Disclaimer: As you might have guessed, ParaBorg owns absolutely everything. They don't, however, own the original content of this story or my original characters. All original content © 2000 by Roisin Fraser. Constructive comments welcome to [email protected] Flames will be given all the attention they are due. >:O)

This story is part of the T'Rela Series/Minor Canon. Some familiarity with the series is encouraged, but not absolutely necessary. The other stories in the T'Rela Series, the Intermission Series, and all my other TOS fiction can be found at www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/2151 Thanks to T'Thelaih for beta-reading and Editrix for her insights and analysis of the "The Enterprise Incident."

Summary: The aftermath of "The Enterprise Incident"

Rating: TOS, R for adult situations, angst, het smut S/f

Oh, darkness, I feel like letting go…

All of your strength, all of your courage,

Come and lift me from this place.

I know I could love you much better than this…

Full of grace.

"It's better this way," I said

Haven't seen this place before

Everything we say and do hurts us all the more.

Pulled down by the undertow

Never thought I could feel so low…

---Sarah McLachlan

"Full of Grace"

---///---

"Why is the house so quiet?" my husband asked as we entered the house.

I could well understand his concern; of the many things a house with three children can be, quiet is not a word that immediately comes to mind. "Amanda is watching T'Lir and T'Siri. Sudek is at school."

Spock nodded, and I noticed again how tired and worn he looked, as if some hidden grief were burning its way through him. But I could not be certain, not without touching his mind. He had not relaxed his shields as he usually did in my presence. It was curious, and not a little troubling. But in the absence of our usual mental communication, I would have to allow him to tell me what was bothering him.

I forced a smile as I took his hand. He'd been blocking our bond more and more often in these past few months, and the strength of his shielding had slowly built a wall between us that I didn't know how to cross. "Come, Beloved," I said, forcing a lightness I did not feel. "You look as though you had ridden through half the desert without food or water. We have both, I assure you."

He pulled his hand from mine. "No, thank you. I would rather not."

Hidden by the folds of my skirt, one of my hands clenched into a fist before I realized it. Never before had he pulled away from me, not like this. But then, he hadn't blocked our bond before, not like he had in recent months. For the first time in our marriage, his mind had been completely closed to mine. "As you wish," I said, matching his cool tone. "If you will excuse me."

I walked out into the garden. When we had moved into this house, Sudek had been only a few months old, and the garden had not yet existed. It was a thing Spock and I had built together. He had brought back plants and seeds from his travels, and we had planted those fragile seeds in the soil when he came home. The garden grew almost as fast as our children did; at the height of spring, it fairly exploded with a riot of color that seemed somehow all the more glorious for its contrast with Vulcan's red-hued sands. But now, as summer's heat forced even the plants into retreat, it seemed dry and decayed.

I found that I could not look at it now, not for long.

I walked towards the one tree that thrived even in this heat. The ipanki tree, leaves slightly rattling, provided some shade, as I sat underneath its branches and tried to force my mind into some sort of order. When the trouble between us had begun, I could not say, but all that was unspoken had built a wall higher than either of us could safely cross. I let my mind drift, and the beginnings of our trouble came to me with a suddenness I had not thought possible.

It had been almost a year ago. Spock and his captain had gone on a mission whose intricate details were still a mystery to me, but the end result had been the theft of the cloaking device from the Romulans. The news had been all over the galaxy, as had the added bonus of the Romulan commander, who had somehow ended up on the Enterprise. The mission made him profoundly uncomfortable, though I could sense no more over the vast distance between us. Then his shields had slammed up, and they had not lowered since.

After what became known as "the Enterprise incident," Spock had been scheduled for shore leave, but had chosen not to go, pleading excessive work . I did not question his reasons; though I longed to see him, as did our children, I knew the demands of his job as science officer and First Officer must surely have been punishing. Then began the parade of little things that did not quite add up: the brief letters where before they had been much longer, the strange mental block between us that had never, even in the depths of our rare disagreements, been present.

