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Federation Ambassador Spock had been in meetings all day, and days on Iaraen lasted nearly twice as long as those on Vulcan. A Vulcan requires little sleep, but even Spock was beginning to weary of the negotiations that seemed to move at a pace as glacial as the planet itself. So when he saw McCoy sihouetted against a window on the far end of the hall, he excused himself from the minor dignitary who had been taking advantage of yet another “little informal get-together” to explain for the third time the importance of the mines on the second-largest of Iaraen’s moons and crossed the hall to join his husband.
The ice-covered landscape was not a scene that Spock would have expected to catch McCoy’s eye. And yet, Leonard’s attention was so wholly captivated by the scene beyond the glass that Spock startled him when he brushed the hand that was resting on the sill.
The face he saw in Leonard’s mind was one he hadn’t thought of in decades.
“Zarabeth?”
“It’s the snow, I suppose,” answered Leonard, shaking his head slightly as though that might dislodge the image. “I see you got away from the mines somehow. Tell me it’s time for bed.”
“I believe we can take our leave now,” said Spock. “The Prime Minister retired nearly an hour ago.”
“Great. Let’s skedaddle while the skedaddling’s good – before someone else decides to bend your pointy ear about the wonders of their widget manufacturing plant.”
That earned Leonard a raised eyebrow of mild disapproval that might have fooled anyone else, but Leonard just grinned.
“Very well, Doctor.” Spock gestured toward the door and they proceeded to politely eel their way out of the party.
Back at their rooms, Leonard stripped out of his formal tunic and tossed it on the back of a nearby chair. “You know,” he said, turning toward Spock, “I’m sorry if I brought up a bad memory back there.”
“You are referring to what happened on Sarpeidon?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” said Spock. “I have no emotions, positive or negative, about Sarpeidon or Zarabeth.”
“None at all?”
“Should I?”
“You loved her.”
“I was infatuated with her. I was not myself, as you pointed out.”
Leonard squinted at Spock as if examining him through a magnifying lens. “I don’t believe you. I was there, Spock. I saw the way you looked at her when you left – like she was holding a piece of you. Now you say you don’t feel anything?”
“As I told you then, my mind regained its normal function when we returned to our time.”
“You just suppressed it all, and haven’t thought about her since? Is it really that easy for you? You never think about what happened to her – about her life, alone in that place?”
“I have accepted what your Human mind cannot. She is dead. She was dust before the time of Surak, before the end of your Iron Age. To you, her suffering goes on in some other place. To you, she still has hope. To me, she is gone, and my power to change her fate ended when I chose to go through the portal with you.”
Leonard was silent for a moment. He glanced toward the snow falling outside their window. “If I’d gone through the portal without you…” he said, looking back toward Spock, “...when you tried to push me through… Would you have followed?”
“No.”
Leonard sighed and nodded. “I didn’t think so.”
“I would have come to regret that decision,” said Spock.
Leonard’s expression could only be described as “mulish.”
Spock reached out and took Leonard’s hand. “Before you rashly left the cave, looking for the portal on your own, I entertained the idea that… in time… the three of us might… share a bed.”
“The three of us? Really?”
“It would have been the most efficient means of keeping you warm.”
Leonard laughed. “Very efficient. Completely logical.”
Spock pulled Leonard closer, putting his arm around Leonard’s waist.
“The emotions I felt then were so powerful. I was in love with them as much as I was in love with Zarabeth. But I knew her only for a handful of hours. Love, as I understand it, is a thing that is proven in time.”
“So -- no regrets?”
Spock’s mouth did something that could almost be described as a smile. “We go together. Always.”
Leonard’s mouth did something that could most definitely be described as kissing his husband.