. But in biology, that which is unable to bend often breaks.

"Right." McCoy passed a beaker of the most recent compound to Spock. Their fingertips brushed with what could have been construed as the careful handling of a delicate item, except that McCoy kept his hand there several moments too long. "Take this down, and tell your folks to put a rush on it. See what they say about the dispersal and precipitation rates. It's a little heavier than the last. As far as antibody response, it worked in vitro even a little better than the last batch, but mostly I want to hear that it stays in the atmosphere at least thirty hours to provide for sufficient exposure."

It was, but they had three hours in which to turn adequate into something remarkable.

"Your blasted Vulcan idea of the 'needs of the many' and 'adequate parameters' has cost lives before. I have my own parameters, and I'm not losing any patients today, no matter how personally aggravating, stubborn, unreasonable, and down plain infuriating I find them to be. No go and get those numbers back to me." With deliberation, McCoy released his fingers.

"Captain, a word with you," Spock asked as he met Jim's shoulders at the lab exit.

"As soon as the immunizing agent has been seeded into the atmosphere, I intend to beam down to lead the ground monitoring teams from there."

"Yes. However...I would also like to request permission to quarter on Vulcan during our mission. The inhabitants with whom I propose to stay have been vaccinated through the diplomatic corps, so any exposure I may have to the disease will present no danger to them. I will maintain continual communicator contact with the science teams and you, so there should be no loss of efficiency though this personal variance. In fact, my added availability planetside may improve it."

"From you? I have no doubt that any 'variances' you elect to take would do otherwise." Jim heard the ambiguous edge to his own voice and forced it down.

But it disturbed him at a visceral level every time he heard Spock insist upon distancing himself from those who should be closest to him. Somehow Jim took it personally.

"I'll do you one better: how's about I 'quarter' with you? Your mother has already commed with a delightful invitation which I have accepted on your and my behalf."

It wasn't often that Jim got to see Spock blindsided, much less thanks to Jim's own actions. It happened so much less frequently now than in years past. That was rather a shame, thought Jim. Spock did have a certain air about him when nonplussed.

"Indeed," said Kirk in a fair Spock impression. "As soon as the decision to send Enterprise was relayed. She said she wasn't taking any chances on you. Apparently she has some concerns that your education in the social graces may have been somewhat...lacking."

"I cannot imagine why she would say such a thing." Back on beat, Spock wrapped himself in the expected properly insulted demeanor, and Kirk smiled right on cue as they stepped into a turbolift.

"Space Central is nothing but a giant traffic jam in a global parking lot. I appreciate her offer. Enterprise doesn't need me to sit up here and cool my antimatter intakes. After the medidrop, I'm beaming down to observe the planetary conditions for myself. Besides, it's been too long since I've run naked through fields of clover under the moonlight."

Spock furrowed his brow as they exited for the science department. "Captain, your choice of supervisory station and of leisure time activities is of course, your own concern. However you should be aware that Vulcan has neither moonlight, nor clover, and that any fields...."

Kirk placed his hand on the small of Spock's back to usher him into the hatch. "Well that's at least something, Mr. Spock. Even after four years, it seems that I may be able to surprise you yet."

Personal Log, Captain Kirk recording: vaccine and toxoid dispersal achieved, and acquisition by the populace is proceeding ahead of schedule. I need to remember that when three or more departments all present me with worse case time estimates for their contribution, we're going to have time to burn at the end. Or perhaps it was by design.

The rest of the crew must be looking forward to a few free hours of leave as much as I am.

In any event, medical assures me that the health crisis is averted and the only remaining issue is effects upon the ecosystem. I, for one, am greatly relieved. Six billion lives of any kind hanging in the balance is a heavy burden, and despite my first officer's attestations that all life is equally sacred, there's something that hits you at the gut level when it's your home that's threatened. A starship is only as strong as the most vulnerable link in her crew, and I think these past few days, we have all felt the tension of Spock's...personal...involvement with this threat.

"Spock!" Straining up on tip-toe, Amanda threw an arm around his shoulder--for balance only, no doubt--and welcomed him with an exuberant peck on the cheek. Perhaps it was just the absence of the elaborate headdress and veils, or maybe it was the passage of time to which none of us are immune, but she seemed smaller, older, frailer than when Kirk had seen her last.

"Oh, you can relax a bit," she shook Spock's shoulder playfully. "Your father isn't here."

"He's on Earth as the local liaison for the duration of the crisis. And since I take it you are only here for the same duration, and since it is a three day journey between Earth and Vulcan, it looks like you and he have come to cross purposes." Again.

"To the contrary. We are, in this instance, working together to exactly the same purpose."

Spock cleared his throat. "There are a number of unknowns affiliated with the treatment. We anticipate remaining at least another thirty-six hours to monitor environmental effects and stabilize any negative consequences."

"But not three days." Thirty years on Vulcan did nothing to desiccate the wistfulness.

"I am sorry." Amanda closed the front door behind them and gestured down the length of the entrance hallway.

"And he as well," Amanda added, in what could have be the well-honed timbre of diplomatic pleasantries.

At Kirk's curious look, Amanda added. "I am his wife; I have the right speak for him in this."

Amanda laughed with a delightful lilt. "Then Captain, I suspect you have been listening only to male Vulcans on this topic. I should think a galactic traveler like yourself should know better than to only hear one side of the story."

She turned her attention to Spock. "I've prepared your old bedroom for you two. Or if you'd like to spread out after being cramped together for so long aboard ship, you're welcome to sleep anywhere. Though I must warn you, with as much as it is only the two of us, the back wing is more than a little dusty."

"I'm sure we'll be fine." Jim grabbed both duffels and proceeded down a hallway as if he had the slightest idea where he was going.

