Chapter Text
Prologue
Christine Chapel was very happy with her current mode of waking in the morning.
On the ship she had woken at a rigidly preordained time every morning, as the cold beep-beep-beep of her alarm clock shrilled into the air. She had gone through the motions of morning ablutions before she felt completely awake, pulled on her uniform, attended to hair and make up, and, almost every morning, somehow fitted breakfast into some part of the routine; mostly so that McCoy did not lecture her every morning about eating properly.
Here, waking was an entirely different experience.
Despite Spock’s care to find a house in a cooler area of Vulcan the heat was still comparable to a hot summer’s day back home on Earth, and the nights were correspondingly warm. She slept without clothing under nothing more than a thin sheet, while Spock lay under a layer of blankets, with Sacha, Spock’s guide dog, lying panting at the foot of the bed. Spock rose before she did, almost invariably, and let her continue to sleep while he went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast. She woke to the scent of coffee, and to the quiet clink of a plate containing waffles or pancakes, or simple toast or cereal being put down beside the bed.
At first she had been amazed that Spock could cook pancakes to perfection without the advantage of sight, but since they had come here he had insisted on doing almost all the cooking. He had learnt the skills months ago during his initial rehabilitation course, and although he rarely got the chance to cook on the ship he had forgotten none of the advice or techniques.
‘You spoil me, you know,’ she murmured sleepily as she rolled over to the sight of two steaming mugs of black coffee and a plate of muffins. ‘I’ll get fat.’
‘I have presented you with plain toast or cereal every alternate day this week,’ Spock reminded her, regaining his position in bed beside her. ‘I have been wanting to attempt the muffins. It is my mother’s recipe. I have not made them since – ’ He raised an eyebrow, the length of time startling him as it came into his memory. ‘Since before I joined the Enterprise , I believe.’
‘I bet chocolate chips aren’t easy to come by here,’ she said, splitting one of the muffins and watching steam rise in pale swirls. Tears of chocolate were melting into the light, airy sponge.
‘I had my mother send them,’ Spock said, picking one up himself and sniffing it delicately. He nodded approval, and took a bite.
‘Just like mother used to make?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Not quite,’ Spock said honestly, ‘but they are not unpleasant. I think I have, at least, honoured the recipe.’
She tasted one herself, and smiled.
‘Spock, if these are not quite as good as your mother’s, I’ll have to taste hers one day. These are exquisite!’
Spock’s eyebrow arched. Christine had grown to interpret over the years the many different variations of meaning that Spock managed with the movement of one eyebrow, and this one definitely meant pleasure.
‘Will you make me some Vulcan breakfasts some day?’ she asked him.
‘Of course,’ Spock nodded. ‘Tomorrow I will fix you j’la , if you will assist me today in purchasing the ingredients. I think you will like it.’
‘It’s your first appointment at Gol tomorrow, isn’t it?’ she asked him
Spock turned towards her in the bed, reaching out to trace his fingers over her bare shoulder. There was the smallest amount of tension just perceptible in the muscles beneath her smooth skin.
‘My first appointment,’ he nodded. ‘But I will have time to prepare breakfast before we leave. You are aware that I shall be required to stay?’
‘I knew it might be necessary,’ she nodded.
‘I was contacted by an adept yesterday. They propose my staying at Gol for the first week, in order to have instruction available to me at any time. After that time, appointments will be arranged if or as needed.’
‘You’ll be all right?’ she asked.
Spock gave her a faint smile, reaching out to touch her cheek.
‘You know me better than that, Christine,’ he said. ‘I will be perfectly fine.’
‘Good,’ she said, then repeated a little more slowly, ‘Good…’
‘Your tone does not suggest good,’ Spock pointed out.
‘Oh, no, it’s nothing,’ she said with forced carelessness. ‘It’s – just going to be a long week without you…’
‘Tell me your fears, Christine,’ he said, wishing, as always, that he could see the expressions on her face that spoke of what she was thinking. Was this how most humans felt when faced with a Vulcan’s impassive countenance? he wondered.
‘My fears,’ she repeated with a small, nervous laugh.
He reached out a hand to cup her cheek.
‘Yes. Those fears that I can feel running like snakes in the surface of your mind. You may not mention them, but they are not hidden to me, Christine.’
He felt her cheek tense and change shape as she smiled.
‘My fears,’ she said again, in a voice that still held a tremor under a forced lightness. ‘My fear, Spock – my one fear – is that you will go, as you need to do, to Gol, and you will spend a week under the instruction of men who think that love is illogical – especially love for a human – and that you will discover yourself that you don’t need me after all, and you will come back here, and tell me something that I – can’t bear to hear.’
