Chapter Text
Before T’Pring nearly committed a crime to save Spock’s life, Sybok had been Xaverius – a thief, a fraudster, guilty of telepathic coercion of non-telepathic species (though he’d insisted only his victims’ own greed had been necessary).
She might have thought this Xaverius person would be better served by the rehabilitation offered in Federation prisons, might have suspected his sudden longing to return to the path of Surak merely an attempt to trick the system. There were many criminals who attempted such deception, thinking that being a patient would be better than being a prisoner. Most of those people requested prison after a few days.
If T’Pring had been there when he arrived at Ankeshtan K’Til, perhaps she would have seen he hadn’t chosen to be there at all.
But she’d been at a conference.
By the time she got back, T’ilsa had already performed the intake interview, and Stonn, assigned as the man’s guide. Logically, she turned her attention to her own patients, occasionally reviewing Stonn’s session notes, and offering suggestions as needed. She rarely interacted with Xaverius, and then only within the framework of her duties as an administrator.
One morning as she walked the grounds, she passed a group practicing art therapy. Xaverius had turned to watch her – not surreptitiously, but with a frank, assumptive familiarity. Her steps quickened. His gaze followed. She could feel it between her shoulder blades and turned to confront him only to find he was, like the others, meditating on the form his clay would take.
Over the next several weeks the sensation of him watching her persisted, the fine hairs at the back of her neck standing up and she’d think of a lizard’s slow blink, tongue darting out to catch the scent of prey. But she never caught him doing it after that first time, and no one else seemed to notice.
Vulcans often dismissed as illogical the body’s visceral reactions to intangible threats. Sometimes to their own peril.
She broached the subject with Stonn. As the man’s kakhartausu, he had a duty to correct and guide him.
“He has no history of predatory sexual behavior,” Stonn assured her.
How could she explain? It was not sexual but something else, something being shaped and aimed and—
Feelings not fact.
Nevertheless, Stonn swore to observe more closely from then on. T’Pring reinforced her mental barriers and did her best to avoid proximity.
But after the attempt to trade Spock’s life had been thwarted and Xaverius returned to his cell, for a moment she’d seen not a sly manipulator but only a man, unkempt and defeated. Depressed, she’d thought, until he turned around—
“You do not remember me.”
Her flesh prickles, flushes, a body memory frantic for its correlation in her mind.
“You were barely seven years of age, a tiny terrified bride in ritual garb that weighed nearly as much as she did—”
She remembers how heavy the robes were, how many layers, how her skull ached, hair pulled taught and threaded through with silver cords and beads—
“I touched your head and took your fear away.”
Sybok. Spock’s brother. Or so he claimed. Beamed off a prison transport mid-journey, sedated, and brought to Ankeshetan K’Til against his will. He’d rejected the path of logic long ago and had no interest in walking it again. Someone else wanted him there. His tone implied she should know who that someone was.
Stonn appeared to know. “I was advised to keep you… unburdened with the knowledge of Sybok’s identity.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes when he said it.
She chose at the time to believe Spock did not know. They’d been intimate only hours before. He would have told her.
She was not so certain of that now.
This morning, from her office window, she could see Sybok in the contemplation garden. Six months after the attempted escape he had all the appearance of a model patient, devoted to study and exercise, dutifully pursuing the way of Surak. In fact, he’d spent forty days in a period of deep meditation and had only recently emerged from this self-imposed solitude.
He looked serene. Beatific. The other inmates circled the sphere of his mystique like unwitting satellites.
One of those, Chu’lak, a new arrival, had taken bolder measures. She watched him approach the meditating Sybok and, uninvited, sit beside him. It was the third consecutive day he had done so.
As a clinician she might posit unmet familial guidance as the reason Chu’lak sought out charismatic male figures and adopted philosophies accordingly. Before logical extremism he’d been a follower of Tu-Jarok (after attending a series of talks facilitated by the Jarok master Pola), and before that had petitioned a Kolinahru monastery for admittance (coinciding with the rejection of a petition for marriage and a visit from his distant cousin, a Kolinahru adept). He’d spent less than a year as a lab assistant at the Vulcan Medical Institute in Shikahr and a year in his family’s architectural restoration business.
