The woman standing in the doorway was tall, blue-eyed, with dark hair scraped back into a severe bun on the back of her head. She was wearing the uniform of a member of Starfleet Medical, and her face was anxious and tired-looking. Her hands were twisting together in front of her body. She was obviously human, and obviously distracted with nervousness.
Spock narrowed his eyes. He recognised her. He was certain of that. But – there was something wrong.
“I – came in on the overnight from Earth.” she began hesitantly. “I – don’t quite know why. But I had to see you… I’m so glad you’re alive…”
Her voice began to dissolve in tears and Spock rose to his feet, instinctively knowing that tears had to be countered with comfort. He held out a hand towards her face and was suddenly assailed by a memory that seemed to envelop him so closely that he couldn’t see it. He stopped in his tracks, shaking his head, trying to grasp the ephemeral thoughts in his head. This was like being half-blind, surrounded by ghosts and glimpses of a life he could barely remember.
“I’m sorry, Spock,” she began, pushing away the tears with her own hands. “I shouldn’t have come, really, but – “
Spock stared at her, his hand still outstretched towards her cheek, and suddenly saw a much younger woman standing before him with blonde hair and blue eyes, crying at the uselessness of her presence, at her inability to help. But the hair colour… In his fragmented memory he could not think of a reason for that to change, other than to grey. And yet – the proportions of the face, the voice, the bearing – they were all the same. A name crept into his mind.
He hesitated, then asked, “Christine?”
Her face broke into a smile that was like the sun bursting from behind a cloud.
“Christine…” he repeated, clutching on to that name and trying to gain more from it. “Nurse…”
“Doctor, now.” she told him, still with that joyful smile. “It’s been doctor for – oh – almost ten years.”
“Doctor, of course.” Spock nodded.
He had a vague memory of that, of scanning through some kind of listing on a screen, and noticing a change from nurse to doctor, and having a brief moment of illogical pleasure at the news. But still, no context, no surname… He stared at her without apology, trying to read memories out of the lines and proportions of her face.
Remembrance assailed him in flashes. Lying in a bed under bright orange covers, controlling pain or sickness; and this woman in a brief blue dress standing beside him, or touching his hand when she thought him to be unconscious. This woman capturing his hand in hers and saying something to him – something that slipped his mind… – with a sense of urgency and passion. Standing in a room draped in red – in his room, he remembered now – telling him –
“We are bound for Vulcan.” he murmured. ‘We’ll be there in just a few days.’
He looked up at her, surprised and confused by his memory, silently asking her to explain – but she stood motionless and silent.
“It would be illogical for us to protest against our natures.” he said, the words coming to him as if they were slipping into his mind from another place.
Her smile saddened.
“That was a long time ago, Mr Spock.” she said. “A lot has changed since then.”
“Yes,” he said slowly.
Flashes in his mind. The heat and yearning through his body. The shivering of fever. Standing in a room surrounded by red, with need cascading through him, with this woman in front of him. Kneeling in a jungle, on a planet fractured by its own energy, touching his fingers to fingers that matched the heat of his own. A lot had changed…
He straightened up, looking straight at her.
“I am told that my memories will return.” he said steadily. ‘But that it will be a lengthy process.’
He continued to stare at her, trying to read some lost message in the lines of her face, trying to see something beyond the obvious.
“Were we lovers?” he asked abruptly.
A pained expression came over her and she shook her head.
“Not in this life.” she said, her eyes avoiding his face.
Spock’s forehead creased. Human complexities… Not in this life… He had experienced very little of this life so far. No. In this life he had experienced discomfort, and fear, and yearning. He had experienced Saavik’s hot body, and he had experienced Jim’s overwhelming need to save his life, and he had experienced many days in this bare, answerless room.
He stared at her again, but it was obvious that she was not about to explain her meaning.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked her suddenly, his curiosity blatant in his voice. He remembered blonde hair, copper hair, silver hair, styled with a variety and skill that had made wonder blossom in his previous mind. Never, he was sure, had there been dull, tightly controlled brown, pulled away from her face as if she were ashamed to have hair.
“Oh.” she said, touching her hand to the side of her head self-consciously. “It’s been like this for a long time now, Mr Spock. Don’t you remember?”
His forehead creased as he tried again to pull elusive memories into reach. His years on the ship – on that bright, colourful ship of the past, before his retreat to Gol (something in itself that he hardly recalled) – were for some reason easier to remember than the more recent ones.
Memory failed him, he looked up again, and his eyes bored into hers.
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” she said with a sad smile. “no, it’s not.”
Staring at her, he saw an image of Saavik hovering beside her – young, lithe, eager to serve and please and do right; Saavik’s eyes always looked to him for approval. What could he approve at the moment? He knew less of the world than she did. And his eyes moved back to this woman, almost as old as he, tightened with experience and pain, but with a certainty behind her emotional façade that gave a great reassurance to his faltering existence.
“I’ll go.” she said suddenly, beginning to turn, as if she had abruptly decided on the futility of her presence.
“No,’ Spock said, almost before his mind had cogitated a response. “no.’ he repeated more steadily. He gestured towards the chair. “Sit. I – have a feeling – that we have much to discuss.”