Fellowship & Fairydust

Saavik hovered outside the chamber, caught in illogical nervousness. How to react as a Vulcan should to this meeting? How to react as a logical being, not as a child torn from an illogical world, as one come late to the mind rules, as one to whom Spock was so – so very vital?

Always, during these dilemmas, she had appealed to Spock and Spock had instructed her. His steadying influence had calmed her. He had teased the tangles from her ill-formed logic and shown her how it should lie in her mind.

And now, what was Spock? She had let him go. She had grieved and released him as a Vulcan should. She had accepted his loss and moved on; now she was turning back to a shell of what he had been. Everything had changed.

Oh, how everything had changed. She had felt that the first time he had been shaken by his time on Genesis, ripped like Adam from his empty innocence. When he had turned to her in naked bewilderment, his body lithe and young, younger even than she remembered him from so long ago, knowing nothing but what biology urged him to do.

And she had shown him the form and the process. She had given him a careful framework to hold the fever that racked him, and had willingly offered the only logical solution. And she, Saavik of Vulcan, protégé of Spock, had burned in response to those eager hands and that young body that had no mind and only wanted biological satiety.

Spock, how things have changed.

She saw him now and it was like looking back through an album of photographs. She saw the Spock who had rescued her and protected her from the hell of her childhood as she had rescued and protected him from his childhood on Genesis. She saw the Spock that he had been before she had ever met him; the lanky, teenage Spock, the vital young man. She had seen it all on Genesis. He had grown up before her eyes, clung to her, lusted for her, and finally slipped into catatonic silence. And she had seen him anew.

She did not even know if he remembered.

She did not know if he remembered what she had been to him on Genesis. She was uncertain if he even remembered what he had been to her in the past. She had been very important to him for a long time, it was true, but most of her post-rescue years she had spent in the home of his parents, her communication with him only through the filter of subspace transmissions, with none of the bond-building mental familiarity that came with physical proximity. Would he even know who she was?

Illogical. Illogical, she told herself fiercely. Standing out here will not alter Spock’s memory. I must –

She lifted a hand to the door, and it swung open silently under her touch. He sat there on the single chair, his hands buried in the sleeves of his robe, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall as if he could learn something from the striations in the rock.

She began to speak, but her voice faltered.

He looked up.

Something lit deep in his bewildered eyes, almost – almost – a smile moving onto his face, and then flitting away again. He rose from his chair, one hand extending towards her. Illogical as the thought may be, he seemed to have been struck with sunlight.

“Saavikam,” he said, and he took a step closer.

She flinched. How stupid of her to flinch. But – this was Spock anew, Spock with all of his confident wisdom stripped from him. He was a child, seeking out guidance and reassurance. How did she approach this?

She inhaled, calming herself then gave a small fleeting smile to match his, and walked forward. He held a hand out, uncertainly, and then dropped it again, looking away, his gaze seeming to curl in on itself as he scoured his mind.

“Spock,” she said, stepping forward again and holding out her hands to his. Most unVulcan to touch in this way, but what was Vulcan about this meeting? What was logical here?

He reached out that tentative, uncertain hand again, and touched hers, bending down two fingers, leaving two extended, stroking haltingly at her own.

“This – is inappropriate,” she said with great control.

He looked up at her, startled, his forehead creasing.

“Yes… It is inappropriate. But – somewhere in my mind…”

She inhaled deeply, and let the breath out slowly. How did she explain what happened on Genesis? He had touched her mind there, even if there had been very little of his mind for her to touch.

The truth. Had Spock not always taught her that the truth was paramount?

“Spock, are you aware of your regeneration on Genesis?” she asked.

His forehead furrowed again.

“Accelerated growth,” he said slowly. “Renewal. Years in minutes…”

“Yes,’ she nodded. ‘And what must come to all Vulcans…”

He looked down, his mind working. Then he looked up at her, startled, stepping back a little.

“You – became my bond-mate,” he said cautiously. “You, Saavikam, became my bond-mate. Is this true?”

She was improperly relieved that she had not had to say it.

“Yes, this is true,” she nodded.

He looked her up and down, with an appearance of sudden preternatural knowledge in his eyes, as if he were seeing straight through her clothing.

“Yes,” he echoed. “it is true.”

She nodded, simply.

“It – may be awkward,” he said.

Saavik’s eyebrow quirked. “Understatement is a very useful facet of language,” she commented.

“Yes,” he said slowly, staring downward again, reading unknown thoughts in his own mind. “it may be awkward. But – it is not unacceptable.”

Saavik suddenly let go of the tension; she had not realised she had been holding it.

“No,” she answered, looking straight into those intelligent, bewildered eyes. “It is not unacceptable. In fact, it is logical.”

“Logical, yes…”

He looked about the room, and then back at her face, seeming to be recalling the basics of hospitality. Every shard of knowledge he recaptured seemed to momentarily frighten him, before he processed it and put it in its proper place.

He looked back at the room. There was only one chair. He looked towards his bed, and gestured towards it uncertainly.

“You must sit.” he said, walking with her to the bed. They both sat, eyes on the wall opposite, very much reminding Saavik of awkward human teenage couples she had seen, or of people waiting for a shuttle.

Finally, Spock looked left, towards her, and she turned her head to meet his eyes.

“It is not logical to regret a person’s passing,” she said, never taking her eyes from those eyes that she trusted so deeply. “But – I am very glad to have you back.”

<Previous|Next>