Behind them, Amanda continued to chatter, "With the quarantine, most of the shops and restaurants are closed, but if you're hungry, I have enough laid in for several days of meals."

"If it's not reconstituted, I'm hungry for it." Kirk called back over his shoulder as they entered the bedroom.

"Two beds: I wasn't expecting that." Kirk tossed one bag on to each of the twin poster beds. "Your mother did go all out."

Spock did not answer, but slid the door closed and adjusted the chamber climate control down. His initial thought had been for Kirk, but he too acknowledged that he felt more at home as the cooler air blew down his collar. Decades on Vulcan had apparently acclimated his mother to Vulcan norm just as decades with Humans had apparently done the opposite to him.

How odd, he thought, that another way of being could so insidiously infiltrate and overtake one's self without one's permission or awareness.

Spock watched as Jim wandered amongst the trappings of their old room. The room was flavored more of Sybok--he had always had the stronger personality--but most of the items stored here were his as well. Interesting that his parents--his mother, he assumed--had not had the heart to dispose of Sybok's possessions.

Interesting that so few of his own things had been kept. Not that it mattered now.

A complement of alien athletic gear--Sybok's--was shelved up neatly in a closet. Kirk poked through them trying, and for the most part failing, to identify how they would be employed. Still, he took pleasure in this insight into Spock's youth. Around the galaxy--logical or not--boys will be boys, he supposed. Beneath the roles we are trained to grow into, we are all pretty much the same.

He picked up a ball and startled as the weight--it must have been over thirty pounds--jerked his shoulder taught. He set it down and fingered a safer appearing V'asumi jacket instead. It seemed too broad for Spock's shoulders, even now, much less then. So much he didn't know.

"Oh." Jim ran his fingers over the runes on a sash spelling Sybok's name in ancient Vulcan. It was not a script that he could read. He hung it up neatly in the place from whence it had come, apparently content to ask no more questions.

Spock's communicator beeped. The preliminary reports were better than anticipated. Even McCoy sounded happy.

Spock tucked his communicator into his belt, looking more himself than he had in days. Seeing the contrast so directly, Kirk chastised himself. It had become too easy to accept the luxury of leaning upon Spock as nigh indestructible. But he was not, and the, yes, emotional strain of the past few days was supremely evident.

Spock swallowed. "There is no cause. We performed our assigned duties to standard, fulfilling both contracted agreements and accepted ethical responsibilities."

Kirk rubbed his hands together as if to wash something unseen away. "Well, that's sounds like a pretty full day to me. Shall we see about food? I wouldn't want to hurt your mother's feelings." He offered his arm in a mimed gesture.

Closing the door on the remnants of Spock's childhood, they ambled back down the hall.

In the kitchen Amanda stared out the window into the afternoon sky, oddly darkened and stippled in a peculiar opalescent gray. "Your work?" she asked.

"Our ship's. Actually, I feel like a third warp nacelle," Jim joked. "There's nothing for us to do."

Actually, there was plenty for Spock to do in his science capacity, but he did not make the correction. It intrigued him how Jim paired them together by default.

"The curse of a well-run ship." Amanda set a potato topped dish down on the table with three plates and forks. "Plenty of garden vegetables, as per your request, but I left out the protein concentrate; I guessed that was one thing you'd had enough of."

"I suppose so," Kirk said to either observation, or both. He took a seat...and a fork.

Amanda served up a hearty portion. "Then you may be happy to hear that I have taken the liberty of letting a young friend know that you're here." She gestured out the window to where a svelte Vulcan wove her way up the garden walk. "Spock, you may remember her: T'Bewi. She's with the Academy and was immunized against Rigelian pathogens for a hydroponics survey some years ago. And she is...unattached."

Amanda shooed him away with the back of her hand. "I didn't ask her here for you, dear. She's taken an interest in xenoanthropology, and I thought that your captain might regale her with some of his tales. And charm." She tipped a graceful nod in Kirk's direction.

"He'll be in good hands." Amanda's deadpan would have done a genetic Vulcan proud.

"That's nice, Spock," said Jim with eyes glued on the young lady in the garden. "Then if something comes up, you handle it. I have full faith and confidence in you." Jim left his plate. "I could do with a little 'booster vaccination' myself, I think." He let one hand slide over and around Spock's shoulders as he squeezed past him on his way to open the front door for his guest.

Morning sun--or was it T'Kuht rise?--broke in and Kirk roused to light on his face. He rolled over to find Spock's bed empty. That it was made with nary a wrinkle in Starfleet manual style was the only hint that Spock might have been near it at all since their beam down. Jim supposed he might not have. Like always, Spock had drawn the lion's share of the workload. Given all the data there was to process among the various environmental and medical teams around the globe, it might well have been an all night task.

Jim wouldn't know. Between the thin air, the heat, and the gravity he'd fallen asleep early and hard, barely managing regrets to his companion for cutting the evening short. He doubted he would have noticed if a herd of Tellarite whufflebeasts in season had bunked in with him last night, much less one genteel Vulcan who generally made a concerted point of prioritizing Kirk's condition before his own.

Heady smells emanated from the kitchen, however, and after a quick trip to the facilities, Kirk pulled on shirt and trousers and headed towards the promise of real Earth coffee.

"Captain, you appear quite refreshed." Spock sat at the table, fiddling with his tricorder.

"Yes, I agree, Captain, Vulcan wears upon most Humans after a few hours, but you seem positively revived from your time here." Amanda greeted him from beside the stove. Outside the window, the sky sprinkled a cool and ugly gray drizzle. The first to fall in this province in eighteen seasons, but that was not something Kirk would know.