The only thing that had not changed was the way he acted towards our children. They were devoted to him, accepting the loneliness of his absences with the equanimity it had taken me years to achieve. It was from his hands that T'Lir and T'Siri had learned to walk, and when Sudek began the first stages of his healer's training, it was his father who taught him how to initiate a meld. But as close as the children were to him, even they had noticed a difference. T'Lir and T'Siri were too young, at nearly three, to notice much, but Sudek, at almost eleven, was as observant as he had ever been. "Something shadows his soul," Sudek had murmured after the last taped message had arrived. I could not disagree.

I sensed a movement next to me, and knew, as I had always known, that it was my husband. "Have I grieved you in some way?" he asked in the Akaren I had taught him; it was the language we spoke most often between us.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "You can ask that? What is it that shadows your soul?"

He looked away from me then, but in the instant before he turned away, I saw something in the dark depths of his eyes that I had never seen before: guilt and anger. Anger that I knew, somehow, was not directed at me. My instinct was to touch him, to open my mind and communicate without words that which could not be easily spoken. But I did not, for we had gone too far for that. So I waited.

When Spock spoke, it was to the middle distance. "What shadows my soul, I would not burden you with, my wife."

I clamped my mouth shut before the sharp response I would have spoken could escape. Instead, I rose to stand behind him. I placed my hands on his shoulders, noting absently how thin he was. Whatever plagued him had obviously bothered him for sometime. "Come inside, Beloved. This cannot be left unsaid, or it will destroy us." I could not say the words that were trapped inside my throat. Has it destroyed us already? What is to become of us now?

There are, of course, other forms of communication. When he did not respond, I ran one hand up the back of his neck, wanting to feel him respond, to do anything but immure himself in his strange isolation. I felt him relax slightly, but the barrier was still between us, a barrier made up of far more than just his mental shields. We had become something other than what we once were, and I did not know if we could find our way back.

Spock turned to face me then, and the expression on his face was one I had not seen before and could put no name to. The expression spoke of some deep emptiness, some unknown burden, and as he pulled me closer, I knew that he was seeking some way to heal whatever had wounded him. His hands untwined the thick braid of my hair, freeing it to flow down my back to touch my knees.

But his mind was still silent, closed to me.

I brushed one of my hands against the meld points on his face, and slowly, the shields began to relax. The barrier, if not transparent, was no longer entirely opaque. //Beloved, whatever this is, we can survive it.// My hair fell forward as I covered his mouth with my own---

---and my heart froze cold against my ribs. The image of a woman, doing this same thing. A woman I knew was one of the Sundered, a woman who was not me. I stumbled backwards, at a loss for words. When the words finally came, they were in the low speech of the Akaren: "Benaht, a'se mordakjh seheik-ait?" I demanded. "Husband, who is this woman of the Declared?" I heard the anger in my voice, and did not care. I knew the answer---how could I not? It was the Romulan Commander, she who had lost the cloaking device.

When he finally met my eyes, it was as if everything I had feared had crystallized in that one moment. I had known about Zarabeth and Leila, enough to realize that he had hardly been in his right mind in either situation. What had happened with them had involved only his body. But the Romulan Commander…that was something different. It was that difference now, the knowledge of his attraction to her, that stood between us. I forced my voice to calmness. "Where have you gone, my husband, that you could do this?"

And in my mind, I heard the echo of words that were not my own. The Romulan Commander, realizing how she had been deceived, asking, "What are you that you could do this to me?" My husband's answer to her was not entirely unemotional. "First Officer of the Enterprise."

Was that the key? Had he been ordered to distract the commander while the cloaking device was being stolen? And had his duty led him into a liaison with the Romulan Commander? I sat down hard on the bench; it was almost too much to bear. Whatever had occurred with Zarabeth and Leila, it had not had the emotional impact upon him that this woman had. Some other woman had walked into the space that I had thought reserved for he and I alone, for the privacy of our bond.

