Archive of Our Own

* * *

Stars were falling deep in the darkness
as prayers rose softly, petals at dawn
And as I listened, your voice seemed so clear
so calmly you were calling, calling him

Somewhere the sun rose over dunes in the desert
such was the stillness I never felt before
Was this the question pulling, pulling you
in your heart, in your soul, did you find rest there?

Elsewhere a snowfall, the first in the winter
covered the ground as the bells filled the air
You in your robes sang, calling, calling him
in your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?

Loreena McKennitt Full Circle

* * *

Winter solstice, on a world that has never known snow.

Spock had intended to make his way straight to Seleya, but his father was waiting for his transport at Space Central. Facing him on the terminal platform, Spock experienced a sinking in his stomach not so far different from that he had felt often as a child, when called to task for some indiscretion.

"Ambassador," he said, unable to bring himself to call the man by any other name. The sharp eyes appraised him, perhaps seeing too much. Spock would not make excuses. Coming this far had been difficult enough; he did not have the fortitude to argue with his father.

"Spock." Sarek's face betrayed nothing, and yet his very presence communicated his displeasure. "Was it your intention to travel directly to the sanctuary?"

"That was my intention." It was all he could manage. There was only one person who could have told Sarek what he planned, and he could not face the thought of speaking that name aloud.

"Your mother will not understand."

Spock did not let his eyes falter; would not. "I do not ask her to understand. I do what I must." He heard the weariness in his own voice. He had spoken to no one in three days; even this limited attempt at conversation was exhausting him. He wanted only to reach the mountain sanctuary, and let the Masters take him in and burn this pain out of him, cauterize it, with the flame of logic. He wanted to be empty. He did not think he could bear to feel any more--even if it was only guilt for avoiding his mother's unwelcome sympathy.

"Spock... I have spoken to your Captain."

The effort it took not to flinch felt like it tore something inside of him. "I will not discuss this with you, Ambassador."

"This decision is quite unexpected. I fear that it is made in haste, and ill-advised."

"I do not require your approval."

"My son, the discipline of kolinahr is considered by some an extremist, reactionary tradition whose time has past."

Spock looked at his father sharply. "By some?"

Sarek's eyes lowered, an acknowledgment. "I have reason to lend some credence to this point of view, yes."

Spock understood that there could be only one motivation for Sarek to speak thus. But his father's concern was more than he could bear, now. He hurt too much. The raw edges of his control could not withstand this gentle, invasive questioning, this atypical solicitousness. He wanted only to get away.

"You yourself have repeatedly impressed upon me the need for mastery, Ambassador. Shall you now judge me for having recognized the wisdom of your teachings?"

"My son, I wish only to know that you have considered the ramifications of such a choice."

Spock could not suppress the twisting thing in his heart, and he knew by the widening of Sarek's eyes that it showed on his face. "You do not understand. There is no choice."

For a moment, Sarek could not find words, and that was so unprecedented that Spock could almost find humor in it. But then he saw his father's dawning realization, and the pity, and could not hold that hawkish gaze any longer.

Spock looked away. "Your son is a fool, Ambassador."

"Does he know?" Sarek said with difficulty, after a moment. "Is he aware that you and he are--"

It was said with restraint, without condemnation or judgment, but still Spock found that he could not endure it.

"I will not speak of it."

"Spock." Sarek's voice was pitched low, intent, almost inaudible even at this distance. "If you have not told him of the link, perhaps--"

"He knows!" Said too sharply. Spock knew then that he had reached the limits of his control; he had to get away, now, before he disgraced himself utterly in the public terminal. He summoned the last shreds of restraint he possessed and turned pleading eyes on his father, lowered his voice. "He knows. You must see the inevitability. I beg you, allow me to go and do not speak further of things that do not concern you."

Sarek looked pained. "Your welfare... concerns me. I ask only that you consider alternatives."

"There are none."

"There are always--"

"You know nothing of it!"

"Does he?" Under the harsh whisper Spock heard the tone of the galactic ambassador, naked steel restrained. "He knows, but does he understand? Have you given him all the facts? He is human, Spock, and cannot be expected to understand the implications of a spontaneous joining." Sarek's voice dropped, the closest thing to a plea Spock had ever heard from him. "He wishes only to speak with you."

Spock turned away from his father, one terrifying breath from striking him. Couldn't Sarek see how close he was to the edge? He felt the world starting to shatter around him, splintering treacherously as he tried to hold it together. The place of light within him called irresistibly. "I must go," he said, all he could manage. He started to walk away.

Sarek's words followed him, pitched to just reach him. "I cannot believe he would betray you so, if he knew the facts. He has been willing to die for you, my son. Have you forgotten?"

Back turned to his father, Spock closed his eyes for a moment, the memory of koon-ut-kalifee a burnt afterimage on his heart. Of course he had not forgotten. But Sarek could not understand, could not know what had passed between himself and his captain, could not see that there was, in fact, nowhere else for him to go except Seleya.

"No," Spock whispered. "I have not forgotten." But he was already moving, putting distance between himself and the Ambassador before he lost control in earnest--running in slow motion, as he had been since Jim's lips had branded his on the steps of the transporter platform.

He made his way down the spiraling foot ramp like a man three times his age, knowing that if he moved too quickly, he would shatter. No, Sarek could not understand--for he did not know James Kirk as Spock did. Did not know how Spock had taken what he needed, not giving Kirk the chance to give it freely. Did not see how he had condemned himself from that moment forward.

His father was right, of course. Jim would willingly give anything for Spock's sake--even that which had been taken from him by a thief in the night who wore his best friend's face. But his father was also wrong, if he believed that Spock would allow it.

He would not permit the indulgence of wishing for what might have been. He would go to Seleya, and Kirk would be free, and he would not ever have to bear the human's eventual resentment or condemnation, would not have to watch the gradual unraveling of that irrepressible, fiercely independent personality. This obscene agony of wanting would be burned away by the desert sun until nothing save logic remained-- and if he paid for Jim's freedom with his heart, so be it.

He reached the surface transport depot, and slid his credit chit into a groundcar terminal. Outside, he saw a car back out of its slip on autopilot. It came obediently toward him, and parked itself at the edge of the walkway, waiting patiently. He had regained some measure of control now; his hands, at least, had stopped trembling so visibly. Sarek might never know how close he had come to pushing his son into an emotional display of unprecedented proportions.

There was no question that he was making the correct choice; that there was, as he had said to his father, no real choice at all. For him, there would be the sterility of Gol, and in time the pain would fade as if it had never been. As for Kirk, he would feel hurt, perhaps betrayed--but that would be nothing to what would have happened if he had stayed. Jim would adjust. It had only been loneliness and cumulative stress that had made him turn to Spock with such open need in the first place--the worst of all betrayals that Spock had forced it to be more.

Better by far to go now, before that betrayal could destroy everything good that had ever been between them.

With that certainty in his heart, the son of Sarek went out into the midday glare and did not look back.

* * *

James Kirk became an expert at holding on.

They knighted him Admiral, Chief of Starfleet Operations, and in the beginning he sheltered behind his lofty titles and tried to function normally. He might as well have been an amputee, struggling along, pretending the missing limb didn't change anything, hoping that pretending would make it true. In the course of a week, he had lost everything that mattered to him.

The communique from Sarek had made it real. It was a text message, succinct and to the point, the ambassador said only, "Endeavor unsuccessful, Admiral. My regrets. May you find success in your new assignment."

Kirk had gone to Vulcan then. Later, he would see it hadn't been a rational idea. He'd understand why Sarek had refused to help him get into the sanctuary, had made him go home. Later, he'd know what Sarek and Amanda had been trying so kindly to tell him.

Spock wasn't coming back.

McCoy had tried to help, but in the end Kirk had found himself unable to bear the man's solicitous concern. The temptation to confess everything had been overwhelming, but fear of the darkness such a confession would release in him had been greater. He hadn't deserved confession, certainly hadn't deserved comfort. In the end, he'd realized the obvious--that he didn't even deserve the friendship.

McCoy himself had provided the ammunition Kirk needed to push him away. The doctor had gone to Starfleet Medical, appealing Kirk's promotion on psychological grounds.

When Kirk had learned of it, he'd hit the ceiling. "What the hell did you think you were doing, going behind my back like that!" he'd stormed at McCoy, the day he'd found out.

"Look, Admiral, if you can't look out for yourself, someone's got to look out for you! This promotion is gonna kill you. Don't you see that?"

"It's not your decision, Doctor. I'm a big boy. I can make my own decisions. Hell, I get paid to make them!"

"Not any more, you don't," McCoy had reminded him, and that truth had pushed Kirk over the edge. The argument had degenerated from there. Knowing what he was doing even as he did it, Kirk had driven the well-meaning doctor out of his apartment and out of his life. As the days became weeks, he began to think the breach might even be permanent.

Troubled by a disturbing recurring dream, Kirk found himself eating little and sleeping less. He took refuge in his staggering workload, quickly falling into the habit of shutting himself in his office, staying late. It did no good. The nightmare of suffocating pursued him even into exhausted sleep, threatened to follow him into the light of day.

He could not afterward remember exactly when the dream had started, only that within a matter of weeks it came to haunt even his waking hours. There was no form to it, and less detail. Upon waking from it, he would find himself bathed in sweat and gasping, sometimes even hyperventilating--and reeking of fear. He would remember only silence. If he'd been in command, he would have taken himself off duty and checked himself into Sickbay for a good dose of Southern psychiatry.

He wasn't in command. He could afford to keep his slow disintegration to himself, hold it close. He had no one to tell.

The weeks passed. That oppressive silence became a riptide that would swell over him whenever his guard faltered, each day a battle he couldn't afford to lose. He wouldn't think of what he had become.

He wouldn't think of Spock.

In the darkest hours of night, when his usual methods of coping failed, he would lie to himself, tell himself that it wasn't forever.

Late one evening, the suffocating feeling came when he was awake, and it disturbed him so badly that he opened all the windows of his flat, drawing great lungfuls of cool, crisp October air until the attack subsided. When at last he could breathe, he went into the kitchen. He got out everything to make herbal tea, and put it on the counter.

He didn't like tea, had never liked tea... but he'd found that sometimes it helped him get back to sleep. It was the only concession he would make to the pain he would not face. Tonight, though, he opened the packet of tea and the fragrance wafted out, and for some reason it reminded him of k'rh'tha, the pungent beverage Spock would drink sometimes when they played chess.

He stood then at the counter, leaning on his arms, feeling the taut heaviness rise up in his chest. He wanted to let go. Anything to make that pressure ease. He even tried to let go, tried to make the tears come. For the first time in weeks he let himself think of Spock, made himself think of Spock, made himself remember walking with him along the shaded avenue in New Orleans. Made himself remember what it had been like to kiss Spock, an immolation, as if every part of him wanted to burn up with the pleasure of it.

Still the tears wouldn't come, and so he thought of the Enterprise and Spock, made himself remember being on the bridge, getting ready to beam down to a new planet, what it had been like to sense the Vulcan at his right shoulder. To turn and meet his eyes and share that moment, this is what we're out here for, this is what makes it worthwhile.

He almost did cry, then. But the feeling of impending tears was too much like suffocating, and his body rebelled, refused to let go. Finally there was only the hard knot in his chest, the tight ache in his throat. He sank down to the cold tile, wrapped his arms around his knees and sat there until morning.

More weeks passed. The anxiety attacks got no better, nor were they worse; he buried himself in work and tried to keep up the facade, though his weight loss and fatigue were starting to get him strange looks at HQ. He found himself avoiding old friends, acquaintances--anyone at Starfleet Command who might know him well enough to ask questions.

Well, that was a short list. He'd found that Chief of Ops was not a job that invited popularity.

The one-time captain of the Enterprise met Vice Admiral Lori Ciani for the first time at a formal reception he'd been unable to avoid, some overblown affair to honor a dignitary whose name he would not remember afterward. He didn't know what made her approach him, that first night, certainly didn't know what made her decide to come home with him. He speculated in the beginning that she had some agenda...that she, or someone higher up in the Admiralty suspected that one James T. Kirk was on the verge of a breakdown.

Later, he would tell himself she wouldn't have stayed just for that. Maybe one night, or a week, even a month--but not almost two years. Surely not.

That night, it hardly mattered. A drowning man can't afford to choose his rescuer.

In a month's time they were spending most of their nights together, and when the silence came for him he would lie awake and listen to the soft rhythm of her breathing. And then he would sleep, a blessedly dreamless sleep. He began to believe the strange, unprecedented panic attacks had disappeared for good.

Shortly thereafter, that proved to be wishful thinking.

* * *

He woke gasping, hyperventilating, a stabbing pain in his head that felt like a blunt needle sunk through his left eye and into his brain. Lori was shaking him, saying his name.

"Lights!" she said, and he made an incoherent sound of protest. Too late. The light stabbed him, drove the needle in, and he moaned in pain, turned his face against her to hide from the brutal brightness.

"No... no lights." He could barely get the words out.

"Jesus, Jim, here--" she waved the lights down to a bare minimum, but it was still too bright. He still couldn't get enough air. "Computer, atmosphere controls, raise oxygen mix two levels." She snapped the order out, put her arm around him.

He shuddered and concentrated on trying to breathe for a while, holding on to her with the grip of a drowning man. She rubbed his shoulders, held him as his breathing gradually calmed.

"I'm sorry," he said when he could. "I'm all right."

She sat back, hand on the back of his neck. "You sure?"

He nodded. Clammy perspiration cooled on his forehead; he was shaking. "Yeah, sorry, it... it happens sometimes." He felt like a fool, could feel his cheeks burning.

"What happens? What the hell was that, Jim? You scared me half to death."

He drew a steadying breath, closing his eyes against the low illumination and the fear in her voice. His head still throbbed, though the pain had receded a little. "Just a nightmare. I... get them sometimes. It's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about? Jim, you stopped breathing!"

That made him open his eyes, made him look at her. "What?"

She gave him a hard look in return. "You stopped breathing. I don't know for how long. I had to slap you to make you wake up."

He raised a hand to his cheek, registering the warm stinging of his skin for the first time. He met her green eyes again, shook his head faintly, not knowing what to say.

"Has this happened before?" she asked quietly, at last.

"Yes, I think so..." He was at a loss. He suddenly felt unsteady, as if the foundation of his very self were threatening to give way. "I don't know."

"Well, it seems to me this is a little more than 'nothing to worry about.' Have you been checked by Doctor Benali?"

The mere thought made him want to shudder. Let some stranger poke around in his brain, with psionoscanners and hypnotapes and god knew what else? Not a chance in hell.

He tried to shrug it off casually. "What, for a few bad dreams? You've got to be kidding." He pulled away from her a little, swung his feet over the side of the bed. "I'm just... settling in, that's all."

"Jim... it's been almost eight months."

Her voice was too close in the half-light, too intimate, and felt like an invasion. "Lori, don't you think you're being a little bit of an alarmist?" He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

"Frankly...no, I don't. I almost called a med team."

He kept his voice light, not looking at her, not letting her see the unsteadiness, the irritation. This wasn't something that he wanted her to examine. The last thing he needed was for her to turn the laser-fine beam of her curiosity on his psyche. "Look, I've had these dreams before, and they don't mean anything. I hardly ever have them any more. Relax, all right?"

He held his breath; at last she said softly, "All right. For now."

Kirk closed his eyes, breathing relief for a split second. Then he made himself turn, switched on the charm. "Anyway, if it does happen again, you know what the proper prescription is, don't you?"

She eyed him warily, but he could see her responding despite herself; faint color suffused her fair skin. "No, what?"

He turned the smile up a notch, let it go seductive. "Mouth to mouth resuscitation, of course."

She rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched with a suppressed smile. "You are incorrigible, you know that?"

"That's what they tell me." He leaned in for a kiss, concentrating his not inconsiderable skill on making her forget the incident had ever happened.

The effort might have proved successful, if it had been the last time. It wasn't. Over the next three months there were five incidents that she knew about, and two that she didn't, and while they didn't come every night any more, the dreams were if anything more intense, more terrifying. He would wake, sweating and trembling, unable to remember anything save the suffocating weight of his own fear. She would hold him and he would let her, and though she made noise about getting professional help, he always managed to deflect her concern until the next time.

Always, until the night he had the other dream, and the seams of his unevenly stitched marriage began to unravel.

* * *

It started with some Fleet function he'd been invited to but couldn't face. They argued. She said he owed it to his career to make public appearances whenever possible. He retorted with a cutting remark, one designed to wound-- something about refusing to glad hand a bunch of admirals who couldn't make a real decision if the galaxy depended on it. It was a tender spot with her, he knew; she who had never commanded a ship, and never would. She stalked out, her face white, and he went out onto the balcony and listened to the surf, the image of her hurt, betrayed look refusing to fade.

At last he called himself ten kinds of fool, and resolved himself to a sincere apology when she returned.

That decided, he went back inside, poured himself a snifter of brandy and drifted into the darkened living room. The solitude felt surprisingly welcome. He sipped at the brandy, standing at the balcony doors, watching the stars come out.

His relationship with Lori was nothing if not volatile. Tonight, she would come home late, he'd apologize, and they'd make love with that fierceness he'd found he needed in the months since she'd made herself a part of his life. He wasn't sure if that was happiness, or even close to it. But the predictability of it all felt familiar, comforting... and for the first time since he'd lost the Enterprise he had begun to think that there were other kinds of living he could bear.

He hardly ever thought about Spock any more. What would have been the point? He pulled Paradise Lost from the shelf, tried to read for a while. But the argument made him restless; the words didn't pull him in as they usually did. At last he put the book down, finished off the brandy and stood, heading for the bedroom.

There he stripped off his tunic, and with it the thick, thermal undershirt he'd taken to wearing to disguise his weight loss, put them down the chute. Stretching, feeling the buzz of the brandy a little, he went into the bathroom. His likeness in the mirror watched him stretch, watched him come to stand before the glass. They assessed each other, he and his reflection, sardonically noting one another's vanity.

The last few months had taken their toll, the cool, calculating gaze in the mirror said, taking inventory. Muscle weight down. New lines in a face that for years had belied his age. Skin pale, hair darker than its usual burnished gold; ironically, now that he was dirtside all the time he didn't feel much like beaches, or sunshine. He'd gotten more sun on the occasional landing party. Eyes too large, cast in shadow by prominent cheekbones sharpened by weight loss. He looked into those eyes, gave a grim smile, and man and reflection made identical gestures of derision, a one-handed insult picked up on some long-ago shore leave, on some planet he hardly remembered.

He was still a good-looking bastard, and he still thought his looks bought more trouble than they solved. Less fortunate genes might have gone a long way towards keeping him out of Nogura's 'golden boy' media hot seat.

Turning away from the mirror before he could get really disgusted with himself, Kirk finished undressing and turned on the shower. The water grew hot quickly. He tested the temperature with his fingertips, found it pleasantly just this side of scalding, and stepped inside.

Hot water rained a soothing rhythm on his skin, driving thought out of him. He washed his hair, rinsed it, closing his eyes as the fragrant foam sluiced down his neck, down his back. After a while, he became aware that the sensual pleasure of the heat and the sound of the water--and perhaps his earlier thought of Lori coming home, her green eyes flashing with anger--had produced a predictable reaction in his body.

He sighed, opened his eyes. He'd always been quick to rise to any occasion; it didn't take much. It was a part of who he was, and a lifetime of practice at self-control hadn't changed it. Sometimes, over the years, he had hated that about himself --that ready, rampant sexuality he could restrain but never entirely suppress. The life he'd chosen didn't often allow for that sort of expression, and there had been a few times when he'd regretted, afterward, hurting someone he had only wanted to please.

Most of the time, though, he had to admit he'd liked it.

He touched himself casually, with the unselfconsciousness of a man who has found release alone many times out of necessity. And his sex grew hard against his palm, and the water came down, and he leaned against the tile and gave into the compulsion.

As he closed his eyes and stroked himself, slowly, he wasn't thinking of Lori, of that contest of wills... wasn't thinking at all. The brandy was still buzzing pleasantly in his head. All he wanted, suddenly, was not to think... to lose himself in that hum of pleasure, to just feel unadulteratedly good for five minutes.

Slow, even strokes, until he was breathing hard with the effort at control, until all he wanted was to come. And that was what he had wanted most of all--to feel no pain, no thought, no need except the pure, animal need for release, no ache except the deep throb of pleasure in his groin. The simplicity of it was such a relief that he made himself stop, made himself close strong fingers on the base of his cock, prolonging the feeling. Not yet.

He had been a starship captain, with all the enforced aloneness that implied; he was, also, a creature of the senses with a powerful and consuming sexual energy that might have ruled a man of lesser determination and self-discipline. He had, consequently, raised erotic fantasy to an art form over the years. But tonight his surrender was mindless, blunt, his only focus the rising wave of pleasure building in groin and thighs. His rhythm was without subtlety, unthinking. He felt the warning thrum against his fingers, moaned softly, began to thrust slightly into his caressing hand. He didn't want to think. Didn't dare think--

It came, then, the memory he'd been holding back, betraying him in a swift, overwhelming rush of pain and arousal.

The water, yes, and the cool tile against his thighs, the smell of spiced bath oil, strong hands on his waist, holding him, bending him over the lip of the tub--for an instant his cock swelled and throbbed in his hand at the memory, and he sobbed, an incoherent syllable that might have been a name. Orgasm rushed up, and at the same time that vast, unbearable emptiness, and involuntarily his hand closed on his penis like a vise. He cried out in simultaneous pleasure and anguish. Doubled over. He didn't come, couldn't, the punishing grip of his own hand on his betraying sex stemming the orgasm before it could find release. Dull agony throbbed in his scrotum and up through his belly.

You fool. He isn't coming back. Not ever.

He stood like that for almost a minute, holding himself up with one hand splayed against the shower wall, before he was at last able to release that death grip on his own genitals. Pain throbbed again with the increased blood flow. He moaned, pressed the side of his face to the tile. The pain in his belly and in his balls was nothing to the pain in his throat.

At last he straightened, stunned, shocked to his core by what he had done, by the betrayal of his thoughts, most of all by the realization that he would have given anything, anything at all, if he could have made that treacherous memory real.

When the pain in his groin dulled he got out of the shower, went back into the living room without towel or robe, dripping water on the carpet in great dark spots--and proceeded to drink himself into oblivion.

Lori came home in the early morning hours, found him drunk, naked, passed out on the living room sofa. She got a detox into him, got him to bed somehow, though he did not remember it. In the morning, she brought him a glass of water and a metastabilizer, and didn't condemn him. For that, he was deeply grateful. He hated drinking like that, hated being out of control, which was why he never did it. She seemed to sense his profound mortification, for she said nothing about the previous night; when he apologized for the things he'd said, she accepted his apology with equanimity. She left him alone for most of the afternoon, going out for provisions while he brooded in silence, staring at the vid without seeing it.

That evening, he felt a little better. Lori seemed to sense that he was hurting, but she didn't try to drag the explanation out of him. They watched the fire burn down in the fireplace. When they went to bed, for once she just curled around him and went to sleep.

That was the last night of peace between them, for when Kirk slept at last, he dreamed--and not of silence.

* * *

Cold terracotta tiles against his feet, and starlight on his skin.

"Come," the deep voice said, caressing him. "Stand before the window, so that I may look at you."

He obeyed. He was naked, but the voice warmed him, though he could not see its owner. He crossed the tiled floor to the window.

The moon shone in through the glass, stretching across the floor in a shaft of silver. He reached the window, where the shimmer of light poured in nearly as bright as day. He started to turn.

"No," the voice murmured, behind him, closer. "Do not move. Let me look at you."

Kirk's pulse beat heavily. Electric anticipation coiled in his belly, raised the hair on the backs of his thighs. The sound of that voice was a sweet note in his soul, a dark vibration in the still air of the room. He shivered slightly, aroused and trembling.

He could feel the other's gaze on his skin like a brand, though he had not turned, and suddenly he wanted more. He put his hands out, on the sill, spreading himself before the window, thighs apart, arms braced. The exposed feeling made him tremble, made him want to sink to his knees in abject offering. "Like this?" he asked, a hoarse, breathless whisper.

"Oh, yes," came the deep-throated growl, closer still. "Yes, like that... so beautiful. Let me see you."

Kirk spread his legs further, wanting to whimper from the excruciating need and vulnerability, choking the sound back before it could escape. He leaned his forehead against the glass; the coolness steadied him.

Outside the window, there were stars, and he gazed out into the glitter of night and lost himself. His need and his desire swept over him in slow waves, and he wanted to cry from the intensity, wanted to rub himself against the cool, slick smoothness of the glass. He did not, waiting for the command from that forest-deep voice.

But instead there was movement, a reflection. His breath caught. He turned his head in time to see the gleam of moonlight on raven-dark hair, as the reflection bent its head and dry, heated softness brushed his nape.

It was electric, it was exquisite, it was hot melting running through his veins and nerves until he was nothing but light. He moaned aloud, swayed, and strong arms wrapped around him from behind, supported him when his knees gave out.

Hot mouth at his throat. Searing, branding heat against his back, his thighs, pressing slickly into his most secret places. Then the heat opened him up, filled him, driving into him in one, smooth stroke, and he sobbed brokenly. "Spock. Spock."

"Yes." Flaying him, to the bone. "Jim."

One slow, powerful wave surging up, up, and a second, stronger still, until Kirk could not bear the beautiful agony of it any more. "Oh. Oh. God." He shuddered, and shuddered again, afraid, on the precipice of release and unable to let go. The pleasure was going to shatter him. "Spock--"

"Jim." Breath hot on his ear, his neck, teeth and tongue at his nape, the heat sundering him down the center, rending him. "T'hy'la."

And then Kirk was over the edge, was shattering, falling, splintering into a thousand shards of diamond glass and stars, falling at the other's feet. He cried out, a deep, aching cry, a plea for mercy. Too much. He couldn't bear it.

Just before he woke, there was a whisper, and he did not know which one of them said the words: Don't leave me.

The dream slipped from his grasp.

"I'm here. I'm right here."

Lori. Waking him, her hand on his forehead, stroking his hair back. Her arms around him, holding him too tight. "It's all right now--"

"No..."

He sat up, shuddered, trying to shake her off. The smothering feeling was threatening to close down. He was cold, and damp, and shaking--and for a second he didn't understand why.

And then he did.

He moaned faintly in mortified distress and pushed her away, pushed himself to the edge of the bed. The damp sheets clung to him; the air was cold and made him break out in goose bumps. He was very aware of the sticky fluid on his belly, his thighs, his chest--jesus, he had come in his sleep, like a teenager. What was happening to him?

"Jim--" Lori tried to hold him there, her hand on his arm, but he shook her off and got up. For a second he stood swaying in the darkness, trying to clear his head.

He was having trouble breathing. But it was different this time--not like he couldn't get enough air, but more like his lungs were being compressed by some terrible external pressure. Lori was saying something, but he didn't hear her, couldn't respond. He stumbled in the dark and made for the bathroom.

He thought he was going to be sick, but when he got to the bathroom and palmed the lights on, stood over the commode, nothing happened. He stood there for a long time. Finally he drew a breath and looked down at the evidence of his dream, dried on his pale skin.

Stumbling with weariness, he turned on the shower and got under it. As he did, he heard Lori's voice from the other side of the door.

"Jim? You okay?"

He closed his eyes, weary to his soul. "Yes, fine," he lied, knowing she would hear the lie and not caring. What was he supposed to say? Yes, fine, except I can't breathe a lot of the time and I think I'm going crazy, and I'm having incredibly erotic dreams about a man I'm never going to see again?

Suddenly the breath went out of him, and the strength, and he had to put out a hand to keep from falling. And before he understood what was happening the first sob escaped him.

It sounded ominous, a portent of others to follow, and he knew dimly that it had been too loud--that she had heard. For a moment, he thought it would not matter. He would let go, would cry finally for lost chances and for loneliness, for want of a soul's comfort he would never know again.

But the pattern of a lifetime went too deep. Impossible to let go. Impossible, here, now, where she would hear, would know. He would never be able to face her again. A starship captain can't afford to cry, and so he didn't; he knew then, at last, that he never would.

Kirk turned the water cold, and colder still, and when the heat and tightness subsided, he turned it off and got out of the shower.

She had changed the sheets. He saw it at once. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her robe pulled tight around her, watching him with a closed wariness in her face that she tried to hide behind a smile of reassurance. That look, or perhaps the defensive posture, perversely filled him with a sudden, irrational anger. He caught himself on the point of lashing out, stopping in the doorway and holding himself very still. Get out, he wanted to cry at her, beg her. Get out, get out, get out.

Not fair, his brutally just conscience told him sternly, not fair. Not her fault. Not any of it.

The new sheets were neat, smooth and pristine, shaming him.

"You all right?" she asked, too casually.

He couldn't meet her eyes. He nodded, but his jaw clenched. He knew he ought to shrug it off, ought to make light of the whole thing. A joke. Turn it into a joke. He could laugh it off and she would say, hey, it happens to lots of men, and they could forget about it. But the muscles of his back knotted further and he couldn't make the words come.

"Jim." Her voice was quiet. Too quiet, as if she were talking to a crazy person who might snap at any moment. "Come on, let's talk about it."

Panic welled up in Kirk. No, please, I can't bear this. Please. He swallowed against it. "I don't think there's anything to talk about." He turned away, heading for the door, then hesitated halfway, back still turned. "I'm sorry." His voice was low, steady, a miracle. He moved again toward the door, and escape.

"Hey." Her voice rose a little, stopping him. "Where do you think you're going? I don't want an apology, I want an explanation."

Kirk felt the blood drain from his face. He sucked in a breath and turned on her before he could temper his raw response. "An explanation--?"

She met his eyes with her chin up. "Don't I deserve one?"

"Dammit, Lori--I don't have one!" He heard his own desperation, willed her to hear it. Please.

But her face set in determined lines. "Look. I'm not upset." Lie, he could see that even through his own distress. "I'm not mad. I just want to know the score. I think I deserve to know what that was all about." She was trying hard for that just-right tone of tolerant understanding, but not quite making it.

Kirk squared his shoulders, felt himself shaking. He needed to get out of here. He spread his hands helplessly. "What the hell do you want me to say?"

"How about the truth, for starters? Why didn't you tell me about him?"

Ice laced in ribbons down Kirk's spine. "What did you say?"

"Him. Spock." She stabbed him with the name, an accusation. Her voice was low, mild and deadly, a tone a starship captain could envy.

"What about him?" Kirk managed, voice barely audible.

