BONDMATE

Part 1 of 2

When she woke in the early morning, the feeling of unreality had returned to plague her, and for the first time she wondered if there might be something physically wrong with her. "I don't know how to be sick," she had told her cousin, Chris Jones, when tests had revealed the only serious illness she had ever experienced. "I never had the easy stuff to practice on." What does it feel like, she wondered as she rose and forced herself to go through her usual morning routines, to be really ill and not know it? How do you tell?

Before she left for the hospital, she performed a thorough scan with her medical tricorder, and the results were as she had anticipated: other than telltale indications of emotional stress, she was as healthy as she had ever been and physically rested from her second uninterrupted sleep in more than a week. The memory of the incident at the anti-grav tube entrance briefly engaged her attention, like an insistent small child pulling an adult's hand during a conversation. The image of juggler's balls burying the juggler at the bottom of the tube was still a vivid one. But she had been exhausted then, she reasoned. She was not exhausted now, and missing work was even more pointless than it had been when she was waiting for Jim and the others to bring Spock home. Now she was waiting for him to bring himself home....

But he was home. He had said it himself: "I am home, Jim."

The stress indicator on her tricorder spiked and then subsided. Funny. She was lonely and aching for Spock's presence, but she knew that he would come to her soon, and leaving him with Jim had been her choice. Yet the indicator had spiked, and the chronometer at her bedside told her that she had been sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing with the tricorder whirring in her hands, for nearly four minutes. "I don't do this," she said aloud, deactivated the tricorder, and went rapidly off to the hospital, pleased that once she got moving the feeling of unreality faded and then disappeared.

She held a departmental staff meeting that morning, and was surprised to note when it was over that she hadn't thought about Spock for an hour. After lunch, she took a nap on the couch in her office, which was the usual procedure for humans on staff; a ten-hour work day ten days in a row mandated certain adjustments to the work ethic that had pursued her race to the stars. In the afternoon, she held another meeting, infinitely more interesting than SemiTen Staff.

Since before Shevek's birth, the Research and Development division of Hybrid Obstetrics had been working on a modification of the prenatal regimen for a fetus that was not simply half Vulcan and half human, but the grandchild of three or four species that were genetically alien to one another. A second generation of hybrid offspring was being born, and the gestation of these children often caused unanticipated problems for them and their mothers. The fact that she and her son had almost failed to survive her pregnancy gave Sarah added interest in a project that had fascinated her from the beginning. In addition, her R & D team consisted of T'Shova, the only Vulcan female currently a member of the Hybrid Obstetrics department, and Zoe Keller's Dragon Lady, Kim Sung. With T'Shova's cool intensity to balance and channel her quicksilver energies, Kim was an invaluable asset to the H.O. department of which Sarah was chair.

"So we're ready for Phase Three," Kim said as she switched off her holoprojector in the center of the meeting table in Sarah's office. Her dark eyes were bright with anticipation, as were T'Shova's. But even for a Vulcan, T'Shova appeared a little subdued this afternoon. "All four survived in vitro, and now they come out of the AGU. Day after tomorrow, if T'Shova quits dragging her feet." She smiled at her partner, but T'Shova did not respond in kind, which was unusual. She and Kim worked well together, and T'Shova had eased up a great deal over the life of the project. But now her narrow brows drew together in an uncharacteristic Vulcan frown.

"I may not be on Vulcan on that day," she said matter-of-factly. "Saan will have need of me soon. The New Intrepid is currently exploring the Rigel sector, and arrangements are pending for me to be transported there before his situation becomes critical."

There was a short silence, during which T'Shova looked at nobody and Sarah and Kim looked at one another with creditable imitations of Vulcan control. Then Kim took a deep breath and expelled it. "Well. That could be a problem."

"The subjects must be removed from the AGUs within three point six days if their current condition is to be maintained," T'Shova continued, and Kim nodded. "Perhaps tomorrow would be a better choice."

"Tomorrow it is," Kim agreed, her relief obvious. "You want to watch, boss?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Sarah assured her. She and Kim had written the grant proposal together before Sarah was promoted to department head and T'Shova was hired to work with Kim full time. Although T'Shova's skills were invaluable, the two humans would still often reminisce about the months during which they had done preliminary research together.

When the meeting ended, T'Shova left the office but Kim remained sitting opposite Sarah at the round table where they had held their meeting. It was now late in the afternoon, and the sun had rolled around to the other side of the building. But Sarah's partially darkened windows still admitted bright sunlight, and Kim had been squinting into it during the meeting. Now she moved to sit next to Sarah at the table. "So. What's got you so uptight?"

"Uptight?"

"You really gave it to Sorep in Staff this morning. I thought you were going to chop his ears off, and I bet he did too."

"Oh, Kim! He needs to be set straight when he gets on a Vulcan roll like that."

"I know. But not like you did it this morning. Are you sure it's such a good idea for Spock to be somewhere else right now?"

"It was our decision. His and mine. He needs to be with...them right now."

"His and yours."

"Mine, really. But he went along with it. It's where he wants to be right now."

