Disclaimer: The Usual. ParaBorg owns 'em, but I own this story and my original characters. All original characters and content © 2000 by Roisin Fraser. Okay to post at ASC or archive, all others, please ask. Thanks to my betas PernFancy, Islaofhope, Editrix, and Yersinia for thought-provoking and grammar-correcting beyond the call.

Author's Note: This story is a part of the T'Rela series, although not a really major part of it. It's part of my minor canon, stories which are in the T'Rela series but are minor detours from the main stories. So, you might want to be familiar with the series before you read this, but it really isn't necessary. The other stories in the T'Rela series, the Intermission series, as well as my other Trek fiction can be found at www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/2151

Comments: Can I have some, huh, huh, PLEASE? Constructive only, to [email protected]

Summary: The morning after "Hope and a Common Future." It's almost a PWP, with a little bit of plot added for good measure. J

Rating: R for adult situations, TOS, S/f

----////----

The wind stirs my hair, soft and regular. I open my eyes, and am disoriented. Am I not in a tent where the slightest breeze can enter? I focus on the walls of my bedroom and realize that no breeze can enter here. And the soft surration is no breeze, but the steady sound of a breath that is not mine. If there was any more proof needed of the identity of the other breather, the ordered lightening of his thoughts would be enough. Though there has not been another in this bed since my husband's death nine years ago, I know the breather. Spock, who was, until last week, my patient.

His arms are wrapped around me in sleep, and the slight difference between our temperatures is welcome in the chill of early morning. Right now, he is dreaming; I can tell that much through the link that binds us. The link that will, if it is not broken, become a full marriage bond.

I desire him. I can admit that now, without a healer's strictures to halt my words. But I will not bind him to me if I am not also his desire. What happened last night was scarce planned by either of us, but what has begun can be halted if it is his wish.

My stomach rumbles slightly, reminding me that we ate little of dinner. I sit up, trying to think how I can get out of bed without waking him up. His voice stops me. "And what makes you think it would be my wish?" Spock asks.

I stare at him, startled. He was dreaming, I know it. Sensing my dismay, Spock smiles at me. His people do not smile; a smiling Vulcan was, at one time in our shared pasts, one of the first signs of danger. Perhaps its rarity is why that smile makes my breath catch. "I heard your thoughts as I dreamed, my wife."

My wife. Yes, he has the right to call me that, for such has the link made us. We are, as the Akaren poets say, woven together on a loom as old as time. I feel the touch of a warm hand on my breast, and desire stirs within me once again. But I do not allow myself to be distracted. "Is it your wish that we should continue as bondmates?" I ask, not able to hide the tremor in my voice. I love this man, but love may not be enough. Even if we should allow the link to develop, there are our families to consider. The Eldest Mother of the Akaren, she who was once my mother, has long stood against alliances outside the Akaren, and I suspect his clan might have similar misgivings about his marriage.

His other hand clasps mine in an embrace I had seen between bonded Vulcan couples. "Between us, there is little that can be hid," Spock says quietly. "See what I feel."

And suddenly, his shields, those strong shields which crashed in the heat of our passion, are down once again. I should think it strange that he can be so emotionally open, coming from a people who suppress their emotions. But that paradoxical quality of emotional depth and quiet solemnity is what first drew me to him, so the depth of his emotions should not surprise me. They are powerful, like the current of a desert wind riding just beneath the surface of sand. Hidden, but no less strong for their apparent absence.

I close my eyes against the image I see, of the woman who is, and is not, me. I have never been this woman, the woman in his mind of violet eyes and strangely haunting beauty. I am what I have always been, an Akaren healer in the midst of Vulcans. These other things are nothing I have ever thought of.

//It is who you are to me// Spock thinks to me across our link, and his mental voice is alive with emotions he has rarely felt: happiness, desire, a deep and abiding contentment. //Would you deny my reality?//

The question is more than it seems. The word he uses is c'thia: "reality-truth." In one word, he is asking me if I will deny what is real between us, the way our relationship is, and the way it may yet develop. It is a deeper reality he speaks of; the reality that would no more question who we are together than it would question the fabric of the universe. And in the face of such certainty, I find that I no longer have the desire to challenge his reality, or my own.

Bonded for only the space of hours, still his mind is in an empathic contact with mine far stronger than any I have felt before. //Parted from me and never parted// and there is no telling who thinks the words first. When his lips touch my own, the contact between us opens and expands with the rush of our desire. How could I challenge this, the current which unites us?

//Beloved, you think too much.// His voice, dark with amusement, reaches into my mind.

//Then you'll just have to distract me// I reply, and his mouth on my breast makes short work of whatever else I was thinking. But distraction is a two-way street, and my hand comes to rest against the evidence of his desire. I can sense through our link that his own thoughts have gone suddenly disordered with the contact. //Distracted enough, are you?// I tease.

His answer does not come with words. Spock's touch on my body is as light as sand flitting on a tent. He knows all of my places, the ones where I have longed for his touch, the places where none has touched me since Salet's death. There is no telling whose desire draws us into each other's arms, and in truth, I scarcely think it matters. The contact between us expands again, and I am fully in his mind, feeling his arousal as he does, seeing myself through his eyes, that strange woman I have never been. His arousal grows as my hands travel his body, that lean, muscular form marked with scars from battles I never knew he fought. There is history there, a history we might yet have occasion to learn.

His hands tighten on my shoulders in a signal perhaps as old as time itself, and my own response is nearly as instinctual. When he enters me, there is no time for thought as our minds merge. The words that come out of our mouths are from both our pasts, a scattered mixing of Akaren words and Vulcan endearments, and we cling to each other in the face of the fire which consumes us.

***

Spock's hand traces lightly down my ribcage, feeling the hammering of my heart settle into something approaching its normal rhythm. //Are you…sufficiently distracted, my wife?//

I don't even try to choke back my laugh, as I pull him to me in joy and mingled sorrow. Though our time together grows short, I know that we will always have this, the time when we first learned what we were to each other. The bond between us has now taken hold firmly in the back of my mind, a glowing ember, never to be quenched except by death.

//We have this// he says through the bond, tapping my forehead slightly with one long finger. //Parted from me and never parted, you will always be there//

I nestle against him. It will have to be enough.

THE END.