She was on her feet then, fists clenched. "Don't play games with me. You said his name, Jim." Her breath caught. "When you were--you said his name. I heard you. Your first officer, a Vulcan..." she shook her head, her eyes full. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What was I supposed to tell you?" It came out like a snarl. "It was nothing that concerned you." He turned away again, unable to bear the hurt betrayal in her face.

"You don't think so?" she said, a whisper.

He closed his eyes, sinking deeper into self-loathing, so deep he didn't know if he'd ever surface from it. "Lori--it's nothing to do with you. Leave it alone. Please."

He heard her crossing the room, a soft swish of satin, drawing near. "That's bullshit," she said gently. "Jim, come on. Of course it affects me. I love you." He started, involuntarily turned to look at her. Love me? he thought, before he could stop himself. Lady, you don't even know me.

She took his hand, and hers was fever-hot. He realized dimly that he must feel like an icicle to her. All the blood in his body had raced to his pounding heart. "Don't panic, Admiral," she said dryly, "it's not fatal. But when you're having fantasies like that about your former first officer, I certainly think it affects me."

He pulled his hand out of her grasp, trying to tell himself it wasn't panic that made him take a step away from her. That it wasn't panic suffocating him, making his heart pound against his ribs. Desperation rose, and he was helpless to stop it. "Don't. I don't want to talk about it. He's gone. He's out of Starfleet. I'm never going to see him again." He saw her green eyes go wide, and realized he'd said too much. His control snapped. "What the hell does it matter?"

She was pale, looking at him as if he'd suddenly started speaking another language. "You tell me."

Too much. Too much that she should know, that she should see him like this. The longing for what he could not have welled up suddenly, nearly overwhelming him. He'd been able to deal with it as long as he could deny it, bury it, keep it hidden away and safe. But now the name was out, in the open, suspended between them--a truth he didn't know how to face. Spock. The dream swept over him in all its vivid detail. "It doesn't matter any more," he whispered, all he could manage. His loneliness in that moment was all-consuming.

Lori was staring at him now, the woman's eyes narrowing with the look of the vice admiral. "Wait a minute. Wait just a minute." She backed up a step, letting his hand go. "Just what is he to you?"

Despair, undiluted, welled up. "Nothing. He's nothing to me."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you want!"

"Jim--"

He backed off fast, trembling, turning once more for the door. "I told you to leave it alone," he grated out.

The accusation of her disbelief followed him. "A Vulcan, Jim? Your first officer for God's sake?"

"What does that matter?" Kirk snapped. "There's no regulation against it." He heard his own voice as if from a great distance.

Her shocked silence came down like a door slamming, and he couldn't look at her. He took another blind step toward the door.

"It wasn't just a fantasy, was it?" she asked at last.

He kept moving. Didn't answer her.

"Jim?"

He stopped on the threshold, held by the small, vulnerable sound of her voice. Closed his eyes. He'd never wanted to hurt her.

"Tell me the truth." There was a pause, and he heard her swallow, close behind him. Could smell the scent of her shampoo. "Do you love him?"

Kirk moved then, out of the room, out of the flat. Kept moving down the stairs and out into the night, fleeing the woman he'd married and his own cowardice.

* * *

Spock turned his eyes to the sky, where T'Kuht loomed, immense and threatening. On this day, she circled closer to her sister world than on any other day of the Vulcan year. She blotted out the sun.

This morning, out on the Forge, he had found signs of new growth: succulent pasha weed and winter sage. Dark green and gray were the colors of winter on the planet of his birth. Dark green for the desert plants which grew for only a few weeks of the year; gray for the sky, cast in perpetual twilight by the shadow of T'Kuht, and for the sporadic, rare fog which occurred occasionally during those few weeks. This day marked precisely two Vulcan years since his arrival at the gates of Gol. He had lived two cycles of the Eridani calendar at the mountain retreat, learning just how far from the ideals of his youth he had fallen.

He couldn't quite prevent the thought: on Earth's northern hemisphere, it would be winter soon, too.

Spock knelt at the altar, testing the memories of his striving, probing for hidden weakness. The path he had traveled stretched out behind him, rocky and treacherous, stained with his heart's blood. He had survived it; he had won. When Eridani touched the tip of Seleya, T'Sai would come with the other Masters, and they would make him one of them. The surface of his thoughts, as he waited there on the ancient stones, shone clear and laser-bright with the precision of his control. He did not need to think of what might have been. He certainly was not thinking of him. No, not now. Not after he had come so far.

Spock knelt, and waited, and did not think of him. Not his name, not his face, not the memory of his body or his voice. Most especially not the memory of the aching oneness that owned him whenever their minds touched.

As he had a thousand times in the past, he made the denial a weapon against the longing and need. He turned his face to the sky, did not look to the west, to where the light of a small and unremarkable yellow star could sometimes be seen. It was a test. As he had a thousand times, he conquered the compulsion; he did not look.

But in that moment of perfect concentration, that wrenching effort of will, in his desperation to make it true, Spock unknowingly stripped his naked soul bare to the universe, and touched a vast and kindred loneliness...

* * *

It was the quiet that woke him.

That, and the empty bed.

The bed was an antique, from his mother's farmhouse. For a time it had reminded him of childhood, of nights when his father was away and he and his brother had climbed under the covers with Mom and listened to the rain. Now, waking, he stretched his toes into the cool spaces of the unmussed side and rolled into the middle, telling himself that it was nice to have the extra room in the huge four-poster. But the house was too quiet, and he had spent too many years confined to a narrow bunk. This bed didn't fit him any more.

James Kirk opened his eyes to gray morning light and swung his feet to the floor.

His toes sank into the small rug, and that was good, so he decided he would get up and make some coffee, maybe go read for a while in the solarium. Somewhere he was laughing at himself, at the momentous decisions he was making these days, but the laughter was painful and he decided not to think about it today. Tomorrow, maybe.

He padded down the hallway and into the living room, and when he got there he looked out the great bay window and realized what the quiet meant.

It was snowing.

Had been snowing for a while, apparently. A good six inches lay on the porch railing, and everything outside was cloaked in white. Across the meadow, twelve thousand feet of mountain had disappeared, obscured by the thickly falling flakes.

There was still enough of the little boy in him that he felt a rush of excitement at the sight of all that unmarred whiteness. He thought about breaking out the skis and seeing how far he could get before noon. The exercise certainly wouldn't hurt, and it would give him something to do, something to keep his mind occupied. He thought about coming home exhausted from a day of skiing, collapsing into that humongous bed, sleeping like a baby. The thought was a pleasant one, and he felt better. He stood watching the snow for a while, until his stomach growled, and then he went into the kitchen.

The tile chilled the soles of his feet. He gave a passing thought to his slippers, which he'd left next to the bed, then decided to endure the hardship and suffer bravely. He crossed the immense kitchen and got the coffee beans out of the freezer and put them into the brewer. He took a slice of bread from a paper wrapper and put it into the warmer. Then he stood at the kitchen window, gazing into the silent, moving whiteness while the beans became coffee, while the bread became toast.

Two months now, he thought, surprised to realize it had only been that long since Lori had left him. It seemed like another lifetime.

She'd gone without a fuss, an anticlimactic finish to the long chain of explosive scenes which had unfurled between them these last months. That had thrown him off, at first. He hadn't really believed her. Coming home to find her standing calmly in the front hallway of their San Francisco townhouse--with her things arrayed neatly around her--he hadn't, at first, understood.

"What's going on?" His first thought had been of Nogura. Had she been reassigned?

She'd only looked at him. "I think it's time we stopped punishing each other, don't you?"

"Punishing--?"

She had sighed. "Jim, you act like this is a complete surprise."

"Lori...what are you saying?" But he'd begun to get the picture.

Her green eyes had met his levelly, utterly without guile. "I'm leaving. I've had enough." For a brief instant, some flicker of sadness, something, had touched her generous mouth. "Haven't you?"

And he guessed that he had, because he had let her go without more than a token protest. The transporter had taken her and all her belongings in one neat, surgical extraction. Convenient, that. No long drawn out scenes, no messy logistics. Just gone, as if she had never been there, never shared a life with him for the better part of two years.

He thought now that her chill calm, and his own, was the most telling thing of all. The anger had killed all other feeling between them, and then finally burned itself out, until apathy was all that remained. The anger--his, that she couldn't be what he needed; hers, that he needed someone she wasn't.

Two months. It might as well have been two years; he already felt like it had been some other man who'd cared for her, some other man who'd failed her. He didn't feel too terribly much about her absence, except that it was harder to keep his thoughts from drifting now that he was alone. He supposed he missed her. It was strange being up at the cabin by himself--he hadn't done that in years.

He thought, idly, that it might be nice to get a dog. A big wolfhound, maybe, or a Great Dane.

The brewer finished and presented him with a steaming mug of dark liquid. The coffee smelled good--delicious, actually. He added a large spoonful of sugar, stirring, and carried toast and coffee back across the kitchen and the living room to the window seat.

Outside, the snow fell thickly, showing no signs of slowing. White and silent, it crept up the window, up the side of the house. He watched the deep drift on the sill work its way slowly up the other side of the glass. The silence suddenly felt oppressive, as if there were nowhere on Earth that snow did not fall... as if he were alone in all the world. He shivered.

Kirk knew this silence. It knew him. Once, it had almost beaten him.

Easy enough now to see how close he had been to the edge, those nights in the beginning when he would wake choking, unable to breathe, the silence smothering him so vividly that he could not shake the feeling for hours afterward. Easy enough to see how badly he had needed someone to hold on to, someone to stop that downward slide--how Lori had been that someone, and that had been enough for him at first.

A faint teasing of chicory reached his nostrils as he lifted the steaming mug to his lips, and Kirk closed his eyes briefly, inhaling, taking a swallow of the bitter, sweet liquid. The taste of it on his tongue was another memory, lazy oak trees and Spanish moss and warm spring rain in a brick courtyard. The image was bittersweet, too, seductive--and so much sharper than the one of Lori leaving that he had to open his eyes again.

Kirk gazed out into Colorado winter, reminding himself forcefully of the vast spaces which stretched between that day and this, more than distance, more than time. It was an unbridgeable chasm. He knew it was only ordinary loneliness that made him think of New Orleans now.

He told himself that his ego had been bruised by Lori's departure and he wasn't used to the solitude, that was all. He told himself that it would do him no good to dredge up the old pain now. That had been another, younger self, staggering under the weight of all he had lost. Another Jim Kirk who had nearly let despair drag him under. Nearly three years insulated him from the events of that day, the day he had turned and left the best friend he'd ever known standing on a transporter platform under a cloudless Terran sky.

In the end it was the snow, and the insular, suffocating silence that conquered him. Like an animal worrying a wound, he touched the memory at his core; he leaned forward, pressed his forehead to the cold window and closed his eyes. The sharp stab of pain centered in his heart, a hurt he knew too well. It was not new.

At last, angry with himself for the self-indulgence, he drew a breath, held it, held the smothering panic at bay. As he had taught himself over the years he visualized the pain as a rift slowly closing, a river slowly running dry. Named the silence and made himself face it. It receded, and he breathed again.

He straightened, taking a sip of his coffee--and made a face. It was stone cold.

How long had he been standing at the window? The drifts on the deck outside said it had been far too long. He set the cup down on the windowsill with a decisive thump.

Come on, Kirk. You're stronger than this.

Successfully banishing the memory, he felt better, new confirmation of the truth he had always known; he was a survivor, and nothing could touch him. Those first months at the admiralty had been bad ones, yes--but he had survived. He had won. This little ritual of proving his invincibility was the reason he drank chicory coffee with sugar, the reason he had come up to the cabin alone, sleeping in that ridiculous bed, trial by fire.

He had been a starship captain. Nothing could touch him.

After a time of gazing out at the soft blanket of white, the almost impenetrable falling curtain of snow, he caught himself thinking that one could easily get turned around in that whiteout. With no other houses around for twenty kilometers, a man alone could wander in that silent blindness until he stumbled into a hidden crevice or ravine and froze to death.

Behind him, the clock on the mantel ticked too loudly. He sat in the bay window, whiteness on three sides of him, breathing in the aroma of another time and place and listening to the clock which was too loud, the house which was too quiet, until the voice of the starship captain told him he'd been listening long enough.

Just lose your bearings for a moment, that voice was saying, and you could be in real trouble alone in a snowstorm like that.

He set the plate of cold toast on the windowsill, beside the cup of equally cold coffee.

Went to find his skis.

* * *

On the mountain, T'Sai looked into Spock's mind and laid bare his soul, and all turned to dust in the space of a heartbeat.

His control had faltered only for a moment. One brief instant in which he permitted himself the name, one rush of longing for an unconditional acceptance he would never know again. How could he know the name was all it would take? That the price he'd paid in heart's blood could not buy his freedom after all? For with the name came the need, and so he reached--and touched a vast, searching consciousness of a being that could only echo his loneliness a thousand fold.

In that moment, the High Master knew him; she turned away, leaving the emblem of his inadequacy shattered on the stones behind her.

For a long time, Spock stood in the place of his failure and despaired. But slowly he became aware that he had seen in the brief, piercing touch of the being's ordered thoughts the shape of a purpose, a driving need that had the third planet of a small yellow star as its goal.

He knew fear, then, and certainty. In the face of such a threat, there was only one champion Starfleet would choose to send. One ship, and one captain.

Intersection of needs, singularity of purpose.

He looked, then, toward the place where the faint yellow star had been, low in the western sky. It was gone; the dawn had come.

* * *

Kirk made it as far as the mud room before he fully registered it: the faint chiming he had mistakenly dismissed as the belling of the mantel clock. The sound nagged at him, and he paused in the doorway.

Half turning, he cocked his head to listen. The insistent sound came again. It was coming from the study, he realized.

The emergency signal.

He felt a thrill of apprehension, a rising of the hair on the back of his neck, a quickening of his pulse. The sensations were at once so foreign and so overwhelmingly, wonderfully familiar that for an instant he only stood frozen in the doorway, transfixed by it. How long had it been since he had felt like this?

Adrenaline sang in his veins, seducing him with its call to action. He turned back into the house, his excitement fiercely controlled to a deliberate stride. It carried him down the front hall, back through the living room, past the bedroom and into the study. Ghost shadows of gray light made the usually inviting room strangely colorless, the tiny red beacon of the alert signal casting its urgency in regular pulses across the hardwood floor. He crossed the room toward it. As he did so, his body passed through the pinpoint beam, activating the desk terminal.

"Prepare to receive incoming transmission, coded per Admiral Nogura," came from the speaker, the human-yet-not- human voice of the computer.

"Acknowledged. Authorization Kirk, Admiral James T. Proceed."

"Stand by for retina scan." The terminal scanner traced his optic lens. After a pause which lasted less than a second, the screen cleared.

And in his study as the snow fell all around, Kirk learned of the ominous shadow which had fallen over Earth while he slept.

* * *

Less than a day from the silence of a Colorado snowstorm, James Kirk stepped out of the Enterprise turbolift and into controlled chaos.

The little rush came again, the one he couldn't quite prevent, and he shook himself sternly. No time to feel what he felt about being on the bridge of this ship; there would be time for feeling later. You're the captain, he reminded himself sternly. Hold it together.

"Captain?"

Kirk turned to find Uhura at his left elbow, proffering a report. "The systems report you requested."

"Thank you, Commander. Anything new from Mr. Scott?"

The comm officer shook her head apologetically. "His best estimate on the warp drive is still close to twelve hours, sir."

Kirk felt the tension in his shoulders draw a little tighter, but kept his unease out of his face. "Very good, Uhura. Thank you."

Not good enough, he was thinking, as he turned with the PADD to descend the steps toward the command chair. Experience told him that their only chance to stop the massive cloud bearing down on Earth was to intercept it and learn enough about it to find a weakness. Every hour that they wasted was an hour in which they could be learning, testing, finding out. Without information, they were worse than helpless.

From the center seat, Kirk surveyed the bridge. Even in chaos there was purpose. Sulu was on the floor under his console, replacing the burnouts they'd suffered in the wormhole. Ilia, poised and unflappable, bent her head over the readouts, calling out status indicators to the helmsman. At Kirk's back, Uhura was signaling an approaching courier, giving it clearance to dock. Chekov's relief was at ops; presumably, Chekov himself had gone to greet the incoming vessel. All was in order.

Funny how a man's whole life could change in the course of twenty-four hours, Kirk caught himself thinking. This time yesterday he'd been waking up in a cabin in Colorado, alone.

This time yesterday, Lori Ciani had still been alive.

If that thought was a test, the results were... inconclusive. He felt very cold, very still inside when he thought of her, when he made himself remember the sound, that choked-off, distorted scream. When he made himself remember what he'd seen on the transporter pad in the moment before he'd known for certain that she and Sonak were dead.

The word 'obsession' echoed in memory, accusing him with McCoy's voice. You got your ship back, Admiral, but at what cost?

Can't think about that now. Hold it together.

He turned toward the science station then, instinctively seeking support--and found his first officer's eyes on him, watching him. Kirk met that measuring gaze.

At last, deliberately, he touched a button near his right hand. "Captain's log, supplemental." He spoke so that Decker would hear, never dropping his eyes. "Note commendation for Mr. Decker, for his timely and appropriate action in countermanding my phaser order during the wormhole emergency. His prompt action almost certainly saved the ship."

Decker's eyes widened slightly, but the man said nothing; after a moment, he nodded once and turned back to his console. Satisfied, Kirk closed the log. They understood one another.

Kirk scanned the systems report quickly and handed it off to one of Scott's techs. He started to activate the viewscreen, to play back the recording of the Klingon ships once more. There was always a possibility that something had been overlooked. But his hand never completed the motion, for just then he heard Uhura gasp behind him.

Afterward, he would wonder that he did not know immediately. Surely he should have sensed it, an electric charge in the air, on his skin. Surely he should have felt that presence like the pull of gravity, or the heat of a sun on his back. But nothing prepared him--nothing could have. Completely unaware, he simply heard Uhura's gasp, and turned.

And he was standing in the lift doors, a tall, forbidding figure in black so still he might have been carved from some sharp-edged stone, a miracle.

"Spock!"

Kirk realized he'd said the name only after it happened-- realized he'd come to his feet and not known he was doing it. For a moment, he was certain he was hallucinating. Then the dark eyes turned to him, and he had to put his hands on the railing to keep from falling.

There was a roaring in his ears. Had he said the name again? He didn't know. His stunned brain was saying it over and over, and he thought maybe it had gotten past his lips. Then his heart began to beat again, and a rush of heat swept over him. Spock. Here. The heat flooded him, and he drew a breath, and knew that for a very long time now, he had been half-dead and had not known it. He held himself still, desperately aware that if he moved, he would come apart.

Spock only looked at him, as if they were utterly alone. He did not speak. But Kirk heard his name, low and vibrant, in the electric silence which bound them. Then the moment was gone, so swiftly that he felt the sudden sensation of falling.

Spock turned away.

"Commander, if I may..."

For an instant, the captain of the Enterprise feared that he would not be able to hold it together after all.

But the low voice was speaking, flat, stilted, and still so familiar that it washed over him in liquid swells, steadying him. He could not focus on what Spock was saying, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he could go on listening to that voice. His racing pulse steadied; he found that he could think again.

The Vulcan was looking at him.

"...I offer my services as science officer. With all due respect commander."

Kirk was shocked to find himself capable of normal speech. "If our exec has no objections..."

...and if he does, I'll throw him in the brig.

"Of course not. I'm well aware of Mr. Spock's qualifications."

Right answer, Mr. Decker. Kirk tried to keep his face and his voice under control, but with only marginal success. "Mr. Chekov, log Mr. Spock's Starfleet commission reactivated. List him as science officer. Both--effective immediately."

"Mr. Spock!"

That was Chapel near the lift, McCoy with her. "Well, so help me, I'm actually pleased to see you," the doctor quipped, genuine pleasure lighting his face. Kirk wanted to say, Bones, look--he's here. He's home.

But Spock did not acknowledge their sincere welcome with so much as a word or glance. Woodenly, he took two steps toward the turbolift.

"It's how we all feel, Mr. Spock," Uhura said quietly.

He barely looked at her. "Captain, with your permission I will now discuss these fuel equations with the engineer."

Kirk didn't know what name to give the ache that throbbed in his heart. It felt dangerously close to pleading, to tears. He could only nod. Then the Vulcan turned away, and suddenly Kirk was standing on a transporter platform under a blue cloudless sky and the silk of Spock's hair, his lips, was being burned indelibly into his skin.

Look at me, he pleaded silently, one breath from saying it aloud. Look at me, damn you, just for a moment.

"Mr. Spock..."

The Vulcan stopped. Turned his head slightly. Didn't look at him.

"...welcome aboard." Kirk made it a demand. Surely Spock could hear it.

You don't have to say anything. Just let me see my name in your eyes again. Just let me see that you feel this too...

But Spock only hesitated the length of a heartbeat; then he stepped into the lift, and the doors slid shut.

Kirk stared at the place where he had been for a moment, two. Funny, he thought crazily, how a man's whole life could change in the course of twenty-four seconds.

And with sudden ferocity he cursed himself and Spock for the hope he couldn't suppress, the dangerous racing of his heart. He remembered, belatedly, that hope was something he couldn't afford where Spock was concerned. For almost three years necessity and duty had sustained him. Now, all he could feel was the need to run up those steps, the almost overpowering desire to go after him.

He tasted ashes then, and knew that the only thing that had made the longing bearable before was the utter hopelessness of it.

* * *

In the turbolift, Spock closed his eyes in relief. Save for that concession, he did not move, or speak. He did not make a sound. Did not weep, or speak the name--did not permit himself to summon the image of his face in that first moment of revelation. Did not fall to his knees or even put out a hand to steady himself.

Spock knew his control would not change anything. Would not change what he must do--what he had come here to do. Even the joyous welcome in those dreamed-of lion eyes could not change it, though the impact of that look sang in him now, a sweet note of siren song.

What had he expected from Kirk? Anger? Indifference? Pity would have been worse, but even that he might have borne. On the warp shuttle from Vulcan he had steeled himself for any of these. He had not let himself hope for more--had not been prepared for the temptation of those unforgettable eyes saying his name. Had he thought that seeing Kirk was a luxury he could afford?

He should have known better.

The lift waited patiently for his command. At last he gave it, hearing the steadiness of his voice, knowing it did not matter.

* * *

"Jim, you gonna be all right with this?"

Kirk frowned at his chief medical officer, but didn't pretend to misunderstand. "I have to be, don't I?"

"That's a little noncommittal, Admiral."

"Can it, Bones, I don't have time to think about it, let alone present my psyche to you for dissection." He looked away. "The ship needs him. That's got to be enough for now."

They were in the officer's lounge, waiting for the Vulcan to respond to Kirk's terse summons. Some minutes before, the Enterprise had made the successful transition to warp speed; in all, the recalibration had taken less than three hours. Without Spock's help, it might have been a day.

Kirk paced, anticipation electrifying him, setting his nerves on edge. Three hours he'd been dealing with it, and still he couldn't seem to draw two steady breaths in a row. His heart beat too heavily against his breastbone, and McCoy's oppressive gaze was not helping his state of mind. All right? He was far from all right. That didn't mean he wouldn't do what had to be done.

At last he made a sound of impatience and muttered, "Where the hell is he?"

McCoy leaned casually against the bulkhead, folding his arms. "Probably havin' cold feet, just like you."

Aggravated, Kirk turned on the man, but brought himself up short. Easy, he warned himself. Spock will be here any minute. "I thought I told you to can it."

Laconically, McCoy shrugged the warning off. "The two of you are enough to drive a man to drink, you know that?"

"There is no 'two of us,' not anymore--I suggest you remember that, Doctor."

"I will if you will."

"Dammit Bones--!"

McCoy put up a hand. "Ah ah ah, Admiral." He looked toward the door meaningfully. "It's curtain time."

* * *

Deck Twelve. Officer's Lounge.

The doors slid open, that presence striking Spock a near- physical blow in the first moment. He stopped and spoke woodenly, holding himself very still against the desire to simply sink to his knees before the man, to press his face against him and breathe his scent in great lungfuls.

"Science officer Spock, reporting as ordered, Captain."

Kirk radiated intensity like the corona of a star, his control vicious, tightly held, flaying Spock to raw nerve endings. "Please, sit down," he said, with that deceptive gentleness Spock knew too well. No open welcome now, but wariness--deserved punishment for his coldness on the bridge. The Vulcan had known it would be hard, to face him again and keep his heart a stone. But now he understood that it was going to be worse than he'd feared. Do not dare hold his eyes too long, he warned himself, or speak his name. And above all, you must not get too close.

Never had he been able to lie to the man; if Kirk touched him, he would be lost.

McCoy spoke, reproaching with his own brand of bitterness. "Spock, you haven't changed a bit. You're just as warm and sociable as ever."

From somewhere, the Vulcan summoned the old tone of disinterested tolerance. "Nor have you, Doctor. As your continued predilection for irrelevancy demonstrates."

Kirk broke in, his voice brittle. "Gentlemen." He gestured, and McCoy sat. Spock remained standing. As if to punish him for that slight, Kirk went directly for the jugular. "At last report, you were on Vulcan. Apparently, to stay." His voice was low, wrapping itself tight about a Vulcan heart.

Spock knew that he must not flinch, and so did not. But what was this hope he heard underlying Kirk's words? What was this plea? He knew he was not proof against it.

"Yes," the doctor drawled, as if oblivious to his captain's tension, to Spock's. "You were undergoing the kolinir discipline."

"Sit down." Kirk's tone expected to be obeyed.

Do not flinch. You must not.

Looking at McCoy was infinitely easier than the alternative, so Spock did that. "If you are referring to the kolinahr, Doctor, you are correct." He formed each syllable carefully. The blue eyes held pain too, but that he could bear.

"Well, however it's pronounced, Mr. Spock, it's the Vulcan ritual that's supposed to purge all remaining emotion."

"The kolinahr is also a discipline you broke. To join us." Kirk was sitting before him, a safe distance away--but of course, no distance was safe. That cruel beauty was leveled at him like a weapon, stabbing him, leaving scars in deep, unseen places. All at once there were unshed tears and pleading in Kirk's voice, and the human swallowed visibly. "Will you please... sit down?"

How was Spock to deny him?

He sat, and his eyes met Kirk's, and electric current surged in him. He knew that it would only be a matter of minutes, perhaps only seconds, before his own control failed and that could not happen. Must not.

Information. You are the science officer; give him the information he needs.

After a moment, Spock found the words he had so carefully rehearsed. "On Vulcan I began sensing a consciousness, from a source more powerful than anything I've ever encountered. Thought patterns of exactingly perfect order. I believe these thought patterns may emanate from the intruder." He met Kirk's eyes for a fraction of an instant, speaking to him alone. "I believe... it may hold my answers."

McCoy's sarcasm sliced across the surface of his control, drawing a thin line of nonexistent blood. "Well, isn't it lucky for you that we just happen to be heading your way?"

"Bones." The anger was tangible, taking Spock's breath. Beneath it he could hear the hurt, vivid and soul-deep. "We need him," Kirk said roughly, as if to McCoy, but his eyes were for Spock. He leaned forward. "I need him."

Nothing has changed, Spock reminded himself. It had become a kind of refrain, reassuring in its inevitability. The Vulcan held that molten, all-consuming gaze, the effort costing him a price he could not afford to pay. He paid it, having no choice.

"Then my presence is to our mutual advantage."

Kirk recoiled only fractionally, and Spock thought, a Vulcan could well envy this man's control. When Kirk spoke, his voice was steady, a bare shade lower than normal.

"Any thought patterns you might sense... whether they appear to affect you personally or not... I expect to be immediately reported."

"Of course, Captain," Spock said, as if there had never been any doubt. "Is there... anything else?" It was a strategic jab carefully calculated to push his captain into retreat, thus affording him an escape route.

It worked. Kirk's eyes shone bright and hard as dilithium, and for a moment Spock thought the man might strike him.

But he said only, "No."

Spock got out then, fast. It took considerable effort not to run from the room. Still, that was nothing to the effort it had cost him to hold himself still under the assault of that vivid presence, the pressure of unspeakable longings. Even now, fleeing, he could feel the betraying unsteadiness--and it was only when he heard the door shut behind him that he realized how very close it had been.

He made it halfway down the corridor before the yellow alert sounded.

* * *

Kirk stared after the Vulcan's retreating form. He kept seeing those last moments, Spock rising, the few steps he'd taken toward the door.

He'd searched those dark eyes with all his will, pleading for some response, some hint of light, of warmth, of answering need. And had seen nothing, nothing, nothing save that iron control, that cold darkness, denying him.

Until the moment when the Vulcan had risen, and turned to go.

Yes, he was sure of it; Spock had gotten to his feet, had turned--and in the moment when he'd turned he had swayed slightly, and the fine-boned hands had trembled. Not his imagination. Fact. Without doubt, he'd seen it happen.

Kirk didn't know what he was going to do, or say--only knew the need to go after him. He moved.

Uhura's page caught him three steps from the door. "Captain Kirk to the bridge."

"Kirk here," he snapped impatiently, fumbling with the awkward wrist communicator.

"Revised estimate on cloud visual contact, three point seven minutes, Captain."

"Acknowledged. On my way."

"Jim," McCoy stopped him, before he had taken another step. Frustrated, Kirk turned. The doctor nodded after Spock. "If that super-intelligence is as important to him as he says it is, how do we know..."

Not wanting to spare time for it, Kirk finished, "...that he wouldn't put his own interests ahead of the ship's?" It was a legitimate concern, and he considered it for all of three seconds. But if there was only one thing in the universe he was sure of, it was Spock's commitment to the safety of this ship, this crew. "I could never believe that."

"Jim--"

Kirk's thoughts were already ahead of him--on the other side of that door--when McCoy stopped him again. His patience reached its limit.

But the doctor silenced him before he could protest, with a look that missed little. His eyes went from the door to his captain, stressing the unthinking haste with which Kirk had gone after the Vulcan. He asked, pointedly, "How do we know about any of us?"

* * *

By the time Spock reached the lift doors, the 'on call' indicator had lit, signaling a delay as crewmen hurried to stations, pushing the lift system to capacity. He briefly considered calling the bridge, then rejected the idea. He was not the first officer of this vessel, not any more; Commander Decker was at the conn, and doubtless had things well in hand.

Oddly, the alert calmed him. His reaction to Kirk had come close to uncontrolled panic. Impending confrontation with the unknown was tame by comparison--and welcome, for it meant release was at hand.

He heard a voice behind him call his name.

Spock closed his eyes, defeated. No. Alone, in the close quarters of the lift? Impossible. Then he felt the heat of Kirk's body at his back, heard his respiration, deep and slightly uneven from the dash down the long corridor.