"Okay." Kim nodded, her eyes still on Sarah's. "You want to talk about it?"

"Nothing to talk about. It'll work out."

"Okay," Kim said again, and rose. Research calling. She had that look in her eyes already. Whatever had been on her computer screen when she had had to stop for the meeting was sending her spirit a siren call. What would become of that woman if she were to be promoted into an administrative position? But she wouldn't be. Not Kim. If anyone tried, she would turn it down flat and be off to the lab without giving it a second thought. "Let me know if you change your mind." And she was out the door.

Sarah slept badly that night, dreaming dreams that she could not remember upon awakening. That too was odd; she always remembered her dreams. In the morning, she again experienced a transient disorientation, but again it passed until she and Zoe swam together in the hospital pool just before Zoe's evening shift began.

The exercise invigorated her at first, and she kept pace with Zoe lap after lap. But then she fell behind, pulled herself up on the side of the pool and sat there with her feet on the cool tiled ledge, watching Zoe finish her laps.

It's been two nights, she thought. When will he come home? Why doesn't he come home? The rippling water stretched out before her, choppy where Zoe's steady strokes disturbed it, slap-slapping against the sides of the pool beneath Sarah. She barely saw the ripples, barely heard the slapping. They were somewhere else, not quite here....

Levering herself on the tile outcropping, Zoe sprang out of the water and twisted to a sitting position beside Sarah, wiping water out of her eyes and pushing her wet russet curls back from her face with both hands. "You don't look so good," she said.

"You're not looking at me."

"I got sensors." Zoe sniffed, blinked, leaned back and rested her weight on her hands, water drops still running down arms, neck, and the sides of her cheeks. "You sure it wouldn't be better if you stayed home for a couple days?"

"What would I do at home?" Except wait. And wait. "Besides, T'Shova did a Starfleet express to Rigel this afternoon. That leaves Kim without a partner unless I work with her tomorrow."

"Superdoc can't handle it alone?"

"Knock it off, Zoe." Appalled, Sarah heard the echo of her own voice come snapping back off the tiled walls. "I'm sorry. You're good for her. I don't know why I said that." She crossed her arms on her knees and hid her face in them.

"What are you burying, Sarah?"

The juggler. There's this juggler with too many balls to juggle and she's down there at the bottom of the-- "It's...I don't know. If he'd just come ho-- I just want to see him, that's all."

"So go down there and see him."

"Up. The ship is on that plateau about halfway up--"

"Go. Now."

"Tomorrow."

"Now."

"He has to want me too, Zoe. Otherwise it's no good."

After a pause, Zoe said, "Tomorrow. No fail."

"All right," Sarah said finally. "Tomorrow."

That morning, Sarah had accepted Amanda's invitation to supper in the other wing. If Spock came home, he would know where they were, she told herself. There was no way he would turn around and go back to the ship just because nobody was home.

Not if he were himself. But...He fades in and out. What if he came home a child, and there was nobody there?

In the end, she left a note, and then spent the early part of the evening worrying about whether it might have slipped to the floor after she left.

"You should have left a note," Amanda whispered as they moved into the courtyard after supper.

"I did. I'm afraid it might have fallen on the floor."

"My dear, he couldn't be this close without knowing where you are."

"There's no link yet."

"Well, then go and see if your note fell on the floor."

The note had not fallen on the floor.

When Sarah came back out into the courtyard, Sarek was holding Shevek on his knee and Amanda was talking to the baby, who was bouncing and making imitative noises. Sarah watched them for a moment, and then glanced toward T'Ara and her bondmate, who were playing chess on the grass near the gate while I-Chaya watched intently, as though he were a third player. Sember had been omnipresent since T'Ara's recovery from her illness, and Sarah worried that the two of them might be excluding other friends in favor of one another's company. They had always been good friends, had shone with suitably restrained delight when Sember's parents--a Vulcan physician from Xenopathology and her human Starfleet husband stationed at Con Tower--had agreed to the bonding. But this was getting to be just a bit thick. She would have to do something about it. She would have to do something about Phase Three tomorrow. If she could manage to think about anything but when Spock would come home again, there were probably other things she would have to do something about.

Two nights and two days....

He was standing at the entrance of the courtyard, near where the two children were playing. They did not see him, so intent were they on their game. I-Chaya raised his head but made no sound. Sarah did not see what Spock's parents' reaction was. They were not in her line of vision as she ran.

When she could get her breath, she whispered, "You didn't cut your hair."

"I will if you wish it." The words were muffled against her, and she could feel his heart beating as though it would break free and soar away.

"Is your father watching us?"

"The probabilities are negligible. However--" He sighed, and she could feel his attention waver even without the link. "Who is that child with T'Ara?"

"Sember. Her bondmate." She took his face between her hands. "You've only met him once."

"Sember." He took her face in his hands as she held his. "Show me their bonding. Use your hands."

She held the picture in her mind--the two solemn children, green eyes and dark, touching and touched, parted from me and never parted.... And it was there. The link was there. His mind was there, shadowed now and in search of self, but there. He was there.