Chu’lak was a person searching for purpose, but he also wanted someone else to tell him what that purpose was.
She imagined Sybok suddenly opening his eyes and turning to him—
I am both the cause and the solution.
T'Pring could not remember being afraid the day she and Spock were bonded as children. If Sybok had taken her fear away, what else might he have taken? Had he done the same to Spock?
Made him love her?
Or made her love him?
No. Impossible.
Sybok was attempting the same psychic manipulation on her as he’d been convicted of doing to others.
She turned back to her comm screen. She needed to confront Spock. Demand he tell her whatever secrets he hadn’t trusted her enough to share.
Her hand hovered over an icon - Spock's face in profile floating in a holographic frame. The history of their courtship confined to this one file since the day she’d walked out of his quarters with her dignity still intact. A prison of sentiment. Here were all their conversations over wine and subspace, and every message he’d sent in between. Lengthy epistolary exchanges or short updates as well as holographic and 2D digital images.
The images were a curious indulgence, she had to admit. She hardly needed images to recall his appearance. But occasionally visual aids proved useful in subverting the assumptions of others (her mother’s friends primarily) about his "suitability" and the "problem" of his racial duality. He was objectively attractive by Vulcan standards and what’s more, shone with an intellectual vigor few possessed.
She opened his most recent message. If she responded to this - or to any of the messages he’d sent since she requested time apart - he’d assume she was ready to discuss their future. But she had too many questions about the past. Without answers there could be no future relationship to discuss.
After brief meditation and a steadying breath, she opened a communications channel.
^^^
The laundry fresher unit in Spock’s quarters was malfunctioning.
He could probably fix it himself, but he’d have to override certain protocols, and the last time he’d done something like that (with the beverage dispenser), Chief Glolisl got word of it and Spock had suffered a sudden “mysterious” sonic shower malfunction. Spent three weeks forced to shower in the gym.
He’d been warned never to run afoul of the maintenance department, but it stretched credulity that any member of the Enterprise crew could harbor resentment at a perceived slight for so long, even a Tellarite like Glolisl. And yet, his repair request for the fresher had languished unattended for nine days now.
He could use an ozone wand on his uniforms, or send them out if absolutely necessary, but…
He eyed the last set of clean undergarments in the dresser drawer and considered the logistics of laundering by hand in the sink – not merely the time required for washing, but also to dry the garments efficiently, and how much of his monthly water allotment he’d have to use. Not that he used much of the allotment for bathing, preferring the hydro-sonic function.
Why was he saving it at all? The only person who’d used the all-water option in his shower consistently, exuberantly, and extravagantly was Christine after intercourse and that was never happening again—
Bzzzzzz “Maintenance.”
Spock allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. “Enter.”
The person that entered, however, was not the person he expected.
“Heard you might be running out of clean smalls,” Lt. Montgomery Scott said as he strolled in, tool bag over his shoulder.
This was the man whose engineering genius had made the crew’s rescue from the Gorn Hegemony possible. A man who now stood gazing unabashedly about Spock’s quarters, grinning around a wad of chewing gum like he’d never read any of the interspecies relations protocols.
Spock gestured in the direction of the fresher, mostly as an invitation to proceed, noting as he followed the man, “This work seems outside your purview, Lieutenant.”
“Chief Pelia has me on loan to the maintenance department for a bit. She thinks it’s punishment but joke’s on her. I love digging through the innards of standard home appliances.”
He leaned down to disengage the fresher from its seat in the bulkhead. It moved out with a low grumble.
“I took me mam’s sub-z apart when I was five because it was making a queer sound. Woulda had it back together again with none the wiser if my sister hadn’t caught me. So really, her fault the scran went off.”