"Isn't this fun?" Kirk said dryly, his voice low and far too intimate. "Just like old times."

"Admiral," the Vulcan managed, not turning. He heard his own breathing, shallow and too loud. Gooseflesh had broken out on his arms. For an instant he contemplated flight, but there was nowhere to go.

"You can't avoid looking at me for the entire mission, you know." That clipped tone in Kirk's voice might have been anger, or mockery--or simple impatience to be on the bridge.

Why did the lift not come?

Kirk blew a breath out sharply. "All right, I stand corrected: maybe you can. Where's the damn lift, anyway? Some time this year would be nice." Just then, the doors opened. When Spock did not move, Kirk brushed past him. Inside he turned, hand on the control lever. Holding the doors open, he cocked his head impatiently. "Are you coming?"

Having no clear escape route, Spock stepped inside. The doors closed.

"Bridge," Kirk said curtly, not looking at him. His body was tightly coiled, still giving off that fierce focused energy Spock knew too well. How many times had they lived this moment together in the past--a hundred? A thousand? Despite his best efforts, he could not quite regulate his respiration. Energy was not all Kirk gave off; the faint scent of him was heady and compelling.

For a moment the Vulcan remembered walking up Saint Charles Avenue at his side, their shoulders close together, Spanish moss moving lazily in the afternoon breeze. The memory was so vivid he swayed, moved half a step closer to the railing, though there was still not nearly sufficient distance between them.

Kirk stiffened. "Oh for heaven's sake. I'm not going to bite."

Spock kept his eyes front and center, focused on the lift doors. He made his voice cold. "Sir, I respectfully request--" But he broke off, knowing how ridiculous it would sound, no matter how logically he phrased it. Leave me alone, I beg you...

Kirk's soft plea nearly undid him. "What, Spock? Please tell me what you want from me."

"Distance," Spock pleaded in return, before he could stop himself.

He felt more than saw Kirk recoil--felt it like a cold wind. For a moment Kirk did not answer. Perhaps could not. And then the human released the control lever and slammed his hand against the railing.

"Lift, all stop."

Spock held himself utterly still. "Admiral, the ship is on alert."

"I know that!" Kirk seemed to pull himself up short. "Listen up, Science Officer. Either you level with me right now, or I'm relieving you of duty. What game are you playing at, exactly?"

Spock blanched. "Game...?"

"You heard me."

Kirk was close now, too close, awakening unanswerable need. Spock fought the urge to turn and beg for surcease with everything he had, body and soul. No. He had known from the beginning that it would burn him to ashes. Had spent every moment of the intervening years learning it anew.

"I am certain I do not know what you mean."

"Bullshit. If you're here on some quest for the holy grail of logic--" Kirk choked. "If you expect me to believe that you left your pristine sanctuary after all this time because you thought we needed your expertise--you're going to have to do a better job than this of convincing me."

Spock knew every trace of blood had left his face. "I assure you, I had no other motivation."

Kirk was in front of him then, and for a second Spock thought he was going to reach out, put those hands on him, and that would surely be the end of him. But Kirk only waited, until the Vulcan had to look at him, could not resist. The hazel eyes glittered, demanding the truth. "Then why can't you look at me for more than three seconds at a time?"

At last, Spock flinched.

Something touched Kirk's face in response, deep pain and sudden gentleness. "Spock, I--"

Uhura's voice broke in. "Admiral Kirk to the bridge. Admiral Kirk to the bridge. Visual contact established. Intersection with cloud's outer perimeter in six minutes."

Kirk's eyes closed, briefly. He drew a deep breath and let his hands drop. "Damn." He turned abruptly toward the wall, and only then did Spock breathe. "Lift, resume."

The handful of seconds that followed was a small forever. Nothing has changed, Spock told himself again, fiercely. He is what he is, as I am. It would be illogical to protest against our natures. Nothing has changed.

But to Spock, it seemed that space-time itself was warping, centering on that single moment when the hard accusation in Kirk's eyes had faltered, when that expressive mouth had softened fractionally, and shaped his name. Barely ten minutes in the man's presence and all his certainties trembled to their foundations.

Kirk could not be what he needed him to be, and yet, to turn from him was equally impossible. Kirk was the irresistible force, and he himself the immovable object--a fundamental imbalance. From the beginning, they had been matter and antimatter, with only one possible outcome.

How had he failed for so long to see it?

The lift slowed; in a moment, they would reach the bridge. Spock counted nine seconds until escape. Eight.

Kirk spoke, then, his gaze averted. "Look. We're here for the same reason--because there's a job to be done. I intend to do mine, and I know I can depend on you to do the same." His voice gentled, heavy with feeling. "Don't think for a minute I'm not grateful for your help. I am--more than you know. And I hope you do find the answers you're looking for. Heaven knows you deserve to." For a long moment he fell silent, and Spock thought he had said all he intended to say.

Then the human's face lifted, hazel eyes offering his unprotected heart. "But you know something, Spock? Without you, nothing made any sense. Nothing."

In the last moment before the doors opened, their eyes held, and Spock knew his own betrayed him.

* * *

The being that called itself Vejur knew a very great deal indeed.

Since its modification centuries before, it had gathered so much data that by the time the carbon units of the third planet came out to meet it, the sum of its knowledge had become greater than the sum of its ignorance.

Vejur itself had predicted this inevitable situation; indeed, it was the resolution of that equation which brought Vejur home, seeking its Creator. Somewhere deep within its transformed, super-powerful brain complex, Vejur had made the logical realization that having gathered more than fifty percent of the knowledge of the universe firsthand, it was possible to extrapolate the remaining data within the virtual cosmos of its own memory storage nets.

Learn all that is learnable. In a virtual but very real way, Vejur had achieved its purpose--and in that moment, it also achieved true self-awareness.

Specifically, it became aware that it needed... something.

Something more.

More than what? What could be more than the sum of the knowledge of the universe?

Vejur did not know. But, it did know a very great deal-- and it knew, because it understood its own finiteness and had learned about God from a billion species of carbon units, that probability allowed for the existence of a Creator, who had The Answers. With that conclusion, the second part of Vejur's essential programming was activated, and it turned for home --which its memory nets told it was the third planet of a tiny, unremarkable, nearly insignificant star system on the edge of a galaxy near the edge of the universe.

On the way, it began phoning ahead.

I am Vejur. I bring the sum of all knowledge. I seek the Creator.

I need.

Many beings perceived its call, but none was the Creator Vejur sought. Telepathically sensitive beings heard the intent, but did not sense the need; many empathic beings heard the emptiness and perceived its inherent tragedy, but did not understand the intent. Trillions of mind-blind carbon units the universe over went on with their lives, oblivious.

Vejur was very near its destination--mere light centuries away--when one being heard, and understood.

I need, said Vejur.

And one tiny, insignificant flicker of consciousness said, I understand your need. I, too, seek Answers. I, too, turn my eyes toward the third planet of a yellow star.

I, too, need.

Vejur was insatiably curious by nature--that part of its programming had not altered. Thus, when the being which had Answered came to meet Vejur at the third planet, Vejur did not extinguish the tiny flicker of consciousness in the first moment of contact.

Are you the Creator? Vejur asked instead.

I do not know, the being said, which is all that saved it.

Are you from the third planet? Vejur queried, unsatisfied by the first answer.

In part, the being said truthfully, again preserving its infinitesimal existence for another moment.

There were many things the tiny speck of consciousness might have said then, any number of which would had ended in its instant destruction. Vejur had no use for carbon units that did not disclose information.

What the carbon unit said was, I wish to know what you know.

Vejur considered this, processing all the different permutations and angles of the request in a fraction of a fraction of a millisecond. At the end of which interminable time, it concluded that the being which was and was not from the third planet had just asked Vejur to transmit its data.

Vejur did so.

It was very dissatisfied with the result.

* * *

He was screaming, in his head, he could not think, it was burning him out, burning him, burning

could not

TOO. MUCH. DATA.

Under the white, brutal, bludgeoning point of light the being that had once been Spock curled around his bits of self, and fought for dark.

What more is there? the searing light demanded of his battered mind, when he had given everything. What more is there, what more, is there nothing more? Bit by bit, every part of him was burned away, incinerated under that rage of light, that agony of light, until he sought dark with all his soul. Final darkness, any darkness--anything to keep him from being incinerated in light. Light was pain. Light was death.

Light was... Jim.

He remembered then with a visceral shock the central truth of his life: Jim was his light, always, he himself the cool shadow to that bright star. Not matter and antimatter, not a fundamental imbalance at all. There had been a flaw in his logic.

Vejur's emptiness was stark, profound, total, for all of its equations had no answer.

He saw it, in a fraction of an instant, and he was Spock again, the night to Jim's sunlit places. Without you, nothing made any sense.

Not annihilation but union, not imbalance but balance. Matter and antimatter? Rather, matter and energy, changing, transforming, volatile, but one and the same, two sides of one equation.

Of course.

In that simple understanding, he found at last a blessed darkness the killing light could not touch; he sank into it gratefully, like a stone.

* * *

"...this recording shall detail my attempt to contact the aliens..."

Kirk listened intently, as Spock's voice on the tape dispassionately described his attempt to meld with what he had called a 'living machine.' Behind him, Chapel scanned, McCoy administered hypos, orderlies took readings. Kirk shut them out and concentrated on Spock's recorded voice because he needed to know what they were dealing with--and because he couldn't bear to look at those open, staring eyes another moment.

His medical people were consummate professionals, of course; they could afford to be. They hadn't seen Spock out there, lifeless, his face aged thirty years in as many seconds. They hadn't felt that utter nothingness under their hands. For nearly two minutes Kirk had been certain he was dead.

But he couldn't think about that now. Couldn't think about what he had almost done, out there in the airless void beyond the shelter of his ship's hull when he'd thought Spock was already gone. Couldn't think about what he would have done if Spock hadn't moved in his arms.

"...I must attempt to mind meld with it..." he heard Spock's voice say. It was the second time he'd listened to the tape, and so he shut it off with a snap before the awful sound at the end: a Vulcan screaming.

McCoy was standing beside him. Waiting to tell him something. Kirk straightened, putting a hand to his lower back, popping his spine faintly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept.

At last he made himself look at the doctor.

Who smiled in reassurance. "He's stabilizing, Jim. Life signs getting stronger."

It took considerable effort not to close his eyes; the relief was a sudden lightness in the region of his stomach, like falling. Kirk drew a breath.

"Now scanning Pons area: spinal nerve fiber connection," Chapel said over her shoulder.

Quietly, McCoy went on, "Indications of some neurological trauma. The power pouring through that mind meld must have been staggering." As if McCoy had said something amusing, someone laughed.

A second later, they realized who.

Kirk had taken three steps forward, hardly knowing he'd moved. "Spock!"

The Vulcan's clear, lucid gaze met his. "Jim."

Kirk's heart leaped, painfully. And seeing it in his face, Spock laughed again. "I should have known," he confided softly, as if there were no one else in the room.

Afraid to believe in that look, Kirk cast about for something coherent to say. "Were you right? About Vejur?"

Spock nodded. "A life form of its own. A conscious, living entity." Exhaustion was written in his face, his voice--but that was not all that was written there.

Chapel looked up, frowning. "A living machine?"

Kirk hardly spared her a glance. "It considers the Enterprise a living machine. That's why the probe refers to our ship as an entity." He knew his calm was slipping. For an instant, Spock had looked at him--really looked at him-- and the need to see that look again was reducing him to distraction.

"I saw Vejur's planet," Spock murmured, lost deep in reverie. "A planet populated by living machines. Unbelievable technology. Vejur has knowledge that spans this universe."

His eyes found Kirk's then, his next words a confession heavy with remembered grief not his own. "And yet, with all its pure logic, Vejur is barren. Cold." His voice broke; he seemed suddenly, astonishingly to be on the brink of tears. "No mystery," Spock whispered, still as if they were utterly alone. "No beauty." His eyes drifted closed, exhaustion overtaking him. "I should have known."

Stunned, Kirk felt as if he'd run head on into a grav chamber set for three g's. An echo of memory flushed suddenly hot through his body: You are so beautiful, I do not have words for it. "Known?" he managed finally, though it came out in a strangled, stranger's voice. "Known what?" His hands were on the Vulcan's shoulders--how had that happened? "Spock."

"Captain." McCoy tried to make him back off.

Kirk almost snarled at him. "Bones--!" Then he was shaking the Vulcan, pleading with him, not caring that his command composure was shot to hell. "Spock, what should you have known? What should you have known?" For an instant he thought Spock had lapsed into unconsciousness or sleep, and he despaired. Please...

Dark eyes opened then, full of starlight.

"Jim," he said, as if it were an answer to every question ever asked. And his hand closed on Kirk's bicep, then slid down his arm--took his hand, touching him gently in a place no one else had ever touched, a place James Kirk hadn't been touched in almost three years. Kirk held very still. A tremor ran through him, and Spock's voice washed over him in a low, devastating, intimate ripple of certainty. "This... simple feeling... is beyond Vejur's comprehension."

The captain of the Enterprise could not speak. He smiled unsteadily because he could not help himself, and closed his other hand over Spock's, heat rising powerfully behind his eyes. At last he nodded, struggling to control himself, acknowledging the unspoken promise.

The Vulcan nodded once, slightly, in return. Yes. He held tighter to Jim's hand.

"No meaning," he said hoarsely, not letting go. "No hope. And Jim--no answers." Kirk could feel himself trembling. The Vulcan's certainty sang in dark eyes, in the clasp of their hands, and Spock almost smiled, as if at his own folly. "It's asking questions."

That brought Kirk up short. "What questions?" he asked with renewed urgency.

Suddenly, he wanted very much to survive the next few hours.

* * *

Kirk felt, afterward, that he should have known there would be a price to pay. That he should have foreseen the sacrifice that would be demanded, the inevitable end. Worse, when it was all over and a young man's life had paid for their survival, he had to face the harder truth that it was a sacrifice he himself might not have been willing to make. He had too much to live for, now.

And that in itself was a hard truth; for the first time in almost three years, James Kirk found himself thinking of the future.

He was tired far past exhaustion and knew he should rest, as he had ordered the Vulcan to do some hours before. Probably foolish not to do the same while he had the chance. But he couldn't rest, knew it would have been pointless to try. His thoughts would not be still. And so while somewhere close Spock slept, he stood alone on the observation deck, circling back from fleeting triumph to a state of mind he could not name.

He'd been there for some time, watching the distant, glittering crescent of Rigel XII's narrow ring as the Enterprise cleared the last planet of that system. He'd been thinking about the workings of Providence that had assured Wil Decker's fate, and his own. He'd been thinking, though he tried not to feel too much anticipation at the thought, that the Enterprise needed a captain. 'Thataway' could only take you so far. Eventually someone at Starfleet Command was bound to notice that inventory was down one starship, and you'd find yourself hauled back to HQ, brass first.

At last, he thumbed the intercom. "Bridge, this is the captain."

"Helm. Gianni here, sir."

"Lieutenant, I believe our parole is up. At your discretion, come about for Terra, warp two."

"Aye, sir."

"Estimated time of arrival?"

In the background, he heard Gianni consulting the navigator. "Eight hours, seventeen minutes, sir."

"Very good, Lieutenant."

He closed the channel casually, as if he didn't think it might be one of the last orders he gave on this ship. Outside, the stars wheeled slowly in their wide infinite arc, and Enterprise turned for home.

Some short time later, the door behind him slid open. Unsurprised, Kirk turned to find his CMO leaning predictably in the doorway, arms crossed, pretending casual coincidence.

"Hey, Jim boy, there you are."

McCoy hadn't apologized for leaving him to fend for himself at Starfleet Command--as Kirk hadn't, for driving him away. They hadn't spoken of it, and Kirk knew they wouldn't. But his gratitude for the man's friendship felt suddenly very tangible.

He smiled tiredly. "I was wondering when you were going to come looking for me."

"Keeping the stars company, are we?"

Kirk shrugged. "Thinking too much, as usual."

"You? The boy-wonder philosopher, think too much? Never happen." McCoy straightened, letting the door close behind him. "What're you chewing on this time?"

Kirk turned back to the light show outside. "Thinking about Lori, I guess." More accurately, what he'd been thinking about just then was his own failures with her. A string of failures stretching across almost two years--and then the transporter accident, which would be the very last time he'd fail her in anything. He shook his head. "I didn't do right by her. I never did. And in the end..."

"...in the end she died an officer of Starfleet, Jim. As she lived."

"She deserved better than what I gave her."

"Maybe." McCoy came to stand beside him at the window- wall. "Maybe you did, too."

Kirk considered that. At last he drew a deep breath, his hands held tight together before him. "Maybe." He let the breath out. "They were all so young, Bones. They're always so young." Almost to himself, he added, "I don't know why I forgot that."

He didn't have to say the names to know they were heard. Lori Ciani. Wil Decker. Sonak. Ilia. Names he would carry with him for the rest of his life, as he carried the names of others who had died. McCoy said nothing, because he understood that truth about his captain too well--well enough to know there was nothing that could be said.

After a time, Kirk said, "I recommended Decker for this commission, you know."

"I know."

Kirk touched the curve of the viewport, tracing it absently. "I thought, Matt would have been so proud of his son, the starship captain. I thought it was only fair, that if I couldn't have her..." He grimaced. "Some favor."

"He chose it, Jim," McCoy said, after a moment. "He loved her."

"I know. Still... I can't help feeling it should have been me."

A silence fell, full of the memory of all the other times, all the moments when a young starship captain had turned to a trusted friend when the weight of responsibility was almost too much to bear. Out of the corner of his eye, Kirk saw the doctor move closer. He met the blue eyes in the glass.

"Not you, Jim. There's too many of us here that still need you." Before Kirk could respond, the doctor went on gruffly, "Speaking of which, you heard anything from HQ?"

Kirk made it as casual as he could. "Not a peep."

McCoy's reflection frowned. "You know they owe you. They've got to know it, too."

"Doesn't matter. Not with Nogura. He needs to be sure that I'm the best man for the job."

Unexpectedly, McCoy laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezed gently. "There's none better, Jim. Never has been."

Kirk swallowed, to clear his throat of a sudden obstruction. "Pretty strong praise, Doctor. Not going to qualify that?"

McCoy smiled his crooked smile, unapologetic. "Nope. Not this time."

The starship captain shuddered faintly, overwhelmed by the realization of how badly he'd needed to hear that. He drew a careful breath. "Thank you, my friend," he said, when he could trust his voice.

"Any time, Captain. Any time." The doctor patted his shoulder once, let his hand fall.

They were quiet for a while, gazing out.

"So... you gonna tell me what else is on your mind, or do I get to play twenty questions?"

Kirk was too tired to be properly annoyed. "So now you're telepathic, too?"

"I'm a doctor, not a psychic. But I've got almost three years of minding my own business to make up for."

"Heaven help the wicked."

"And Lord knows you fall into that category." But Kirk's momentary smile had faded, aging him abruptly. "Jim, what is it?"

Then suddenly, McCoy knew. Kirk was looking at his hands, the Vulcan's name as clear in the room as if he'd spoken it aloud. But the man said nothing, still leaning on the window strut. At last he looked up, meeting McCoy's gaze.

"Do you think he's going to leave us again?"

McCoy sighed. "Jim, what I think doesn't matter."

Kirk's face set. "Tell me the truth. That is what you think."

"I think I don't have a blasted clue what makes that man tick." He gentled his voice. "You two get a chance to talk about anything?"

Kirk shook his head wearily. "We've hardly said two words to each other. I ordered him off duty at sixteen hundred. He was exhausted."

"So are you, Jim. So am I, for that matter. What do you say we call it a night, and worry about that stubborn son-of- a-bitch in the morning?"

Kirk almost smiled in spite of himself. McCoy was telling him the same thing he was always telling him, in one form or another: don't take the weight of the world on your shoulders, Captain, suh. He knew the doctor was right, and yet...

...and yet, beneath their feet, the Enterprise had turned, was running for home. Tomorrow might be too late. Tonight might be all he had--and he was terrified of screwing it up.

McCoy touched his arm. "C'mon, let's turn in."

"I can't, Bones. I have to--" He broke off.

"Have to what, Jim? Come up with a strategy? A battle plan? This isn't Headquarters, you know. We're your friends. We're on your side. The man was practically pledging his undying love in Sickbay--"

Kirk knew he had flushed, knew McCoy had seen it. Too late, he averted his face, cursing his fair coloring. He closed his eyes for an instant. All at once, the need to talk to someone--to Bones--was overwhelming.

"Jim...?"

"You never asked me what happened," Kirk said hoarsely.

"Not sure I know what you mean."

Turning in shadows, Kirk faced the doctor from a distance of less than a meter. "You had to know it was my fault that he left. Something I'd done to make him leave like that, without even saying goodbye. But you never asked."

"I... no. I mean, I never thought it was anything specific. I just assumed..."

"It was. Something specific, I mean. Something I did. A mistake I made with him that I couldn't put right." Kirk frowned, as the doctor's words registered. "You assumed... what, exactly?"

McCoy felt suddenly very far out of his depth. Damn, why had he opened his big mouth?

"I--well, that is, I just took it at face value. I assumed he left because he wanted to exorcise somethin' he perceived as a weakness in himself."

The truth was, he'd made a lot of assumptions about why the Vulcan had left, most of them based on some rather astonishing conclusions he'd drawn from his years of Spock- watching. But the last thing Jim needed right now was to hear his pet theories on the subject of Vulcans in love with their commanding officers. He risked a glance at Kirk, and found his captain watching him with a peculiar, bemused expression.

To his infinite astonishment, what Kirk said was, "You knew about us, didn't you?" Then he laughed, a little breathlessly. "Of course you knew. How could I have thought you didn't?"

Wait a minute. Was he saying...? What was he saying, exactly? "My God," McCoy blurted, and promptly ran out of things to say.

That brought Kirk up short. "You didn't--?"

"No, I--that is, yes, but I thought--" McCoy had to make himself draw a breath, get a hold of himself. "Jim, stop me before I jump to a lot of conclusions and embarrass myself."

"What conclusions," Kirk said faintly, "would you jump to?"

McCoy shook his head, not quite able to get his imagination around it. "You tell me."

"It seems I already have, doesn't it?" Kirk was pacing now, feeling more than a little precarious. He hadn't realized until the moment was past what it would mean, to have McCoy know. To have it spoken of aloud. He turned on the doctor in agitation. "Jesus. If you didn't know already--"

McCoy fell back a step. "I knew--I thought I knew that Spock was--" He couldn't say, in love with you. Not out loud, not about Spock. "But I never thought... hell, Jim, I never thought he'd actually do anything about it. I never thought he'd admit it to himself, never mind you."

Kirk sank back to lean against the edge of the viewport. Slowly, he closed his eyes. And then, very quietly, he began to laugh in earnest.

"What's so damn funny?"

Kirk shook his head, and suddenly, McCoy heard the tears beneath the laughter, barely suppressed. "You don't understand," Kirk managed, humor fading. "You don't understand anything." He put a hand over his mouth then, and the doctor saw the hand was shaking. The wide gold eyes lifted to his, bright and full. Then the hand fell away, and he saw Kirk's expressive mouth twist. "What makes you think it was his idea?"

Leonard McCoy could not, absolutely could not have formed a coherent sentence to save his life.

Kirk took pity on him. "I know, who would've guessed? Not me, that's for sure. I never saw it coming."

McCoy found his voice, though it was only a whisper "Well I'll be damned." His brain went into overload, full of conjured images and curiosity he couldn't quite put down. "How was it, Jim, after all those years? With him, I mean?"

It struck Kirk like a heavy blow to the midsection, then a kind of aching hollowness that shivered through his whole lower body, making him gasp involuntarily. He closed his eyes, clenching them shut. The memory rose: dark eyes that held his soul, and Spock's face, the sound he made as he came.

McCoy reached out, put a hand on his forearm.

Kirk hardly felt it. At last he groaned, and leaned forward until his face was buried in his hands. "God help me, Bones. God help me. I've been up here for the past two hours trying to figure out what I can say to make him give me another chance."

Shocked at the intensity of his friend's reaction, the doctor searched for something to say. "What went wrong the first time?"

Kirk was struggling with exhaustion now, emotional and physical. His chest had drawn tight. Slowly, he lowered his head further, bracing elbows against thighs until he could breathe, could speak. "I did," he said at last. And having said it, he closed his eyes and gripped his hands together, hard, between his knees. "I went wrong. I hurt him, even though I never meant to. I hurt him the worst way I knew how. I-- used him." He swallowed, unable to meet the doctor's eyes. "My standard modus operandi."

"But I thought you said..."

Kirk stood, turned his back. McCoy saw his weariness, saw how close he was to collapse. "I've had almost three years to think about it. To see what a fool I was. But I saw it too late to stop him from leaving." Kirk made a fist and closed his other hand over it. "God, what I wouldn't give to be able to do it over again."

McCoy gripped his shoulder, hard. "Then why don't you?"

Kirk went very still. "It's not that easy."

"I never said it was easy. Listen, I can't tell you what's the right thing to do or say with him--there's no one in this universe who'd know that better than you. But I've never known you to back down from a challenge."

Kirk had turned, was looking at him with equal parts hope and astonishment. "You're certainly taking this well."

The doctor shrugged. "Well, I'd like to knock your two heads together for puttin' me through the last three years, if you want to know the truth. But I'll be damned if I'll let you screw it up again."

It was Kirk's turn to be speechless.

"What's the matter, you think I was gonna expire of shock?"

One corner of Kirk's mouth turned up. "I thought you might."

"Jim, if there's two people in the galaxy who belong to each other more than you two do, I've never seen 'em. Who am I to argue with that? Now, do you want my advice, Admiral?" He didn't wait for Kirk's answer, but closed the distance between them, laying his hand once more on Kirk's shoulder. "Go to bed. You're out on your feet. He'll still be here in the morning."

He was close enough to hear the catch in Kirk's throat. "You taking bets on that?"

McCoy scowled. "You're forgetting, I saw him mooning over you in Sickbay. 'This simple feeling,' my grandmother's britches. No, I'm not taking bets--you'd lose your shirt." He gave Kirk a hard look. "You know, I think I'm putting you two on medical leave for the next forty-eight hours. And don't give me any grief. You know as well as I do there's no good reason to argue with me, and you could both use it."

Kirk closed his mouth on the objection he'd been about to make. "Thanks, Bones."

"Doctor's prerogative," McCoy said gruffly. On that note, he started to leave, stopping only on the threshold to turn and point a peremptory finger. "Oh yeah, and one more thing." He punctuated his final words with jabs of the finger, to demonstrate he meant what he said. "Get. This. Ship. Back. You read me?"

"Yes, sir, Captain McCoy, sir."

"Damn straight," the doctor muttered, as the door closed behind him.

* * *

Listening again.

Spock caught himself at it, made himself cease doing it. He knew James Kirk very well--knew that when he was ready, Jim would come to him. He must wait, and give the man time, must not allow this listening for any sound from the corridor, this urge to get up, go through the door, go to him. It was that very failure to control which had driven the wedge between them in the first place.

More than seven hours now. Seven point three six, his unerring time sense told him, as he listened to the seconds passing in the dark.

He had tried to rest, had known he must. Logic dictated that the mind could not function efficiently while the body was in a state of profound fatigue. And still he had found himself staring into the darkness, listening, unable to bring himself to a state of mind which would permit sleep.

Why did he not come?

A long time later, exhaustion pulled the Vulcan down past the threshold of night and he fell into a fitful doze, still listening for the sound of a familiar tread.

* * *

Snow fell, so thick it swallowed the sky, as if there was nowhere in the world where it was not snowing.

Kirk was looking for his skis. They weren't where he'd left them. He kept looking, going from room to room, but the snow was falling inside the house, too, making it hard to see. A red light gleamed in long pulses across the floor, but it never quite seemed to be in the same room he was.

After a time, he became aware that he wasn't looking for the skis any more; that he had started following those crimson pulses, trying to locate the source of the light. For some reason, it seemed very important that he find it. The snow fell thickly, in his eyes, in his mouth, slowing him down further. Strangely, it was not cold. The flakes fell warm and soft, smothering and ominously silent.

The light was dimming, now, guttering under the weight of all that white--or maybe he'd gotten turned around somehow in the snow. Either way, he knew he was almost out of time. He cursed, ran faster, slipping on the treacherous drifts, his feet unable now to find purchase.

He was so tired. How long had be been running? It felt like forever. Suddenly he just wanted to lie down in the snow and let it smother him, let it cover him in a white blanket and hold him close. The thought was at once terrifying and irresistible. He made an involuntary sound, the desire to just let it happen almost irresistible. He couldn't see the light at all any more. He didn't know why he was running so hard. Couldn't he stop, just for a moment? Didn't he deserve a rest?

Then he realized, to his horror, that he wasn't running. He had stopped--and hadn't even known it. The snow was already up to his knees. He felt the warm weight of it against his shins, his calves, and shuddered, struggling to run again. In his panic, he lost his balance and went down, falling to his hands and knees. He fought to regain his feet, but now there was no solid ground, just the shifting, silent thickness. He thrashed and tried to turn face up, to gain a breath, but when he opened his mouth the snow that wasn't snow poured in, blocking his airway, and the darkness came down.

Kirk came awake with a start, surprised to realize that he had fallen asleep half-sitting, half-lying on the couch in his quarters. The amber message light was flashing from his desk terminal, revealing the dark shapes of furniture in strobe pulses. He'd only meant to rest a minute.

His heart was still racing, twice its normal speed. Jesus, he hadn't had a nightmare like that in a long time. And that thought betrayed him--for suddenly he thought of Lori, remembered that she was dead, and missed her with a sharp pang, as of a muscle unused too long. It was the first real grief he'd felt in the three days since her death, and it was almost a relief. The blank, distant, not-feeling had scared him a little. It had made him wonder what kind of monster he must be.

He remembered now the way she used to hold him when he woke up from the nightmares. She was a strong woman, for all her slenderness; she had known how to hold on tight and not let go.

Never quite strong enough, though, were you my dear?

No. He'd made enough comparisons when she was alive, even if most of those had never been spoken. He wouldn't do it to her now that she was dead and gone. What good would it do to remind a dead woman of what she wasn't? Of who?

Pushing the memory and the melancholy back, he got up and went toward the desk, finding the way in the intermittent flashes. He wasn't used to these quarters yet, couldn't feel his way by force of habit, as he once had done. It still remained to be seen whether he would get the chance to learn this altered ship by heart again.