They both lowered their hands, whole again. Each encircled the other's waist with one arm, while their extended fingers met.

"Thank you, my wife," he said, his dark eyes shining.

"You are most welcome." She reached up and kissed his lips. Then, their hands joined palm to palm, they moved away from the gate together.

Sarek watched his son with some concern, for Spock had little to say and much to see. Watching Sarek watching Spock, Sarah wondered how long it would be before the father again broached the subject of the re-education of his son in the Vulcan way. Biding his time? But she could not worry about it tonight. Tonight, everything was right with the universe.

She met Spock's gaze and smiled, reaching for their link, wondering what he saw when he looked at her. Then she saw what he saw, and drew in every shield she possessed lest the other telepaths nearby perceive his naked need, and hers.

As though on cue, the first chill breeze of the desert night washed over them.

"I think I'll get my shawl." Sarah rose and made for her wing of the house, hoping that no one would notice how abrupt her departure had been. Indoors, she covered her burning face with her hands, shaken with silent laughter. "Oh, God," she murmured, "what a performance." She heard Spock's step behind her, and asked, "Did they all get the benefit of that?"

"No. You did well." She sensed confusion, and the same fierce longing that had demoralized her in the courtyard. "My wife, have I offended you?" Tender, confused, and for the first time tonight, unsure.

"No, no, no! But please don't show me your fantasies in public! I'm not a Vulcan!"

She felt him come near, felt his fingers touch her hair, barely brushing the surface, and yet sending a charge through her entire body.

"In private, then," he whispered.

"Yes. Please."

"I will make our excuses."

He slipped away, and she went on to the bedroom doorway and leaned back against the frame, her hands behind her, face tilted upwards, eyes closed. When he returned, she opened them to find him standing a few meters away in the half darkness. His hands, too, were behind his back.

"I told them you were tired," he said.

"I'm not," she whispered.

"Perhaps you will be."

He gathered her up in his arms, kicked the door closed and eased her down against it. Having seen his fantasy, she knew her part well, and stripped him even as he stripped her. Then he was against her, enfolding her, lifting her, within her, needing, wanting, but not yet thrusting. "Don't hold back!" she gasped, using the door for leverage to wind her legs around him. "Don't h--" But his mouth on hers silenced her even as his hands, behind and beneath her, pressed her closer to him and him deeper within her. The door against her back gave no quarter as he had known it would not, and now his hands were half between her and the door and she in his hands, between him and him, inside and out. Slight, slow, upward movements of his body sent hers melting and then exploding between him and him. Her head hit the door, but she barely felt it--only him, inside and outside, melting her and exploding her, thrusting, pulsing, plunging, drowning, rejoicing.

He eased her down until she was standing against the door, then slipped both his hands beneath her head, burying his fingers in her sweat-damp hair, exploring and caressing her scalp until it tingled. "No, my love," she sighed, "It didn't hurt a bit." And then she was laughing silently, her head pillowed in his hands, eyes closed, hugging him to her and laughing until she was weak and soft with laughter.

"Soft," he whispered, his lips caressing her throat. "So soft." But it was not her thought he was voicing, she knew, even though he was aware of it. A shiver of remembered pleasure passed between them, and then they were both shivering in earnest, the sweat cooling on their bodies. He lifted her again, carrying her to their bed where they pulled the covers back and slid beneath them, both of them with their teeth set to keep them from chattering. Gathering her close, he jerked the covers up and and tucked them around their necks.

"You didn't keep your promise," she murmured. "I'm not tired."

"Given the time, and the opportunity...."

A memory, standing alone, out of context: as she slept unaware, he lay beside her--awake, half hard, wanting her but unable to touch her. Then the memory was gone.

"What was that?" she asked, trying to keep from tensing in his arms. "When was that?"

"I do not know. These things come to me. In hours, tomorrow, perhaps in two or three days, it will come back, and there will be more." He stroked her back until she relaxed again. "It is past, my Sarah. Am I that Spock now?"

She raised herself until she could see his face. "Do you remember ever asking me that before?"

"No. Does it matter?"

She shook her head and lay down against him once more.

Someone was moving around in the next room, Shevek's room. Amanda, she thought, putting the baby to bed.

"Will he need you during the night?" Spock asked.

"No." She smiled, cuddling closer. "He's a good Vulcan."

After a moment, he asked, "What is a good Vulcan?"

"I was just being funny about Shevek. A good Vulcan...." This was important. There were still great pools of untapped memories in his mind, as yet undisturbed, and she was not the one to disturb this one. Yet he needed an answer. She could feel him needing it, even as she had felt him needing her when they were pressed against the door and each other. But that image came between her and the answer he sought. In memory she heard herself gasping "Don't hold back!" And she knew that he now heard it too, again.

"What was it that disturbed you?" he asked.

"You were using the control mechanism to take the edge off, so you wouldn't get ahead of me."

"Have I done this before?"

"Yes."

Her forehead was against his cheek, and she could feel his smile even as she heard it in her mind. "My Sarah, we are hardly discussing a case of sensory deprivation."

