Home Before Home

Their Last Spring

"April is the cruelest month," Sarah informed Jill one drizzly morning while they were taking their splash in the rain instead of going for the swim they had both looked forward to. Now that the child was almost four, her mother had gradually fallen into the habit of saying what was on her mind, trusting Jill to question her if she didn't understand. Jill appeared to enjoy listening to her talk as much as Sarah enjoyed talking, and her questions frequently led to interesting discussions.

Jill had been hopping and jumping, splattering as much wet sand on both of them as she could. Now she took another hop, landed on both feet with a sodden thud, squinted up at her mother and asked, "What's cruel?" Then she hopped again, not about to be distracted from serious pursuits while her mother thought about answers.

Sarah and Spock had discussed more than once the necessity of answering Jill's incessant questions carefully and deliberately. It was clear to both of them that the child was unusually intelligent, but had absolutely no context in which to place much of what they said to her and most of what they said to one another. Family relationships still eluded her, and abstractions with which she had no experience were particularly challenging to both adults, for they knew only too well that what they told her would probably be the only information she ever got.

Now, as delighted that Jill was able to extract a root word from an unknown superlative (How could a child learn to do that when she had only heard two people talk in her entire life?) as she was with the obvious fact that Jill had no idea what "cruel" meant, Sarah pondered as she walked. Finally she said, "It means hurting someone and not caring that you hurt them."

"How can April be cruel? It's not a person. It's just a month." Splat. Jill landed in a sizable puddle and wiggled her bare toes in the mushy sand at the bottom. Little hedonist, Sarah thought affectionately. Nature or nurture? Not hard to figure that one out. But that line of thought was unproductive, and she had taught herself not to pursue it.

"Oh--it's just something you do when you're mad at a...a thing. You make a person out of it in your mind so you can be mad at it. Justify being mad at it, I mean."

"What's 'justify'?"

"Have a reason to."

Grinning now: "If we make April sit in the corner, will it quit raining and so we can go swimming?"

Laughing, Sarah put her arm around the child and hugged her as they walked. "Oh, Jilly, what would I do without you?"

"You wouldn't laugh much," said Jill. "Why doesn't Spock laugh much?"

Sarah sighed. "He was taught not to."

"Why?"

Context, Sarah thought. What possible context...? "His people...his father...believed it was better not to."

"Did my father believe it was better not to?"

"No, little one. He didn't."

"What's a father?"

They walked on in silence, Jill no longer hopping in the sand. She had often seen animals mating, and was fully knowledgeable about the results. But Spock and Sarah had agreed not to use the word "father" with her in that context. "The fathers never come around," Sarah had insisted when Spock demurred on logical grounds. "Is that what you want her to think a father is?" They had then had a logical discussion about alternative verbalizations of the concept, and had finally agreed to the use of the words "male," "female," and "impregnate," only to have Jill announce at breakfast several days later that a male chedo was impregnating a female on the window sill.

"If he could," Sarah said finally, "your father would take care of you the way Spock and I do."

"Why can't he?"

"Because no one knows we're here, Jill. You remember. Spock told you."

"Why doesn't anybody know we're here?" But Jill was hopping and splashing again. The question had been answered before, several times, and she obviously did not expect to understand the answer any better than she had the last time.

"Because we have no way of telling them," Sarah said wistfully.

"Do you wish we did?"

I wouldn't, Sarah thought, realizing it for the first time. I wouldn't care if they ever found us if he'd only-- "Yes."

"Then I wish they would too," Jill said comfortingly, and took her hand.

The rain stopped and they swam blissfully in the buff, Sarah trying not to wonder if Spock might be watching her from the forest where he had gone to cut wood to be dried in the sun for next winter. If he ever watched, she would be the last one to know about it.

"Why do you swim so hard?" Jill asked her as they lay on the beach together in the sun. Jill swam well, but Sarah invariably swam around her in a large circle, keeping her in sight without keeping her company.

"I need the exercise."

"Why?"

"So I can sleep at night."

"You cry sometimes when you're asleep."

"Oh, Jill." They were both lying prone, and Sarah raised herself on her elbows to she could stroke the child's hair back from her face. "Wake me up when I do that, okay?"

"Won't you mind?" Jill asked, obviously relieved.

"No. I won't mind at all."

"What are those?"