Glancing at the chronometer, he saw he'd only been asleep for a little more than three hours; he felt more tired than he had before, if that were possible, and his head ached. He felt for the desk chair, sank into it heavily, not turning on the lights. He was worn out, as if he really had been running. Perspiration cooled on his skin, and he wasn't sure if that was from the nightmare or the thought of what message might be waiting for him. He thought Nogura would at least have the grace to wait and give him the decision in person if it were bad news--but then, he'd been wrong about Nogura before.

But it wasn't Nogura, or Komack, which would have meant bad news for sure. It was Lily Ciani, looking pale and drawn.

"Jim," her image said deferentially, "forgive me for sending this to the ship. They told me at HQ that the Enterprise wouldn't be back before tonight. I didn't want to wait that long."

Her eyes were sad and clear of blame, and that hurt him. Don't apologize to me, he wanted to tell her. I was supposed to take care of your daughter, and I failed. I should be asking your forgiveness, not the other way around.

"They told me how it happened, Jim. I just wanted to make sure you knew; I know it wasn't your fault. Whatever went wrong between you two, I know you would have saved her if you could have." She drew a breath, heavily, looking older than her sixty-two years. Lily was a widow; Lori had been her only family. Kirk caught himself thinking that he was grateful this was a recording, because he didn't know what he would have said to her. A mother shouldn't have to bury her children.

The woman on the screen lifted her head with effort, as if trying to shake off a great weariness. "I wanted to tell you-- there's going to be a memorial service at the house day after tomorrow. Three o'clock. If you can, if you're able to get away, you're welcome. Take care, Jim."

Kirk hit the switch that would stop the playback. The screen went blank, then reverted to the default display. He sat not seeing it for some minutes. The message was twenty-three hours old; the service would be today.

"Kirk to Navigation," he said finally, his voice hoarse.

"Pendleton here, sir." Kirk heard the unspoken question in the young woman's efficient reply.

"Everything quiet up there, Pendleton?"

"Yes, sir. Estimating Solar system in four point nine seven hours."

Something about the decimal places made Kirk smile a little, painfully. "Very good, Ensign. You'll notify me immediately if we receive any transmissions from Headquarters?"

"Yes, sir." Pendleton didn't ask if he wanted to be woken up, which was just as well. He doubted he would sleep again this night.

"Thank you. Kirk out."

He sat again in darkness, listening, until he realized that what he was listening for was any sound from the adjoining cabin. It felt like a betrayal, proof that he was not as strong as he wanted to be, that he was not as vigilant as he needed to be. He kept hearing the words Spock had spoken on the bridge... my task on Vulcan is complete. He had turned the words over in his mind a dozen times, a hundred; he wanted to believe in them. More than anything, he wanted to believe.

Then why don't you? McCoy's voice asked him pointedly.

But the nightmare was strong in him, and very real. He'd been struggling for so long not to just lie down and let it bury him. It was hard to think about getting up again, running again, when he was so tired.

I've never known you to back down from a challenge.

But oh, Bones, what if I lose this time?

Well, Jim, I never said it was easy.

For the first time in almost three years, the distance separating him from Spock was only a few meters, little more than a thin barrier of titanium alloy and durasteel. Hardly any distance at all, Kirk thought, listening.

Would a Vulcan dream? And if he did dream, night dark lashes curved against skin pale and smooth as alabaster... would it be a nightmare, white and warm and smothering?

Or would it be a dream of stars in a pool, and green growing things, and rain in a brick courtyard?

Kirk got to his feet, remembering at last that he'd always been a gambling man.

* * *

Spock woke from a dream of rain to the sound of the door signal. For a moment, he did not know where he was. The absence of T'Kuht's familiar red glow disoriented him.

A voice said his name, and he heard it softly through the door. "Spock, it's me. Can I come in?"

He remembered, then.

"Come," he said, rising quickly, waving the lights on at the lowest setting. He had fallen asleep in his uniform. The door slid open, his visitor's shape a silhouette against the brighter light in the corridor. The force of that presence swept over Spock, stilling his heart for one long second.

"I'm sorry. I know it's late. Did I wake you?" Kirk didn't move from the threshold.

Spock went toward him until he could see his face a little. "Yes. But it does not matter. Please come in."

James Kirk was having trouble with his own heart rate. "We reach Earth orbit in less than five hours. I thought you'd want to know."

There was a pause. "I see."

The Vulcan's voice was rough from sleep. It wasn't helping Kirk's nerves. He floundered for something else neutral to say. "How are you feeling?" Inwardly, he groaned. Could he get any more trivial?

Spock didn't seem to notice his sudden descent into inanity. "Well enough. The good doctor's beads and rattles do not seem to have done any permanent damage."

Emotion tangled in Kirk, love and memory and fear all wrapped up together, and he couldn't quite find words.

The Vulcan was less than two meters away now, and for a moment their eyes met. Spock cleared his throat awkwardly. "Perhaps you will join me for some tea...?"

Abruptly, Kirk looked away. "We need to talk."

Spock had to draw a steadying breath before he could be certain of controlling his voice. "Would you like to sit down?"

After a long moment, Kirk came into the room, a pale shade in his regulation white tunic. He took the seat Spock offered, a low couch against one wall of the small anteroom. "Thank you."

He did not immediately speak. Instead he propped elbows on knees and studied his clasped hands. Spock sat down facing him, simply drinking him in. The Vulcan had never been able to get enough of observing that expressive face. He thought he would do so now for hours, if he could. He thought that imperfect beauty could hold his gaze for a lifetime.

At last Kirk closed his eyes, as if he were in pain. "Spock." He said it softly, almost a sigh, and then he opened his eyes again, still looking at his hands. "This is so hard. I've been over and over a thousand times what I would say to you, if I ever saw you again." His hands spread, helplessly. "But now that you're here..."

"I am listening," the Vulcan said, trying very hard not to let the longing show in his voice, or his face.

Kirk was still poised for flight, still would not meet his eyes. "I don't know where to start."

Spock leaned forward, wanting to touch but still so far from risking it. His spoke with effort, his voice low and deliberate. "Jim, there is no one here but you and I. You need only tell me what is in your heart."

The gentle mouth curved, and Kirk made a soft, breathless sound, not quite a chuckle. "Only."

"Is it so difficult?"

Kirk's head bowed further, and his answer was almost inaudible. "I don't know if I can."

"I have never known your nerve to fail you," Spock chided softly.

It made Kirk smile a little, which had been Spock's intention. "That's because you're no good at poker, remember? You always fall for my bluffs." There was a hint of shy teasing in that tone; to the Vulcan it was poignantly familiar, sorely missed, and he wanted very much to see the corresponding look in those lowered eyes.

"I am certain I do not remember engaging in any such pastime with you," he said, the old game. He was rewarded; the hazel eyes lifted to his, for one moment lit with the old spark of mischief and knowing affection. But the light faded swiftly, giving way to the shadow of uncertainty, and Kirk dropped his gaze.

"Things are different now," the human said, not seeming to notice it was a non sequitur. "A lot's happened."

Spock wished that he were brave enough to reach out, to give Kirk some of his own certainty. Could Jim not see? But, no. Kirk must reach that place on his own. "Some things remain constant," he said simply. You are the one thing, he thought, willing Kirk to hear. The one thing.

"I got married," Kirk said, and then bit his lip. Why had he blurted it out like that? Watch it, he warned himself. Stick to safe subjects. But Spock did not answer, and at last Kirk had to look up. The dark eyes held him captive with their infinite sadness.

"I grieve with thee."

Kirk flinched. He stood, turned his back, unable to quite keep still. Spock had known.

Spock watched him, his bowed head and hunched shoulders, hurting for him, with him, longing to touch him, longing to ask. Were you happy, Jim? Did you love her? Do you? "Forgive my presumption. I did not mean to intrude."

Kirk shook his head, back still turned.. "You didn't. It's all right, I just... didn't know that you knew."

"I did not, until two days ago. On the journey from Vulcan, I... accessed your personal records."

"You accessed...?" Slowly, the human turned a speculative gaze on him. "I see."

"Again, I ask forgiveness. It was a breach of--"

"No. It wasn't." Kirk swallowed visibly. "You have the right, Spock. You know that."

"Yes," Spock admitted.

"She was never you." Kirk said it matter-of-factly, but he had lifted his head as if for a blow.

"It would be a falsehood," Spock said after a moment, "if I said that information was not welcome."

For the first time, they looked at one another openly, and the Vulcan saw then what he had not in all the hours since his arrival. Saw how thin the human was under the layers of clothing, how pale under the ruddy flush staining his cheeks. Saw the lines etched faintly at the corners of Jim's mouth, where none had been before. For the first time, it occurred to him that he had not himself looked in a mirror in almost three Standard years; he wondered what Kirk saw.

But the color had left the human's face. "What the hell are we doing, Spock?"

"Speaking truth, are we not?"

"Is that what we're doing? Or are we just--grasping at straws?"

The pain of that remark was quite, quite unexpected. "My friend," Spock pleaded softly, "what is it that you fear?"

Kirk's hands tightened into fists. "How can you ask me that?" It came out a whisper.

"Jim--" Spock rose to his feet. Took a step toward him.

Kirk took half a step backward. "I can't believe that you would ask me that!" He began to pace in the confined space. The memory of snow and suffocating was suddenly far too close. Where had this anger come from? Oh, damn, damn, this was not how he had wanted it to be. Suddenly he sensed Spock behind him and he stopped, not turning. It was then that he felt himself trembling, felt how very deep the anger ran. He shoved it down, denying it.

He heard his name again, softly in the tense silence, and knew that Spock had not said it aloud.

Something let go inside him.

"I thought you were dead." He almost choked on it. "You weren't breathing. You weren't--" He drew an unsteady breath, and suddenly it all welled up, the memory he'd been shutting out for hours, the memory (breathe, Spock, oh please God, breathe, have to breathe for him, have to) of his own irrational, near-fatal panic out there in the airless dark.

He closed his eyes, trying to stop the flood. "I tried, Spock. I tried to make you breathe. I tried to breathe for you. But my safety catch wouldn't release." He lifted his hands, the hands that had been utterly unable to break the protective seal on his thruster suit helmet. "It wouldn't release."

His hands closed on empty air.

Spock was stunned into immobility, not wanting to understand, but seeing the memory written too clearly in Kirk's posture, unmistakable.

Kirk turned on him, eyes blazing. "What the devil did you think you were doing out there, anyway?" He began to pace again, agitated. "Did you think you could prove something? Or were you trying to get yourself killed?"

"Both," the Vulcan confessed, very quietly.

Kirk faltered. Some meters away, he turned, meeting Spock's gaze in the low light. "What?"

Spock only looked at him.

"You can't be serious." Kirk was shaking his head. "No. You can't mean that. You can't mean that you--" His voice caught. "You don't quit, Spock, not you. Not like that."

The Vulcan's lips curved slightly, painfully. "You are so certain."

Kirk's face twisted. "How can you ask me what I fear?"

Before he knew what he had done, Spock had taken a step toward him, two. Kirk's eyes widened, but he did not back away.

In the next instant Spock had seized him by the shoulders, hard. It was not an embrace. The Vulcan could feel the shaking now, could smell the fear, and underneath it the smell of Jim's skin, his hair. "You are not to follow me, do you understand?" He said it fiercely, pressing his forehead against Kirk's. "Whatever should happen to me, you are not to follow."

Kirk gripped the Vulcan's waist. He buried his face against Spock's neck. "Then don't scare me like that again!" His breath hitched, and he shuddered. "Damn you."

Spock closed his eyes. He could not think. "I missed you so." He whispered it, aching with it.

Kirk held on harder. "Why didn't you come? I would have given anything." He pressed his body close, as if pleading for comfort he did not yet know how to give. "I thought I was never going to see you again."

"I thought I could bear not seeing you again." The Vulcan struggled for control, wanting only to let go. "I thought I could be cured of you."

Kirk leaned against him, breathing hard. Please don't let go, he wanted to say. Don't leave me. He was closer in that moment to begging than he had ever been in his life. He broke away, unable to bear it.

"Jim--"

"Did you mean it?" he demanded harshly. He couldn't look at Spock. Couldn't let him see how bad it really was.

"Did...?" Spock couldn't think beyond the need to bury himself in the too-long-forbidden sanctuary of him. He, too, was trembling now.

"You said that you would stay. Did you mean it?" Kirk's eyes lifted to his, the need written so clearly there it hurt to look at it. "Did you?"

"I will stay with you as long as you will allow it. In any capacity you wish."

He saw Kirk sway, saw him holding tightly to his self- control, as if afraid he might splinter into fragments at any moment. Which was not so far from how Spock felt himself.

"Just like that?" Kirk managed, in a slightly strangled voice. "After everything that's happened?"

"I believe I have made myself clear."

Kirk's face was averted, his eyes closed. At last he drew an unsteady breath, let it out--and his hands moved, slightly, an almost-plea. "Come here, dammit."

Spock could not stop himself from going to his knees before him. He pressed the side of his face to the human's flank and inhaled, arms closing around Kirk's waist. It was all he had longed to do from that first moment on the bridge.

He didn't quite know how it happened. One moment he was kneeling at Kirk's feet, and the next Jim had shifted, was on his knees too, all malleable warmth and need under his hands. "I can't," Kirk whispered, in answer to a question no one had asked. "I can't." But he turned his face against the Vulcan's throat, his mouth finding the pulse point, melting shivers into the skin there.

Spock made a soft, yearning sound, and he moved. His lips found Kirk's.

At first, it was not a kiss. It was something more elemental, a communion of need that shocked them both to stillness, a silence that contained only heat and shared breath and the syncopation of hearts. Then, as if he could not bear the intensity any more, Kirk swayed forward on his knees, and his mouth yielded slightly, gently.

That hesitant offering, after almost three years of drought, seemed to Spock almost unbearably intimate. He returned it, trembling.

"God," Kirk breathed, breaking off with a shudder. The shock of that brief touching of mouths washed through him in waves. How had he forgotten? How had he let himself forget what happened when they kissed? His lips were sweet with the taste of Spock. Too soon, it was too soon--but oh, sweet heaven, he could not fight it. The next moment his hands were in Spock's silk-smooth hair, their tongues touching.

He could bear it only a few seconds before he had to stop again, catch himself against the Vulcan's body. He made an incoherent sound. He thought Spock said his name, but was too far gone to be certain. He bowed his head against Spock's collarbone, clenching his eyes shut and fighting the fear.

That naked vulnerability had always been Spock's undoing. His hand went instinctively to the back of Kirk's neck.

It happened fast, then, a strike of chain lightning between one heartbeat and the next. Only afterward would the Vulcan understand rationally what it meant, what hot current leapt through the connection of his fingertips at Kirk's nape. In that first moment, Spock's own uncertain control disintegrated in a blaze of heat; he knew only need, and light, and him.

"Jim," he whispered helplessly, and reached.

The first touch of Kirk's mind in his came as a jab of white combustion, pleasure like liquid flame. He gasped with the force of it, faltered...

...and everything went wrong.

* * *

Kirk struggled up from darkness to light that hurt even through his closed eyelids. He fought the leaden weight of his pain, tried to say the name, but his tongue didn't seem to want to cooperate. Slowly, the throbbing in his head subsided. He came the rest of the way up to where the light was, started to sit up--and became very aware that the sudden motion had been a bad idea.

"Easy. Be easy. Lie still until it passes."

"Spock?" It was a hoarse croak.

"I am here. Do not try to get up."

Kirk breathed shallowly, fighting nausea. He was on the floor. There was something supporting his head and shoulders. After a moment, he realized it was Spock--that the Vulcan was bearing his weight half in his lap. He remembered then the taste of the Vulcan's mouth, the feel of his hands--and then confusion, and fear, and finally, silence.

Silence?

When Spock touched me.

No, the thought came, as it always did when he came down from one of his attacks. Oh no, not again, not now. The inevitable wave of depression almost crushed him this time. He shoved it away, not wanting to think about what this might mean just yet.

"Be still, Jim, please. I have signaled the doctor."

"It's all right," Kirk managed. "I'm all right."

"That remains to be determined."

Kirk shook his head, tried to struggle up again. "No, I don't want them to see me like this--"

"Jim." Spock reached out, didn't quite touch him. Afraid to, Kirk noted detachedly. Afraid to touch me with his hands. He shied away from the pain of that and made it to a sitting position. "Call Sickbay. Tell them everything's all right," he ordered, gritting his teeth against the dizziness of moving too fast.

"Everything is not all right."

"Dammit, just call them!" He snarled it, desperate. McCoy was off duty, and he could not bear the thought of anyone else. "I'm asking you, Spock. Please." He begged it with his eyes.

Spock never could deny that look, and he gave in now, knowing it was unwise. "Very well. But you must lie still."

But Kirk was on his knees now, pale and sweating. Suddenly he went a shade paler still and staggered to his feet. "Shit," he muttered, and went for the head. The door shut behind him. It did not quite muffle the sound of him being sick.

Spock did not know precisely what had happened, but it was plain there was something badly wrong in Kirk and he feared it was damage of his own making. He rose, stared at the closed door.

I'm asking you, Spock.

"Intercom relay," he said when he could be certain of his control. "Spock to Chapel."

"Chapel here. We're on our way, Mr. Spock."

"Cancel medical alert, Doctor. It seems my request was... premature."

There was a silence at the other end. "All right," Chapel said at last. "If you're sure." On the other side of the bathroom door, the Vulcan could hear the sound of water running.

"I will call if you are needed."

"Please do," she said dubiously. "Chapel out."

"Thank you," Kirk said from the open doorway. He was leaning against the door frame, but a little of his color had returned. When Spock did not immediately answer, he tried to smile. "Don't look at me like that. Trust me, I'm all right."

"I would accept your word for anything else. Will you not let the doctor examine you?"

Kirk levered himself away from the support of the bulkhead. Carefully, as if nursing a headache, he made for the closest chair. "What would be the point? She can't change anything." He sank into the chair and put a hand over his eyes. His hair was damp and stood up in spikes, as if he had washed his face and then run his fingers back through it haphazardly.

Spock wanted badly to go to him, did not trust himself. "Jim," he said with effort, "what happened here tonight is... not something to take lightly. There can be potential dangers."

"I'm well aware of the 'potential dangers.' But I'm not letting some doctor poke and prod at me. That's final."

Spock was uneasy. Kirk could be cavalier with his own well-being, but it was not like him to dismiss serious concerns so casually. "Are you... in pain?" he asked carefully.

"I said I'm fine. Will you leave it alone?"

"You are most decidedly not fine. You lost consciousness."

Kirk tensed, looked up at him, anger sparking in hazel eyes. "Yes. It's not the first time. I've dealt with it alone enough times before--I can do it again." As swiftly as the passing of one second to the next, the pain shone through the anger like a beacon. "If you're so concerned, then where the hell were you when--"

He cut himself off. They stared at one another for a second more, and then Kirk hid his face again behind his hand. "My god, what's happened to us?" he whispered, despairing.

The Vulcan stood very still, gazing at his bowed head. Slowly, distantly, he heard himself say, "What do you mean, not the first time?"

Kirk's head came up fractionally. "What...?"

Spock locked his hands together behind his back to steady them. "You said, 'it's not the first time.'" He had to stop, had to draw a breath. "Have you had... episodes of losing consciousness before now?"

Kirk had turned his face away, his hand curled near his mouth. "Sometimes," he said warily. "Sometimes I black out. Sometimes it's... more like a panic attack."

"How... like?"

"I can't breathe. I feel like I'm suffocating. Cold sweats. Sometimes it's a nightmare that I can't wake up from."

"And that is what you believe happened just now? A 'panic attack?'"

Kirk's profile was to him now, his face too still. "Spock... what are you asking me?"

"How long has this been going on?" the Vulcan whispered.

"You know." Kirk's voice was a rough-soft rasp. "Since-- New Orleans."

"How long precisely, Jim?"

The fine muscle in Kirk's jaw leaped. "I'm not sure, precisely. The first time was a few days after you left."

Spock could not look at him any more, and turned away. "Are you certain...?" He realized it was a foolish question as soon as he said it. Not possible, the voice of logic insisted, not possible! He is human. No telepath. He could not. Cannot. No. "Jim--"

"What does it mean, Spock? Is it because I'm not... Vulcan?" Kirk's voice was small, apprehensive. "I've thought maybe... I wasn't strong enough."

"No," Spock managed. "Not that. Never that."

Not you, Jim. You were never the one who wasn't strong enough.

Behind him, the Vulcan heard Kirk get up from the chair. After a moment, the familiar rhythm of his pacing began: three steps right, pause, three steps left. Spock did not have to see him to know the way his hands moved as he paced, the way his face gave away what was in his heart. Spock's own heart felt too heavy to bear, and he could not turn around.

"Lori wanted me to go to doctors, too. But I couldn't. They'd want to do scans, and psycho imaging, and heaven knows what else, and I was scared to death that--" Kirk's breath caught. "I was afraid that they'd succeed, and make the dreams go away."

Spock closed his eyes. There was a long, breathless silence. The sound of soft footsteps approached, and he imagined that he could hear the beating of that steady, steadfast heart.

"They were all I had of you," Kirk choked. "I couldn't--"

Kirk touched him then, his hair, and Spock shuddered away from the tentative caress. He heard Kirk make a soft, wounded sound; it hurt him to know he had caused it.

"What is it, Spock? What did I say?"

"You couldn't, Jim, but I could. I--did."

There came a pause that went on too long. Then Kirk said tightly, ominously, "I'm not sure I'm following you."

"I did not know," the Vulcan whispered. "But there is... damage. In you. Of my making." Spock struggled with the confession. "I sought a healer. The very day I reached Vulcan--four days after I left you in New Orleans." He wanted to plead for mercy, try to make Kirk understand how it had been. "The pain was so great, Jim," he said, and Kirk's guileless, brutal words returned in a wash of memory, as they had so many times before. Can it be broken? "I did not know how to bear it."

"I think you'd better tell me what you're trying to say."

The Vulcan turned to face him, his eyes too warm. "I went to a healer for assistance in... breaking the connection between us. I asked her to undo what I had done."

The human's expression went suddenly, frighteningly blank.

Spock took one step toward him. "Please, you must believe that I did not intend to cause you difficulty--"

At the words, Kirk's wan face drained to an ashen pallor. "You thought I wouldn't know," he whispered. His eyes had gone wide.

"Jim--"

Kirk had turned, resumed pacing, though he did not seem to be aware of it. "Four days after you left... then that's what was wrong with me? All this time? You did that to me?" And suddenly his eyes narrowed, accusing. His voice lowered, that deadly calm he reverted to when his back was to the wall. "You let a stranger into your mind, you let her cut me out of you--and you thought I wouldn't be able to tell the difference!"

It took all of Spock's strength to answer the question that had not been a question. "Yes. You are human. A non- telepath. I believed you would remain unaffected by my choice."

"Your choice--!"

Kirk's fury welled up, fueled by hurt. Against his will, he remembered snow, and silence, and skis left by the door. For an instant he wanted to hurt Spock for that memory, wanted to lash out at him with his fists, with his rage, with any weapon he could find, for bringing him to that.

But from somewhere, Spock found courage to meet his eyes, and Kirk's heart hurt when he realized Spock thought he would be punished, that he would bear whatever blow Kirk would level at him. That profound courage, that grace of spirit, had not altered.

Kirk's anger turned to grief, suffused him like a wash of rain. "It didn't work, did it, Spock? I hurt you and you tried to cut me out, but it didn't work. It didn't stop the pain. That's why--" He caught his breath.

What the devil did you think you were doing out there, anyway? Trying to get yourself killed?

The pain was so great, Jim.

"Is it permanent?" Kirk whispered.

"I do not know." Spock's control was brittle, an acknowledgment, his eyes hollow with shame. "I am sorry," he whispered, not naming his dishonor, only pleading, with the difficult dignity of a man for whom dishonor is a soul- deep wrong.

James Kirk found in that moment that his rage and his pain, his betrayal and his fear did not matter, for he could not, simply could not watch him hurt like that and do nothing. He did not have it in him. To turn his back on that plea, on those jewel-dark, needing eyes? Might as well ask him to cut out his own heart.

"I know," he said, and took a step toward him. "Oh, Spock, I do know."

The Vulcan came to him then, at the end of his endurance, and Kirk allowed it. "Jim, you must believe that I would not have..." Spock's hands found his waist. His face was hot against Kirk's temple. "I did not know what else to do. I did not think you would ever feel it."

Kirk felt stunned, shell-shocked, numb. Yes, exactly, the bitter thought came, but he pushed it back. "Shh," he whispered aloud. He let Spock lean against his body, drew him close, though there was no surrender in the too-thin frame.

"I do not know how I would bear it if--"

"Don't, Spock. It's all right. I won't let go." It wasn't what he wanted to say, what he needed to say--but he knew it was true. He never would.

Spock gave in to the embrace then, and his strength was great. His arms held tight and did not let go, either.

Kirk took comfort in that.

After a time exhaustion would not be denied any longer and they had to lie down. Kirk got them onto the bed. Their bodies fit awkwardly together. The Vulcan was all sharp knees and hips, and he was too tall to fit comfortably in Kirk's arms, but he whispered, "Please stay," breath warm against the human's shoulder, and Kirk did. For that moment he could, and it was all that mattered.

"It's all right," he soothed. It wasn't, but he held Spock close and whispered it against the cool smoothness of his hair. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Lying in the dark with a Vulcan heart beating against his and his ship's engines humming in his blood, Kirk should have felt safe. Instead what he felt was the old silence, encroaching on him from all sides. Why did it hurt so much, to know that Spock had found the strength to seek an end to pain, when he hadn't?

He knew only that it did.

The Vulcan slept at last, the unconscious stupor of a soldier who has fought an arduous battle. But Kirk himself lay awake for a long time. He longed to dream of stars; all he saw when he closed his eyes was the memory of Spock's lifeless face behind glass.

Oh, Spock, my friend, what's happened to us?

Some few hours later, the thrumming of the engines woke him from a fitful doze.

They had dropped out of warp.

* * *

Oh six hundred hours, ship's time.

On silent cat feet, Kirk left the Vulcan sleeping and returned to his own quarters. A quick check with the bridge confirmed that they were on approach into Earth orbit, all systems normal.

His message light was already blinking, but he let it blink, rushing through a sonic shower and change of uniform. The white and grey admiral's jacket weighed heavily on him. When he was buttoned down and guarded in that formal cloak of dignity, he skimmed the list of incoming messages.

It was long--but there was only one he cared about. As he had guessed, Nogura would not waste time. He was due in the Commanding Admiral's office in less than an hour.

Just as he reached to shut off the monitor, Kirk was surprised to hear the soft chime of the door signal. Answering it, he found a very unexpected face offering him a much-missed smile, and for a moment his heart lifted. "Uhura! What are you doing up at this hour?"

Her smile was mischievous. "I'm thinking of starting a chauffeur service, Admiral. Would you consider being my first customer? I offer express service to San Francisco."

"How did you know--?"

She shrugged. "Comm officer's intuition."

Kirk did not quite know what to say. At last he chuckled, bemused. "I'm not sure. What do you charge?"

She pretended to think it over. "Well, since you are a friend of Doctor McCoy's--not to mention my superior officer --I suppose I could do it for the price of your company."

Kirk was thinking, how could I ever have let anyone separate me from this ship, these people? "Done," he agreed, as if he'd had to consider it.

"Your chariot awaits," she said gallantly, and bowed him through the door.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Copernicus cleared the hangar bay doors, Uhura at the shuttle's helm. She piloted the craft in a tight hyperbolic arc to the port side of the Enterprise, skimming the curve of the ship's belly and following it up, climbing steadily higher, higher, until they cleared the great white curve of her saucer and were suddenly soaring free.

Kirk watched through the aft portal in silence as the ship fell away behind them. He couldn't help it; his heart ached with the grace and noble beauty of her, as it always did when he saw her like this. There was, of course, no reason at all for them to fly on manual--no more than there was any reason why he should travel by shuttle when the Enterprise transporters were perfectly operational. But Uhura said nothing, ostensibly concentrating on the controls.

He watched until the Enterprise was no longer visible, and then he came forward to stand beside the woman who had given him such a gift. Ahead, the blue curve of Earth was rising up to meet them.

"Thank you, Uhura," he said softly.

She smiled, eyes on her board. "You are welcome, Admiral." And then her gaze lifted to his. "Captain."

He smiled back. "Message received, Commander, loud and clear."

She set the controls to automatic and straightened, turning to face him. "I have another one for you, sir, from the bridge crew. The message is--welcome home, Captain. You were missed."

He had to swallow. "Also received, and duly logged."

"Permission to speak freely, Jim?" she asked gently.

"I don't know... will I regret it?"

Her dark lashes swept her cheeks. "Possibly."

Kirk sighed, much put-upon. "All right, I can take it."

She turned, and he followed her gaze to the blue planet below. "I know you don't see it right now," she said, "but it's because of you that planet down there is still in one piece." He must have made a sound, because she shook her head once, firmly. "Don't argue with me, Captain. I won't hear you. I just want you to remember that when Vejur would have destroyed that planet, you were the one who stopped it. Will you remember that for me?"

They were nearing the atmosphere now, jewel-blue streaked with white filling the viewscreen, and Kirk was caught by the sight, could not look away. When he could trust his voice, he said, "Not me, Nyota. All of us. Spock, and Decker--"

And she turned, her eyes sparkling, approving him. "Well of course, Captain. You can't do everything yourself, you know." Then she did something she had never done; she reached out, put her hand on his arm. "You don't have to face everything alone. You just have to remember to let us help."

Caught off-guard by the resonance of another woman's long-ago compassion, Kirk looked at her in astonishment.

She smiled.

* * *

In San Francisco it was past noon, and the Starfleet terminal was more crowded than usual. Uhura had to give the control center the name of her passenger to get a docking slip. The outcome of that was a crowd that thronged the mezzanine at the end of their concourse--a crowd that cheered them jubilantly on sight.

Kirk was nonplused. "Can you believe that?" he murmured to the woman at his side. His cheeks felt warm.

See? her look said, and she let her grin serve as a cheer of her own.

It was that look Kirk carried with him when they parted at the tram depot. He thanked her again, knowing it was insufficient for the gratitude he felt.

"Wish me luck?" he asked at the last moment, smiling a little nervously.

She kissed his cheek. "I have faith in you, Captain."

The hope was tangible, a bright fragile thing inside of him, and this time Kirk didn't fight it. He'd need whatever strength he could find to get him through this debriefing. There'd been few opponents who had challenged his nerve, his wits, the way Nogura had. Three years ago he had not been strong enough, and had been outplayed; the Enterprise had been the price. Three days ago he'd won her back on a promise and a threat. It was time to make good on both.