"I know. That's why I've never said anything to you about it before."

"Then why now?"

"We have no idea what this whole experience has done to your biological clock. There might be some queueing up going on."

"This is not the Time," he said with no particular emphasis, and she realized that he was not disturbed by the reference. Had that been cultural conditioning? All of it? But that was not her concern at the moment.

"I know that too. But your human needs might not be the only -"

"They will suffice," he said, pushing the covers back and laying his body over hers. They made love again, slowly this time, each of them savoring the other. Afterwards she slept, and then woke to find that he had not been asleep. He had, of course, slept all day while she was working at the hospital. Something else she would have to do something about--what, she had no idea. With Phase Three starting.... But she would think about that later too.

They put on sleeping robes, wanting the windows open in spite of the chill, and lay back against their pillows and each other. Their newly re-established link had helped her to understand how few of his factual, scientific, and duty-related memories had returned, how long the road that lay ahead. But as the night wore on, he became increasingly able to describe aloud how far he had come along that road, even in so short a time.

"She did what was necessary," was his quiet, even proud assessment of Saavik's ministrations on Genesis. "I had no memories, conscious or unconscious. As l'nara, her only recourse was to soothe and comfort me as a human would comfort another human."

"Then why couldn't she look at you when you saw her last?"

"Sarah--" He sighed. "Perhaps I did my work too well with her. Or perhaps--perhaps I found her too soon. For me. I was...different then, was I not?" She nodded. "What she did was to vary the Vulcan ritual to accommodate a half human. It was logical."

"And compassionate."

"Indeed."

"But compassion wasn't part of the lesson," she mused sadly, and he sighed.

"Not as I remember it."

"So she feels as though she failed as a Vulcan."

"It would seem so." Sarah's mind was on other things, and she did not answer. "What is troubling you now?" he asked.

"You know." She looked down at their hands, clasped palm to palm on the coverlet between them. "Why didn't you ever ask me to invite her here?"

"That choice was yours. And my parents'."

"I talked your mother out of it," she said, still looking down. "I convinced her that Saavik wouldn't be able to handle the whole family en masse, that it would be too much for her."

"There was some truth in that."

"Oh, Spock--there's some truth in everything if you want it to be there." Still looking down at their hands, she forced herself to go on. "You and I weren't doing wonderfully right then, and I was jealous of her. I've seen her in your mind. She's beautiful."

"Parted from me and never parted...."

"I know. And I should have been able to remember what it's like to be a child with no parents. If you were most people, you'd be reminding me to remember right now, even though it's years too late."

"The past cannot be undone. Are you that Sarah now?"

"No."

"Then why?"

The sky was brightening and Sarah was beginning to fade before they came to the thing that troubled him most.

"They are uncomfortable in my presence," he said. "All of them, except perhaps McCoy. Now." A faint smile.

"He's finally got you where he wants you."

"Indeed." But his mind was elsewhere. "I have so many questions."

"Does that bother them?"

"It frightens them."

She nodded. "Mr. Spock always had all the answers. Now he has nothing but questions. Maybe Jim should talk to them about it."

He did not answer.

"Jim isn't afraid of you."

"No." He was silent again, and she waited out his silence. Then, finally: "Jim hurts." He pressed his lips together. "He has lost his ship, he has lost his son, and now he wants me at his side as though I had always been there, and he wants it...yesterday." Relieved, she saw a small, wry smile.

"That's not a reasonable expectation."

"He does not expect it, Sarah. He simply wants it."

"Get McCoy to talk to him, then."

Spock sighed. "McCoy has his own purgatories, and they are not self-made."

There were sounds from the next room once again, and Sarah got up. Could the day be beginning so soon? When she opened the door, T'Ara was already on her way out into the hall with Shevek on her hip. She turned, raised her eyebrows (It is logical, Mother), and departed without a word. Smiling in spite of herself, Sarah stepped into her bedroom and closed the door again, only to find Spock standing at the window, looking out into the courtyard where the first light of dawn was gilding the fountain's highest plume.

"I remember now," he said, still facing the window. "It was when I came home human. I awakened afraid to love you again because I was not whole."

She stood still for a moment, and then asked softly, "Are you that Spock now?"

She moved toward him, unfastening her robe and letting it slip to the floor. He did the same, and then turned so that the dawnlight illuminated him too, and she drank in his beauty as he drank in hers--first with eyes only, then with eyes and touching hands, finally with flesh against flesh. "Lie with me naked," she whispered, and it was as though he never had, as though this were a new beginning far from new.

When it was full daylight, she said, "You kept your promise. I'm tired."

He was frowning a little as he raised himself and cupped her shoulders in his hands. "My day is ending, and yours is just beginning."

"My dearest love, I was a medical student once, remember? I have a prescription that can keep me going all day even without any sleep at all." He waited, concerned. "It's called adrenalin, and it's available in its natural form...." Smile spreading, she pushed him away a little. "Shall I show you where?"

"I think not." But the eyebrow was beginning to go. "Perhaps another time?"

