Amicus
Usque ad Aras
Disclaimer:
All hail ParaBorg, who own every damn thing. But verily I say unto
thee: they do not own the original content of this story.
Author's
Note: This is my somewhat different take on the much-maligned
Spock/Chapel relationship. Hope you like it….the Latin is "a
friend throughout all differences," which I shamelessly borrowed
from "Dwellers in the Crucible."
Rating:
PG, TOS, S, Cha, 1/1
Summary:
A late-night encounter on the Observation Deck, shortly after "What
Are Little Girls Made Of?"
----///---
Starlight.
It was what I wanted.
I am in
the aft observation deck, little more than a room, really, but quiet
and dark and full of stars. I couldn't face anyone, not Uhura, not
the captain, and certainly not Dr McCoy. They would have been
kindness itself, especially after the captain told them of Roger's
"untimely death" on the planet below. But I couldn’t face
the kindness and the pity. Not now.
Here,
Roger, maybe I can grieve for you now. You died long ago, you were
dead from the moment you decided that human souls were best
imprisoned in android bodies. What happened to the good and decent
man I had loved, I can't say. But now I grieve twice, both for the
lover I had lost and for the man I thought he had been.
The
slight movement behind me makes me jump. Starlight catches the gleam
of a pointed ear. Of all the people on this ship, why did it have to
be Spock? I am ashamed of the tears that track unheeded down my face
.
There
is a sudden, abortive turn of his head, as if he wants to say
something but isn't quite sure how to say it. Finally, he speaks."Why
shame?"
I wish
for a handkerchief, anything, but there isn't one to hand. "I'm
sorry," I say. "I don't understand."
"Why
shame?" he says again. "There is no shame in grief."
It's
such an unusual statement coming from him that my breath stops for a
bare seconds while my mind tries to decide if I have gone mad. But
no, gravity is still in force, the Enterprise is still sound, and I
am still breathing. Spock really has admitted that there is no shame
in an emotion.
"It
is only logical," he continues softly. "A loss must be
acknowledged." Spock pauses, and looks at me with eyes the exact
color of the space around us. "I grieve with thee."
I blink
rapidly. Oh, he doesn't know how much that simple phrase means to me.
"I grieve for the manner of his death, " I say. "The
man I knew was nearly a stranger." And I am surprised to realize
myself how true that is. We were engaged to be married, but over the
years of his absence, he had become strangely less real in my mind.
There was the Roger I remembered, and then there was the man I did
not know, the man he had become.
There
is a look of surprise on those angular features. "I was given to
understand," he says carefully, "that Dr Korby had been
dead for sometime."
Spock,
protecting the secret of Roger's death because the captain asked him
to….though he must surely know it was no recording that had greeted
me when we hailed the planet. It's touching, in an odd sort of way;
neither by word nor by deed will Spock ever reveal what he suspects.
"There are other kinds of death," I say, just as carefully,
not sure how much I truly want to say.
Spock
acknowledges this with a nod that somehow manages to speak volumes
for his understanding of all that I'm not saying. "Whatever the
manner of his death, you have suffered a loss. I regret…disturbing
you, Nurse." He turns as if to leave, but I raise a hand to stop
him. He is close enough that I can feel the heat of his body, surely
no more than a foot away from me.
He
halts and turns to face me. "Yes?"
"My
name," I say slowly, "is Christine. And you did not disturb
me." I wonder, suddenly, if it had been anyone else, would I
have let them go? Why is it Spock, normally so taciturn and
impassive, who reaches out to me in my grief?
And why
does it matter?
"Christine,"
he says now, "I am unfamiliar with many human emotions. If I
have not disturbed you, as you say, do you wish me to stay?"
I
recall the tattered threads of Vulcan from my memory. "Your
presence gives me honor."
There
is no shock on his face, which is good; I have not, apparently,
accidentally insulted his parentage. "If you wish it, I will
stay," Spock replies in the same language.
And he
does just that. We sit for a time, among the stars and the endless
night. He does not demand words from me, does not ask if I am "okay,"
does not ask if there is anything he can do. Spock is doing all that
he can, and it is more than enough.