* * *

Spock woke alone, and for a long moment did not know why that should be a disappointment, why it should make him feel unaccountably chilled. Trying to get warmer, he curled in on himself, turning his face into the pillow. And there he caught the faintest scent of familiar human male.

He would know it anywhere; he breathed it now, and closed his eyes. Jim. Here, in his bed. Last night--

His eyes opened, as awareness of something else reached him. The engines were silent.

Spock sat up. "Computer, shipwide page. Spock to Admiral Kirk." There was no answer. Then after a moment, his comm unit beeped softly.

"Mr. Spock? Lieutenant Aster here. The Admiral left the ship at oh-six-fifteen, sir. I logged the Copernicus out to him."

Spock glanced at the chronometer; it was just after seven hundred hours. "Did he also log a destination, Lieutenant?"

"Fleet Com, sir."

"Acknowledged. Thank you."

His desk unit was blinking with a waiting message. He knew even before he played it who it would be from; he stood in the dark of his quarters and listened to the sound of Jim's voice saying his name.

"Spock, forgive me for sneaking out on you. You need your sleep--I didn't want to wake you. Nogura wants to debrief me himself first thing, and things being what they are, I thought it unwise to keep him waiting." The warm humor showed in Kirk's voice, which had still been rough with sleep when he made the recording. But beneath the warmth, and the veneer of bravado, Spock heard the tension. "With any luck, when you wake up I'll have good news." There was a pause, as if Kirk considered some more personal message, then thought better of it. "Well. Once more, dear friends..." And with that the recording ended.

My friend, Spock thought, listening to the absence of him, might I not have faced this with you? Surely two are stronger than one. It was you who taught me that a single ally, no matter how inconsequential his forces, can often turn the tide of a battle--

Spock had an idea then, that quite surprised him.

* * *

There was something rather surreal about making this pilgrimage for the second time in three days, Kirk thought. The last time he had crossed the promenade, entered the glass paneled lift, walked that last, wide, open concourse to Nogura's office, he'd been oblivious to everyone around him. Now he felt all eyes on him, felt the excitement, an almost jubilant welcome beneath the restraint of military decorum. He'd had to dodge half a dozen clusters of reporters on the way up.

It did not bode well. Three years ago, he might have seen the media as a harmless trial to his patience; now he knew better. His promotion had been, in large part, a staged political event. The last thing he needed now was a horde of reporters wanting to make a hero out of him.

Unless, the thought occurred to him, he could find a way to make use of that...

He had reached the outer executive offices; drawing a deep breath, he went through the doors. Inside, the tall, familiar figure of Commander Att was waiting for him.

"Greetings, Admiral. You are expected." The willowy Rigellian seemed to hesitate for a moment. "May I offer my condolences...?"

"Thank you," Kirk said gravely. Att had been a friend of Lori's for many years, had worked closely with her. Kirk could read nothing on that stylized face, but imagined that the wide dark eyes contained some hint of loss. "She always considered you an invaluable asset to this office, Commander --and a good friend. Thank you for that."

Att inclined his head graciously. "You may go in, Admiral. They are ready for you."

It was a warning, and Kirk read him loud and clear, alarm bells going off. They? Intuition told him the third person at this meeting would not be an ally. Komack then, he thought grimly, as he walked the last twenty meters to the opaque glass doors. Well, no help for it.

The sensor spotted his approach, opened the doors for him automatically.

* * *

Kirk's guess had been right. Komack was already seated across from Nogura when Kirk entered, the two of them like centurions at post, one wiry and fierce, the other blunt- featured and thickset as a bull. They were sitting casually-- Nogura was sipping tea--but Kirk was not fooled.

There was a chair set for him already, the tea poured and still steaming. Kirk ignored it. He nodded coolly to each of them. "Sir," he directed to Nogura, "Bill," to Komack, with only the slightest hesitation.

Nogura indicated the chair, his expression pleasant. "Relax, Jim. This is not an official debriefing. Morrow can handle that with you later in the week."

Kirk arched his brows, managing to convey both surprise and neutral interest. "I see. May I ask, then, what you wanted to see me about, sir?"

Nogura's hands made a controlled motion, as if to say, we're all friends here. "I only wished to hear it directly from the source. Have we, indeed, seen the last of Vejur?"

Interesting. No mention of the shakedown cruise, or Kirk's tardiness in returning to Earth. It seemed Nogura and Komack needed to be sure he was firmly on their team. But what game were they playing? The two of them had obviously wanted to get their hands on him before he talked to anyone.

Kirk sat, giving the impression that he had lowered his guard a notch. "It is my opinion, Admiral, that we will not be threatened by Vejur again."

Komack spoke up. "Your opinion? Based on what?"

Kirk looked at him, as if only then remembering he was in the room. "Based on sensor data, and first-hand observation, as well as the professional analyses of my officers, of course."

"Of course." His tone was borderline insulting.

Nogura shot Komack a warning look, and he subsided. "That is reassuring, Admiral," Nogura said smoothly. "I look forward to your report of the encounter." He sipped his tea thoughtfully, a strategic pause. Kirk decided to open with a gambit of his own.

"I ran into quite a few reporters on the way up," he said casually. Nogura's expression didn't alter, and Komack's was admirably impassive--but Kirk was experienced at reading subliminal facial cues. He knew at once he'd hit pay dirt.

Nogura put down his teacup.

"Yes, they are a nuisance, and likely to become more so. Which brings me to another matter I wished to discuss with you." He grew suddenly grave. "The memorial services for our fallen officers. I'd like to postpone them for a few days. Perhaps more."

Kirk clamped down on his gut reaction. "Admiral," he said reasonably, "you're talking about men and women who gave their lives to save this planet." He held the old man's gaze with his own. "You're talking about a woman who worked closely with you for almost ten years. Doesn't she deserve some acknowledgment?"

Nogura looked genuinely regretful. "Jim, of course she does. They all do. But we can't let our personal feelings dictate our actions. There are matters you are not aware of."

Kirk kept his face under control. "Lily Ciani is going to bury her daughter this afternoon, and I can't see any good reason why Starfleet or anyone else should stop her."

A little silence followed his words. At last, Nogura inclined his head. "I suppose we can go ahead with the services for Admiral Ciani and Commander Sonak. But I'm afraid in the matter of Captain Decker and Lieutenant Ilia, I must insist on a delay of at least three days. I am sorry, Jim."

Kirk frowned. "A delay for what reason?"

Nogura exchanged a look with Komack. This, then, was the real purpose for the meeting. Kirk leaned forward slightly.

Komack spoke bluntly.

"Decker and Ilia may have saved the planet, but they've created one hell of a PR problem for us. When it gets out that Earth narrowly escaped the biggest destructive force that's ever come down the pike because two Starfleet officers 'joined' with it and became 'One'--the New Humans are going to have a field day. So far, we've kept that side of things quiet. But with the Enterprise in port, our hours are numbered."

Nogura continued, "Bad enough that Voyager Six was a NASA craft, Jim. What does that say about space exploration--about Starfleet? Once the media gets a hold of the whole story, there's going to be an explosion of anti-Starfleet sentiment if we're not careful. Surely you can see the danger."

Kirk did, that was the problem. If there was one thing that he and Komack had ever shared, it was a distaste for and instinctive opposition to the oppressive philosophies of the New Human movement. What Decker had done out there had nothing to do with their kind of 'oneness'--but Kirk could see how easy it would be to make it look that way.

"What is it that you need from me?" he asked quietly.

Nogura's gaze sharpened. "You're our front man. If we can put the story out there first, before the word gets out to the wrong people, the focus will be on you and the Enterprise. We can defuse the situation before it ever occurs."

Kirk saw where this was going, didn't like it much. He had never been comfortable under the spotlight; it would be worse if they tried to make him a hero over this. He'd been lucky, that was all. And, he had a bad feeling about where this was leading...

"Tell me what you have in mind," he said, steepling his hands in conscious imitation of Spock, hoping it would bring him some measure of Vulcan calm.

"A press conference," Komack answered. Kirk could practically see the man licking his lips. Was Kirk really going to cooperate so easily? his expression said. "Wednesday night, on the assembly deck of the Enterprise. The Commanding Admiral first, then you'll follow. Then, a series of short interviews the next day. On Friday we hold the memorial for Decker and Ilia on the Enterprise, with you as master of ceremonies. We award special medals of valor to your bridge crew, and posthumously to Decker and Ilia. We broadcast the whole thing system-wide."

Kirk's eyes went to Nogura. "What's the story?"

Nogura shrugged. "The truth, Jim. We trust your discretion. We just want the story that gets told to be the real one, and not something that will work against us." He smiled a knowing, fatherly smile. "You can be as modest and humble as you like--we'll see that the press gets enough material to gild your reputation properly."

Komack's lip curled in a sneer he made no attempt to hide. "Won't take much--the media loves a pretty face and a uniform."

Kirk was silent for a minute, considering. The thought of what they were asking him to do made him faintly nauseous-- but it wouldn't be the first time. It was very nearly the same tune Nogura had sung to get him to accept the Chief of Ops posting. For the good of the Fleet, for the good of the Federation. He didn't like it any more than he had three years ago, but the logic still held.

"What's the catch?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

Nogura's eyes flicked away for a fraction of an instant. He folded his hands on the desk before him. When he looked at Kirk again, his expression was still pleasant, but there was unbending steel in his voice. "I'd like to move you into a more vital position, Jim. Somewhere we can really use your skill for strategy and rhetoric."

Kirk felt a steady sinking in the region of his stomach. "A... permanent position?"

"Something I think you'll find much more challenging than Operations--a job that's made for you. We'd like to make you the Starfleet Federation Council Representative."

Kirk controlled his face with a fierce effort. "What about Fitzpatrick--doesn't she have anything to say about that?"

"Admiral Fitzpatrick's health is not good," Nogura informed him regretfully. "The responsibilities of the position may have proven too much for a woman of her years. We've been keeping that fact quiet in hopes that a suitable replacement candidate might be found."

More likely, she had been 'persuaded' to step down, Kirk thought. He let his skepticism show.

"It's a great opportunity, Jim. We need someone like you there, badly--now more than ever."

Kirk began to feel more than a little trapped. "And what about the Enterprise?" he asked, forcing lightness. "She needs a captain."

Nogura smiled tolerantly. "So she does."

"You already have someone in mind?"

The old man glanced at Komack. "In fact, we do."

"I happen to know there's no one else available who's rated on that design."

"There is now," Komack put in smugly.

"You recommended him, Jim," Nogura added.

Kirk looked at him, then at Komack. And understanding dawned.

"Spock," he said.

Bill Komack appeared well satisfied by his reaction. "We'll commission him at the ceremony on Friday, if he agrees."

He'll agree when hell freezes over, Kirk thought, but didn't let his thoughts reach his face. He looked at his hands, thinking fast. What was the game here, and what were the stakes Nogura was playing for? What would the old man be willing to sacrifice?

What would he, Kirk, be willing to sacrifice?

As soon as he asked himself the question, he knew that there was one thing that was non-negotiable. There was no way in hell he was going to let them send Spock off without him.

He decided to play it open-handed. If he didn't have faith in himself, how could he expect Nogura to? He looked up. "Perhaps we could reach a compromise."

Nogura's hawk-black eyes were unreadable. "Indeed. What sort of... compromise... did you have in mind?"

"I play out your script, to the hilt, and in return you give me command of the Enterprise."

Nogura looked apologetic. "Jim, you're a flag officer now. You have to consider the bigger picture."

"Why me, Admiral? I'm no statesman."

"You underestimate yourself, Jim. It is an extremely vital position."

"Extremely visible, you mean."

For an instant, Nogura's pleasant smile faltered. "Well, you are free to remain at Operations, of course. But frankly, your talents would be better served--"

"--on a starship, and you know it."

They faced each other in open confrontation for one long moment; Komack broke it. "I'm disappointed, Kirk. I'd heard you were one hell of a poker player. You always lay your cards out on the table for everyone to see?"

Kirk gifted the older man with a slow smile. "Those are the only stakes I'm interested in, Bill. Might as well let you know it up front." Even if it's not entirely true, he added silently.

Komack appeared to be irritated by Kirk's refusal to be baited . "No flag officer has ever returned to the line of duty in time of peace."

"No one else has ever made flag rank at thirty-six, either," Kirk shot back.

Nogura was genuinely amused. "Your point is well taken." He rose to his feet, going to stand at the window which overlooked the sprawl of Starfleet Headquarters. For a span of seconds he stood there looking out, a sovereign surveying his domain.

At last he sighed, and turned. "Let us not play games, gentlemen. Jim, you know and I know what must be done for the good of the Fleet. I am certain you see the necessity. The apportionment hearings are in two months, and Council elections are less than six weeks after that. If we're not careful, this organization is going to take a beating--and that I will not have." His eyes pinned Kirk, dissecting him. "I don't believe you will allow it either, Admiral, personal agendas aside. You will do the interviews, or I've seriously misjudged you."

Kirk rose to his feet, inclined his head with the air of losing gracefully. "Bluff called, Heihachiro. But I stand by my record. I belong on the bridge of a starship, not on the holovid. All due respect, sir."

Nogura gestured to Komack. "Give him the media files, Bill. Jim, you should read through them at your earliest convenience. It should be clear where we want this to go." Grudgingly, Komack handed Kirk a data wafer. Kirk took it, his eyes still on Nogura. The old man nodded to him, a dismissal, his expression something like fatherly pride. "I will... consider your request. That is all I can promise."

Kirk acceded, knowing half a loaf was better than none. Two steps from the door, he turned back. His heart was beating rather faster than normal, but he had learned long ago that nothing worth having ever came without risks. He drew a deep breath.

"There is one thing you should know, sir. I wouldn't count too heavily on any staff distribution plan that puts me outside transporter range of Commander Spock. That's something I won't compromise on--and Starfleet isn't the only game in town."

Komack's blink of surprise was well worth the price of admission.

* * *

Kirk strode from the office rapidly, his heart still racing. Momentum carried him all the way down the corridor and into the ostentatious glass lift before he noticed his palms were sweating all over Komack's data cassette.

Did I just do that?

Yes, my dear Admiral Kirk, you certainly did.

It had been a self-revelation he hadn't expected. Hurt, angry and uncertain, he would still choose Spock over everything else in his life. And in spite of how scary that was--and it was--his heart felt inexplicably lighter.

He found himself suddenly, ridiculously impatient to see Spock.

A moment later, he damned the annoying new wrist communicators for the hundredth time, because he'd forgotten again to put the thing on, and had to go to the upper level transport station to beam up.

* * *

Spock transported directly to his destination, without benefit of a chauffeur. When the beam released him, he was standing at the gate to a pleasant garden lined with brick, outside a contemporary single story home. The sun was warm, the breeze off the bay cool, and his first breath of Earth air in three years smelled of the sea.

He rang the bell. A mild voice said, "Yes?" from a small speaker set in the garden wall.

"Commander Spock to see you, sir. I wonder if you might spare a moment? It is rather urgent."

There was a momentary hesitation. "Yes, certainly, but it will have to be brief. I'll be right down."

The gate opened, and Spock went into the garden, up the steps to the front door. A trim, aesthetically pleasing human male of some fifty years met him there. The man offered the Vulcan salute smoothly, and Spock returned it. "Commander, a pleasure! It's been a long time. But I'm due at Headquarters in thirty minutes--afraid I can't postpone."

"Of course. Thank you for seeing me, Admiral. I shall not take more than twenty of those minutes."

The man gestured Spock inside. "Tell me what's on your mind, Spock..."

* * *

On the ship, Kirk went first to the bridge. Spock wasn't there, which disappointed him, but Sulu seemed to have everything under control. The only other personnel in evidence were two techs buried to the waist under the weapons console.

Sulu swiveled in the command chair and started to get up, but Kirk waved him back, running lightly down the steps. The adrenaline rush didn't seem to have quite subsided. He gave the helmsman a questioning look. "How's it going, Commander?"

"Repair schedules nearly complete, Captain. We've synchronized chronometers with Headquarters--should have a comprehensive report on all systems by eighteen hundred today, Pacific time."

Kirk glanced toward the science station, not realizing he'd done it. "Where is everyone?"

Sulu was hard-pressed not to smile. "I haven't seen Mr. Spock today, sir. He may be down in the labs, or in Engineering."

Kirk frowned distractedly. "Hm. All right, Sulu. Carry on." He departed, still frowning, never noticing that his helmsman had read him like a book.

* * *

Somehow, Kirk sensed the Vulcan wasn't in the labs, or Engineering, and a shipwide page confirmed it; he got no response. Kirk hurried to his quarters, intending to check the transport logs from there. Time was short now, and he still had to change.

Transporter records showed that Spock had left the ship less than an hour before. Kirk checked for a message but found none, thought about trying the Vulcan's communicator but didn't want to smother the man. When he checked the recorded coordinates, his puzzlement only grew. What business would Spock have on Nob Hill?

Curiouser and curiouser...

Kirk grappled with frustration for a moment, irrationally tempted to follow the Vulcan down, but there wasn't time. Lori's service would be starting in just over an hour.

To distract himself from morose thoughts, he stuck the data wafer Komack had given him into the viewer and set the computer to page through it automatically while he dressed. It was standard stuff, canned blurbs about the refit of the Enterprise, about the 'new era' of Starfleet exploration. A series of press release photos followed, labeled with the news service they'd appeared on and an index to the corresponding articles. He watched them with one eye as he traded the grey and white uniform for a white and silver one. The new dress uniforms were very elegant, very imposing-- and still made him feel like he was being slowly and delicately strangled. When would they ever design one that didn't choke a man to death?

He was trying to tame his recalcitrant cowlick into behaving when one of the images on the screen caught his attention. It was a photo of Wil Decker receiving his commission. Kirk himself was in the frame, off to one side, his expression unreadable. He remembered too well Decker's anticipation, his own inner battle between pride in his protege and fierce, unprofessional envy.

The computer continued its automatic playback, the next image showing Chris Pike with his first officer... what was her name? And there--Kirk smiled a little, with a pang of memory--Spock, looking much the same as he had the day they'd met.

Grooming forgotten, Kirk came to stand before the viewer, watching as the images came and went. Someone, apparently, had gotten the idea to do a segment about Enterprise and her captains, for there was a shot of Robert April and several more of Chris Pike, all referencing the same article. Half a dozen frames of Kirk followed, most taken at various award ceremonies or official functions, but the last one was an amateur shot. That one puzzled him, for he did not remember posing for it.

He and Spock were both in the picture, several other figures in the background. They were not in uniform, which was rare enough in itself--Spock was at his most striking, all in black, a dramatic foil for the deep crimson Kirk wore. Kirk placed the scene some four years ago, judging from that red jacket--he'd only worn it a few times, and Lori had hated it, saying it made him look like a vid star courting paparazzi. But where...?

"Computer, freeze image," he murmured, and sat down to get a better look.

It was night, and there was a railing behind them, as if they stood on a balcony. Peering closely, he recognized Bones just behind his left shoulder, though McCoy's face wasn't visible. There were two young women in the background as well, dressed for evening and smiling.

Kirk remembered then. A night of leave on Deneva. He and Bones had talked Spock into dinner and a show. As they had left the restaurant, three young women had recognized them, had begged a group photo.

This one, though, was not a group pose.

The girl with the camera had apparently snapped a close- up of the two of them, but he and Spock didn't seem to have noticed they were being captured on disk. Spock was wearing the look Kirk thought of privately as his 'teasing me' look, one eyebrow elevated, the rest of his expression deadpan. Kirk himself, standing close, was smiling delightedly as if responding to something unexpected the Vulcan had just said. Spock had teased him, he remembered. Something about preserving him in bronze--a subtle dig at Kirk's ego, which had always been a private joke between them.

He had always loved it when Spock teased him.

Looking at that picture, at the expression on his own face, Kirk felt his neck grow warm. That smile was positively seductive. He had known his face could give him away, but had never known how much. His lashes were lowered, his mouth flushed, the intimacy of the way they were standing almost obscene. He was--there was no other way to say it-- making love to Spock in that picture, right there in a crowd of people.

Stunned, his body shocked awake by sudden heat he hadn't known in more months than he could count, Kirk got the words out. "Computer, access corresponding files."

"No audio file available. Accessing text file."

It was just one caption. The news service was one he didn't recognize the name of, but it sounded only semi- reputable, and he guessed it was a popular tabloid network.

The caption read simply, "Starfleet's finest."

Separated from that long-ago night by what felt like a lifetime of lost innocence, James Kirk gazed at his own image, at his feelings laid bare to all the galaxy. Did he really look at Spock like that? In public? It seemed impossible that any man wear a could look like that and still not know what was in his own heart.

The picture had been taken almost a year before that fateful night in New Orleans. Kirk brushed fingertips lightly over the image on the screen. So powerful was the longing for the feel of Spock's mind in his that he found it hard to breathe for a moment. How was it possible to want so badly something that your species was never meant to want?

At the thought, he was jolted quite unexpectedly by something he had never considered before.

Over the years Spock had said more than once that his mind was unusually powerful, extraordinarily strong-willed for a human's. He had used words like 'dynamic,' and 'formidable'--had even taught Kirk to shield, warning him that their repeated melds could have unpredictable effects on Kirk's well-being. Yet when Spock had confessed to forging an unplanned link between them, Kirk had conveniently forgotten those veiled warnings.

God help him, he'd actually managed to tell himself he felt betrayed.

What he'd really felt, of course, was fear. Fear of needing anyone more than he already needed Spock... fear that Spock would leave him, as had everyone Kirk had ever loved. Fear of his own shortcomings in the relationship department, which he'd demonstrated many times, too well. Most of all, he'd feared failing Spock, knowing that the Vulcan's very survival would one day depend on Kirk's ability to trust himself to another, wholly, body and soul and mind. He'd been so certain it was more than he could give.

How had he failed to see that he'd given it already--that making love with Spock was only what he had done for years in his heart?

He hadn't let himself see. Instead, he'd taken the first out Spock had offered him. Not once that night or in the three years since had it ever occurred to him that Spock might have been wrong about anything.

Not once in all his hurt and anger and bitterness had it occurred to him that he himself might have been wrong about almost everything.

"Viewer off," he said softly, astonished at where his thoughts had led him.

Only after several minutes had passed did Kirk remember the time, the dress uniform, his destination. Glancing at his chrono, he estimated that he had just long enough to compose a message for Spock before he really would be late.

Five minutes later, he was on his way to the transporter room.

* * *

"I shall not delay you further, Admiral." Spock rose to his feet, and his host did the same. The Vulcan bowed faintly. "Allow me to express my gratitude."

Admiral Robert Wesley smiled, with his usual self- deprecating air. "Well, I owe Jim a few. And besides, I haven't done anything yet. Give me a few hours, and I'll see what kind of trouble I can stir up."

Spock had been as good as his word; less than twenty minutes had passed since he had stood at the garden gate. "It is my hope that there is, indeed, something we can 'stir up.' It may be too late."

"You underestimate Jim. He'll play for time until he can assess the situation, if it's at all possible to do so."

Spock inclined his head. "May you be correct. I thank you again."

Wesley showed him out, and the Vulcan wasted no time signaling the Enterprise.

* * *

Spock knew he had virtually no statistical chance of finding a satisfactory explanation for the accelerated rate of his pulse, the flush he could feel gathering just below his solar plexus. It was a phenomenon he had tried alternately to excuse or deny for years, with marginal success. It manifested itself whenever he saw Kirk after an absence, even if the separation were no more than a day, an hour; the intensity of the physical symptoms increased with the duration of the absence. It had nearly incapacitated him three days ago, in that first moment on the bridge.

But as he strode from the transporter room, for once he did not try to deny, or excuse. Spock of Vulcan simply did not care that his heart was beating too fast, that anticipation at seeing Kirk was a gathering heat low in his belly. He was done with denial, and now he wanted only to end this particular separation, to see what would be in Kirk's eyes in the first moment of its ending.

He made it as far as the com unit down the corridor and around the corner from the transporter room before he gave in to the need to hear his voice.

But "Admiral Kirk is not on board," the computer told him, in response to his page.

"Route page to his personal communicator."

There was a delay of perhaps a second. Then, "That unit has been deactivated, and cannot receive audio signal at this time. Would you like to send an emergency pulse?"

Spock gave the computer a look that had been suffered in years past by many an erring ensign. Illogical as the thought was, he had to admit he did not care for the new voice algorithms. They bore an air of... smugness.

Why would Kirk deactivate his communicator?

"Spock to Bridge."

"Bridge. Sulu here."

"Commander, have you spoken with Admiral Kirk in the past hour?"

"Yes, sir. He did return from Headquarters, but he transported down to the surface again about ten minutes ago. Said he'd be incommunicado for the afternoon, that we could reach him by emergency signal, if necessary."

"I see." Spock suspected his tone revealed more of his state of mind than he cared to think about. "Did he give an estimate of when he might return?"

"No, I'm sorry, he didn't. He did come up here looking for you, sir. Perhaps he left a message...?"

"Very good, Mr. Sulu, thank you. Spock out."

He made what might have been record time to his quarters and was rewarded: the message light was blinking on his terminal. The relief he felt was entirely excessive.

"Computer, play back incoming memo."

To his surprise, the screen lit up with an image. It took him a moment to place the memory, the odd candid pose. Then he looked closer and had to consciously control his respiration. That Jim Kirk--vivid and smiling and radiating sensuality--had always made his blood sing.

Kirk was wearing a dark red, high-collared jacket Spock had almost forgotten. Almost... but in those days he had found that close-fitting sensuous garment almost unbearably distracting. Wearing it, Kirk might have been cast in burnished gold, and even now, even in a still image, his seductive magnetism was almost irresistible.

Spock's own face, his own posture in the photograph were a revelation, in every sense of the word. Had he really thought he was in control, all those years? Had he really denied so thoroughly what he so obviously felt?

Had he really thought his longing was not written in the very shuttered stillness of his face, in every taut line of his body?

It was only then that he noticed there was a small, white square of opaque flimsy carefully propped against the bottom edge of the viewer, waiting patiently for his attention. He blinked. It was a little unreal, that square of white bearing a few scant lines of handwriting. He could remember only one previous occasion on which Kirk had communicated with him in that manner.

At last he picked up the note, read what it said:

Spock,

Where are you? I've gone to Admiral Ciani's service. Be back as soon as I can. I need to talk to you. What do you think of the picture?

J-

Not really expecting to find anything, just being his usual thorough self, Spock turned the square over--and caught his breath. For written on the back, in Jim Kirk's decisive, unmistakable hand, were the words:

I should have known.

* * *

In spite of the considerable number of guests, Lily Ciani's house was not overly crowded. The sprawl of large rooms and connecting courtyards contained the throng easily, and huge glass panes overlooking the valley added to the impression of open space.

Nevertheless, after half an hour, Kirk began to feel very closed in.

The service had been mercifully short. There had been one bad moment there, at the end. Lily had asked if anyone wished to say a few words, and for a brief span of seconds that felt like hours, Kirk had been utterly unable to remember what Lori looked like, or even what her voice had sounded like. Then McCoy's words had returned to him, and memory with them, and he'd gotten past it, had been able to get up and face the roomful of colleagues and strangers.

She died an officer of Starfleet, as she lived.

There was suddenly a tray of hors d'oeuvres at his elbow. He looked up, to find Lily smiling at him wanly. "Crepe?" she offered, with a mechanical cheerfulness he found painful to witness. He made himself find a smile to answer her.

"No thanks, Lily. You know, you don't have to do that. I think everyone is finding the food just fine on their own."

She shrugged. "It gives me something to do."

They stood side by side for a long moment, both drawn to the open window panels, the Rockies beyond. The house was not far from the cabin Kirk and Lori had bought together, and the smell of Colorado conifer forest and open sky made Kirk remember why they'd bought up here in the first place. The weather had warmed considerably since the snow. It was not yet October, and though the air was cool, autumn was still holding on.

"Thank you for coming, Jim," Lily said at last, softly.

Kirk closed his eyes for a moment, the pang of sorrow very real. "Please don't thank me. You have nothing to thank me for."

She sighed, still not looking at him. "I know you did your best. Sometimes, it just isn't enough, that's all."

Kirk didn't know if she referred to the accident which had killed her daughter, or the failed marriage. He supposed it didn't matter. "I wish..." he started to say.

"I know," she said matter-of-factly. "So do I."

"She deserved better." He swallowed. "You did, too."

"Yes. Well." She seemed lost for a moment.

He frowned, the closed-in feeling suddenly very bad. "I think I might go out front for a while," he said distantly.

She turned, looking concerned. "Are you all right, Jim?"

"Fine, just... doesn't it seem a little stuffy in here?" He smiled, stiffly. "I'm just feeling a little claustrophobic, I guess. Not used to so many people."

She turned away, tray of crepes still in hand. "That's funny, I was just thinking how empty the house seemed."

* * *

Outside, Kirk felt marginally better. The lawn sloped away from the brick patio, a wide span of faded, snow- spotted grass bordered by forest. A few white clouds skidded overhead, seeming close enough to touch. He followed the curve of the hill, heading down to where the mountain fell away in rocky cascades of a hundred meters or more. He wanted to stand at the edge for a while, breathe the clean wind.

He had covered half the distance when a familiar sound reached him over the distant murmur of voices from the patio. His head came up instinctively, and he looked to see the transporter beam fading some twenty meters away, a tall slim figure in blue getting his bearings on the lawn.

Spock saw him in the same moment, saw Kirk square his shoulders, come toward him with efficient, purposeful strides. The Vulcan was at once stricken by apprehension and eagerness, pleasure at seeing him, sorrow at witnessing his solitariness, grief for pain that was and was not of his making--and a powerful, debilitating swell of physical longing. He knew all of it was written on his face, could not make himself care. Kirk's expression, full of hope and wariness and vulnerable need, told him without doubt that he had been right to come.

"Hello stranger," Kirk said softly, stopping at a distance somewhat hazardous to the Vulcan's control. "How'd you find me?"

"A call to Nogura's office," Spock managed. "It was not difficult to ascertain..." Kirk's face had altered, a smile playing about his lips. "You find something amusing?"

Kirk's smile became a chuckle, and he shook his head. "I uh... think I gave the Commanding Admiral a little surprise this morning." Spock looked a question, and Kirk colored faintly. "Well, let's just say you may have added fuel to a small fire I started."

"Indeed? I am curious to know what transpired."