She had taken a stim once, during her first year in medical school, before she realized that the physiological legacy of her nonhuman grandmother included the ability to function at top efficiency for several days without sleep. The way she felt today was a little like that, she thought--capable of flying out of the window and over the rooftops of ShiKahr and even over the mountains. In the morning, she accompanied the residents on grand rounds as she did once every tenday. Sorep did a fine job of answering their questions and pontificated only toward the end. She was proud of him and told him so--in a suitably oblique manner that pleased him without requiring that he tell her he was pleased. After lunch, she dutifully retired for her nap, expecting to sleep because of the nagging ache of fatigue in her arms and legs. She succeeded only in keeping her eyes closed for half an hour, and that barely. By the time she rose and went to participate with Kim in the first round of Phase Three, she had planned her speech to the board of directors, where she would appeal the following tenday for the funding of several innovative pieces of equipment. Later today, she would catch up on all her professional reading in T'Loreth's office, and then she would go home, and Spock would be there.

Together she and Kim prepared the initial injections for the four multiracial babies who had been the first subjects to survive the AGU after conception in vitro. This was Phase Three, the beginning of supportive treatment for the subjects, compensating for the trauma of being transferred so early in their gestation that the AGUs still could not fully compensate. All four were now out of the units, but barely--still on life support, untouched by humanoid hands, fed and medicated by means of waldoshots. They were also lethargic and unresponsive. But if Kim and T'Shova were right (and they had always been right before), Phase Three medication would produce a noticeable change for the better within hours, if not within minutes.

"You need to get back on the line once in a while, boss," Kim had said more than once. But it was clear to Sarah that this former peer was as delighted asshe that they were working together again. As project director, Sarah had been involved in every step of the work, as T'Loreth required. But being project director was one thing; being Kim's partner again for the fifteen days of T'Shova's round trip to Rigel was quite another.

Carefully checking one another's work, they prepared the shots for the four babies. Once Kim glanced up, but she said nothing. Then they took turns attaching the modified hypos to the waldoducts.

The first subject's color improved when the medication reached her bloodstream, but the tiny creature showed no other change. The second and third also showed improvement, and Sarah could feel the charge of excitement passing between her and her partner even before Kim spoke.

"I'm glad it's you," Kim said simply, and they smiled at each other. Then still high on adrenalin and renewed sisterhood, Sarah reached for the fourth hypomod, attached it to the intake duct, and was on the verge of depressing the injecter when Kim's hand clamped around her wrist.

Freezing, she raised her eyes to Kim's, and saw sheer horror there.

"Look at it," Kim whispered. "My God, Sarah--look what you're doing!"

And looking, Sarah saw that the hypomod was empty--a spare that they had requisitioned in case of malfunction. If Kim had not stayed her hand, she would have injected twenty-five cubic centimeters of Vulcan air into the bloodstream of an infant barely as long as her forearm.

"What is the matter with you today?" Kim still whispered, but her voice filled the room, the city, all of Vulcan, the universe. "You act like you're spaced out, you got the dosage wrong on one of the hypos, and now...." Her voice trailed off. "You didn't get any sleep last night." It was not a question. "Did you take a stim this morning?"

"No," Sarah whispered. "It's-- I--" She could not think what it was she had been going to say, and after a moment, Kim turned and went back to her work.

Sarah stood unmoving while Kim replaced the hypomod and gave the fourth injection, then moved from one unit to the other, checking the occupants, her attention concentrated on what she was doing. Sarah concentrated on keeping her legs from shaking. It was a difficult task, but it was all she was capable of thinking about at the moment.

When Kim had finished, she walked back to her supervisor, and they faced one another--dark eyes and blue, both without expression. We must look like a couple of Vulcans, Sarah thought, and said aloud, "That's right. It can't happen again, and it won't."

"What are you going to do to keep it from happening, Sarah?"

"I'm--" She tried to focus on the conversation, but all she could think of was the empty hypomod. "I don't know," she whispered. "Spock is working nights. They're all working nights. It's...too hot to work during the day." Dear God, is this what they mean by crashing? Kim's face was clear enough, but the rest of the room shimmered and shifted, and now she could not keep her legs from shaking.

"Well, I think what you ought to do first is sit down." Kim found a chair and shoved it against Sarah's legs from behind. "Sit." When Sarah obeyed, Kim moved around to stand in front of her. "Want to put your head down for a minute?"

"I'm not faint. It's--" I was flying. And now I'm floating. And when gravity kicks in--

"You're going to have to work nights too, you know. You can't survive this unless you do."

"Department chairs work days," Sarah whispered.

"I work days," said Kim. "You can do most of the paperwork during your shift, and I'll be acting chair and run in place." She grimaced. "How do you like that? Dragon Lady as acting chair of H.O. at the V.S.A. Think I can handle it?"

All Sarah could manage to answer was, "Oh, Kim."

"Yeah. Well. T'Shova'll be back before we know it, and she can handle Phase Three for a while." Sarah shook her head, unable to speak. "Oh, yes," said Kim. "It's the only answer. Do you want to talk to T'Loreth now, or do you want to go home?"