Spock could only speculate on the meaning of some of those words, so chose to ignore the story altogether. “The issue may be due to an error in the programming code.”
“Oh aye, like as not.” Mr. Scott removed a small diagnostic scanner from his tool bag, ran it, sucked on his teeth as he interpreted results. “Hmm. A bit of both, it seems. Dinna fash. I’ll get it sorted.”
A moment later he was on his back sliding in behind the thing. For the next few minutes, Mr. Scott asked for tools and Spock handed them to him. It was pleasant in a way, the clicks and pings and whirs of digital calipers, and micro-resonators, and isolinear spanners interspersed with the hypnotic smack of gum-chewing, and the occasional swear.
“Mind me asking a question?”
“That is a question humans ask when seeking permission to pry.”
“Aye, that’s fair. I’m wondering why you don’t send your pants out like the rest of them?”
“The rest of whom?”
“Command staff.”
“I am not command staff. I’m the science officer.”
“Ah. Well. Figured as you’re the CSO, head of your department, you’re, y’know, command.”
“Command is a necessity of my position, but I prefer the scientific aspects of the job.”
“Same. Dinna mind people. Being in charge of ‘em? Neh. Rather just get in and do it then explain how to do it to someone who can’t see what I’m looking at.”
Spock understood that sentiment, even so…
“If you are incapacitated and someone else must take over for you, would you not prefer they had been trained by you to do that task?”
“Point made and taken.” Scott gave a slight huff of exertion from behind the fresher. “Notice you’ve not answered my question though.”
How to answer in a way that didn’t seem paranoid or over-particular? Pranks? DNA theft? Too rigorous a cleaning process in the ship’s laundry facility? All had happened over the course of his life, and all involved his underwear. But he was spared the attempt.
“Och, what’s this wee speckle?” A soft metallic ping followed by a grunt. “Are ye the cause of all this trouble?”
Mr. Scott wriggled out from between the appliance and bulkhead, sat up and wiped his hand on the front of his tunic. In his other hand, pinched between two fingers, was T’Pring’s earring. Squinting one eye at it, the engineer patted blindly on the floor for his diagnostic scanner.
Spock wrestled his sympathetic nervous system into submission as he recalled how her earring might have ended up in the circuitry of his laundry fresher.
“Interesting isotopic signature,” Scott was saying, “Not sure I’ve seen it’s like before.”
The stone nestled in its bezel, smooth and warm, with the characteristic blue opalescence for which it was prized.
“It is vokaya.” Spock held out his hand. “A stone found only on Vulcan.”
Scott opened his mouth to ask something, thought better of it then dropped the earring into the outstretched palm. “Thinking that's what mucked with the temperature sensor. The other issues are a software malfunction. Got it sorted for you.”
Within five minutes, Lt. Scott had everything back in place. He ran the unit through its cycle and declared it good-as-new then whistled his way out the door.
Later, laundry done and folded neatly into drawers, Spock set aside the reports he’d been working on and picked up the earring. The hook was twisted, and the stone loose in the bezel’s frame, but it could be repaired. He retrieved the tools necessary and set to work. When he’d finished, he wondered why he’d done it. Would she even want it back?
Before he could question the wisdom of it, his hand shot out and manually opened a channel, routing a call to her office at the facility. She wouldn’t see it for days, perhaps weeks, yet he froze, not knowing where to begin except, I found your earring. It was broken but I fixed it. Shall I send it or keep it or…
To his astonishment the screen flickered and brightened onto her face blinking back at him, live and in person.
^^^
Captain Christopher Pike had mastered some of the most difficult recipes from some of the most annoying culinary masters in the galaxy. Burnt-sugar croquembouche. Bolian twice-baked sour cheese souffle. Some weird fessel root schnitzel with a zhoug based sauce that took him a month to ferment. Milk bread in the shape of the cutest Klingon battle cruiser ever seen. A Ktarian chocolate puff that used seven different kinds of chocolate and three different tempering techniques. He’d made Vulcan tevmel, for god’s sake (and it was delicious no matter what T’Pring’s mother said).