I wrap
my arms around my drawn-up knees. "I barely knew him," I
say finally.
With
that Vulcan hearing, there is no way he did not hear what I said.
"Yet you
were
betrothed." His voice catches on the last word; I wonder if he
is even aware of it.
I hear
the echo of my words to him earlier on the bridge: Have you ever
been engaged, Mr Spock? It all sounds so futile now, all that
hope and longing. Roger had created an android as his companion
whereas I had left everything and everyone behind to follow him.
Somehow, it doesn't quite seem a fair trade. "Being betrothed
didn't put us in stasis. You think, when you get engaged, that the
person you love will always be the same. I didn't realize."
Though
I can't quite see him, I can almost hear an eyebrow raising. "What
should you have realized?"
I clasp
my hands, feeling the dead space where my engagement ring once was. I
took it off when I returned to the ship. Its significance had been,
after all, long forgotten by Roger. And now Roger was dead. "I
should have realized that he was not going to be the same person. Too
much time had passed."
There
is a strange fluidness to his expression now, his face clouded by
brief emotions I cannot even begin to identify. Something I said
struck a nerve. But what? "Yet you still felt yourself bound?"
he asks, slowly.
"I
had promised to marry him. And I thought I could still love him, in
spite of all the years that had gone between us." The fact that
I can't decide what bothers me the most about Roger's death should
stop me from speaking, but it doesn't. Not to this man, who listens
with that rarest of gifts, a Vulcan silence. Neither judging my words
nor assessing blame, he is simply there.
Spock
is, I realize quite suddenly, what Roger never was. He is my friend.
He may not know it yet himself, or believe himself incapable of the
emotion, but he is. The gift of his presence, whole and entire, is
proof enough of that. And I find the words to speak what is the
hardest about all of this. "Roger had placed himself inside an
android body, created others to serve him. In the end, they were what
killed him." The vision of Roger's android body, finally dying,
is such a drastic contrast with the vital man I knew that I cannot
help which was the fantasy, the android or the man I had once loved.
Spock
acknowledges all of this with a brief nod. "There is something
you have not considered. You have a doctorate in medical research,
yet you took a position as a Head Nurse to find your betrothed. What
will you do now?"
It's
not like I hadn't thought of it, in the hours since Roger's final
death. "I had thought of returning to Earth," I say.
"You
should reconsider," he says with that peculiar and utterly alien
gentleness. "As a scientist, the opportunites for research are
far better here. And your expertise in the laboratories has been most
useful."
"In
spite of Psi 2000?" I say lightly, remembering our brief
uneasiness with each other, an uneasiness that had faded with our
work in the labs.
Unexpectedly,
he raises an eyebrow. Wryly, he says, "Even under the effects of
the virus, you were most…thorough in your approach. It would be a
shame to lose a scientist who is so thorough."
Does he
know that the only reason I can laugh about that whole dreadful
experience is because of his equanimity now? Probably not, and yet I
am curiously relieved. There is still a place for me here. I stand
up, pulling the gods-be-damned skirt down. "Where are you
going?" he asks softly.
I fold
my hands. "I need to speak with Dr McCoy about arranging my
permanent assignment to this ship, if he'll have me."
"If
Medical does not, Science Division will. As I said, your expertise
has been most helpful."
I nod,
and I walk slowly to the brightness of the corridor outside. The
light, where my friends and my home are now.
I am
home.
THE
END.
2 comments:
Hi - Just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed the Intermission series. Really wonderful writing, and very perceptive of each of the characters whose POV you've taken. My personal favorite is "My Father's Reflection," since I'm a Sarek and Spock junkie ;) -- but they all are fantastic. Thanks for sharing!
Continuing on from my first comment, I also wanted to say how much I enjoy your take on Chapel/Spock. It's unique, fits with TOS "canon" (whatever that is) and it is better and more plausible than the lovelorn Christine trope or the stories about them getting together. I just can't see that, and the friends scenario is so much better!
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