"Why, thank you. It must be the pure and soaring conscience of a job well done. And I'll take milk if it's real...and double sugar if it is too.

"I must say," said Jim as he sipped sheer hedonism down his throat. "This is one of the more pleasant working vacations that I've had. Or is that about to change?" That sleep had put him at least seven hours behind on mission status report updates, and that made him edgy. He disliked not feeling on top--of everything.

On the tricorder, Spock keyed up a summary, should Jim wish to review it. Which he would not. "I think not. All departments report conditions equal to or better than computer models. The mission is a success."

"Then you'll be leaving early?" Amanda looked back out the window at the dreary rain.

"We'll be leaving when the mission is accomplished and your planet is safe. The coffee is delicious; is there any more?" It was easy to forget how good the real thing was; he had been making do for far too long. Jim extended his empty cup. It was a faded Disney World souvenir. A bust of Daffy Duck quacked at him in frozen laughter from one side while Tinkerbell flitted about the other.

"Of course." Amanda poured and slid the sugar bowl over. Delft blues with windmills and tulips, sporting a noticeable chip in one side, but memories are not casually discarded over scattered rough spots or imperfections.

"Medical teams report no new cases within the past six hours. One hundred percent of subjects sampled evince antibody response and titers at protective levels. Atmospheric effects are significant, but already resolving in most areas. No reports of life-threatening pulmonary reactions."

Spock shut down his tricorder. "My plan is to take readings from the peaks of Skterta to compare with the sea level data." He addressed Jim. "Perhaps you would like to accompany me. The city views from Skterta should be exceptional once the clouding settles more. Although it cannot offer your fields of clover, I wonder if it mightn't appeal to your current interest in...anthropology."

"Or not. Some sections will be a strenuous climb. If you would rather remain here and compensate for any missed sleep--"

Kirk shot him a 'like Hell' look along with the familiar twinkle. "I can handle whatever you can give out, Mister. Let's go." Kirk downed the dregs of his coffee, and headed to his bag to dig out some Quadraox supplements for the hike. He'd have to give McCoy an especially nice Christmas present this year for insisting that he take them with him.

"Is that T'Bewi?" At their rest stop, Spock turned his tricorder down the mountain to where a satellite campus of the Science Academy sat.

Jim peered down. "Why, I think it is. She said something about dropping by the observatory to take some readings. And that I might enjoy making some observations from Skterta myself."

Kirk took a sip from his canteen. He did like it when he had Spock's full attention. He liked to make it last. "I'm surprised that you could recognize her from up here."

"And I am surprised that you were so content to remain in each other's company last night. Given your persona."

"My persona?" Jim flinched in unconvincing mock surprise. "Are you saying I rub Vulcans--or, at least, certain Vulcans--the wrong way?"

"I am not fully Vulcan, and I have years of experience dealing with the vagaries of Human emotionalism, yet I contend that your...unique style of personal interaction would be prone to wear on Vulcans who are accustomed to a more...restrained aspect. And that a Vulcan persona would not mesh well with yours."

"Mr. Spock, if you don't think I can manage 'restrained', you haven't been paying close attention." Jim hadn't meant for that edge to cut into their amicable banter.

Jim pushed a swallow of water around his mouth. "Spock, did I ever tell you about my first trip home after Tarsus?

"When it got bad, really bad there, I used to look for the happiest space in my head that I could find: Christmas at home in Iowa. The last one I spent there, was when I was eleven. I'd pull up all kinds of memories, and tell them out loud, doing my best to make it real not only for myself, but for everyone who was starving. For everyone who had...lost...things...people."

Jim swallowed, but his voice didn't waver. "I'd tell stories about the dinner table--so huge that Sam and I used to crawl under it and make not just a fort but a whole bastioned city--covered from end to end in foods of every color and description. Of pink and purple woven breads, and stews with one hundred different ingredients, and turkeys as big as me, and hams as big as Sam. And I'd tell about Christmas presents covering up the floor so that not only couldn't we walk, but Santa couldn't squeeze out of the space at the bottom of the chimney to leave any more. Yet somehow more presents still appeared over night.

"I'd say that every one of those presents was filled with cookies and candy and Venusian sweetbites and Andorian cocabursts. Not one of them had sweaters, or socks or underwear or anything practical. And I'd tell them about the Christmas tree at least twenty feet tall, scraping the farmhouse ceiling so high that we would have to saw off two feet just to put on the star.

"When I was finally allowed to go back--I had just turned fifteen--there were lots of presents, but you could still walk across the floor. Longer legs made it a lot easier. And there were socks and pajamas and jackets in the parcels too. And the table was full, but not nearly as big as I had described it. About three by six, quite modest really. And a lot of the food wasn't nearly as good as I'd remembered. Especially if Aurelian was 'helping' with the baking. And the turkey and hams were generous all right, but no where near as big as me. At least not like I was then." His voice trailed low, then resumed.

"And the tree did scrape the ceiling when they brought it in. And they did cut the bottom off to keep it fresh, but the ceiling of the farmhouse was only about seven feet high. It just seemed bigger to me, since I was smaller then. When they had it set up and in the stand, it was what you would call a shrub. They let me put the star on; it was considered a special honor. At fifteen, I didn't even need a chair to reach the top. I just sort of bent it down and I could reach."

Spock waited. There had to be more; Jim's denouements were always more dramatic than this. But Kirk just sipped water from his canteen and watched the people down below.

"No." Jim took another swig from the canteen. "Of course not. Things are what they are. Our perceptions don't change what was. But things seem different when we're different, younger, smaller, not yet secured. As the measuring stick of ourselves that we automatically judge things against changes, so do our memories have to warp to agree with them."