I folded my arms tightly around myself. It was a gesture born of my need to control the anger that was rolling through me. For the first time, I wondered if our Vulcan brothers did not have the right idea after all. Where there was no emotion, was there also none of this sick, despairing nausea, the pain and anger of a relationship changed forever? I closed my eyes, wanting only to believe that I had misinterpreted what I had seen in his mind. The soul of the Akaren is the belief in the absolute evil of deception, and so even that self-deception did not last long. I had to face this, whatever had happened.

But as I looked at my husband, guilt-ridden and weary, I knew it had not been duty---or duty alone---that had drawn he and the Romulan Commander together. There had been an attraction between them, an attraction that was as much of the mind as it was of the body. I closed my eyes as an image rose unbidden to my mind, an image that, courtesy of the marriage bond, was not my own. My husband, brushing his hand up against hers in an embrace we used often in the privacy of our marriage bed. It was the initiating of a telepathic link which starts the act of love between a bonded couple.

I found that the words I wanted to say were choking me with their bitterness. Did you love her, Spock? Do you? Instead of screaming my hatred and despair, I turned and walked back into the house.

He did not try and stay my departure.

***

We slept apart that night, the first time in all of our times together that we had done so. I do not remember which of us made the decision, but when I awoke the next morning, I was alone. It was, perhaps, better that way.

I awoke to the sound of T'Siri asking for a story, and Spock's deep voice in answer. Some odd story, a space-story that I immediately would have doubted, had it not been my husband who was telling it. It was about a strange child-alien named Trelane, and I could hear my daughter's laugh at his antics. T'Lir would be there too, I knew; silent, watching, but remembering all that was said. It was her way.

I could see that Spock had not slept the night before, and the realization made my heart constrict in sorrow. The Akaren word for "home," al-seit, is the same as the word for "sanctuary." Had I done that to him, taken away his sanctuary? What could I do, what could we do, to bring us back to where we were before, where we had each been each other's sanctuary?

I kept my feelings behind my shielding; this was not something I wanted our children to know about. I saw by the minute shift in Spock's expression that he concurred. "Well, T'Siri," I said as Spock finished his story of Trelane, "have you heard enough for today?"

It was odd to watch our daughters together. They were mirror images of each other, physically and sometimes emotionally, to the point that I sometimes wondered whether we had one daughter or two. T'Siri's expression clearly indicated that she wanted another story, but it was T'Lir who nodded. I smiled at them, and they smiled back, identical smiles of un-Vulcan delight.

Spock shifted T'Siri's weight a little where she sat on his lap. "Sudek has gone to the park this morning. Would you care to go there with me?"

"Playing chess again?" I asked, although I knew the answer. Sudek had learned the game from his father, and had taken part in several of the competitions in the park.

Spock nodded. "It would also give us some time to talk." His tone was carefully neutral, but I could see the shadows in his eyes.

I wanted to respond that there probably wouldn't be that much talking possible, not with our daughters around. But I didn't say it. At least he *was* willing to talk. "I will look forward to it." I glanced at the clock on the wall. "If it's to be, it had best be done quickly. Sudek's game was set to begin in an hour."

T'Lir and T'Siri looked at each other, that strange connection between them almost palpable. "More stories later, I promise," I said, and that seemed to convince them.

The walk to the park was almost uneventful. Some of the other Vulcan parents we met along the path looked disapprovingly at the exuberance of our Vulcan-Akaren-human brood, but it was something I had grown used to in the years since our marriage. "The best thing you can do for your children, "Amanda had said to me once, after a series of sleepless nights when Sudek was newly born, "is to give them roots and wings. The rest is all details." And as I watched them now, running and laughing along the path, I thought that we had at least made a good attempt at that.