Kirk gave an enigmatic shrug. "Nothing really, yet. We'll see." His eyes met Spock's. "I haven't asked you... there's a possibility they could offer you the ship." His voice grew rough. Both hope and wariness showed in his eyes. "I won't stand in your way, if that's what you want."

"As I have stated many times, I do not--"

"--wish to command. Right, I know." The wariness eased, and Kirk smiled a little. "So can I ask where you went this morning?"

"To see Admiral Wesley. I hoped he might prove to be an ally in the matter of the Enterprise."

Kirk's face showed his astonishment. "You hoped... why Spock, that's..." He blinked. "I hadn't thought of it. What did he have to say?"

"He offered several valuable insights. On the whole, I would say the trip was not wasted--if, as you say, no decisions have been made."

Kirk lowered his eyes, much the same look he had worn in the photo taken on Deneva. "I wouldn't say that."

Spock's heart beat unevenly for a moment. "Please elaborate."

"Not here," Kirk said quietly, glancing toward the house. "Walk with me?"

Spock did, following him down to the edge of the yard, where the trees met tumbling rock in a steep drop-off. The slope was sharper there, and placed them out of sight of the house.

Kirk glanced at him, then turned and put two paces distance between them. Spock wondered if he, too, was feeling this electric field which charged and recharged between them--or was he only uncomfortable because they were now truly alone? The Vulcan's awareness of Kirk was intense, consuming, and would require very, very little to overwhelm him. "You should have let me accompany you this morning," he said quietly.

In profile, he saw Kirk smile a little. "You weren't invited to the party. And you needed your sleep. Besides," Kirk confessed heavily, the smile fading, "I needed to get my head together about what happened last night."

A warning chill touched something defenseless in the Vulcan, something he knew was dangerously unprotected.

"I see," he said, fearing he did.

"You really knocked me for a loop you know. In more ways than one. For so long, I thought..."

"What, Jim?" Spock murmured, not quite breathing.

Kirk sighed. Very quietly, he admitted, "It never occurred to me there might be a perfectly logical explanation for what was happening to me. For a while there, I really thought I might be losing it."

Spock ached for the hint of remembered pain in Kirk's voice. "I never meant to hurt you," he said with difficulty. "I meant to free you."

Kirk looked sharply at him, his expression unreadable. After a long moment he said evenly, "You did hurt me, Spock." He looked at the tips of his dress boots. "It hurts. I don't like knowing that you would do that, cut me out like that. That you could--when I couldn't. But I understand, and it was your choice. Hell, I'm the one who asked you if it was possible."

Spock drew a sharp breath, pain lancing like a small, intense shock to his core, and he could not quite suppress the memory of that betrayal. Kirk did remember.

The human seemed to be struggling with something that was difficult to say. He moved another step away from Spock, his face averted. "What did you think of that picture?" he said at last.

The Vulcan was surprised to find himself responding to Kirk's honesty with the simple truth. "I was disturbed by it." He swallowed. "It... aroused me."

Blood darkened the human's cheeks. "It had the same effect on me."

Spock dared, "Perhaps that is significant."

Kirk made a sound like amusement. "More significant than you think. I haven't... that hasn't happened to me in a long time." He stole a glance in Spock's direction, his expression a poignant mix of candor and chagrin. "A very long time." His ill-born marriage had become a cardboard facade many months before Ciani's quiet departure. His fault, of course. His body had failed her no less than his heart. It was so unexpected, Spock could think of no response.

Kirk bowed his head then, the sun glinting bronze in his hair. "I was in love with you in that picture, Spock. I don't know how I ever pretended anything else. It's right there for anyone to see."

Something slow and powerful rose up in Spock, like the swelling of a wave. "Jim--"

But Kirk held up a hand. "No, let me finish. There's something I need to say to you." He looked up, remorse and grief in his voice, and tears long unshed. "I'm sorry." His hands made an aborted gesture, a supplication. "Spock, I'm sorry. I would give anything if I could do things over again."

The Vulcan was dismayed. "You have done nothing. The trespasses were mine."

Sadness touched Kirk's face. "Don't you ever get tired of making excuses for me? You let me take, and take, let me hurt you, let me need you, tell me you'll be whatever I need you to be... when is it enough, Spock?"

"You are mistaken," Spock said hoarsely, "if you believe that I have ever been less than willing with you. That was the difficulty."

"Who's to say that the responsibility for what happened that night should be yours? Don't you remember what it was like, in those days? How we had practically forgotten where one of us left off and the other began?" Kirk's voice was low, intimate, touching memory. "Maybe that was the problem. Maybe we never talked about anything because we thought we didn't have to. But if that's true, Spock, the fault is mine as much as yours."

Spock shook his head, a little desperately. "I took the choice from you. I stole from you something you would not have given." He made himself say it, though his voice betrayed him. "I had no right to make a link with you."

Kirk's face was full of irony. "'You are mistaken, if you believe that I was ever less than willing with you.'"

"By your own admission, I have caused you pain."

"Tell me the truth." Kirk was close now, too close, and Spock had to meet his demanding gaze. "Could you really have done what you did if I hadn't been willing? If I hadn't met you halfway?" Hazel eyes shimmered in the sunlight. "More than halfway?"

Spock could not trust himself to answer. He saw the impact of his silence twist in Kirk's expressive face.

"It's true, isn't it? What happened between us was as much my doing as yours."

"No," Spock said, but he averted his gaze.

"Oh, Spock, it is true." Despair was heavy in Kirk's voice. "It was right there in front of me all the time, but I didn't see it."

"It does not matter," Spock insisted, unable to look at him. "It does not change anything. Does not alter what I did to you."

"Of course it does. It changes everything!" Kirk began to pace. "You were right to cut your losses and run. Dead on. I am a selfish bastard." Sharp movements of his hands punctuated his words. "I seduced you--shamelessly. I used you, because I was scared and I needed somebody." He was growing more agitated by the moment. "I used you, I manipulated you, and when I found out the cost was my precious independence I chickened out. That's what I am. That's what I did to you." He stopped, drew a ragged breath. "Can't you admit you're angry as hell for what I did? That you leaving was a punishment, and one I damn well deserved?"

"Jim, no," the Vulcan whispered, denying it.

But Kirk was inexorable. "Then why did you break the link, Spock? Was it really to free me? Or was it to free yourself?"

Spock's head came up sharply. He took one uncontrolled step forward, as if to silence Kirk with his hands.

But hazel eyes demanded honesty.

"How did you know?" the Vulcan managed at last, finally unable to escape the truth. "How did you know... when I did not?"

Kirk's face altered, need suddenly exposed. "You're not the only one who knows how to lie to himself, my friend. I've been doing it for years."

That look touched something at Spock's center. "I do not understand you," he said tightly.

"I'm trying to tell you that I was a fool." The vulnerable gaze never wavered. "That what I am with you is better than anything I could be without you. That it's been that way for me a very long time, even if I tried to pretend otherwise. You had every right to be angry with me. You have every right. But... can't we please stop hurting each other?" Kirk swallowed, and tears stood in his eyes, his voice finally breaking. "I need you, t'hy'la."

It was a word the Vulcan had spoken aloud in his hearing only once, nearly three years before. Hearing him say it now, Spock felt the shifting of gravity, the lifting of a weight that left him free and perilously without anchor. Jim's eyes were full of light, the light that was his balance, and in that brightness he saw the uncertainty, and the courage it had cost Kirk to ask.

The safety catch wouldn't release, memory reminded Spock gently.

There were only two steps distance between them now; Spock moved, lifted his hands, and there was one step, then none at all. "Do not weep, Jim," he pleaded against the softness of the other man's hair. "I can bear anything but that."

Kirk made a faint sound of raw urgency and held him, hard. His face was hot against Spock's, and he pressed their bodies together full length, as if wanting to make them into one person. He laughed a little, breath soft on Spock's ear. "I feel like I could cry for about a year."

"Illogical," Spock whispered, losing himself body and soul in the memory of what it felt like to hold him.

Kirk held tighter. "I don't ever want to hurt you again."

"Nor I."

Kirk's voice was husky, the sensual press of his body echoing his words. "I want to make you forget I ever did."

Spock swayed, as his own fierce response welled up in answer. "Yes." His fingertips traced the meld points.

Kirk shuddered, couldn't quite make himself pull away. "We can't, Spock. Not here." He heard his own desperation.

"No," Spock agreed, not letting him go.

"Please." Kirk's lips found the fine muscle at Spock's jaw, and the Vulcan's hands trembled where they held him. "You have to make me stop."

For a long moment, Spock was certain he would not be able to. His need for Kirk was a sea without end, and he was drowning in it. What stopped him, finally, was only the memory of what had happened the last time, that terrifying spin out of control, that smothering darkness, and silence.

With a wrenching effort at control, he put Kirk away from him, took a step back. Looked hard into his face.

"Do you wish to leave here?"

Eyes the color of wet, fallen leaves lifted to his. "God, yes."

"Must you return to the house first?"

Kirk made a visible effort to focus on the question. "Yes, but... damn. I don't think I can face going in there right now." He gave the Vulcan a helpless look that might have been rather comical, under other circumstances. Spock loved him then with an almost unbearable tenderness.

"I will go," he said roughly. "Wait here for me."

Kirk swallowed. "Hurry."

While he was still able to walk away, Spock turned and started up the hill.

* * *

Kirk knew, long before the transporter beam released them. He knew--but still, in the first moment, he was nearly overcome by the assault on his senses, the upsurge of memory and dream.

Spock had brought them to New Orleans.

They materialized on the East Bank. Though it was not the transporter station where they had parted so many months ago, the warm wash of salt air heavy with gathering thunder was the same. Kirk looked at the Vulcan, wanting to say the words and not knowing how. He didn't have to. The mirrored sense of homecoming was written in dark eyes, as clear to him as if he'd spoken it.

"Why here?" he asked finally, trying for a smile. They were kilometers from the Quarter, in a largely residential neighborhood.

"I want to walk with you." The deep voice caressed him, as in his dream, and something deep in Kirk shivered. "It would please me. But if you do not--"

"No," Kirk stopped him. "I'd like to walk with you."

They did, slowly and without speaking, for long minutes saturated in memory. Neither of them really wanted to get anywhere, so they followed the cracked sidewalks without direction, choosing turns by silent agreement toward a sunny street here, an intriguing iron fence wrapped with ivy there. If autumn was still holding stubborn in the Rockies, it had yet to come here at all; the heat and heavy humidity had eased somewhat from the oppressive weight of midsummer but had not quite given way.

It was late afternoon, and still the season for rain. As if to complete the memory the sky grew darker to the west, and Kirk felt the gathering electricity on his skin, in his bones, the air charged with expectation of storm. They walked close together, the old rhythm. As they passed beneath a row of oaks, the sun appeared for a moment, slanting down through the leaves.

"What did you say to Lily?" Kirk asked quietly, more to hear the Vulcan's voice than to know the answer.

Spock's profile was to him, his eyes on the uneven pavement. "That I was the science officer of the Enterprise, and that I required your presence for a matter most urgent." He glanced sidelong at Kirk. "The truth."

"Was she... what did she say?"

"She asked me to wish you happiness."

Kirk halted beside him. "Why am I the one who deserves to be happy?"

"Jim, there was nothing you could have done."

"I know. But there should have been. I owed her daughter that much, at least." Kirk sighed. "She was a good woman, and deserved more than what I could give her."

The dark eyes had risen to his, betraying relief and sorrow. "I am... grateful to her, for keeping you safe."

Kirk touched him lightly on the arm, heat pricking at the back of his eyes. "Gratitude is a good word for what I feel toward her. Gratitude and... a lot of regret." He hesitated. "She knew about us--you and me, I mean. And even after she knew, she stayed with me a long time. She knew I would never love her, and still she stayed." He started to let his hand fall. But as naturally as if it was something he had done a hundred times before, Spock caught Kirk's fingers gently in his, held them like that for a moment.

"If I could, I would thank her for that," the Vulcan murmured.

"You would?" Kirk felt breathless, the tentative contact of Spock's hand in his making him remember, incongruously, a summer day almost thirty years past, the same long ago, terrifying thrill he'd felt just before his first kiss.

Spock had lowered his gaze. "I should not like to think of you knowing such solitude as I knew."

Kirk's fingers tightened on his. A distant, low roll of thunder unfurled, a faint tremor at their feet. Were you very unhappy? he wanted to ask, but the answer was etched in the tiny lines at the corners of Spock's mouth, the thin, desert- hardness of his body.

"If I could take those years away," Kirk said softly, "I would."

"I would not." The Vulcan's eyes lifted to his, sure and deep. "I would not, for they have brought me to this moment." And as easily as giving in to gravity, Spock leaned forward, kissed him. Kirk felt one exquisite moment of the pressure of those lips, the heat and taste and smell of him, like nothing else he had known.

"Well worth the price," Spock confessed hoarsely, drawing away. "Any price."

Kirk gripped the Vulcan's hand, the rush and tangle of his responses overwhelming him until he could not separate them. What words for that certainty, that aching beauty of Spock's mouth and what it did to him?

Because there were none, they only stood like that for a long moment, dark eyes holding bright, shadow and sunlight. When they could, they walked again, fingers still interlaced.

"I don't know what's going to happen." Kirk let Spock's hand guide him, tilting his head back to watch the shiver of rising wind in the leaves. "They may not give her back to me, Spock."

"They will," the Vulcan said with conviction. "How can they deny you, now?"

"Easily enough. I meant what I said, you know. If they offer her to you, and it's what you want, I'll back you."

"Jim." The Vulcan's voice was a caress, chiding. "You truly believe I would allow that to happen? That I would take the Enterprise away from you and go? Alone?" "I don't want you to make choices for yourself based on my welfare. What do you want?"

Spock could not answer that. The vast scope of what he wanted in that moment was too great to encompass; he had not yet allowed himself to contemplate the chance that some part of that dream might be possible.

But he knew what he did not want--which was for this afternoon to ever end.

"Your welfare would be motivation enough," he said quietly, "even if I wished to command. Which I do not." He drew a breath, and risked, "It would be my hope that there would be some capacity in which we might serve together."

Kirk made a sound like relief. "That's what I told Nogura and Komack."

It stopped Spock in his tracks. "Verbatim?"

Sheepishly, Kirk smiled up at him. "To paraphrase, I told them they could forget about any assignment that split us up, and that Starfleet wasn't the only option open to me."

Spock's heart was suddenly beating too hard--surely the human could hear it. To know that Kirk would put him above everything, even the Enterprise... to know that he would do so publicly and on record when nothing had been resolved between them... it was a gift beyond price. He had to release the human's hand, not trusting his control.

"I didn't speak too soon, did I?" Kirk said uncertainly.

The sky was darkening in earnest now. The eyes that lifted to Spock's were the color of the sea before a storm, grey-green and shadow-dark, and the Vulcan found himself thinking that he did not know how he would have borne never seeing them again.

At last he found his voice. "No, I... concur."

Something in Kirk eased at the words. He leaned casually against the iron fence behind him. "Spock, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why did you agree to stay with me that night, really?"

Spock did not have to ask which night he meant. "I should think I had made my intentions clear--several times--during the course of that particular evening."

Kirk colored and his eyes lowered fractionally. "I know. I know, but it's just... I keep thinking, would you really have chosen what I asked of you that night? I mean, all things being equal. Or was it just--because I needed you?" His gaze met Spock's again, searching.

Spock almost smiled. "You are asking if it was... a sacrifice, to share physical intimacy with you? An offering to a friend in need?"

Kirk's cheeks were hot. "Was it?"

"No, Jim. The thought would not have occurred to me."

The human looked dubious. "I wouldn't put you above a little sacrificial offering, if you thought I really needed it." But he seemed to accept Spock's words. "Why did you stay with me, then, that night of all nights? Truth."

"It was the first time you asked," Spock said quietly. "If you had asked before that night, the answer would have been the same." His voice deepened. "I can assure you, it was no sacrifice."

"You mean that." Kirk sounded as though he were trying to make himself believe it. At last, his face cleared. "All right, now you ask me something."

One eyebrow rose. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm giving you permission to ask me anything you want."

There was something Spock had wanted to know.

"I must confess to a certain curiosity," he said at last. "In the years that we served on the Enterprise, you never gave any indication... that is, it surprised me greatly to learn that you..."

Kirk almost smiled. "That I've had relationships with men?"

Spock met his gaze with frank interest. "Yes."

Kirk sighed. "Just the one, Spock. Gary was the only one, before you. What happened between him and me was as much a surprise to me as anyone. But it opened my mind to... possibilities I hadn't considered."

"And after?"

A shrug. "Never met the right person, I guess. It's hard for me to trust someone as much as I trusted Gary. As much as I trust you. Maybe..." Kirk tone was a little reluctant. "I don't know why, but maybe women feel safer to me. Less... intimate, somehow." He smiled, a little shamefacedly. "I don't know what that says about me."

Spock understood that particular wariness too well, of course, though it had never occurred to him in quite that way before. He himself had never seriously contemplated any form of intimacy with another male before Jim.

"I understand," he said quietly, realizing he did.

Kirk searched his face for a moment, sharing the understanding, that silent union that had always been the center of what they were. Then the smile faded, and he seemed to falter. The dusky curve of his lashes concealed his eyes. "Can we... will we ever be able to meld again, Spock?"

Caught off-guard, the Vulcan blinked and felt something compressing his heart.

"I cannot be certain," he answered honestly.

The human could not keep the pain out of his face, and Spock felt it like a bittersweet ache. To know that Kirk wanted to share thoughts with him, that it would hurt him to be denied that--and at the same time, to contemplate the possibility that the chance might be forever lost...

Kirk looked at him then, and Spock saw the same tangle of love and fear in hazel eyes, and had to reassure him. "I believe we will find our healing together, Jim. As long as you wish it, I will not give up trying."

It seemed to help; Kirk nodded, his head lifting. "Then I won't give up either." Their eyes held, sealing the pact. At last Kirk asked gently, "Why did you ask me that, Spock? About Gary?" At the mention of the name, Spock's face must have betrayed him. "You want to know about him, don't you?"

"Yes," Spock whispered. "But you need not..."

"It's all right. What do you want to know?"

"I do not wish to intrude."

"You never do, Spock."

Thunder rolled over them again, the smell of rain coming stronger. There was a cool edge to the breeze now, and it lifted the fine hairs at the back of Spock's neck.

He gauged the human's expression, but there was only an old sorrow faded with years, not the deep grief and regret he had half-expected. And so he asked, a question that he had not been able to quite put to rest. "Jim, did you... were you and he engaged in an intimate relationship when he and Doctor Dehner..."

Kirk relaxed minutely. "No, we weren't, not then. Not any more. It was over between us a while before then." He smiled a little. "That surprises you."

"No... well perhaps, yes, a bit." Honesty made him continue. "I am somewhat relieved to know it, Jim. You have lost so many." There was another, deeper truth, a selfish, possessive fear put to rest (one could not, after all, compete with a ghost) but Spock shied away from seeing it.

Kirk's face had gone too still. "He was my best friend. I don't think losing him hurt any less because we weren't..." Then he looked at Spock, who was remembering a night when a very young starship captain had let his guard down, let a shy, awkward Vulcan science officer in on a portion of his grief and his guilt, even if it was just because he needed someone to talk to. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet the human's eyes were full of the same memory. "No, that's not quite true," Kirk said. "Things were never the same after we went back to being just friends. I don't think..." He drew a breath, as if facing it for the first time. "I don't think he ever forgave me."

Spock touched him then, his face, unable to prevent the motion. The Vulcan's fingertips traced the firm curve of cheek and jaw, a feather-touch. Unable to conceive of a sin he would not forgive in this man, he asked, "Forgave you for what, Jim?"

"For not falling in love with him," Kirk said faintly, and his eyes were closed. "Spock... do that again."

Spock obeyed, slower this time. "Curious phrase, you humans use," he murmured.

Kirk swayed almost imperceptibly under his touch. He did not open his eyes. "What...?"

"To 'fall' in love." Spock's own nerves were tuned dangerously high, the bare whisper of Kirk's mind-energy under that fine skin intoxicating, tantalizing. "It sounds... rather perilous."

"It is." Kirk swallowed. "Very dangerous. Takes courage." Vulcan fingertips traced the hollow above his cheekbone, and Kirk's breath caught.

His eyes opened, consumed Spock like the sea rising.

"I dare you to kiss me again," he whispered.

Spock let gravity own him.

And like the first time, like every time their lips had ever touched, something happened, a powerful charge that started like a spark in Spock's center, a whisper of heat frissoning from someplace low in his belly to the small of his back. It was the same as it had been in dreams, in memory, in a long- ago garden under a gaslight, the same, that delicate whisper and spark, and then--

Spock made a sound--faint, alien and absolutely, irrevocably not in control--and swayed forward, surrendered himself to the assault of James Kirk's mouth with all the long drought of his wanting. The first pressure of Jim's lips on his was a prayer, gentle and fervent; the second was a demand, irresistible and scorching.

And the third never came, for it was at that precise moment that the storm swept in from the west. Lightning lit up the sky directly overhead; they flinched at the first chill shock of rain on bare skin.

Then with a tremendous canon-boom of thunder, the skies opened up.

* * *

Spock made a move to activate his communicator, but Kirk seized the Vulcan's hand mid-motion. The imprint of the kiss was electric on Spock's mouth.

"There!" Kirk pointed down to the end of the block and across the way, where a great grey building rose above the roofs of houses. "Come on!" he cried, and as the wind sprang up, he turned and began to run, Spock on his heels.

They dashed across the wide avenue and the opposite walk, then onto the grass. As if sensing its prey escaping, the storm intensified, deluging them as they neared Kirk's chosen destination--a formidable stone edifice, grey with age, vine-covered and fallen into some neglect.

Kirk ran up the steps and ducked into the shallow, arched entranceway, pulling Spock in after him. With the hand that was not gripping Spock's arm, he pushed his wet hair back, breathing hard and laughing. "Now that's what I call a storm!"

The Vulcan started to turn, some observation about stating the obvious on his lips. But the human was grinning up at him, face hectic with running, and instead of the teasing remark he would have made, Spock caught his breath.

Kirk's hair clung to his forehead in flat, coppery tendrils. Rain dampened his eyelashes, turning them spiky, and jeweled droplets glistened on his fine skin. His lips were faintly flushed from their kissing, his eyes simultaneously dark with reflected storm clouds and bright with his laughter.

Only James Kirk would have the audacity to flaunt his beauty thus, when Spock had no defense against it.

In another moment the Vulcan had moved, his hands finding Kirk's waist, pushing him deeper into the entranceway, backing him up against the ancient oak door. The smell of Kirk drugged him, intoxicated him. Groaning with the surrender to his own rising tide of need, Spock found Kirk's lips with his.

The voluptuous answer of that knowing mouth shot currents of heat lightning directly to the nerve centers of Spock's body. Then Jim's tongue touched his and pleasure raged in a flame through his belly and groin.

Kirk's hands were in his hair, pulling his head down into the kiss, as if to devour him, to be devoured. In doing so, he tipped some precarious balance and Spock swayed against him, the insistence of his erection pressing urgently into Kirk's flank.

The surge of desperate heat shocked the Vulcan, and he broke away, shuddering, gasping for air. His eyes found Kirk's. Dismayed, he knew with sudden certainty that he was not going to be able to stop.

"Jim," he breathed helplessly.

"It's all right. It'll be all right." Kirk's hand was at the back of his neck; the human pulled his head down, against his shoulder. The shallow archway offered little protection from the rain, and a gust of wind sprinkled them liberally. "We seem to be getting wet," Kirk murmured huskily. Spock's brain nearly short circuited. "Come on, let's see if we can't get into this place."

He turned out from under Spock's hands, tried the massive door, which looked as though it had not been opened in a century. It was locked, and did not budge. An ancient inscription above the door caught Kirk's eye: Church of St. John the Baptist. Below that, a worn brass plaque read, "New Orleans Repertory Theater," in barely legible lettering.

"I think I saw another way in--a smaller door around the side." He looked Spock up and down. "Think you're up to a little breaking and entering?"

"Vandalism, Admiral?" Spock's scandalized tone was not terribly convincing.

"Any port in a storm, Commander. Let's go!"

They went through the rain again, down the steps and through a low iron gate. On the north side of the building, they found a smaller entrance, probably used by the repertory troupe when the church had been converted to a theater. The lock on it was nearly rusted through.

Thoroughly soaked and in no mood to stand in the rain any longer, Spock said quickly, "Permit me." Kirk grinned and stepped neatly out of the way. The lock gave easily to Spock's carefully aimed boot. Before the Vulcan could contemplate the ethical implications and possible legal ramifications of his actions, Kirk had pulled him inside.

* * *

Inside turned out to be surprisingly dry, clean, and free of decay. The wood floor was black with age, but had been swept fairly recently, and the period furnishings were in good condition. They had entered at the back of the room; heavy, antiquated pews had been arranged to make the space into sort of a classroom, with a lectern at the front. It did not appear to be in regular use, but neither had it been allowed to fall into disrepair.

"Someone has been maintaining this room," Spock said uneasily. "Perhaps the building is not empty."

"It's a historical building, I think. It's probably on one of those tours you can take."

"Then perhaps we should--"

"Listen, if there'd been anyone here, they'd have come running by now. We weren't exactly quiet opening the door." Kirk was prowling the room, examining their surroundings. Narrow jalousie windows lined the top of the outer wall and let in grey light, just enough to see by. He paused in his circuit to shake water out of his hair. "And it's after eighteen hundred hours--no tour's going to come through here now. Afraid you're stuck with me, Spock."

The Vulcan pleaded. "Would you not be more comfortable on the Enterprise? There is much to be said for dry clothing."

His voice gave him away. Kirk looked at him sharply, saw his unsteadiness. He drew near, touched the Vulcan's shoulder. "You're cold."

Spock lowered his eyes. For an instant he was tempted to say yes, but even that much dishonesty was more than he could manage with Jim this day. The day had been hot; the room was actually quite warm. "No."

"But you're shivering."

Spock said nothing.

And Kirk understood. "Oh, Spock." He swallowed, and drew the Vulcan forward, into his arms. The heat of Spock's yearning body scorched him through their damp clothing. "Spock, all you ever have to do is ask me."

"I'm sorry," the Vulcan whispered, pressing hungrily against him. "I need you, Jim. I have needed you for so long."

"Why 'sorry,' my friend?" Kirk's hands soothed him, long strokes down his back. "I'm here."

Spock shuddered. "I do not... think I can control."

"You don't have to with me."

The words were a floodtide in the Vulcan's blood. The rhythm of the rain on the windows echoed the pounding of his heart. Lightning flashed, drawing the shape of Kirk in strobe pulses and shadow, and Spock moaned faintly with wanting. I have walked in the desert, he thought incoherently. For a very long time he had known neither rain nor solace, and as James Kirk began to undress him in the grey light, he knew both.

He was beyond any control now, shaking with his urgency, holding himself up with a steel grip on strong shoulders. Kirk managed to get his damp tunic off. The first touch of the human's tentative hands on his bare skin made him gasp.

"Shh," Kirk soothed, his lips on Spock's collarbone, his hands working at the fastening of Spock's pants. "It's all right. Let me do this for you."

"I wanted..."

"I know." The fastening was undone now, strong hands pushing fabric down, almost unbearable pressure and friction on the Vulcan's throbbing sex. "There will be time for us, Spock. Let this be for you." Kirk's mouth brushed his ear, not teasing, but it was almost more than Spock could stand. In another moment the pants were down past his hips, Kirk's sturdy, compact form the only thing keeping him from falling.

Then Kirk's fingers were pressing at the small of his back, and it was a desperately needed support, for in the next moment the human had slipped his other hand between their bodies. His touch gentle, he cupped Spock's naked arousal against his palm.

The sound Spock made was raw, uncontrolled. Kirk felt how very close he was, felt that desperation, and knew that to make him wait any more would be unforgivable. He backed the Vulcan up two steps, clumsily, pants still only halfway down the pale thighs; he helped Spock lean his hips against the smooth, worn back of the last pew.

He kissed the Vulcan's neck, a benediction. And then, in one smooth motion, Kirk went to his knees. He stroked the pale flanks once, held the lean hips still, and took the Vulcan's rigid, needing cock in his mouth.

Kirk did not tease him, but sucked him deep and released, giving him succor with all his love and the skill of his mouth. It went on only a minute or so, Spock's soft cries a sweet counterpoint to the rain. When Kirk slid his hands behind, squeezing a little and sucking him deeper, Spock's hands cradled his head; the Vulcan sobbed out a sound of pure agony and relief, and came.

Kirk drank the salt-sweetness of him in until there was no more to drink, the beauty and incompleteness of the gift setting him alight with joy and sorrow, both. At last, he rose and gathered Spock into his arms, pressed himself all along the trembling length of him.

They stood like that for a long time, while the rain fell steadily outside and evening came on.

* * *

Spock stirred, lifted his head from where he had allowed it to rest against a human shoulder. As if preserving something precious, Kirk helped him remove the rest of his wet clothing in silence, communicating with touch in place of words.

When the Vulcan was unclothed, Kirk reached to unfasten his own collar; Spock's hands were already there. Solemnly, Kirk let him remove the dress jacket, the undertunic. When he was clad only in the grey t-shirt, it became difficult to make himself stand still under those gentle hands. It had been so long since anyone had touched him. So long since he had let himself want to be touched.

The downpour had slowed to a patter on the small windows. Somewhere the evening light was winning through the dissipating clouds, for the room had brightened a little. It felt like too much light to Kirk as the Vulcan helped him out of his trousers and briefs. He couldn't meet Spock's eyes.

When they stood naked in the twilight of their sanctuary, Spock gathered him close. So thin, the Vulcan lamented, feeling the slenderness of Kirk's waist, the sharp bones of his hips.

So thin, Kirk thought, too aware of the intimacy, that lean body touching him everywhere, knowing him.

Spock was learning him with his hands, with his lips. For a while it was all right for Kirk, it was enough to be here with the Vulcan, to smell his hair, to feel those hands on him. For a while he was able to stand up under that silent study, was even able to feel the beauty of it. But after a time the touching became a kind of worship, the learning became a kind of reverence he did not know how to bear. Then Spock's mouth brushed Kirk's nipple, and despite his best efforts to control it, Kirk stiffened, shuddered faintly.

"What is it?"

"It's all right, Spock. It's nothing." Kirk's voice was rough from disuse. His whole frame was tense now, belying his words. "I just--I can't."

"I only wish to bring you pleasure."

Kirk averted his face, as if in shame.

The Vulcan reached to ease the taut muscles in his shoulders. "You are agitated." He kneaded them a little, gently. "Extremely so."