"For everyone. Now you're a scientist, but then you were an alienated kid grappling for explanations of why you couldn't be like everyone else.

"She's a nice lady. We got along fine. You may want to consider that your idea of what is normal for a Vulcan may have weathered along with your guide stick. You've been away a long time." Kirk looked off in the distance.

"You will see her again?" Spock had a full several hours of data compilation and analysis ahead. Jim did not.

"I thought we'd play it by ear." Jim closed his canteen and stood up. The drizzle had stopped and the clouds were much thinner now. "Come on; let's go. You promised to show me something special."

Spock grabbed his hand, and Jim allowed himself to be helped to his feet. "I promised to take accurate upper tropospheric readings, but perhaps the two are not mutually exclusive." Tricorder in hand, Spock led the way up the mountain.

The weather had cleared to essentially normal by sunset, and the eventide fell rich and exotic, still laden with the fragrances lingering in the ebb of the aberrant rains. There was a small click as Kirk opened up the main front door. A light burned brightly in the living room, and Kirk picked up his step to see who it was."

"Captain, you're back early." Amanda. She switched off the vidfeed and turned to him in a conversational posture.

"In just a few hours, it's going to be a big day. Once we're done here, my job will be just beginning aboard ship. I thought I'd turn in early."

"Understandable. Although, I do hope you've had opportunity to enjoy yourself a little while here. Was your afternoon pleasant?"

Kirk settled into a chair opposite and crossed his legs. He wasn't all that tired. And Spock's mother? Who knew when he might have this chance again.

"Thanks to me, nothing. As a diplomatic consort, I occasionally have the honor of maneuvering people together. As my husband so often reminds me, it is up to them and no one else, if they care to make it work."

"In the garden. If you came up the walkway, he will have seen you and will be in soon. His claim was to be taking nocturnal ionospheric readings, but he was really waiting for you."

"That's sweet; Sarek waiting up for you." Kirk let the idea of a romantic Sarek have its way with his subconscious.

"Oh, not for me. Although I suppose, now that you mention it, he might have. I wouldn't know. I meant that he used to wait for Spock the same way--always some outside excuse, never letting on that was what he was doing. They are both very much alike."

"Though both would rather chew rocks than admit it." Kirk rose and poured them both a whiskey from a cut crystal decanter at the sideboard. "Drink?"

"Please. And exactly." Amanda laughed almost entirely with her eyes, an expression Kirk knew entirely too well, and they toasted each other over the rim of wedding stemware.

"In wine, there is truth, they used to say. But this is some fermented Troyan husklerfruit brew; I haven't any idea if it works the same way."

"It seems to be working on my head the same way," said Kirk as he reclaimed his seat. He massaged his temple. "I wasn't expecting that kind of a wallop from Sarek's stash. It doesn't seem...logical." He swallowed again against the burn.

"Oh, logic is highly situational, don't you know. How do you think Sarek got the Mintasians and the Joeribites to see eye to eye? They say no deal was ever decided past page three of a treaty proposal reading. Not so for this stuff. In insider circles, three swallows of this is referred to as 'a good start.'"

Kirk laughed a little too heartily and rolled the flavors around in his mouth. "Now that you mention it, this does taste familiar. I think a carafe of this may have bee responsible for my nearly getting married on Kaldervia VI."

"You wouldn't be the first. Stick with me, Captain; after a lifetime of diplomatic gifts, I'll show you the wonders of the galaxy right from this armchair. It's safer that way." Amanda tipped a respectable mouthful back.

"I may have to take you up on that," Kirk joked. "I'm not sure I can find my legs. I'll never hear the end of it if Spock finds out I've gone and gotten snockered with his mother while he's been busy minding the store."

Amanda was no longer joking, new. Her glass was empty, and her eyes had grown progressively more somber since the mention of Spock's name. "Jim, will you tell me about my son?"

Kirk paused and rubbed his palms together. Where does one start? "He is the finest officer I have ever had the privilege to serve with. He is the finest science officer and first officer in the fleet. I trust him in places I cannot--I dare not--trust myself. If there were only one person in the universe I could have as friend, colleague, family, confidant, they would all be Spock. What else is there that I could possibly tell you?"

"Mm." Amanda rolled her empty glass between her palms. "I won't embarrass either you or Spock by asking if he is happy, but there is a Vulcan term--"

In an eerily familiar gesture, Amanda swallowed hard. She paced to the window where T'Kuht illuminated the compound grounds. "Captain, having no children you cannot know how much that means to me. No matter how much they push you away, insist that they are their own person, you cannot help but feel responsible for how their life turns out. You can't help but ask yourself, 'had I stopped this then, had I done that more, had I stepped in at that point, would they be better off?' You can't know what it means to hear that despite all the mistakes you know you've made, that somehow, some way, you still did all right."

The soft fall of boots in the entranceway broke the moment. "Spock," both thought. With a private smile groomed only for each other, they dropped gazes and tried to look fittingly impassive.

"Mother. Captain." Spock set his tricorder on an end table. "How was your--" Date. "--anthropological discussion, sir?"

"Just fine. Mr. Spock. We talked about Christmas trees. And you: how was your...scientific analysis? Or don't trust your science teams to do it right?" Kirk baited. "Perhaps I should reconsider the leadership, if they can't handle such a routine task."

Spock's eyebrows shot up to the stratosphere. "This is an entirely new protocol, developed over only the past sixty-one hours. Readings are tracking with greater than 99.7% reliability and less than 0.3% standard variance, however the use of a greater multiple collection points is always an asset to analysis."

Spock looked between them both with the uncomfortable sense of having something important elude him just beyond the very edge of his grasp.