‘Christine,’ he said, stroking his fingertips over her temples. He could feel the slight pulsing of her heartbeat there, and feel underneath the rippling currents of her thoughts. ‘Christine, no Vulcan believes that love is illogical. Sometimes unnecessary, yes. Sometimes a distraction, or better left well alone. But love leads to stable relationships, and mutual support, and the procreation of children. No sane race would reject it.’
‘But – koon-ut-kal-if-fee…’
‘If you mean childhood bonding, and the cementing of that bond at the first coming of the male’s – Time…’ he said awkwardly. ‘That almost invariably leads to love. No Vulcan could be so intimately bonded with one, and not develop a feeling of affection.’
‘And T’Pring?’ she asked, ever reluctant to bring up the subject of Spock’s intended bondmate.
Spock’s eyebrow rose. ‘Whether by dint of my human heritage, or mutual incompatibility, it was unlikely that that bond would ever have reached the required depth. T’Pring cemented her own bond with Stonn at his first Time, since he had not been joined. Not all children are bonded in such a way – it happens far more often in privileged families, in which some attempt is made to preserve the blood-line. T’Pring is very intelligent, and of a good family, and, superficially, was an excellent match. But our own bond was never worked at, never nourished. Perhaps if it had been, T’Pring would now be my wife, and I would love her, and find her a useful and interesting companion. But – I am glad that sometimes history does not unfold as it is intended.’
‘And – me?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘How can you ask me that question?’ Spock said, letting a little of his mind flow into hers. ‘You are my bondmate. You are the bondmate that I chose, of my own free will. I did not choose you as an able assistant in my blindness. I had been blind for many months before our relationship developed. If the adepts of Gol help to restore calm and logic to my mind as regards my blindness, that can only improve our relationship, never harm it.’
He touched his fingers more firmly to her cheek and temple, letting a sense of his thoughts and feelings enter her mind. Then he removed his hand, and rested it on her shoulder instead.
‘Are your fears settled?’ he asked, with a hint of humour on his face. ‘May we enjoy our breakfast now?’
‘My fears are quite settled,’ she said with a smile as he passed her coffee. ‘Anyway,’ she added mischievously. ‘A week of peace might do me good…’
1.
To Spock, Gol had always been a place of rusty rocks, towering spires of stone, and jagged mountain peaks standing out harshly against the blazing red sky. The settlement itself was situated on a plain high up in a protective bowl of mountains. It had been used even before Surak’s logic reforms as a place of religious retreat, and it was perfectly protected from the whims of the passionately aggressive Vulcans who had inhabited the planet at that time.
To reach the place without a transporter required either an arduous trek over mountains and through passes, or a stunning flight over the mountain range, past peaks adorned with snow and bronzed with the light of the Vulcan sun. At sunset and dawn the folds of rock picked up a whole palette of colour ranging between copper, crimson and gleaming gold at the warmer end of the spectrum, and deep Prussian blues, turquoise and dark green at the cooler end. In the absence of any overwhelming impact of civilisation, the most impressive aspect of the place was its visual impact.
Spock stepped out of the skimmer today into an almost silent space, the location marked only by the sound of wind blowing sand against stone. He unfolded his cane, and it touched the solid rock beneath his feet with a sharp tap, with no structures close enough to send back echoes.
‘The ground’s level enough,’ Christine said, coming to his side. ‘There’s a good path.’
Spock nodded, moving his cane over the smooth ground in front of him. These paths had been worn smooth under millennia of feet treading their ways.
‘Yes, I recall that the paths of Gol are well maintained,’ he nodded. ‘Do you find the atmosphere sufficient?’
‘For now,’ she nodded. ‘I took my tri-ox before I got out. The air’s thinner than it is lower down, but at least it’s cooler. And – Gol is beautiful,’ she added in a more confidential tone. ‘You never told me how beautiful it would be.’
Spock sighed. He did not feel inclined to discuss the visual aspects of his surroundings. He was not even certain if his visual memory of Gol was correct any more, or whether it had been distorted by a combination of the passage of time and his own increasing difficulty at recalling precisely what images sight had presented him with in the past. Increasingly his memories were overlain and confused with remembered sensory input that was not visual, and the visual aspects were adulterated with memories of other sights. His regret at not being able to see, or even correctly remember, the beauty of Gol and the beauty of every other sight was one of the reasons why he was here.
‘We must go to the prelate’s office,’ he said. ‘There, my stay will be arranged – and you can leave me.’
She touched a hand to his cheek, and he felt her smile through the touch.
‘Would it be acceptable for me to kiss you?’ she asked softly. ‘There’s no one watching.’
Spock’s face softened. ‘It would be more acceptable for you to kiss me than for me to kiss you,’ he admitted. ‘But since you assure me that we are in privacy…’
He touched his hand to the back of her head, drawing her forward and touching his lips to hers in a brief, chaste, but deeply meant kiss, the gentle touch of his fingers through her hair just as intimate as the touch of his mouth on hers.