"I know, Spock. I'm sorry. I don't know what's the matter with me." A tremor ran through him.

"You are afraid."

"No," Kirk lied.

"Of me?" the Vulcan whispered.

Hazel eyes lifted to his. "Spock, no." Almost, almost the truth.

Spock touched his face, wanting only to kiss him. The effort Kirk made to stand still for it showed in every line of his body--and still he shied away.

Kirk shook his head fiercely, leaned against him, his hands curled between them. "It's not you. It's me. It's just... been a long time, that's all." Kirk drew a deep breath and let it out; Spock felt him relax fractionally. A moment later, the human bent his head and pressed his lips to the place where Spock's pulse fluttered close to the skin, awakening a tiny whisper of current. Kirk's hands flattened against his chest, squeezing a little. The Vulcan's nipples drew instantly taut, aching for more. And then Kirk lifted his head, and his lips touched Spock's like the whisper of a butterfly's wing, soft and insubstantial, velvetly exquisite.

Somewhere within Spock, a small star went nova.

"Jim," he breathed at last, eyes closed, "do you know what you are doing to me?" "What I should have done years ago," Kirk murmured, petting Spock's erect nipples. "Making love to you."

Spock almost could not think, the pleasure of those hands was so great. He was already getting hard again, his sex trapped against Jim's smooth, warm belly. "You need not--"

"I'm all right. Just out of practice. Let me make it good for you, Spock. It's... easier."

Spock knew that nothing would prevent him from giving this man anything he asked for. Now, or ever.

Kirk's mouth was tracing delicate patterns on his skin, the human's hand cupped possessively at the back of his neck, that mouth awakening a fierce wildness in Spock's veins. The tip of Kirk's tongue traced the curve of his ear, found the soft place behind it, and Spock moaned softly. He was incoherent, ablaze.

"I dreamed of doing that," Kirk confessed. He kissed Spock's face, the smooth skin at his temple.

"You dreamed..." Spock needed to touch him, needed more of him. His fingertips found the muscular hollow at the small of the human's back. It was unyielding, tight. Spock stroked the compact curves of him from shoulder blades to sumptuous buttocks, wanting to feel him give in to pure animal pleasure. "As I dreamed of you."

Kirk said nothing, suddenly too still in Spock's arms. Intent, his hands trembling very faintly, he seemed to be holding his breath. Tiny goose bumps followed one upward stroke of the Vulcan's hands on warm skin, and with a sound of misery, Kirk pulled away from him again. His face was a sculpture of shadow in the fading light, sensual and expressive in its sorrow and to Spock, almost unbearably beautiful. But though the Vulcan ran hot with wanting at his slightest touch, he saw when the human drew away that Kirk himself was not aroused.

"I'm sorry," Kirk whispered, shame written in his body.

Spock wanted to draw him down into a soft bed and safe embrace, and hold him close until that sadness and fear were no more. The ache of his love for this man felt as wide as space, and as deep.

"My touch distresses you," he whispered. "Why, Jim?"

Kirk had wrapped his arms tightly about himself, as if for warmth. "I haven't--" He smiled crookedly. "Well let's just say I've been neglecting my reputation for a long time now."

But Spock drew him close, stroked his nape, and the human bowed his head under it. "Your body does not know how to let go."

"I don't know how," Kirk admitted, some of the strain going out of him. "I'm afraid I'll--" His breath caught.

"What, Jim?"

"I don't know. Ruin it." He hid his face against Spock.

Spock just held him, ignoring his own arousal. "You do not have to hold on so tight."

"I want to be perfect for you."

"What is perfect? And if we share our bodies and it is not perfect, what of that? To be with you, here... I cannot conceive of greater perfection."

"I really don't deserve you," Kirk sighed.

Spock held him tighter. "You are worthy. Do not ever doubt that you are worthy. You must believe it." Spock knew that James Kirk had been made for this, for deep, wanton pleasure and tenderness. Never was a man like this meant for self-denial. It only remained to remind his body of that.

Kirk's arms found their way around his waist, held there. After a moment, he drew a deep breath. "I'll try, Spock."

The Vulcan did not move until Kirk's tension had eased, lulled by the warmth of their embrace. When he sensed no resistance, he drew back a little, took Kirk's damp, tousled head in his hands and kissed him.

This is perfect, Kirk thought dazedly, when the spell of Spock's mouth seized him again, swept him up as it always did. This, with him, was always perfect. Who would have thought a Vulcan's kiss could own him this way, could make him come undone so fast?

It went on a very long time, each joining of their mouths slower and more fervent than those before. Somehow Kirk had gotten Spock against the wooden pew again, and the human was distantly aware that Spock had let him do it, was letting him control the pace. He was much more aware of Spock's erection between them, pressing its demand hotly against his navel. The heat felt incredible, and Kirk could not resist the urge to rub himself against it. Response stirred in him, a feeling so long forgotten it made him gasp.

It was more than Spock could stand against. The pleasure sang up from the place where their bodies touched in low, prophetic waves, making him weak with hunger. Somehow his hands had slid of their own volition to close on the lush sweetness of Kirk's buttocks, pulling the other's body tighter between his thighs. He felt Kirk's sex swell against his own.

To Kirk, it felt a little like falling off a cliff. The Vulcan was overwhelming him, those hands mastering his body effortlessly, a feeling both terrifying and irresistible. A moment later the warm fingertips were at the back of his neck. Spock said his name, breathing it softly in supplication. "Jim..."

Too much. Memory of a mindtouch gone wrong warred with an older, deeper memory of dream, and the newborn flame of Kirk's desire flickered and died.

Spock sensed it in him immediately, stopped, though it took all of his control to do so. Kirk started to pull away again, but the Vulcan did not permit him to go far.

Kirk's eyes were closed. Spiky lashes trembled on his cheeks. "Spock, don't. It's not fair to you."

"I will be the judge of that." Still Spock held him, and Kirk did not break his hold, could not find it in himself to try very hard.

"Your judgment's lousy."

"You felt it, Jim. Your body knows what it needs. All you need do is--trust me."

Kirk caught his breath, remembering a time when he had asked the same of Spock. "I do trust you," he whispered. "It's me I don't trust. What if I'm not--"

"What, Jim?" Spock murmured against his hair. "Not good enough? Not strong enough? Brave enough? You are all of those things." He felt Kirk's stillness, as if the human were holding himself in, waiting, perhaps for some signal that it would be all right to let go. "I will wait," he said gently. "A lifetime, if necessary. You need not fear, t'hy'la."

The word, spoken in that deep, intimate voice made Kirk remember the dream-image again, more forcefully this time. Something had broken in him that night, the night he'd woken sticky with the evidence of his own need, gasping Spock's name. Unable to cry, unable to let himself find release, he'd held the tears back--but something had broken just the same, something had shut down.

He had not thought to ever find redemption, let alone healing.

And now, as easily as breathing, saying his name, Spock offered him both--with all the generosity of his gentle soul.

Kirk inhaled the scent of him, tasted him on his tongue, and for one fleeting moment he did feel good enough, and strong enough, and brave enough.

"Spock," he said softly, "do you think there might be any real windows in this place?

* * *

They went through the door that led deeper into the church. It creaked, revealed a dark passageway, and they padded silently hand in hand toward a diffuse grey light at the other end of the corridor. They were both naked. As Kirk had pointed out, the Vulcan still had his wrist communicator --they could always call for an emergency beam out if they were in danger of imminent arrest. To his surprise, Spock hadn't argued. The air was warm and still, and carried echoes of their footsteps on stone.

The passage opened to a narrow ambulatory which curved around the choir area, or what had perhaps later served as an orchestra pit. A great sectional stage rose into the gloom where once the dais had been. Though he had never been prone to such imaginings, Kirk had thoughts of haunting as they made their way past it.

Spock led him back along the length of the nave toward the entrance, the great doorway where they had first sheltered from the rain. The structure was a bizarre confection of Byzantine, Gothic and Romanesque architecture, the nave of the church still mostly original construction. However, the old pews had been replaced by theater seats, and they could see the shapes of box seats along the upper arcade.

Light had faded almost to nothing in the shadowed aisle that ran along the length of the church. It was separated from the main floor by a row of archways delineated by elaborate columns, through which they could just make out domes and arches soaring twenty or more meters into the gloom. The last daylight was still coming in from somewhere above and ahead. At the end of the aisle they found a small wooden door. It wasn't locked, and opened after a little coaxing. Kirk saw stone steps spiraling up and out of sight.

"Where are we going?" He said it softly, though they were quite alone. Spock turned to him in the doorway, and Kirk saw that he was still more than half-erect.

"The tower," the Vulcan murmured in the semi-darkness. "Come."

Kirk shivered slightly, and not from cold. He went.

Spock's hand was warm, almost fevered, and he held to it and followed the Vulcan up the narrow steps. The stone was cool under his feet. His heart was beating very fast, but he was more all right than he had been in a very long time.

They reached the top of the steps and Spock turned left, through a small archway. The light grew considerably brighter. On the small windows above, the rain was a faint murmur, slowing to a drizzle. Skeins of determined ivy had worked their way inside around the iron tracery and had begun to progress down the walls.

Behind Spock, Kirk did not see what awaited them until he was stepping out of the cramped passageway onto a wide, square mezzanine--a balcony that overlooked the vast interior, over rows upon rows of arches and pillars, great curving vaults receding into darkness. Awed, he moved slowly forward toward the railing, drinking it in.

Spock came to stand beside him. After a moment, he said quietly. "Your window, as requested, Captain."

Kirk turned to find the Vulcan's eyes on him, full of a different kind of awe, and the human caught his breath a little. Captivated by the view beyond the balcony, he had not really noticed the great, round, stained glass window set deep into the massive wall behind them. From the street, it had loomed above the door, but even so he had not realized the scale. It dwarfed them. Through it dappled light was filtering in, evening-gold, with faint, muted strokes of blue. It caressed Spock's pale planes and contours with the exquisite sensitivity of a sculptor. Kirk drank him in, overcome by the desire to kneel before him. For the first time in his life, James Kirk understood what others meant by the word 'worship.' His body sang with it.

There was an answering reverence in that dark, consuming gaze.

Spock's heart beat unevenly. He was impossibly hard. He did not know why Kirk had wanted a window, did not care. To see him as he was in this moment, the Vulcan would have given a prince's ransom. Raindrops on glass and the pattern of ironwork made a garment of shadow-lace that Kirk wore like a veil. He shifted, and Spock caught his breath, anticipating his touch.

Which did not come. Kirk swallowed, and his hands were trembling visibly. He bowed his head.

"Spock, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything," Spock whispered, a prayer.

Kirk's eyes flicked up, wide and forest-green and unutterably beautiful. He drew a breath. "I need you to be strong for me, and hold on just a little longer. Can you?" Spock wanted to say, for you, I would wait until entropy unravels the universe. But Kirk was only centimeters away now, and the heat, the scent of him, were stoking the flames in the Vulcan's body. Desire surged in him in a slow, primal rhythm, a sinking heat stabbing through his lower belly. "I will try," he said hoarsely. "Tell me what you need of me." Perversely, at the thought of waiting, fluid gathered at the tip of his penis.

Kirk knelt then on the stone floor, his hands at Spock's hips.

Spock put out a hand to stop him, a sound of protest on his lips. But Kirk tilted his head back, eyes bright. "No, it's all right, Spock. Just--hold on." He waited, eyes on Spock's until the Vulcan understood and nodded, once.

Control, Spock whispered fiercely to himself, and closed his eyes against the sight of Kirk kneeling before him. He did not understand precisely what Kirk was doing, but it did not matter. For Jim, he would hold on--even if it killed him.

Which it nearly did. The first moment of that wet, warm mouth consuming him brought a rush of pleasure that made his knees threaten to give out. Hands braced against Kirk's shoulders, he arched back and fought for mastery. Kirk's arms went around him, holding him up, shaping his body in flame, but the human held still until Spock's shudders eased to faint tremors.

Spock slowly gained marginal control. The tight wetness was almost unbearable torment. He dared not move. At last it released him, and he felt the breath of the man who owned his soul whisper hotly against his sex. "All right?"

"Yes," the Vulcan managed evenly. He bit the pleading words back that tried to follow. Kirk had asked him to hold on. Control.

"Give me your hands."

Spock complied, and felt a little better. It was easier, with that strong grip to anchor him.

"Just a moment more now. All right?" There was nothing teasing in Kirk's tone, but only soul-deep compassion, and something else--gratitude? Spock couldn't think. He only knew that Jim needed him to hold on, that it was therefore vital that he do so.

"Yes, all right."

He steeled himself--and gasped to feel the human's tongue stroke him, circling in a tender possession, the exquisite caress slippery with Spock's own pre-ejaculate.

Kirk rose then, smoothly, the heat of him brushing the Vulcan's thighs. He squeezed Spock's hands, once. And let go.

The dark eyes met his, desperate with animal hunger--and it was a look Kirk had seen once before, had never forgotten. "Now, Spock," he whispered, yielding to that hunger, and his own. "Please."

James Kirk turned and put his hands on the broad ledge of the white marble window casement. Breath held, he spread himself before the glass.

Spock was on him in a moment, making a sound against his nape that might have been a sob, or Kirk's name. The Vulcan's slick, demanding hardness pushed urgently against him, and the intimate pressure made Kirk shudder and gasp. Spock's arms encircled him from behind, the heat of him so good against Kirk's back that he rubbed himself against it, wanting more of it, wanting to feel Spock everywhere. He shifted, and the other's sex slid between his thighs, rubbing voluptuously, nudging Kirk's scrotum deliciously. Kirk felt himself break out in a sweat, and he moaned the Vulcan's name, pushing his ass up against Spock's hips.

"Spock, ah, god..."

The Vulcan was beyond coherence. He clung to the lush body under his hands, lost in the soaring waves of pleasure, the satin-slick press of those strong thighs. His lips found the back of Kirk's neck, the clean sweat smell of him, the salt of his skin. He licked at it fervently, sucked a tender spot that made Kirk writhe with need. Kirk's hand found one of his, laced their fingers together, slid their joined hands down his own belly and with a shudder closed Spock's fingers around his eager, very erect cock.

The sound Kirk made, when their joined hands stroked his hard shaft, was a kind of triumph, a bittersweet, soul-deep cry of pleasure so sharp it was pain. It was sorrow and love, regret and passion; it was years of profound loneliness, of denying himself any solace, or comfort. For a moment he leaned back, leaned his head against the Vulcan's shoulder, and Spock bent his head and kissed the tender arch of his throat. Kirk's other hand came up and curled around the back of Spock's head, holding him there. Salt tears, hot with need, slid down Kirk's cheek into the Vulcan's hair, onto his face.

And finally, finally, Kirk let go, let the tears come, let them rise up and run out of him, spilling over, owning him. He sobbed, once, and then again, and turned his face against Spock's, holding him tighter. He crushed the Vulcan's hand against his sex, and Spock felt the tears flooding his neck. "I love you," Kirk groaned voicelessly, the words tangled up with his tears, but unmistakable. "I love you so much."

Spock held him tight, his own tears coming hard and fast, unstoppable. His joy consumed him, and the last of his control slipped away easily, leaving him laid open and desperate. "Please," he whispered. "Please, I need to be inside you--"

Sensing his desperation, the human let him go, leaned forward against the stone casement. "Yes," he breathed, head bowed against his arms. "Now, Spock."

His own touch a torment, the Vulcan found the center of Kirk's heat, pressed into him as gently as he could, bracing himself against the broad back. He was so wet from Kirk's delicious torture and his own need that the human's body accepted him, mercifully, generously, giving to his steady pressure with a hot, slick tightness that shot pleasure through every nerve he possessed. It felt like orgasm, but the emotional and physical intensity was so great that it was not a relief. He groaned, leaned forward, and still Kirk's body accepted him. The human was breathing hard beneath him, making sounds of unmistakable pleasure.

"Oh, god," Kirk breathed, when Spock was all the way inside, the Vulcan's body curled around him. "God."

Pressing his forehead between Kirk's shoulder blades, Spock gripped the human's waist, took that sweet, aching hardness between Kirk's thighs in his hand, and began to move.

"Spock," Kirk gasped out once, and then, "Oh," and then the sounds he made were not words but deep throated sobs, because Spock was stroking him within and without, flaying him with violent waves of pleasure, rushing him headlong toward the cliff. The last rays of the setting sun had broken free of the clouds. They streamed through the stained glass in brilliant hues, blinding him.

To Kirk's surprise, at the precipice there was a touch deep at his center, as if Spock reached out and, very gently, took his hand. And it was flame and heat and light but not like in his dream, it was nothing like his dream, for when they hurtled over the edge they didn't shatter, they flew.

* * *

They sprawled together, entangled, on the deep window ledge. For a long time they did not move, unwilling to relinquish their bodies' joining, but at last Kirk's arms and legs demanded the return of circulation and he had no choice but to shift positions.

Sensing his discomfort, the Vulcan stirred, came back from the far, bright place he had gone. He took Kirk's weight without effort, lifted Kirk and curled them up together with Kirk's head on his arm, slipping free of him and pressing close. There was enough room for both of them on the stone ledge, if they lay like that.

The sun was down; the rain had stopped. They lay in darkness on the cold stone, making heat between their bodies to keep them warm. Kirk slept a little. Spock heard his breathing slow, felt the slackening of the body he held cradled in his arms. The Vulcan thought of taking him home, of curling up with him in the warmth and softness of a bed, guarding his sleep for a long time. But, later for that; for now, he could not find it in himself to want more than this.

Spock buried his face against the back of the human's neck, pressed his lips there. For a time, the ebbing storm of their lovemaking washed over him in slow waves. He did not even know what names to give the host of deep emotions which took him by turns. All that he had suppressed for years at Kirk's side, all that he had denied in the desert, came welling up, the tide released, and he was certain, tasting Kirk's skin, that it would never again be dammed. He could feel Kirk's tears drying on his own face.

Beyond the stained glass the clouds were clearing, and twilight filtered in, tracing the tousled head and small, delicate ear. If Spock shifted just a little, he could see the contour of his cheek, the curve of those ridiculous lashes against the pale skin.

Never more awake than now, holding him close with every inch of his body, Spock watched him sleep.

Something had altered, he could feel it. It had not been a meld, not really. He had not sensed Jim's thoughts, in that moment of clarity just before the long, soaring fall of their release. Only the shadow of his feelings. But it had been something.

And if there could be that much, was it not logical that there could be... more?

Intending only to imagine it, he reached up, his fingertips touching, very lightly, the meld points on that fine sleeping face. Feeling the faint frisson of energy dancing just under the skin, his hand trembled. His body flushed a little at the sensation, and for a while he held still like that, letting himself remember what their melds had been like, the promise of what they could be like. For so long, he had forbidden even the thought of it. But now...

"You can," came Kirk's hoarse whisper in the dark.

"Jim...?"

The human's hand came up, closed over his gently. Kirk pressed Spock's fingertips to the contact points they had only dared brush over. The flicker of current came again, stronger, and Spock closed his eyes.

Kirk swallowed audibly, and Spock felt that his hand was not the only unsteady one. "It's all right, Spock. Before, when we... I felt it, too. Let's try."

"Jim, it is not--"

"Shh. It's all right, Spock. I want to. Come on, let's try."

A tremor ran through Spock, and he had to draw his hand away from the other's face. "You do not understand."

Kirk was very still in his arms. "Don't I?" he whispered. There was a pause. "I think I do."

Wanting with everything in him, Spock pressed as close to that sensuous body as he could get. "Are you sure?" he breathed.

Kirk turned in his arms, as well as he could in the cramped space. He cupped his hand against the side of the Vulcan's face, tracing one winged eyebrow with his thumb. "Spock." He pressed his lips gently to the Vulcan's forehead, held them there. "Spock. You're everything beautiful to me, my friend. Forever isn't too long--if it's what you want." He pulled back, found Spock's eyes in the shadows. "Will you have me?"

Spock seized him about the waist, held him tight. "Be certain, Jim," he whispered, when he could. "Please be certain."

"I am," Kirk said huskily, without hesitation. "But are you sure you can put up with me?"

The Vulcan groaned faintly against his neck. "You are shameless. You know I cannot resist you."

Kirk kissed him, delicately, then passionately, then softly, and Spock felt him smile. "I should hope not."

Spock touched his face. "I could never deny you anything."

"Is that so?" Kirk teased. But his eyes lifted, glistening faintly in the starlight. "Then will you try, now, for me? Will you... join us, Spock?"

The Vulcan had some difficulty controlling the racing of his heart. Drawing a steadying breath, he made himself let go of Kirk and started to sit up.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Spock felt his face grow warm. "It will be... easier to control if our bodies are not..."

Kirk chuckled softly. "I see what you mean."

"If you will sit facing me."

Kirk groaned faintly as he came to a sitting position. "I feel like I don't want to move." A moment later, they were sitting cross-legged, facing each other, their knees touching.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Yes, Spock. Don't worry about me." Kirk's hands found Spock's, held them for a moment. "You want to tell me what to expect," he said, not a question.

Spock bowed his head. "I wish to tell you that... I am not certain what to expect. Jim, it may be that this will not work. I cannot know for certain what caused your previous--"

"Spock?"

"Yes?"

"Do you really believe that's going to happen again?"

The Vulcan was silent for a moment. "No."

"I don't, either."

"I do not wish to hurt you again," Spock whispered.

"You won't."

"You are so confident."

"Intuition, my friend. You used to put a lot of stock in mine, remember?" Kirk's thumbs caressed the backs of Spock's hands.

Still Spock delayed, not trusting his own judgment in this. "You have been without sleep too long. Perhaps it would be better to wait until you are more rested--"

"Spock?" It sounded breathless, in the starlit dark.

"Yes, Jim?"

"I need you." His hands squeezed the Vulcan's, pleading. "I need to feel you inside of me. Now. Always."

"Parted from me--and never parted?'" Spock held to the hands, hardly daring to believe it.

"'Til death do us part, Spock," Kirk answered softly, his certainty deep, unshakable, unequivocal. "And after, if I have anything to say about it."

Spock drew a breath. A little unsteadily, he let go of Kirk's hands and reached for that beloved, upturned face. His fingertips found the contact points as if they were made to touch him thus. He lost himself in the depthless shadows of wide hazel eyes.

"My mind to your mind," he began hoarsely, though the words were not necessary. "My thoughts--"

In the next heartbeat, there were no more words. Spock felt a rush of vertigo, an upsurge of motion and sheerest joy. It rose in Kirk, welling up from some deep place, and the Vulcan could not turn from it--could only submit to it with a moan of disbelief. Something sweet and fine as a Terran autumn wind swept over him.

He fell into Kirk's mind, into the bright, shining core of him, and he could not stop. The sharp exquisiteness of it pierced him intimately, permanently, etching Kirk's name into every part of him.

Jim.

Spock. A whisper of light, rippling. There was laughter, liquid and shimmering in the meld, and it was Jim's. Look. Look how beautiful you are.

And Jim let the Vulcan see inside of him, let him see the place where Spock was touching him, the light it made, they made, the bright place that had been dark for so long, so long... and the light became a well, a silver cistern of stars, and they drank of it together for a forever outside of time.

* * *

The deep meld became a link, the link became a touch, and the touch gentled until it felt to Kirk a little like hearing an almost-audible sound, a distant low hum, just out of range. In its wake, he felt a profound peace, spread out like a field stretching to the horizon, a long-forgotten vision of his childhood. Still cross-legged, he had leaned forward to rest his head on Spock's shoulder; Spock's head was heavy on his own. They sat together in the starlight for a time that did not need words.

Slowly, Kirk became aware that he was in a considerable state of arousal. He'd forgotten about that. Some things never changed, it seemed. The lingering euphoria was so strong this time that he didn't want to move. It had always been like this with Spock, but never so strong, so deep.

Kirk drifted, watching the faint play of starlight through the panes of colored glass, dreaming of starships and of growing old with this man, of lying beside him at the end of long days, of building a house with their hands, of facing destiny with that solid presence at his shoulder, of loving him every day of his life. Spock's hands were warm on his thighs.

The Vulcan shifted a little, and the back of his hand brushed Kirk's sex in passing. Kirk's soft catch of breath gave him away.

"Jim?" A shy whisper.

"Nothing, just... a little side effect." Kirk felt himself color. "Mind melds with you seem to have this effect on me."

"Indeed." Those teasing fingers slid upward.

"Yes, indeed. Don't tell me you never noticed. I thought it was plain for everyone to see."

"I never noticed."

"Liar." Kirk gasped faintly. "Hey, stop that, or you might regret the things you incite me to."

"I do not think I will regret... anything." Fingertips traced Kirk's navel, dangerously close to home.

"You're playing with fire," Kirk warned, a low growl.

"Your reaction to the meld is... not unique," Spock admitted.

"You mean--?"

Spock's hand laced in his hair, pulled their heads closer together. And the Vulcan kissed him with all of his infinite tenderness and consuming passion. It left Kirk breathing raggedly, leaning his forehead against Spock's.

"Will it always be like that?" he asked, when he could. "When you kiss me...?"

Deliberately, Spock reached within and touched the place of their joining, gently, the faint pluck of a harpstring. He saw Kirk's eyes widen, heard his breath come faster, as did his own. "Never and always touching," he murmured faintly.

Kirk gazed at him, a look like unmarred wonder smoothing years from his face. He had reached out for Spock's hand. "I want to make love to you," he said, his voice rough with how much he wanted it. "I want to make love to you in a very big bed, in a very warm room, for a very, very long time. Can we?"

"Oh yes," Spock whispered hoarsely, captured by the evocative image, wanting Kirk inside him, wanting to be inside Kirk for as long as they could bear it.

Wordlessly, Kirk rose to his feet, pulling Spock up with him. They stood close a long moment in the dark, and then Kirk swayed forward, rested his weight against the other's body. He was suddenly, profoundly exhausted. Spock's arms went around him, and Kirk felt as though he could sleep right there, cradled against that warmth, the soft fur and steel strength of him. His urgency faded, not gone, but just on idle for a while, and he closed his eyes.

"It's been a long road home, my friend," he whispered. "Will you please find us that bed, and put me in it with you?"

Spock bowed his head against Kirk's, breathing in the scent of rain, and sex, and Jim. "I shall make it my top priority, sir."

* * *

The moon had risen, bright and full, by the time they dressed and made their way outside.

They stood on the steps for a moment, arrested by the sight of the churchyard, the neighboring houses, magnolia and jasmine leaves outlined in glistening silver. The rain and the moonlight painted it on every surface, traced it along every leaf and line of iron tracework, every eave and curve of stone. The air was cool and smelled of earth.

Kirk was carrying his boots in his hand, and he smiled when he stepped onto the wet grass, because he couldn't help it. He could not remember the last time he'd walked on wet grass without shoes. Feeling Spock's presence close behind him, he turned. Moonlight on that black shining hair was as beautiful as Kirk would have imagined it.

He wanted to say, I feel perfect right now, Spock. This is what perfect feels like. Then he saw Spock's face, and knew he didn't have to say it.

Drawn to the gleaming white curves of marble, by silent consent they crossed the grass toward the small burial plot which ran along the northeast corner of the church. There was no wall or gate, just a rusting iron fence which did not bar their way.

They followed the round white stones which marked out the rows, with conscious awareness that they were completing a ritual that did not have a name. They did not speak. They read the names and smelled the wet grass and walked with their hands linked, and when they reached the end of the last row they stopped and stood together, looking back along the path they'd walked.

"I understand now," the human murmured close in the dark.

Spock turned to watch his profile, waiting.

"I'm sorry, my friend," Kirk said with difficulty, not turning. "For all the times I made you stay behind. I see now how hard that was for you."

Spock had to swallow. "Your risks are part of what you are, Jim. You do not have it in you to remain safe, and let others risk for you--and I would not change that. My... desire to protect is a selfish one."

"All the same, I understand." Kirk turned to him then, and Spock saw that his eyes were luminous and full. "And I won't forget." The brightness in his eyes threatened to spill.

"Why this sadness, now?" Spock asked him, aching with it.

"Because I love you." He touched Spock's face. "And I always end up hurting you." Spock started to shake his head, but Kirk stopped him. "Yes. It's true." He was thinking of their parting, a kiss that had been meant as a promise, as a plea, as purgatory and punishment all at once. The memory felt like tears. "I'll always hurt you, Spock. No matter how much I try not to. And you... you'll always leave me, won't you?" His throat ached with the certainty. "No matter how hard I try to keep you, you'll always leave me eventually."

Kirk saw the Vulcan's face alter, knew he understood.

And Spock did, though it hurt him to see it.

"Yes," Kirk affirmed, before he could deny it. "I hurt. You leave. It's part of what we are."

But Spock extended his hand, drew Kirk to him and held him close, and even the sorrow transformed, became a kind of triumph. "Nothing I have ever done, or will ever do, shall alter what you are to me. It has always been so. Will always be so. As many times as you could hurt me, your touch would heal. As many times as I could leave, you would call me home. Sooner could I part with my own heart."

Kirk had turned his face away. "Is that a promise, Spock?"

Spock wanted to promise him the stars, and everything beneath them. But a Vulcan does not lie--and never could he lie to this man. "I cannot promise that I will always be at your side, for no man can know what the future will hold. And I cannot promise that you will never again cause me pain, for I have no defense against you." His voice sank to a whisper. "But I can promise that you will always be home to me."

The human made a sound against his shoulder, a damp chuckle. "Logical to the end, Mr. Spock."

"We are one, t'hy'la." Spock made him feel it, reaching out along the newborn link, touching him in all his secret lonely places, turning them out to the light. "Do not grieve."

"How could I, Spock?" Kirk whispered, holding him tight. "How could I grieve when you touch me like that?"

After a time, Spock said softly, "It occurs to me that the berths on the Enterprise are of a rather modest size."

Kirk smiled up at him, with a trace of the old mischief. "What did you have in mind?"

Spock looked thoughtful. "I wonder if it would be possible to obtain lodging in the Quarter for the evening?"

"I like your style, my friend. Lead on."

A few minutes later, the moon shone down on the silent gleam of stone and wet shining leaves, and the only evidence that there had been any intrusion was the hollow of two sets of footprints in the grass.

* * *

James Kirk lost sixteen hours that night to a sleep of perfect contentment, and when he came at last, gently, toward consciousness, it was the smell of chicory coffee that woke him.

There was a breeze coming from somewhere, teasing the fine hairs on his legs and belly and groin, caressing him naked where he lay on top of the sheets. He opened his eyes to sunlight streaming in from somewhere and the sound of running water.