"Meetings," said Sarah. "You'll have meetings every day."

Kim managed a faint grin. "Oh," she said, "I'll send Sorep to the meetings."

Fifteen minutes later, Sarah was sitting on the couch in T'Loreth's office--the same couch where she came so often at the end of the day to do her professional reading and absorb the calming essence of the Vulcan chief of staff. Here, she had planned as she lay on her couch with her mind racing, she would catch up on all the journals she had not been able to read while Spock's fate hung on the ingenuity, daring, and love of one James T. Kirk. At the thought, a poison that she had tasted only once before rose in her soul, but she suppressed it. She had just enough energy to get through the next ten minutes with no distractions.

In as few words as possible, she described the incident in the lab and its cause. "I'm going to work nights for the next three months," she finished, wondering how long it would be before edges of everything would begin to blur again. Not long enough, she knew, for her to argue with a Vulcan, let alone with T'Loreth. Shooting the moon was the only way, for whatever it was that had kept all the juggler's balls in the air these past days was almost gone. Her only safety net was seventeen years of friendship and mutual support. If that net did not hold.... "So I'm resigning as project director on the multiracial study. Kim's going to take over. She's also agreed to be acting chair of H.O. during that time. We'll both put in an extra half hour so that our shifts will overlap every morning. I'll be doing all the reports and the other paperwork at night."

T'Loreth simply looked at her for a long moment. Then she said, "Those are not interrogative statements."

"I've never played games with you."

T'Loreth nodded. "And if I decline to approve these changes?"

"As my immediate supervisor, you have that right."

"But you do not believe I will exercise it."

"No, I don't. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Kim is a brilliant research scientist, but she'd go out of her mind trying to run H.O. on a permanent basis. T'Shova's the same, and there's nobody else here, and that means you'd have to wear two hats until you find a replacement for me. I calculate the probabilities at something less than 10 percent that the transitory pleasure of showing me who's boss would be worth it to you. Besides, you know I already know."

"That," said T'Loreth expressionlessly, "is logical."

"I've had the best teacher on Vulcan."

T'Loreth inclined her head. "The obligation was mine," she said with a faint sigh.

Nodding, Sarah eased herself back on the couch until she was resting against the cushions, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. Now, at last, her entire body trembled.

"It is also logical," T'Loreth continued, "that this accommodation to circumstance may cause you to resent Spock in time. Participation in Phase Three was important to you."

Sarah opened her eyes. "Resent?" she repeated. Who had been teaching whom?

T'Loreth shrugged. "If you do this for Spock--"

"I'm not doing it for Spock, T'Loreth. I'm doing it for me. Besides, I've been accommodating to circumstance for eleven years." Again, the taste of poison rose like fire, and again she fought it down. "By comparison, this is a piece o' cake."

I've been accommodating for eleven years.

She had forgotten to shade the windows in her office after her so-called nap, and the room swam red and gold before her eyes. Hot, she thought, knowing it wasn't hot in the room. The heat was inside her. All those days of waiting, she had been cold all the time. Now something was smouldering, trying to burst into flame, and that smouldering was within her.

Wash my face. Just keep going. Get some water on my face and keep going and it'll pass.

The bathroom adjacent to her office had no window; the light would go on automatically as soon as she crossed the threshold. But on the threshold she halted, staring across the cubicle at the apparition she saw there.

The light was behind her, and in the mirror above the wash basin she saw her silhouette, holding onto the door frame. The apparition in the mirror had no face--only a dark shape vaguely human, clinging to the door frame as she had clung to the opening of the anti-grav tube sweating and trembling--just as she was sweating and trembling now. Closing her eyes for an instant as she had then, she stepped into the bathroom, activating the light.

"You look like a witch," she whispered, and her reflection grimaced. Something smouldering inside. What are you burying, Sarah? She bent over the basin to wash her face, just as she had done here so many times before.

I've been accommodating for eleven years. But it was more than eleven years that fell away now. In memory, she saw the young Sarah Halsted sitting on the floor with the young Jim Kirk, and heard young Sarah speak lightly, teasingly.

"You were all for my starting to rearrange my life around yours."

The poison overflowed, gravity kicked, and the juggler dropped all the balls.

"This isn't Jim's fault!" Her fists smacked her reflection's fists, but in memory they struck Jim's shoulders again and again as she cried out in an agony of grief for all of the dead Spock's days that she would never share: I want them back and you can't! They'll always be yours! "It's not his fault. It's not. It's not." The basin was narrow, recessed, space-saving, and she was able to lean her forehead against the mirror so that she could no longer see her reflection--only her tears smearing the glass. "It's not. It's not...." But her fists still beat against the fists of that shape with no face that waited for her in the dark, full of poison and fire.

He has lost his ship, he has lost his son, and now....

She sobbed against the mirror for a long time, then bent and washed her face before meeting her reflection's eyes once more. "If it weren't for him, Spock would still be dead," she whispered. The other stared back at her--expressionless, dull eyes with dark, bruise-like smudges beneath.