‘I will be fine,’ he told her firmly as he withdrew. He folded his cane and attached it to his hip. ‘I have come here to heal, not to suffer. Now, my case,’ he said, finding the rear door of the skimmer and taking the case from it.
‘Oh, let me carry that,’ Christine said quickly, but Spock kept his hand clenched firmly on the handle.
‘There is no need,’ he said. ‘As you pointed out, the paths are quite predictable. I don’t need to use the cane. Now, if I recall correctly, we must take the left hand path from the landing area. The prelate’s office is about two hundred metres away, on the left.’
******
‘Commander Spock,’ Prelate Shavar said on his entrance to the office. There was such an absence of emotion in his tone that Spock had no doubt that here was one who had truly achieved Kolinahr. ‘And your guide?’
‘Christine Chapel,’ Spock said, feeling impelled to keep his answers as pertinent and logical as Prelate Shavar would expect. But then he added, ‘My guide, but also my bondmate.’
‘Of course,’ Shavar said, with no hint of surprise or judgement in his tone. ‘It is time to leave behind outer distractions, Spock,’ he added.
Spock turned his head towards Christine, and she nodded.
‘I’ll be going then,’ she said, trying to keep any sense of emotion from her own voice. She touched her hand to Spock’s arm, in lieu of the kiss that she wanted to give him. That one illicit kiss by the skimmer would have to suffice. ‘Success, Spock,’ she said softly.
Spock nodded, touching his fingers briefly to hers, grateful for her tact before the prelate. There was no need to say anything further. He had arranged everything with her for his return before leaving the skimmer. She left, and Spock turned back to the prelate.
‘I welcome you to Gol, Spock,’ he said. ‘Now. I will escort you to your chamber, and see that your needs are known. When you have arranged your belongings, you may meet your instructor.’
‘Of course,’ Spock nodded.
‘You must touch me for guidance. Am I correct?’
‘Correct,’ Spock said briefly.
He knew that the prelate would normally avoid touching another, but he also knew that as a Vulcan adept he would have no logical objection to the contact in a case of real need. He had grown used to being guided by the trail of mental emanations that a human left, but this man’s control of his thoughts was so perfect that Spock could barely sense him other than by his scent and the noise he made as he moved.
He hesitated, thinking of his cane and his luggage. He did not trust the prelate’s guidance as he would trust Christine’s.
‘Prelate, may I presume to ask you to carry my case?’ he asked respectfully. ‘I have a cane to assist me in the detection of my surroundings, but I cannot carry my case if I use it and touch your arm.
‘It is logical,’ the prelate said flatly, removing the case from Spock’s grip.
Spock unfolded his cane and touched it lightly to the ground.
‘Why have you come to Gol, Spock?’ the prelate asked as he came to Spock’s side.
‘I need guidance,’ Spock said, reaching out to touch his arm with the tips of his fingers, declining to grip on to it as he would ordinarily in deference to his guide.
Neither Vulcan reacted to the irony of that statement, but the adept said, ‘Indeed, Spock. Your life is far from the normal course of most of our people.’
‘I need guidance regarding my acceptance of my blindness,’ Spock clarified. ‘In other areas of my life, I am content.’
There was a brief silence. ‘Blindness is an uncommon affliction on Vulcan,’ the prelate commented after a moment.
‘Blindness is an uncommon affliction throughout the Federation,’ Spock nodded.
‘It is fortunate that we have one elder here who has some experience with such cases,’ the man continued. ‘Solek has assisted two other Vulcans through sight loss. Your psychology is perhaps more – specialised,’ he added.
‘You refer to my parentage?’ Spock asked in a level tone as they stepped out from relative cool to the blasting heat of outside. He found himself wondering briefly if Christine had yet left. He would have been able to see the landing area from here, he was certain.
‘You cannot deny, Spock, that you lead a life most unconventional for a Vulcan,’ Shavar said, with no hint of either censure or approval.
‘Perhaps,’ Spock nodded, choosing not to continue to discuss his biological heritage or his subsequent life-choices. ‘You say that the elder is named Solek. Would that be the Solek who taught at ShiKahr twenty-three years ago?’
‘Solek did teach at ShiKahr in his former life. He has since achieved Kolinahr.’
Spock’s eyebrow rose. It was highly probable that this was the same Solek who had instructed him in the control of desire when he was fifteen. The man had been in his late sixties at that point. It would be interesting to meet him again, after so much had changed in both their lives.