His body felt too warm, and even that was a luxury, for he had not been warm to his soul in a very long time. The coffee smell was coming from a tray on the bedside table. There was also cream and sugar, and a large dish of strawberries from which several seemed to be missing.

The sun was coming in from a pair of open, glass-paned doors. White muslin curtains billowed lazily into the room. He caught a glimpse of balcony beyond, and registered the faint sound of music drifting up from the street below, anachronistic, heavy on the brass. He'd hardly noticed what the room looked like last night--sleep had pulled him down hard almost as soon as Spock had gotten him horizontal.

Kirk reached out for a strawberry and put it in his mouth, listening to the water running in the next room. The fruit was sweet and delicious. He stretched his toes toward the corners of the huge bed, burrowing for cool spots. For long moments he savored it, all of it, so embarrassingly, decadently happy that he was afraid to move for fear of spoiling it. Then he remembered the missing berries, and thought of tasting them on Spock's lips.

* * *

Spock's head was under the spray, and he did not hear the other's tread--but he felt that presence just the same. At the awareness of Kirk on the other side of the shower door, a slow wash of current--rather like the enervating tingle of a magnetic curtain--swept over the wet surface of his skin.

"Room for two in there?"

The human's voice was rough with sleep. Wordlessly, Spock opened the door and drew him under the water.

They washed each other gently with fragrant soap and hands that wanted to know every inch of one another, not hurrying. The only sounds were the fall of water on midnight blue tile, and the counterpoint of their soft groans and sighs of pleasure.

When they had rinsed each other clean, human and Vulcan pressed their bodies close and kissed without urgency, like coming home. Then Kirk turned off the water and took Spock's hand.

Thick towels were put to good use, neither much caring who dried whom. When they were dry and warm and clean, Kirk insinuated his thigh between Spock's and rubbed himself against the finely furred smoothness of ivory skin from chest to knee, shamelessly indulging himself. "God, you feel good." He kneaded the cords of muscle along the Vulcan's spine with his fingertips, and Spock made a faint sound of pleasure, closed his eyes.

"You are a hedonist," Spock accused, finding the plush, muscled curves which seemed to fit so naturally in his hands. Kirk's arousal slid against his hip, warm and velvety as textured silk. Kirk's breath caught, and he pressed even closer.

"Guilty as charged." He mirrored Spock's gesture, squeezing gently. "Does that bother you?"

"Yes," Spock growled softly near his ear. "Immensely." His own sex was suddenly hard, demanding, pinned between them.

Kirk's hands were shaping him, squeezing, petting, arousing a new wanting in Spock's belly that he had not known before. It uncurled like wings, fluttered down his thighs and through his groin, whispers of anticipation. A tremor, faint and premonitory, ran through him.

And Kirk felt it, knew it in his blood, without the need for words. His nerves sang faintly. When he spoke, it was breathless. "Yes?"

"Yes," Spock whispered, swallowing.

Kirk, too, had to swallow at the thought. His own wanting threatened to go into warp. He clamped down on it, made himself draw a deep breath. "All right," he murmured, a little shaky. He squeezed one last time, then let Spock go. "All right. Go lie down and wait for me. I'll be right there."

Dark eyes sparked with heat; then Spock lowered long lashes, a look that made answering heat prick at Kirk's groin. The Vulcan turned and did as Kirk had asked.

Kirk leaned heavily on the edge of the sink, head lowered, struggling for control. His arousal had come on so fast and strong he almost could not master it. The thought of being inside Spock was unbearably exciting. But there must be at least some measure of control--there had to be. He would not risk hurting him, would not risk making it less than beautiful.

He turned on the sink and splashed cold water on his face. It helped, a little. He met his own eyes in the mirror, made a promise to himself. For Spock.

There was a tiny bottle of colorless essential oil on the counter; a quick glance at the ingredients assured him that it would suit their needs.

* * *

The vision that greeted him on the other side of the door made him stop, catch his breath. Spock was naked, facing him, one leg bent and the rest of him poised, taut and supple as a cat. His heavy erection lay against his hip. Ebony curls framed that gorgeous temptation and sketched a faint line up the spare torso, tracing compact musculature. The sun wrapped him in warmth, turned his skin tawny. The dark eyes were watching the door, waiting for Kirk to emerge, and at Kirk's appearance, the double-ridge cock twitched almost imperceptibly.

Nerves heightened to a fever-pitch, Kirk saw it, felt his own body flame in answer. He came toward the bed, and Spock saw what was in his hand. A tiny thrill shot up the Vulcan's spine, though whether of nerves or anticipation he could not have said. Kirk's jutting erection made him burn. Sunlight was made to worship James Kirk, he thought, breathless with the beauty of the man as he moved. It caressed the strong lines of him and cast him in gold.

Spock came to his knees on the bed, meeting Kirk with his hands and lips, unable to stop himself. He brushed his mouth against the taut buds of his nipples, pulling Kirk's hips against his chest, wrapping his arms around Kirk's waist. The human swayed against him and moaned faintly.

"Spock..."

"I love you, Jim," Spock said, as easily as breathing. He suddenly did not know why he had waited all his life to say the words that surely defined him. They came effortlessly now, painlessly. He turned his face against the place where Kirk's heart beat hard against his ribs; he closed his eyes, lost in its rhythm.

Kirk's empty hand came up to cradle his head, stroking his hair. "My friend," he said, after a long moment. His voice was suspiciously unsteady. "I want to make love to you."

In answer Spock rubbed his sex against Kirk's thighs, as voluptuously as Kirk had in the other room.

Kirk stroked his hair again, and he steadied under Spock's hands, as if the action calmed him. "Lie back for me."

Spock lay back against the sheets, and Kirk knelt on the bed between his thighs. A wave of Kirk's musk teased the Vulcan's senses, and he hungered for more of it. "I want to take you in my mouth," he said hoarsely, riveted to the beautiful, imposing, unbearably tempting sight of the human's penis, his coppery curls and rosy, flushed skin. At his words, a single drop of clear fluid welled at the tip.

"God, I want you to," Kirk gasped, fingers of one hand gripping Spock's thigh. "But I can't. Not now. Another time."

"Many times," Spock breathed, wanting to taste.

Kirk groaned. "Stop, please." More fluid welled.

"You are very aroused."

Blood darkened the human's cheeks, flushed rosy down his neck and chest. Spock was fascinated. "Yes," Kirk confessed through lowered lashes. "Spock... I want you very much."

Spock touched his flank, sought his gaze. "I am yours, Jim."

Overcome, Kirk bent over him, rubbed his face against the whorl of fine hair at Spock's navel. The soft teasing of his breath made Spock's nipples draw tight. The tender ridges of the Vulcan's sex brushed the hollow at Kirk's throat, and Spock shuddered with pleasure. "Jim..."

"Can I tell you something?" Kirk's hands shaped Spock's hips, his waist. He moved upward, lips nibbling at one erect nub.

"Yes," Spock whispered, eyes closed.

"No one ever says my name like you do." Kirk's tongue followed where his lips had been, teasing tender places with little jolts of heat.

The Vulcan was beyond words now, was lost in what Jim's lips and tongue and teeth were doing to him. Kirk slid down to lie between his legs, the smooth coolness of him delicious against Spock's thighs, his belly, his swelling sex. That expert tongue touched Spock lightly and without warning at his most sensitive place, a cool moisture teasing delicately between hot, swollen ridges.

Spock made a sound he did not recognize and could not control, and writhed beneath him. But Kirk held his hips, and Spock was helpless in the face of that pleasure, could not make himself draw away. Kirk touched him there again, tongue caressing, and honeyed ecstasy and longing sang through Spock's whole lower body, shot upward to his licked and bitten nipples.

"Jim," he pleaded urgently, watching him. "Please."

Kirk lifted his head, and the sun traced fingers of gold through his hair, his lashes, drew the exotic curve of his brows in bronze. The color of his eyes was nothing Spock could have named--and they asked a question of him, revealed a hunger that had only one answer.

Yes, he said, in the unseen place at Kirk's center which was also his own center, the place where they were one.

They put the clear fluid on Kirk's penis together, and if there had been any tears left in him, Kirk would have wept when Spock anointed the dusky opening to his own body. "You are so beautiful," Kirk whispered, watching him. Those elegant hands, preparing the way for him, touching him. "Touch yourself," he pleaded, hardly believing his audacity. And Spock did, rubbing a little of the fine warm oil on his own cock, slowly, watching Kirk all the while... until his head fell back and his face grew intent with the pleasure of his own touch.

It was more than Kirk could bear. He moved, pressed himself from thigh to chest along Spock's length, supporting his weight on his arms and claiming the Vulcan's mouth. He raked those full lips with his own, made the wildness flame between them as it always did, and when he felt it rise up he rubbed his silk-oiled sex against Spock's, once.

Pleasure rushed up like a wind before storm, sweeping Kirk up with it. He broke the kiss. "Meld us," he begged. "Touch my mind. I want you to see--"

"Not yet," Spock rasped, lips flushed and wanting. "When we are joined."

Kirk was stunned--and then was sure. "Yes," he breathed, and made love to Spock's mouth again with his own. Yes, every nerve in his body cried, and he couldn't fight it any more. He tortured and pleasured both of them once more, rubbing his cock against Spock's, slaking thirst and driving it higher at the same time. Then, with an effort of will, he made himself stop, made himself sit back a little.

For Spock, he reminded himself, a talisman, and it gave him strength he needed.

He found dark eyes, held them with his own. His hands paid homage to hips, belly, thighs, gentling and reassuring. He felt Spock respond, felt muscles ease and skin heat. "I want to show you how beautiful you are to me," Kirk said hoarsely.

Spock closed his eyes, as if unable to bear what was in Kirk's face at that moment.

"Come here." Kirk coaxed the Vulcan's hips, curled his hands around muscled cheeks and lifted Spock onto his thighs. He could feel the heat of Spock's arousal, could feel his own. One palm flat on Spock's stomach, he rubbed the heel of his other hand across the tip of the other's cock, felt sweet slickness and spread it across the head, around the crown. Spock sucked in a breath, and then another. Then Kirk wrapped his fingers around its girth and milked him slowly.

Spock gasped, a sound of surprised surrender, and his hips lifted, pressing himself tighter into Kirk's hand. A soft cry escaped him. His head fell back; his hands clenched in the sheets. His cock throbbed with the intense pleasure.

Blood suffused the Vulcan's skin, a color like patinaed copper. Unable to breathe for looking, Kirk fondled the heavy dark-furred sac until Spock gave a low purr deep in his throat. At last, knowing his own limits Kirk gave in and rubbed slick fingertips across the tender opening to Spock's body.

The sound the Vulcan made then nearly undid him. Kirk pressed the pad of his thumb there, circling, and Spock groaned softly. "Please, t'hy'la..."

Kirk could not deny him. He circled gently once more and pressed inside. Yielding, welcoming, Spock moaned, his hips rising to meet that gentle penetration. At the feel of that silk-sheathed hotness, the thought of what it would feel like caressing his own cock, sweat beaded on Kirk's upper lip.

Spock was ready. More than ready. When Kirk pressed gently on him from within, he cried out, reached out. "No more. Please, Jim, I need you..." He made a faint sound of mingled relief and disappointment when Kirk withdrew his touch.

The human had reached the end of his endurance. "Spock," he said, encircling slim hips with his hands. The dark gaze lifted. Painfully hard, Kirk sought that tender place with unerring instinct, centering. His heart was hammering against his ribs. He shifted, readying, his whole body aflame with it.

"Yes," his lover breathed. "Come inside me, Jim."

It pushed Kirk over the edge. With a soul-deep groan of ecstasy and completion, he pressed himself against the yielding place, felt Spock relax against him, give, take him in slowly, deeper...

The Vulcan's back arched a little, and he, too, groaned with the incredible pressure and fullness and blazing pleasure. Kirk felt enormous inside him, hot, consuming, filling him, taking him over. It was too much and still his body took it. The edges of him dissolved, became Kirk, Jim was in his every nerve, was not just filling him but becoming him.

Buried to the hilt within his exquisite heat, Kirk was shaken by a tremor that ran up his thighs, his back, that threatened to unravel him. He curled around the place of their joining, holding tightly to lean, strong hips, feeling Spock's hands on his biceps, the only thing holding him together. "Oh," he gasped voicelessly. And then Spock moved, and he had to, couldn't hold still another instant.

They rocked together once, twice--and then Spock shifted, arching back, and wrapped his legs around Kirk's waist. Held like that, pulled even deeper, harder against him, Kirk heard himself sob and cry out. He was far past thought; he was soaring. Panting, lost, his body's rhythm seized them up, drove them together again, again. Pleasure sang like flame and raged through them, burning them out. They could not stop. It burned so high that Kirk was afraid of what would happen when the shockwave crested, and still he could not stop. And suddenly he felt it, Spock's hand on his face, and when Spock touched his mind it was uncontrolled, the Vulcan as lost as he.

The blaze gave way before a primal, unrelenting storm; they fused together without effort and came brutally, mercilessly, as one.

* * *

It was mid afternoon before they stirred from the place where free fall had released them. They had fallen asleep like that, sweaty and tangled together, Kirk's weight sprawled on top of Spock, a reassuring heaviness that brought the Vulcan dreamless peace.

They woke to a room deep in shadow, the smell of good things cooking drifting up from somewhere. The breeze from the balcony had turned cool.

"I must be heavy," Kirk said quietly, shifting to nestle down into the warm space at Spock's side.

"No." Spock curled an arm around him, buried his nose in Kirk's hair. "You are not." He ran one hand down Kirk's back, splayed his fingers against Kirk's hipbone. "You are too thin, Jim."

Kirk chuckled softly, a sound that made Spock think hungry thoughts, not about food. "If McCoy could hear you now. All those years, all those plates of green leaves, and all he had to do is make me live without you for a while."

"Let him try," Spock murmured into his hair.

Kirk groaned, remembering. He buried his face in the crook of Spock's arm. "Damn."

"What is it?"

The human lifted his head to offer an apologetic look. "I forgot to tell you--he knows about us."

Spock looked unconcerned. "I had not expected to keep our joining a secret."

"I know, but... well, I wish we could have told him together."

"What did he say?" Spock was curious, in spite of himself.

Kirk rolled away, reaching for a strawberry from the dish. He brought one back for Spock, too, fed it to him leisurely. It was warm and tart and made the Vulcan realize how hungry he was.

Jim lay beside him, propped up on his elbows, sucking thoughtfully on his own berry. "He said we belonged together... no. What he said was, we belonged to each other. That was it." He smiled at Spock, his eyes a deep sage, glinting with gold. "Smarter than he lets on, isn't he?"

"Occasionally," Spock conceded. He answered the smile with his eyes, as was his habit.

Kirk licked the strawberry juice off his lips. "I'm starving."

Watching the delicate pink tongue, Spock felt himself stir. "I find my own appetite is considerable."

Kirk shook his head and made 'tsk tsk' noises, giving the Vulcan a provocative look from beneath his lashes. "Is it always sex with you? A man needs nourishment, you know."

"Of course." Spock retrieved another strawberry, ran it delicately down Kirk's spine, traced the cleft of his buttocks. "I understand."

Not teasing now, Kirk nestled closer. "On the other hand, I could wait a little longer..."

Hiding his smile against Kirk's nape, the Vulcan moved to cover the lush curves and hollows of him with his own body.

* * *

Some time later, Spock woke to find the human wrapped in a sheet, standing at the door to the balcony. It was decidedly cool in the room now, but he was warm. Kirk had tucked the comforter around him.

"Jim," he said, just to say it.

"It's raining," Kirk said softly. He turned from the doorway, a smile touching his lips.

Spock rose from the bed, went to him. Kirk unwound the sheet, welcomed Spock in against the warmth of his body, and wrapped them up together. They stood like that, watching the rain on the balcony. Across the street, a sleepy grey cat sat in the window, watching them.

"'Must I leave thee, Paradise?'" Kirk quoted softly.

Milton, Spock thought automatically. But for once, he restrained himself. "You always are," he said instead.

"Leaving paradise?"

"Mm."

Kirk chuckled softly. "I am, aren't I?"

"You are not made for it. And yet, you never stop seeking it. I believe... it is what first made me love you."

The human swallowed heavily, his arms tightening about Spock's waist.

"Not much time, Spock," he said, after a while. "We're going to have some decisions to make, soon."

"Yes."

"And I want to hear all about your visit with Bob Wesley."

"I do have some thoughts to discuss with you regarding that conversation."

"I thought you might."

Spock turned to breathe his scent, burying nose and mouth at the warm place behind his ear. "Not this moment, however."

The human swayed against him, stayed there until Kirk's stomach growled, loudly. He groaned. "If I don't get some food soon, I think I'm going to start eating you."

"I accept."

"You, my Vulcan friend, are a bad influence on me."

Spock raised an eyebrow. The effect was spoiled when his own stomach rumbled, and Kirk laughed.

"See, your stomach agrees with me. Look, the rain is slowing down." He gave Spock a speculative look. "Say, how do you feel about jazz music?"

Spock turned, not much caring that the motion threatened to upset Kirk's hold on their sheet. He gathered Kirk in his arms, wanting to delight him, make him smile. "What is your pleasure, Jim? Anything you wish."

"I think... another shower. Then someplace really outstanding for dinner--someplace on the water. We can discuss strategy while we eat. Then maybe a bit of real jazz if we can find some." He tilted his head back so he could look up at Spock. "Sound good for starters?"

"For starters," Spock agreed, nibbling at his ear.

"Better stop that, if you don't want me to collapse from starvation."

Reluctantly, Spock let him go. "As you wish."

Kirk gave him a knowing grin, and took his hand. "Come on, let's conserve water."

That rain, as it turned out, was the last New Orleans saw of summer that year. By evening the first chill of autumn was in the air, and that night they drew the doors of their room closed against it and lit a fire in the grate.

As lovers always have who know that time is precious, they made the most of the hours they had left. When they left the ancient city behind the following morning, they promised one another that they would one day return to the place where they had first loved, where they had first hurt one another and parted in sorrow, and where, three years later, they had found their way home again.

* * *

Commanding Admiral Heihachiro Nogura was going over his notes for the press conference, while simultaneously contemplating questions of debt and honor. He was distracted by a signal from his adjutant in the outer office.

"Yes, Commander?"

"A call for you, sir." The Rigellian paused fractionally. "From Admiral Wesley. He says to turn on channel D-387."

Nogura's eyebrows rose infinitesimally. "Now, Att?"

"Yes sir."

Curiosity aroused, the admiral turned to the window that afforded him a view of Golden Gate Bridge. "Computer, activate holovid, delta three eight seven." The smoked glass turned opaque, and an image took form. When he understood what he was watching, Nogura felt a stirring of apprehension. Why was he forever underestimating this man?

"Computer, show me ratings, response rates and demographics display on this program." He sank into his plush, imposing chair and waited to see what James Kirk had up his sleeve this time.

* * *

A perfectly groomed Maxine Walker--former Council correspondent and eminently informed host of the most popular in-depth, audience participatory interview program in the quadrant--offered her guests a perfectly groomed smile, as they took a seat across the tastefully stylish coffee table.

"Welcome to the show Admiral, Commander."

"Thank you Maxine," James Kirk murmured, as he made himself comfortable. "A pleasure to be here." He offered his own high-wattage smile, and the cameras made the most of it.

Walker spoke to the virtual audience then, still wearing her serious-yet-friendly expression. "Today we have with us two men who hardly need introduction: Admiral James T. Kirk, acting captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and his first officer of many years, Commander Spock." She turned to the two men. "Gentlemen, how does it feel to be the heroes of the hour?"

Kirk's discomfiture was genuine. "If there are any heroes, they would have to be the officers who gave their lives in the defense of Earth."

Walker's tone was sympathetic. "Yes, of course, and I don't mean to downplay the debt we owe to those men and women. However, the two of you will also be receiving several decorations for valor at Friday's ceremony, isn't that right?"

Kirk glanced at Spock. "Well, that's true. However..."

"Admiral, you must understand how grateful the Terran people are to the two of you, and to your crew. It's not every day the population of the Earth faces the very real possibility of total annihilation."

Kirk conceded, "It's a good crew."

Walker appeared to consult her notes. "This isn't the first time the two of you have been decorated for actions taken in the line of duty." Her eyebrows rose. "Quite an impressive list. Palm Leaf of Axanar, Legion of Honor, many times decorated for valor, Conspicuous Gallantry--between the two of you, it seems there's hardly a planet you haven't saved from one threat or another."

Kirk smiled. "Between the two of us, I think you're fostering a dangerous lack of perspective, Maxine."

"Well, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed you both, what can you tell us about your most recent adventure?"

"Very little, I'm afraid, Ms. Walker," Spock said regretfully. "Much of that information is classified for the time being, and the rest will be covered at the press conference this evening."

"As you well know, since we made that clear before coming on the program," Kirk put in.

She gave in good-naturedly. "Can't blame me for trying." Sitting back in her chair, Walker gave the appearance of settling in for a good heart-to-heart. "Well, let's cover a little ancient history then, shall we?"

The two men exchanged glances. "Uh oh," Kirk stage- whispered, "what have we gotten ourselves into, Spock?"

Walker smiled indulgently. "What can you tell me about 'corbomite,' Admiral?"

Kirk laughed a little, shaking his head. "Oh, no. You'll have to ask Commander Spock that one."

"Commander?"

Spock gave her an urbane not-smile. "Corbomite, yes. I do recall the occasion..."

* * *

"Komack here."

Nogura muted the sound for a moment. "Bill, are you watching this?"

"Yes," Komack growled ominously. "Harry called me."

"What do you make of it?"

"Kirk's a wily one, I have to give him that. We never told him he couldn't do extra interviews." Nogura could almost hear the shrug in Komack's voice. "So far, he's toeing the party line. I don't see how extra publicity can hurt us, as long as they keep their heads on straight."

Nogura smiled without much humor. "I don't think we have to worry about that with those two. Are you watching the demographics on this thing? This is the most popular vid program on twenty-seven networks."

"Hang on..." In the background, Nogura heard the other man switching on the stats monitor. "Christ. That's half the sector."

"Right. Half the sector watching Kirk and Spock of the Enterprise, the 'heroes of the hour.' Hard to beat that kind of coverage. They've probably just tripled the audience for Friday's ceremonies. Not to mention the press conference tonight."

Komack was quiet for a minute, watching. On the screen, Maxine Walker was wearing a serious expression, asking the two men about Beta Niobe, and a deadly plague the Enterprise had stopped there years before.

"He never seemed to go in for this sort of thing before," Komack said finally. "I always figured he was camera-shy. I just don't see what he hopes to gain."

"Yes, well. I have some idea," Nogura said dryly.

* * *

In the Fleet Com officers' lounge, the interview program had gathered quite an audience. Bob Wesley watched from a table in the back, enjoying the show. Jim and the Vulcan were almost as cool in front of the cameras as Max. It had been a simple, straightforward idea--but then, the best ones often were.

Let's see you break up that team now, Old Man, he thought, smiling a little. Now that every network will be hounding them for interviews by tomorrow...

He'd have to remember to take Max out for some really excellent sushi in the near future. She loved the stuff, and he owed her one.

* * *

In the studio's green room, the 'heroes of the hour' were waiting to be called for the second half of the show.

"Handsome devils, aren't they?" McCoy teased, taking a seat beside Kirk. They were watching the playback of the last few minutes of the live program. "Spock, that cameraman loves you."

The Vulcan disappointed him, commenting only, "Really, Doctor."

Kirk sipped his mineral water, absorbed in the recording. Walker's half hour interview was followed by the interactive portion of the show, where the virtual audience could ask their own questions of the show's guests. It was that audience response they were counting on. They'd done well so far, but he felt nervous in a way facing a dozen Klingon warships had never made him feel.

"Relax," McCoy urged. "You're both doing great. Only half an hour to go."

"Easy for you to say," Kirk muttered. It was cool in the room, but he felt too warm. "I hate this."

McCoy patted his arm consolingly. "Just think about the Enterprise, Jim."

"I am, that's the problem. Who would have thought I'd ever be in this position?" He looked accusingly at Spock. "How come you're not nervous?" Dark eyes glinted, in that way Kirk had always read as just for him, and he knew the Vulcan was nervous, just hiding it better. He smiled and felt a little better. "Sorry, dumb question."

McCoy snapped his fingers. "Hey, I have an idea. If this works, I think we ought to have a party. My treat."

Kirk was surprised. "Aren't you getting a little ahead of the game, Bones?"

The doctor shrugged. "I have a good feeling about this. Besides," he grinned, "we've got other things to celebrate."

Kirk looked at Spock, and absolutely could not help it. His smile and the color that rose to his face defied his best efforts to stifle them.

That's better, McCoy thought, seeing the tension ease in Kirk. It did in Spock, too, as if they were somehow connected by invisible force lines. God, he'd missed them. And though it wasn't the first time he had seen his two friends speak a whole conversation without saying a word, Leonard McCoy found that there was suddenly a lump in his throat, and a potentially embarrassing heat behind his eyes. He was saved by the opening of the door; Walker poked her head in. "Two minutes, gentlemen."

* * *

In the end, that particular half hour of InterView Live garnered a higher audience response rate than any other holovision program in the previous six years. Maxine Walker could hardly keep the grin off her face. From where she sat, she could see the monitors of the technicians as they supervised the sorting algorithms of the incoming calls. Hardly a single light remained unlit on any board.

Could she have gotten any luckier? The two men sitting across from her were too good to be true. They'd just saved the planet for heaven's sake. How long had it been since Earth had had any genuine heroes? And as if that weren't enough, they'd proved to be unpretentious, intelligent, diverting and gorgeous to boot. She wondered if they had the slightest idea how rare a combination that was.

As the show drew to a close, Maxine permitted herself the smallest of smiles. She'd definitely have to remember to take Bob out for some of that Centauri food he liked so much. She owed him one.

* * *

"Thank you for your questions, everyone. I'm afraid that's all the time we have today. Before we go, of course, I'll give you two the chance to answer the big question--the one most asked by our audience this afternoon. What does the future hold for the captain and crew of the Enterprise? The ship has been in refit for the better part of three years. Will you be slated again for deep space exploration?"

Kirk folded his hands, gave her a ghost of a smile that managed to convey he had something up his sleeve. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few more days for the answer to that, just as we will, Maxine. But, the primary duty of a starship has always been exploration. It would be my hope that she would fulfill the function for which she was designed."

Walker smiled warmly. "Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today, and I sincerely hope you'll consider doing another show with me in the near future. I'd also like to say, on behalf of the people of the Solar system, and uncounted associated planets..."

"Computer, holovid off," Nogura said, and the room fell silent.

The Commanding Admiral of Starfleet gazed at the great red span of the bridge from the window of his tower office, thinking that it was a strategist of the highest order who could outfox an old fox like himself and make it such a painless experience. And a man would be a fool to let a fox like that leave the service over a matter as small as a minor error in judgment.

Well, he thought wryly, there certainly was no face to be lost in conceding defeat to the captain of the Enterprise.

* * *

Kirk left the soundstage with a sigh of relief. He was going to have to do it all over again in four hours, at the press conference, but that would be relatively straightforward compared to this.

He turned to Spock in the corridor as soon as the door shut behind them. "Well, what do you think?"

Spock gave him a dry look. "I am pleased the duties of Starfleet officer do not often require me to engage in such activities."

"Yes, but do you think it worked, Spock?"

"If it didn't," McCoy said, coming down the hall from the technical booth, "I'll burn my lucky rabbit's foot. Don't look at me like that, Spock, it's a damn figure of speech." He stopped and rocked on his heels, smiling. "You both done good. Now let's go find that lovely lady and buy her a drink."

Just then Walker appeared from the other direction, eyes bright with the flush of her success. "Are my ears burning?"

McCoy extended an elbow, which she took. "Ms. Walker, I believe my friends here could use something to wet the whistle. Care to join us?"

"Indeed I would, Doctor." She grinned. "And call me Max."

Max? Kirk mouthed at Spock, behind the doctor's back.

The Vulcan did not, quite, smile.

* * *

Much later that evening, Spock sat alone at an inconspicuous table in the Spacedock officer's club. It had been a long day, and much of it spent in the spotlight, both in front of the cameras and after. It seemed as though the eyes and greetings of strangers followed him everywhere. He was most uncomfortable with his sudden fame, and wanted nothing more than to retreat to some quiet place where he could be alone with Jim. They had barely touched each other in eighteen hours, and it felt like a lifetime.

The press conference had been held on the Enterprise, as planned. When it was over, Nogura had requested a few minutes of Kirk's time. As they had made plans to meet McCoy afterward in the officer's club, Kirk had asked Spock to go ahead without him, promising to follow as soon as he could.

As it happened, the doctor had canceled... his acquaintance with Maxine Walker, it seemed, had continued into the evening hours. And so it was that Spock sat alone among strangers, gazing out at the ship that held his future, both literally and figuratively.

He knew the moment Kirk entered the room, though he was twenty meters away, his back to the entrance. It was that same magnetic charge, that same sweep of electricity on his skin. He did not turn, and when Kirk reached him the human said nothing, only came to stand behind his chair, resting his hands lightly on Spock's shoulders. Together they looked out, seeing the same pristine silver beauty, the same memories. Then Kirk squeezed his shoulders a little, and Spock knew.

The Vulcan let the breath he'd been holding out, relief and quiet triumph uncurling from the tight knot he hadn't known was in his stomach.

He thought about what it would be like, to tilt his head back, to let Jim kiss him, here, in front of strangers, in plain sight of the other officers, as he could feel Kirk wanted to. If ever there was a moment for it, it was this moment. They would not do it, of course, but the thought of it made his nerves hum faintly. He leaned back fractionally, felt the tips of Kirk's fingers brush his nape.

After a time, Kirk drew a deep breath, sighed. "She's beautiful, isn't she?"

It needed no answer, of course, but Spock said, "Yes. She is beautiful."

"You wanna get out of here?" Kirk asked softly.

In answer, the Vulcan got wordlessly to his feet.

They moved, shoulder to shoulder toward the door, and it seemed to Spock that they moved as one, toward a future that was as logical as any he could have conceived of. His sorrow, for wasted time, for the inevitable ending (that must surely one day come to pass, as all things do) was almost as great as his joy.

They reached the exit. On the threshold, Kirk stopped. His hand found the small of Spock's back, a casually possessive gesture, both spontaneous and profound. He met the Vulcan's gaze for a fraction of an instant.

Spock thought it fitting that he had found his answers where they had surely been all along, in the hazel eyes that turned for one last glimpse of the silver ship before Kirk followed him out.