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Prunus Persica, Belle of Georgia. The tree was taller than any surrounding plant, casting shade over one end of the long garden at the back of the house. Flowering plants and shrubs, chosen for ease of maintenance, gathered and scattered from its base, like a floral galaxy. They always seemed to fade away to nothing when he looked at the tree, though.
The stone had not come from Earth; but its genetic sequence was identical with the now-rare strain of peach which the doctor had always favoured. Every year, without fail, it had produced delicate flowers in the spring and fresh, sweet fruit that drew down the slenderest branches under its weight as summer reached its height.
Spock did not always appreciate the rainfall that came so much more regularly on New Vulcan – it was too different to remind him of Earth, and his bones longed for the still, dry heat of the desert – but when he saw the peach tree flourishing, he thought perhaps he could grow to like the world that had allowed it to flourish. He wondered what Leonard would have made of this place. The true desert had been difficult for him, when they retired to Vulcan.
A chuckle rumbled in Spock’s throat. ‘Difficult for him’ was something of an understatement, if the doctor’s constant litany of complaints and objections were to be believed. The sun was too hot, the ground too hard, the air too dry, the nights too short. When Spock suggested they return to Earth, Leonard had muttered something about ‘literal Vulcans’ and ‘too damned accommodating’ and ‘this is home, thank you very much, just because it has a couple of flaws…’.
Spock let one old hand rest on the bark of the peach tree, and closed his eyes. If he let his mind drift, he could almost feel the life of it, thrumming away beneath his palm. He was losing count of the years, and he couldn’t find it in himself to mind that as much as he once might have. Who was left to miss the years he mislaid? Jim had gone decades before, sacrificing himself to save his ship and his crew. Most of his crew. Illogical as it was to allow past actions to cause him present pain, Spock would always regret that he hadn’t been there. They had been an unstoppable team. They would have made it through, if they had been working together.
Ambassadorial duties had called him away. Leonard, from his own ongoing mission to singlehandedly provide medical aid to every ill-supported colony in the Federation, had come to him when he heard. Spock had protested that his need was not greater than that of the worlds Leonard could not help as long as he remained with him, and Leonard had – fondly – stuck him with a hypospray and told him not to be such a damned fool.
Opening his eyes, Spock let his fingers fall from the trunk, trailing over the texture of it as if it were soft, deep-lined skin. The sun had begun to set and the air was chilled. Spock made the walk back to the one-storey house he had been given by the High Council. It stood low against the darkening sky, clean lines and small details that gave away their designers. Leonard had always said Vulcan architecture reminded him of the ‘art nouveau’ phase in his own planet’s past. Upon receiving the house, Spock had planted roses along one of the walls, in tribute. They were flourishing, and he wished, illogically, that Leonard could have seen.
He had never felt so tired. Spock let himself into the kitchen at the back of the house and made his way slowly through to the living space. It was largely unadorned, with only a few pictures to show that this place belonged to him, and no other. Not one other. Spock reached into his robe and pulled out a small pendant on a long chain. He pulled it over his head and set it down gently, reverently, on the table by his chair. A touch of his finger brought it to life, and a tiny, perfect version of himself and his bondmate rose in a beam of light from its centre, Leonard’s arm around him and his eyes unbearably soft. Spock let his own eyes close. He let out a very long, very heavy breath. It was not, he now understood, going to become easier with time. Many things did, but the loss of half his own katra was not one of them. Spock felt a warm, embracing darkness settle over him like a blanket, and in the absence of any other comfort, he let it swallow him up.
Leonard couldn’t begin to explain what was going on. He’d been on Rigel IX, administering vaccinations, when his soul had been torn from his body. He collapsed to the floor, clutching the place where a Vulcan would keep his heart, tears flooding down his cheeks for almost a minute before he could even put a name to the cause of it.