Kirk leapt to his feet. "No, I insist. I've had a long night and a full day tomorrow. I'd like to get some shut eye before Spock's snoring makes it impossible."

"Amanda, it was delightful." Kirk rose and kissed her hand. "Good night, all." He made a production of stretching his muscles and finished with a yawn straight from Broadway as he wandered toward the bedroom.

"There are a number of factors to be considered. The decision will be the captain's."

"In that case, I'll have a slew of long days in which to catch up on my sleep after you are gone. I'd like very much to have some time with my son. How long has it been?"

Two years, eight months, nineteen days, eleven point two two zero hours--Earth calendar system. "Too long. I wish that it were otherwise."

Her face pinched into pained lines that had always sent his father running out of helplessness. "Spock, every time you've left Vulcan, I've had the feeling--and don't tell me that feelings are to be discounted; I'm too old, tired and set in my ways to rehash that same debate tonight--that you were running away from us and not to anything in particular. That is a terrible thing for a parent, any parent, to believe. What can you tell me that might make this time not so hard?"

Spock picked up Kirk's empty glass and sniffed. Husklerfruit. It should suit Jim's tastes in ethanol based consumables well. Perhaps he could obtain more. He set it down again.

"I have no intention of arguing with you, Mother. Your perceptions, however they were formed, were not incorrect at the time. And I regret that I was not able to shield you from pains that were never yours to feel. But I am not the same man now as I was then; a great deal has changed. Should other avenues be closed to me, I should be content to remain here on Vulcan with you--and Father--and pursue other researches. However, tomorrow I leave for Enterprise, because in sixteen years of exposure, I have found no place in the universe that I would rather be."

Amanda swallowed again. Curious. Spock had always assumed he had acquired that quirk from his father. Or perhaps they both had. How was one to know?

"In that case, I can't be sad not even for myself and how much I miss you. I am glad that you are away and that you have such a place that you choose to be. Vulcan was never particularly good for you. Here, you always seemed to feel--"

Spock suspected after decades as his father's consort, that word would not slip into her speech solely by accident.

She shifted in surprise. "I suppose I rather have, but that isn't what I meant. I meant your Vulcan attributes. Here, you were always so busy trying to be some paragon of a textbook Vulcan, that you never even stopped to consider what your average, everyday Vulcan is like."

Spock turned his full attention to her words. Whatever he had expected, it was not this.

"Well, take me, for instance," Amanda expounded. "You've felt sorry for me for decades: a capricious, passable woman sequestered amongst a planetful of what you'd like to think of as unemotional people. Have you ever stopped to wonder why I would permit such a thing? Or do you consider me too weak--too dependent--to follow my own will?"

Spock turned his thoughts in and back. In truth he had not considered this. Sarek was something of a force of gravity in Spock's own universe. It had taken all his might to pull away just the once, and he had yet to risk return. It had not crossed his mind that anyone caught in Sarek's orbit might be there through independent choice. Or through having deliberately snared him in hers.

"Do I seem to you a woman deprived of love? Well perhaps except from her own son." She spoke the latter sentence carefully, but with as little time as they had, partial truths would not do here. "I had hoped that you would stay until you reached...maturity, then maybe you would find for yourself what every one on the planet since the time of that windbag Surak has known: there can be no such thing as absence of emotion, only the more and less successful husbandry of it. Where there is no emotion, there is no spirit, and your father's race is fueled by some of the most...forceful spirits you will find anywhere."

"Poppycock! Your father is one of the most skilled diplomats of our era--though he can also be a bit of an ass and the most thoroughly infuriating man I have ever met. Two weeks after I met him, I decided I would either have to forget him, strangle him, or marry him so he'd be legally bound to do at least half of things my way. One option was illegal, one turned out to be flatly impossible, and so here we are." She wiggled her wedding band at him.

Amanda looked genuinely surprised. "I don't know; I don't recall asking him. It's probably for the best; I doubt that I'd like hearing whatever he had to say. But that doesn't matter; I hear his actions, not his words.

"I know you have to see him as a father, and not for the consummate diplomat that he is, but both men are there all the time. He is highly attuned and respectful of the strengths, weakness, yearnings, and foibles of every being with whom he has dealings. He is one of the most understanding men I have ever known in my life, and after 104 years, I promise you, he understands Vulcans inside, outside, and around the bend.

"The only person he has ever held up to be perfect, was his son. Not Sybok. People presume the first child must be the favorite, but that isn't so. He acknowledged the...problems forming within Sybok from an early age. But when you were born, from the time you started talking, he decided that you were the most amazing child ever. That's why he was so hard on any little deviation from you. It was never right for him. In his mind, you were the ideal brought to life.

"I tried to reason with him, tell him how illogical he was being, but he wouldn't listen."

"To me either." Spock caught himself. He had not intended to voice the thought aloud.

"No, he would never listen to anyone else's opinions of you. In his mindset you were--and still are--perfect."

"Yes; isn't it wonderful?" Amanda tried a smile. "I could never decide whether to be sorry for you or envious. He loves you more than he does me. Though he'd have my head on a stick if he knew I told you that."

Spock shook his head. "It would have served no purpose; I would not have believed you."

Amanda re-crossed her legs. "He won't use the words, of course, but he reminds me at least once a month that things are as they are. Labels or lack thereof make no difference; words are only tricks of the mind that fuel pride and other destructive bents to separate parties from their own best interests. The key to diplomacy is to force feed each party as much as possible with pretty words, labels and meaningless intangible concessions that have value only as an idea while cooler minds and hearts quietly arrange the concrete.

"He loves you very much, but it will take an army of diplomats more clever than him to drag the words out of him."

"The likelihood of my encountering such a party seems vanishingly low, but should it happen perhaps I shall try. How did you manage it?"