******
Spock sat alone in his chamber, heat from the window striking his back. It had taken very little time to organise his few possessions or to familiarise himself with the spartan room. There was little more than a bed, chair, and chest of drawers in the room; only those things that were necessary. There was a communal bathroom just a few yards down the corridor, with toilets and a number of washing bowls. The refectory would be shown to him later, at meal time. His difficulty did not lie in his new surroundings so much as in his intense dislike of these first few hours and days when he was not absolutely certain of what would lie under the reach of his hand, or what his feet might encounter as he walked. That short time of fumbling and groping and not knowing all he needed to know about his surroundings was always disconcerting, to say the least.
Footsteps outside sharpened his attention, and he raised his head as someone knocked on the door.
‘Come,’ he said flatly, and the door opened.
‘Spock,’ said a voice; an aged, male, very Vulcan voice.
‘Master Solek!’ Spock said, rising to his feet, not quite able to keep the tone of pleasant surprise from his voice.
The identity of his instructor had almost been a certainty, but he had not expected the voice to be quite so familiar. A memory washed over him, of being fifteen, and sitting with Solek in a cool, granite-walled chamber, sunlight piercing through a window at one side of the room and striking the wall on the other side with intense brightness against the dimness of the room around. Solek had been an excellent teacher to him at a time of conflicting emotion and uncertainty over his true path.
‘Spock,’ Solek said again, coming forward to him until Spock could smell the fabric of his clothes and the subtle scents of his body. ‘There is a chasm between the time we last met, and now. You are quite different to the boy of fifteen years.’
Spock nodded succinctly.
‘A recruit of Starfleet, I believe – and well-respected, too,’ Solek continued.
‘I am an officer in Starfleet,’ Spock nodded.
Solek intrigued him. Prelate Shavar had said that he had achieved Kolinahr, but Spock suspected that Solek’s achievement of that elevated state of being was now some years past. There was a mellowness to his tone and attitude that hinted of another stage beyond the state of total logic – a more complete acceptance of one’s emotional influences made possible by the control with which Kolinahr graced the scholar.
‘Your blindness,’ Solek began without further preamble. ‘My information is that it was inflicted upon you abruptly, and with violence, almost nine months ago. Am I correct?’
‘An explosion,’ Spock nodded. He held his hands very still at his sides, aware that Solek would be watching him for any signs of an emotional response. The memory of that explosion, although just a memory, still had the power to disturb him. ‘It was a trap set by a terrorist faction. Blindness was instantaneous.’
‘Do you understand that we will need to examine that event very closely in your mind?’ Solek asked. ‘Such an examination may be painful to you.’
‘Emotional pain is hardly relevant, if the examination is necessary,’ Spock said flatly.
‘Ah, Spock,’ Solek said slowly. ‘Emotional pain is the very reason why you are here. There is no logic in attempting to hide your emotions from me. Together we will discover them, and together we will learn how to control them. Do you remember nothing of our lessons so many years ago?’
A flash of memory again. Solek’s hand touching his face, Solek touching thoughts and feelings that Spock would have revealed to no one else. The sun, bright and hot, burning onto his cheek through the window as Solek taught him how to move through his feelings with calmness and equanimity. That brightness that caused his eyes to wince shut, that was no more than a memory to him now despite the fact that the sun must be shining with equal brightness through the window behind him. He felt a pulse of jealousy for his former self, and suppressed it quickly.
‘I remember a great deal about our lessons,’ Spock told his old instructor. ‘But – we both of us have changed since that time.’
‘Your mind, Spock,’ Solek said, taking another pace closer to him. ‘May I?’
Spock bowed his head, once, in a solemn nod, clasping his hands behind his back to show his trust of Solek’s actions.
Solek lifted a hand to Spock’s face, and touched his fingers to the traditional meld points. In the second of that first touch Spock considered the tips of those fingers that he could feel on his skin, comparing the feeling of that light touch to the touch of two decades ago. Solek’s hands were perhaps a little cooler, and the skin a little dryer – but Solek’s mind traced a path into Spock’s own thoughts as easily as a trickle of water flows along a long-dried watercourse. A moment after Solek had entered Spock’s mind it was as if no time had passed at all.
Spock deliberately relaxed his barriers, allowing his thoughts and feelings to seep towards Solek’s touch. This was very much a one-way meld. Solek’s own responses were kept shielded, allowing Spock’s thoughts to pass unadulterated into his mind.
Spock had expected any instructor probing his mind to recoil from what he found, but as Solek lowered his hand he simply said, ‘Remarkable. Your mental processes have a grace to them that few possess. I would suggest that you are an excellent candidate for Kolinahr.’
Spock raised an eyebrow.
‘I have no desire to achieve Kolinahr,’ he said.
‘No,’ the man said, with no trace of emotion. ‘Often those who wish to achieve it are unsuitable for the task, whereas those who do not display such ambition are suitable but unlikely to pursue the discipline. It is a conundrum. But our task at this time is acceptance and control of emotion, specifically in response to your blindness. I suggest that we begin today with words. Tomorrow we may move on to a more intimate examination of your responses.’