Roots and wings…strange how words come back to you in a crisis. The phrase could also apply to my husband. I had tried to give him roots, but could I also give him wings, if the alien commander was who he truly wanted?

The anger was boiling perilously close to the surface, and I pushed it back down again. Nothing would be solved if I gave way to this now. I tried to think like a Vulcan would, to break the incident and its aftermath down to logical words and thoughts. But I was not born to my husband's faith in logic, and so it failed me.

It was not long before we saw Sudek, sitting across the chessboard from another boy, Sulien, who had been his partner in the kahs-wan. The game had just begun, apparently; Sudek and Sulien were placing their pieces on the chessboard. T'Lir tugged on my hand; at three, she still didn't talk if a gesture would suffice. I followed her gaze to where a ka'vela---a storyteller---was sitting in the shade of a ri'anki tree with her usual pack of children."Yes, you can go. But you have to come back when I call for you." T'Lir nodded, and T'Siri followed at her usual short distance.

Spock's eyes were on the chessboard; Sulien had made the first move, advancing a pawn. But I could feel the bond between us open again. //Is it well for you if we talk now?// my husband asked.

Our shields were still up; no other telepath in the vicinity would pick up on the stray echoes of our thoughts. //It is well for me. What is it, my husband? Why did you do this?//

To a casual observer, it would have seemed as if our attention was focused solely on the game; Sudek blocked the pawn with a knight. //She died. The Romulan Commander died, for losing the cloaking device. The news was released just before I arrived. "Executed in accordance with Romulan justice," was what the news clips said.//

I was forced into a moment of unwilling empathy. If I were him, ordered to distract a woman I desired, how might I feel if my actions caused her death? //I see// I said. //But why have you done this? What was there about her that caused you to desire her?// I remembered the anger I had sensed in his mind, his discomfort about this mission. His beloved Starfleet had done this, ordered this mission and set the events in motion. Events which could lead to the Severance of our marriage, if we did not stop this now.

Sulien's queen was at risk from Sudek's knight. //I did not want to desire her as I did. She was…attractive, but that was not it.// His hand brushed mine in a gesture that seemed as restrained as those use by Vulcan couples, but was not. The contact between us intensified the emotions in the bond, and I felt what he felt: guilt, and an overriding anger that burned with the intensity of cold fusion. Spock had killed for his Starfleet oath, invaded the minds of aliens numerous times to save his crewmates, but this was, as I already knew, something entirely different. The Romulan Commander, she of the star-dark hair and fiery eyes, had lost her life for a cloaking device that even the Federation's best scientists had to admit did not work. And it was this, the gratuitous loss of life and his own part in it, which now weighed heavily upon my husband's soul.

Sudek captured Sulien's queen; too late he saw the trap, and was unable to avoid it. The contact between Spock and myself deepened, and then I saw her, as she had appeared to him. The Romulan Commander was, as my husband had said, extremely attractive, with a feline grace that spoke eloquently of the shared ties between her people and mine. I felt Spock's attraction to her, and the recognition in her eyes of that desire. But their attraction was born of something far more seductive than the curve of a dress or the scent of hair or skin. It was the spontaneous recognition between two people who could, in another universe, have been soul-mates.

I fought the urge to withdraw from link between us, to isolate myself behind my shields as Spock had done all the months since the theft of the cloaking device. I did not want to know what lay between Spock and the Romulan Commander, did not want to learn that the same joyous spark that had started our own bonding had leapt between he and this other woman. But there was no avoiding the knowledge---and avoidance had brought us to this precipice.