Even in the dim, the flush to her cheekbones was evident. Some things mothers simply don't discuss with sons.

"Well you needn't look so shocked; where did you think you came from? An Orion bodyfarm?"

Amanda propped her chin up on her hand. "Oh my. I am sorry to disappoint you, but you began life as a wildly illogical gleam in your father's eye and a full moon over the Seine in the warm spring breeze. Such a tragically sentimental beginning. I suppose you never had much of a chance from that point onward." He eyes teased him, but there was something stronger smoldering behind them.

Amanda dropped to her knees by his chair. She took his fingers and rolled them around in her palm. Spock felt an odd tingle of connection. Vulcan mind techniques could not be taught to the psinull. Or could they? In sixteen years in space Spock had seen stranger things, and Amanda had had over forty to learn.

She pressed his palm against her forehead, then pulled it down and kissed it. "I love you, Spock. And no, you don't have to say anything back. "

She turned away and pushed up to her feet. "Drat it, that vaccine of yours seems to be bothering me more than I thought. I think I will turn in and rest my eyes."

She paused at the doorway. "Spock, you're too young to know about things like this, but as one approaches a certain age, one begins to look back at one's life and wonder what could have been done differently. Should you ever look back on this visit, please know that there is nothing you could have said or done to make it any better. I want you to have no regrets."

She kissed his cheek. "Do wake me to say goodbye before you leave. I've never liked suddenly discovering myself alone in an empty house. It's been so often lately."

"We will," said Spock. He caressed the back of her fingers in the Vulcan fashion--as she had taught him--then watched as she drifted from the sitting room.

Spock pushed open the bedroom door. T'Kuht was full, and the reflected light from her face bathed the room in a wash of shadows and pale maroon. The atmospheric effects were visibly dissipating, and the night sky was much as he remembered watching it for years from this very room. T'Kuht was just as big, almost as bright, and if anything even more red.

Back then her characteristic hue had registered just as normal night. Now he could see why tourists came to marvel at her glow.

T'Kuht dominated the window; she was closest this time of year and occupied nearly half of the eastern sky. As Spock soaked in the sight, he was reminded of tales passed on from centuries past of T'Kuht and T'Khasi, the twin planets formed in the primordium who had loved each other so that they refused to be separated even for the birth of the solar system. Instead, they wailed and cried and clung each to the other in orbit until the hour of the universe was so late that mother sun had no choice but to send them out as one pair, where now--even as the space grows and changes all around them--they still they spin around each other, dancing together--only with each other--holding no less close than the day they first began.

Kirk bolted up in bed, the thin sheet pooling about his naked waist. His reactions were always keenest to that which lay slightly below the sensory level. "Spock, is something wrong?"

How like Jim Kirk to pose the exact question even as Spock worked to formulate an answer.

No. At least, not yet. And there would not be if Spock were simply to take the safer course to his brother's bed until for the few pivotal hours before their lives swung back to the established, comfortable norm.

"No." Still Spock didn't move. The light played off the ripples of bedding as Kirk shifted, breathed, turned to face him more fully. Beautiful. No other word would do. The man was beautiful.

Mild concern creased Jim's face, then smoothed into something else. He tented the sheet up over the edge of the bed in an offer as equally unmistakable as it would have been difficult to refuse.

Spock swallowed. No regrets. He kicked off his boots and slid in. In an instant, Jim was warm and real, pressed against every part of him, filling every corner and crevice. They kissed with the musky aftertaste of husklerfruit still clinging to Kirk's lips.

Spock wanted to savor and memorize the moment, but there was no chance. Jim's hands had gone directly for his glands, and the pleasure literally keeled him over. He couldn't think; it took all he had to breathe. If this was the doings of his hybrid physiology, Spock had to wonder how a full Vulcan could survive, much less endure this time and time again.

The agonies of pon farr paled to a candle flicker next to the force of this desire that he must concede to be purely of his own making. For the first time he understood the Cave Moths of Linnaria XII-- driven beyond caring to fly themselves into any source of light--sun, fire, hot bulb, whatever--even death becoming inconsequential next to the need for this one moment.

Should it obliterate all he had known before--if there were to be nothing more than this--that would be acceptable.

The rumble of the words reverberated in his ear, but they their meaning escaped him at the moment.

"Take it off," Jim repeated, more insistent now. He tugged at the seal of his shirt.

In a clumsy tangle of arms and legs, Spock managed to free himself, then was drawn into Jim, hot and damp against his skin. Jim's mouth was everywhere in some physically impossible sequence, and Spock gripped the edge of the bed like a lifeline, holding on, holding back, holding his body from doing God knew what.

As Jim's thumb massaged his gland, he clenched into the bed until the point where his fingers might well snap. Willing the violence in his mind to clear, he pitied Humans, with their overused emotions spread about so casually at every little whim, that they could never know the magnificent force that truly cultivated craving could be.

But four years of wanting and waiting for this moment was not something to be taken lightly, especially for a Human accustomed to obtaining whatever it was he wanted. If Jim could have asked, he would have; if he could have begged, he would have done that too, but he was beyond words. His mouth was unable to part from Spock's skin long enough for a decent attempt. He was so full that it hurt, full not only of the physical, but of everything else as well that he wondered if it might kill him if it didn't come out now.

Jim wanted to make it good, yes he did. He wanted one touch for each day, one kiss for each week, one stroke for each month denied. But the Vulcans have it right that the body is one thing and the spirit another entirely, and tonight Jim's body had seized the reins. He needed to be inside of something--someone. He needed it like he could never remember needing it before.

Then Spock was there on his side offering himself. It was an offer that at that one moment Jim could not have deferred if the fate of the galaxy hung upon it.