She waved out the light and left the office, trembling and totally drained. Only when she picked up Shevek in daycare and held him close, her face buried in his sweet baby aura, did the trembling finally stop.

"I almost killed a baby today, Shev, and it was nobody's fault but mine," she whispered. "He was just about half as big as you are. How was your day?"

"Mupup," said Shevek, snuggling closer.

"Good," she said, and began to bundle him into his carrier. "I'm glad somebody's was. C'mon. Up. Up."

"Upup," Shevek agreed.

She slept until the following morning, and woke to find Spock's arms around her, his body and spirit drawing the agony from hers as his fingers had once drawn the pain from her mind. How did you know? she asked silently, but he gave no answer in words.

In time she felt him hard against her, and now it was she who could give no answer in kind, could not even seek release when, emotionally drained as she was, there was nothing within her to release. Yet when he tried to draw away, she held him close and spread herself beneath him.

"You are not in need," he whispered, once again unsure.

"I need you all the time." Again she wound her legs around him, drawing him in, delighting in his small shock of pleasure and surprise when he found her wet and welcoming. "All the time." Peace entered her with him, swelling and spilling within her as he did. The patient she had nearly killed was alive in the hospital, and Spock was alive in her.

"I don't understand," he said finally, spent now, and again in confusion. "This was so different for you, and yet it was the same."

"You know the answer. Your parents taught you."

She felt him searching his memories, finding new ones where he least expected them, coming at last to the only answer she could ever give him.

"It was necessary." That was his parents' catchword--a cryptic verbal symbol for needs incomprehensible to or unfelt by the speaker. "But only to me."

"No." She stroked his hair, short and smooth once again. "Why did you cut your hair?" she asked, knowing.

"It was your wish--and theirs."

"Did anybody ask you to?"

"No. But it was...." He held his breath, listening within. "Necessary."

"To you or to them?"

"Both." She could feel his smile, and the comprehension dawning with it. "Necessary to both."

When it came time to go the the hospital for her initial evening shift, Sarah called in sick for the first time in seventeen years.

Odd, she thought, that it did not disturb her that she could barely get out of bed long enough to eat supper and tend to Shevek's needs. She wanted only to go nowhere and do nothing, and there was a rightness to that need that told her that it would pass as soon as it was satisfied. Nothing had changed; her life was the same as it had been for eleven years except that Spock was with her and would not be going away for a while this time. That watershed would be her salvation or her downfall, but she did not have the energy to wonder which it would be.

After a drifting, dreamless sleep, she woke at dawn to find Spock sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand holding hers.

"Are you in need of medical attention?" he asked.

"No. If I were my doctor, I'd say, 'Doctor, take a few days off and get some rest.'" She smiled lazily. "I feel like I can't lie down far enough."

"Or long enough?" he asked, frowning a little, and she realized that she had hardly been out of bed for a day and two nights.

"Well...."

"Come, then." He picked her up, carried her out to the courtyard where Shevek was trying to crawl and, to the un-Vulcan delight of his sister, had made it off his blanket. I didn't even hear him wake up, Sarah thought as Spock turned a chair with his foot so that the sun would not shine in her eyes and then settled her into the chair. "Who took him up?" she asked, and her inner detachment rocked a little.

"T'Ara and I," Spock informed her, mildly smug.

"Indeed," said T'Ara.

"But I should--"

"My wife--" Spock extended two fingers, and she met them with hers. "Attend." The right eyebrow climbed, and she relaxed. "You too must obey your doctor's orders."

"This is your 'night,'" she reminded him. But he was obviously not tired, and she knew that he normally required a great deal less sleep than she did.

"I shall rest when the need arises," he assured her, and was true to his word. When the sun grew hot, they moved inside for breakfast. Shortly after T'Ara left for school, Shevek, having stubbornly inched his way into the study, went flat on his stomach and fell asleep in the middle of the floor. As she stretched out on the couch there, Sarah simply nodded when Spock raised his eyebrows at her. He then lay down next to his son and promptly fell asleep too. Still not quite himself. But getting there fast. In the past two days....

"Do you have any idea how far he's come since he's been with you?"

Closing her eyes, she sought healing detachment rather than crippling repression of the anger and resentment she now knew was there--let herself drift, remembering her own words to Spock so long ago: "Jim is no threat to me unless I make him that."

Words to live by--or with.

So live with it, she thought. 

Physician, heal thyself.

No one else can.

By the next afternoon, Shevek was crawling all over the house.

T'Ara had never crawled, and Sarek had spent a great deal of time with her while she was learning to walk, deeply involved in her pre-control development. Jill had crawled briefly, and her mother, isolated and bored on Tara, had devoted herself to following the baby around because Jill was by far the most interesting thing life had to offer at the time. But this was different. Shevek's mother was already feeling better, but it was exhausting just to watch Shevek's father playing security guard, following his scuttling son around, arms folded across his chest.

"I should be doing that," she said, devoutly thankful that she wasn't.

"Why?"

"You shouldn't have to."

"Why not?"