Why couldn’t he get this lemon pound cake right? Why was this the bane of his culinary existence?
It should have been easy for him. Simple baking chemistry. A Maillard reaction. Proteins and sugars breaking apart, recombining, forming new molecules that should look, smell, and taste like his great-grandma Angie’s lemon pound cake and yet, somehow, never did.
He always started with room temperature ingredients (because that was just science). He’d tried it with lemon juice, then lemon extract, then both. Lemon zest, then no lemon zest. He creamed the butter and sugar together five minutes, eight, ten. Experimented with the reverse creaming method, butter paddled into the dry ingredients first. He’d messed with temperature, baking time, even the environmental controls in his quarters. And it never came out right. Never.
Perhaps this was simply the curse of any project inspired by nostalgia. A moment of homesick longing in an Academy dorm room and now, here he was, thirty years later, no closer than he’d been the first time he’d attempted to make it.
He only had so much time left to get it right though.
His latest attempt sat on the counter, a ring drizzled with icing, one slice out and laid next to it on the cutting board like a pulled tooth. The crumb seemed okay, a little dry maybe, but it didn’t smell lemony enough. He glanced up at the whoosh of the door.
Una took one look and groaned melodramatically.
“Oh god, Chris. No. Not the lemon pound cake again.”
He blew out a noisy sigh. “I know, all right? The definition of insanity.” He put the slice on a plate with a fork and slid it across the counter.
“You know I can’t judge,” she said, taking up the fork. “I’ve liked all the versions – except the one with that weird citrus fruit from that weird market on Zedipra—”
“Yeah, that was more… citrus adjacent really.”
“So,” she said, “what wild hair’s up your ass tonight then?”
He got another fork and reached across, ostensibly to taste his handiwork.
“The usual existential angst.” He held the morsel aloft, eyeing it critically. “Got anything to report?”
“In fact, I do. We’re expecting to rendezvous with a long-range shuttle from Starbase 11 in about four hours. Bringing our much-needed replacement crew and one, Christine Chapel.”
“Uh, do I need to be there?”
“You usually like that part.”
“Not at 01:30.”
“I suppose Spock can do it.”
Chris gave her the side-eye. “Una, come on.”
“He needs to put on his big boy pants and get over it already.” She stabbed her fork into the cake and stuck it in her mouth, tried to swallow, coughed, gulped, coughed a little more.
Karma, perhaps.
“It’s too dry, isn’t it?”
“The frosting stuff helps,” she said, and cleared her throat.
He snatched the plate away and dumped the slice into the recycling bin, followed by the rest of the cake.
“What else is going on?” He gestured that she should follow him to the living room if she wanted the glass of water in his hand.
When they were seated, and the dry cake safely down her throat, she briefed him on the “Ortegas situation.” Mostly that it was proceeding.
“…I still need to interview some tech crew before I can give you a full report though.”
He could tell there was more to it. “Can you give me a generalized notion?”
“There are some… hmm, twists in the narrative.”
He snorted.
“But, good news is, I’ll be finishing up pilot training in the coming week and after that they’ll officially be on the roster and on call 24/7.”
“They look good?”
“Erica trained them.” Which was all she needed to say. She gulped down the water and set the glass on the low table. “In other news, our girl genius Uhura is testing out a new bounce relay she’s cobbled together to boost transmission lag times. Pelia seems impressed with the concept. I guess it’s based on some of the data we got from our experience with that subspace fold—”
“If we start singing, I swear to god, she’s going straight to the brig.”
Una laughed and got to her feet. “I don’t think you need to worry. But I’ll certainly advise her of the risks.”
She wouldn’t, he was pretty sure.
When she was gone, he assembled the ingredients to begin again. Lemon juice, lemon extract and the zest of two whole lemons for this one.