With a spastic motion, he was inside where it was hot and tight, and finally it seemed like this might all be all right. He jerked Spock in against him, arms wrapped around him, no chance of him getting away. "I love you," he chanted into Spock's neck until he came with more release from pain than with actual pleasure.

When it was over, Kirk rested limp, allowing his world to reform around him. Little by little, he grew aware of the presence of little movements in his hair. "Mmm. That feels good." He leaned into the touch. It took another moment to realize that Spock lay facing him, rigid, his breathing deep, fingers making feverish swirls as if by necessity, not choice. Swirls around his hair, his scalp, his temple�

But so often he thought of Spock as an extension of himself, that it startled him to be reminded of their differences that were every bit as real and objective as they were unimportant.

And the need to be with and join with was as nearly universal in its presence as it was varied in the specifics of its expression. Jim knew what it was like to need something than much.

"Yes," Jim breathed in acquiescence as there was no more choice for him in this than there had been a few moments ago. He concentrated on clearing the fragments of trepidation from his thoughts.

But he needn't have bothered, for after the initial twinge of mental contact, he felt nothing more than a floating sense of peace.

However, Spock's eyes glazed over. His breathing grew rapid and coarse, much as a Human's might in flight or fight. Or heat.

"Spock?" Kirk grabbed his forearms and tried to break the meld, but Spock's hands remained solid, as if soldered to the spot.

"Spock!" Jim called again, louder this time, but Spock's fingers only clamped down more.

Spock made little whimpering sounds and his body began to shake. Giving up on the impossible for once, Jim simply laced his arms around Spock's body and held him through whatever unknown imbroglio of Jim's own emotions had been freed to run amok in someone else's head.

Conquest was easy; control was not. Some things had to be allowed to find their own place.

When Spock finally broke the link it took a moment for him to find his voice. "You should not be afraid," he said at last. "While I am here, I will not allow anything to hurt you, not even yourself. You are magnificent."

Jim buried his face to Spock's chest and allowed himself to be covered in tiny kisses.

The kisses became more intense and cloying, working their way down from face to neck to parts below. Spock's hands played his genitals, touching him in just the way Jim favored for a speedy release. A finger found an exquisite spot and a thumb coaxed a rivulet of fluid forward from his gland. To Jim's dismay, he realized he was not only burning up, but poised: ready and loaded to come again.

But something about the touch--so accustomed and efficient, yet ever beyond his own control--worked just well enough to drive him to the breaking point, but not enough to put him over the edge. It was like trying to tickle your own feet in way that felt more bad than good. Jim clenched his thighs and craned his neck backwards, straining for that one iota more of stimulation that his stubborn body needed to let go.

"Spock, I need--" So close, but he was still one molecule, one atom, one particle shy.

"What Jim?" Spock's fingers moved faster, never long off the secret spot, like some twisted Chinese water torture, the presence and absence of stimulation warred for which would be the one to make him break.

"Anything. Anything at all," Spock murmured with the same voice that had burned in his eyes for years.

Past some critical mass, Kirk pushed Spock's hands away and pulled himself on top. Ignoring his erection, which hurt too much to think about, Jim cupped Spock's face in his hands. "I need to know-- I need to know that here--here with just you and me--that it's okay to let go."

Spock nodded. "All right." His eyes rolled back, and his expression calmed to utter peace.

With tentative fingers and easy tongue, Kirk began to caress him--little by little, not all at once. He knew how thin the ice might be.

From Spock came little cooing breaths. His fingers tangled in the sheets. A rolling rumble built up from his gut, to chest, to throat, pitching higher and high like an impulse engine straining toward the limit of warp. Kirk speeded his touches and surrounded Spock's dick. Guided by high-pitched whispers and harsh commands, Kirk touched him in any way that could feel good.

Spock was keening now, crying into Kirk's neck in an alien pitch with alien possibly-words. His arms flailed wildly amongst the sheets, against the bed, and impotently into the air, as if to direct the unwieldy force of his lusts anywhere but at their target. He swelled in Kirk's hand, and something pitched inside Kirk's middle. Slick touched his thumb, and almost beyond caring what felt good to Spock, Kirk dove his head down for a taste.

Spock cried out as mouth and tongue wrapped him, and he bucked, slamming his head against the bedpost. Not that easy to throw, Kirk followed, sucking harder as if to pull everything out of him by force if he had to. Spock cried out again, wrapping his arms up and around the post.

Beyond any semblance of control, Spock could only hope that the same strength which drove his drove on to what it ached for, would lock his arms and prevent them from doing things to this Human that they should not.

The head of Spock's dick swelled in his mouth and Kirk wondered how he would take it all. But take it he would and he suckled harder as it plumped and yielded just the smallest hint of semen. He licked it, swallowed it, sucked as far back as he could. Using lips tongue and teeth as well, he milked Spock for all that he was worth. The tiniest leak oozed out as Spock yelled and forced Kirk's head down harder against him.

But suddenly Kirk's mouth ached in emptiness. Spock had pulled him off. "No," he protested. "Let me--" But Spock was beyond hearing, beyond caring; he was a machine unto himself. Eyes squeezed shut and body rocked into a hard cradle, Spock pumped himself with a speed and a grip that Kirk feared on the next stroke would pop glans straight off from body.

It was the most erotic thing that Kirk had ever seen. Hypnotized, he watched as the tip turned green, then bronze, then an ominous, congested brown. It now had to be twice its starting size. Kirk's dick jerked as he imagined how that would feel up inside himself, and as he was unable to stop his hand from going to his own groin. Kirk dismayed to realize that he had passed go en route to another orgasm. He barely had time to stroke himself once before he blew, never once taking his eyes from Spock's face and hands.