When he did, he wished he hadn’t. Time stopped, the air in his lungs suddenly devoid of oxygen. He could feel the blood in his own veins, pulsing. His own breath, a shallow, gasping rattle. He held his own sides together like it was the only thing he could do to stop the universe itself coming apart at the seams. He was hollow, empty, snapped in two in the space of a nanosecond.
Spock was gone. There was no doubt in his mind, or in his heart. Spock, his Spock, who had been healthier than any being his age had a right to be just a month before when they’d been together, happily together, was… His doctor’s brain forced him to think it. Dead. Spock was dead. There was no other possible explanation for the feeling that he had been blown apart like a torpedoed starship, his essence draining inexorably into the vast, insatiable vacuum of space.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t even think about breathing.
Leonard fell. When he landed, he was in a very bright, very Spock-less room, the telltale hum of the biobed beneath him. Damn it.
It took one snarled, entirely undiplomatic comm call to find out what had happened. Knowing that his husband had sacrificed himself to save a planet didn’t lessen the pain. He was still gone. It was incredible, how every nuance of existence had suddenly narrowed down to that one simple point. He was about to disconnect when the Romulan scientist on the line said it.
“…wormhole…”
Leonard didn’t register the words around it, but he heard that. That—That was a fool’s hope, but he’d been a fool plenty often before, when it came to Spock. What was once more?
From there, it was a simple matter of ignoring the sea of protests as he discharged himself from the hospital, holding his fraying soul together as tightly as he could, and reaching the scientists who knew what little there was to know about Spock’s disappearance from this universe. Leonard had not missed the irony of a man who objected to using a transporter pad willingly casting his atoms not only across space but across dimensions, in the faintest hope that he might see the other half of himself again.
It was more than likely that he wouldn’t make it. Somehow, that wasn’t such a terrible thing any more.
Leonard opened his eyes. He was on the floor again, but this time, there was a rug beneath him. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but it was something. He looked around the room. It appeared to be a kind of living space, with bland, generic furniture made barely liveable by the addition of a blanket and some pictures. At this distance, his head ringing, he couldn’t make them out.
Ringing was the wrong word. It wasn’t the sensation of a head mistreated, by bourbon or late nights. It was more like a hurricane inside his skull. Leonard pushed himself to sit up, and his breath left him. Again. It was getting almost to be a habit, but this time he thought he could be excused. Six feet away, slumped in an armchair as impersonal as the rest of the room, was—
“Spock!”
Leonard was on his feet and by his husband’s side before reality had time to remind him that he was too old and too disoriented to move so quickly. “Spock!” The Vulcan in the chair was alive – Leonard had checked, was still checking, his hand curled tightly over his husband’s beating heart – but he wasn’t responding. “Damn you, Spock!” Without his medical equipment to hand, he could only shake Spock’s shoulders, a hand on his cheek, desperation seeping from his fingertips.
The hurricane, he realised, was better than the vacuum that came before it. In places, it felt like his husband.
Spock woke slowly, to the sound of Leonard’s voice. He made a rough, low sound like a hum and attempted to summon his voice to demand an additional minute of rest before they rose for the day. He tilted his face into his bondmate’s hand and let the essence of Leonard wash over him.
His mind stalled. No. Leonard was gone, now. He could not be feeling him.
He was feeling him.
Spock forced his eyes open. He looked directly up into the frantic face of his bondmate. He lost consciousness.
When he awoke again, Leonard had somehow managed to manoeuvre himself into the armchair, so that Spock was curled up on his lap. He was stroking his cheek and whispering, over and over, the same words.
“I have you, darlin’. It’s okay now. I found you, it’s okay now.”
Spock was not sure whether they were meant for him, or for the man holding him. It was true of both. “Leonard…”
There were fingers on his before the second syllable was fully formed, and Spock was hit by a wall of completeness, slamming into his consciousness until it felt like there had never been anything in its place. He surged up and pressed his lips to his bondmate’s.
“Never, ever—” Leonard caught his breath between urgent kisses. “You green-blooded son of a… Never do that to me again. Damned fool.”
“I love you too, t’hy’la.”