"Breasts."

"What are they for?"

"To feed babies with. Just like the chedo feeds her babies."

"Can we get a baby too?"

"Maybe when the Time comes," Sarah answered without thinking, and then drew in her breath.

"What's wrong?"

"I capitalized Time in my mind," Sarah answered, awed at the strength of her own feelings.

A chosen child. Spock's child. And hers.

"You what?"

"Never mind. I was just thinking...."

"Who will be the baby's mother?"

"I will," Sarah said softly, and then tensed, expecting the obvious.

"Who will be the baby's Spock?"

Smiling now, Sarah rested her chin on her hands. "Spock will."

"Oh, good!" Jill wriggled with delight. "Can I tell him right away?"

"No." It was lucky, Sarah thought, that Jill was used to waiting while adults thought over what they were going to say to her. "You can't tell him that we talked about this. I have to tell him. Promise?"

"Why?" Irate. Deprived.

"Because I say so." The last resort, to which she seldom resorted. Jill knew better than to argue with Because I say so. "Promise?"

"Do you have to justify him about it?" Jill asked.

After a moment, Sarah said, "You can be downright scary."

"Me?"

"You haven't promised." Among the three of them, a promise was something that was never broken.

Jill sighed. "I promise. When can we get the baby?"

Jim had known about the Kalifee, Sarah calculated. They were on the Enterprise together--what? Two or three years before Tara? Soon, then. Very soon. "Not soon," she said, knowing that to Jill, "soon" meant tomorrow if not this afternoon. "Babies are...much bigger than chedos. It takes a while to get one ready."

"Big enough to play with?" Jill asked longingly.

"Yes."

"If you have to justify him about it, tell him I really, really want one. Do you really want one?"

"Yes," said Sarah. "I really do."

After a while, they dressed and wandered back up the beach together, holding hands, Sarah still bemused and preoccupied. As they neared the bungalow, Jill stopped and pointed. "There's the creature again."

Looking in the direction Jill was pointing, Sarah spied the giant ant at the edge of the forest across the lake and forced herself out of her reverie. No closer than the last time, but this time it had only been two or three weeks since she had come to watch them.

That evening, as she and Spock returned from their nightly walk on the beach, she said, "Why are you so concerned about her? She never comes anywhere near us."

"You must not be lulled into a false sense of security, Sarah." How little he patronized her any more, she noticed with relief. He actually talked to her as though they were equals. As though they were friends. "Justifying" him would not be easy. But when the Time came.... "We know very little about the creature except that she can cure and that she can kill. If I should not be here, you may have to protect Jill yourself."

Yes, she thought. I thought that's what you had in mind. What are you planning, my dear? Nothing messy. Nothing emotional. Go off where we can't find you and leave us a note? We'll see about that. Sitting on the edge of the porch, she watched him looking off into the forest, hands behind his back. "You could sit down, you know."

He turned to look at her, hands still behind his back. Then he moved to sit beside her, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. Good, she thought. That's a start. "Do you still think I'm going to make a move on you?"

She had expected him to withdraw, at least emotionally. Instead, he turned his head to look at her and said, "No."

"I'm glad you've come to trust me."

"One trusts a friend."

"Thank you."

After a moment, he looked away.

"You plan to go off and die alone when the Time comes, don't you." Resigned, she watched him go tense. But it had to happen, and the sooner the better. She did not know how much time they had left. "Spock, you have no right to make a decision like that without consulting me."

"I have the right," he said ominously, "to expect you to respect my privacy."

"Oh, come off it!" So much for the Vulcan Way. Screw the Vulcan Way. "This isn't about privacy. This is about life and death--or it will be sooner or later. Would you care to tell me which?"

It had been months since she had seen his eyes narrowed in anger. "'Making a move' would seem to take variant forms."

"You are a son of a bitch," she said without raising her voice, "and if I hadn't expected you to say something like that, it just might have worked." She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyebrows fly, but she was beyond stopping, and she had not yet played what she knew was her trump card. "I've heard you with Jill. Who do you think is going to make Jim real to her if you're dead? I barely knew the man." And without waiting for an answer, she got up and went into the bungalow.

Now, she thought. Think that one over, and then we'll see about privacy.