Spock's tempo changed again with Jim's orgasm, even exceeding the blurring pace that a moment ago Jim would have sworn was impossible to for a humanoid body to maintain. Spock's breathing barely registered; his body was one tetanic spasm but for the precision pistoning of hand on shaft and the violent rock of pelvis against bed.

Jim stopped to memorize every nuance. It might be a very long time before he would ask this much of Spock again.

When he could stand it no more, he threw his mouth over the head, oblivious to the pounding of Spock's hand against his chin and nose.

Spock choked and gasped, but still no ejaculate came. Jim sucked harder, and a glass-shattering whine split the air. Needing to taste it almost as badly as Spock need to give it up, Jim reached around and behind. First he fondled the testicles, but got no response. In desperation he yanked down hard--hard enough to hurt, hard enough that it must have hurt--and a salty mucous seeped through his mouth. He yanked harder this time to another ooze. Spock's dick nearly shook him off, he was pounding it so hard. Kirk twisted his neck and took the laden balls in his mouth. With a hand, he jerked down on the sack and with his palate, he bit against the balls as hard as he dared. With an earsplitting scream that must have woken the neighborhood much less the house, Spock came in seeming gallons all over the sheets.

Kirk held him until the shaking stopped, then let go when Spock moved to pull away. He'd be back when he could. So much intimacy was a hard thing to give. Jim had no need of a half-Vulcan to remind him of that.

"Hey, what brought that on?" Kirk asked as he stroked his back. "You can't believe it's because I needed to hear it."

"I believe that what is is, and neither the presence nor absence of applied terminology will change certain facts. It is illogical to hold to any other illusion."

"Well, science officer, if you want it for the record, I love you too." Jim took Spock's still sticky palm and laid it against his brow.

Spock closed his eyes and lay face and hand against Jim's head, fingers tangled in waves of sandy hair.

"Am I too heavy?" Spock blinked to refocus as he broke the meld. Somehow he had wound up prone upon Kirk's belly; his entire weight resting solidly on top of Kirk's form.

"No," said Jim, for it was the truth. It had always been easier for him to be the one to bear the weight than to be the one borne. It had always been more natural for him to hold than to be held.

"No," Jim repeated as Spock tried to slide off, regardless. He pulled him back on top. "Don't go. It's been too long since I've been...a part of something like this. It's been too long since I've been not wanted but needed. I don't want it to end just yet."

"You are mistaken; you have been needed all along. The black pits of Spock's eyes left no room for doubt. They kissed until Jim had to roll to his side to accommodate his illogical--if fascinating--Human biology.

"How long until the final readings?" Jim made little circles in the hair of Spock's back.

"Four hours, thirty-seven minutes, assuming the rate of precipitation of compound stays the same."

"Good. We can rendezvous with the Howard Pearly early. Her captain owes me money."

"Poker?" Or chess? More likely poker. Jim's battle tactics were top notch, but he tended not to confuse strategic thinking with frivolous sport.

"Bar bet," said Jim with flawless delivery. "We had a month's wages on what it would be like to bone a Vulcan."

"Ouch!" Jim's arm was twisted hard up and behind his back. "Uncle! Uncle! He laughed. "Not true! I made it up! And what was that you said about not letting anything hurt me?"

Jim's voice sobered. "No. No, I'm sorry, but you can't. We didn't come out here to play it safe, my friend. I'm sorry; I know, it's easier alone, isn't it?"

Measured only by their heartbeats, time passed by. The held each other in silence as T'Kuht slipped westward through the night.

"I could close the blinds." Spock gestured to the planetlight pouring in through the window.

Kirk clutched Spock against his chest. "I went into space to see strange new worlds, but most of the time it's been slate gray bulkheads. I'd like to enjoy this a little longer."

An uneasy pricking churned up in Kirk's gut. Spock would not see Vulcan, Enterprise, or especially this room of entombed memories the same way.

"What, I'm not allowed to brag?" Jim tweaked his earlobe. "We could beam up for a few hours, then return to take leave. I imagine that being in your old room has some uncomfortable associations for you."

"No longer. The situation is as it is; the context and the trappings are irrelevant. But you raise an excellent point. It can be difficult to maintain a distinction between the professional and the personal."

"Then I suggest that you figure something out lickity-split. It would break my heart to have to demote or transfer out the best first officer in the fleet for conduct unbecoming. I've become quite fond of him." Kirk kissed him on the tip of an ear.

"Failed?" Jim jerked up. "No. A starship doesn't run on manuals and procedures. A starship runs on a group of people stuck out there, depending on only each other to make it work. There is no such thing as distinguishing between the professional and the personal, only...finding the proper intermix formula to make it work. No Spock, you have never failed me. Never. You have been the factor it takes to make the secret formula work."

Spock pulled him to his chest and held him pressed tight, not letting go until he felt Human ribs threaten to buckle under the strain.

"I am sorry that your own rediscovery of your own heritage was not as pleasant."

"Not unpleasant; it was just what is. I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out."

Jim propped up on one elbow and stared him down from four inches away. "I haven't lost one damned thing, Mister, and I intend to keep it that way."

Spock reached for him. Jim reached back and brought him to orgasm again, oh so quietly this time.

In the window, T'Kuht danced slowly on towards the west, turning eternally around the sister she would cling to, now and forever, until the sun--or the universe itself--ceased to be.

The Mutable Properties of Conifers Since Past

by Lyrastar; rated NC-17 Big thanks to The Galloneers for all their help! FB: watergal @ liquidfic.net

by Lyrastar; rated NC-17
Big thanks to The Galloneers for all their help!
FB: watergal @ liquidfic.net