I clasped his hand tightly, not knowing or caring what the others around us might be thinking at such a display of emotion. //Just answer me one thing. Is it within you to move past this? I do not wish to lose you, but I cannot keep you here if it is your wish to go.//

There was silence for a time between my husband and myself, and I began to wonder if he had withdrawn again. Then the gentle voice spoke within my mind. //Had it been my wish to go, I should already have been there.// I had seen the image in his mind, the Romulan Commander offering to make a place for him in her world. There was a pause, then: //I ask forgiveness my wife, for what I have done and what I have failed to do. Can *you* see past this?//

It was a question I had tried not to ask myself. Though marriage was never treated casually among the Akaren, we also believed that it was foolish to prolong a marriage where affinity no longer existed. But that wasn't the case here; I could feel Spock's love and concern for me, for our marriage, through the bond. But was that enough to sustain us through this wind-shift in our lives? I had loved this man for nearly fifteen years, borne his children, laughed with him, loved with him, waited for him, and shared sorrows with him in the quiet of our nights together. What he and the Romulan Commander had shared…had it really touched any of that, except where I let it?

I knew, with a sudden certainty, what my answer would be. //We can only begin again, if that is truly your wish, Beloved.// And his presence was fully within my mind as it had not been for many months, bright with his joy and the beginnings of healing.

Sudek's queen captured Sulien's king. The game was over.

***

The children went to Amanda's that night. My human mother-by-marriage, far more intuitive than many a telepath, had only nodded and smiled slightly as she opened the door for our children. "You will be all right, won't you?" she had asked for my ears alone. Though I had said little to her of the distance between her son and I, Amanda was no one's fool.

I nodded. "I gave him roots and wings, and he came back to me."

Amanda, of course, recognized the expression instantly. I was surprised to see the sudden brightness in her blue eyes, the piercing, direct blue of her granddaughters'. "It is all I could want for him, that you could find your sanctuary together."

I touched her arm in gratitude and in love. "We have found it."

***

The house was silent and still as it had been just the day before, but the silence was not as unnerving as it had been. I turned to look at my husband, and for the first time in many months, he was completely there. Not reserved and coldly distant, but the loving warmth I had come to associate with him, and had taken for granted, was back in his eyes.

For a time we just held each other under the rising light of T'Kuht. When I felt his hands, those graceful artist's hands, begin to unravel the thick plait of my hair, I knew a warmth inside me that had been too long absent. It would not be easy, but we could find our way back.

His hands as the closure to my gown were as unsteady as mine at the closure of his shirt. The gentle pressure of his mouth on mine wasn't making my hands any the more steady, but I didn't really mind. I came to him with an urgency that was as much relief as desire. I had thought we might never share this again, or if we did, the face of another woman would intrude.

There was little Spock ever missed; like his mother before him, he was no man's fool. //Beloved// he said //this is our reality. Do not try to reshape it now.//

I ran my hands through the hair on his chest, remembering how I had once discovered he was ticklish. //I would not dare, my husband.//

He touched one of my hands in the ritual embrace, and our passion traced a warm light of fire into my mind. What was ours is ours again. I could not speak for the joy contained in that thought. It would be a long way back, I knew; there would be times of anger and pain still ahead, but this was our start.

The love we made that night was as simple and as uncomplicated as it had ever been; there was no shadow of another between us when I felt him move within me. When his release finally came, it was my name he shouted in the stillness of the night.

Afterwards, both of us lay quietly exhausted, his arms tight around me as if he feared to let me go. //I will not leave// I said, and knew it for the truth it had always been. //Did you never wonder why the Akaren speak of marriage as fabric on a loom?//

Spock's mind was still pleasantly disordered. //I have to admit, I had not thought to know.//

I showed him the picture in my mind, the picture of my brother Sorcha's loom, a swath of fabric woven on it. //Sometimes when a weaver makes fabric, there will be imperfections in the cloth. Sometimes these are intentional, for no Akaren would make any item absolutely perfect, for it would be an insult to the gods. Sometimes the imperfections are the result of inexperience or haste, or the weakness of the thread. But if the surrounding fabric is strong, the imperfections do not matter.//

In the darkness, I traced the angular lines of his face, and found he was smiling.

I knew then that I was right. We could survive this.

THE END.