Spock's only problem with the situation was so characteristic of him that Sarah had to get up and hug him before they could even discuss it.

"He's so long," she explained, "but he hardly has any hips. I just can't program the recycler so that a diaperpant that's big enough for him will stay on for more than a few minutes."

"If memory serves," Shevek's father informed her, "I have never observed anything this inefficient." He stalked off to inspect the recycler, a commercial model decorated with a bold warning that it was not to be opened by the customer. The customer opened it, ran the program once, scooped up Shevek in mid-scuttle, stripped off the current diaper, and held Shevek up, squealing and wriggling, while his father took visual measurements, back and front.

"Better be careful," Sarah suggested. "He might have to--"

"He will not 'have to' for another three point six minutes." Having completed his measurements, Spock deposited the naked baby in her lap. "Mark." He spent the next quarter-hour reprogramming the recycler, and the result was a diaperpant that Shevek did not lose for almost that time.

The second measurement session was less leisurely; the margin of error was obviously slim. Trying to keep a straight face, Sarah was nevertheless able to keep from commenting. The result was flawless: for the first time since he had pulled himself up to rock, Shevek of Vulcan went from change to change without mishap.

Shortly thereafter, Shevek's mother approached Shevek's father as he walked with folded arms behind his well-diapered son, laid her arms across his shoulders and linked her hands behind his neck. Smiling a little in response to the laughter in her eyes, he put his arms around her waist, linking his hands behind her.

"I love you," she said.

"Non sequitur," he said, both eyebrows on the rise.

She touched her parted lips to his, a kiss for the moment only, promising nothing, denying nothing, simply there.

"No," she said. "It isn't."

Allowing herself one more shift away from the hospital, she left T'Ara with the baby that evening and accompanied Amanda to the greenhouse at the foot of the garden. There was weeding to be done, and now Sarah's muscles cried out for activity.

The greenhouse was cooler than their living quarters, and the humid air smelled of Earth and of wet things growing. Amanda refused to use chemical weed suppressant, and so they had plenty to keep them busy. But eventually Sarah sat back on her heels, removed her garden gloves, wiped her forehead with her wrist, and told Amanda about Spock's characteristic behavior with the diaper recycler. "I can't stop wanting our life to be different," she finished. "But I can't want him to be different."

Amanda went on tugging in silence. Finally she asked, "Who has to change, then?"

"I don't know how to do that." Sarah said the words aloud for the first time.

"Oh, Sarah. Just change back. You've been doing it for eleven years."

"Doing what?"

"Holding close with open hands."

Looking down at her hands, Sarah realized that she had clenched her fists. "Everybody always says, 'Hang on,'" she said, genuinely bewildered. "'Hang in there.' 'Hang tight.' And you tell me to--"

"Everybody?" Amanda echoed wryly. "You mean men, mostly." She jerked out a particularly stubborn weed and tossed it into the basket beside her. "Or has the old neighborhood changed that much since I moved away?"

Still sitting back on her heels, Sarah let her hands fall open on her knees. "Maybe I've forgotten how. You can't juggle with open hands." And she told Amanda about the anti-grav tube with the juggler buried at the bottom.

Amanda continued her task as she listened. When Sarah had finished her story, she asked quietly, "Is that how you see yourself now--buried in all the balls you've dropped?"

"No." Sarah sighed, smiling a little. "They're all over the bathroom next to my office."

"Good," said Amanda. "How did you manage that?"

And Sarah told her.

"I hit him as hard as I could that night," she said finally, "just like I hit the mirror. I kept hitting his shoulders and screaming, 'Damn you! Damn you!' And he didn't even try to stop me." Amanda had taken off her gloves and moved close, but Sarah did not look up or try to stop the fall of her tears onto her open hands. "And then he held my hands while I cried for Spock." Amanda took her hands and held them, and still the tears fell. "I thought I'd never stop crying but I did and I thanked him for not saying 'I'm sorry' and he said 'I'm not' and I said 'That's all that saves it' and it is."

They sat together on the floor as the moist, green-smelling darkness gathered about them, Amanda still holding Sarah's hands. When the tears stopped, Sarah said, "And tomorrow night I have to go back and gather them all up again. How do I do that, Amanda?"

After a moment, Amanda said softly, "How 'bout one at a time?"

One morning a month later, when she left the hospital on time, Sarah circled around toward the Bounty's landing field on her way home. It was midwinter now, over one Earth month since Jim Kirk and his crew had brought Spock home from Genesis, and the sun rose late; it was still cool enough when she walked home to enjoy sweet breezes, she had never seen the bubble, and if Spock were still there they could walk home together.

It says here, she thought. She would enjoy walking home with Spock, but that was not her mission this morning.

Back at work, night-shifted and centered within herself once more, she knew that the time had come to test herself. She had not seen Jim Kirk since the evening she left Spock in his care, and he still declined to visit the house on the hill. As time passed, he became less real to her and more symbolic--as though he, rather than her feelings about him, were the monster in the mirror. That thought had jolted her, and was the proximate cause of her detour this morning. 

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