Jill was asleep on one of the cots, long since separated and placed side-by-side on the floor in deference to the child's mobility. Sarah lay down on the other one, not bothering to undress. Exhilarated and still angry, she knew that she would not sleep soon. But it was good to feel angry, good to feel anything toward him without having to repress it.

Think that one over, and then we'll see.

Some time during the hours before she finally fell asleep, it occurred to her that she could not program the Genetic Synthesizer without a blood sample from him. But even that did not daunt her. Feeling that anything was possible, she finally fell asleep, knowing that Jill would not have to wake her tonight.

She woke at dawn and went into the vegetable garden to check on the sprouts. There would be no rain today, she thought as she walked barefoot through the garden, carefully avoiding the tiny green shoots that were pushing up through the dirt. It was going to be a beautiful day, and Jill would have her swim after breakfast.

Bending over, she picked up one of the myriad flower-ghosts that floated overland every spring. Dandelions, she called them, although they appeared to have been shaped more like violets when they were in their prime. Now she took one in her palm, and sensing Spock's presence, she turned.

"I wish I could see one of these when it was more than a memory," she said wistfully. She raised her eyes to meet his. Bleak. He looked almost ill, she thought. It was a good thing she hadn't waited. This was going to take a while. She blew the ghost from her palm and watched it settle at his feet. "Like the past. Dust and ashes." Meeting his gaze again, she smiled and raised her eyebrows, Vulcan-like.

"Don't you ever stay mad?" he asked.

The question was so unexpected that she lost her smile and simply stared. "Not unless I work at it." The lightening sky was behind him, and she could not see his face clearly. But his stance suggested near-exhaustion. Still fighting? Or was he ready to give up? "This isn't really about sex, you know. That's not the least common denominator."

"There is a probability of 99.99 percent" he said wearily, "that you are about to tell me what is."

"Our humanity."

He turned aside a little, head drooping, and sighed. "Must it always come to that?"

"It's the only thing we have in common, Spock!"

"If I lose the Image, I lose my self." Quiet desperation there. "You do not understand what it means to be Vulcan."

"Granted." She squinted a little, trying to see his face clearly. He did not sound like himself at all. "But there's a 99.99 percent probability that you understand what it means to be human a lot more than you're letting on."

"Why haven't you tried to seduce me?"

Well, go with the flow. "It's hard to explain." Because you're so innocent. No, that wouldn't do at all. But how else could she explain the certainty that unwilling seduction would violate him at a level she might never reach again? Believing with all her heart that she was incapable of doing that to him, she said finally, "People can rape one another's emotions as well as their bodies." Silence. "Now I suppose you're going to tell me that Vulcans don't have emotions."

"We have emotions," he said as though reciting a lesson. "But we control them instead of permitting them to control us."

"Humans can't do that."

"But, Sarah--" Sheer exasperation. "'That' is precisely what you have just told me you are doing!"

Throwing caution aside, she nevertheless approached him slowly. "No, don't pull away. I just want to feel your forehead. My God, Spock. You're burning up! Is it--"

"No. It is not the Time." He straightened his shoulders and sighed again. "I am unwell, but it will pass."

"How long have you had a fever?"

Reluctantly: "Three point six seven days."

"Anything else?" He swallowed. "Sore throat? Swollen glands?"

"Sarah--" He stepped away and raised his hand. "Enough. It will pass."

"You don't know that. You should rest."

"I have something I must do first. Then I will rest if you wish it."

"I wish it," she said firmly. "And I want to examine you too."

"If you wish."

"Promise?"

He smiled then--an exhausted half-smile that frightened her more than it reassured her. "I promise." And then he was off, walking toward the hovercraft with a step that was much less steady than usual.

When he returned half an hour later, he almost made it to the porch before he collapsed.

None of the three of them had ever been sick, and Jill was terrified. Trying to reassure her, Sarah forced herself into her professional mode out of sheer psychological self-preservation. This was a different world for both of them, and she had only the contents of her traveling medikit with which to treat him. Unknowns compounded by inadequacies. And yet--You are a physician, Sarah. Damn right. "Jill," she said quietly, supporting most of Spock's weight as she helped him to his room, "don't stand in front of me, little one. You can help Spock by not getting in my way. Stay in your room, please, so I know where you are. Because I say so!"