^^^
Startled, they said each other’s names at the same time. Paused, then did it again. Then merely stared at each other across the void.
Calls in person like this were usually arranged well in advance and relied on a confluence of subspace idiosyncrasies to facilitate – arrays, buoys, and nodes needed to align and even then, there were lag times and glitches. This seemed strangely providential.
But assigning kismet to random chance would be illogical.
“I did not expect you to answer,” he said. “I have left you several messages.”
“Seventeen,” T’Pring corrected.
Framed by the window at her back another bright day shone under the atmospheric shell of Omicron Lyrae III - its spectrum chosen for the calming effects on inmates. But there were troubling shadows under her eyes.
“One might have taken a subsequent lack of response as an indication of refusal to engage.”
“You answered.”
They eyed each other for an awkward moment. Then she nodded, glancing away briefly – discomfort or distraction, he couldn’t tell.
“Your timing was fortuitous,” she said. “I was preparing to send you a message.”
“Fortuitous indeed.”
“You may think differently when I tell you why.”
He held his breath. Here it is. The end of our engagement, the end her regard and affection. A kind of white noise static scrambled his senses a moment, so he missed what she said after and had to ask her to repeat it.
“Were you aware that Xaverius is the assumed name of your brother Sybok?”
One expectation twisted into something equally unpleasant.
“I… I suspected. But I was hesitant to ask you for confirmation of his identity. Undoubtedly, there were ethical reasons you were not at liberty to share that information with me.”
“I kept nothing from you,” she said, her voice tight, but then cut off his attempted apology. “He informed me of his identity after that incident.”
He realized he’d told Christine about his suspicions before he’d told T’Pring, his intended wife.
“My understanding," T'Pring continued, "is that his… associate had plans in place to extricate him from a Federation facility. Ankeshtan K’Til presented unanticipated security layers. Hence the need to involve you as a bargaining chip.”
“It seems curious he would choose to be there in that case.”
“He did not choose it.” She glanced at her hands folded on the desk. He filled in the blanks.
“Sarek's doing.” Of course it was.
“When I spoke to your father he implied his concern was to preserve our chances – yours and mine – for a successful union.” She looked up, met his eyes. “My mother needed little enough reason to back out. As you know.”
It was difficult for Spock to believe his future well-being factored into Sarek's plans it at all except as an afterthought.
“And you?” he asked. “Is this reason enough to end our engagement?”
“This would not be my reason.”
She had a reason then.
He’d been idly rubbing his thumb over the earring’s vokara stone and now held it up so she could see it.
“Recovered from my laundry fresher." He noted with some satisfaction the verdant flush of color on her chest and cheeks. “It was damaged. I repaired it.”
“A casualty of a failed experiment.”
“That is not how I recall the evening.”
“Keep it. I no longer have its mate.”
The earring’s hook bent as his fist closed around it.
“Why did Sybok flee Vulcan?” she asked abruptly. “What crime did he commit there? I have been unable to gain any credible information on the matter.”
“I was never told, except that our clan renounced him. And that he was a person to be avoided at all costs.” He’d tried to find out once, enlisting his sister’s help, but they were caught quickly, privileges revoked, freedoms curtailed, and told never to attempt it again.
“Could he have been at our koon-ut-la? When we were children?”
The question caught him off-guard. “It seems unlikely.”
Sybok had left home by then, hadn't he?
But in truth Spock could remember very little of the day of their first bonding ritual, except the moment her mind touched his, vibrating in tandem before they drew apart.
“He may still have been on Vulcan, but I do not remember him being at the ceremony.”
“Nor do I.” T’Pring leaned closer to the screen, her voice pitched low as if someone might hear.“He told me I was… that I had been… afraid. That he took the fear from my mind. I do not remember being afraid. I don’t remember—”
Just then, a distraction drew her eye. Something she could see through her window. She drew in short, sharp breath--
“I must go.”
The screen folded into blackness, leaving him with a brief ghostly afterimage of her face in profile.