His clothing was drenched with sweat, in itself mute testimony to the severity of his illness, for the day was balmy and the breeze cool. By the time she had stripped him and covered him with both their blankets, he was shivering violently. Taking medical tricorder readings, she discovered what she had expected: high temperature, raw throat, neck glands badly swollen, a faint yellow rash all over his body. Could be anything. All she could be sure of was that he had not brought it to Tara with him.

"Can you trance?" she asked him.

"Perhaps." It was only a whisper, and she didn't have his complete attention. "I dropped something." It was a plea. Could he be delirious? "Where did I drop it?"

"Tell me what it is, and I'll look for it." Wringing out a wet cloth, she wiped his face, remembering how he had cared for her while she was in labor. "I'm going to take a blood sample now." A twinge of guilt passed through her; she would have her sample after all, and much sooner than she had anticipated. But with so many unknowns, she had to have it in order to determine whether she could treat him with the limited pharmacopoeia at her disposal. "Can you rest a little?" But he had already tranced.

"Jill," she called softly, fearing to leave his side. There was a scurrying sound in the hallway, and Jill was at the door. "Bring me that little case on the shelf in our closet." No questions. In a moment, the child was back, medikit in hand. And something else.

"Spock dropped this when you were pulling him in here," Jill whispered. Staring at the gaunt, sallow face above the blankets, she laid a flower in Sarah's hand.

It was a violet--soft, moist, and very much alive.

When she could take her eyes off it, she looked at Spock. He was awake, and barely conscious.

"I accept your gift of self," she said quietly, wondering what that gift might have cost him.

Feverish eyes, half closed. She had to lean close to hear him whisper, "Someone should bring you flowers every day." And it came to her that he did not know who she was. The flower, no doubt, was for her. But the words....

"I remind you of someone."

"That was long ago--longer than you would believe...." "Can't you maintain the trance?" she asked.

He did not answer, but closed his eyes and drifted into a light sleep.

"What's wrong with him?" Jill whispered.

"He's very sick."

"What's sick?"

Putting her arm around the child, Sarah drew her close. "What you see, little one. Just what you see. I can't explain it either."

"When will he get unsick?"

They kept vigil together throughout the long spring afternoon, sitting on the floor beside the futon. Outside, the birds--even the wingless ones in the kennel affirmed it--joined in chorus, announcing to all the world that they had returned to affirm their venue and stake out their territory. Sarah barely heard them. Her analysis showed that the virus that was ravaging Spock's body was very much at home in copper-based blood--another malignant gift, no doubt, from the Kiso. There was nothing in her kit that could touch it.

Relieved that both she and her child were immune, she allowed Jill to remain in the room with her, glad of her company and knowing that it was better to keep her where she could not come to harm out of sight.

Eventually, Jill fell asleep, her cheek pillowed on Dolly. It grew dark in the room, and the birdsong fell to a soft murmur. Armstrong was peering over the window sill when Spock opened his eyes. There was recognition in them, but she did not believe that it was for her.

"Just rest," she said softly, bathing his face again.

"Don't...leave...me." He could barely form the words.

"I won't."

Incredibly, he raised his hand to touch her face. "Don't...." There was a terrible urgency in him now.

"I won't. I promise."

"Sarah...promise...don't...let...her...forget...Jim."

The nameless ghost of his past fled before four and a half years of reality, and she lay down beside him and took him in her arms. There was a furnace inside him, but she wasn't going to let go of him until it was gone. Not now. "We won't," she whispered, stroking his hair. "We'll never let her forget him. Don't worry. Go to sleep. She's never going to forget him...."

In the darkest part of the night, the fever broke and he fell into a deep, natural sleep.

She sat beside him on the floor for a while, watching his gaunt face in the light of the two moons whose shadows no longer disoriented her. This was her world now. The course of the rest of her life had been set, and she no longer had any regrets. When Spock recovered, she knew that he would probably remember little of what he had said while he was so ill, and that the whole route would have to be retraced, perhaps several times. All that mattered now was that whether they left Tara or spent the rest of their lives there, they would do it together.

Near dawn, she took the sleepy Jill to bed, assuring her that Spock was now very unsick. Then, as a new sun rose over the white beach, she took the blood sample and the Genetic Synthesizer from her medikit and began to do her programming, looking up from time to time to notice how beautiful he was and wonder why she had never really noticed it before.